The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original)

by Unknown

  He heard footsteps coming up the walk and the voices of men outside. He got out a cigarette and lit it, blew out the match to look up with lifted brows at the bulky figure of Detective Chief Will Gentry in the doorway.

  Shayne said, “Dr. Livingston?” and Gentry snorted angrily. He was a big man with heavy features and a solid, forthright manner. He was an old friend of Shayne’s and he said scathingly: “I thought I smelled something.”

  Shayne stepped aside and nodded toward the body on the floor. “He hasn’t been dead long enough to stink.”

  Gentry strode forward and scowled down at the body. A tall, white-haired man hurried in behind the chief. He wore an immaculate white linen suit and his features were sharp and clean. He stopped at the sight of the body and said: “Oh my God, is he—”

  Gentry grunted: “Yeah.” He knelt by the dead man and asked Shayne in a tone of casual interest: “Why’d you pull out his fingernails?”

  The tall man exclaimed in a choked voice: “Good heavens! Has he been tortured?”

  “Who is he?” Shayne asked sharply.

  “It’s Captain Samuels,” the white-haired man said. “I knew something must have happened to him, Chief, when he wasn’t here to keep his appointment with me. If only I’d called you earlier …”

  “What are you doing here?” Gentry’s eyes bored into Shayne’s.

  “I was driving by and saw the lights. I don’t know.” Shayne shrugged. “As you said, something just seemed to smell wrong. I stopped to take a look and that’s what I found.”

  “I suppose you can prove all that?” scoffed Gentry.

  “Can you disprove it?”

  “Maybe not, but you’re holding out plenty. Damn it, Mike, this is murder. What do you know about it?”

  “Nothing. I’ve told you how I drove by—”

  Will Gentry raised his voice to call: “Jones. You and Rafferty bring in the cuffs.”

  A voice answered from the front door and feet tramped down the hall. At the same time there was the light click of heels outside and Myrna Hastings came in breathlessly from the rear end of the hall. “You don’t need to cover up for me, Mike,” she cried out. “Go ahead and tell them I asked you to stop here. Oh! It’s Chief Gentry, isn’t it?”

  Gentry muttered: “I don’t think—”

  “Don’t you remember me?” Myrna laughed. “Timothy Rourke introduced me to you in your office today. I do feature stuff for a New York syndicate. You see, I’m to blame for Mike stopping here tonight. I’d heard about Captain Samuels, about his shipwreck and all years ago, and I thought he might be material for an article. So I asked Mike to stop for a minute tonight and—well, that’s how it was.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that?” Gentry growled at Shayne.

  “I think he had some idea of protecting me,” Myrna laughed merrily. “You see, I didn’t tell him why I wanted to stop, and then when he found the dead man, well, I guess maybe Mike thought I knew something about it. Wasn’t that it, darling?” She turned to Shayne.

  “Something like that,” he said stiffly.

  “All right, Jones,” Gentry said to one of the two dicks hovering in the doorway. “Put your bracelets away and go over the house.”

  “Now that you’ve got me cleared up,” Shayne suggested, “why not tell me about it?”

  “I don’t know any more about it than you do,” Gentry admitted. “Mr. Guildford called a while ago and asked me to come out here with him. Seems he had a hunch something had happened to Captain Samuels.”

  “I felt sure of it after I had time to think things over,” the white-haired man said. “I had a definite appointment here with the captain for nine tonight and I waited almost half an hour for him.”

  Shayne said: “It’s almost eleven now. Why did you wait so long before calling the police?”

  “I had a flat tire just as I reached the boulevard driving away,” Guildford explained. “I had it changed at the filling station there and was delayed. I called upon reaching home.”

  Shayne said: “Were the lights burning while you waited?”

  “No. I’m quite sure they weren’t. The house was dark and apparently empty.”

  “What was your appointment for?” Shayne pressed him.

  Guildford hesitated. He glanced at Will Gentry. “I don’t mind answering official questions, but what is this man’s connection with the case? And the young lady?”

  “None,” Gentry said. “You can beat it, Mike, unless you feel like telling the truth.”

  “But we have told the truth,” Myrna asserted, her eyes wide and childlike. “We were just—”

  Shayne took her arm tightly. He said, “Come on,” and led her out the door.

  either of them said anything until they were in Shayne’s car headed back for the boulevard. Then Myrna leaned her head against his shoulder and asked in a small voice: “Are you terribly angry at me, Mike?”

  “How did you get in that house?”

  “You brought me. I hid in the trunk compartment of your car. Then I slipped in the house while you were searching the body. I was in the rear bedroom all the time, and when I heard you getting the third degree I knew you didn’t want to tell the truth and I thought I’d better stick my oar in. Didn’t I do all right?”

  “How did you know the captain’s name, about him being shipwrecked?”

  Myrna chuckled. “I found an old log-book by his bed. I had my flashlight and there was a clipping in the book.” She patted a large suede handbag in her lap. “I’ve got the book in here. It made a pretty good story if I did think of it on the spur of the moment—the one I told Inspector Gentry, I mean,” she amended, and chuckled again.

  “Why did you hide in the back of my car?” Shayne asked angrily.

  “Because you were trying to get rid of me and I wanted to see the famous Shayne in action,” she said. “But I must say you didn’t do much detecting out there.”

  Shayne braked suddenly in front of an apartment building on the riverfront.

  “I live here,” he told her, and went toward a side entrance.

  Myrna Hastings went with him. She said hopefully: “I’m dying to taste whatever is in that bottle you’ve got in your coat pocket.”

  She waited quietly behind Shayne in the hallway while he unlocked his apartment door. He went inside and switched on the lights and she followed him into a square living room with windows on the east side. There was a studio couch along one wall, and a door on the right opened into a kitchenette. Another door on the left led into the bath and bedroom.

  Shayne tossed his hat on a wall hook and went into the kitchen without a word or glance for Myrna.

  He soon came back from the kitchen with two four-ounce wine glasses and two tumblers filled with ice water. He walked past her, ranged the four glasses in a row on the table, and filled the wine glasses nearly to the brim with cognac. He pushed one of the tumblers toward Myrna, and set the smaller glass within easy reach of her hand, then pulled another chair to the table and sat down half-facing her.

  It was very quiet in the apartment, very restful. Shayne sighed when he drained the last drop from his glass of Monnet. He frowned at the portion remaining in Myrna’s glass. “Don’t you appreciate good liquor?”

  She smiled and told him: “It’s so good I’m making it last.”

  Shane lit a cigarette and spun the match away into a corner, then got the purloined clipping and bus ticket stub from his pocket. He laid the stub on the table and read the short clipping aloud. It was an AP dispatch from Atlanta, Georgia.

  It stated that John Grossman, suspected prohibition-era racketeer, sentenced to federal prison in 1930 on income tax charges from Miami, Florida, had been released that day on parole. Grossman announced his intention to take a long vacation at his fishing lodge on the Keys.

  When Shayne finished reading the clipping aloud, he placed it beside the ticket stub and told Myrna: “Those two items were the only things I found in the dead man’s pockets.”


  “You didn’t tell the police about them?”

  He shook his head in slow negation.

  “Isn’t that against the law? Concealing murder evidence? Who’s John Grossman and why was the old sea captain interested in the clipping about his parole?”

  Shayne said slowly: “I remember Grossman. He was one of our big-time bootleggers with a select clientele willing to pay plenty for high-class imported stuff. Like Monnet cognac. I don’t know why the captain was interested in Grossman’s release.”

  “What’s it all about, Mike?” Myrna leaned forward eagerly. “It began back in the tavern with something funny about those drinks, didn’t it? Why did you go back to the proprietor’s office and come out with a bottle, and then drive straight out to the scene of the murder?”

  Shayne said softly: “You’ve done me two good turns tonight—when you knocked on the door of Renaldo’s office, and out at the captain’s house when I didn’t see how in hell I was going to explain my presence there without telling Gentry the truth.” He hesitated, then admitted: “You deserve a break. You’re in it now because you lied to Gentry and he’ll probably discover you lied.”

  He began at the beginning and related what had happened in Renaldo’s office. “You know what happened after I drove out to the house.”

  “And this is real pre-war cognac?” Myrna lifted her glass and her voice was incredulous.

  “Monnet 1926,” Shayne said flatly. “The captain sold Renaldo a case of it for a hundred dollars, and was tortured to death immediately afterward. Renaldo admits he had his men follow the captain to try and persuade him to tell them where they could get more, but they claim he was dead before they got to him.”

  “Do you believe them?”

  Shayne shook his head. “It doesn’t do to believe anything when murder is involved. Their story sounded all right, but that wire and those torn fingernails could very well be their idea of gentle persuasion. And if the captain did fool them by dying before they got the information, they’d hate to admit it to Renaldo and might have made up that story about his being murdered by an unknown visitor.

  “And there’s another angle. Maybe Blackie and Lennie are playing it smart and did get the information they wanted before the captain croaked. If they decided to use it themselves and cut Renaldo out …” He paused and shrugged expressively.

  “What makes you and Renaldo so sure there’s more cognac where that first case came from?”

  “I imagine it was just a hopeful hunch on Renaldo’s part. And I wasn’t sure until I found this clipping indicating a connection between the captain and an ex-bootlegger.”

  “Would it be sufficient motive for murder? At a hundred dollars a case?”

  Shayne made a derisive gesture. “A C-note for two dozen bottles of Monnet is peanuts today. That’s what got Renaldo so excited. It shows the captain knew nothing about the present liquor shortage and market prices. It could retail for twenty or twenty-five dollars a bottle, properly handled today.”

  Myrna Hastings’ eyes widened. “That would be about five hundred dollars a case!”

  Shayne nodded morosely. “If Grossman had a pile of it cached away when he was sent up in ’30,” he mused, “that would explain why it stayed off the market all this time. But Grossman would know what the stuff is worth today.” He shook his head angrily. “It still doesn’t add up. And if the captain knew about the cache and had access to it all the time, why wait until a week after Grossman’s parole to put it on the market? Did you notice the condition of the captain’s body?” he asked abruptly.

  Myrna shuddered. “I’ll never forget it.”

  “He looked,” said Shayne harshly, “like an advanced case of malnutrition.”

  “Who was the white-haired man who brought the police?”

  “Guildford. He’s a lawyer here. Very respectable.”

  Myrna said hesitantly: “His story about waiting at the house half an hour for Captain Samuels to keep the appointment—do you think he could be the man the gangsters saw drive away from the house just before they went in and found the captain dead.”

  “Could be. If there was any such man. The timing is screwy and hard to figure out. Guildford claims his appointment was for nine and he waited half an hour. It was well past ten when the mugs got back to Renaldo’s office. That leaves it open either way. Guildford could have waited until nine thirty and then driven away just before the captain returned with Blackie and Lennie trailing him. Or Guildford may have deliberately pushed the time up a little. Until we know why Guildford went there …” Shayne shrugged.

  e poured himself another drink and demanded: “Where’s that log-book you mentioned, and the clipping about the shipwreck?”

  She reached for her handbag and unsnapped the heavy, gold clasp. She drew out an aged, brass-hinged, leather-bound book with SHIP’S LOG stamped on the front in gilt letters.

  Shayne opened it and looked at the fly-leaf, inscribed, Property of Captain Thomas Anthony Samuels. April 2, 1902.

  “The clipping is in the back,” Myrna told him. “Lucky I saw it and made up a story that Chief Gentry would swallow.”

  Shayne said: “Don’t kid yourself that he swallowed it. He knows damned well it wasn’t coincidence that put me at the scene of the murder.” He turned the log-book upside down and shook out a yellowed and brittle newspaper clipping from the Miami Daily News, dated June 17, 1930. There was a picture of a big man in a nautical uniform with the caption, SAVED AT SEA.

  Shayne read the news item swiftly. It gave a dramatic account of the sea rescue of Captain Samuels, owner, master, and sole survivor of the auxiliary launch Mermaid, lost in a tropical hurricane off the Florida coast three days before the captain was rescued by a fishing craft. He had heroically stayed afloat in a life-preserver for three days and nights.

  “Where,” asked Shayne, “was the book when you found it?”

  “In a small recess in the rock wall at the head of his bed. The bedding was torn up as though the room had been hastily searched, and the bed was pulled away from the wall. That’s how I saw it. Normally, the wooden headboard of the bed must have stood against the wall, hiding the recess.”

  Shayne began thoughtfully flipping the pages of the log-book. “This seems to be a complete account of Captain Samuels’ voyages from—”

  The ringing of his telephone interrupted him.

  The voice of the clerk on the night-desk came over the wire: “The law’s on its way up to your apartment, Mr. Shayne. You told me once I was to call you—”

  Shayne said, “Thanks, Dick,” and hung up. He whirled on Myrna and directed her tersely: “You’d better get out. Through the kitchen door and down the fire escape. Take your two glasses to the kitchen and close the door behind you. Key on a nail by the outside door.”

  Myrna jumped up. “What—”

  “I don’t know.” Shayne heard the elevator stop down the hall on that floor. “Better if Gentry doesn’t find you here. He’s already suspicious. Go home and go to bed and be careful. Call me tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  BLACKJACK PERSUASION

  hayne breathed a sigh of relief when she went without demur. Most women would have argued and asked questions. He opened a drawer and thrust log-book, clipping and ticket stub in it. A loud knock sounded on the outer door of his apartment and Will Gentry’s voice called: “Shayne.”

  He darted a quick glance behind him and noted Myrna had closed the door as she went into the kitchen. He sauntered to the outer door and opened it, rubbed his chin with a show of surprise when he saw Chief Gentry and the tall figure of Mr. Guildford waiting in the hallway. He said, “It’s a hell of a time to come visiting,” and stepped aside to let them enter.

  Will Gentry strode past him to the center table and stopped to look down on the bottle and two glasses suspiciously. He went to the bedroom door and opened it, stepped inside and turned on the light, then looked in the bathroom. Shayne grinned as Gentry doggedly opened the kitchen door and turn
ed on that light.

  The chief came back, shrugged his heavy shoulders and sat down heavily across the table from Shayne. “Where is she, Mike?”

  “Who?”

  “The Hastings girl.”

  “I told her she’d better go home and get some sleep. She was quite upset, you know. Seems she was rather fond of the old sea captain—though she’d known him only a couple of days,” he added quickly.

  “She isn’t in her room. Hasn’t been in all evening.”

  “How,” asked Shayne, “did you know where to look?”

  “I called Tim Rourke. He told me she was stopping at the Crestwood, but she’s not in.”

  Shayne said: “You know how these New York dames are. Why come to me?”

  “I hoped I’d find her here,” Gentry admitted, “knowing how New York dames are, and knowing you.”

  Shayne said: “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  Mr. Guildford said: “May I?” He cleared his throat and looked at Gentry.

  The chief nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “Knowing your reputation, Mr. Shayne,” Guildford said flatly, “I suspect you withheld certain information tonight.”

  Shayne said: “That’s illegal. Concealing murder evidence.”

  “To hell with that stuff,” Gentry put in impatiently. “What did you and Miss Hastings find before we got there?”

  “You know I wouldn’t hold out on you, Will. Unless there were something in it for me. And who could possibly profit by the death of a poor old man like that? He looked to me as though he’d gone hungry for weeks.”

  “That’s true,” said Guildford helplessly. “I happen to know he was in dire straits. Our appointment tonight was to discuss a payment long overdue on his mortgaged house.”

  “But the poor guy was obviously tortured,” Gentry broke in. “Death resulted from shock due to his poor physical condition. Torture generally means extortion.”

  “Which makes us wonder if he harbored some secret worth money to someone,” Guildford explained. “We found none of his private papers but we did find evidence that the house had been burgled.”