Stranger in Town

by Brett Halliday

  ACCIDENT VICTIM IDENTIFIED

  The burned and disfigured body of Randolph Harris, 26, assistant to the State’s Attorney in Orlando was tentatively identified this morning by local police after they traced the license number of his automobile which was discovered late yesterday afternoon destroyed by fire at the bottom of a deep ravine just off the Miami highway about six miles south of Brockton.

  Two boys from nearby farms, Lee Jenkins, 12, and Peter Ellrich, 13, made the gruesome discovery while out rabbit hunting after school yesterday afternoon.

  The point where the ill-fated automobile left the highway to plunge through a guard-rail and tumble to the bottom of the ravine is a sharp curve at the top of a long slope which has been the scene of several accidents in recent years, and is known locally as Dead-Man’s Curve. From the physical evidence at the scene, police believe Mr. Harris was driving south on the highway at a high rate of speed and lost control of his car at the curve, which rolled down the steep hillside and burst into flame at the bottom, trapping the driver in the front seat where he was burned beyond recognition.

  The fatal accident is believed to have occurred around midnight Thursday, and the intense heat of the gasoline-fed holocaust was such that every particle of the dead man’s clothing was burned from his body which made immediate identification impossible.

  As we go to press there is no definite proof that the driver of Mr. Harris’ car was the owner, but the theory is strengthened by the fact that Chief Ollie Hanger has ascertained from Orlando that the young assistant State’s Attorney did drive his car away from that city early Thursday evening without telling anyone his destination, and did not return to his home or office all day Friday.

  The grief-stricken parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. L. Harris, 1879 Dabney Avenue, Orlando, are unable to offer any explanation for their son’s presence at the scene of the midnight accident.

  “We just don’t know where Randy was going or what he planned to do Thursday evening,” Mrs. Harris sobbed over the telephone to a Courier reporter today. “He didn’t say anything about his plans when he drove away soon after dinner. His father and I just naturally assumed he had a date with one of the local girls whom he knows, and we retired about ten o’clock without thinking anything about it at all. I can’t imagine what he would be doing forty miles away from home at that time of night. Randy was always such a steady boy and so very conscientious about his work he hardly ever stayed out past midnight, especially on a week-day.”

  It wasn’t until Mr. and Mrs. Harris arose the next morning that they discovered their son had not come home, and they weren’t unduly alarmed then, thinking he might have decided to spend the night with a friend.

  Neither could State’s Attorney Elmer Jacobson throw any light on the mystery when interviewed early today, insisting he was positive it was not official business that had brought his assistant to Brockton Thursday night, though this city does lie within the jurisdiction of the Orlando district.

  “We had no cases pending in Brockton,” he stated positively this morning in his courthouse office. “Mr. Harris was engaged in handling only routine cases at this time, none of which could have taken him as far afield as Brockton. Randolph Harris was one of the finest young men I have ever had in my office,” Mr. Jacobson continued with obvious emotion. “A fine young lawyer sincerely interested in abstract justice and with a brilliant future before him. His untimely death will be a great loss to the community and to the entire state of Florida, and my heart goes out to the fine parents of this stalwart young man in their hour of bereavement.”

  One false lead which police had hoped might be a vital clue in the mystery petered out this morning when authorities interviewed Dr. Joseph R. Winestock, Superintendent of the Brockton Sanitarium on the outskirts of the city.

  Previously, John Agnolo, attendant at the Squaredeal Filling Station situated on the Orlando highway a half mile north of Brockton, had reported to police that he believed Mr. Harris had been the driver of a car answering to the description of the burned vehicle that had stopped for gasoline about nine o’clock Thursday evening, and who had asked Mr. Agnolo for directions to the Brockton Sanitarium.

  “He came inside the station to pay me for the gas,” Mr. Agnolo told the police early this morning. “And when he asked how to reach the Sanitarium I drew him a little sketch on a piece of paper. I told him it was easy from my place, and how to avoid city traffic. Just turn left at the first traffic light and follow straight out East Avenue about two miles till the road forks. ‘You take the left fork where you’ll see the sign,’ I told him, ‘and it’s about a quarter mile on and you can’t miss it.’”

  Mr. Agnolo also told police he had a vague impression there was another person in the front seat of the car, but he couldn’t be positive and didn’t know whether it was a man or woman. When shown a picture of Mr. Harris at police headquarters, he tentatively identified it as the man he had given the sketch to on Thursday evening, but could not swear to it.

  Police now believe it must have been a case of mistaken identity, because when Dr. Winestock was questioned later he denied any knowledge of Mr. Harris. The only visitor to the Sanitarium Thursday evening, he averred, was a young man who arrived shortly after nine o’clock for a short visit with his sister who is a patient there. Since this young man answered in a general way to the description of Randolph Harris, police are satisfied that Mr. Agnolo was mistaken in his identification.

  The brilliant young assistant to the State’s Attorney was born in Tallahassee…

  Michael Shayne skimmed through the rest of the news story to see that it contained no further information except a laudatory recap of Randy Harris’ scholastic and brief professional career.

  Then he laid the paper aside and applied himself with a frown to the cognac remaining in his glass.

  Why had a gunman been enough interested in that particular item to clip it out carefully and carry it about with him in his coat pocket?

  Thursday night, of course, was the same night Amy Buttrell had mysteriously appeared in front of the local hospital suffering from amnesia.

  Amy Buttrell had fingered him for three hoodlums here in Brockton last night after she had supposedly been taken away to Miami by a father who seemed not to exist. By the grace of God, Shayne had escaped their ministrations, whereupon a killer appeared at his office door the next morning armed with a gun and carrying a clipping from the Brockton paper.

  Shayne knew it all had to make sense somehow, but at the moment it was all a crazy hodge-podge of impossibilities and improbabilities. He tossed off his brandy and went down to the hotel dining room to see if food would make his thinking any clearer.

  9

  THE FOOD WAS GOOD. Nicely served by a pleasant-faced waitress in a quiet, uncrowded dining room. Shayne sat alone at a table by a window with sunshine coming in from the street, ate a large amount of food and postponed all thinking until he settled back with a pot of coffee to wash down a large serving of excellent strawberry shortcake.

  There wasn’t any discernible pattern yet. He went over and over the small store of facts thus far garnered, and remained as much at sea as ever. Dr. Philbrick, for instance. What had actually been behind his effort to have Shayne turned away from his office without interviewing him? Had it, indeed, been due solely to the fact that he had learned Shayne was a private detective who had been arrested by local police the night before, or had he suspected why the detective wanted to see him… and wished to avoid answering questions about the girl? About Miss Buttrell… if that was her name. There was no proof as yet, Shayne reminded himself, that her name was Buttrell. Her father had said he was Amos Buttrell, but he had also said he was at the Roney Plaza for the season. Since the second statement was false, he might have given a false name as well. No one had bothered to check the man’s identity, of course. There had been no reason why they should. They were pleased enough to have a man of evident wealth turn up to identify the girl and take her away from the hospita
l. Glad to have her bill paid and to be relieved of the responsibility.

  But why would a father lie about his identity under those circumstances? Because he knew his daughter had been engaged in some criminal activities and wanted to cover up for her? Could be. Also, could be a hundred other reasons.

  Shayne poured a second cup of coffee and lit his third cigarette, and again carefully went over the information contained in the clipping found in the pocket of a gunman who had been waiting for him to appear at his Miami office that morning.

  An assistant State’s Attorney from Orlando who had been burned to death in his wrecked car the same night Amy Buttrell (call her that for want of a better name) had been brought to the hospital by an unidentified motorist in a state of shock.

  It was too much to think the possession of the clipping had been mere coincidence. It indicated a definite connection between the girl and Randolph Harris. Both injured near Brockton the same night. Her participation in the attack on Shayne last night, and the hood’s unexplained appearance at his office this morning.

  That was at least one coincidence too many to swallow.

  Orlando! Randolph Harris lived in Orlando, forty miles north of Brockton. And a Professor Henderson lived in Orlando also. Father of a girl who looked enough like Amy Buttrell that the professor had feared he recognized her from the newspaper picture. Professor Henderson had been greatly relieved, Dr. Philbrick had stated, when he learned that the girl could not possibly be his daughter because she had already been identified by a man who called himself Amos Buttrell and said he lived in Miami.

  Obviously, the professor would not have pressed his inquiries beyond that point.

  Shayne got up from the dining table hastily when he reached this point in his thinking. His waitress hurried to him with a luncheon check, and Shayne signed it and gave her a dollar bill.

  Upstairs in his suite again, he got the long distance operator and told her, “I want to talk to a Professor Henderson in Orlando. I don’t know his name or initials, or his street address. He teaches at Rollins College in Winter Park. Will you try to locate him for me?”

  The operator told him she would try, and that she would call him back as soon as she had the professor on the wire. Shayne hung up, and prowled restlessly up and down the length of his sitting room, tugging at his earlobe with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand while the knobby fingers of his right clawed through coarse red hair on his head.

  There had to be a connection, he told himself. Suppose the girl was Professor Henderson’s daughter! That meant that the man who called himself Amos Buttrell was an imposter. That for reasons of his own he had come to the hospital and pretended to identify the girl as his daughter Amy and taken her away with him.

  There would have been nothing to prevent it. Suffering from amnesia, the girl could not protest that he was not her father. In her state, she must have accepted him without question. Just as Dr. Philbrick and the authorities had accepted him without question.

  And he hadn’t taken her back to Miami. That much was clear. Because she had still been in Brockton last night.

  His telephone rang. Shayne reached it in two long strides. The operator said, “On your call to Orlando. We have Mr. Henderson on the wire. Go ahead, please.”

  Shayne said, “Professor Henderson? My name is Michael Shayne and I’m calling you from Brockton.”

  “Shayne? In what connection…?” The voice was precise and cultivated. A trifle thin and peevish.

  Shayne said swiftly, “I’m a detective working on the case of the girl who had an accident here last Thursday night and suffered amnesia. I understand you telephoned from Orlando Friday after seeing her picture in the paper, thinking it might be your daughter.”

  “Jean. Yes. It did give me a frightful turn when I saw the picture so like my Jean. But it wasn’t, you know. I was told she had been positively identified as someone else before I telephoned.”

  “I know.” Shayne paused, then went on quickly. “It now appears there is a slight possibility that first identification of the girl may have been an error. Just to make certain… has your daughter turned up safe in the meantime?”

  “Why, yes. That is… I have no reason to assume otherwise. You see, Mr.… ah… what’s the name?”

  “Shayne.”

  “Of course. Stupid of me. You see, Mr. Shayne, I didn’t really see how it could possibly be Jean in Brockton even when I telephoned. She had no reason to be near Brockton that night, and I was morally certain she wasn’t, but when I saw that picture so like her and because of the… ah… coincidence of the previous accident to her younger sister which was naturally strongly in my mind, I allowed myself to jump to the conclusion that it might be Jean. You say, now, that there might be some mistake? Dear me. You don’t mean to imply that… that…” The professor’s voice faltered thinly into disbelieving silence.

  “I don’t want to imply anything,” said Shayne soothingly. “Do you mean you still aren’t sure it wasn’t your daughter?”

  “Why I… I… this is so very sudden. I made no further inquiries, Mr. Shayne. My apprehensions were put at rest and I saw no need to.”

  “You mean you’re not actually certain where your daughter is?”

  “I… of course assumed she was with her friends on their cruise. They had planned to sail from Apalachicola early Friday morning, you see, to be gone for a week. Since Brockton is not even on the bus route from here to Apalachicola, you can see how I did not consider it possible for Jean to have been injured in Brockton. Yet, with Jeanette’s recent accident so strongly in my thoughts, I could not refrain from wondering… ah… you see, do you not?”

  “Not quite,” sighed Shayne. “You say your daughter Jean went by bus Thursday afternoon to Apalachicola to go on a cruise with friends?”

  “Exactly. And I assume, of course, that she is on the cruise with them now. Certainly, they would have informed me before this had she not arrived safely.”

  “But you’ve had no definite word from her since Thursday?”

  “N-n-no. That’s quite true.”

  “Do you know the names of her friends in Apalachicola?”

  “Oh, yes. Certainly. Mr. and Mrs. Larch. Old family friends. I assure you, Mr. Shayne…”

  “I think you’d better try to telephone them,” interrupted Shayne. “If we can just be certain your daughter is safely on a cruise, it will simplify our investigation here.”

  “But they are somewhere in the Gulf on a sailboat,” protested Henderson. “Don’t you see? I did attempt to telephone Mr. Larch Friday after I had seen the picture I thought might be Jean. They had left early in the morning to be gone a week.”

  “And there’s no possibility of contacting them now?”

  “None, I’m afraid.”

  “Do you know your daughter took the bus to Apalachicola?”

  “If by that, you mean did I actually see her board the bus… the answer is no. She had planned to take the six o’clock bus, and so far as I know, she did so. For the love of heaven, Mr. Shayne, tell me what you do suspect. You say there may have been an error. Does this mean you suspect the amnesia victim may have been Jean after all?”

  “We don’t want to worry you unduly,” said Shayne. “Probably not. But please answer a couple more questions. Was your daughter acquainted with Randolph Harris?”

  “Harris? Randolph Harris?” The professor’s voice held no note of recognition. “Who may he be?”

  “A young attorney who lives in Orlando. Previously connected with the State’s Attorney’s office there. I wondered if your daughter knew him.”

  “I’m certain she doesn’t. Jean is only nineteen, and since her mother died three years ago we have been very close. I think I can say I have her complete confidence and know all of her friends. I have never heard her mention the name of Randolph Harris among them.”

  “One more thing. You spoke twice about an accident to a younger daughter. Something about the coincidence that led you to w
onder if the other girl could be Jean even though you were quite positive she was on a bus to Apalachicola at the time.”

  “Yes. Jeanette. If you are a detective in Brockton, you certainly must recall the tragic details. Less than a month ago, it was. A terrible shock. Jeanette was such a gay and fun-loving girl. Quite unlike her older sister, Jean, who inherited my traits, I fear, rather than those of her mother. With the grief of Jeanette’s loss so fresh in my mind, you can understand why I felt impelled to investigate the remote possibility that the girl whose picture I saw in the paper might be Jean.”

  “Of course,” said Shayne heartily, deciding it would be best not to admit that he wasn’t on the Brockton force and knew nothing about the prior accident. “Thank you every much indeed for your splendid cooperation,” he went on. “It may be that I’ll want to run up there a little later on just to confirm a few minor details. Will you give me your address and tell me what time you’ll be at home?”

  Professor Henderson gave him a street address in Orlando, and said he’d be at home all afternoon. He was pathetically anxious to ask more questions about the new development in the case, but Shayne cut him off as gently as he could and hung up with a promise to let Henderson know the first moment they had any definite news.

  Beads of sweat stood on Shayne’s corrugated forehead, and his angular jaw was set hard as he slowly stood up. His gray eyes were blank and unseeing as he mechanically groped for the cognac bottle and poured out a small drink. He stood with it gripped tightly in his hand, looking across the room and out the windows to the bright sunlight lying peacefully on the small city of Brockton, but his gaze was focussed inward.

  Another fatal accident in Brockton a month ago. Too many accidents. The three words kept pounding through his mind. Altogether too many accidents in a short space of time for such a small place.