“The one Elsie Murray used to go to when she lived down the avenue,” Shayne cut in fast. “The one she went into for the last time around twelve o’clock the night Elbert Green was murdered… after she had passed out at a party she attended with you two. Does that jog your memory?”
Lew Recker’s face presented a curiously contrasting interplay of emotions. There was comprehension, and fear, and honest puzzlement.
He wet his lips and said, “Elbert Green? I do remember that name vaguely.” He looked at Estelle appealingly. “Wasn’t he the fellow the police questioned Elsie about the next day after he was found dead in some hotel?”
Her face was cold and restrained now. She said, “I guess so, Lew. They came around to see me, too. But I didn’t know anything except she had smooched with him when she was tight.”
“But what’s his death got to do with Elsie now?” protested Recker to Shayne. “She was completely exonerated at the time. As I recall it she had a perfect alibi which satisfied the police.”
Shayne nodded grimly. “An alibi I’m going to bust wide open with a little help from you two and maybe some others who were involved at the time. There’s a small matter of a telephone call she made to Green that night which the police never heard about. Why did the bartender lie to me about that?” He swung on Estelle with the question.
“I have no idea,” she said thinly. “If he did lie to you. I heard you accuse him of doing that, but I’m sure I know nothing about it.”
“I’m not so sure,” Shayne told her grimly. “Can you prove you didn’t go there this morning after you heard about Elsie’s death to bribe him to lie about it?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you realized that her death would inevitably open up the old investigation again and the police might eventually get around to asking Jack the same question I asked him. Isn’t that why you sent her there?” he flung at Lew Recker.
“I didn’t send her there. First thing I knew of all this was a few minutes ago when she came in frightened to say she’d been insulted by a redheaded drunk. Isn’t that the truth, Estelle?”
She nodded, tight-lipped. “I just happened to drop in for a cocktail before lunch. I’d read about Elsie and so had the bartenders who used to know her. We talked about how awful it was, that’s all. Then you insisted on sitting at my table, and accusing Jack of lying about some telephone call. And that’s all I know about any of it.”
Shayne paused a moment. He was at a distinct disadvantage in not knowing how to connect these two up with the persons Elsie had described in her script. He didn’t know positively, of course, that either of them was the original for any of her characters. But he had a strong hunch that at least one of the couple before him would turn out to be either Ralph or Dirk or Doris or Ina or Bart. If he could guess the true identity of either and throw his knowledge of their involvement in Green’s murder at them, they might possibly break down and start giving him the information he needed.
Elsie had, of course, described Green’s roommate almost exactly as Lew Recker. Yet she had told Halliday she had changed the physical descriptions of all her characters, and also, from Radin’s newspaper clippings he knew the roommate’s name was actually Alfred Hayes.
Dirk, Ralph, or Bart?
“You’re not married, I take it?” he asked Recker abruptly.
“Hell, no. What’s that got to do…?”
“What kind of a car do you drive?”
“I’ve got a Chrysler right now, if that helps solve your case.” Lew Recker was over his first fright now. He was reverting to the suavely sardonic man-of-the-world pose he had adopted with Shayne earlier.
“I think maybe it does,” Shayne said thoughtfully. “Is it the same car you drove Elsie home in the night Green was murdered?”
Recker’s mouth gaped open in utter consternation and fear. His eyes goggled at Shayne and he stammered weakly, “I… I don’t know…”
“Cut it out,” Shayne said wearily. “You know it’s all down in the police records. You told them you drove Elsie home from the party and left her at her door. You also told them that you went on from there to Estelle’s place and visited with her for a few hours, drinking and making a little innocent love to her while Elbert Green was getting himself killed in the Beloit Hotel… and that was your alibi.”
“It was true, too,” flared Estelle. “If he’d needed an alibi. Which he didn’t. Why should Lew have killed anybody?”
“I don’t know,” Shayne confessed. “The police never did establish a motive for Green’s death. But they also were never able to establish the identity of the woman who registered at the hotel with Green that night. I think I can.”
“And who do you think it was, master-mind?” Recker had recovered his sneering poise now.
“Elsie, of course. As you very well know. As you knew very well at the time. You perjured yourself, and that happens to be a felony in New York.”
“Perjured myself? When and how?” His voice was airy.
“When you gave the police your story of the evening.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I certainly did not perjure myself. I believe I can prove I answered every question truthfully.”
“That’s quibbling. Let’s say, then, that you withheld important evidence. You may have told your story accurately up to the point where Elsie turned up at Estelle’s apartment and broke up the thing you were having. But you left that part out. And so did you, Estelle, when the police questioned you.”
“Lew and I agreed to say nothing about it,” she faltered. “We both liked Elsie and knew she could have had nothing to do with that man’s death. Wouldn’t you do as much for a friend you knew was innocent?”
“How could you know she was innocent?”
“Anyone who knew Elsie would know.” Estelle spread out her hands nervously. “Lew and I felt sorry for her and knew it would sound awfully suspicious to the police if they learned she didn’t know what she had been doing or where she’d been during those four hours. They never would have believed she hadn’t gone to the hotel with Mr. Green.”
“I agree with you there,” said Shayne. “Are you going to claim now that you didn’t know she was the woman who registered with Green as Mr. and Mrs. Pell?”
“I’m still sure she wasn’t,” said Estelle spiritedly. “Even passed out, Elsie wouldn’t do a loathsome thing like that.”
“All this is beside the point,” put in Recker. “Stop discussing it with him, darling. He has no official standing at all. If the police want to ask us any questions, we’ll answer them.”
“You’ll answer me… and fast,” Shayne told him harshly. “From what Estelle has just said, I gather you didn’t tell even her about the midnight phone call Elsie made to Green.”
“Telephone call! Telephone call! What telephone call?” demanded Recker irritably. “It’s the first I heard of it. Who says she made such a call?”
“I do.”
“Why? Where did you get such an idea?” Recker’s voice rose shrilly.
“Let’s just say I have private sources of information, I do know she called Green from the bar down the street after borrowing a dime from Jack, the bartender.”
“But he denied it,” Estelle reminded him swiftly. “I heard him myself.”
“He’ll change his story and admit the truth when the pressure goes on.” Shayne spoke directly to Recker. “No matter how much money you or Elsie paid him to remain quiet, he’ll not stay bought when the Homicide boys start pounding. So you may as well start admitting the truth right now.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Recker stubbornly.
Shayne leaned forward and slapped him hard. The force of the open-handed blow knocked him sprawling on the floor.
Estelle screamed and came at the redhead with contorted face and fingers curved into claws. All trace of patrician hauteur had departed. Invectives spewed from her lips when Shayne caught both wrists in one hand and
swung her aside to hold her helpless while he glared down at Recker.
“I want one name from you two. A name and an address. Who is the man who completed Elsie’s fake alibi for that night by claiming he was in her apartment with her during the time we all know she was with Green?”
Lew Recker lay on his side on the floor, tears of mortification and rage spilling from his eyes. “I don’t know who you mean. I swear I don’t know… “
Shayne released Estelle, flinging her back and away from him so she collided with the typewriter desk before the window. He took one step forward to tower over the prone man, swinging his right foot back and grating, “You know, all right. The married man whom Elsie played up to at the party before she turned her attention to Elbert Green. You and she quarrelled about him early in the evening. Give me his name or so help me sweet Jesus I’ll kick your face into a pulp none of your women will ever recognize again.”
Recker writhed away on the floor from the menacing foot, stark panic in his eyes, “No,” he moaned. “For God’s sake, no.”
“Tell him, Lew,” sobbed Estelle from behind Shayne. “Why shouldn’t you tell him? He will kick you if you don’t. He’s capable of anything. Can’t you see he’s raving mad with some sort of obsession? He means David Jenson, of course. I don’t know why it’s important, but let him go take out his madness on Dave.”
“All right,” flared Recker despairingly, scrambling away on hands and knees. “I don’t know why Jenson is important. He’s just another one of the men Elsie liked to kiss when she was tight.”
“He’s also the man,” Shayne grated, “who backed up the lie you told for Elsie that night. David Jenson. Where does he live?”
“A long way uptown,” said Recker sullenly, getting to his feet and holding a handkerchief against his reddened cheek. “His address is in the telephone book.”
“Is he a writer, too?”
“Of sorts,” said Recker indifferently. “He does radio scripts, I think.”
“A member of your mystery writers organization?”
“I believe he is, though he doesn’t come around to meetings much.”
“Was he at the banquet last night?”
“I didn’t see him if he was. Of course, there was a frightful mob. See here,” continued Recker querulously, “what is all this about a mysterious telephone call Elsie is supposed to have made three months ago, and Dave Jenson? I simply don’t get any of it.”
“You’re lying in your teeth,” Shayne told him. “There’s nothing mysterious about the phone call, as you well know. Elsie made it and met Green that night. Both you and Jenson know that. You covered up for her at the time… and now she’s dead. Get Jenson’s telephone number,” he went on harshly. “You’re going to call him and tell him exactly what I tell you to say.”
Lew Recker shrugged with an elaborate attempt at nonchalance and went to the telephone stand. He took out the Manhattan directory and thumbed through it, wetting his lips and turning to ask, “What do you want me to tell Dave if he’s home?”
“Tell him this.” Shayne moved forward to stand beside Recker. “That he’s to come here at once. That the alibi you and he fixed up for Elsie Murray on Green’s death three months ago is blowing up in your faces since her death last night and things look bad. Insist that he come here immediately. One single word of warning from you to him about what he’s walking into will get you the goddamnedest beating you ever wrote about in any of your lousy books.”
Lew Recker fearfully wet his lips again as he glanced back at the telephone book. Shayne leaned over his shoulder to check the number, and watched carefully while Recker dialed it. He stood ominously close with right fist doubled while Recker waited for an answer, and then said:
“Is that you, Lucy? Lew Recker. Is Dave there?” He turned his head to nod at Shayne, waited another few moments and then drew in a deep breath to say rapidly:
“Lew Recker, Dave. I suppose you know about Elsie Murray last night?”
He listened for a long moment, then broke in impatiently: “Let’s not discuss it over the phone. Come down to my place at once, Dave. It’s damned important. We’ve got to decide what to do. The police have been here and they’re digging into the old Green affair. Remember?”
He listened again, nodding his head slowly. “That’s right. They seem to think there’s a connection. I’ve got to talk with you quickly. Right. I’ll be right here waiting.”
He replaced the receiver and asked sullenly, “Was that what you wanted?”
“Exactly.” Shayne’s voice was uncompromising. “Go pour us a drink if you’ve got one in the joint while I make a call of my own.”
He took the receiver and dialed the MWA number while Recker stepped back and spoke briefly to Estelle and the two of them went out through a side door.
A woman’s voice answered the telephone and Shayne asked, “Is this Dorothy Gardiner?”
“Yes. Who is it?”
“Michael Shayne. Ed Radin and I…”
“Oh, Mr. Shayne. I’ve been sitting here beside the telephone waiting for you to call. They’ve found Brett Halliday. Ed just called in. He’s alive but unconscious and hurt badly, I’m afraid.”
18
Shayne said, “Where is Brett?”
“At some hospital, I think,” Miss Gardiner told him. “Ed called in a few minutes ago from the Berkshire Hotel. You’re to call him there at room three-oh-five.”
Shayne said, “Thanks. I’ll be at this number another half hour or so if anything comes up.” He looked down at Recker’s number on the dial of the phone and gave it to her, then replaced the receiver and hurriedly looked up the Berkshire number. He dialed it and asked for 305, and a gruff voice answered.
He asked for Radin and waited a moment until Ed’s voice came over. He said, “Mike Shayne, Ed. I just talked to Miss Gardiner.”
“They think Brett will recover,” Radin told him. “He’s unconscious and they rushed him to the Lenox Hill hospital for X-rays. May be concussion. He was supposed to be dead,” the crime writer went on angrily, “in this room right down the corridor from his suite. He was evidently slugged unconscious and then dragged down here and left bound and gagged with strips torn from a sheet. He evidently came to his senses enough to roll off the bed and knock the telephone off the bed table. The operator noticed it and sent a boy up. There was a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, but they opened up and found Brett unconscious on the floor.
“What else have you got?” Shayne asked evenly when Radin paused for breath.
“Too damned little. This room was rented at six-thirty this morning by a man who registered as Alan Dexter from Waco, Texas. He explained to the clerk that he’d just arrived by plane and his baggage had been held up. He paid cash for the room and requested one on the third floor with some vague sort of explanation about a phobia he had. It’s a slack time and there were several vacancies, so he managed to get three-oh-five near Brett. That’s all of it.”
“Description?”
“Hell, it’s like it always is. No one paid particular attention. He was well-dressed and medium all over. Desk clerk thinks he could identify him but isn’t at all sure.”
“I think we’ll be able to give him a chance to do that within an hour or so,” Shayne said crisply. “I’m here at Lew Recker’s apartment waiting for a visitor who should be able to clean things up for us. Where’ll you be?”
“Up to the hospital to check on Brett first. What has Lew to do with it, Mike?”
Shayne heard a clink of glasses behind him and turned his head to see his unwilling host re-enter the room with a tray of drinkables. He said loudly into the phone:
“Recker has enough to do with it that I’m going to beat his goddamned brains out if Brett doesn’t come out of it all right. He’s Ralph, Ed. And I’ve got Doris here, too.”
“Ralph and Doris?” Ed Radin’s voice was excited now. “You’re moving fast. Shall I call you from the hospital?”
“Please. The mo
ment you know anything.” Shayne hung up and turned with a scowl to the couple who were standing side by side at the rear of the room, looking at him with frightened speculation.
“You heard me, Recker,” Shayne said grimly, moving toward them. “On account of the lie you told the police three months ago, Elsie Murray is dead and my best friend may be at any moment. Think that over while we’re waiting for Jenson to show up.”
He went deliberately to the low table where Recker had placed the tray containing an ice bucket, whiskey and glasses. He put three cubes of ice in a tall glass, filled it two-thirds full of whiskey and swirled the cubes slowly while Recker demanded in a shocked voice:
“Brett Halliday? He’s hurt?”
“Badly.” Shayne took a drink of whiskey, glaring over the top of his glass at Recker.
“What did you mean by saying I’m Ralph?” Recker asked weakly.
“And that someone named Doris was here?” put in Estelle. “I told you my name is Estelle Stevens.”
“It’s an idiosyncrasy of mine,” Shayne told them. “I get cryptic as all hell when I’m working on a case. I refer to my suspects by names I feel they should have instead of their real names.”
“Suspects?” Recker sounded half-shocked and half-amused. “Estelle and myself?”
“Someone murdered Elsie Murray last night. And someone tried to murder Brett Halliday early this morning because he knew too much.” Michael Shayne took a deep draught of the iced liquor. “I’m narrowing it down,” he went on quietly, “and neither of you, by God, is in the clear. Have a drink, you two,” he went on conversationally, “while I make another phone call.”
He turned toward the telephone, hesitated and asked Estelle, “What’s the name of the bar where I met you?”
“The Durbin.” She spelled it out for him while Lew Recker, his face tight and expressionless, carefully began mixing highballs for the two of them.
Shayne looked up the Durbin in the book and dialed the number. When a voice answered, he said, “I’d like to speak to Officer Grady, please.”
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