I will call you tomorrow from my club.
Your desperate and adoring
Vicky
Shayne laid the last photostat atop the other three and sat for a moment brooding into space. He slouched deep into the chair and gently massaged his left ear lobe between his right thumb and forefinger. Then he began running his fingers through his red and unruly hair, got up and paced back and forth across the room.
For once he was completely baffled. He wanted to believe Christine. But how could he? The evidence in the letters was damnably clear. Bernard Holloway said they had been written by Victor Morrison, and there were four witnesses to testify they had been found hidden away in Christine’s room.
But, how did the maid enter into the picture if Christine was lying about the letters? Why had she been murdered unless she had planted them in the vanity drawer?
Of course, he realized it was possible that there was no connection whatever between Natalie Briggs’s murder and the letters. It could be a coincidence. There were too many coincidences piled on top of each other.
First, there was Angus Browne, private detective who specialized in marital cases. He was undoubtedly spying on Floyd Hudson and Natalie at the Play-Mor Club. He knew from Mrs. Morgan’s description of the shabby little man who claimed to be an officer that it was Browne who initialed A. B. on the letters. Another of the trio was Timothy Rourke.
Rourke had undoubtedly said something to Natalie in the game room that frightened her and sent her running away in panic. There was certainly a tie-up between the maid and two of the men who had discovered the letters.
Shayne sat down and clasped his hands behind his head and gave his thoughts over to pure speculation. Assuming for the moment that Christine was telling the truth, who had planted the letters and for what purpose? Blackmail? Or had Morrison engineered the plot because he was madly in love with Christine and determined to wreck her marriage?
Again he went over every detail of the case thus far, but none of it made sense. He ground his teeth together angrily, got up and went to the phone and asked the clerk to send up the early edition of the Miami News.
When a boy brought the paper he skimmed over the front page story of Natalie Briggs’s death. There was a photograph of her body being pulled out of the Bay, and another full-face shot of the girl. Neither the Floyd Hudson nor the Play-Mor angle was mentioned. Painter hadn’t given the paper much of a story, though he had allowed them to mention the probability that she had been killed at the back door of the Hudson home and her body consigned to the Bay at that point.
He dropped the paper and called Timothy Rourke’s apartment on the Beach. Since recovering from his bullet wounds, Rourke hadn’t returned to his job on the paper, but was doing a few free-lance things at space rates for the local papers while he worked on his novel.
When Rourke didn’t answer his phone, Shayne looked up the Angus Browne detective agency and called the number. Again, there was no answer. He then called Information and asked if Victor Morrison had a telephone.
He was given a number and he called it. A maid answered and told him that Mr. Morrison had gone fishing that morning and wasn’t expected back until about 1:30. Shayne asked for the Morrisons’ address, and the girl gave it to him. He thanked her, hung up, and went out to lunch before calling on Victor Morrison.
Chapter Eight: A DISTURBING VISITOR
The Morrison house was on the west shore of Biscayne Bay between the County and Venetian causeways. The house faced south, and as Shayne went up the walk toward the wide wooden veranda he saw that the expanse of lawn leading to the bay shore was dotted with deck chairs beneath gaily striped beach umbrellas.
One of the chairs was occupied. An inclined umbrella hid everything but a pair of bare legs stretched out in the sunlight and a bare arm reaching out for a glass on the table beside the chair.
A maid in a starched white uniform came to the door. She was little and pretty, with inquisitive blue eyes and pouting lips. She looked up at the rangy redhead with approval, and quirked her lips slightly when she said, “Mr. Morrison hasn’t returned yet. Perhaps you’d like to wait,” in answer to Shayne’s query.
Shayne said, “How about Mrs. Morrison?”
A change came over the girl’s face. “Oh, she’s out there on the lawn,” she answered in a sulky voice. “I’m sure that she’d be very glad to see you.”
“What makes you so sure?” Shayne grinned down at her.
She flirted herself around and was closing the door when Shayne turned and went down the steps. He swung around to the right and went across the close-cropped lawn toward the pair of long and well-shaped legs extending beneath the umbrella.
The thick grass deadened his footsteps, and he walked around the tilted umbrella without disturbing the occupant of the chair.
The woman wore a wisp of flowered cloth over her pointed breasts, and a triangular piece of the same material for a loincloth. Her body was supple and smoothly rounded and had the beginning of a very nice sun tan. Her platinum hair was long and flowed around her shoulders, her lips were heavily rouged, and she lounged in the chair with a pair of binoculars held to her eyes.
She lowered the glasses after a time, and saw him standing there. She gave a little start of surprise and glanced quickly at her body as though to reassure herself that the bits of cloth were in their proper positions. She lifted her gaze slowly and said in a husky voice, “Do you approve of what you see?”
“Thoroughly,” said Shayne, his wide mouth twisted in a crooked grin. He took off his hat. “I didn’t mean to play peeping Tom. Your maid said I might wait here for Mr. Morrison.”
“I’m Estelle Morrison,” she told him. Yellow lights flickered in her eyes. “I’ll be delighted to have you wait here for Victor.” Her husky voice was indolently and intentionally sensuous; the sort of voice that put double-entendres into the most innocent phrases.
Shayne said, “Thanks. I understand he’s fishing.” He sat down cross-legged in the hot sun at her feet.
“Yes. He went out very early this morning. I was trying to see if I could find him coming in.” She lifted the binoculars. “Sometimes one sees the most amazing things on the bay with a pair of strong glasses. In broad daylight, too.”
Shayne said dryly, “I imagine. Poor devils who think they’re all alone and safe from prying eyes.”
She turned faintly amused eyes upon him. “Are you shocked?”
“Not at all.” Shayne shrugged his wide shoulders. “One can’t accuse you of hiding much of yourself from public view.”
She laughed softly. “This isn’t a public beach. If strangers insist on walking up unannounced, I’m not responsible for what they see.” She picked up her drink and ice tinkled as she lifted it to her lips. “You are a stranger-to me.”
“My name is Shayne. I have some business with-your husband?” He put a questioning inflection on the last two words.
“I thought Victor left all his business behind him in New York. Perhaps he hasn’t told me everything.”
“Perhaps not.” He turned to look across the bay and muttered, “With a pair of glasses like yours one should be able to bring the other shore into focus.”
“One can,” she assured him with a trace of mockery.
“I have friends who must live just opposite here. I wonder if I could identify their house.”
She held the binoculars out to him. “After you get through pretending to look for your friend’s house, try the view on that little sailboat just off the Venetian Causeway and sigh for your lost youth.”
He moved the glasses slowly around, seeking to pick out the rear of the Hudson house with its stone breakwater and the boathouse protruding into the bay, but he could not be certain which of the houses lining the shore was the Hudsons’.
He deliberately swung the glasses on in a northward arc, picking up the far end of the Venetian Causeway and the small sailboat Estelle Morrison had mentioned. A young girl lay outstretched on some cush
ions in the bottom of the boat. She appeared to be nude. A boy was propped on one elbow beside her, and he was kissing her. The fingers of her right hand were tangled in his hair.
Handing the binoculars back to her, he said, “Kids grow up in a hurry nowadays.”
“Don’t they? Did you find your friend’s house?”
“I’m not sure.” Shayne took a cigarette from the pack in his pocket and frowned. “The Leslie Hudsons’ house,” he told her. “Perhaps you know them.”
A slight tremor rippled the length of her body. She was like a panther flexing its muscles to spring. She said, “We know so few people here. You didn’t mention what your business is, Mr. Shayne.”
“I’m a detective.”
“Oh?” Her eyes were veiled now and when she said, “Perhaps you’d like a drink,” her voice was not so warmly provocative. She reached toward a silver bell on the table.
“A drink would be welcome.”
She struck the bell sharply, then put the binoculars to her eyes to sweep the surface of the bay again. “My husband is coming in now. That outboard near the northward shore.”
The maid came out from a side door and approached them, carrying her slim body haughtily. She did not speak when she reached the table beside her mistress’s chair, but picked up the empty glass and waited with a look of disdain in her blue eyes.
Mrs. Morrison said, “Two Scotch and sodas, June,” glancing at Shayne for confirmation.
He said, “Plenty of ice and not too much soda, please,” and the maid went back to the house.
“So you’re a detective?” Estelle said. “It must be frightfully interesting work.”
Shayne let his gaze move over her partly naked form. “I meet interesting people.”
“Are you one of those detectives who make love to unwanted wives and get them in compromising situations for divorce evidence?”
“I’ve avoided that sort of work,” he told her lightly. “When I get into a compromising situation I like to do it on my own time.” He grinned up at her from his cross-legged position on the grass. “Circumstances alter cases,” he added. “Now if the Victor Morrisons were having marital troubles, it would be a pleasure to help him get evidence.”
She did not smile, but stared at him stonily, the green flecks in her eyes seeming to actually melt away, leaving them wholly yellow. “You are not amusing,” she said coldly. “What is your business with my husband?”
“That,” said Shayne, “is between Mr. Morrison and myself.”
She started to say something else, but the maid was approaching with the drinks on a tray. Estelle stood up and lifted the binoculars again, focusing them on the little sailboat occupied by the young boy and girl. She held them steadily while the maid set the tray on the table and went away.
Then she said, “My God, those two kids-”
Shayne grinned and picked up his glass. He asked, “Is that your husband’s boat docking down there?”
She turned quickly, gave him a withering look, picked up her glass and said, “I’ll leave you to discuss your mysterious business with him, Mr. Detective Shayne.”
She was as tall as most men, and she walked barefooted across the grass with sinuous grace, swaying slightly above the hips. Shayne sipped his drink and watched her until she went into the house, then got up and strolled down to the private dock.
A lad of about fourteen, towheaded and bronzed, wearing only a pair of bathing trunks, was in the stern expertly handling the tiller and swinging the boat in a wide arc alongside the dock. In the bow was a man wearing a floppy straw hat, an old sweater and a pair of disreputable khaki pants. He had a square face and a smartly trimmed gray mustache. When he arose with the painter in hand, leaning over to grasp a stanchion as the boy cut the motor and the boat drifted in, Shayne saw that he had a strong, muscular body for his 50-odd years. His eyes were blue with a network of tiny wrinkles spreading out from the corners.
When the man stepped out on the wharf, Shayne said, “Mr. Morrison?” and offered his hand.
The millionaire took Shayne’s hand in a hearty grip and said, “Yes?” inquiringly.
“My name is Shayne. I’m sorry to intrude like this, but I have some urgent business to discuss with you.”
“No intrusion at all,” Victor Morrison assured him. He turned to the lad who was clambering out, a broad grin on his young face and a string of perch in his hand. “Better hurry those in to the cook, Howard. They should be put on ice right away.”
“Gee, Dad, I know that much, all right. It was swell, wasn’t it?” The lad started to scamper across the wharf, but turned to remind his father anxiously, “An’ you promised you’d take me along next time you go out at night. I betcha if I’d been along last night we’d of caught something.”
Morrison chuckled and agreed, “I bet we would, son. We’ll try it together next time.” He took off his straw hat and mopped a shining bald dome with a limp handkerchief. “Now, sir-you say you have some urgent business with me?”
Shayne was watching the boy run up the lawn. He asked, “Your son?”
“Why, yes. Taller than I am-at fifteen.” He chuckled with fatherly pride.
“It’s hard for me to realize you have a son that old. You see, I met Mrs. Morrison a few minutes ago.” He glanced down at the glass in his hand. “She was kind enough to give me a drink while I waited. She seemed so young-”
“I can understand your bewilderment,” said Morrison. “Estelle is my second wife, Mr. Shayne. We’ve been married only two years-since my first wife died.”
“That explains it.” They started to walk up the gentle slope of the lawn together. “Do you enjoy night fishing?” Shayne asked. “I heard your boy mention it.”
Morrison chuckled again. “I’ve tried it a couple of times,” he said. “Howard found out about it and was heartbroken that I didn’t take him along.”
“You probably went out too early,” Shayne suggested. “I understand that after midnight is the best time.”
“Perhaps that explains my poor luck,” the New York broker agreed. They had reached two chairs drawn close together, under two umbrellas. Morrison paused and asked, “Will your business take long?”
“I think not. If you have a few minutes we might talk right here.”
“Very well. Have a seat.” Mr. Morrison seated himself and took a broken cigar from a pocket of his sweater. He carefully licked the outer wrapper to seal it, and got a match. “What is the nature of your business?”
Shayne took the envelope containing the four photostats from his pocket. Picking one at random, he passed it across to the financier. “I’d like to know just when and under what circumstances you wrote this letter.” Morrison had struck the match on the side of the chair and was holding it to the end of his cigar. He accepted the photostat with his other hand and glanced at it while he puffed on his cigar.
He stopped puffing and his face became a mottled red. The match burned down to his fingers. He dropped it and asked thickly, “May I ask where you got hold of this?”
Chapter Nine: ANGLING FOR THE BIG ONE
Shayne waggled his head and reminded him, “I’m waiting for you to answer my question.”
The financier had strong hands with short blunt fingers. They tightened on the photostat for an instant, crumpling the lower portion of it. Then he dropped it in his lap and took an experimental puff on his cigar. It hadn’t caught fire from the first match.
He got out another match and struck it, held it steadily and carefully to the end of his cigar. His broad, ruddy face looked thoughtful and his eyes no longer twinkled. He blew out the match, expelled a cloud of smoke and leaned back in the reclining chair. “I don’t believe you mentioned your business, Mr. Shayne.”
“I didn’t.”
“Will you do so now?”
“I’m a detective.”
Morrison lowered wrinkled eyelids for a moment. He picked up the crumpled photostat and studied it with care. “Why do you think this concer
ns me?”
“It’s in your handwriting. It’s signed ‘Vicky.’”
“The similarity to my writing startled me at first,” he admitted. “I assure you, however, I never wrote anything like this, and I certainly never signed myself ‘Vicky.’”
“I have photostatic copies of other somewhat similar notes written by you.” Shayne didn’t offer to show them.
Morrison cleared his throat “I should like to see the originals.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Shayne told him blandly.
Mr. Morrison sat erect in his chair. “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re after, Shayne. You have some clever forgeries of notes purportedly written by me at some unknown date to some unknown person. What point is there in it? What do you expect to gain by bringing them here?”
“I want to know when and to whom they were written.”
“That’s preposterous,” said Morrison loudly. “I deny any knowledge of them whatsoever.”
Shayne sighed and leaned back, crossing his long legs at the ankles. “Circumstances are against you, Morrison. Let’s see, which one of the notes did I show you?” He reached out a long arm and took the note from Morrison’s lap. It was the one dated Friday afternoon and the salutation read, My dearest love. He glanced through it to refresh his memory as to the context, then flipped it back to Morrison.
“Unfortunately for your denial, you had a good-looking young secretary with whom your wife suspected you were in love. To stop her nagging, the young lady resigned her position. But you didn’t stop seeing her. These notes prove you were desperately seeking a way to get rid of your wife so you could marry the girl.” He tapped the envelope on his knee. “Do you want me to read these others to remind you of exactly what you said?”
“No,” he said hastily. “I don’t care to listen to any more of this nonsense.” He paused, chewing savagely on his cigar and staring across the bay. He looked older now, and tired.
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