Date with a Dead Man

by Brett Halliday

  Shayne closed the folder with a sudden gesture and said, “To hell with it, Tim. None of this gives me the faintest idea why Leon Wallace vanished a year ago and Jasper Groat disappeared last night.”

  “Groat? The pilot of the airplane?”

  “Copilot, I think. That’s not for publication, Tim.” Shayne stretched his long legs toward the exit, and Rourke broke into a half-trot to stay beside him.

  “Give, Mike,” he panted.

  Shayne said, “It’s not official yet. But why don’t you get the story from Mrs. Groat… if she’s willing to give it? Tell her I sent you. But don’t print anything until I get in touch with you after talking to Mrs. Hawley.”

  “You won’t get within a mile of that old witch,” Rourke warned him.

  Shayne said flatly, “She’s going to answer some questions.” He stopped in the hallway in front of the elevators and pressed a button. “You check with Mrs. Groat and get a story from that steward, Cunningham, in the meantime. Human interest stuff. The celebration dinner the first night ashore after their rescue… which Jasper Groat did not attend. Why? And I want to talk to Joel Cross about that diary as soon as I get back from seeing the Hawleys.”

  An elevator stopped and he got in, lifting a big hand to Timothy Rourke in farewell.

  He drove back downtown, past his hotel and across the river, out Brickell Avenue toward Coral Gables and the Hawley residence, while he tried to piece together the bits of information he had gathered. What had happened to Leon Wallace a year ago? And what did Cunningham know about the missing gardener? Wallace’s name had brought an immediate reaction from Cunningham last night. That, coupled with Groat’s telephone call to Mrs. Wallace, indicated that Albert Hawley must have confided some secret about the gardener to the two men before he died. A secret that someone had paid ten thousand dollars to hush up a year ago. And now Jasper Groat had disappeared before he could meet Mrs. Wallace and divulge it to her.

  Shayne shook his head angrily when the pieces wouldn’t fit into place, and began watching for Bayside Drive, which he knew was a short street, right-angling toward the bay and dead-ending there.

  This was one of the oldest and pleasantest sections of the city which had successfully resisted encroachments of the boom period; the avenue was lined with beautifully landscaped estates, many of them running all the way to the bayfront, and most with huge old houses, set so far back from the street they could be only dimly glimpsed through luxuriant tropical foliage.

  He slowed and turned right on Bayside Drive, found the entrance to number 316 guarded by high gateposts in a forbidding stone wall enclosing an area of several acres of grounds that long ago had been carefully planned and magnificently planted with exotic trees and tropical shrubbery.

  There was a heavy chain suspended from one gatepost, but now unhooked from the other to allow entrance, and Shayne turned in on a gravel drive that curved back through dense vegetation that was now untended, giving a feeling of desolation and decay to the once proud estate.

  The grass was untrimmed and what had once been a beautiful sunken garden on the left of the driveway had been allowed to run wild. It was a riotous mass of briers and flowers giving off a heavy fragrance that was almost stifling in the still hot air beneath interlocking branches that shielded the ground from sunlight.

  Wherever else Leon Wallace was and whatever he was doing, Shayne thought grimly, he certainly hadn’t been earning his wages as a gardener at the Hawley place for at least a year.

  The driveway curved from beneath huge Cyprus trees into bright sunlight that glared down pitilessly on a huge stone fortress of a house with cupolas and turrets and outside stairways of wrought iron that led up to second and third story balconies and embrasured windows. Shayne braked to a stop, directly behind a heavy black sedan that was at least five years old.

  There was utter silence after he cut off his motor. The old house seemed completely withdrawn from the world and there was nothing to indicate that a single person lived behind the thick stone walls in front of him. He shivered, despite the heat, as he got out and climbed six worn stone steps to a wide veranda that had warped, unpainted floorboards. They creaked under his weight, and it was a welcome sound in the stillness. There was an ornate bronze knocker on the wide oak door, and he thumped it loudly after searching in vain for a more modern electric button to announce his presence.

  He had a queer feeling that no one would answer the knock as he waited. There was a smell of desertion and decay that seemed to arise almost like a tangible effluvium from the untended grounds and the isolation of the old house, and his muscles twitched involuntarily when the door opened in front of him without warning and with the rasp of rusty hinges.

  An ancient and wizened Negro peered out at him. His shoulders were bent and his hair was grizzled, but his eyes were very black and very bright and he wore a shabby but clean and freshly pressed uniform jacket of gray with a row of big, shiny brass buttons down the front and his voice was a soft admixture of subservience and dignity as he said, “Yassuh?”

  Shayne said, “I’ve come to see Mrs. Hawley.”

  “Nossuh. She ain’t receivin’ this mawning.” He started to swing the heavy door shut, but Shayne blocked it with a big foot.

  “She’ll talk to me.”

  “Nossuh. Not ’thout you got a ’pointment, she won’t.” The voice was the same mixture as before, but it was firm and unyielding.

  Shayne kept his foot in the doorway. “Tell her I’ve come to talk about a gardener named Leon Wallace.”

  Shayne thought he saw a flicker of apprehension in the black eyes, but the grizzled head moved from side to side gravely. “No one like that name here. No gardener neither.”

  Shayne put his shoulder against the door and pushed. It opened inward, carrying the elderly servitor with it.

  “I still want to talk about Leon Wallace.” A wide, high-arched hallway stretched the full length of the house in front of him. It was paneled in black walnut and there were no rugs on the polished parquetry floor. Two old-fashioned chandeliers, spaced twenty feet apart and set with low-wattage bulbs, lighted the gloomy hall dimly. The air inside the thick stone walls was at least twenty degrees cooler than outside.

  The old Negro held onto the doorknob doggedly, interposing his slight figure in front of the detective’s bulk. “It ain’t fitten you should push in thisaway,” he continued to protest. “You wanna wait right yere, I go an’ ask Miz Hawley…”

  A tall man carrying a briefcase in one hand and a panama with wide curling brim in the other emerged through a curtained archway on the right and demanded peremptorily, “What is it, Ben? You know very well that no one is to be admitted.”

  “Yassuh, Mistuh Hastings.” The old man darted a harried look over his shoulder. “You explain to this gentleman how it is.”

  The man was in his sixties with a mane of silvery hair flowing back from a strong, bony face. He wore a black broadcloth suit tightly buttoned all the way up, and a black string tie such as Shayne hadn’t seen for years. The Negro closed the door to shut out the light and heat, and the elderly man confronted the detective commandingly. “What is the meaning of this intrusion?”

  Shayne said, “I think it’s time someone intruded.”

  “Who are you, sir?”

  “A detective.”

  The bony face in front of him tightened with disapproval. “May I see your credentials?”

  “Who are you?” Shayne countered bluntly.

  He stopped to set the briefcase beside him and extracted a card from his breast pocket. It read: Hastings A. Brandt, Attorneys-at-Law. Engraved in the lower right hand corner was the name, B. H. Hastings.

  “I am legal counselor to the Hawley family. I’ll have your credentials and hear your business.”

  Shayne said, “I’m private and my business is with Mrs. Hawley.” He started to move forward impatiently, but the lawyer did not give an inch. Shayne halted with his face inches from Hastings’, who told him col
dly, “Mrs. Hawley is in seclusion and seeing no one. Perhaps you are not aware of the tragedy that recently befell her only son.”

  Shayne said stubbornly, “I know all about Albert Hawley’s death. More than she does, I think. That’s one of the things…”

  “In addition to that bereavement,” the lawyer interrupted him, “I have just this moment completed the sad task of reading the will of her brother-in-law who died very recently. Surely you can state your business to me without disturbing the family.”

  “Can you answer some questions about Leon Wallace?”

  “I’m sure I don’t understand…”

  “Neither do I,” said Shayne. He sidestepped past Hastings and went toward the curtained archway, deliberately making his heels loud on the uncarpeted floor. The lawyer hurried after him with a smothered imprecation, and caught hold of his arm just as Shayne parted the curtains on a large square room that without artificial light was darker than the hallway. There were four French windows at the end of it, but heavy draperies were drawn to effectually seal out the sunlight. A small fire blazed in the fireplace in the center of the right-hand wall, incongruous when one had just entered from the midday heat of Miami, yet sending out welcome heat and light into the gloomy room. An oriental rug on the floor was faded and worn, and the heavy antique furniture was dark and depressing.

  There were three people inside the room who lifted their heads and looked with wordless surprise at Michael Shayne when he unceremoniously parted the curtains.

  The dominant personality was an old lady who sat in a high-backed fireside chair facing him. She was tall and spare, and held her desiccated body very erect with tiny feet planted solidly on the floor, leaning forward slightly from the waist with both withered hands clamped on the knob of a heavy cane with a brass ferrule at the bottom. Everything about her came to a point—her long, thin nose, the high mound of white hair, her cheekbones and the prominent, jutted chin. Her eyes were cavernous, a slaty blue that reflected lights from the dancing flames beside her. She wore a high-necked, long-sleeved black dress that swirled down to the tips of tiny black shoes and she had a ruffle of white lace at her throat. Her voice was unexpectedly harsh and strong as she croaked, “Who is it, B.H.?”

  An overstuffed young man lounged back on a horsehair sofa on her left with both arms spread away from him on the back of it and legs outstretched. He wore a velvet smoking jacket and dark trousers. He was partially bald and his lips pouted sullenly. He lowered his petulant gaze to the tips of his shoes after a brief glance at Shayne.

  The third occupant of the room was lanky and shapeless in a dark chemise dress, slouched in a leather-upholstered chair opposite the fireplace. Her black hair was cut short with a fringe of bangs across her forehead. She had a short upper lip that showed slightly protruding front teeth, and her eyes remained half-closed as she indolently surveyed the detective.

  Shayne shook off Hastings’ arm and stepped inside the room as the lawyer started to reply to Mrs. Hawley. He said, “I’m a detective with some questions to ask all of you.”

  “He has no legal standing whatsoever, Mrs. Hawley,” Hastings interposed. “He forced his way into your home, and I suggest we should call the police to remove him.”

  Mrs. Hawley lifted her cane and thumped it loudly on the hearth. “Don’t be an old fool, B.H. Who are you, young man, and what do you want?”

  “My name is Michael Shayne, Mrs. Hawley. Did Jasper Groat come here last night?”

  “You are not required to answer his questions,” Hastings put in swiftly. “I’ve explained…”

  “Nonsense,” said Mrs. Hawley with another thump of her cane. “Why shouldn’t I answer him? I don’t know any Jasper Groat,” she told Shayne. “No one came here last night.”

  “Did you expect him to come?” Shayne persisted. “Did you ask him to come and see you?”

  “Why should I? I don’t know the man.”

  “Do you read the newspapers, Mrs. Hawley?”

  “I know who he means.” The girl in the leather chair spoke languidly with almost no movement of her lips. “Jasper Groat was one of the men on the life raft when Albert died.”

  “Why should I ask a man like that to my house?” demanded the old lady.

  “Most mothers would have been eager to see him under the circumstances,” Shayne pointed out. “It was reasonable to suppose he might bring a dying message from your son.”

  “Nonsense,” the old lady said harshly with another emphatic thump of her cane. “No Hawley would make a confidant of such riffraff.”

  The girl said lazily, “He did call here on the telephone late yesterday afternoon. I told him I’d see him if he came at eight last night.”

  “Beatrice! After I expressly stated I wanted no contact with either of those ruffians who allowed Albert to die while saving their own skins.”

  “I know, Mother.” Beatrice’s upper lip lifted in an unpleasant smile that gave her face a perverse look of childishness. “But Gerald and I had talked about Uncle Ezra’s will that we knew Mr. Hastings was going to read this morning, and I thought it might be smart to talk to Mr. Groat.” She paused, regarding her mother with unblinking animosity. “Don’t you wish now that I had?”

  Hastings cleared his throat loudly. “Please be quiet, Beatrice. This man is a stranger.”

  Shayne stepped past him to look down at the girl. “Are you saying that Groat didn’t come?”

  “Don’t answer the man, Beatrice.” The cane thumped again. “Address your questions to me, young man.”

  Shayne stood looking down at the girl and didn’t turn his head. Her lids opened, disclosing sooty black eyes, and she caught her underlip between her teeth and gnawed on it as though it tasted good.

  Suddenly she giggled and pushed herself out of the chair. She walked past Shayne without looking at him, and went out of the room.

  Shayne transferred his attention to the young man who had not moved on the sofa during the interchange between mother and daughter.

  “Do you know anything about Groat coming here?”

  He lifted his gaze to Shayne’s, and then his eyes flickered away evasively toward Mrs. Hawley. “I think your questions are insolent, old boy.”

  “Here’s another one,” Shayne said flatly. He half turned to the matriarch. “Where is Leon Wallace?”

  Her eyes glittered at him and her hands clutched the top of her cane fiercely. “Who is he?”

  “A gardener whom you employed here about a year ago.”

  She said, “I don’t make a practice of keeping track of the names of my servants. Gerald is right. You are insolent.” She thumped her cane commandingly. “Eject this young man, B.H.”

  Shayne grinned bleakly at the lawyer as he stepped forward hesitantly. He said, “The police will be around asking the same questions,” and turned his back and stalked out through the curtains.

  The Negro was waiting at the door and he drew it open as Shayne approached. There was a scurry of feet in the hallway behind him as Shayne stepped out onto the veranda and thankfully drew a deep breath of clean, sunladen air.

  Hastings joined him as he started down the steps, clamping his panama tightly onto his head. “Mrs. Hawley is under a great strain,” he said nervously. “I… ah… think we had best discuss certain matters in the privacy of my office. Will you meet me there, Mr.… ah… Shayne, isn’t it?”

  Shayne said, “I’ll be glad to,” and the lawyer hurried down the steps ahead of him and got into the black sedan parked in front of Shayne’s car.

  He started the motor and pulled away as Shayne circled around to the left side of his car and opened the door.

  A shrill, penetrating, “Eeewee,” from the house made him pause and lift his gaze over the roof of his car. It was a sound he hadn’t heard since he’d played Indians as a child, and it was repeated as he stood there.

  Then he saw Beatrice. She was leaning over the ornamental iron railing of a second-floor balcony, beckoning to him eagerly with one
hand while she held her finger tightly against her pursed lips.

  His ragged, red brows came down in a frown and he hesitated as she pointed to the outside stairway leading up to her balcony and beckoned urgently again.

  He shrugged and closed the door of his car, crossed around to the iron stairs and climbed up to the balcony where Beatrice waited for him.

  5

  She caught hold of his hand excitedly as he reached the top, pulled him back with her through an open French door into a large bedroom that was childishly girlish in its appointments. It was all pink and white, with delicate rosebuds on the wallpaper, ruffled skirts on the vanity table matching the cretonne bedspread and window curtains.

  Beatrice stopped in the center of the room and turned to look at him, cocking her head on one side and demurely inserting the tip of the little finger of her left hand into her mouth. She said, “You know what?”

  Shayne asked gravely, “What?”

  “You make me feel all gurgly inside.” She giggled naughtily and turned aside to a low bookcase where she pulled out two books and groped in the back to bring out a pint whisky bottle a little more than half full. She worried the cork out with her teeth and presented the bottle to Shayne in much the manner of a little girl offering a playmate her favorite doll.

  “You’ll have to take it straight,” she told him matter-of-factly. “It’s too much trouble to sneak ice and mixers up here.”

  Shayne put the bottle to his mouth and swallowed a couple of times without letting much liquor trickle down his throat. He passed it back to her and she drank deeply, wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and said delightedly, “More damn fun.”

  In the light from the open window behind her there was an abrasive hardness about her features that surprised Shayne. He realized, of course, that she was older than her brother Albert, and had been married for several years to the unpleasant-looking young man whom he had encountered downstairs, but in the half-light below he had gained the impression of retarded physical development. Now a hot light gleamed in her slate-gray eyes and she moved closer to him to confide, “If I didn’t keep a bottle stashed away where I could hit it once in a while I’d go nuts cooped up here.”