Date with a Dead Man

by Brett Halliday

  He lifted the book out and flipped the pages while Jake Sims and his client crowded close and peered avidly but not very hopefully at the handwritten entries.

  Shayne slowed turning the pages after the crash-landing was noted. “Check the dates carefully,” he told them. “Here’s the first day after the wreck. The second and third days. The fourth day.” He paused tantalizingly. “And the morning of the fifth day.” He held the diary open so they could both read Jasper Groat’s entry for the fifth morning: The soldier died quietly during the night.

  Matie Meredith did not waste time reading further. She stepped back and said bitterly, “I think I’ve known the truth all along. I’ve kidded myself trying to think the diary would say otherwise, but I think I knew I was kidding myself.”

  Sims was still leaning over Shayne’s shoulder, reading from the page. He reached for the book with clawlike fingers, croaking with suppressed rage, “Lemme read a little more. Maybe I can…”

  “Nuh-uh.” Shayne pushed him back ungently, closing the diary and placed it in his hip pocket. “I earned my grand by giving you this prepublication look at the diary. Nothing was said about letting it out of my possession. Either of you in a mood for that drink now?”

  “I’ll have one. Thank you,” said Matie, moving to the sofa and sitting down to cross her ankles pensively. “Scotch on the rocks?” She regarded him steadily with a searching, probing gaze.

  “One Scotch on the rocks,” Shayne repeated affably. “You, Jake?”

  Sims shook his head. “I think I’d better stay sober to see what sort of proposition you have in mind.”

  There was a light rap on the door as Shayne nodded. He went to it and admitted Lucy Hamilton, bareheaded and carrying a bulky leather bag on a strap over her shoulder. He said, “Just in time, angel. I’m taking orders for drinks.”

  “I didn’t know it was a party.” Her brown eyes glittered as she took in Mrs. Meredith apparently making herself very much at home on the sofa. “You told me to bring my notebook.”

  “So I did,” agreed Shayne.

  “So it’s business,” she said a little too sharply. “And you know I never drink during business hours.”

  Shayne said, “Sit down, then, and make like a secretary.” He carried a bottle of Scotch into the kitchen and reappeared after a moment with two cubes of ice floating in amber liquid which he handed to Matie.

  Then he seated himself comfortably and poured himself a moderate portion of cognac, explained to Lucy, “Our client has just read the bad news in Groat’s diary. Her ex-husband died in the night preceding his uncle’s death. Thus he did not inherit, and not one cent of Ezra Hawley’s fortune will be legally passed on to Mrs. Meredith. I think the situation is clear to all of us.” He paused to glance at Matie and Sims.

  She sipped from her glass and kept her eyes downcast without replying, while Sims prowled nervously about the room and exclaimed, “If no one else has seen that crucial entry… what’s to prevent our destroying it here and now? With it out of the way, Cunningham is perfectly willing to swear to anything that will assure Mrs. Meredith getting the money.”

  Shayne said dryly, “I’m sure Pete Cunningham is perfectly willing to perjure himself to help Matie out. But don’t forget that Joel Cross, the reporter, has read the diary.”

  “But he murdered the Hawley daughter, didn’t he? Right here in this room? I heard all about it on a newscast. His testimony won’t bear much weight if he’s in jail accused of murder.”

  “I don’t know how long he’ll stay in jail. On the other hand,” Shayne went on briskly, “we have no reason to suppose he knew the importance of the date when he skimmed through the diary, and it probably made little impression on him. So it’s quite possible he wouldn’t dispute the date later on… without the diary to back him up.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” said Sims eagerly. “So let’s burn the thing here and now.”

  “We can hardly do that. It’s Mrs. Groat’s property now.”

  “Nuts!” snorted Sims. “What’s it worth to her? A few thousand bucks, perhaps, that the News will pay for permission to print it. We can pay her double or triple whatever they offer.”

  “There is that,” agreed Shayne. “You probably can make a deal with her for cash. But there’s still my conscience to consider. Don’t forget, I’ve read the diary… and I realize the importance of the date of Hawley’s death even if Cross doesn’t.”

  There was a little silence in the room. Then Matie Meredith lifted her head and opened her eyes wide and asked clearly, “What is the current quotation for Michael Shayne’s conscience?”

  He said, “Let’s not be crude about it. There’s my license to consider as well as my conscience. My position here in Miami.”

  “All right,” said Sims bitterly. “How much, Shayne? You’ve got us over a barrel and we know it as well as you do.”

  “How right you are,” said Shayne affably. “So I’ve been trying to figure out a way to protect myself and at the same time do Mrs. Meredith a favor and make a buck for my declining years. Got your notebook, Lucy?”

  She had been sitting at the table, stiff and silent, all the time they had been talking, and now she nodded and patted her bag but made no move to open it. “You can’t do it, Michael,” she said flatly. “It’s illegal and dishonest to suppress the evidence that’s in the diary. No amount of money in the world is enough to pay you to do a thing like that.”

  He said lightly, “Suppose you let me decide that, Lucy.”

  “I won’t let you do it,” she raged. “If you’re so infatuated with that woman smirking there on your couch that you’re willing to sell your soul to her for a mess of pottage… Well, I won’t let you do it. You’ve all been talking and acting as though I weren’t here,” she stormed on, her voice choked with tears. “Well, I’m a witness, too, don’t forget that. I’ll get up in court and testify that Albert died before his uncle. And no one can stop me.”

  Shayne said, “Cut the histrionics, and get out your notebook, Lucy. You’re still on my payroll, remember? I want you to take this down in shorthand exactly as I give it to you. We can discuss the ethics of it later.”

  While she hesitated, glaring at him mutinously, he added in an unexpectedly gentle tone, “You’ve worked with me for a long time, angel, and you’ve seen me cut corners before and always come out on top. Trust me a little bit. This is the big payoff, damn it. The one I’ve been waiting for a long time. Don’t spoil it with your little-girl tantrums. You’ll be riding around in a baby-blue convertible wearing mink if we pull this off.” His eyes glittered queerly as he stared her down. “Get out your notebook.”

  She bit her underlip hard, and then dropped her gaze. Her fingers were unsteady as she undid the snap on her bag, groped inside to withdraw a stenographer’s notebook and half a dozen pencils. But they became steady as she opened the book in front of her and selected a pencil.

  “This has to be very carefully worded,” Shayne explained dispassionately, “so I’ll have a document that will stand up in court after it’s all over and not lose my license on account of it. Let’s see now.” He took a sip of cognac and leaned back and studied the ceiling and began dictating.

  “Memorandum of agreement between Mrs. Matie Meredith of Chicago, Illinois, and Michael Shayne, private detective, Miami, Florida, this date. Paragraph.

  “Mrs. Meredith, the divorced wife of Albert Hawley and his legal heir, hereby retains Michael Shayne in his licensed profession as private detective to act for her in securing the necessary evidence to prove in court that her ex-husband was the legal heir to his uncle, Ezra Hawley, on said Ezra Hawley’s death.

  “If Michael Shayne is successful in his endeavor, and if Albert Hawley is declared Ezra Hawley’s legal heir by a probate court and thereby inherits Ezra Hawley’s estate, then, for his invaluable services in bringing about this desired end, Mrs. Matie Meredith agrees to pay Michael Shayne one-quarter of Ezra Hawley’s estate… um… after deductio
n of inheritance taxes. Make that clear, Lucy, that my one-quarter share shall be based on the net amount after deduction of State and Federal taxes. Don’t you think that’s fair, Matie?” he added easily as Lucy’s pencil ceased racing over her shorthand pad.

  “I think it’s highway robbery,” she choked out. “A quarter of the whole thing? My God. There’ll be over a million after taxes.”

  “That’s what I understood,” he told her happily. “A quarter of that will make a nice little nest-egg for Lucy’s and my old age.”

  “It’s preposterous,” burst out Jake Sims. “A quarter-million dollars just for destroying that diary in your hip pocket.”

  “The agreement says nothing whatever about destroying a diary,” Shayne reminded him. “It doesn’t specify what my services shall consist of. I’m not a lawyer, but I believe it protects both of us from any charge or suspicion of wrongdoing or complicity.”

  “The agreement is worded very cleverly,” conceded Sims. “Substitute ten or even twenty thousand for your first absurd demand, and I’ll advise my client to sign it at once.”

  Shayne patted the diary in his hip pocket and said, “It’s a quarter of the estate or nothing.” He turned to Mrs. Meredith and said, “That applies to your share, too. Three-quarters… or nothing. Would you rather have nothing? Just say the word and Lucy can tear up her notes and you two can get out while I turn Groat’s diary over to the chief of police for safe-keeping as evidence in a couple of murders.”

  While she hesitated, her eyes blazing venom at him, Jake Sims snarled, “He means it, Mrs. Meredith. I know Shayne. He’s perfectly capable of doing what he threatens if you don’t sign that agreement.”

  “And then Jake wouldn’t get his cut either,” Shayne pointed out sympathetically. “Make up your mind, Matie.”

  She said, “I’ll sign… goddam your greedy soul to hell. If I hadn’t hired you to get hold of the diary…”

  “Exactly,” said Shayne dryly. “Then you wouldn’t have been faced with this decision. My typewriter’s in the bedroom,” he told Lucy briskly. “Make three clean copies of that agreement, with places for Mrs. Meredith and me to sign, with you and Sims witnessing our signatures. More Scotch, Matie?”

  She held out her glass wordlessly, but as Shayne got up to take it from her, Lucy Hamilton laid down her pencil and said in a carefully precise voice, “I shan’t do it, Michael.”

  He frowned, tugging at his left ear lobe. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I shan’t do it. I’m not going to let you do it, Michael. You’ll hate yourself the rest of your life if you do. Don’t you see? You’re stealing the money from the rightful heirs. From the Hawleys to whom it legally belongs. This is stealing, Michael. It isn’t just another one of your smart gimmicks where you play god and get paid for it. You can’t do this. I won’t let you do it.”

  He studied her flushed face with raised eyebrows. “How about that mink coat, angel? And the convertible. Think how you’d look whooping it up around town with your curls flying in the wind and all the wolves whistling…”

  “Stop it, Michael!” Lucy’s voice rose shrilly. “You know how I feel about mink coats and convertibles. I’ve done without both of them for a good many years, and I can keep on doing without them. Stop trying to kid about this, Michael.” Her voice became pleading, with a heartbroken sob in it. She completely disregarded the other two people in the room, baring her heart to him as though they were utterly alone.

  “I’ve admired you and looked up to you, Michael. I’ve watched you cut corners in the past, but it was always for an ultimate good. Damn you, I’ve believed in you even when things looked black as hades. And you’ve always justified my belief, darling. Don’t do this, Michael. I beg you. Do you hear me? I beg you.” She stood up from the table facing him, her arms forward and out from her sides, palms upward.

  There were deep trenches in his cheeks as he faced her unwaveringly. “You’ve trusted me in the past, angel. Keep on trusting me.”

  “How can I?” It was a despairing cry, wrenched out of the uttermost depths of her being. “This is absolutely nasty-crooked. I don’t care whether there’s a quarter of a cent or a quarter of a million dollars involved. Please! If you care one tiny little iota about me, don’t do this.”

  He said, “You know I love you, angel.”

  She said, “I know you’ve pretended to love me. Prove it. Tell Mrs. Meredith and her crooked shyster to get out of here. Give the diary to Will Gentry tonight and wash your hands of the whole thing.”

  Michael Shayne shook his red head slowly from side to side. In a tone of real regret, he said, “I can’t pass up an opportunity like this, angel. Another one like it may never come along again. Go ahead and type out three copies,” he added persuasively. “I give you my word you’ll never regret it. A quarter million bucks, Lucy?” His voice was wondering, almost awed.

  “I won’t do it. I’ll be eternally damned if I’ll do it.” Lucy Hamilton whirled and snatched up her notebook with tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. She ripped at the pages containing her shorthand hieroglyphics, tearing them into shreds and scattering them on the floor.

  Shayne lunged forward and clamped a hand on her shoulder, ordering harshly, “Stop it, Lucy. You’re not making sense.”

  “Oh yes,” she retorted. “I am making sense. For the first time in a lot of years. You know what, Michael Shayne? I hate and despise you. I don’t care what you say, I’m not going to let you do this thing to yourself. Do you hear me? I’m not going to let you.”

  She flung the last of the torn fragments of her notes on the floor and faced him defiantly.

  He said, “You’re forgetting something, Lucy. You’re my secretary… not my wife. Stop acting like one.”

  “Thank God I am just your secretary,” she cried out through her tears. “Because I can quit, and if I were married to you I couldn’t. And I am quitting. As of now. I wouldn’t be married to you, Michael Shayne, if you were the last man on earth… and I wouldn’t be your secretary if you offered me a salary of a million dollars a week.”

  She eeled away from him, dislodging his hand from her shoulder, and ran to the door, jerking it open and then slamming it shut behind her with a bang that reverberated in the silent room.

  Shayne stood looking at the closed door for a long moment, then shrugged his shoulders and said equably, “Lucky I’m a fair one-finger typist. Give me ten minutes and I’ll have the document ready for your signatures.”

  He turned and stalked into the bedroom where a portable typewriter stood in one corner of the room.

  18

  Michael Shayne awakened early the next morning. He noted early sunlight streaming in the window, checked his watch to be assured it was as early as it seemed, then got a cigarette and match from the bedside table, and drew in the first lungful of smoke for the day.

  For some reason it wasn’t as satisfying as usual. The smoke seemed to have an acrid bite to it, and he frowned and glanced at the pack to make sure it was his own familiar brand. It was, and his frown deepened as he took another deep draw.

  Then the events of the preceding night came flooding back into his memory and he knew why his first cigarette did not taste as good as usual.

  Lucy! And her incomprehensible behavior. Last evening he had steeled himself against her, had resolutely refused to allow her temper tantrum to affect his decision or his judgment in the delicate process of preparing the agreement for Mrs. Meredith’s signature and getting it properly witnessed so it would stand up in court without compromising him. And after she and Sims had left, he had tossed off half a tumbler of cognac before stumbling to bed and into a sound and dreamless sleep.

  But now it all came back to him with depressing clarity. Lucy’s face, flushed with anger as she defied him. The exact intonation of her voice when she scathingly declared her pleasure that she was just a secretary instead of a wife… that she hated and despised him and wouldn’t marry him if he were the last man on e
arth.

  And he winced and crushed out the bitter-tasting cigarette as he recalled that, in order to persuade her, he had gone so far as to say to her what he had said to only one other woman before in his life.

  “You know I love you, angel.”

  It was the first time he had ever told Lucy Hamilton that he loved her. He had been, on the verge of such a declaration several times, but had held off until last night to put the feeling into words.

  For what purpose? To be angrily denounced as a crook.

  He threw back the covers angrily and swung out of bed, padded out on bare feet to the kitchen where he put coffee water on to boil, and then went back into the living room to check with the airport and be assured that the Mid-American flight from Chicago was scheduled to arrive on time at eight-thirty.

  He went back into the kitchen and poured boiling water into the top of the dripolator, set it over a low flame and hurried into the bathroom for a quick shave and shower. He dressed swiftly and drank two fast cups of coffee liberally laced with cognac, going over his plans for the morning with grim expectancy, forcing Lucy Hamilton and her defection out of his thoughts and out of his consciousness… reminding himself again and again that there was a quarter-million dollars at stake this morning if his wild hunch was correct and if he played it to the limit without worrying whether he still had a secretary or not.

  He reached the airport at eight-twenty and got the gate number for the incoming Chicago flight, went to it and edged his way through the press waiting to greet arriving passengers until he reached the forefront just as the plane swooped down on a far runway and turned slowly to taxi in toward the Administration Building.