Dolls Are Deadly (6 page)

Madame Swoboda sighed, sat quietly for a long moment as though all strength had left her, then shivered and opened her eyes.

“That is all.” Her voice had a deep, unworldly timbre. “The spirits are tired. The séance is over.”

She rose quickly, passed through the sliding doors, walked down the hall and disappeared. The lights went on, two dim yellow bulbs in a wall fixture. Everyone blinked against the sudden light, released each other’s fingers a little sheepishly, scraped back their chairs and got to their feet. Shayne looked at Ed. His lips were moving soundlessly, his brows knit in concentration.

Ed rose finally and pushed through the low-voiced crowd to reach his wife at the other side of the table. Shayne caught Tim Rourke’s cynical eye, then moved between the stragglers to intercept Ed and his wife, who were pushing with the others to the door.

Clapping Ed on the back, the redhead said, “So we meet again. You never can tell where a tourist will turn up in this town.”

“Or a detective,” Ed retorted. Turning to his wife, he said, “Dear, this is the detective I was telling you about who was on the boat today. Mike Shayne. Mike, meet the wife.”

“It’s a pleasure, Mrs.—”

“Woodbine.” She poked Ed playfully. “Didn’t you even tell Mr. Shayne your last name?”

“We were all on a first name basis,” Shayne said. “It was only by accident that Sylvester happened to mention
my
name. Where are you folks staying?”

A quick glance passed between the man and woman, then Ed said openly, “Blue Grotto Hotel. Know it?”

“Very well.”

“At one of the cabanas,” Mrs. Woodbine said. “Number sixteen. Come and see us, Mr. Shayne.”

“Maybe I will. Thanks. How did you enjoy the séance?”

She shrugged matronly shoulders. “It’s something to do—I get so tired of canasta—but I don’t think I can ever drag Ed here again. He was bored stiff.”

Shayne said, “Maybe if you feed him bonito again it’ll put him in the mood.”

“Bonito?” She looked genuinely puzzled.

“I started to bring a fish home, honey,” Ed explained, “but I couldn’t face cleaning it, so I gave it away.”

She sighed in exasperation. “You fish all day and then give away what you catch! It makes more sense to play canasta.”

Ed shrugged and winked, probably thinking of the Demerara he had consumed that afternoon, then took his wife firmly by the arm and faced her toward the door, asking, a little brusquely, “What are
you
doing here, Mike? Casing the joint?”

“You might call it that.”

“As far as I can see, it’s harmless. I don’t go for this out-of-the-world stuff, but the Madame puts on a good show. If this is what they want, they get their money’s worth.” He propelled his wife to the door.

The desk in the arch next to the waiting room was now covered with voodoo dolls, boxes of pink, red, black and white candles, labeled
Success, Love, Death
and
Immortality,
small bottles holding
Goofer Dust,
amulets attached to bracelets and necklaces, and a stack of occult literature. People were crowding around the desk to buy souvenirs from the woman in the horn-rimmed glasses. The prices, Shayne noted, were not exorbitant.

At a touch on his arm, he turned.

“Mr. Shayne, someone has been following me.” Clarissa Milford stood behind him, her eyes wide and disturbed.

“I know. I hired him.”

“Then you must think I’m in danger!” she whispered.

“It’s only a precaution.” Shayne picked up one of the voodoo dolls and dropped a half dollar on the desk. Even without comparing this doll closely to the ones Henny Henlein and Clarissa Milford had gotten, he could tell they were all from the same lot.

“I’d like you to meet my sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Thain,” Clarissa said with a complete change of voice. “This is Michael Shayne.”

Shayne nodded to Mabel, took Thain’s limp hand and looked down into brown, hostile eyes.

“The detective?” Thain turned to Clarissa. “What have you to do with him?”

“Oh, you know, Percy,” Clarissa said offhandedly. “It’s about that doll.”

“I see,” Thain said distantly. “I didn’t know you had gone to him.”

“I decided suddenly—”

“If it makes her feel better, Percy—” Mabel said placatingly.

Relations between the Thains and Clarissa seemed a trifle strained. Did Percy Thain believe Clarissa to be more involved in the hit-and-run death of his son than she admitted? And was she?

The Thains left with Clarissa, and Tim Rourke walked over. The sensation-seekers had thinned out, most of them gone. “I’m afraid we wasted our time,” Rourke said. “There’s no story here.”

Shayne ran a hand over his angular jaw. “I’m not so sure. You think it came through O.K. on your pocket recorder?”

“Such as it is, I’ve got it.”

“I’d like to run it through a little later and listen again.”

“What for?” Rourke asked sourly. “It’s gobbledegook. By the way, Sharon, the person the first message was addressed to, was that thin woman. I was sitting next to her. She shook like a leaf.”

“She must be a regular. Otherwise the tape couldn’t have been prepared.”

“It was about the only message that made sense.”

“Maybe,” the redhead said slowly, “the others made sense to someone.”

“What do you mean? All that gabble about the forty-eight outer worlds couldn’t make sense to anyone except another ectoplasm. Maybe you don’t get around in occult circles, Mike. It’s old hat. This kind of thing’s done every day. If it were a con game—But I don’t see any racket angle. The Madame puts on a good show and folks get their money’s worth.”

It was the same thing Ed Woodbine had emphasized, and precisely what Shayne himself was thinking. “They got more than their money’s worth. That’s what bothers me. At five dollars a performance and fifty cents a doll, she’s damn near losing money.”

Rourke scratched his head. “You think it’s set up as a front for something? Could be. But I don’t see what.”

“I don’t either. But I’ve had two frightened clients today with dolls that came from here, and one was murdered this afternoon.”

“You talking about Henny Henlein? You’ve been holding out on me, Mike.”

“I’ll give it to you as soon as it can be printed.”

Rourke looked at Shayne through narrowed eyes. “Are the dolls the only thing that’s worrying you?”

“No. There was a man here I’m curious about. I met him this afternoon on Sylvester’s boat. He’s a vacationist—but not the type I’d figure to shoot a tropical evening at Madame Swoboda’s.”

“Hell. Mike, I think you’re straining. People do things when they get to Miami they’d never think of doing anywhere else. Maybe the sun gets them. Or maybe they just get tired of fishing and an ectoplasmic evening seems like a good change. Or maybe they get tired of communing with their wives and decide to give the spirits a whirl.”

“I’d rather whirl a real body—even if it was my wife.”

“So would I,” Rourke said, “Especially if it was your wife.”

Shayne grinned. “Speaking of that, I think I’ll go and find out what Swoboda’s like without her astral body.”

“I’ll run along then. Want me to burn a pink
Success
candle for you?”

“I’m sure it’s not necessary,” Shayne said.

The redhead walked down the hall past the séance room in the direction Madame Swoboda had taken. The hall ended at a kitchen, off which a narrow stairway led upstairs. He mounted the steps, purposely making his footsteps heavy, and found at the top another narrow hallway, dimly lit, and leading to the front of the house.

The first room he passed was an old-fashioned bath with a footed tub and a box over the toilet with a long chain dangling from it. The second was a bedroom, sparsely furnished and uninviting, and the third, a sort of den in which Madame Swoboda was sitting in a wicker rocker.

The gossamer veiling and tiara lay on the floor beside her, but she still wore the silver shawl crossed over her ample and worldly breasts. The lamplight brought out the red lights in her black hair and emphasized the extraordinary length of her lashes. A highball stood on a battered Victorian table at her elbow, and smoke wafted upward from the cigarette she held between slim fingers.

She turned, startled, as Shayne entered, asking coldly, “What do you want here?”

“To tell you how impressive you were.” Shayne toed a chair around to face her and sat down in it.

Accepting the compliment, she said, “I have the gift. I’m a born medium.” Picking up the drink she took a deep draught, then set it down and puffed on the cigarette.

“Are you the deep-trance type?” The redhead was amused at the contrast between hard liquor, tobacco and the spiritual claim. “Or are you semi-trance?”

“Deep,” she said in her timbred voice. She fastened enormous gray eyes on him, the black lashes spreading around them like spider legs. They looked bottomless, seeming to hold slumbering fire, feminine provocation and worldly knowledge—everything, in fact, but spiritual light. “In a trance I feel exhilarated, I feel profound, but—” she sighed heavily—“it is tiring. I need stimulation after it is over.”

Shayne grinned and abandoned the rarity he had been putting into his voice. “I understand. I’m not exactly a teetotaler myself.”

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Her eyes narrowed.

“I don’t think so. How long have you been in this business?”

“That’s none of yours!”

“I’d like it to be,” Shayne said softly.

She looked at him speculatively, some of the hardness melting. “Why?”

“Beautiful women are a hobby with me.”

She smiled slowly, showing white, even teeth, let the smile die and raised her eyebrows aloofly. “Hobbies don’t interest me—particularly other people’s.”

“Who are you?”

“Kyra Swoboda.”

“Nuts! Who were you before. Jenny Hopfstedder? Mary Murphy?”

“To you,” she said coldly, “I’m Madame Swoboda. And I think it’s time you were getting the hell out of here.”

Shayne rose, moved in front of her and rested one hand on each arm of her chair, completely fencing her in. She looked up provocatively, eyes quizzical and inviting, her moist lips slightly parted so that the tips of her white teeth showed. A movement went through her body—a movement wholly material and physical. Looking down, Shayne saw the mounds of her breasts outlined by the crossed shawl. They rose and fell as her breathing quickened.

“You could be a career,” Shayne said huskily.

“That interests me more.”

He was bending to kiss her when her eyes quickened with recognition. She drew back, forcibly removed one of his hands from the chair arm and squeezed past him, rising and walking across the room with a lithe animal stride.

“I thought I recognized you when I first saw you out there this evening. Your picture’s been in enough papers. You ought to start wearing a beard, Mr. Shayne.”

“It’s not becoming—”

“What do you want with me?” she asked harshly.

“Your background.”

“Why?”

“Let’s say it’s a matter of close personal interest.”

“That’s not true!”

“All right then. I’m investigating a murder. A man was found dead today. His name was Henry Henlein and he had received two of your little dolls, one stabbed, one strangled.”

She laughed humorlessly. “What have I to do with that? Hundreds of people have bought them. We don’t keep records.”

“You keep a record of those who attend your séances regularly. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to prepare the tape recordings in advance. Who does attend them regularly—besides the Thains and the Milfords?”

“I don’t know. There are no tapes and I don’t keep records!” There was venom in her voice.

“What about the Woodbines? Are they regulars?”

Her manner changed. She became softer, almost placating, as if she now wanted to co-operate. “I’m not sure who you mean.”

“A chunky, bald-headed man, blond. His skin’s peeling from sunburn. His wife’s dumpy and middle-aged.”

“It seems to me they’ve been here once or twice, but I’m not sure. Really,” she smiled in sweet reasonableness, “I hold a séance every night. Tourists come and go. I can’t keep track of them all and don’t try to. I have no reason to.”

“What were you—before this?”

“I had a mentalist act. I was a mind-reader on the stage. Not that it’s any of your business.” She recovered her assurance suddenly, turned her back, jabbed her cigarette viciously in the ash tray and took another from a box on the table.

“Who set you up here?”

“I took my own money and set myself up. Now, will you get the hell out?”

“I hate to leave on this note. We were getting along so beautifully.”

“We’re not any more.”

“One last question. Are you in love with Dan Milford?”

She swung around, her mouth set in a crimson line, her eyes flashing. “Now I get it! Now I know who sent you. Murder, indeed! It was that jealous wife of his! She came here, threatening to interfere with the way I make my living, throwing her weight around and upsetting me so I could hardly go into a trance that night.”

She flipped the ashes of her cigarette irritably in the direction of an ash tray, then using it as a pointer, shook it at him.

Unaccountably, despite the show of anger and indignation, Shayne had a feeling that her true feeling at the moment was one of relief, almost as if she had welcomed mention of Dan Milford.

Ostensibly still holding to her anger, Swoboda said, “Whoever murdered that Milford woman would be doing a good deed.”

“Is that why you sent her a voodoo doll—to scare her to death?”

She stopped, honestly surprised, her mouth agape, her aquiline nose uptilted, the flush of anger slowly receding. The respite was only temporary, however. On the next instant the fury returned.

“It’s none of your damned business, but I didn’t. Now, for the last time, get out! You’re invading my privacy!”

“I’d like to. The idea’s tempting. You’re not going to answer my question about Dan Milford?”

“I am not.” She threw herself into the wicker chair and rocked violently, staring sullenly ahead, the cigarette sending a wavy stream of smoke up from her moving hand.

Reaching out, Shayne touched her bare arm lightly with one finger.

She jumped. “What are you doing?”

“I wanted to see if you’d burn me. Dan Milford’s wife says you’re on fire.”

“If I had my way, I would. The less Shaynes in this world, the better.”

“And the more Swobodas?”

“What do you think, Shayne?”

“I don’t know yet. Dan Milford’s wife says you’re soulless, too.”

The moment of softness was gone. “Will you stop quoting that woman? And get out of here!”

“I’m on my way—but I’ll be back. I think I’m a mystic, too.”

She opened her mouth to release a flurry of abuse.

He ducked out fast.