The Corpse Came Calling (12 page)

“You
beast!
To even think such things!” Helen took a long step to the side of his chair and spat out the words. Her hands were curved into claws, long nails reaching for his face.

Shayne laughed shortly and caught both her wrists in one big hand. “Don’t waste time pretending to be shocked. You could have planned it that way. You wanted Mace out of the way badly enough.”

She struggled to free herself, sobbing with rage. He gave her a shove that sent her reeling back, and remarked to Rourke, “I’m always suspicious of a floozie who crawls into a man’s bed without an invitation.”

Rourke nodded. He said, “We’re wasting time. We ought to turn her over to Gentry and Pearson. They’ll sweat the truth out of her.”

Shayne said, “Sure. Let’s take her down to headquarters. We’ll think up a story about how we managed to get hold of her so fast. Just say she came here looking for Mace. That’ll sound okay.”

“What about her? If she tells them the truth—”

“That’s the last thing she will tell,” Shayne said scornfully. “With Mace dead—”

He was interrupted by a knock on the door. He got up and opened it to admit a uniformed Western Union messenger. The lad asked, “Mr. Shayne?” looking from him to Rourke.

The redhead said, “I’m Shayne.” He took a plain white envelope from the boy’s hand. He got between the boy and the door as he ripped the envelope open and took out a folded sheet of paper.

The message was typed. There was no salutation or signature. It said:

We’ve got your wife where we want her. We’ll trade for the strip of cardboard she says you got from Jim Lacy. We’re not fooling and you’d better not if you want to see her alive again. Put a personal ad in the morning
HERALD
saying “Okay. M.S.” and you’ll hear from us again.

Shayne read the message without change of expression. He caught the messenger’s arm and demanded, “Where did you get this?”

“Fellow stopped me on Flagler. Gave me a buck to bring it up to this here apartment.”

“What did he look like?”

“I didn’t even get a good look at him,” the lad said, frightened by Shayne’s harsh interrogation. “He was inside the arcade where it was dark and he called to me as I was passing by.”

Shayne let go of his arm and stood aside. The boy went away.

Shayne closed the door and stood staring at it, the typewritten threat hanging lax in his fingers. Rourke came over and took the paper from his fingers while Shayne went on gazing at the door, staring fixedly, as though he were seeing through and far beyond the wooden barrier.

Rourke read the note and whistled shrilly. He crumpled it in his hand and began cursing Shayne in a low tone of fury.

Shayne turned his head and looked at Rourke as if he looked at a complete stranger.

Rourke panted, “This washes you up, Mike. You lied from the beginning. You’ve got Lacy’s piece of the claim check.”

Shayne nodded and said dully, “Yeh, I’ve got it.”

Rourke stood before him on wide-spread legs. “I’m not going to dirty my mouth with what I think of you,” he told the detective bitterly. “Get out of my way. I don’t want to be defiled by touching you as I go out.”

Shayne lifted shaggy red eyebrows. “Aren’t you being a trifle melodramatic?”

“Melodramatic?” Rourke’s voice trembled. “You’d play ball with the devil himself if you smelled a cent of profit in the transaction. I’m through listening to your lies. Get out of my way.”

Shayne didn’t move from the door. He asked, “Where are you going?”

“To Pearson.”

Shayne wet his lips. “Did you read that note?”

“I read it.”

“Do you realize what it means? They’ve got Phyllis.”

“And you’ve got the one piece of cardboard that’s between a foreign spy ring and the plans of an important American military secret.”

Shayne nodded. “I’ve got what they
have
to have. It’s my only ace. Phyllis will be safe as long as I keep it. If you tell Pearson and I’m forced to give it up—” Shayne left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

Rourke was breathing hard. He said, “Phyllis wouldn’t want to pay that price to keep on living. She’d hate you forever, Mike, if you bargained with those rats.”

Shayne said, “You don’t know what you’re saying, Tim. We’re talking about
Phyllis.
My wife.”

“She’s one woman,” Rourke told him quietly. “One woman who happens to be married to you. Other wives are dying tonight. All over the world. Being blown to bits by bombs. The husbands and the sons of other women are dying by thousands. If you think Phyl would appreciate—”

“I’m not thinking about Phyl,” Shayne interrupted gruffly. “I’m thinking about myself.”

Rourke’s lip curled upward. “Get out of my way.”

Shayne stood solidly in front of the door. “Can’t I say anything to change your mind?”

“Nothing. I’ve heard enough lies. I wouldn’t be able to believe a word you said now. I’m going to Pearson.”

Shayne said, “I’m sorry, Tim.” He sighed and stepped aside. “If you won’t listen to reason—”

Rourke said, “None of your reasons interest me.” He started through the door.

Shayne swung his right fist in a looping uppercut. It struck the point of Rourke’s chin. The reporter tottered backward and went down to the floor.

Shayne stepped over him and went into the bedroom. He called the want-ad desk of the Miami
Herald
and ordered a personal advertisement inserted in the morning paper:
Okay. Plus one grand.
M.S.

He came back to the living-room and poured a drink. He did not look at Helen or at the unconscious figure of Timothy Rourke lying in front of the door.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

HELEN STARTED TO SPEAK, but he shut her up with an angry, “You got me into this mess. Keep your mouth shut while I think my way out.”

She bit her lip and subsided into silence. Shayne sat without moving for a long time, then sighed and took Murphy’s second telegram from his pocket. He smoothed it out and read it again, seeking some new significance in the light of the story he had just heard from Pearson.

Pearson hadn’t mentioned that Jim Lacy was the victim in the holdup that had sent Mace Morgan to prison. Perhaps he didn’t know—or thought it an unimportant detail.

But it seemed terrifically important to Shayne. If Lacy and Morgan had worked together stealing a government secret only a couple of days before the robbery—why had Morgan turned on his partner immediately afterward?

To Shayne, a more plausible explanation was that Morgan had not turned on Lacy—that the holdup had been another partnership deal between the two men. It wasn’t a new wrinkle in the annals of crime. There were plenty cases of collusion between a crooked messenger carrying a large sum of money and a confederate who pretended to hold him up. In fact, when the sum of money was particularly large as in this case, there had to be a tip-off somewhere along the line.

But this holdup had backfired. Instead of getting away with the swag, Morgan had been caught and sentenced. Shayne wondered whether Lacy had testified at the trial—whether he had identified Morgan on the witness stand. The answer to that might be the answer to a lot of things.

The telephone called him into the bedroom while he was still musing over a lot of diverse possibilities.

The desk clerk reported the arrival of a telegram. Shayne told him to send it up. He went to the door and tipped the boy who brought it. This was another message from the energetic Murphy in New York:

Charles Worthing reputed wealthy. Divorce case pending New York.
Adultery with girl named Helen Brinstead named corespondent. Worthing and Brinstead being seen together openly. For picture of both and full details see page fourteen last Sunday
MIRROR
photo taken at Stork Club Saturday night.

Shayne folded this telegram with the other one and put them both into his pocket. As he sauntered back to his chair, Helen stamped her foot and demanded:

“Isn’t it time you started telling me something about what’s going on?”

He looked at her with a show of mild surprise. “Why should I?”

“Do you think I’m not half crazy with curiosity? Do you think I’m made of wood? You haven’t told me
anything.”

“I didn’t think you were interested in anything—except getting Mace Morgan bumped off. You got that. What the hell more do you want?”

“I want to know what all this mystery is about. Who were those men that came while I was hiding in the closet? Who’s
he?”
She indicated Rourke lying on the floor. “What did you two mean when you talked about the law wanting me? What were you looking for when you searched my clothing?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I don’t know anything.” She stamped her foot again. “You sit here like a bump on a log acting as if you thought I was deaf and dumb.”

“Didn’t you hear what was said out here while you were in the closet?”

“Only a mumble-jumble that I couldn’t understand. What was in that letter you got from the messenger? Why did your friend go haywire after reading it, and what did he mean by Lacy’s piece of the claim check?
What
claim check? What’s all this mysterious stuff about the war and spies and stuff?”

Shayne leaned back and crossed his legs in a more comfortable position. “You’re putting on a pretty good act. Are you sure you didn’t do some dramatic bits when you were in the Scandals? You couldn’t get that good just by showing your legs in the chorus.”

“What do you mean by an act?”

“The whole thing,” Shayne growled. “The story you handed me this afternoon.”

Helen’s jaw sagged. The luster went out of her eyes. “You mean about—Charles Worthing?”

“And Helen Brinstead.” Shayne nodded. “That was a gag you and Lacy figured out together over in his hotel room—to provide a logical reason for coming here and persuading me to gun Morgan.”

“What makes you think it was a gag?”

“Your name isn’t Helen Brinstead,” Shayne told her in a reasonable tone. “It was Dalhart before you married Morgan. Why should you want to change it to Brinstead?”

“Oh, that.” She sucked in her lower lip and contrived to look quite innocent and girlish. “I admit it isn’t my real name. I didn’t want to go back to my maiden name after I separated from Mace, so I just, well—tagged on Brinstead for want of something better.

“You’re a fast-on-your-feet, rough-and-tumble liar,” Shayne said. “But you’ll have to really think fast to talk yourself out of this one. How did Helen Brinstead and Charles Worthing get their picture taken at the Stork Club in New York last Saturday night while you were in Miami?”

“How do you know they did?” she asked weakly.

He patted his coat pocket. “The telegram I just got. The picture is printed in Sunday’s
Mirror
—page fourteen—a two-column spread with all the dirt about Worthing’s divorce and his plan to marry the corespondent. That’s the piece clipped out of the paper lying on Lacy’s bed,” he reminded her. “It’s what gave you the idea for the sob story you thought might work on me.”

Helen Morgan sat with her eyes downcast, pulling and twisting a handkerchief in her lap.

“All right,” she began breathlessly. “It was a lie. But I was frantic, Mr. Shayne. You’ve got to understand that. My life was in danger every minute Mace stayed alive. You’ve got to believe me.” Tears sprang from her lowered lids and ran down her cheeks. She made no effort to check or hide them.

“So you and Lacy thought up that story together—after happening to see the picture and the item in the
Mirror?”

“Yes. It—oh, I admit it was a terrible thing to do. But I was desperate. I didn’t know what to do. Jim Lacy was afraid to go up against Mace. If you only knew the agony I’ve been through—” She was sobbing openly now, and she lifted her head to let him see her distorted face.

“And you tried to sucker me into killing Morgan for you. Then, when I was cagey, you figured another out. You came up here and undressed, so when Morgan came I’d be in a jam and either be forced to kill him myself or keep you in the clear if you did it. And it worked out just the way you figured it.”

“No! I swear I didn’t know Mace was coming. That’s a terrible thing to accuse me of.” She shuddered. “As though I’d planned it.”

“Yeh. They call it premeditated murder in front of a jury.”

“I didn’t do that. No matter what you think of me, I didn’t. But when Mace came and caught us—”

Shayne made a savage gesture to shut off her protestations. “That’s beside the point now. It worked out that way whether you planned it or not. Why don’t you turn off the waterworks and tell me the truth about a couple of things for a change?”

She sniffed loudly, trying to dry her tears with a wispy handkerchief. Shayne handed her a big linen handkerchief. He settled back and lit a cigarette, waiting for her to stop crying. When she blew her nose and gulped back a final sob, he asked matter-of-factly:

“Why did you think Mace would kill you if you didn’t get him first?”

“He threatened to. He had a terrible temper.”

“You were going to tell me the truth,” Shayne reminded her. “You were double-crossing him. You and Lacy. He found out about it and crashed out of stir to follow you here. You were afraid to turn him in as an escaped convict because you knew he’d turn canary and spoil the deal you and Lacy were working on together. That’s the way it reads—and that’s the
only
way it reads.”

Her face screwed up for crying again, but after studying Shayne’s stony features for a moment, she nodded and said, “It was—sort of like that. But I didn’t intend to double-cross Mace. I would have saved his part for him until he got out of jail.”

“But you couldn’t make him believe it?” Shayne prodded her relentlessly.

“No. He—he wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell him I was doing it for him.”

Shayne laughed. “Knew you too well to swallow a lie like that, eh? I suppose he gave you his part of the claim check when they sent him up the river?”

“Yes. He gave it to me to keep for him. But I didn’t know what it was. He wouldn’t tell me—except that it was something important.”

“Where is it now?”