The Uncomplaining Corpses (11 page)

Shayne’s frown deepened. He paid no attention to her. “We’ve got to have somebody with a motive
and
opportunity,” he announced. He looked at
Renslow
suddenly and asked, “How about those notes you wrote your sister?
Any chance of their being traced back to you?”

Renslow’s
jaw sagged, his eyes keenly defensive. “What notes?”

“I thought we were through playing round the mulberry bush. We’re going to have to get together if we put this thing over right.”

“Sure. That’s what I say. But I don’t know anything about any notes.” He muttered, and took another drink.

Shayne said angrily, “The hell you don’t. If you’re going to hold out on me I’m through, by God.” He got up and started for the door, his jaw jutting.

“Wait,”
Renslow
begged. “Don’t go running out on me. Honest to God, I’m giving it to you straight
What
notes are you talking about?”

Shayne stopped near the door. He half turned back, looking from
Renslow
to Mona with an expression of slowly dawning understanding. “Maybe you didn’t,
Renslow
, maybe you didn’t. Then that gives it to us on a platter.” He came back slamming his fist into an open palm. “That puts it up to Carl Meldrum. He fits right in the groove.”

He was watching Mona closely from low-lidded eyes. He saw her body jerk. Liqueur spilled from her glass.

“Carl Meldrum?”
Renslow
repeated.
“Yeah.
He fits swell and he as good as told me there was something between him and
Leora
.”

“He’s got Dorothy
Thrip
on the string,” Shayne explained swiftly. He continued to watch Mona while he spoke to
Renslow
. “He got tired of waiting for her stepmother to die and leave the girl money so he could marry her and get his hands on it.”

Mona drained her glass and threw it on the floor. “That’s a lie,” she cried passionately. “Do you think I’m going to sit here and let you frame Carl? That’s too much! Sure, he was playing the girl for what he could get, but don’t you think he wasn’t coming home when she paid off.”

“He was there at one-thirty last night,” Shayne told her. “He beat it to the Tally-Ho and told you to fix him up an alibi from one o’clock on.”

“That’s another lie,” Mona raged. Her splendid poise was gone again. “It’s all a pack of lies. He got to the Tally-Ho at one o’clock. I can prove it by half a dozen witnesses.”

“Sure,” Shayne said easily. “You’re a sap and fixed it for him. You’ve been a sap all this time and don’t know it. Get wise. He’s just using you.”

“If I believed that, I’d—” She leaned toward the men, making talons of her long, red-tipped fingers.

“It’s the truth,” Shayne urged. “Here’s your chance to get even. Bust his alibi for last night—that’s all I ask. I’ll do the rest.” His eyes glittered and his voice was hard.

“All right.
Sure, I’ll—
No!
Get out of here, you rat. Get out before I get sore.” She tottered to her feet and began to mouth out an assortment of curses.

Shayne gave her a push that sent her floundering back onto the divan.

“Think it over,” he said coldly. “Get your eyes open and think over what we’ve said.”

She lay back panting, her eyes distended with hatred and fear.

“If you don’t watch your step I’ll see if I can’t pin the murder on you,” Shayne growled. “I’m hanging the rap around somebody’s neck, and don’t forget it.”

He whirled and went from the room.

Chapter Twelve:
DRUNK AS A SKUNK

WHEN SHAYNE WALKED INTO THE LOBBY of his apartment hotel the clerk had the afternoon
News
spread out on the desk and was reading Shayne’s statement and story, which was prominently displayed. The clerk looked up and smiled nervously when the tall detective came across the lobby with the exaggerated erectness of a man who is very drunk and knows it.

“Gee, Mr. Shayne,” the clerk said, “I’m sorry about the way I acted this morning. I’ve been reading here in the paper—”

“Still believing what you read in the papers, eh?” Shayne’s wide lips twitched. There was a brooding quality of madness in the stare of his bloodshot eyes upon the younger man. Then he made a savage gesture of impatience, dismissing the subject, and stood flat-footed, swaying a trifle from the hips. The sink between his cheek and chin bones was exaggerated into a deep gash.

“Has my wife come back—or phoned?”

“No, sir.”
The clerk kept jerking his gaze away from Shayne’s face, then furtively letting his eyes slide back to a Michael Shayne he had never seen before. Finally getting hold of himself, the young man added, “But you’ve got a visitor—a client, I guess. I sent him up to your office. He wouldn’t give me his name but he looked a lot like the
Thrip
boy’s picture in the morning paper.”

Shayne nodded with no show of surprise. “I’ll go up, Jim.” He started to turn away, paused, and added in a flat, remote tone, “Don’t ever get married, Jim.”

The clerk gaped after him as he went straight to the elevator, which was letting a load of guests out just then. One fat lady didn’t get out of his way very fast. His shoulder swung her sideways and her escort caught her from falling, steadied her, and started after the detective with an indignant yelp, but Shayne stepped into the elevator without looking back and said, “Three,” to the operator, who shrank away from him and clanged the door shut hastily.

On the third floor Shayne’s feet traversed the familiar route to his old bachelor apartment. The door stood ajar and Ernst
Thrip
jumped up nervously from a deep chair when Shayne came in on heavy heels. The boy opened and closed his mouth two or three times without making any sound.

After one uninterested glance, Shayne disregarded his visitor. He moved with the precise somnambulism of habit to a wall liquor cabinet and took down a bottle of cognac and a wineglass. He brushed past young
Thrip
to set them on the center table, then strode into the kitchen, where he put ice cubes in a goblet, filled it from the faucet, and came back to set it beside the bottle and smaller glass. His face wore a harsh, preoccupied expression that took no notice of the other’s presence. He poured a drink, lit a cigarette, and sat down at the table with the manner of an acolyte performing a ritual of tremendous importance.

Ernst
Thrip
had stopped opening and closing his mouth, but the appearance of extreme youth and unintelligence clung to him even while he kept his mouth shut. He had changed from evening clothes to a tan sack suit, and dark rings in the flesh under his eyes asserted that he had not slept for a long time. Smoke curled up past his face from a cigarette in a long ornate holder and his eyelids and lips kept twitching while he waited for Shayne to acknowledge his presence.

Shayne downed a stiff drink of cognac and a swallow of water. He took a deep drag on his cigarette and let thin smoke curl out his wide nostrils. Staring across the room past Ernst
Thrip
, he said, “Sit down,” in a wearied, gentle tone.

The lad’s eyes brightened. He sank down in the chair he had been occupying before Shayne entered. “You acted so peculiar,” young
Thrip
faltered, “I didn’t know—”

Shayne said, “I’m drunk as a skunk.” He took another long drink of cognac and didn’t look at the boy.

In a high, thin voice, Ernst said, “I came to talk to you—that is—I’ve been reading what you said in the
News.”
He jumped up from his chair and circled it, then sat down on the edge and leaned forward to crush out his cigarette in an ash tray. His gaze clung imploringly to the detective’s harried face.

“A lot of people have been reading that stuff and getting hot flashes over it.” Shayne emptied his cognac glass and set it down.

Ernst’s long, effeminate lashes came down over his eyes in a semblance of coy confusion. He shakily inserted a fresh cigarette in his holder and lit it.

“What did you mean by it? What—did you
mean?”
He jumped up from his chair again, stood as if poised to make a hasty exit.

“I didn’t stutter,” said Shayne shortly.

“What makes you think that man didn’t do it?” Ernst panted. “What clues have you got?” He sat down again and puffed on his cigarette, blowing smoke out in short, jerky whiffs.

“I’m not just thinking,” Shayne told him placidly. “I know Darnell didn’t squeeze your stepmother’s throat.” He poured another drink into his glass, held it up to let afternoon sunlight spill through the amber liquid while he viewed it with unqualified approval.

“Do you know who did?”

“I’m beginning to get a damned good idea. Ultimate evaluations are eluding me for the moment. Perhaps another drink—”

Shayne lifted his glass and sipped from it with a questing look on his face. He nodded with conviction. “Yes—another drink—or two—or three—will undoubtedly remove the final barriers, roll away the nimbus of doubt and perplexity, and my brilliant intuition and talent for deduction, unhampered by mundane considerations—”

Ernst jumped up again. Excitedly he said, “You’re drunk, all right. Drunk enough to think you’re awful damn smart. I know what you think. Why don’t you come out and say it? Why don’t—”

Shayne emptied his glass and threw it hard against the wall, paid no heed to the shattered spray of flecked glass on the floor. He glared directly at the young man for the first time since entering the room and demanded:

“What in God’s name is eating you? Quit bobbing up and down like a chaperon at a picnic and say what you’ve got to say. I’ve got some drinking to do and I do it better alone.”

Ernst 
Thrip
 dropped back into his chair and stared sullenly at Shayne. “You’ve been talking to that Carl Meldrum,” he choked out. “Don’t believe anything he tells you. He’s lying to save himself. If it wasn’t that other man, I bet it was Carl. I knew he was lying when he wouldn’t let me go right up—” The youth paused suddenly, clamping a slim hand over his mouth and shrinking away from Shayne, who had come alert.

“He wouldn’t let you go right up? You mean last night when you came home?”

“No—I—I don’t know what I mean. But it wasn’t Dorothy. It couldn’t have been Dot. She’s so gentle and good—”

Shayne lunged to his feet, leaned over Ernst with lips drawn back from his teeth. “She’s gentle and good like a rattlesnake, you poor 
simp
. You’re jealous of Carl, aren’t you? Don’t try to deny it. And this morning she was trying to get you to lie about last night. Don’t try to lie to me. You’re not cut out for lying. Spill it, kid! Spill it quick.”

“No—no! What you’re saying about Dot isn’t true.”

Deliberately, Shayne slapped him backhanded. Ernst’s head jerked sideways and he began to cry.

Shayne swayed upright. “You’re behind the eight ball, son,” he muttered, not unkindly. “You’re a fool if you protect either Dorothy or Carl Meldrum. Hell, do you think either of them would lift a finger to help you? Tell me the truth about last night. When you came in you met Carl coming out—that it? And he stopped you from going on upstairs. And you suspect it was because he and Dorothy had framed your stepmother’s death together. Maybe they heard you coming and he hurried down to stop you while she went ahead and finished up the job.”

“No! No, damn you. Don’t say that!” Ernst dragged himself up in his chair with an effort toward dignity that was ruined by the tears running down his face. “Dot couldn’t have had anything to do with it. She’s just shielding him. I know she is. He’s got some strange power over her and she isn’t herself any more.”

Shayne grunted disgustedly. He turned away and went unsteadily to the wall cupboard where he got two glasses and brought them back to the table. Filling both, he offered Ernst one, saying gruffly, “Put that in your belly and buck up.”

“No, I—I couldn’t drink it straight.” Ernst grimaced and shuddered. There were red splotches on his yellowish cheek where Shayne had slapped him.

The big detective shrugged and set the glass down. He sipped from the other one and said irritably:

“All right, pull yourself together your own way. And stop your sniveling and your silly attempts to lie. If you didn’t think your precious sister had a hand in it you wouldn’t be here right now. You’re damn sure not trying to cover up for Carl.” He dropped heavily into a chair, got out a cigarette, and stabbed the end of it aimlessly at his mouth while his eyes stalked the cringing youth before him.

“I came to see you because—I felt Carl was trying to drag Dorothy into it. I told her she shouldn’t lie for him. I knew you’d find out he hadn’t left when she said he did.” He stopped to catch his breath and Shayne put in:

“Let me get one or two things straight for a change. Did Carl Meldrum meet you at the door when you came home last night?”

Ernst nodded sullenly. “And he wouldn’t let me go upstairs at first. He grabbed me and started saying a lot of silly things and I thought he was just trying to detain me so that—well, so I wouldn’t find out—”

“All right.
 I get the picture. So you wouldn’t hurry up to your sister’s room and find out she wasn’t there.”

“Yes, she was. She was, too. She was just undressing.”

“Or dressing,” Shayne put in cynically.
 “You’re still not quite sure which. 
All right.
 How soon afterward was the shot fired?”

“I—don’t know. Not very long, I guess. We were—talking in Dot’s room.”

Shayne nodded. He said calmly, “That all ties up nicely.” He paused, tugging at the lobe of his left ear, 
then
 asked, “Is there a telephone extension in your upstairs sitting-room?”

“Yes.”

“What time was it that Dorothy got the call she wouldn’t tell you about?”

“It was while the police—
What
 call are you talking about?”

“The same one you are,” Shayne assured him pleasantly. He emptied his glass of cognac. To all outward appearances he was cold sober. Mental stimulus had a way of doing that to him. It counteracted the influence of alcohol, driving the stupor from his brain and leaving it clear and alert.

“It was after she got the call that she told you to lie about when Carl left,” Shayne went on in a musing tone. “You argued about it but she won you over. She and Carl were in it together, of course.”

Ernst came to his feet suddenly. “You’ve said that once too often. I told you I wouldn’t stand for it.” His face was contorted and his eyes were like the eyes of a rat in a trap. “I came here to find out what your newspaper accusations mean,” he panted. 
“All right.
 You’re not going to pin it on Dot. You’re not, I say.”

He moved away from Shayne, reeling across the room, dropping into a half crouch. His hand went into his hip pocket and brought out a .32 automatic.

In a hoarse whisper, Shayne said, “Drop it, you fool.”

“I won’t. I’m going to kill you.” Ernst 
Thrip
 was speaking in a whisper also. There was slobber on his lips.

The telephone shrilled out between them in the silence.

Shayne’s eyes darted to the wall instrument. He put his hands flat on the table top and pushed himself up slowly.

“Don’t you move a step,” Ernst cried out in shrill warning. “It’s one of your tricks.”

The telephone kept on ringing.

Shayne swung toward Ernst abruptly. In a thick voice he said, “I’m going to answer that phone.”

He took a quick stride forward and a sibilant gasp escaped Ernst’s lips. There was a loud report in the room and a bullet stung Shayne’s thigh.

He whirled and lunged at the youth, who was looking down at the smoking weapon in his hands as though he didn’t know how it got there, Shayne’s rush slammed him to his knees and the detective’s fist crunched against the side of his head. Ernst slid to the floor and lay inert.

The telephone had stopped ringing when Shayne got to it.

He jerked the receiver off the hook and said, “Hello.”

The hotel clerk’s voice answered apologetically. “I’m sorry, Mr. Shayne, but your wife must have hung up or she was disconnected.”

“My—wife?”
 Shayne repeated.

“Yes, sir.
 She seemed excited and in a hurry and I tried to get you right away on both phones.”

“She didn’t say anything? 
Where she was—or anything?”

“No. She waited to talk to you when I told her you were here.”

Shayne said, “Thanks,” in a flat voice and hung up. Sweat dripped from new lines in his face as he walked slowly back to the table. He picked up the drink he had poured for Ernst and emptied it in one gulp.

Then he looked across at the young man, who was struggling to get to his feet, and said, “I think I’m going to kill you. You baby-faced twerp, do you know what you’ve done? You don’t know—and you don’t care, do you? You’re so swelled out with your own filthy affairs that you’re not worrying about anything else.”

Shayne advanced toward him slowly, knotted fists hanging loosely by his sides. Ernst cringed away, scrambling on the floor for the pistol that had fallen from his fingers. Shayne waited until he got hold of it, then very deliberately took a quick stride and brought his big foot down on the hand over the pistol. Ernst squealed with pain as blood oozed from crushed fingers. Shayne laughed.

“You stinking little louse.
 What gives people like you the idea that they can walk in here and throw slugs at me for the fun of it and then go out under their own power? And stop me from answering my own telephone under gun threats? Answer me that!”