The Uncomplaining Corpses (17 page)

Evidently not.
Sure, he had gone off his
kazip
and said some things he didn’t mean up there in the apartment. That shouldn’t have mattered either. A man says things he doesn’t mean—

Shayne felt wholly alone for the first time in his life. It wasn’t a good feeling. He had played a lone game in the past but there had always been that good inward feeling that he had one friend who was backing him to the limit and beyond. Well, he knew where Gentry stood now. That was something. Mike Shayne had never been one to sugar-coat distasteful facts. Part of his lone wolf tactics in the past had been the result of pride. There had been a savage thrill in playing fast and loose against every conventional morality and coming out on top against tremendous odds. That thrill was gone now. He was up against something different.

He wondered where in
God’s name Phyllis was
.

Despite the warmth of the Miami night he shivered. Wanting Phyllis was a physical pain that stabbed through the whole length of him. What had actually happened up in that apartment before the police came? He had lied about the time
Renslow
left the Tally-Ho. He didn’t know what time it was. He hadn’t looked at his watch. It had been an instinctive lie to gain a little time to think things out.

Had
Renslow
reached the apartment after murder was done? The pistol had been fired only once. He couldn’t be sure, of course, but it looked exactly like the automatic Dora had brought to his apartment to kill him with—the pistol that had disappeared from the desk drawer coincident with Phyllis’s departure.

Dora had fired one bullet from that pistol into the ceiling. Let them trace it to her—

If
Phyl
had gone to the apartment with Meldrum for his midnight interview and then been forced to resist an attack with the empty cognac bottle, why had she ducked out? That wasn’t like Phyllis.

Still, Shayne had seen too much killing to figure it that way. The reaction to violent death causes people to do all sorts of crazy, impulsive things.

Why in hell hadn’t he laid his cards on the table before Gentry? Those scraps of paper in his pocket were plenty to convict Buell
Renslow
of two murders. Was it because suppression of that evidence was worth a million dollars to
Renslow
? Was that the subconscious motivation that had prompted him to keep his mouth shut?

He didn’t know. Mike Shayne had always tried to be honest with
himself
. He tried now, but it was no go. He discovered that no man can honestly say what impulse motivates a certain action. Maybe he was willing to throw Phyllis over for a million dollars. Gentry thought so. Maybe Gentry knew him better than Shayne knew himself.

He was nearing the lights of downtown Miami and he slowed to get a grip on
himself
. He couldn’t go to his hotel. He hoped Phyllis would know she had been recognized and wouldn’t go there.

He turned off the boulevard at Third Street, and parked his roadster in an all-night parking-lot. On foot, he made his way to an obscure side-street hotel where he kept his hat pulled low over his eyes and signed the register as Horatio Ramsey. The sleepy-eyed clerk assured him it would be possible to get a bottle of cognac when Shayne shoved a five-dollar bill across the desk, and the detective went up to a second-floor room where he jerked windows open to let a night breeze drive out the musty air.

He then went to a wall telephone and called his apartment hotel. The switchboard operator was off duty after midnight and the night clerk took the call. Shayne got a funny gurgle over the wire when he said, “Mike Shayne talking.”

The clerk said nervously, “I see. Just a minute while I step inside and look that up for you.”

Shayne waited, frowning at the cracked and yellow plaster in front of him. After a couple of minutes the clerk’s voice came cautiously:

“Mr. Shayne, I was afraid to talk to you out there. The lobby—it’s full of cops and—”

“I know. They’re looking for me. What about Mrs. Shayne? Has she showed up or called?”

“Y-yes.
That’s what I wanted to tell you. They just arrested her. They’ve been waiting all evening and they grabbed her when she came in. Some of them are staying in the hope that you’ll show up.”

Shayne said, “They’ll have a long wait. Thanks. Forget this call.” He hung up, scowling darkly.

There was a knock at his door and he opened it cautiously. A boy stood there with a package. Shayne took it, closed the door, and worried the cork of a cognac bottle with his teeth. He held it tipped to his mouth for a long time, then moved across to the bed and sat down heavily.

His mouth wasn’t dry any longer. At least he knew where Phyllis was. And, no matter what he had said to Gentry in anger, he knew the Miami police would make it as easy on her as they could.

He tilted the bottle again. He wasn’t cold any more. A fevered glow was spreading out from the pit of his stomach. His brain was beginning to work again. He wasn’t whipped yet—he still held a few trumps. Played right, he might start raking in a few tricks for a change.

Another drink would help him think things out. He took one, and it did.

Chapter Seventeen:
A HELL OF A TIME FOR VISITING

SHAYNE ORDERED A POT OF PASTE and the hotel clerk sent it up at once. Taking a sheet of stationery from a scarred writing-table in one corner of his room, Shayne spread the torn strips of Meldrum’s note out on the bed and went to work putting them together. It went much faster this time because he knew the words and letter combinations to look for. After laying every strip in its proper place, he carefully pasted them on the sheet of hotel stationery.

He took another drink and studied the result approvingly. Completed, the note clearly read:

I saw you murder Mrs.
Thrip
. I’m willing to talk it over at midnight if you will meet me at 306 Terrace Apts. Otherwise I am going to the police.

Carl Meldrum.

There it was.
A definite invitation to murder.
Meldrum was clearly a fool, or still doped up, to have sent such a note. Or else he had woefully underestimated the man he sought to blackmail. He should have known that a man who had killed once would kill again to save himself.

Shayne shook his head fretfully. He wouldn’t have guessed that Meldrum was foolhardy enough to invite attack upon
himself
.

Still, as Mike recollected the man’s early-morning condition, his mind might not have been clear, in spite of the fact that he had gone out with Phyllis and appeared to be normal. And there was enough money involved for him to feel confident that the murderer would come across with plenty to silence the witness. After all,
Renslow
had mentioned a million to Shayne tonight. And with Mona Tabor on Meldrum’s trail checking up for her share in what he might get from the
Thrip
girl or elsewhere—maybe Meldrum risked a lot to pay Mona off and be free.

The detective lay back on the bed and clasped big-knuckled hands behind his head, closed his eyes, and went back over the facts in the light of what he had learned today.

Meldrum’s curious actions, which had appeared to be motivated by guilt, might be explained as well by this evidence that he had witnessed the crime. He must have been with Dorothy in her room, Shayne theorized, and in leaving had been attracted by the sounds of a death struggle in Mrs.
Thrip’s
bedroom. Hating the victim, he would not be likely to interfere, but must have watched unseen from the doorway, then hurried downstairs with a secret which he knew was worth plenty of money to him if the murderer went otherwise unsuspected. He had been hurried to the Tally-Ho and arranged with Mona to fix him an alibi for the crime he had seen committed; then he had telephoned Dorothy and told her what to testify about his movements.

Why hadn’t he been afraid Dorothy would suspect him of the crime? Probably he didn’t care what she thought. He knew how she hated her stepmother.

In the meantime, unsuspecting, Joe Darnell had entered through the library window on schedule and crept upstairs to grab the thousand dollars
Thrip
had put out for him. Unluckily, he must have stepped into the bedroom just in time to be caught by Mr.
Thrip
. It would be only natural for Joe to go close to the woman to make sure his eyes didn’t deceive him—that she was actually dead.
Thrip
would quite naturally shoot him down as the murderer of his wife without giving him an opportunity to explain.

Shayne moved restlessly and the bed creaked. He nodded his head slowly. It all hung together now. This pieced-together note was as good as a death warrant for Buell
Renslow
.

All he needed to do was to call Will Gentry and turn the note over to him. It would be a simple matter to get hold of the Tally-Ho callboy who had delivered it—and maybe some witnesses who had noticed
Renslow’s
reaction and seen him tear it up and hurry out—

The thing was cut and dried. Another closed case with Joe Darnell absolved—an ex-convict convicted of double murder by overwhelming weight of evidence and public opinion.

Shayne grinned suddenly, thinking of Phyllis. This would absolve her of any guilt. He felt immensely relieved, but he grinned again, thinking that a little time in jail would make her think twice hereafter before pulling any more impulsive stunts trying to help him out. And there was another pleasant angle. His revenge on Peter Painter would be sweet after that inconsequential jackass had shot off his mouth so freely to the public and the press on the subject of Darnell’s guilt.

But revenge didn’t pay dividends, no matter how sweet it might be, and Michael Shayne had taken upon himself the obligations of a family man. What was there in the case for him? The taxpayers didn’t pay him a salary for sitting on his butt and letting another man solve crimes for him, as they did to Peter Painter.

He shook his head worriedly, rubbing his chin and staring down blankly at the incriminating message. Hell!
there
had to be a cash angle if he could just see it. It was too simple this way.
Nothing to get a man’s teeth into.
Shayne was accustomed to taking cases in his two hands and wringing them until some cash popped out. He couldn’t rid himself of the thought of that million
Renslow
would pay to beat the rap. It seemed a damned shame to throw that away—to let
Renslow’s
half of the
estate revert
to Arnold
Thrip
and his pair of no-good youngsters.

Shayne lit a cigarette and lay back on the creaking bed again to close his eyes and pass the whole thing in review. There had to be cash angle. His pride belligerently demanded that there be something in it for Mike Shayne.

He lay flat on his back for a long time, closing his eyes between puffs on his cigarette. The ashes fell off and dropped on his neck and chin. There was still that aching void inside his belly that had come when Gentry turned against him. He was sorry it had to be that way, but since it was—

Suddenly he heaved himself up, his eyes wide and bright. He paced back and forth excitedly in the narrow confines of the hotel room while minute details clicked into place.

Through, was he? Washed up in Miami?
Maybe.
But he didn’t think so. Not yet, by God.

He went out of his room and downstairs to the lobby. He woke the sleeping clerk and explained that he had to type an important message. The clerk yawned and pointed out a typewriter in the inner office.

Shayne went in and sat down at the desk, rolled a sheet of hotel paper in the typewriter, and wrote:

Angel:

I’m afraid to try to call you or come to the apartment because I’ve got a hunch Painter is laying for me. If you receive this all right, try to slip away and come to me here. I’m registered as Horatio Ramsey. Don’t let them follow you.

Love, Mike,

He slid the sheet of paper into an envelope and addressed it with ink to Mrs. Michael Shayne at their hotel. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the clerk was dozing again, found a plain sheet of paper with no letterhead, and rolled it into the machine. On this sheet he typed:

That damn private dick is finding out too much about last night. I’m going to have to skip without collecting from the girl. You’ll make plenty off it and it’s up to you to come across. If you don’t give me getaway money and a split on the rest I’ll swear you hired me to choke her. And don’t try any rough stuff because I’m leaving a letter to be opened in case of my death telling how you planned it all and forced me to do it. Meet me at 306 Terrace Apartments at midnight.

Shayne rolled this out of the typewriter and slid it into his pocket. He went out to the clerk with the sealed envelope in his hand and the clerk called a dozing bellboy. Shayne gave him the envelope with a dollar bill and explicit instructions to deliver the note to Mrs. Shayne at the address written there, and to no one else.

He then hurried back to his room and went to work swiftly. He still had Meldrum’s address book with samples of the dead man’s handwriting. With that open before him, and with the patched-up signature on the authentic note, he forged Meldrum’s name to the message he had just typed. He then tore it into strips, pasting each strip in sequence on a sheet of hotel paper.

When that was accomplished, he folded it carefully and placed it in his inside coat pocket. He rolled the mattress back and cut a slit in the bottom of the ticking and secreted the real note from Meldrum accusing
Renslow
of murder. Smoothing back the covers, he tilted a straight-backed chair against the wall and settled to await the results of his maneuverings.

He didn’t have to wait long. A slow grin spread over his face when he heard the heavy tramp of feet in the corridor outside his room.

He turned the cognac bottle up and took a short drink while men stopped outside his door and held a whispered consultation. Then there was a loud, authoritative knock, and Shayne leisurely lit a cigarette.