The Uncomplaining Corpses (7 page)

She blinked at the tear, staring down at Phyllis with feral intensity.

“It
ain’t
right,” she said tonelessly. “It
ain’t
fair.
Other people having everything and me with nothing.
Not even Joe. Not even a father for my baby.” She threw Phyllis’s hand away suddenly and her fingers dived into her shabby black bag.

Her hand came out clutching a tiny, stubby automatic and it was pointing upward at Shayne before he saw it.

Phyllis gasped and threw herself against the girl’s legs as the automatic spurted flame. A bullet whizzed past the detective’s face and buried itself in the ceiling.

Phyllis’s hand closed over Dora’s and she struggled with her for the weapon. Shayne stepped backward and watched them, amazement and pride fighting for precedence on his face.

His lips twitched in a broad grin when Phyllis settled back with the pistol in her possession while Dora slumped down sobbing.

“What are you grinning about?” Phyllis panted. “Why, you—she might have killed you.”

“Not while I have such an able protector.” He held out his hand. “Better give me that toy before it does some damage.”

Reluctantly, Phyllis dropped the .25 into his palm. Then she got up and bent over Dora, patting her shaking shoulders and comforting her with low words.

Shayne went to a desk in the corner and dropped the pistol into a drawer. He went back and kissed Phyllis’s hair and muttered, “You’re pretty swell doings, angel. I’ll leave you two gals to fight it out.”

Tears were rolling down Phyllis’s own cheeks when he went out and left them together.

Chapter Eight:
THE GHOST OF MURDER PAST

A HORSE-FACED BUTLER WITH SOLEMN EYES opened the
Thrip
door for Shayne. Before the detective could speak he murmured, “I beg your pardon, sir, but you are not perhaps aware there has been an—ah—tragedy here and I don’t believe—”

“I’m fully aware of it,” Shayne assured him pleasantly, pressing forward.

The butler gave way reluctantly, protesting, “Mr.
Thrip
is indisposed and has given strict orders that no one is to be admitted.”

“He’ll see me. But first I want to ask you a couple of questions about the man who was killed in your mistress’s room last night. Did you admit him at five when he first came?”

“Yes, sir.”
The butler’s long nose quivered and his watery eyes turned a paler blue. “I’ll never forgive myself for not sending him about his business as I was tempted to do. I judged him to be a low criminal type but I knew Mr.
Thrip
was expecting a detective and I guessed immediately that the man belonged in that category. But my first impression proved correct, sir, and I shouldn’t have allowed—”

“Exactly what did he say when he asked for Mr.
Thrip
?” Shayne broke in impatiently.

“He said he had an appointment—that a man named Shayne had sent him. As I have already reported to the police—”

“All right.”
Shayne cut him off. “So you took him to
Thrip
. What then?”

“I have no idea, sir. I’m sure I don’t know what you mean
nor
why these questions should be directed at me.” The man folded his arms with solemn dignity.

“I’m trying to find out who killed Mrs.
Thrip
,” Shayne said bluntly. “If you’re interested in helping, you’ll answer my questions truthfully.”

The butler’s jaw sagged. Anger turned his gaunt cheeks a rosy hue. “I don’t know who you are
nor
what right you have to question me.”

“I’m Shayne,” the detective growled. “And don’t start accusing me of murder or I’ll slough you one. I’m tired of getting the run-around.”

The butler pulled the door open and pointed outside. “If I may suggest—”

“You may, and to hell with you.” Shayne set himself solidly with his jaw jutting. “You’ll either give me information or I’ll beat it out of you.”

“Y-yes, sir.”
The butler gulped. His Adam’s apple slid up and down rapidly.

“Where did
Thrip
talk to Darnell—in which room?”

“In the library, sir.”

“Alone?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“And it was the library window that was found open later in the night?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

Shayne said, “H-m-m.”

“If I may say so, it is my theory that the criminal unlatched the window while he waited in there for Mr.
Thrip
to come down. I suggested that possibility to the police and they concurred heartily.”

“You’re a big help,” Shayne muttered, “All right, let’s get on from there. Did they go out of the library after their conference? Together, I mean.”

“If my memory serves me right, Mr.
Thrip
showed the fellow over the upstairs, probably in the belief that the man could fulfill his duties more efficiently if he was acquainted—”

“Leave your conjectures out of it,” Shayne snapped. “Was Mrs.
Thrip
at home when the man was here?”

“No, sir.
She arrived some time later. She inquired about the man you were to send and appeared deeply gratified when I informed
her the
fellow had talked with Mr.
Thrip
earlier and had departed.”

“Who locks up at night?”

“It is one of my duties, but Mr.
Thrip
is often in the library late and he allows me to retire without closing up in there.”

“Is that what happened last night?”

“Yes, sir.
Otherwise I would have tested all the windows and the tragedy might have been averted.”

Shayne changed the subject abruptly, asking him about the other servants.

There were, it appeared, two maids, a cook, and the chauffeur besides the butler employed in the
Thrip
mansion. They all slept on the third floor and the butler said they had all retired about 11:30. The butler explained that the corps of servants was quite inadequate to the duties to be performed, and that they were usually tired and retired early. The servants were aware of a strain upon the household and it was impossible for them not to learn of existing conditions by a word overheard here and there. They were a little on edge and nervous, but they had been given to understand that there was a private detective guarding the house and all of them had slept more soundly than on any night since Mrs.
Thrip
began receiving the threatening notes.

After learning that Mr.
Thrip
had been left in the library, that Mrs.
Thrip
was in her bedroom, and that Dorothy and Ernst were out last night instead of “having a gang in the house,” Shayne demanded to be taken to Mr.
Thrip
.

With a be-it-on-your-own-head look on his long face, the butler acquiesced and led Shayne up the stairs, past the closed door of the fatal room, and to a door standing ajar just beyond.

The man started to rap, but Shayne caught his arm and pulled it back when he heard
Thrip
talking to someone inside. Pushing the butler aside after a gesture commanding perfect quiet, Shayne opened the door silently and walked into a living-room connecting two bedrooms, a duplicate of the one across the hall between Dorothy and Ernst’s rooms.

Thrip
was talking over the telephone. He sat in a low chair with his back to the door. He wore a dressing-gown of black satin with yellow piping. Smoke curled up from a partly smoked cigar in an elaborate smoking-stand beside the chair,
Moving
silently forward on the thick rug, Shayne saw that the French phone was a jade color ornamented with gold.

“Why don’t you come out in the open so that I can know what I’m fighting?”
Thrip
was saying
irritatedly
. “Your veiled threats mean nothing to me. I won’t listen further to such nonsense. Reveal your identity and I’ll deal with you.”

Shayne was standing behind
Thrip
when he clicked the instrument on its prongs and turned to pick up his cigar.

It was as if
Thrip
felt rather than heard Shayne in the room. He turned, frowned, and demanded fretfully, “How did you get in and what do you mean by eavesdropping?”

“I’m a detective,” Shayne’s wide mouth curved in a sardonic grin. “I didn’t want to interrupt your interesting conversation so I waited until you finished.”

“You’re well supplied with brazen effrontery, Shayne,” the realtor observed bitingly. “After what took place in the next room last night I should think you’d hesitate to show your face in my house.”

Shayne laughed shortly. He slouched down into a chair and ill a cigarette. “Granting that Darnell did choke your wife, you’re as much to blame as I am,
Thrip
.”

Thrip’s
face turned darkly florid. His
underlip
trembled like a pendulum gone out of control. “You’d better leave, Shayne. I don’t propose to listen to your insults.”

“I’m staying, and you’ll listen to what I have to say.” He crossed his long legs and settled his left arm comfortably. He took a deep puff from his cigarette, emitted smoke slowly, and said, “Don’t forget that I know why Darnell was here—why he jimmied the window and—the reason for his coming upstairs at an early hour in the morning.”

Thrip
tucked his cigar into the pouch of his thick lips, took a deep puff before replying. “I’ve explained to the police and they’re satisfied. You sent him in response to my request for a guard because of the threatening notes my wife had been receiving lately.”

Shayne simulated amazement. “Is that the story you cooked up? I wondered how you were going to get around the truth.”

“You will make matters very difficult for yourself if you contradict my story. You have no proof to the contrary and the police have the threatening notes.”
Thrip
leaned back in the low chair. A long breath wheezed through his nostrils.

“You mean there actually were some notes?” Shayne leaned forward attentively.

“Of course.
As I am prepared to take oath, I explained to you yesterday afternoon.”

Their eyes met briefly.
Thrip’s
were calmly triumphant.

Shayne’s bushy red brows came down over half-closed gray eyes. He wondered whether
Thrip
knew of his wife’s visit to his apartment yesterday.

“I begin to see your game,” Shayne said slowly. “I suppose not even your wife knew the true reason for Darnell’s presence here last night?”

“Naturally not.”
Thrip
spoke with irritation. “A matter like that cannot be conducted without the utmost secrecy. Do you suppose my wife would have agreed to
converting
her jewels into cash? Not
Leora
. It made no difference to her that I needed a large sum of money desperately to swing a big deal.”

Shayne leaned back comfortably and changed the position of his legs. “I’m just beginning to realize what a scoundrel you are,
Thrip
. You not only planned to defraud the insurance company, but also to steal your wife’s jewels and make her think the robbery genuine. By God, I’m beginning to think you did have a perfect crime planned. Too bad an accident had to upset it.”

“My wife,” said
Thrip
coldly, “was mean and tyrannical. Since our marriage she has derived the most intense pleasure from being in a position to force me and my children to go to her for any sum of money beyond the inadequate allowances she grudgingly doled out. Not only was I refused the appointment as administrator of her deceased father’s estate, but she humiliated me by keeping control of every dollar of the income in her own hands.”

“It was her money,” Shayne snapped.

Thrip
sat back in his chair looking straight ahead.

Shayne studied his pudgy face. He could clearly imagine the obsession the man had built up through the years into a persecution complex.
Thrip
honestly felt he had grounds for righteous indignation at being refused control of his wife’s property. To such a man, Shayne cogitated, and with such a grievance, a plan to defraud both his wife and an insurance company would appear both reasonable and just.

Shayne lit another cigarette and nodded as if in response to his deductions. “All right,” he said, “I get the picture. I don’t know that I blame you for taking steps. And I don’t blame you for keeping the truth concealed when things turned out as they did. As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t help my position any if it came out that I was conniving with you to pull a fake robbery of your wife’s jewels. Don’t worry about me talking out of turn. But what about those threatening notes you mention? Where are they?”

“I turned them over to Mr. Painter this morning. There were three of them, threatening bodily harm to
Leora
unless she agreed to pay a hundred thousand dollars to the writer.”

“Anonymous?” Shayne asked casually.

“They were unsigned. She was directed to indicate her willingness to pay the sum demanded by placing an advertisement in the personal column of a newspaper.”

“And she didn’t do this?”

“She refused. As I have explained, my wife was not one to part with money easily. She pretended to dismiss the notes as the work of a harmless crank at first. Later she admitted she was worried and suggested we place the matter in the hands of a private detective. I confess my nervousness yesterday when she came to my office unexpectedly, but fortunately she spoke in such vague terms that you remained deceived.” There was a note of gratification in
Thrip’s
voice as though he preened himself on his cleverness in deception.

There was a short silence during which Shayne stared at the floor and
Thrip
stared straight ahead. Then, as if speaking to himself,
Thrip
muttered, “I shan’t pretend any great grief over my wife’s death, but it is a pity she had to die in such a brutal manner.”

Shayne’s eyes grew keen for an instant, but he was staring thoughtfully at the floor again when he said, “You say she
pretended
to dismiss the notes as the work of a crank at first. Do you imply that there was more to them than that—and she knew there was—she knew whom they were from?”

“I do imply exactly that. I feel morally certain she knew the identity of the author of the notes from the first. Guessing the authorship of the notes myself, I felt she was in grave danger, but when she refused to consider the consequences of disregarding the threats I considered myself absolved of all responsibility in the matter.”

“Hoping perhaps,” Shayne said with sharp irony, “that she would get bumped off so you could get your hands on her money.”

“I resent that, Mr. Shayne.” The realtor arose, his face purpling with wrath. “I see no reason why I should allow you to insult me. Your status in my house is that of an unwelcome intruder.”

Shayne didn’t move. His long legs were stretched out in front of him and his eyes were fixed on the toes of his number
twelves
. “I’m staying,
Thrip
. Sit down and stop swallowing your
goozle
. You’re not going to deny, are
you, that
her money comes to you and your children?”

Arnold
Thrip
fidgeted indecisively,
then
sat down on the extreme edge of his chair. “As to that, it will be a matter of common knowledge when
Leora’s
will is probated that half of her fortune comes to us.”

Shayne lifted his gaze sharply.
“And the other half?”

“I can’t see that it’s any of your business,”
Thrip
said, “but her brother, Buell
Renslow
, will receive half of the estate. As a matter of fact,
Leora’s
entire portion of the fortune comes to us—half of her father’s estate. For years she has enjoyed the use of the income from the entire estate, but there was a provision in her father’s will providing that one-half should go to her brother upon her death—or be held in trust for him until his release from the penitentiary to which he was sentenced twenty-five years ago for murder.”