Tickets for Death (19 page)

“When Hardeman murdered her he was positive that she had told whatever she was supposed to tell—and her usefulness was ended. Not only that, but she was safer out of the way so she couldn’t keep on talking and ball up the deal. So—” Shayne drew his hand across his throat, intimating the manner in which Mayme Martin had died.

“When I learned that Miss Martin and Gil Matrix were old friends and that she had broken with him, it looked like a good bet that her information dealt with Matrix’s past—which eliminated Matrix as the man who had sent her to me. He had gone to certain extremes to keep his past a secret.”

Shayne sought out Will Gentry’s eyes, found them, and winked.

Chief Boyle took advantage of the quiet and said in a loud voice, “Damned if all that isn’t right here in Hardeman’s confession.”

“Now, we come to the part Ben Edwards and his camera played in the case. While I was in Miss Martin’s apartment, she called Max Samuelson on the phone and told him she knew for a fact that the invention was perfected and knew where the model and the plans were. This was confusing, as you can readily understand, gentlemen, but the name Ben Edwards stuck in my mind. Remember, I hadn’t the faintest idea what anything was about at the time.

“After I arrived here and started working on the case, both Mr. Matrix and Mrs. Edwards tried to convince me that the invention of the camera was not perfected. They gave this reason for Ben’s refusal to patent it. I thought he must have another reason, after talking with John Hardeman who assured me that it was perfected. Naturally, I began to bore into that reason. I deduced that there was something in his past which he was afraid would come to light if he applied to Washington for a patent. I know Max Samuelson, and had an idea that he knew what it was.

“I know now what that reason was—Edwards was afraid his real name would come out when the patent office investigated, and he would have to go back to prison.”

“Yes, sir,” Boyle interjected. “Hardeman knew all that a month ago. He says here that that was when—”

“Wait.” Shayne held up his hand with a pained expression on his face. “I’ve got to convince Mr. Payson I have earned my fee.”

“This is all most amazing,” Mr. Payson said quickly. “So far as the fee is concerned, I am convinced, but—”

“That was when Hardeman saw what a slick chance he had to put over a counterfeiting deal,” Shayne interrupted, “with a perfect frame-up to hang the rap on Matrix and Edwards when the going got tough. I don’t know what salary you were paying Hardeman for managing the track,” he went on, turning to Mr. Payson, “but it evidently was not enough. He saw the stockholders earning huge dividends while he did all the work.”

“That is not true—” Mr. Payson began, but Shayne cut him off.

“The camera and Ben’s refusal to patent it must have given Hardeman the idea. It was simple enough for him to arrange with a printer in Miami to print the forgeries. Hardeman was the man who decided what the new design would be each day. He could have his forgeries printed ahead, distributed to the stooges who cashed them for him before the genuine ones were even printed at the Elite shop. And he could get out from under any time he wanted to by letting the truth about Matrix and Edwards’s past records leak out. It had to leak out, though, in a way so it wouldn’t seem to come from Hardeman—because if it ever became known that he had been in possession of that knowledge all the time he would have had to explain why he hadn’t told the authorities at once. Thus, the elaborate precautions to have Mayme Martin tell me—and her death afterward so she couldn’t spill the beans about his sending her to me.”

“I’ll be eternally damned,” Gil Matrix rasped out. He spoke slowly and thoughtfully, as if to himself alone, when Shayne paused. “And I thought all the time it was MacFarlane.”

“There’s still one important fact of the case which you have failed to clear up, Mr. Shayne,” Albert Payson warned. “Ben Edwards’s death—the murder you accused me of committing.”

Shayne chuckled. “I thought you might have—at the time,” he told the banker cheerfully. “I had most of the angles figured, but even then I wasn’t sure it wasn’t you instead of Hardeman. In a way, you have one of the biggest crooks at large to thank for it. I learned from Max Samuelson that Hardeman was out of his office when Edwards was killed. Edwards had been called to his death by a telephone call from some unknown party. Why? I admit I was stuck for an answer.

“Then it came to me. Samuelson was here for the express purpose of paying cash for Edwards’s invention. A very little cash, I may say, but we all know Edwards would have accepted the offer. Hardeman knew about it. As soon as Samuelson told him over the phone what he intended to do, Hardeman realized that Edwards’s sale of the camera would do away with the mystery it was making of the counterfeiting, and thus discount the value of the camera as evidence against Matrix. Hardeman’s nightly revenue from the track would be at an end.

“By that time Hardeman was frantic. He didn’t know why I was fooling around and hadn’t arrested Matrix—not realizing that Mayme Martin had not told me what she knew. The only out he could see was to kill Edwards before Samuelson got to him with his offer—and to hope the crime would be laid to Matrix when the truth came out—on the assumption that Matrix had killed them both to keep his past a secret and, perhaps, that Matrix could cash in on the camera besides.”

“That’s right.” Chief Boyle nodded wisely. “It’s all down here—just like Mr. Shayne says.” He looked up at Shayne in frank admiration. “By golly, it’s like you had read his mind.”

Shayne’s shoulders suddenly slumped wearily. “That about clears it up,” he said, looking straight at Payson.

The banker wriggled uncomfortably, puffed out his pink cheeks, and nodded. “I see no legal justification for withholding your fee. With Hardeman’s confession, the track officials can sue his estate for the amount of losses.”

Grant MacFarlane got to his feet and yawned. “None of this evidence touches me in the slightest. I don’t know why you insisted upon my presence here. As a matter of fact, I’ve known about Matrix and Edwards for weeks—and I naturally supposed they were doing the counterfeiting. You remember, I offered you information tonight. Mayme Martin had spilled the whole thing to me one night when she was drunk.”

Shayne said, “You can go after I’ve said this to you. You made a mistake when you got panicky and pushed me around tonight. No man has ever pushed me without regretting it. I don’t know what you were panicky about, but I’m going to find out. Pandering to high-school kids is one thing. I’ll be visiting your dump again—with authority from the state’s attorney in Miami, whom you can’t buy off.”

He turned away from MacFarlane and the gambler hesitated, his face ashen, then went from the office without a word.

“Come on,” Shayne said to Matrix. “You’ve got a date with a blonde and she’ll be getting impatient.”

“Now, wait a minute.” Chief Boyle lumbered to his feet. “How about this escaped convict business? I guess maybe Mr. Matrix has a date with the state of Illinois.”

“No.” Shayne shook his head. “Illinois isn’t interested. Matrix was released from Joliet in 1936 after serving his term with time off for good behavior.”

Will Gentry caught Shayne’s arm as he went toward the door. He held him back and Matrix passed them hurriedly, going toward Shayne’s roadster. Gentry’s eyes followed the diminutive figure and he rumbled, “I hope you know what you’re doing Mike.”

Shayne said, “I’m absolutely certain.” He started to say something else, hesitated as Tim Rourke joined them in the doorway.

“Great day in the mountains, what a mess,” the reporter breathed happily. “I don’t know whether I’m coming or going with all this thrown at me at once.”

“Go back and talk to the chief,” Shayne urged. “He’ll help you straighten it out into headlines—and how he’ll love it.”

“Yeh,” Rourke said, “you’re right.” He thumped Shayne on the back and turned away to corner Chief Boyle at his desk.

When they were alone again, Gentry sighed and spoke in a low tone, “From beginning to end I never saw a more cockeyed case. And tonight, Mike, I saw something I’d never have believed if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

Shayne said, “That so?” and waited.

“A bullet from a Police Positive that had lodged inside a man’s head,” Gentry explained. “In thirty years of police work that’s a new one on me. A thirty-two will do it sometimes—but I never thought a thirty-eight would.”

“It just goes to show,” Shayne told him solemnly, “that there’s always something new under the sun. I’ll buy you a drink when I get back to Miami.”

They shook hands with a hard grip that said more than either would put into words, then Shayne hurried to his roadster where Gil Matrix waited impatiently.

Chapter Twenty-One: COPS ARE PEOPLE

MATRIX WAITED UNTIL SHAYNE STARTED THE CAR, then said, “You know I killed Hardeman. Why are you doing this for me?” His voice was quietly cold, filled with suspicion.

“Because I hate the guts of a louse who cold-bloodedly plans a crime with the intention of framing another man for it.” His foot pressed down on the accelerator, sent the speedometer up to sixty. “And when a louse gets stepped on and the life crushed out of him, I don’t call it murder.”

“I was—I guess I just went to hell when I read that anonymous letter intended for you,” Matrix confessed. “I made a mistake when I was a kid. I paid for it. It was too much to live in terror for weeks—with Midge’s happiness at stake—everything. That’s what I went through after the counterfeiting started.”

“Yeh,” Shayne muttered. The roadster slid past Edwards’s house on the corner. The windows were dark. Shayne nodded toward it. “There are a couple of other people who deserve a break.”

“Claude was crazy about his wife and boy,” Matrix said. “That’s why he broke prison, to provide for them. If he knew about it he’d be glad he was dead so his invention could pay them dividends, and I’ll see that it does.”

Shayne said, “That’s all behind both of you now. As soon as a thing is brought out in the open it loses its force. But don’t try running away again. Stay here and whip it. You and Midge together can do it.”

“We will,” Matrix promised fervently. “After what you’ve done—”

“Don’t thank me alone,” Shayne said roughly. “Thank Will Gentry too. He knows damned well Hardeman didn’t shoot himself.”

“I didn’t know cops were ever like that,” Matrix said in a tight voice. “I never heard of a cop giving an ex-con a break.”

“That’s hooey. Cops are people.” He slid his roadster to a stop behind Matrix’s Ford. Window curtains were drawn at the beach cottage and lights burned dimly behind them.

Shayne stopped Matrix as he started up the walk with rapid, short strides. He grunted. “Wait—there’s a little formality we need to take care of first.” He held Matrix’s arm and urged him toward the beach. The tide was going out, leaving a wide expanse of springy wet sand which supported their weight to the water’s edge.

Reaching into his coat pocket, he took out the small-caliber pistol. Swinging his arm in a wide arc, he hurled it far out to sea. “If anybody thinks to remove the bullet from Hardeman’s head,” he said grimly, “you don’t want to be in possession of the gun that fired it.”

Matrix’s body was rigid as he watched the faint splash as the pistol fell into deep water, beyond where the combers broke. He turned silently and followed Shayne back to the cottage.

Shayne opened the door and beckoned to Phyllis. She sprang up and got her wrap. Outside, Shayne said, “Let’s get the hell out of here. I’m beginning to feel like a fairy godfather.”

Phyllis had difficulty keeping up with his long strides. “But—what is it all about, Michael? Is it all over? Isn’t Mr. Matrix in any more trouble?”

“No more than any man about to be married,” he grunted.

“But you—you acted so grim when you took him away, and he was so crushed and tragic. Why, Midge and I both thought he had committed the murders.”

Shayne opened the door of the roadster and helped her in. He closed the door and went around to the other side and got in. “That was a test of true love,” he explained as he started the motor. “I had to know whether Matrix had the guts to stand up and take it.”

“You brute,” Phyllis exclaimed, “do you mean it was just a gag—you knew all the time that everything was all right and let Midge think—”

“Something like that, angel. Anyway, you can spend one night in your magnificent hotel suite. I’ll have to be here tomorrow to collect a fee from the Cocopalm Greyhound Track.”