The Corpse Came Calling (16 page)

“Who are these three men?” Gentry demanded. He looked at Pearson. “Is this the complete roundup?”

Shayne answered first. He nudged the bodies of Joe and Leroy. “These are just a couple of hired gunmen—the same pair who stopped Jim Lacy on the causeway yesterday, but failed to get his piece of the claim check. They were taking orders from
him.”
Shayne nodded toward the slumped body of Gorstmann. “He’s the headwaiter at the Danube Restaurant on the Beach. I guess he’s the man you were really after.” He turned to Pearson.

“I presume so.” Pearson made the statement cautiously. He held the four pieces of cardboard fitted together in his hands.

“I’ve had my eye on the Danube for some time,” Painter broke in. “I felt that Otto Phleugar would bear watching. I’ll have it raided at once.”

“No need for that,” Shayne protested. “Otto is perfectly harmless. Gorstmann bullied him with threats about the Gestapo, but Otto came clean with the whole story to me last night.”

“I would say this closes the case.” Pearson spoke with quiet assurance. “These pieces of the claim check fit together perfectly and the serial number is intact. Checked through from New York to Miami.” He glanced at his watch. “There’s a train leaving in ten minutes. If I can get those plans and catch the train—” He hurried out, leaving the sentence uncompleted.

Shayne said, “Let’s tag along and see how things work out, Will. I’ve gone through a lot to get a look at those plans.”

Gentry nodded. He gruffly ordered the two policemen, “Bring him along,” and strode out behind Painter.

Timothy Rourke came racing into the depot as they emerged from the men’s room. His face was pale, his clothing disarranged. He slid to a halt in front of Gentry, demanding, “Am I too late? Listen, Gentry—I’ve got plenty to tell.”

“You’re in time to write the story as I promised your editor,” Shayne assured him. “I’m under arrest so you don’t have to worry about that angle, Tim.”

Rourke set his teeth and checked a scathing reply. He caught Gentry’s arm and began talking fast in a low tone as they went toward the baggage room. Shayne and his two escorts brought up the rear.

Pearson was waiting impatiently at the counter for reclaiming overdue baggage, glancing at his watch, and chewing his underlip. Outside the station a bell was ringing to warn late passengers that the train was about to depart.

A baggage man came from a back room carrying a shiny pigskin suitcase. He heaved it onto the counter and consulted a slip in his hand. “There’s some storage charges on this bag. Let’s see—”

Pearson grabbed the handle and swung around. “Take care of it for me,” he directed Gentry. “There’s not a moment to be lost getting this to Washington.”

Gentry said, “Sure,” but Shayne cut in:

“This is a lousy climax. How do you know the plans are in that suitcase?”

“Of course they are. They must be.” Pearson was hurrying to catch the train.

Shayne raised his voice. “Hold it,
Barton.”

Pearson’s stride faltered. He half turned his head in response, then caught himself, and jerked forward in a trot.

Shayne said, “That does it.” He lunged away from the perfunctory grip of his guards, made a football tackle that brought Pearson and the suitcase down on top of him.

Pearson had his gun almost out of an underarm holster and they threshed around on the floor with Shayne getting a grip on his gun hand and another arm around his neck. He kept twisting and tossing, rolling about so that Pearson was first on top and then underneath. Hands grabbed at them and he heard Gentry shouting for someone to let him have a sap.

Then he heard the chuffing of the locomotive outside and knew the train was pulling away. He heaved himself on top of Pearson and wrenched the man’s gun away from his hand, ducked to avoid the vicious swing of a blackjack, and shouted hoarsely.

“Lay off, you fools!” He threw the gun away from him with a jerk of his wrist, reeled to his feet, and confronted Chief Gentry, who was boiling with anger for the first time since Shayne had known him.

“Put the cuffs on him,” Gentry ordered curtly. Then: “God damn you, Mike. I won’t lift a finger if they court-martial you for this. You’ve made Pearson miss his train with your grandstand play.”

“Not Pearson,” Shayne corrected, holding out his wrists for the handcuffs. He glanced aside and saw Pearson covertly edging toward the door.

“If you don’t grab him now,” Shayne said wearily, “it’s your own fault. His name is Barton and—”

The pseudo G-man leaped for the door as Shayne spoke. For once, Will Gentry acted before asking questions. He drew his own service revolver and bellowed, “Stop.”

Barton glanced over his shoulder at the leveled .38 and stopped running. He shrugged and came back, saying, “Washington will hear about this, Chief Gentry.”

Shayne said, “I don’t think Washington will be interested. But the New York police are going to be interested in the contents of that suitcase.”

Gentry sighed and asked, “What are you up to, Mike?” and soothed Barton by saying, “Your train has gone now. No use getting in a dither.”

“Don’t waste time being polite to him,” Shayne growled. “He’s no more a G-man than I am. His name is J. Winthrop Barton, junior member of the brokerage firm of Gross, Ernstine, Gross, and Barton, who helped Jim Lacy and Mace Morgan steal a hundred grand from his own firm. If the evidence isn’t in that suitcase I’ll turn in my license.”

“Not a fed?” Gentry expostulated. “But Painter sent him over to me.” He turned slowly toward Peter Painter, whose face showed an agony of indecision and doubt.

“Of course he’s a G-man,” Painter sputtered. “I don’t know what Shayne’s up to, but it won’t get him anywhere.”

Shayne laughed happily. He asked, “Did Mr. Barton show you any credentials to prove he was Pearson of the FBI?”

“N-No. But I had that official wire from Hoover saying he was sending a special agent named Pearson.”

Shayne laughed again. He turned to Gentry. “Painter had a wire from Hoover,” he explained witheringly. “That is, he received a telegram from Washington
signed
J. Edgar Hoover. I admit I don’t know how Barton worked it, but
he
sent that telegram. And Painter fell for it. As if Hoover were sending personal wires around to punk detective chiefs. Hell, the FBI has a branch office in Miami. If they’d wanted Lacy picked up they would have communicated with their local office.”

Gentry’s face was purple. He demanded, “Is that right, Painter? Good God! Did you introduce him to me as a G-man with nothing more than such a telegram to go on?”

“But the telegram
must
have been authentic. It carried the official government designation—and you know no telegraph office in Washington would accept such a wire from just anyone.”

Shayne laughed at the plaintive note in Painter’s voice. Before Pearson could speak, he cut in. “You should have been an actor, Barton. You played your role so well I would have been taken in if I hadn’t
known
the telegram was a forgery.”

The Wall Street broker smiled with pleasure. “I’ve always had a desire to go on the stage.” He caught himself up with a jerk as he realized the admission his vanity had trapped him into making, then shrugged and continued urbanely. “It seems useless to deny it now. No, Mr. Painter, I filed that telegram myself. It cost me exactly one hundred dollars to convince the telegraph operator it was a harmless hoax and to have it sent as an official message. Though I must confess I expected I would be called upon to produce credentials when I reached Miami, but I had to take that chance and it was the only way I could think of to stop Lacy from getting this suitcase. When you took me at face value and vouched for me to Chief Gentry, I could do no less than take advantage of the situation. It was what I hoped for, of course.”

Painter started to say something but choked over the words. He turned abruptly and stamped away with his shoulders squared and his head high.

“You played the part damn well,” Shayne said to Barton. “Your story about the stolen military plans was a masterpiece and I would have believed it if I hadn’t known you were a phony.”

“For God’s sakes,” pleaded Gentry, “say something that makes sense, Mike. You mean there weren’t any stolen plans?”

“For all I know, government plans are being stolen every day. But not in this case. This is merely the hundred grand swag from a holdup that was supposed to be divided three ways. Barton did a magnificent job of mixing fact with fiction in a desperate attempt to get hold of that suitcase. His spy story contained just enough of the truth to make it plausible.”

Shayne paused and laughed at the bemused expressions on the faces of Gentry and Rourke. Rourke’s lips were swollen from the tape. He wet them and started to say something.

Shayne urged, “Don’t take it so hard. You both had two strikes on you because you accepted Barton as an FBI. I knew he wasn’t, because Painter had told me about the telegram which was supposedly sent by Hoover. I don’t get any credit for figuring it out on that basis.” He looked straight at Rourke and added, “Past records don’t seem to mean much around here, anyway.”

Rourke again moistened his sticky lips and started to say something. His face was very red.

Shayne shrugged and turned to J. Winthrop Barton. “I suppose you have a key to that suitcase. It has the appearance of belonging to a Wall Street broker.”

“Yes,” Barton admitted. He fumbled in his pocket, studying Shayne through narrowed eyes. His lips were compressed. He said, “Your guesses seem to be quite correct.”

“It wasn’t all guesswork. You caught a train from New York the afternoon of the holdup—the paper said the junior member of the firm was recalled from a vacation trip to the Caribbean—and you were the only one connected with the crime who did leave New York. The money had completely disappeared.” Shayne spread out his manacled hands. “When you told the story of the claim check torn into three pieces I knew you and Lacy and Morgan must have planned the holdup and got the money out of town that way.”

Barton knelt by the pigskin suitcase with a small flat key in his hand. He showed the same composure now that had aided his masquerade as a G-man. He sighed as the suitcase came open. “There you are, Mr. Shayne.”

Rourke’s eyes popped out on stems. He stooped down with Gentry and Shayne to look at the contents of the suitcase. Nestled among rumpled clothing, a short length of bright steel chain was attached to the money bag, and it was still locked with two heavy padlocks.

Shayne nodded and told Gentry, “There’s supposed to be over a hundred grand there.”

He turned to Barton. “There’s only one thing I don’t understand. Why in the name of God did you and Lacy and Helen and Morgan sit around two months without doing anything about claiming this?”

Barton smiled grimly. “I doubt whether you will believe my explanation, but it happens to be true.” He sighed, “You see, I have a conscience.”

“Not enough of one to prevent you from helping plan and carry out a fake holdup.”

The broker compressed his lips. “That was entirely different. The loss was covered by Lacy’s bond. And I was desperate for cash. When one has a wife who—but I need not go into that. No, Mr. Shayne. I did not balk at tipping off Lacy when he carried an exceptionally valuable load, and helping to dispose of the loot. But my conscience simply would not allow me to help steal the money again from one of my partners who was in jail for a crime of which I was equally guilty. I started plans at once to effect Morgan’s release from prison—hoping to accomplish that before the suitcase was sold at auction as unclaimed baggage.”

“Lacy and Helen Morgan tried to get you to throw in with them,” Shayne guessed. “But you refused to double-cross Mace Morgan.”

“That,” Barton told him, “is correct.”

“And you held the whip hand with your third of the claim check—until an ex-con named Harry Houseman held you up and got the piece of cardboard from your safe. You knew he and Lacy were getting together to cut both you and Morgan out. So you got in touch with Morgan, bribed a guard to help him escape, and gave him money to come to Florida. But you were afraid Morgan might fail to stop Houseman and Lacy, so you went to Washington and bribed a telegraph agent to send a fake wire over Hoover’s name—hoping it would serve to hold Lacy until you got here.”

“I still don’t get half this talk,” Gentry rumbled. “Here, let me unlock those cuffs, Mike. Who is Harry Houseman?”

Shayne held out his hands. “Horse-face, whom Barton gut-shot in the restroom just now to keep the beans from being spilled. He used the name of Gorstmann in Miami,” Shayne went on, “and he faked a story of Gestapo terrorism to force Otto Phleugar to give him the job of headwaiter at the Danube Restaurant. He had a good reason for doing that because the New York police wanted him for robbery and he knew about the close check we keep on criminal haunts here in Miami. By getting a legitimate job at the Danube he had a much better chance of avoiding arrest while he arranged to grab the loot. Had me fooled for a time,” Shayne said ruefully, “because it seemed to tie up with Barton’s concocted spy story.”

“Gorstmann? The fellow whose car was used yesterday?”

Shayne nodded. “His two torpedoes were driving it when they stopped Lacy on the causeway.”

Gentry transferred the handcuffs to the Wall Street broker, who held his wrists out to receive them. There was a look of acceptance on Barton’s face, as though he was glad the whole thing was over.

Tim Rourke grabbed Shayne’s arm as the redhead started to turn away. “You knew all along this guy’s spy story was a fairy tale,” he charged. “Why in hell didn’t you tip me off, Mike?”

“And have you spread it on the front page? In the first place I wanted Barton to play his string out. I didn’t actually know where all the pieces of the claim check were until early this morning. And by that time it was too late to tell you anything. Neither you nor Gentry would have believed a word I said.”

“If that bag is what you say it is,” Gentry interrupted gruffly, “there’ll be a nice reward from the bonding company for you, Mike.”

Shayne grinned. “I’ll have to admit that playing it this way to the end I won’t have to split the reward money half a dozen ways. That might have had something to do with me keeping my mouth shut all along.” He swung away, adding, “I think I have a wife waiting for me at home—with another thousand I collected by being cagey.”