The Corpse That Never Was (11 page)

S
hayne was standing in the hallway outside of Max Wentworth’s office when Chief Will Gentry came heavily up the stairs five minutes later. He glanced in the open door at the body lying on the floor, and drew back, nodding to the two detectives who accompanied him to go on into the office.

He said, “All right, Mike,” getting a black cigar from his pocket and glaring down at it. “Business so bad you got to start knocking your competitors off?”

“Max wasn’t much competition,” Shayne protested mildly.

“All right. How-come you’re in on it?” Other members of the homicide squad were coming up the stairs and Gentry and Shayne moved down the hall out of their way.

“I was out at the Nathan house,” Shayne told him, “and found a check stub for two hundred fifty bucks Mrs. Nathan had paid Max as a retainer last month. Her husband claimed to know nothing about it… and I wondered. I tried Max’s home, but he wasn’t there… and came up here. He’d been dead a couple of hours before I got here.”

“Door standing open and you just walked in, huh?”

Shayne said carefully, “I knocked and then… I walked in when there wasn’t any answer.”

Gentry was putting flame to his cigar and he grunted something indistinguishable without looking at the redhead. When black smoke billowed out of the side of his mouth, he settled himself truculently on wide-spread feet. “So what’d you find out… in his files and all?”

Shayne gave him a hurt look. “You know I know better than that, Will. It’s strictly against the rules to touch anything at the scene of a homicide until the police get there.”

“You didn’t, huh?”

“You won’t find a fingerprint of mine in the place,” Shayne assured him heartily.

Gentry said, “That, I’ll buy.” He rocked back on his heels and surveyed Shayne glumly. “You trying to tie this in to the suicides last night?”

“I’m not trying.” Shayne shrugged. “I told you how I happened to find Max. Have you traced Lambert yet?” he went on swiftly.

Gentry shook his bullet head. “Nothing on him yet. Preliminary report from Washington is negative on his prints. That’s only the active criminal file, you know. May be something in a day or so. You dig up anything?”

“Nothing you haven’t got. Except three telephone calls from Lambert to the Nathan residence the last three Friday nights. About nine or nine-thirty, they were made.”

“Um. And the woman turned up at the apartment about half an hour later each time?”

Shayne said, “That’s the way it is.”

A detective came briskly out of the office and said, “They’re ready to cart him off to the meat wagon, Chief. Okay?”

“Sure.” Gentry rolled the cigar to the other side of his mouth. “What you got so far?”

“Been dead about two hours. One lick on the side of the head with something like a lead pipe or the butt of a pool cue. Dropped him in his tracks. Left-handed blow.”

Gentry took the cigar from his mouth and echoed gently, “Left-handed?” and a puzzled look spread over Shayne’s face.

“That’s right,” the detective told them. “That’s about all they got for sure. No sign of a struggle. Door was on the night-latch. Boys are just about through dusting for prints.”

Gentry turned to Shayne with a scowl as two ambulance attendants came out of the office carrying a stretcher with a sheet-covered body on it.

“Those suicide notes were written by a left-hander.”

Shayne nodded. “And Lambert has been dead for more than twelve hours. You know, Will, I’m beginning not to like this.”

Gentry started to respond, then shrugged eloquently and went into the office.

Shayne followed close behind him. The fingerprint man was closing up his kit. He shook his head and told the police chief, “Nothing at all. Only the dead man’s prints. Whoever slugged him just walked in and… whammo! Then walked out.”

Gentry nodded absently, his gaze going all around the small square room. He circled around the blood and chalk marks on the floor to stand in front of the two filing cabinets and studied the alphabetical listing on the drawers. He pulled the top drawer of the right-hand cabinet open, and Shayne kept his expression blandly disinterested.

Gentry pawed through the cardboard folders and snorted in disgust. He turned to Shayne and said accusingly, “There’s nothing on Nathan in here.”

“Isn’t there?” Shayne frowned. “Maybe Max didn’t keep his files up to date. But that was almost a month ago.” Then his expression cleared. “I just thought of something, Will. Mrs. Nathan keeps her bank account in her maiden name… Elsa Armbruster. The check she gave Max was signed that way. Do you suppose…?”

Gentry said, “Let’s take a look.” He moved back to the other file and pulled out the top drawer. He thumbed through the folders and grunted with satisfaction. “Here it is, Elsa Armbruster.” He pulled the folder out, hesitated with his gaze fixed on the next one. “And here’s an Eli Armbruster, by God. Two… three folders for Eli.” He opened the folders to glance inside, and whistled softly. “First one’s a check-up on Paul Nathan a year ago. Next two are on a couple of names I don’t recognize. Pierson and Lobb. Mean anything to you, Mike?”

Shayne frowned to indicate deep concentration. “I think… Tim Rourke was checking back on Elsa in the newspaper files this morning. I think Pierson and Lobb both made a play to marry her and the weddings both fell through.”

“And I bet these folders will tell us why,” Gentry said triumphantly. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face that old Eli checked up on any man that wanted to marry his precious daughter, and these two both flunked out.”

“And Nathan didn’t,” guessed Shayne.

“Probably not. We’ll know when we read it. But this first one… for Elsa…” He turned to the desk and opened it. “She had Max tailing him the last couple of Friday nights,” he mumbled over his shoulder.

Shayne said, “If Max tailed him last night and it checks out with what Nathan told you…”

Gentry turned the pages inside the folder, glancing at each one. “Nothing for last night. Just the two previous Fridays.”

Shayne looked at his watch and said, “In that case I’m going to beat it. Last night is the one that interests me.”

Gentry turned around abruptly and expostulated, “Wait a minute, Mike,” but Shayne was half-way out the door and he kept on going.

I
t lacked a few minutes until four o’clock when Michael Shayne walked into the lobby of his apartment hotel on the north bank of the Miami River at Southeast Second Avenue. At that time on Saturday afternoon the lobby was deserted except for Pete behind the desk.

Pete grinned widely as the rangy detective strode toward the desk and said, “I been reading the papers, Mr. Shayne. That was somethin’ you busted into on the Beach last night, huh?”

Shayne said, “It wasn’t a very nice something, Pete. You stay away from married women… hear?”

“You don’t have to tell me. There’s some woman phoned you a few minutes ago. She sounded right fussed you weren’t in.” He turned and extracted a telephone message from a pigeonhole and slid it across to the redhead.

Shayne smoothed it out and read, “Call Mrs. Grogan at once.” And there was a local telephone number. He didn’t know anybody named Grogan that he could recall. Wait a minute though. The name was vaguely familiar. He had heard it recently… or seen it… in some connection. He nodded absently and told Pete, “I’m expecting a couple of calls. Be in my room for awhile.” He went back to the elevator and up to the second floor, and was unlocking his door when he remembered where he had seen the name of Grogan, and in what connection.

He went into the shabbily pleasant sitting room and directly to the telephone on the center table, laying the telephone message down in front of him. He dialled the number written on it, and a softly feminine voice answered almost immediately. He asked, “Mrs. Grogan?” and she said, “Yes. Who is this?” her voice rising, tight and high.

“Michael Shayne. I just got your message.”

“Oh. Mr. Shayne.” She sounded momentarily let down and confused, and there was a brief silence before she spoke in her normal, soft voice. “I wonder if I could see you right away, Mr. Shayne. It’s about my husband… Joe.”

Shayne said, “Let me get one thing straight. Does your husband work at the Hacienda on the Beach?”

“Yes, he does.” Now she sounded frightened. “How did you know? Has something… happened?”

Shayne said, “I’d like to talk to you. I’m at my hotel right now… waiting for a couple of calls.”

“I know right where it is. I’m only a few blocks away. I could come there if you like. Do you have any news about Joe?”

Shayne said, “Not exactly. I’ll be waiting for you in my suite on the second floor.” He replaced the receiver, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, then turned away and went into the kitchen where he got a tray of ice cubes from the refrigerator, ran water over them and put two cubes in a tall glass. He filled it with water from the tap, lifted down a four-ounce wine-glass and carried them both back to the table. His telephone began to ring as he got a bottle of cognac from a wall cabinet near the kitchen door. He uncorked the bottle as he went back to the table, lifted the receiver with his left hand while he poured cognac into the wine-glass with his right.

He said, “Shayne speaking,” and a voice came over the wire:

“Sergeant Deitch here, Mr. Shayne.”

“What have you got, Sergeant?”

“Not very much, I’m afraid. I’ve checked all the prints out and there’s not a single one except Lambert’s and the officers who were in the apartment last night.”

“None of the woman at all?” Shayne frowned and lifted his glass to sip cognac.

“Nothing clear, and nothing very fresh. Not last night, certainly. A few indeterminate smudges that might have been made by her a week or so ago. But no certainty of that. They didn’t do very much in that apartment, or else they cleaned up pretty carefully after they did.”

“How about Garroway?” asked Shayne. “Is he through in the lab?”

“He’s sitting right here to tell you himself.” A moment later the younger man’s voice came to Shayne’s ear:

“I’m afraid I haven’t got anything for you either, Mr. Shayne. The cocktail that was spilled on the rug for one thing. It contained exactly the same proportion of cyanide as we estimate was in the one the woman drank. The clothes reveal absolutely nothing. They’re all new… never laundered or cleaned… and apparently worn only a few times. I made some further laboratory tests on samples from the bedding with negative results.”

Shayne said, “All right. My client is paying for negative results just the same as positive ones. I’ll see you.” He hung up.

Then he sank down into a chair and lit a cigarette, took a drink of ice water and idly turned the cognac glass around and around on the table. He wasn’t disappointed in the reports from Deitch and Garroway. He hadn’t actually expected or even hoped for anything different. It was just as cut and dried as a double suicide now as it had been before he started his own investigation of the affair. The only new element was the murder of Max Wentworth in his office. And that didn’t necessarily have anything at all to do with Paul Nathan or his wife. Any one of Max’s clients might have had a motive for bumping him off.

There was just the coincidence that it had happened on the heels of the double suicide last night. Shayne didn’t like coincidences in homicide investigations.

And there was the further coincidence that the blow that had crushed Max’s skull had been delivered by a left-handed man.

Robert Lambert was left-handed.

But Robert Lambert was dead. It was a cinch he hadn’t killed Max.

This reminded him that he was to call Harry Brandt, and he looked at his watch. A few minutes past four. He dialled the number and said, “Mike Shayne, Harry. What’s the dope on those notes and the signatures?”

“It’s open and shut, Mike. The notes and the rental agreement were written and signed by the same man. A left-hander. You want one of my famous character analyses as deduced from his handwriting to go along with that conclusion?”

Shayne said, “Sure. Let’s have it.”

“He’s under forty, but not too much.” Harry Brandt spoke with quiet assurance. “Middle-class background, I’d say. High school and maybe college. Not a brilliant intellect, but not stupid. A romantic who has become embittered by the role life has handed him and is continually looking for a way out… a way to break the bonds. Not an active criminal type, but certainly a passive one, without too many scruples if he saw a chance to get away with something. How’s that for a character analysis in one brief nutshell?”

“Sounds all right,” growled Shayne. “If we ever find out who Robert Lambert is, I’ll let you know how close you hit it. Send me a bill, Harry.”

“Will do.”

This concluded the conversation, and again Shayne sank back with a frown and returned to his cognac and its ice-water chaser.

Both glasses were almost empty when he heard a hesitant knock on his door. He went to it to admit a pleasant-faced woman of about thirty, with a direct gaze that pleased him, and a spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose that somehow gave her a wholesome and ingenuous look. She wore a simple cotton dress and sensible shoes with Cuban heels, and her only jewelry was a plain gold wedding ring on her left hand.

Her look was frankly appraising and her handclasp was firm as she said, “It was kind of you to see me, Mr. Shayne, I’m afraid I’ve come on a fool’s errand, but… I didn’t know what else to do.”

Shayne said, “Come in, Mrs. Grogan.” He closed the door behind her and said, “I’m having a drink. Can I get something for you?”

“No, thank you. I don’t hardly… I hardly ever take a drink in the afternoon.” She paused in front of a chair close to the table and turned, clasping her hands together in front of her. He saw now that she was striving to conceal an inner nervousness or fright. “You said on the phone about the Hacienda… do you know my husband, Mr. Shayne?”

“No. I simply happen to know that there is a man named Joe Grogan who works as a croupier at the Hacienda.”

“Has that got anything to do with… with the case you’re working on? That is, it said in the afternoon paper that you were investigating that double suicide last night.”