Blood on the Stars

Chapter Twenty-Two

When Michael Shaynepushed the button of the Mark Dustin suite at the Sunlux Hotel, Peter Painter opened the door at once and demanded officiously, “What’s this all about, Shayne?”

Shayne looked over the immaculate little man’s head. Mark Dustin was the only other occupant of the large living-room. He sat in a deep chair near the open east window, his face bandaged and his right hand in a plaster cast. He was hollow-eyed and wan, his torso caved-in, and it was as though the death of his beautiful young wife had been more than even his splendid physique could endure.

“Timothy Rourke said I was to meet you here at three,” Painter snapped irritably. “Where is he?”

Shayne moved past Painter, saying, “I imagine Tim will be along. Have you got anything more on the jewel theft?”

Randolph followed Shayne into the room, his shoulders slumped and his eyes bewildered.

Painter said, “Nothing definite,” strutting along beside them. “We’re following out several leads.” He touched the insurance man’s coat sleeve and asked, “Anything from your end, Randolph?”

“Not a thing,” said Shayne swiftly, forestalling an answer from Randolph.

The buzzer sounded again, and Shayne swung around, stalked to the door and opened it. “Oh, here you are, Tim-and Voorland. Come in.”

Painter whirled and went back to meet the newly arrived guests. He said, “You wanted me here, Rourke,” impatiently. “What for?”

Timothy Rourke looked around the room, his eyes burning and his nostrils twitching. “It was Mike’s idea,” he said, and grinned.

“If I’d known that-” Painter began angrily.

“You wouldn’t have come,” Shayne cut him off sharply. “That’s why I had Tim issue the invitation. Now that you’re here, you might as well stick around and make an arrest.”

The five men in the room reacted according to their instincts. Voorland fumbled in his pocket and brought out a stick of gum, unwrapped it slowly, and put it in his mouth. Mark Dustin lifted his bandaged head and let his miserable eyes roam over the men standing around him. Timothy Rourke’s eyes burned eagerly in their cavernous sockets as they roamed from one face to another. He nervously took notepaper from his pocket and fumbled for a pencil. Painter darted his black and angry eyes at Shayne, then thumb-nailed his neat black mustache as his gaze went slowly from Voorland to Dustin, and finally came to rest upon Randolph’s big round face.

Randolph stammered, “I don’t understand. Are-you-expecting someone else, Shayne?”

“No one else.” Shayne’s eyes were very bright. “I think we can settle the whole thing just between ourselves. Why don’t you all sit down and we’ll examine the remarkable coincidences I’ve discovered in connection with the sale of the fabulously expensive star rubies from Walter Voorland’s jewelry store on Lincoln Road.”

Painter’s black eyes snapped and. he took a few steps toward Shayne. “Look here, Shayne, you can’t-”

“Sit down,” Shayne said quietly.

The others moved across the carpet soundlessly and found chairs. Painter looked at Shayne’s gaunt face and set jaw, then sank into a chair close by and sat with his small feet planted on the carpet and his body erect. “You’d better make this good, Shayne,” he warned, “and quick.”

Shayne stood. He said, “First, we have the curious fact that from right here in one retail store on Miami Beach during the past five years star rubies have been sold for a price totaling four hundred and five thousand dollars-though perfect star rubies are the rarest of stones, and only happen once during many years, perhaps many ages. I know the reason for this, and I offer it only as the first of a series of remarkable coincidences.

“The second is that in each of these instances the jewels have been stolen soon after their purchase, and none of them have ever been recovered- even though star rubies are the most difficult of gems to fence to advantage.

“Add to this,” Shayne went on, “that the first two purchasers, namely, James T. King and Roland Kendrick, apparently disappeared from the face of the earth immediately after collecting insurance on their stolen rubies. There is absolutely no trace of these two men.”

Painter bristled and got to his feet. “How do you know there’s no trace of them?” he snapped. “You’re just putting on a-”

Shayne said, “Sit down. I’ve a couple more coincidences before I’m through. The second and third purchasers, Kendrick and Dustin, are curiously similar, in that neither of them has any past life that can be traced through friends or relatives. In the space of two years, each of them wandered into Walter Voorland’s exclusive jewelry store and laid large sums of money on the line for his latest in star rubies.

“Another final similarity is that the wives of both Kendrick and Dustin have been murdered.”

Mark Dustin interrupted with an angry shout. “See here, Shayne. What are you trying to get at? For God’s sake quit beating around the bush, and tell me who murdered Celia.”

Shayne’s wide mouth relaxed into a smile. “I’m pointing out a lot of coincidences,” he said equably. “Give me time, Mr. Dustin, and we’ll see if they all add up to something we can use in solving your wife’s murder.”

“None of them are so very remarkable,” Earl Randolph broke in nervously. He was sitting on the edge of his chair, and his eyes, still murky, appeared to stand out on stems. “I’ve explained to you-”

“I know,” said Shayne. “A lot of people have wasted a lot of time during the past eighteen hours giving me reasonable explanations for one or more of these coincidences,” Shayne admitted. “They all have to be added up to get anywhere.” His gray eyes were bleak as they traveled over the group.

Painter jumped up and demanded, “Where? Where does it get you?”

“To the bottom of one of the most ingenious insurance frauds ever conceived in a man’s mind. Murder was only a sideline in this business. Money was the first consideration, and murder came afterward.”

Painter was still standing. “If you know so much about Mrs. Dustin’s death, let’s have it. And quick.”

Shayne ignored him and turned back to the others. “I think most of you know,” he said, “that Celia Dustin was murdered because she telephoned my apartment and made a date to meet a man who impersonated me. I think we have all assumed that when we have discovered exactly what she meant by what she said over the phone, we would know who killed her to shut her up.”

Silence was thick in the room until Painter said doubtfully, “If you can produce the man who talked to her from your apartment-”

Shayne moved back to a chair near the door. Before he sat down he said, “I’ll let Earl Randolph take over.”

Randolph, still suffering from a hang-over, had been sitting in a deep chair, his body relaxed and his legs sprawled, his eyes sleepily half closed. He bent forward at Shayne’s words. His face contorted with fear and anger when he said, “Goddamn you, Shayne, you promised-”

“That’s right,” said Shayne glibly. “I forgot to tell you one small detail. Randolph gave me a bribe to keep his part in this quiet. Ten thousand bucks.” He took the envelope from his pocket and sailed it over to Randolph. “That squares me. Count the money and start talking.”

Randolph said thickly, “Why did you let me-”

“Because I wanted you to feel perfectly safe and stick around long enough to get the insurance reward for me.”

“You’re responsible for that money,” Randolph roared. “I intend to hold you responsible-”

“I accept the responsibility. If your company has to pay one dime on the Dustin policy I’ll refund every penny. Tell them exactly what Mrs. Dustin said when you answered the telephone in my apartment.”

Randolph gulped, swallowed his Adam’s apple, and said in a choked voice, “She said she had some information-”

Wretchedly he told the story he had told Shayne earlier. When he reached the point where he admitted hurrying to the Beach to keep the appointment, Dustin leaped to his feet with an oath. He had to be held back by Painter while Randolph stumbled on with his story.

“I swear she was dead when I reached there,” he said in an agonized voice. “I don’t know how I can prove it, but it’s God’s truth.” Shakily he raised his right hand. “I defy anybody to prove differently.” He turned his murky eyes toward Shayne and sank back in his chair.

“There you are.” Shayne stood up and said, “Sit down, Dustin. That’s only one man’s story for whatever it’s worth.” He waited until Mark Dustin sank back into his chair and Painter had resumed his stiff position on the edge of his chair.

“If we accept Randolph’s version,” he continued quietly and firmly, “we have to conclude that Celia Dustin somehow learned something of importance in connection with the ruby bracelet that she wished to tell me.”

Shayne paused and once again his gray eyes went over the group. Timothy Rourke had his notepaper on his knee, but his pencil was idle in his right hand, which hung loosely at his side. His eyes were half closed, and there was a look of extreme boredom on his thin face.

Shayne said, “I think all this brings us to you, Voorland.”

Timothy Rourke came alive with a start.

Voorland said, “To me? I do not see what-”

“To you and one more coincidence. This time, the case of the great ruby expert who gave me all the inside dope on the manufacture of synthetic gems without even mentioning the earliest experiments by a German chemist, and a man named Michaud. Remember those two gentlemen now, Voorland?”

Voorland appeared unperturbed. He fished out a stick of gum, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth before answering. After he methodically masticated it for a time he said, “Naturally I know about those experiments. But the Verneuil process-”

“Is the one in general use now,” Shayne said. “I know all about that. Yet, I wondered-”

Shayne suddenly turned away from Voorland and addressed the others. “You see,” he said, “we come back again to the curious fact that during the past several years Voorland has apparently succeeded in cornering the finest star rubies in the world. From the beginning, I toyed with the possibility of those gems being spurious.

“I know,” he went on wearily, as both Voorland and Randolph raised themselves partially from their chairs, “it simply can’t be done. And you, Randolph, appraised the ring purchased by King. Also, you appraised the Dustin bracelet, while another insurance man appraised the Kendrick pendant. Still-I wondered.”

Shayne hesitated for a moment. The lines of his gaunt face were drawn, his brows knitted, but his gray eyes gleamed.

“If they were artificial-if Voorland had actually discovered some secret process of manufacturing star rubies, I could see a profit in it for him. But I couldn’t see how that hooked up with their sudden theft and complete disappearance. Not until I read a few paragraphs in an old encyclopedia and found out about the earliest known process of making artificial rubies. They didn’t call those gems synthetic, but reconstructed gems. That’s because that is what they were. Reconstructed from a number of smaller stones. The reason that original process was discarded was two-fold: It was almost impossible to completely eradicate the faint lines of fissure where the smaller stones were joined, and they were very brittle and likely to burst asunder from interior pressure at any time.

“Then I began to see a possibility,” Shayne went on. He spoke rapidly, as though he wanted to get the thing over and done with, his eyes going over the group keenly. “Suppose Voorland, or someone else, took Michaud’s process of reconstructing rubies and actually utilized the lines of fissure to reproduce a star ruby? Take six small stones of uniform size and cut them in triangular shape. Then, under pressure and terrific heat fuse the six stones into one large one having the asterism that makes them so valuable, and also marks them as natural stones.”

Again Shayne paused to let his remarks sink in. “I began to see how even experts like Walter Voorland and Earl Randolph might be fooled by a job like that. Mental attitude counts for a lot in appraising jewelry. Ever since Verneuil began making synthetic rubies it has been an accepted credo in the trade that a star ruby must be cut from the natural stone.

“So, I began to see how such a manufactured or reconstructed gem might be foisted off as the real thing on some sucker like James T. King by a jeweler with Walter Voorland’s unblemished reputation.

“But think of the chance he takes. Suppose the brittle, reconstructed stone broke into pieces or blew up from internal tension. Then the truth would have to come out. Voorland would be ruined, his reputation shot to hell and gone. It didn’t seem to me that it was worth his taking such a chance, even if he had discovered such a process.”

The silence in the room was thick, the attitude of every man a study. Shayne’s eyes once again studied their faces. The atmosphere itself seemed supercharged.

“And that’s where the sudden losses come in,” he said.

“That’s the theory that explains why the rubies were stolen shortly after their purchase and never recovered. That way, Voorland could be safe from detection. All he had to do was to arrange a fast hold-up before the fraud was discovered, and have his purchaser fully covered by insurance in order that he wouldn’t lose very much, if anything. That explained a lot of things.”

“Do you honestly expect us to believe,” demanded Earl Randolph incredulously, “that all those star rubies were fakes?”

Shayne said, “I’m positive they were. The ring sold to King, the pendant bought by Kendrick, and the bracelet stolen from Dustin last night.”

“This is the most preposterous tissue of lies I ever heard,” said Voorland angrily. “There are such things as libel laws, Shayne. I’m a wealthy man. I’d be insane to attempt any such trickery.”

“I wonder if you are so wealthy,” Shayne said. “I know you don’t own much stock in the store you manage under your own name. You’re nothing more than a hired hand over there, and I’ve got a hunch you’ve eaten your heart out for years watching the huge profits go to the stockholders while you had to be content with a moderate salary.”

“Even if that were true,” the jeweler protested, “I’d be the biggest fool on earth to sell fakes like that and trust to luck to be able to arrange a successful hold-up soon enough to recover the gems before they were discovered.”

“He’s perfectly right, Shayne,” Peter Painter put in pompously. “He’d have no way of being sure a robbery would be successful. A hundred things could happen to circumvent it. The buyer might place the jewel in a safe deposit box immediately. He might leave the country the next day. Any thing at all might come up to interfere with such an absurd plan. He’d be a fool to trust to luck.”

“And Voorland is no fool,” Shayne agreed. “So, I don’t believe he trusted to luck. How much easier and surer to arrange with the buyers beforehand to pull their own fake robberies at once. Remember the King affair in Miami? It screamed ‘Fake’ through and through, but no one could pin it on King for lack of plausible motive. You told me that yourself, Randolph.”

“Sure. It stunk from the word go,” Randolph agreed. “But there wasn’t any proof and we couldn’t find any reason for him to have pulled the job.”

“Reason enough,” Shayne said, “if he knew the ring was a fake when he bought it, and had arranged to split the insurance rake-off with Voorland. Of course you couldn’t prove it, because the ring had disappeared. That’s why it disappeared.”

“This becomes more and more ridiculous all the time,” Voorland declared angrily. “I can’t believe you’re serious, Shayne. Why would wealthy men like King and the others enter into such a dangerous arrangement with me?”

“I don’t think any of them were wealthy.”

“Good heavens! A man who pays a cool hundred thousand for a ring certainly isn’t poor.”

“I don’t believe King paid you a hundred grand for the ring,” said Shayne relentlessly. “I don’t believe he paid you a damned cent. I believe you faked the sale-as you did the sales to Kendrick and Dustin each succeeding two years.”

Voorland stopped his frantic chewing to retort, “This gets more and more absurd. I realize that Mr. King had been poor until he inherited a fortune, but these others-Kendrick and Mr. Dustin-are both wealthy men. I’m positive the insurance company checked Kendrick’s background thoroughly, and I’m sure they will check Mr. Dustin’s before they allow his claim.”

“I’m quite sure they will,” Shayne agreed calmly, “and I know exactly what they’ll learn from Denver. I’ve had a detective working on that all morning. They’ll discover no one in Denver knew him or ever heard of him until he popped up there with a bride two years ago-a very short time after Mrs. Kendrick was murdered in New Orleans, and after Kendrick himself dropped out of sight.

“I haven’t yet mentioned the most remarkable coincidence,” he went on with a trace of weariness, “namely, the unnatural physical resemblance of all three ruby buyers-King, Kendrick, and Mark Dustin.

“I have descriptions of the three men here.” He took a typewritten sheet of paper from his pocket. “All are said to be between forty and fifty. All are about six feet tall. All had gray eyes. King’s hair was a faded gray at forty and he was thin and stooped from overwork and worry. Kendrick’s hair was red, and he held himself erect and was described as slender and well-knit. You can all see Dustin for yourselves.”

“But I, remember King quite well,” Earl Randolph protested. “He was worried-looking and stooped-” He paused and turned his protruding eyes on Mark Dustin.

“Four years ago,” Shayne reminded him. “Four years of wealth and good food, absence of worry, and a beautiful young bride can fill a man out and erase the wrinkles. Add some black hair dye-”

“I don’t know what kind of cock-and-bull story you’re trying to frame,” Dustin said angrily. “You started out by promising to arrest a murderer here. If you’ve got anything to say, why don’t you stop this foolishness and say it.”

“Cut it out, King,” Shayne snapped. “I’ve checked and know your story of an inheritance from a rich uncle in Los Angeles was hogwash. It was cooked up between you and Voorland when he went to Massillon, Ohio, in nineteen forty-three with this fantastic plan of his and pretended to be a lawyer named Norwood-or Northcott. He knew the insurance company would investigate your background before paying the claim, and had to fix up a legitimate excuse for you to be buying hundred-thousand-dollar rubies.”

Peter Painter came to his feet and snapped, “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand it at all. Are you saying this man is King? The James T. King who was robbed of a ruby ring in Miami four years ago?”

“And Roland Kendrick,” Shayne said grimly, “who popped up in Westchester County, New York, from nowhere soon after King collected his insurance and disappeared. He spent the next two years carefully building himself a new identity and a reputation as a wealthy playboy that would stand the closest scrutiny by an insurance company after he and Voorland pulled their second coup. His wife was killed in that New Orleans hold-up and he married a new one about a month later, after a whirlwind courtship of just five days. His second anniversary was a few days ago, and the dates check.”

“Haven’t we had enough of this nonsense?” Voorland appealed to the detective chief. “Shayne hasn’t one shred of proof for a single one of his wild theories.”

“In order to disprove it,” said Shayne cheerfully, “all you have to do is produce Mark Dustin’s canceled check. The one he is supposed to have given you for the bracelet. And the checks from King and Kendrick. The banks keep photostatic records of all important accounts these days, and there shouldn’t be any difficulty about that. If you can’t do that, you might like to confront a next-door neighbor of King’s in Massillon, Ohio. A man named Hank Klinger who clearly remembers the lawyer who called on King back in nineteen forty-three. And then you can tell us how you came to be hanging around here last night and heard Celia Dustin arrange to meet me at the foot of the bathing-pier, and how you met her there instead-”

“No. You can’t get me for murder,” Voorland shouted. “I admit-”

“Wait a minute!” Mark Dustin dragged himself up to a sitting position on the couch. He said angrily, “This entire stupid hypothesis rests on your suspicion that the jewel thefts were prearranged. Good God, do you think I arranged that affair last night? Fixed it to get myself cut up and my hand smashed, just to-?”

“No,” said Shayne, “I think that was the one accident you didn’t foresee, and it upset the applecart. All because Voorland was afraid to show his phony bracelet to a certain Rajah of Hindupoor a couple of weeks ago. He knew a star ruby with his reputation behind it would get by an Occidental expert, but the Orientals have a way of spotting fakes by merely handling them, and Walter Voorland knows that as well as any man alive. This refusal whetted the Rajah’s appetite and he let it be known that he was in the market for that bracelet with no questions asked. I’m convinced the heist last night was perfectly legitimate-the only legitimate thing about this whole damned business. I think we can get you for murder,” he added quietly to Walter Voorland. “You know your house of cards has fallen. We’ll have a hundred witnesses to prove-”

“I admit the insurance frauds,” said Voorland gutturally, “just as you describe them. But murder-no! I warned him that other time when-”

Mark Dustin came to his feet, his right hand dangling. With a strangled oath he went toward Voorland, his left hand knotted into a powerful fist. Shayne thrust him back on the couch and turned to say:

“That other time in New Orleans when he killed his first wife, Voorland? You warned him not to mix murder with fraud? You were right. That’s always a mistake.”

“So I told him.” Voorland’s voice was thick with anger. “But no! The hotheaded fool was tired of his wife. She knew too much for him to get rid of her by any other means. So, he must shoot her in the supposed robbery.”

“It gets to be a habit; doesn’t it, Dustin? Were you tired of Celia already? Wouldn’t she divorce you? You played asleep after she gave you that first sleeping-tablet, and heard her telephone me, didn’t you? And then you slipped down the stairs behind her and killed her with a left-handed blow and left her on the sand while you hurried back up here and alibied yourself by taking three more of the tablets. What was she going to tell me, King? What proof was she going to show me?”

The pseudo mining man groaned and said harshly, “I had to kill her. I didn’t want to. I’m glad it’s over. I believe I’d have confessed eventually, anyway. I don’t want to go on living without her. I loved her. Do you understand that? I loved her.”

“So you murdered her.”

“What else could I do? Like a fool, I’d once mentioned Voorland’s name to her in Denver. When we came here to Miami Beach I pretended I didn’t know him, and she remembered that after the robbery. She asked me about it after we came back from the hospital and I denied it, but I could see that she didn’t believe me. So I did pretend to go to sleep, and I heard her going through my briefcase.

“Then I remembered there was a letter in it from Voorland which I had neglected to destroy. I knew she must have found that letter when she telephoned you, and I–I went crazy, I guess. I couldn’t stand having her know the truth about me. I think that’s really why I killed her. I couldn’t stand it, I tell you.” He sank back on the couch. His face was suddenly the face of an old and tired man.

“It’s as good a motive as most husbands have,” Shayne told him sourly. He turned to Randolph and said, “Let’s get out of here and go where the air is cleaner.”

Peter Painter strutted to the telephone and called Beach headquarters. Timothy Rourke was rapidly making notes on a sheaf of papers. Walter Voorland sat erect with his hands on his knees, staring vacantly before him.

Earl Randolph got up and went out the door with Shayne. They went down in the elevator together and out to Shayne’s car. Neither of them said anything until they were headed across the causeway to the mainland. Then Randolph muttered awkwardly:

“I hope Miss Hamilton is recovering all right. As soon as she’s well enough I’d like an opportunity to apologize and explain how terribly sorry I am about her accident.”

Shayne said, “Let’s go up and see her now. I think she’d feel better knowing it was all a mistake and that you didn’t really try to murder her.”

“It’s a damned shame about losing that thirty thousand of the insurance reward,” Randolph mused. “The way everything has come out, you might just as well have had the entire thirty-six thousand. I’m sure you realize this proof of fraud on the part of the insured person relieves us of all responsibility for paying the policy-exactly the same as though the bracelet had been recovered.”

“I did take that into consideration,” Shayne said gravely, “when I planned to hang onto my six thousand. You don’t think your company will attempt to recover the missing thirty grand from me by charging negligence.”

“I’m sure they won’t attempt anything like that,” said Randolph warmly, “when I report exactly how I saw it disappear from your car after you had left it there in good faith. Actually they should consider the full sum well spent,” he continued, “because the way things have turned out now we will probably recover all or most of the money paid out on those two previous phony claims by suing Voorland and Dustin-or Kendrick-or King-whatever his real name is.”

They were nearing the lights of Biscayne Boulevard now. Shayne tooled the car along smoothly and spoke in a musing voice:

“You’re right, Earl. Thirty-six grand would really be a very moderate fee to pay for evidence on which they can sue for recovery of those other policies. Yet, knowing insurance companies as I do, I’ll bet you one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Suppose things had gone differently this afternoon and I had worked out all the angles before I tried to buy back the bracelet. Then I would have realized we didn’t need it for evidence and that whole sum of thirty-six grand might just as well be safe in my apartment right now. Just supposing that were so: I’ll bet you ten to one that your company would demand the thirty thousand back-insisting that a fee of six grand was plenty for my trouble.”

“I wouldn’t take the bet,” Randolph said, “even at odds of ten to one. They’ll forgive you for losing it as you did, but they would never agree to pay out a sum like that after the job was done.”

Shayne swung around the traffic circle and drove swiftly south on the Boulevard. “I’m glad,” he said gravely, “I had you along for a witness this afternoon when those crooks lifted the money from my car. Otherwise, there might always have been a nasty suspicion that I had just pretended it was lost.”

“That was lucky,” Randolph agreed warmly. They were swinging around Bayfront Park now, and a moment later Shayne parked in front of the side entrance to his hotel and they got out.

He knocked on the closed door of his apartment, and was surprised to hear Lucy’s voice telling them to come in.

She was seated alone in a big chair in the center of the room, wearing a coral dressing-gown and a neat bandage on her head which was almost concealed by skillfully fluffed brown hair. She smiled gaily when Shayne entered, and began breathlessly:

“Now, don’t scold me, Mike. I feel perfectly all right. I sent the nurse home-” She stopped abruptly when she saw Earl Randolph enter behind her employer.

Shayne said, “Earl has things to say to you. Don’t be too angry with him because he’s paying for all your medical attention and double your wages while you’re convalescing.” He crossed to her and touched her pale forehead caressingly with his finger tips for a moment, and then turned aside to let Randolph make his explanations.

He paused at the table to glance in the drawer and assure himself that the bulky envelope of twenty-dollar bills was still intact, and then hummed a little tune of contentment as he got down a cognac bottle and poured out two drinks.