Date with a Dead Man

10

The Corona Arms was a quiet residential hotel near the bay. Shayne drove there and parked his car half a block away, went into the telephone booth in a drugstore and looked up the hotel’s number. He dialed it, and when a pleasant female voice answered he asked for Joel Cross. She said, “Of course,” and he listened to the phone ring five times in Cross’s empty room before she said regretfully, “Number four-seventeen doesn’t answer. Would you care to leave a message?”

Shayne said, “Thanks,” and hung up. He walked down the street to the Corona Arms and entered a quiet, air-conditioned lobby and walked briskly past the desk to a waiting elevator at the rear. It was operated by a trim youth in a crisp blue and white uniform who let him off at the fourth floor. He went down a wide, carpeted hall to a door numbered 417, getting out a crowded key-ring as he approached. He studied the keyhole for a moment, selected a key without haste, and tried it.

The first key refused to enter the lock, the second one went in smoothly but would not turn, the third unlocked the door. Shayne turned the knob and pushed it open, stepped over the threshold, catching a momentary glimpse of a disordered sitting room at the same moment that he sensed a blur of movement on his left and felt excruciating pain at the base of his skull below and slightly behind his left ear.

He pitched forward onto the floor in a fog of grayness, unable to move, unable to see or to think clearly. It was a heavy blow, shrewdly delivered, and there was a black void invitingly in front of him as he lay supine on the floor; but he fought to remain on this side of the black curtain, and the gray fog remained heavy and impenetrable, blacking out sound or movement though he grimly clung to consciousness, knowing where he was and what had happened, but unable to move a muscle or do a damned thing about it.

He didn’t know how long he lay like that. He didn’t think it was very long, but in that semicomatose state there was no measurement of time.

The grayness thinned somewhat and he was vaguely conscious that someone knelt on the floor beside him. He felt a lax arm being lifted and fingertips lightly on his wrist searching for a pulse. The arm was lowered to the floor again and he heard footsteps moving away from him into the interior of the room. He opened his eyes and the grayness became a light haze. He could feel the roughness of a carpet beneath his right cheek, and was abruptly conscious of thundering pain in his skull. He used all his strength to draw his arms in close to his body and get his palms flat on the carpet, and pushed himself up slowly, twisting to one side and achieving a sitting position.

There were drawn shades at two windows of the hotel sitting room, but his vision cleared as he blinked his eyes, and his first fleeting impression as he had stepped inside the room was verified. It was in complete disorder. Cushions pulled from chairs and sofa and thrown on the floor, papers scattered from a desk in the far corner of the room, drawers pulled out and dumped on the floor.

Strength flowed back into his body as he sat there, and the thudding pain in his head slowly subsided and became localized below his left ear.

He lifted one hand to touch the spot gingerly, and was surprised to find no swelling and no pain at the touch. A sandbag, he thought disgustedly, artfully swung by someone who knew how to handle one of the things.

Without warning, Mrs. Meredith appeared in an open doorway on the left. She was as serene and well-groomed as when she had been in his office, and appeared in no-wise disconcerted to see him sitting up looking at her. A trace of a smile quirked her full lips and her voice was warmly sympathetic as she asked, “Feeling better, Mr. Shayne?”

“Not much.” He put the heel of his left hand to his forehead and pressed hard. “You swing a mean sandbag.”

“I, Mr. Shayne? What a nasty, suspicious mind you have.” She advanced to his side and stood looking down at him. “Did you find the diary?”

Shayne took his hand away from his forehead and held it up to her. She grasped it firmly and stepped back, tugging upward, and he got to his feet where he swayed on wide-spread legs, his senses suddenly reeling again. He shook his head doggedly and muttered, “I was just going to ask you the same question.”

She moved close to him and put a warm, full-fleshed arm about his waist to steady him. “Hadn’t you better sit down?” He let her help him toward the sofa and waited while she replaced two cushions before sinking down gratefully. “I’ll tell you my story,” he said flatly, “and then you tell me yours. We’ll probably both believe the other is lying, but that can’t be helped. Someone slugged me as I stepped in the door. This room was already torn up before I got here.”

She sat on the sofa beside him, her shoulder reassuringly firm against his. “You were passed out on the floor when I came. I felt your pulse and then had a look around. Where is Mr. Cross?”

“He was eating lunch the last time I saw him.”

“If you didn’t do this… who did?” She looked around the room curiously.

“Obviously someone looking for the diary who got here before I did. You’re still the best candidate.”

“And I still reserve the right to think you did the searching before someone came in and caught you at it.”

“Why are you here?”

“To keep an appointment with Mr. Cross.” She glanced at her wristwatch and frowned. “He promised to meet me here five minutes ago.”

Solid footsteps sounded in the hallway and then stopped at the open door. Shayne and Mrs. Meredith remained seated close together on the sofa, both turning their heads to look at Joel Cross who had halted in the doorway and was staring about the room and at the two of them with a look of blank stupefaction on his square face.

Shayne managed a weak grin and said, “Believe it or not, Cross, this isn’t exactly the way it looks. Have you met Mrs. Meredith?”

Cross advanced angrily toward them, shoulders hunched aggressively, putting each foot down flat and hard. “Before God, Shayne. You’ll pay for this.”

Shayne drew in a deep breath and expelled it slowly. “You tell him, Matie. Maybe he’ll believe you.”

She patted his shoulder reassuringly and stood up to turn her allure full on Cross. “Someone else searched your place and knocked Michael out before I got here to keep my appointment with you. He didn’t see who it was. We’re both wondering whether he got the diary.”

Cross said, “I don’t believe a word of it.” He circled Mrs. Meredith to the bedroom door, disappeared for a moment and returned almost immediately with a revolver in his hand. “Both of you stay right here,” he said ominously, “while I telephone the police.”

Mrs. Meredith moved in front of the telephone stand as he turned toward it. “You don’t want the police, Mr. Cross. The only important thing is the diary. Is it gone?”

“What do you mean… I don’t want the police?” he raged. “When I walk in and find my place burglarized and you two calmly making love on the sofa?”

He stepped close to her, waving his gun, but she stood her ground in front of the telephone and reminded him, “I made an appointment to discuss a private matter with you, Mr. Cross. Can’t we discuss it before you bother with the police?”

Shayne got to his feet. From Cross’s reactions in not seeming worried about the diary, he felt certain it had not been in the apartment at all. He said, “I’ve got the great grand-pappy of all headaches and I could use a drink. How about offering me one?”

Cross didn’t look at him. He tossed a surly aside over his shoulder, “I told you I never touch the stuff.”

“In that case,” said Shayne, “I’ll go find one for myself and leave you two to your private discussion.”

He started for the door on rubbery legs, and Cross barked from behind him, “Don’t leave this room, Shayne. I’ll shoot if I have to.”

Shayne didn’t think he would shoot. Not as long as he kept his back turned and kept going. He heard Matie Meredith’s full-throated voice say persuasively, “You know Mr. Shayne isn’t going to disappear. Please, let’s settle this calmly just between the two of us.”

Shayne reached the door and was going out without a bullet in his back, when her voice lifted and lilted to him, “I’m at the Biscayne Hotel, Michael. Phone me later?”

He said, “Sure,” and turned toward the elevator.