Date with a Dead Man

11

Half an hour and three slugs of cognac later, the throbbing in Shayne’s head had subsided to a dull ache behind his left ear and he felt prepared to discuss Jasper Groat’s death with Police Chief Will Gentry.

The chief was alone in his office when the redhead walked in without knocking. He looked up from his littered desk and shifted an evil-smelling black cigar from left to right in his mouth and growled, “Another half hour I’d have had a pick-up out for you, Mike.”

“Why?” Michael Shayne seated himself carefully in a straight chair beside the chief’s desk and wrinkled his nose distastefully at the aroma that drifted into his nostrils from Gentry’s cigar.

“Jasper Groat is why. His tie-in with the Hawleys. I want the straight of it.”

“I’ll give it to you, Will.” Shayne leaned back and locked his two hands at the back of his neck to ease the pain, and gazed up at the ceiling. “First: Tell me exactly what you’ve got, then I’ll fill in.”

“Damned little.” Gentry took the chewed cigar from his mouth, glared at the soggy end of it, and hurled it into a brass spittoon in one corner. “We got a taxi driver who picked him up outside his place before eight last night and delivered him in front of the Hawley residence. There was a chain across the driveway so the taxi couldn’t turn in. Groat got out and that’s the last record we have of him. That Hawley outfit!” Gentry went on angrily. “A bunch of screwballs. The old lady serenely swears she didn’t know Groat and didn’t want to. Even though he nursed her son for several days on the life raft and was the last one to see him alive. What kind of mother is that?”

“I gathered this morning that she resents the fact that Groat and Cunningham survived while her son didn’t.”

“So what? Well… then there’s Beatrice.”

“There is, indeed,” agreed Shayne soberly but with a twinkle in his eye.

“She admits asking Groat out to the house to meet her at eight last night, but won’t say why. What with her asinine giggling and sucking on her finger, it’s hard to tell what’s in her mind.”

“In addition to sucking on a whisky bottle,” said Shayne cheerfully. “All right, so you’ve got Groat bumped off after getting out of a taxi in front of the Hawley house and before anyone there saw him…”

“According to their stories.”

“According to their stories,” agreed Shayne.

“What about this Mrs. Wallace who turned up at Groat’s place this morning? According to Mrs. Groat, she claims Jasper phoned her yesterday and made the appointment… promising to give her some word about her husband who’s been missing for a year. What do you know about that? I understand Mrs. Groat sent her to consult you.”

“She did,” Shayne told him. “I know this much about it.” Without reservations, he repeated the story Mrs. Wallace had told him that morning. “My best guess right now,” he concluded, “is that Albert Hawley had some guilty knowledge of the reason for Wallace’s disappearance a year ago, and when he faced death on the life raft, he confided the secret to Groat. Groat was ready to tell Mrs. Wallace this morning, but before he could do so he got himself knocked on the head and dumped into the Bay.”

“Somewhere near the Hawley house where he had gone to keep a date with Beatrice,” amplified Gentry.

Shayne nodded, his eyes very bright. “There’s another angle, Will. Did you read the News this morning… and the story about Groat’s diary which they’re going to publish?”

Gentry, nodded absently, getting out a fresh cigar and frowning as he bit the end off it.

“It’s supposed to be a minute-by-minute true and accurate account of the time they spent on the life raft. It’s reasonable to assume that Groat wrote down whatever Albert Hawley told him before he died. So, if someone killed Groat to prevent him from telling Mrs. Wallace the truth about her husband, they must have had a shock when they read in the News this morning that the complete diary was going to be published.”

“Whoever it was would be after the diary now,” Gentry agreed.

“Which is evidently in the possession of Joel Cross, a News reporter. Have you had any word from him on it, Will?”

“Joel Cross?” Gentry lit his cigar and sniffed the blue smoke unappreciatively. “No. Why should I?”

Shayne shrugged. “I just happen to know that his hotel room was searched today by persons unknown… who I’d guess were looking for the diary. Wondered if Cross had reported it.” He got to his feet, shrugging casually. “That’s about it, Will. I promised I’d come clean.”

He turned to go out, but Gentry stopped him with a growled, “Hold it, Mike.”

Shayne stopped halfway to the door, turned his aching head slowly and carefully so it wouldn’t fall off.

“Assuming Groat learned something from Albert Hawley about Leon Wallace’s disappearance that was detrimental to the Hawleys… would he have tried to blackmail them?”

“I didn’t know Groat. But from what I gathered from his wife and Lucy, I think the exact opposite. He was a sort of religious fanatic. One who would insist on telling the truth and letting the chips fall where they might.”

“Giving the Hawley family the same motive for killing him as if he had threatened blackmail?”

“Y-e-s,” Shayne agreed slowly. “If they didn’t know he’d already arranged to publish the diary.” He thought for a moment and a hot glow came into his eyes. “Here’s another thought, Will. Suppose some other unscrupulous person knew what was in the diary and wanted to use it to blackmail the Hawleys. He’d be unable to do so as long as Groat was alive. But with Groat dead, and with him having possession of the diary, he’d be in a position to make a deal.”

“Who else knew about it?”

“Joel Cross, for one. He read the diary yesterday. I’d check and see what he was doing at eight o’clock last night.” Shayne turned to the door again, and kept on going this time.

Lucy Hamilton looked up with a grimace when he entered his office half an hour later. “A woman called just a few minutes ago and insisted that I give her your home address when I told her you weren’t in.”

Shayne ruffled his red hair and grinned at her. “Who was the lady?”

“I didn’t say she was a lady,” said Lucy primly. “She giggled when I asked her, and refused to give her name.”

“Did she also nibble on her finger?”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Lucy replied disdainfully. “She sounded mentally retarded and man-crazy.”

Shayne nodded grave approval. “You’re developing quite a knack for character analysis over the telephone. I suppose you gave this charming maiden the information she wanted.”

“I gave her the name of your hotel. You once told me I was never to refuse it to a female inquirer.”

Shayne said, “That’s swell. My liquor supply won’t be safe from now on. Anything else?”

Lucy was shaking her head when her telephone buzzed. She lifted it and said dulcetly, “Michael Shayne’s office.”

She listened and said, “One moment, please. I’ll see if Mr. Shayne is in.” She covered the mouthpiece with her hand and said, “Another female. This one doesn’t giggle, and I bet she doesn’t nibble on her finger either. But I’ll also bet she just loves to chew on redheaded he-man detectives.”

“Mrs. Meredith?” Shayne asked with a grin.

“You’re so smart to guess, Mr. Shayne,” Lucy said with a bitter smile.

“I’ll take it inside.”

Shayne went through a door into his private office and lifted the phone there. “Hello.”

“Matie… Michael.” There was a slight pause, and Mrs. Meredith went on rapidly, “How is the headache?”

“Better, but… not good.”

“I’m so sorry,” she purred seductively. “I just happen to have a terrific headache remedy here. My own private recipe.”

Shayne said, “At the Biscayne Hotel.”

“Suite twelve hundred A,” she told him matter-of-factly.

Shayne said, “It’ll take me ten minutes,” and hung up.

He sauntered out to the reception room and Lucy looked at him with snapping brown eyes as he unhooked a panama from a rack near the door.

“I’ll just bet she’s got a private brew for headaches. A mixture of absinthe and benedictine and… and every aphrodisiac in the book.”

Shayne said, “Tut, Lucy. You shouldn’t listen in on private conversations. I’ve warned you before.” He settled the hat carefully on his throbbing head and went out.