Date with a Dead Man

18

Michael Shayne awakened early the next morning. He noted early sunlight streaming in the window, checked his watch to be assured it was as early as it seemed, then got a cigarette and match from the bedside table, and drew in the first lungful of smoke for the day.

For some reason it wasn’t as satisfying as usual. The smoke seemed to have an acrid bite to it, and he frowned and glanced at the pack to make sure it was his own familiar brand. It was, and his frown deepened as he took another deep draw.

Then the events of the preceding night came flooding back into his memory and he knew why his first cigarette did not taste as good as usual.

Lucy! And her incomprehensible behavior. Last evening he had steeled himself against her, had resolutely refused to allow her temper tantrum to affect his decision or his judgment in the delicate process of preparing the agreement for Mrs. Meredith’s signature and getting it properly witnessed so it would stand up in court without compromising him. And after she and Sims had left, he had tossed off half a tumbler of cognac before stumbling to bed and into a sound and dreamless sleep.

But now it all came back to him with depressing clarity. Lucy’s face, flushed with anger as she defied him. The exact intonation of her voice when she scathingly declared her pleasure that she was just a secretary instead of a wife… that she hated and despised him and wouldn’t marry him if he were the last man on earth.

And he winced and crushed out the bitter-tasting cigarette as he recalled that, in order to persuade her, he had gone so far as to say to her what he had said to only one other woman before in his life.

“You know I love you, angel.”

It was the first time he had ever told Lucy Hamilton that he loved her. He had been, on the verge of such a declaration several times, but had held off until last night to put the feeling into words.

For what purpose? To be angrily denounced as a crook.

He threw back the covers angrily and swung out of bed, padded out on bare feet to the kitchen where he put coffee water on to boil, and then went back into the living room to check with the airport and be assured that the Mid-American flight from Chicago was scheduled to arrive on time at eight-thirty.

He went back into the kitchen and poured boiling water into the top of the dripolator, set it over a low flame and hurried into the bathroom for a quick shave and shower. He dressed swiftly and drank two fast cups of coffee liberally laced with cognac, going over his plans for the morning with grim expectancy, forcing Lucy Hamilton and her defection out of his thoughts and out of his consciousness… reminding himself again and again that there was a quarter-million dollars at stake this morning if his wild hunch was correct and if he played it to the limit without worrying whether he still had a secretary or not.

He reached the airport at eight-twenty and got the gate number for the incoming Chicago flight, went to it and edged his way through the press waiting to greet arriving passengers until he reached the forefront just as the plane swooped down on a far runway and turned slowly to taxi in toward the Administration Building.

A uniformed attendant held the gate latched and there was a large sign over his head that said: No One Allowed Beyond the Gate to Meet Incoming Planes.

Shayne had a five-dollar bill loose in his left side pocket, and he drew it out with just a corner showing between his fingers as he said to the attendant in a low voice, “I’ve just got to have a word with the stewardess on the Chicago plane before she gets away. How’s if I slip through when the passengers start coming in?”

The guard grinned fraternally but started shaking his head. He stopped the motion when he glanced down and saw the number 5 on a green background between Shayne’s fingers. He shrugged and muttered, “I guess no one will notice if you wait till they start coming through,” and the bill changed hands.

Shayne waited quietly behind the barrier until the big plane was spotted opposite the gate, the stairs were wheeled up, the door of the passenger compartment opened and the trim figure of a stewardess appeared in the doorway and stood there with a pleasant word and smile for each departing passenger.

He eased aside when the gate swung open to let the first ones through, then unobtrusively sauntered against the stream toward the plane, reaching the foot of the stairs just as the last passenger started down. He stayed on the ground and dragged off his hat, catching the stewardess’s eye before she turned back inside, and called up to her, “Have you a parcel for Michael Shayne?”

Her eyes lighted as she took in his red hair and rugged countenance, and she nodded, putting a finger to her lips before disappearing through the door. She was back almost immediately with a thin flat parcel wrapped in brown paper, and hurried down the steps to him, saying breathlessly, “This is against the rules, you know. But when the man in Chicago explained that you were the famous detective and how important this is, I thought… well…”

Shayne said warmly, “You thought just right,” and knew immediately that he should not insult the girl by offering her money. “An important murder case depends on this,” he told her. “Read the headlines in this afternoon’s News.”

“Oh, I will.” She handed the package from Ben Ames to him and went back up the stairs to do whatever stewardesses have to do at the end of a flight.

It was a few minutes after nine o’clock when Shayne got off the elevator on his floor with the unopened package under his arm. Across the corridor, the outer door of his office stood ajar, and his gaunt features tightened perceptibly as he strode to the door and pushed it open.

Lucy Hamilton was alone in the small reception room beyond the low railing, bending over the open drawers of her desk, lifting things out and placing them inside a large, rattan shopping bag, open on her chair.

She straightened slowly and glanced sideways at Shayne as he crossed the narrow space toward her. Her voice was icy as she said, “You’re early this morning, Mr. Shayne. I had hoped to have my desk cleaned out and be out of your way before you got here.”

Shayne stopped beside the railing and said angrily, “Cut it out, Lucy. You know damned well you’re not quitting me.”

“That’s right. I’m not.” A tight smile flitted across her face. “Because I already quit. Last night. Remember? Or were you so taken up with that slut of a Meredith woman and her quarter-million-dollar bribe that you didn’t hear me when I said it?”

“Forget about all that. Look, you were sore and didn’t know what you were saying. Maybe you had a right to be sore. But you know I can’t run this office without you, angel.”

“But don’t forget you won’t have to be running an office after you put over your big money deal. You’re going to retire on the proceeds and buy baby-blue convertibles and mink coats for your woman.”

She turned her back on him and bent down to rummage in the bottom drawer.

Shayne smothered an exasperated oath, and leaned over the railing to clamp a heavy hand on her shoulder. “I haven’t retired yet,” he growled. “We’ve still got an office to run this morning, and a couple of murders to clear up. After that you can walk out and be damned. But right now we’ve got work to do. Has the morning mail been delivered?”

She remained bent over and he felt her slender body shudder beneath his hand. In a stifled voice she said, “Ten minutes ago. I put it on your desk… unopened.”

“Come in while I open it,” he said gruffly. “If the stuff from Mrs. Wallace is here, we’re going to be ready for a fast wind-up.”

He gave her shoulder a final squeeze, turned away and long-legged it into his private office without looking back to see if she was following.

A neat pile of letters lay in front of the swivel chair behind his desk. He put the package from Ben Ames beside it, and pawed through the letters, extracting an eight-by-ten manila envelope with Mrs. Leon Wallace’s return address in the upper left corner.

He laid it aside with a grunt of satisfaction and picked up Ames’s parcel as Lucy came in with her head held high and her cheeks flaming scarlet. “If you think for one moment, Michael Shayne…”

“Cut it for now,” he said tersely, ripping off the scotch-taped brown wrapping. “I have here a picture taken of Mr. Meredith in Chicago last night. In that envelope from Mrs. Wallace there should be a picture of Leon Wallace and the empty envelopes in which she received the money from him during the past year. Open it up and let’s see what we can see.”

Lucy compressed her lips, and then with quickened interest and despite her anger went around him to pick up the envelope.

Shayne discarded the wrapping paper and took a glossy photograph from between two sheets of cardboard. He laid it on the desk and studied the picture with brooding intensity. It was a full-length shot of a bareheaded young man standing in the doorway of a house. He was slender and about medium height, and his face had a slack-jawed look of astonishment indicating his surprise at the photographer’s flash-gun.

In the meantime, Lucy had extracted a four-by-six wedding photograph in a cheap cardboard frame, and she laid it beside the other one without speaking. The glowing bride was unmistakably Mrs. Wallace, a couple of years younger and prior to the birth of twins, and the beaming young man beside her had a strong, square face and a broad-shouldered body that towered six inches above her.

Shayne shook his red head slowly and his gray eyes were bleak as they moved from one photograph to the other. “See if you can see any resemblance. Damn it, no man could possibly change that much in two or three years.”

“Of course there’s no resemblance at all. You say that’s a picture of Mr. Meredith. The man Albert Hawley’s wife married after she divorced him? Did you think she had married Leon Wallace… under an assumed name?”

“It seemed a reasonable assumption.” Shayne stepped back with a frown. “He was a gardener at the Hawley place and vanished without a trace just about the time she got her divorce… sending his wife money to support his children. Where else did he go, if not off to marry her after deserting his wife?”

“I don’t know,” said Lucy. “But he certainly didn’t turn himself into this picture of Mr. Meredith.”

Shayne said, “No. That’s one thing he didn’t do. Are the envelopes in there?”

Lucy rummaged in the manila envelope from Mrs. Wallace and took out three long pre-stamped envelopes similar to the one Mrs. Wallace had shown them the previous morning. All were addressed in ink to Mrs. Leon Wallace, Littleboro, Florida but none had a return address. They were postmarked in Miami at three-month intervals during the past year.

Shayne studied the three empty envelopes carefully, and suddenly a glint of excitement showed in his eyes. It was also clearly in his voice as he said, “Do we have the original envelope from Wallace? The one she showed us?”

“Yes. I put it in the file with his letter.” Lucy hurried in to her desk, forgetful for the moment that she was no longer Michael Shayne’s secretary, and returned with the first envelope which she laid beside the others.

There was no doubt, as Mrs. Wallace had stated, that all four envelopes had been addressed by the same person, but as Shayne studied them carefully another fact also became apparent.

He told Lucy slowly, “I’m no expert on such things, but I can almost swear that all four envelopes were addressed at the same time with the same pen and same ink. See what you think, angel. They’re all faded to the same degree.”

She leaned close beside him, her shoulder pressing his arm companionably, and after a moment her brown head bobbed excitedly. “I think you’re right, Michael. I believe they were all addressed at exactly the same time.” She looked at him with her brown eyes anxious and a little frightened. “What does that mean?”

“One thing,” he pointed out grimly. “It disposes of those following three envelopes as evidence that Leon Wallace was in Miami when they were mailed to his wife… or even that he was alive at the time.” The trenches in his cheeks deepened, and he turned away abruptly to the water cooler where he mechanically fitted two paper cups together and got a cognac bottle from the filing cabinet to fill them.

As he poured the liquor slowly, he said, “I’m afraid we’re going to have bad news for Mrs. Wallace.”

“You mean… you think he’s dead?”

“If those envelopes were pre-addressed as I think, it certainly indicates that he didn’t expect to be around to mail those thousand-dollar payments to her himself.” Shayne tilted his head and gulped half the liquor just as his telephone rang. Lucy reached for it mechanically and said, “Michael Shayne’s office.” She listened a moment and said, “He’s right here, Chief.” Covering the mouthpiece with her hand, she said, “Chief Gentry. He sounds terribly angry.”

Shayne put the cups down and took the phone, grinning reassuringly at his secretary. He said, “Hi, Will,” and Gentry’s choleric voice bellowed back at him:

“Damn it to hell, Mike, you’ve really put the kibosh on the Meany girl kill. We’ll never get a conviction the way it’s messed up now. And I think I know why you did it, Mike. And if I can prove it, you’re through in Miami. This time I mean it.”

“Wait, Will. What’s the trouble?”

“Trouble?” raged Gentry. “That phony identification of Joel Cross you screwed out of the elevator operator at your hotel. He’s backed down on it now. After we got Gerald Meany sobered up this morning and he persisted in his story that he did start out to your place to get his wife but stopped for a drink on the way and then blacked out… well, I put him in a line-up with Cross and some others and had Matthew down to look them over. And you know what, Mike?” Gentry’s voice became savagely gentle.

Shayne sighed and said, “Tell me.”

“He can’t identify either one of them now. He’s all mixed up. Thinks it must have been one or the other, but he can’t swear which. Personally I think Meany is guilty as hell, but we’ll never get a conviction when a defense lawyer puts Matthew on the stand and extracts the story of his first positive identification of Cross.”

Shayne said, “That’s tough, Will. But when a man makes an honest mistake…”

“Honest mistake, hell!” raged Gentry. “The way I’ve been piecing things together, Cross was absolutely right when he accused you of putting Matthew up to identifying him. Just, by God, so you could get him thrown in the jug long enough for you to get your hands on the Groat diary.”

“How do you figure that, Will?” Shayne kept his voice calm and even.

“It isn’t too hard to figure. With a hint or two from Tim Rourke and a complaint from a lawyer named Alfred Drake of assault on his person and theft of valuable property from him last evening immediately after he visited Cross in jail. Before God, Mike, this is the last goddam time you’re going to use the Miami Police Department to set things up for your personal gain. And if we don’t get a conviction in the Meany case…”

“Hold it, Will.” Shayne’s voice was loud and harsh. “I’m ready to tie that up in a knot for you… along with Jasper Groat’s murder. If you want a solution to both of them, come along to my office right away. Bring both Cross and Gerald Meany with you. And you better invite Hastings, the Hawley lawyer, to attend. I don’t believe he’d come if I asked him.”

“You want anybody else?” Will Gentry demanded sarcastically.

“Several. But I’ll take care of those myself.” Shayne replaced the telephone and told Lucy, “Get Tim Rourke for me.”

After a curious look at Shayne’s face she lifted the telephone automatically and dialed a number. She had seen the redhead like this too often before to argue with him. There was a sense of driving urgency in his manner, a feeling of dominance, of surging power inside his big frame that meant he was on the home-stretch and wouldn’t let up until the finish wire was crossed.

Into the telephone, she purred, “Timothy Rourke, please.” And then, “Tim? Michael wants you.”

He took the instrument and growled, “Hell of a pal you turned out to be. Gentry’s about to snatch my license on account of some insinuations you made about Matthew’s identification of Cross.”

He listened a moment and then broke in irritably, “All right. So I did want to get my hands on Groat’s diary and Cross played sucker just the way I figured he would. We’re going to write headlines in my office in about ten minutes,” he went on swiftly. “Better get here fast. And bring along a copy of the Herald for day before yesterday. That’s right, the Herald covering the story of Groat and Cunningham being rescued. I don’t know about the News. I didn’t see their story… but I do know the Herald has what I need.”

He hung up and settled back and picked up the two nested paper cups that were still half full of cognac, and told Lucy, “We need three more to make a full house. Get hold of either Mrs. Meredith or Jake Sims and tell them to both high-tail it over here if they want to collect a million bucks or so. And have them bring Peter Cunningham along. Tell them we can’t pull it off unless he’s here to testify.”

Lucy Hamilton’s hand had reached for the telephone. She stiffened with her fingers touching it. “Michael! Are you still going through with it? I thought… the way you were acting a minute ago, I thought…”

“What did you think, angel?”

“That you had reconsidered.” The words came with a rush. “You were beginning to act like your old self… when a case was breaking right and you were sitting back pulling the strings to see that justice was done. You just can’t accept a bribe to toss a fortune into that Mrs. Meredith’s lap, Michael.”

Shayne said, “Are you going to call her?”

She took her hand away from the phone. “No. Do your own dirty work.”

Shayne emptied the cognac down his throat and tossed the empty cups on the floor. “Okay. And after it’s all over I’ll help you clean out your desk.” He picked up the telephone and began dialing.