Death Has Three Lives

Chapter Eleven

“Mrs. Allerdice!” exclaimed Shayne. “He had her tied up in the trunk while he tried to collect the money instead of hiding her out as a hostage until he did get it.”

“That’s what it sounds like. He must have been awfully sure of himself — awfully sure you were going to follow instructions. His threats about her talking to the police were pure bluff.”

“And she won’t do any talking now,” said Shayne quietly.

“How ghastly for her,” gasped Lucy Hamilton. “Imagine being locked up in the trunk of a car when it went off into the bay. Drowning there without a chance.”

Shayne nodded somberly. “One more death tonight chalked up against Michael Shayne. If I hadn’t tried to be smart and capture the man, she’d still be alive.”

“But it wasn’t your fault, Michael,” Lucy rushed to his defense. “You had no way of knowing things would go wrong — no reason to suspect he had her in his car.”

“That’s no excuse,” he countered fiercely. “Sure. You can say the same thing about everything that’s happened tonight. Poor old, dumb Mike Shayne! He’s not to blame. In his own blundering way, he done his best.” The self-contempt in his voice was withering. “In the meantime, people are dying right and left — all because I tried to play God and covered up for you in the beginning.”

Lucy leaned back and began to weep silently, tears cascading down her cheeks in twin streams.

Shayne glared at her for a moment, then said brusquely, “All right. Recriminations aren’t any good now.” To Rourke, he said, “So, where does that leave us?”

“We don’t have to worry about a one-o’clock deadline any more.”

Shayne got up to pace heavily back and forth across the room. “They’ll go to the motel and discover she and I are registered as Mr. and Mrs. Smith of Homestead.”

“How’ll they know it was you? Thus far, there’s nothing at all to connect you with the gray sedan or with her.”

“They’ll get my description. And the license number of my car. The description may not do it, but the jig will really be up when they check my license number.”

“But that won’t be before tomorrow morning, Mike.” Rourke’s voice was harsh with urgency. “You’ve got that much time.”

“For what?”

“For finding out what cooks. For solving three murders.”

“Three?” Shayne stopped to regard him oddly. “I can only think of two that need solving.”

“There’s the girl who was strangled. Jack Bristow. And now Mrs. Allerdice — if that’s her name.”

Shayne shook his head angrily. “All of us here know who killed her. I did that with my stupid plan for catching the blackmailer.”

“That’s absolutely nuts. She was mixed up in this to her teeth. Maybe she killed the girl — or Bristow. You simply don’t know.”

“That’s the whole hell of it,” muttered Shayne. “I don’t know anything about anything.”

“Then let’s start finding out.” Timothy Rourke got to his feet fast. “Remember me telling you that the name Allerdice seemed to strike a chord? The name together with the sum of eighty thousand dollars. I’m positive they’re connected with something I’ve read in a paper recently. Let’s go down to the morgue and dig through back files. If we turn up any sort of lead we’ll have something to go on.”

“Can’t do any harm,” agreed Shayne. “But if we don’t turn something up, I warn you I’m going straight to Will Gentry with the whole story.”

“All right. I’ll go with you.”

Michael Shayne stood rocklike in the center of the room for a moment, his unhappy gaze going to Lucy whose tears were still flowing. He went to her and said awkwardly, “Sorry I slipped a cog back there, angel. Tim’s right. Only thing now is to jump in with both feet and bull it through. You turn in and try to get some sleep.”

Lucy chewed on her underlip and nodded wanly, refusing to meet his eyes. He turned away and strode to the door where Rourke was waiting, and they went out together.

Alone in the apartment, Lucy got up and wandered about disconsolately. She bathed her eyes in cold water, made herself a stiff drink but took only one sip before putting it aside with a grimace, wandered into the bedroom where Jack Bristow had been murdered, and back to the living-room.

She should be doing something. She couldn’t just go to bed and sleep as Shayne suggested. God knew, she’d never sleep. Not tonight. Not with all this on her mind. For the simple, inescapable fact was that everything that had happened went back inexorably to her allowing Jack Bristow to stay without informing either Shayne or the police at once.

No matter how Michael Shayne tried to shoulder the responsibility, it was hers alone.

And he expected her to go to bed and to sleep!

She walked about the living-room, twisting her hands nervously and going over and over the problem in her distraught mind. If there were only something she could do to help out. If there were only some starting place where she at least could try her own hand at unraveling the puzzle. But that was Michael Shayne’s business, of course. For many years, his profession had been unraveling puzzles. What could she hope to do that he couldn’t do better and faster?

If there were only some starting point for her. Some small bit of information she had that Shayne didn’t have. But she had told him absolutely everything she knew.

Should she go direct to Chief Will Gentry and tell him the whole story? It would be better than having him hear it from Shayne. Her employer, she knew, would cover up for her as best he could if he did decide to go to Gentry. He would take some of the responsibility that was properly hers. It would be best, she knew, but it would be horrible if she went to him with the truth and thus prevented Shayne from having his chance to solve the case first.

That would be a real doublecross, and she knew she couldn’t take the chance. But she would, she decided resolutely, manage to get to Will Gentry first the moment Shayne gave up trying and decided it had to be done.

In the meantime, if she could only do something to help.

She resumed her helpless pacing up and down, going over and over every word Jack had spoken to her, every inflection of his voice and every facial expression.

There was nothing she could get hold of. No point of departure she could see to start on an investigation of her own.

Then it came to her suddenly. Arlene Bristow! Jack’s sister in New Orleans. Of course. She would call Arlene. The number was in her old address book. She’d call Arlene and force her to tell everything she knew or suspected about Jack. Surely Arlene would know something about him and his associates. Some tiny clue to what had happened tonight.

It would be horrible, she realized, to have to break the news of Jack’s death to Arlene. Particularly since she herself was at least indirectly responsible.

But she compressed her lips tightly and hurried in to the bureau in the bedroom where her old address book was carefully laid away. Perhaps she wouldn’t even tell Arlene the truth. Although she was determined she wouldn’t shrink from that if it seemed necessary. This was much too important to let any softheartedness or scruples stand in the way of the possibility of getting some information of value.

Yes. There it was on the third page in the book. Bristow, Arlene.

She looked at the clock as she hurried to the telephone. Almost half past twelve. Rather late to make a call, but then she remembered gladly that New Orleans was in a different time zone. Was it one or two hours’ difference? She could never remember, but she did know that it got earlier as you went west, so it couldn’t be later than eleven-thirty.

She sat down and resolutely dialed Operator and gave her Arlene’s telephone number.

There was a very brief delay at that time of night, and then she distinctly heard a telephone ringing at the other end. It rang three times before a feminine voice answered, and relief at getting her so quickly flooded through Lucy.

She said, “Arlene? This is Lucy Hamilton.”

“I’m sorry. Miss Bristow isn’t here. Who did you say was calling?”

“An old friend. I’m calling from Miami and it’s dreadfully important. Do you know when Arlene will be in?”

“Well, I— No, as a matter of fact. For heaven’s sake,” went on the voice excitedly, “whatever is this all about? A policeman was here not more than half an hour ago asking all the silliest questions about Arlene, and he wouldn’t tell me why.”

“I see.” Of course, Lucy thought. Will Gentry would have contacted the New Orleans police and instituted inquiries at once. It was silly of her not to have realized that. After a brief pause, she asked, “Who is this speaking?”

“I’m Esther Grant. I share the apartment with Arlene. Are you the Lucy Hamilton in Miami I’ve heard Arlene mention?”

“Yes. What—”

“They asked me about you, too. The policeman did. Have you seen Arlene?”

“Not since I left New Orleans.”

“Oh, I thought— She’s in Miami, you know.”

“What? Who is?”

“Arlene. Now I am beginning to wonder what this is all about. From the first I had a funny feeling about it. It just wasn’t like Arlene at all to go off like that.”

“Like what?” demanded Lucy sharply.

“The way she did two days ago. Without even a word to me. And not even packing a bag from what I could tell from looking at her clothes. But she said everything was all right over the telephone, and for me not to worry and to call her office the next morning and say it was an emergency and she’d be away a few days. And that’s when she asked me to look in her book and get your address and phone number for her, and so I thought of course she’d call you right away.”

“I think you’d better tell me everything about it,” said Lucy firmly.

“There isn’t much, really. I went to work that day — day before yesterday, and Arlene stayed home with a little cold. It wasn’t anything bad but she was taking aspirin and thought she’d better rest. Then she wasn’t here when I came back after work. I thought nothing of that — she might have felt better and gone to a movie or something, and then about seven o’clock she called me on the telephone.”

“What did she say?”

“Well, she sounded kind of funny. I don’t know. Worried, I guess, or scared. But she said I wasn’t to worry and everything was all right, but she had to make a trip to Miami unexpectedly and would I look in her book for Lucy Hamilton’s Miami address. She was in an awful hurry and didn’t want to talk any, so I did and then she hung up. And that’s just all. I told the policeman about it and he seemed to think it was funny, too.”

“Do you know her brother Jack?”

“I had the pleasure of meeting him a few months ago.” Miss Grant’s voice was disdainful. “Once was enough.”

“Has Arlene mentioned him recently?”

“I don’t think so. I told her what I thought of the way he acted, and she—”

“I know. But I wondered if you knew he was in Miami. Do you think she was coming here to meet him?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. She didn’t say why she was going. Just that it was important and she’d explain it all to me when she got back. Say, this phone call must be costing you a mint from Miami. Want to hang up?”

“I... guess so. Thanks so much. If you hear anything from Arlene, please call me collect.”

“I’ll be happy to. Well... good night.”

Lucy told her good night and cradled the phone. She sat very still, resting her throbbing forehead in one palm and trying to think what this news meant. So Arlene was in Miami! Yet she hadn’t contacted Lucy, even though phoning at the last moment to get her address.

Her trip had to do with Jack, of course. That seemed obvious. Some sort of trouble he was in involving seventy or eighty thousand dollars that had caused Arlene’s emergency trip.

Some sort of trouble that had culminated in Jack’s death tonight — and the death of a girl in an Eighteenth Street rooming-house and of another girl also from New Orleans who had told Shayne she had planned to meet her husband in front of the rooming-house and whom a mysterious stranger had identified as a Mrs. Allerdice over the telephone.

A horrible thought struck Lucy as she sat there. Could either of the two girls be, in fact, Arlene Bristow? She thought back frantically to everything she had heard said about the first victim.

Either Will Gentry or Timothy Rourke had mentioned her extreme youth. About sixteen, hadn’t they said? Arlene must be almost thirty. And Gladys Smith was said to have been staying at the rooming-house for some time. Obviously, she couldn’t be Arlene.

But the other? The one who had accosted Shayne at the scene and whom he had taken to a motel for the night?

What was known about her? Michael hadn’t described her in any detail. Shabbily dressed and hungry and pathetic, was the impression Lucy had gained. And she had claimed she was meeting her husband. Arlene certainly couldn’t be married or her roommate would have mentioned it.

And, Lucy told herself at last with flooding relief, Michael had taken Jack Bristow’s corpse out to her in the hope she would identify him as her husband. So, she couldn’t be Arlene. Because she had not recognized Jack.

Wait a minute, though. Michael had mentioned something queer about her reaction when she saw Jack. He was ready to swear it wasn’t the man she had expected to see when he said he was bringing her husband in, but at the same time there had been something odd about her denial of knowing him. Shayne had sensed it at the time.

Could Arlene have recognized her brother and denied it? Possibly. If the situation were desperate enough to call for that. After all, it was pretty obvious that Jack was mixed up in something and Arlene knew it. To admit that she recognized him would have been to give away her own identity. With two murders already unsolved—

Lucy Hamilton got up shakily, but her features were set in a mold of grim determination. This was one thing she could do. Something she alone could do.

She could make certain that the young woman who had drowned horribly in the trunk of the gray sedan in Biscayne Bay either was or was not Arlene Bristow.

Either way seemed awfully important to Lucy. And probably no one else in Miami could do it.

It was terrible to think of her old friend dying that way, and she tried not to let her mind dwell on it as she hurried into the bedroom for her bag and a light wrap. After all, she and Arlene hadn’t been really close friends.

She hesitated a little as she came back, shuddering in revulsion at what she must do, yet determined to go through with it.

Let’s see. Where would she go? To the morgue, she supposed. But would the body have been taken there already? She closed her eyes and tried to remember what she knew of police routine. An unidentified body would inevitably end up at the morgue, she knew, but not how soon it might be expected to reach there.

She went to the telephone and called police headquarters, explained what she wanted to know to the first voice that answered, and was switched to two other gruffly official voices before a member of the Harbor Squad supplied the information.

“Yes, ma’am. She’ll be at the morgue pending identification or maybe an autopsy. You think you maybe know—”

“I’m not sure. It might be — my sister Maggie. I just don’t know. I’m scared to death to go down there, but—”

“Nothing to be afraid of, miss. It’s your duty to go down and check.” She listened silently while he gave her explicit directions as to the procedure so late at night, and thanked him for his courtesy after a time and hung up.

Then she telephoned for a cab and hurried out of the apartment, waited impatiently downstairs in the small foyer until a taxi drew up outside.

The driver was middle-aged and round-faced, and when Lucy got in and gave him the address she had been provided over the telephone, he looked back at her disapprovingly over his shoulder and asked, “Ain’t that the morgue, miss?”

She said, “Yes,” and settled back.

He pulled away from the curb slowly. “Kinda late at night to be visiting there. You got some — uh — bad news or something?”

“I’m afraid maybe it is. My... sister,” said Lucy fearfully. “That car that crashed into the bay tonight. They recovered a woman’s body and I’m afraid—”

“Say, that’s sure too bad, miss. I heard something about it on the radio.” He went on cheerfully recalling other automobile accidents and tragedies in which he had been more or less involved, and when they arrived in front of the morgue he solicitously asked Lucy if she’d like him to go in with her so she wouldn’t be “so sort of alone and all,” but she bravely refused his offer and gave him a nice tip as she got out.

She went up the stone steps diffidently to the front door with twin lights burning above it, opened the door, and stepped inside a brightly lighted but empty anteroom.

She had been told there would be an attendant on duty to assist her, and she stood hesitantly just inside the door, her heart beating rapidly and possessed by an intense desire to turn and flee from the place before anyone came to show her the body she feared might be Arlene.

A door in the rear opened as she stood there, and a heavily built man wearing a gray suit and a gray felt hat emerged and strode toward her.

He didn’t fit her idea of a morgue attendant, and she stepped aside from in front of the door, looking past him to see a small bald-headed man in shirt sleeves follow him through the door and turn to close it.

She took one step forward just as the man in gray reached her side. He stopped to stare at her in surprise, and exclaimed loudly, “I didn’t know you were coming down, too, my dear. It isn’t Helen, thank God!”

He caught her arm and swung her about toward the door before Lucy could collect her wits and disclaim knowing him. His bulky body was between her and the attendant, and he shouldered the door open while clamping a big hand tightly over her mouth and pushing her through it in front of him.

Crazed with fright and desperate with fear, Lucy struggled and kicked to free herself, making gurgling sounds behind his tight palm, but they were going down the steps now and there was no one to observe what was happening.

A black two-door sedan was parked at the curb, and he held her tightly with one arm about her neck and the hand still over her mouth as he jerked the door open and pulled the seat back.

Twisted upward as she was while still fighting to free herself, Lucy had her first clear look at his face. It seemed vaguely familiar, and the truth came to her suddenly with sickening force.

It was the man who had been in the gray sedan on the Causeway when she had tossed Michael Shayne’s makeshift bomb into the front seat.

At the same moment that realization came to her, he deliberately swung a big fist against her right temple.

A loud gong sounded inside her head and her body went limp and unconscious.