Death Has Three Lives

Chapter Thirteen

The Daily News was an afternoon paper, and there wasn’t much activity at midnight. Timothy Rourke stopped at the city desk to confer briefly with the editor, came back to Shayne shaking his head.

“No one has got anything on the man picked up at the scene of the wreck except fairly positive corroboration that an unconscious man was carted away to the Beach by an unidentified motorist. He hasn’t been delivered to any hospital, and no one has reported the incident officially to the police. What the devil could have happened to him, Mike?”

“All we can do is theorize. The way Lucy tells it, he didn’t get much of the gas. Just a few good whiffs, probably, before he was thrown clear. That would knock him out, but not for long. Could be he recovered before they reached a hospital, pulled a gun, and held his Good Samaritan as a hostage. Anything on the dead woman?”

“Not much. The gray sedan was a stolen car, by the way. From near the scene of the first murder between eight and ten o’clock.” Rourke was leading the way back to the dark and deserted file room as he spoke. “Cops checked the motel key found on the woman. They’ve got a somewhat vague description of the man who checked her in as Mr. and Mrs. Peter Smith, and they’ve got the license number of your car, but don’t know it yet. So far, nothing to point the finger at you. Nothing to show any connection between the gray sedan and Bristow or the strangled girl.”

Rourke opened double glass doors as he finished, switched on bright overhead lights to reveal filing cases and rows of newspapers hanging from heavy wooden clips. He led the way down a narrow corridor, explaining over his shoulder, “We’ll start with the last two weeks of the News. I’ve a hunch I saw it locally, though I’m sure it wasn’t a local story. You take one week and I’ll take the next. Look first for a front-page wire story from some other city.”

“New Orleans?” asked Shayne as Rourke selected a file of back issues and spread it out on a table for him.

“We can guess that. But look for the name Allerdice and some mention of a hunk of dough.” Rourke took the last week’s file for himself and began busily scanning the front pages for each succeeding day.

Shayne was slower than the reporter, not having the instinctive knowledge of where to spot what he was looking for, and he was carefully studying Tuesday’s front page in his file when Rourke exclaimed, “Here it is, Mike! Not New Orleans, but Baton Rouge.” He read aloud:

“‘A triple tragedy occurred today when an automobile occupied by two veteran police officers from New Orleans and a convicted prisoner they were conveying to the state penitentiary left the highway at high speed thirty miles from New Orleans, careened off a concrete bridge abutment; and crashed into the swirling waters of the Seewatchie River thirty feet below. With the river almost at flood peak, rescue operations were hampered by a swift current and neither the automobile nor any of the bodies had been recovered late today. It is believed all three occupants of the car perished in the raging torrent.

“‘They were Detective First Class Mark Switzer and Officer John Parradine of New Orleans, and their prisoner was Hugh Allerdice, convicted recently of bank robbery and sentenced to serve an indeterminate term in the state penitentiary. It will be recalled that none of the eighty-thousand-dollar loot alleged to have been stolen by Allerdice was ever recovered.’ There it is, Mike. It comes back to me now.” Rourke looked up from the paper with glinting eyes.

“There was a follow-up the next day.” He turned the pages swiftly. “Car was recovered a few hundred feet downstream with the body of the driver wedged behind the wheel. The other two haven’t been found yet. Here it is.” He nodded his head as he scanned the story swiftly. “Parradine was driving. Switzer in the back seat handcuffed to Allerdice. With the two guys handcuffed together, no one gives them a Chinaman’s chance of having got out alive, and the best guess by experts is their bodies may well have been carried downstream and out to sea by the flood current, and never be recovered. So, where does that put us?”

“Damned if I know.” Shayne’s voice was deeply puzzled. “A woman who may or may not have been Mrs. Allerdice told me she had hitchhiked from New Orleans to meet her husband tonight. Later an unknown man called me to demand the eighty grand he insisted Jack Bristow had on him when he reached Lucy’s place. And—” he added slowly, “don’t forget that Jack told Lucy a dead man had shot him.”

“And remember the man over the phone told you he had told Mrs. Allerdice you had killed Hugh, too. But according to this story, Hugh Allerdice died in an accident three days ago.”

“And according to the woman,” said Shayne disgustedly, “her husband telephoned her in New Orleans two days ago to meet him tonight in front of the Eighteenth Street rooming-house. Look through those stories and see if you can find out anything about a wife.”

Rourke turned back to the first dispatch and began reading the body of it. He nodded after a moment. “Beatrice Allerdice.” He frowned at Shayne. “The man on the phone mentioned her name was Beatrice, didn’t he?”

He looked back at the paper and began reading aloud, “‘Reached by telephone at her dingy two-room apartment on Rampart Street late this afternoon, Mrs. Beatrice Allerdice, young and attractive widow of the convicted man burst into tears and hysterical denunciations of the police when informed of her husband’s death. The youthful wife, it will be recalled, stayed by her husband throughout the trial, repeatedly asserting his innocence and pointing to their lack of money to employ adequate counsel as proof that her husband had not stolen the money as alleged. “They’ve murdered my Hugh,” she screamed defiantly over the telephone to a representative of this News Service this afternoon. “They weren’t satisfied with railroading him for a crime he didn’t commit, but had to murder him, too. It was all a plot on the part of the police. I don’t believe those cops died at all or even that it was an accident the car went over the bridge. You’ll see when they recover the car.”

“Maybe the gal had something at that,” said Rourke meditatively as he glanced up from his reading. “Though from where I sit, I’d guess the shoe was on the other foot.”

“You mean that Allerdice manufactured the accident somehow to escape?”

“Well, we know now that at least one of the cops was killed. If Allerdice was guilty and had the eighty grand stashed away with a confederate, or hidden, there was enough money involved to have fixed a getaway like that.”

He turned back to the paper and read further, nodding again. “Nothing, really, to prove it was an accident. It was a deserted stretch of road and the only witness was an approaching motorist who was driving toward the bridge at high speed and suddenly saw it go over the side. Nothing to prove there wasn’t a hijacking first, then the police car sent over to hide it.”

Michael Shayne sat down wearily in a wooden chair. “All right. Let’s assume Hugh Allerdice did escape that way and phoned his wife next morning to hitchhike to Miami and meet him here. What then? What significance did the rooming-house have? Bristow and the strangled girl? Could Allerdice be the one who phoned me?”

“Could be. Though it doesn’t make much sense for his own wife to have been tied up in the trunk of his car.”

“Maybe he wanted to get rid of her and not share the money.”

“But he’d arranged to have her meet him here,” argued Rourke.

“So she said,” reminded Shayne. “We don’t even know she is Beatrice Allerdice. And there’s still no connection with Bristow. Listen. Do you have back files of a New Orleans paper? Can we backtrack to the date of the robbery and the trial? There should be pictures of all of them at that time.”

“Sure. We should have a file for a month or so back. Let me check the date if it gives it here.” Rourke studied the story again, said doubtfully, “Almost two months ago. I don’t know—” He went to the rear of the musty file room, turned on more lights, and began searching while Shayne sat hunched forward on his wooden chair, dragging deeply on a cigarette and moodily reviewing the few things they knew and the great many things they didn’t know about the affair.

The vital thing missing was some sort of tie-up between the Allerdices, Jack Bristow, and the girl who had been strangled tonight. Thus far there were only the two tenuous things. Both Bristow and Allerdice were from New Orleans. And Mrs. Allerdice (if she was Mrs. Allerdice) had claimed her husband had told her to meet him in front of the rooming-house. The presence in the death room of the slip of paper containing Lucy’s address indicated, of course, that Jack Bristow was probably the man whom Gladys Smith was supposed to have secreted in her room for some weeks.

Shayne tugged at his ear lobe and looked up hopefully as Rourke returned carrying a heavy file of papers. “We’re in luck. Just got under the deadline before they clear the old ones out. Here’s your first story.”

He spread the New Orleans paper out under a bright light and began to read:

“‘Hugh Allerdice, youthful bank messenger for the City Trust Company, was being held by police late this afternoon on suspicion of theft in the disappearance of an eighty-thousand-dollar payroll being transported by the bank messenger to the Atlas Construction Company earlier today.’

“‘There are altogether too many unexplained discrepancies in this young man’s story,’ said Captain Allen P. Welles of the Theft Squad in a prepared statement handed to the press at four o’clock. ‘We are making no charge against him as yet, but will continue questioning him until we are satisfied.’”

Shayne grunted angrily. “I know their third-degree methods. Ten to one they beat a confession out of him by midnight.”

Rourke continued reading: “‘According to Allerdice’s story, he left the bank at ten o’clock this morning with the payroll in a leather bag locked to his wrist with a steel chain. Within half a block of the bank, he claims a large black sedan drew up beside him and two men leaped out and threw a heavy sack over his head, overpowering him and thrusting him into the back of the sedan which then moved away rapidly. Unfortunately for Allerdice, no witnesses have come forward to confirm this part of his story.’

“‘He was beaten unconscious, he claims, and when he came to slightly after noon, he was lying beside a country road outside the city limits and the moneybag was missing. He made his way to a telephone and reported the incident to police headquarters, and has stoutly maintained his innocence of any complicity in the affair throughout an afternoon of intensive questioning. Authorities refuse to specify what the alleged discrepancies are in his story, but Captain Welles appeared convinced it was wholly untrue.’”

“Wait a minute, Mike!” Rourke went on excitedly. “Here’s something: ‘A reporter who went to the small house in the Paradise section occupied by the Allerdices and a roomer, Mr. Jack Bristow, found no one at home in mid-afternoon, and was informed by neighbors that Mrs. Beatrice Allerdice, piquant and beautiful young wife of the accused bank messenger, is in a hospital where she recently underwent an operation for appendicitis. Neighbors further stated that the young couple appeared to have been in financial difficulties recently, and that Mr. Allerdice has been greatly worried about meeting the cost of his wife’s illness.’ That’s about all of any importance in this first story,” Rourke ended, turning to the following day’s paper.

Shayne was sitting very erect, his gray eyes gleaming with satisfaction. “So Allerdice snatched eighty grand, and Jack Bristow was rooming with him when it happened. Now this begins to add up. Keep going, Tim.”

Rourke had been scanning the second day’s story. “There’s a picture of the Allerdices here, and a small inset of Bristow. Take a look at her, Mike. She the one?”

Shayne got up eagerly to lean over and study the three pictures. He shook his head slowly after a time. “Could be. I wouldn’t swear to it either way. Look at the Bristow picture. You wouldn’t recognize him for sure, either. I see Captain Welles got his confession,” he added ironically.

“Yep. Which Allerdice repudiated the next morning and refused to sign. Said they put words in his mouth and he was so groggy by midnight he would have confessed murdering his wife to get them to lay off. But they charged him, all right, and claimed they had sufficient evidence to send him up without the confession. But here’s the interesting part, Mike. ‘Police who sought to interview Jack Bristow, roomer at the Allerdice ménage have been unable to discover any trace of him as we go to press. According to Allerdice, he packed his bags and departed abruptly the day preceding the theft without saying where he was going. He had been unemployed for some time and owed three weeks rent, and Allerdice admitted he had been nagging him about paying up and believes that may be the reason he went away. The police have no reason to believe he took any part in the robbery, but are seeking him as a possible material witness.’”

“And I’ll bet he never did turn up,” said Michael Shayne swiftly. “Neither he nor the missing eighty grand.”

“No,” conceded Rourke, turning pages rapidly and glancing at the few follow-up stories which had drifted from the front to inner pages. “You’re right, of course. He and the money disappeared, though the police never seemed to connect the two things.”

“If they had, they wouldn’t have publicized it. So, there it is, Tim. At least part of the picture is pretty clear. We have Bristow clearing out the day before the robbery and disappearing. A week or so later a girl named Gladys Smith turns up in Miami and rents a room for herself where she was hiding out a man. Hugh Allerdice is convicted of robbery in New Orleans and is either killed or escaped three days ago. Mrs. Allerdice arrives in Miami tonight to meet him in front of the rooming-house where Jack has been hiding. But Gladys Smith is strangled in her room, Jack is shot in the belly in the vicinity, and makes it to Lucy’s, where someone slips up the fire escape to knock him off. Later I get a phone call asking for the eighty grand Jack was supposed to have had on him. Those are the facts we know. How do they add up to you?”

“Do you think Jack engineered the robbery in New Orleans, knowing Allerdice would be carrying the money next morning? That Hugh didn’t suspect it at first, but later might have begun to? Then arranged to escape while being taken to prison, and followed him here to collect the dough?”

“Something like that seems indicated.” Shayne shrugged and got up. “Could be they were in cahoots on the New Orleans snatch, and Allerdice turned the money over to him to hold for a split after he was released. But he got convicted instead, and Jack felt safe in hiding out and hanging on to all of it. One thing we’ve got to be certain of first,” he went on grimly, “is whether the woman who drowned in the back trunk of the gray sedan was Mrs. Allerdice or someone else.”

“If we had someone who could definitely identify her—” said Rourke doubtfully.

“There’s one chance. Not for a positive identification, but quite possible for a negative answer.”

“How?”

“Remember the first story of the robbery? It said Mrs. Allerdice had just been operated for appendicitis and intimated her husband might have stolen the money to pay for it?”

“Sure, but—”

“So we go to the morgue fast and take a look at her.”

“But you already looked at her when she was alive, and so did I, but we couldn’t identify the newspaper picture.”

“We didn’t see her with her clothes off,” Shayne reminded him bluntly. “If she has a recent scar from an operation she may well be Mrs. Allerdice. But if she hasn’t got such a scar, we’ll know damned well she isn’t. Come on if you want to stay with me on this.”

“You know I do.” Rourke trotted after him as Shayne hurried out with long-legged strides. “You’re not going to Gentry with all this?”

“Not yet,” said Michael Shayne grimly. “What would he do with what we’ve got? You know as well as I do that he’d lock us both up while he investigated. I want a little more time on my own.”