Dividend on Death

CHAPTER 2

At seven-thirty, Shayne came up a side street from Flagler to the service entrance of his apartment hotel. Down concrete steps and through a door into a square vestibule, then up two flights and to the right.

In his apartment, he crossed to the table, took the wadded pearls and bills from his pocket, unrolled the pearls and let them lie shimmering on the table while his eyes brooded over them. After a minute, and leaving the bills on the table, he carried the pearls into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took out the hydrator, which held a head of lettuce. He put the pearls in the bottom, scattered lettuce leaves over them, and replaced the pan.

When he returned to the living-room, he was carrying a glass and a pitcher of crushed ice cubes and water. He set these things down on the table and brought out a bottle of Martell five-star cognac and a wineglass from a cupboard. Shayne’s actions were apparently almost unconscious; the precise somnambulism of habit was in every motion, an automatic smoothness that lasted while he sat down, poured a drink, and lit a cigarette. There was nothing in his face to show what he was thinking.

For the next half hour he sat silently, alternately sipping from the wineglass and the water glass, lighting one cigarette from another. Finally he stood up, turned out the lights and went out. His expression had not altered, but there was purposefulness in his walk.

The elevator deposited him in a large and ornately furnished lobby. Shayne thrust his way across it toward the desk, caught the clerk’s eye, and received a negative shake of his head. Without stopping he went on, out through the side front entrance and across to a row of garages, where he unlocked the padlock on one door and folded himself into the driver’s seat of a middle-aged car. Once the car was backed out, Shayne drove a winding course to Southeast Second Street, thence east to Biscayne Boulevard, and north on the right-hand drive. He paid no attention to his route, and very little to the other cars on the road.

At Thirteenth Street he turned to the right at the traffic circle and sped over the causeway across the Bay. When he reached the peninsula, he drove as far east as the ocean would allow, then turned north. His watch told him it was eight-twenty; the place could hardly be more than a few minutes ahead of him. Shayne relaxed imperceptibly at the wheel; he began to look around him. There was little traffic on the wide street, and few strolling figures in Lummus Park, He checked the house numbers as he drove along, and a short distance beyond the Roney Plaza, slowed and turned into a winding concrete drive between granite gateposts.

The general look of the place was luxurious but conventional to the point of dullness. There was a carefully tended terraced lawn on the left and a wide landscaped area of tropical shrubbery. The dark bulk of a huge mansion showed as he followed the drive to a porte-cochere, bougainvillea-draped in front. Lights shone from the lower windows.

An elderly woman in a maid’s uniform opened the door. He told her his name, and she said he was expected in the library and would he follow her?

Shayne did, down a dimly-lit vaulted hallway, past a balustraded stairway. A woman was descending the stairway, and she reached the bottom just as Shayne passed. She wore the white uniform of a nurse and carried a napkin-covered tray. She was a full-bodied blonde of about thirty, with predatory eyes.

Shayne glanced at her as he passed and caught a fleeting, almost animal look on her face. Her lips were pouted as though in assent, though he had not spoken to her.

The maid led him on to the end of the hall and turned down a narrower one until she stopped outside a wide partly-open door and said, “They’re expecting you inside.” He hardly noticed her noiseless, gliding retreat. It took plenty of money, he reflected, to get that kind of service.

Light streamed through the narrow opening, and there was the low hum of voices. Shayne bent his head and listened but could distinguish no words. He pushed the door open a little more and looked in.

There was the sound of slithering feet on the carpet behind him. Sharp fingers dug into his arm. He turned to look into the white face of Phyllis Brighton. She looked ghastly in the dim light. The lashes were drawn back from her eyeballs as though by some mechanical device, and the pupils were so contracted that the entire eyeball seemed to consist only of smoky iris. Shayne saw that she was wearing a flimsy chiffon nightgown and that her feet were bare. Streaks of blood showed darkly red down the front of her nightgown.

He stared at her face and at the crimson stains, his mouth thin and hard. When he saw her lips begin to move, he thrust her back away from the doorway.

She spoke in a flat, low monotone. “I’ve done it. You’re too late. I’ve already done it.”

Without replying, Shayne pushed her back farther from the door and held her out at arm’s length to study her. Her eyes stared back, but he felt that they didn’t really see him. She stood stiffly erect with her gown hanging slackly from shoulders and breasts. Her lips continued to move, but no articulate words came forth. There was only a low moan each time she exhaled. When she lifted one of her hands, he saw that the inside of the palm was smeared with blood. He caught her wrist as she started to grasp his arm. The abruptness of his motion had some effect on her; she drew back from him, her eyes still staring and sightless, and then turned and led him down the hall. Shayne followed, holding tightly to her wrist. Her bare feet glided soundlessly on the carpet, and her breath wheezed in and out between set teeth. There was a back stairway at the end of the hall. Shayne put his left arm about her shoulders as they climbed the stairs side by side. Her flesh was cold under the thin gown. At the top of the stairs she turned to the right and stopped in front of a closed door. Her head moved jerkily, and her face was contorted with grief or remorse.

“She’s in there.”

Shayne opened the door and fumbled for a wall switch, keeping his arm tightly about Phyllis’s shoulders.

The switch lighted a shaded floor lamp standing near the foot of a bed. Shayne moved inside, and the girl moved with him. He closed the door softly with his heel and gazed down somberly at the body of a murdered woman lying outstretched on the bed. One white hand trailed down limply toward the floor, and there was the slow drip of blood into a thickening pool on the carpet.

Shayne’s arm tightened about the girl’s shoulders as a shudder traversed her body. He roughly turned her away while he stepped near the bed and looked down silently at the woman whom he had promised to protect from harm. She wore, he noticed, a gray tailored traveling-suit, with gray blouse and shoes, and she appeared not to have struggled against death. Blood was clotted on the white pillow and continued to seep from a gaping wound in her throat.

Shayne turned away from the bed, his left arm crushing Phyllis to him. Three traveling-bags stood in partially unpacked disarray near the door. A fitted overnight bag lay open on the brocaded bench before the vanity, and there were toilet articles scattered out in front of the mirror. Half carrying the girl, Shayne moved to the vanity. There was an open hammered-silver jewel case holding a miscellany of personal jewelry. An elaborately tooled handbag of gray leather lay beside the jewel case.

Shayne opened it with his free hand and dumped its contents out. There was a lipstick and compact, a wad of bills, and a neatly folded cablegram, a small leather key-tainer. He smoothed the cablegram out and read it with a frown.

HAVE VERIFIED AUTHENTICITY AND WILL RETURN IMMEDIATELY USUAL ROUTE CABLE WHETHER NEW YORK OR MIAMI

HENDERSON

It had been sent from London a week before, to Mrs. Rufus Brighton in New York. Penciled on the bottom were the words: Will meet you in Miami.

Shayne stuffed the cablegram in his pocket. Phyllis Brighton stirred inside the circle of his arm and began moaning. He led her to the door, put both his hands on her shoulders and shook her. Her eyes came open, and she stopped moaning.

“Where is your room?” Shayne formed each word distinctly.

She shook her head as though too dazed to understand, but reached falteringly for the doorknob. Shayne switched off the light and closed the door. Phyllis moved stiffly ahead of him down the hall to another door which stood partly ajar and which she entered.

A bed lamp burned at the head of a bed which he saw had lately been occupied. On the rug beside the bed lay a large wooden-handled butcher knife. The blade was stained red, and the grip was smeared with blood.

Shayne pushed Phyllis down on the bed and stared at the knife. Then he looked at her and asked, “Is that what you did it with?” His face and voice were expressionless.

She shuddered and did not look at the knife. “I just woke up and-and there it was. I-don’t know. I guess-it must be.”

Shayne said, “Stand up.”

She obeyed like a docile child.

“Look at me.”

She looked at him. The pupils of her eyes had expanded to normal size but they were still glassy and unfocused. He asked, “How do you know you did it?”

“I just woke up and knew.”

“Did you remember doing it?”

“Yes. As soon as I saw the knife I remembered.”

Shayne shook his head. Her voice was dull, as if the words were unimportant to her. Something stunk about the entire setup. He didn’t know just what. There wasn’t time to dig into it now.

He said, “Take off your nightgown. It’s got blood on it.”

Still staring into his eyes, Phyllis’s hands went stiffly downward, gathered up the bottom hem of her gown and lifted it over her head.

Shayne turned his eyes away and held out his hand for it. Beads of sweat stood on his corrugated forehead. This was a hell of a time to be thinking about-anything except earning that string of pearls Phyllis had given him. Keeping his gaze averted, he said, “Give me the nightgown.”

She put it in his hand and waited further orders.

He balled the soft material up in his fingers and said, “Now go in the bathroom and wash your hands and dry them. Get another nightgown and put it on.”

His eyes followed her across the room to the bathroom door. When she went inside he shook his head, then bent and picked up the knife by the blade. He wrapped the bloody nightgown around the handle and transferred his hold there. Then he unbuttoned his coat and slipped the knife, blade downward, into the inside pocket; forcing the point through the lining until the handle rested against the bottom of the pocket. He then stuffed the rest of the nightgown inside the pocket and buttoned his coat.

Phyllis Brighton came out of the bathroom, took a clean nightgown from a hanger in the closet, and slipped it on.

Shayne stood beside the bed and watched her. She came back and stood before him numbly, as though she had no will of her own, but waited for him to instruct her.

“Get into bed,” he said. “Cover up and turn out the light and go to sleep or pretend to sleep. Forget about everything. Everything, do you understand?”

“I understand,” she said in a flat, weary voice.

“You’d damn well better.” He watched her get in bed and waited until she turned out the light. Then he went out in the hall and closed the door. He hesitated a moment as he observed the key in the outside lock. With a scowl almost of uncertainty, he turned the key, left it in the door, and strode down the hall toward the stairs.

He met no one as he padded back to the library. The entire incident had not delayed him more than ten minutes. This time he did not hesitate before the door.

Four men were seated in the library when he went in. Dr. Joel Pedique, who had visited him that afternoon; Dr. Hilliard, a tall, ascetic man with eyeglasses fastened to a wide black ribbon, whom he knew; and two others who he guessed were Mr. Montrose and Clarence Brighton.

“The maid told me I was expected,” Shayne said as he stepped into the room.

Dr. Pedique rose and bowed from the hips. “We have been waiting for you, Mr. Shayne.”

Shayne smiled and said, “Hello, Hilliard.”

“Good evening, Shayne.” Dr. Hilliard didn’t get up, but smiled courteously.

“Mr. Montrose, Mr. Shayne,” said Dr. Pedique.

Mr. Montrose was a wispy little man, bald and cleanshaven. His clothes seemed too large for him, and his face was a pasty-white. He stood up and bowed, and Shayne nodded curtly.

“And this is Clarence Brighton,” Dr. Pedique went on, his voice becoming more effusive.

The youth crossed his ankles in front of him, looked at Shayne in low-lidded indifference, and muttered something.

Shayne looked the boy over carefully as he took the chair Dr. Pedique offered him. About twenty, with a slender, well-knit body, slack mouth, and furtive hazel eyes. His hands were small, and the two first fingers of the left hand were heavily stained with nicotine. All in all, there was an obvious but ill-defined air of defiance about him.

Shayne said, “Well?” and let his gaze slide to Dr. Pedique as the latter resumed his seat.

“We were discussing you and some of your exploits,” Dr. Pedique told him. “Doctor Milliard has been kind enough to tell us something about your work.”

Shayne lit a cigarette and grinned amiably at Dr. Milliard. “Hope you didn’t tell them anything they shouldn’t know, doc. These people are my clients.”

“I assured them that you generally get results,” he answered seriously. Dr. Milliard was one of the most respected members of his profession in Miami, an officer of the local Medical Association, and prominent in civic affairs.

“That’s all right. So long as you didn’t tell them how I go about getting results.” Shayne then turned to Pedique. “I’m here on business. Everything’s all right so far, I judge,” he said casually.

“Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Mrs. Brighton went to her room immediately after dinner and is resting from the trip. She asked me to bring you to meet her before you go away. The-ah-patient is resting quietly, also.”

“That’s great,” said Shayne. “Now, have you worked out any definite plan of action?”

“That, I should think, would be for you to decide.” Dr. Pedique cocked his head, nodded with pursed lips. “With all the facts in hand, you may proceed as you see fit.”

Shayne nodded and turned again to Dr. Milliard. “How about it, doc? Is Pedique having a pipe dream or is there any danger of the girl harming her mother? How do you see the setup?”

Dr. Milliard brought the tips of his fingers together in front of his chest. “I can’t venture a prediction, having no more intimate knowledge of the case than a somewhat cursory observation has given me. I do approve, however, of taking all possible precautions.”

“Christ!” Shayne complained, “it’s as hard to get a definite opinion out of one of you birds as a lawyer.”

Dr. Milliard smiled suavely. “Mental cases require careful study and observation over a long period,” he told Shayne. “I haven’t,” he added, “been consulted on Miss Brighton’s case.”

Shayne shot a look at Dr. Pedique. “You’ve kept her to yourself, huh?”

Dr. Pedique smiled thinly. “I felt perfectly capable of coping with her case. With Mr. Brighton I did consider that a consultant was necessary.”

“See here,” Shayne said abruptly, “how does the girl’s name come to be Brighton? I understood she wasn’t his daughter.”

“He adopted her at the time of his marriage,” Mr. Montrose explained. “It was his desire that she be legally regarded as his daughter.”

Shayne watched Clarence as Mr. Montrose ended. The boy’s lips poked out sulkily. He uncrossed and recrossed his ankles.

“You’d better let me have a talk with Mrs. Brighton and see if I can arrange a sensible method of going about this,” Shayne said. He stood up, and Dr. Pedique arose hurriedly. “By the way,” Shayne added, “how does she take this? Mrs. Brighton, I mean.”

“She was much relieved when I outlined the arrangement,” Dr. Pedique said. “She is greatly concerned about the girl, of course, but she admitted to me that she had felt cause for alarm on previous occasions.” He slid through the door and held it for Shayne who passed through with a nod of his head toward the three men remaining in the library.

“This way.” Dr. Pedique led him down the hall in the direction the maid had brought him, and on to the wide stairway. They went up the stairs silently, and at the top were met by the blond nurse whom Shayne had seen before. She carried a folded towel on her arm and was about to pass them when Dr. Pedique held out his hand and said, “Ah, Charlotte, how is the patient?”

“He’s resting, doctor.” Her voice was low and huskily vibrant. Her eyes slipped past the doctor’s face and rested with approval on the towering figure of the detective.

“That’s fine,” said Dr. Pedique. The nurse went on down the hall, followed by Shayne’s speculative gaze.

“This way.” Dr. Pedique led him to the same door which Phyllis had taken him to. The room was dark. Dr. Pedique knocked softly. There was no response. He knocked louder and listened, then said, “I wonder-” and tried the knob. The door swung inward and he called softly, “Mrs. Brighton.”

When there was no response, he switched on the light. Shayne stood directly behind him and watched his body stiffen as he looked toward the bed. He crossed the room swiftly and bent over her. Shayne strode in after him, hard-eyed and watchful.

The face which Dr. Pedique raised to Shayne was contorted with horror-and with some other emotion which it was impossible to diagnose at the moment. He shuddered and averted his eyes from the chalk-white face of the woman on the bed. His face was greenish-pale even in the warm light from the floor lamp.

“Looks as if you won’t be needing me now,” Shayne said.

The dapper little physician rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “This is terrible, terrible,” he groaned.

“It’s not nice,” Shayne admitted.

Dr. Pedique risked a second glance at the body and said, more firmly, “It’s-that girl! We thought she had gone to bed. She must have slipped in here and-God! I’ve been a fool. I should have had a nurse watching her every minute.” His suave, dapper manner deserted him completely, and he covered his face with his hands.

The spectacle began to irk Shayne. “Looks like a case for the police. For Christ’s sake, pull yourself together.”

Dr. Pedique made an effort to recapture his professional manner. “I feel wholly responsible,” he said. “Had I used better judgment, I should have sent the girl to an asylum instead of exposing her mother to this danger.”

“Afterthoughts aren’t worth a damn,” observed Shayne. “Let’s call the police and the others, and then get hold of the girl before she bumps somebody else off.”

“It is the strictest necessity,” Dr. Pedique readily agreed. He slid past Shayne and ran to the top of the stairs to call the news downstairs and ask that the police be notified. Then he came back to Shayne, his mouth twitching.

“The girl’s room. We’ll see if she’s there.”

“We’ll wait for some of the others to come up,” Shayne protested. “Doctor Hilliard should be here. A crazy woman with a knife is likely to be a tough proposition.”

Dr. Pedique agreed, his breath coming nervously and noisily. Clarence and Dr. Hilliard raced up the stairs; Shayne could hear the tension in Montrose’s voice, below, as he telephoned the police.

Shayne took the newcomers to the open door of the death chamber and they both looked in. Dr. Hilliard fiddled with his eyeglasses and shook his head drearily. The boy, Clarence, drew back after one hasty glance during which his face went white and drawn.

“Where’s the girl’s room?” Shayne asked Dr. Pedique.

“This way.” They followed him down the hall. Arriving at what Shayne knew to be Phyllis’s door, Dr. Pedique stood back and moistened his lips, waiting for someone else to take the initiative.

Shayne stepped to the door and knocked authoritatively. There was no response. Then, he tried the knob. The door would not open. “Hell,” he muttered, “it’s locked.” Making certain that Dr. Hilliard observed his every move, Shayne turned the key in the lock and opened the door.

The others crowded in the doorway behind him. The room was dark. He groped for a switch, found it quickly, and pressed it. As the light came on, Phyllis Brighton sat up in bed with a little scream of fright. She gasped, “What is it?” and stared at them with distended eyes.

Shayne stepped aside so the others could see her, and muttered, “Hell, she doesn’t look like a murderess.”

“What is it?” she screamed again, half rising from her bed. The front of her nightgown showed stainless and clean.

“Hold everything, sister,” Shayne said as he would have soothed a small child, “your mother has had an accident.”

“Oh!” Her knuckles went to her mouth where she bit at them frantically as if to hold back a scream. Her slender body crouched away from the men as she would have drawn back from wild animals ready to attack her.

“Keep as calm as you can,” Shayne told her. “You didn’t do it. Your door was locked on the outside and you couldn’t have got out if you’d tried.”

“Oh! Where is she? I must see her,” the girl cried. She threw the covers back and started to get out of bed.

Shayne stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder and gently forced her back. “Take it easy. You’re not in any shape to see her now.”

She sank back obediently. Shayne turned to Hilliard and said, “Better look after her, doc. Get her calmed down before the police come.”

Dr. Hilliard stepped forward with professional calm, and Shayne said to the others, “We’ll get out. Whoever did the killing must have locked the girl in her room first. It’s a cinch she didn’t do it and then lock herself in.”

Dr. Pedique took a white silk handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face. “I don’t understand,” he said as they went down the hallway.

Shayne grinned at his back. “I don’t, either,” he said, “but I guess my job’s finished. I’ll be running along.”

“Wait!” sputtered Dr. Pedique. “The murderer. The police will be here!”

“Let them worry about the murderer,” said Shayne. “That’s their job, not mine. I’m breezing before they start pestering me with idiotic questions.” He went down the front stairs while the doctor and Clarence stared after him, bewildered.

Shayne lost no time in getting his car out of the drive. Two blocks south a racing automobile passed him with screaming siren. He grinned at the police car and drove leisurely back to his apartment hotel in Miami. This time, he went in the front way and up the elevator. A grin accompanied an involuntary sigh when he closed the door of his apartment and walked over to the center table. He took off his coat and gingerly took the butcher knife and nightgown from his pocket and laid them on the table beside the bottle of cognac. The look of being withdrawn from what he was doing began to come over his face once again. It meant that Michael Shayne was beginning to add up the score. So, when his eye lit on the two hundred-dollar bills, which were lying where he had left them, he merely grunted, picked them up, and stuck them in his pocket without any indication of whether he was surprised to find them still there or not. Then he went to the bedroom and undressed, slipped his gaunt length into tan pajamas, and pulled on a dressing-robe. With felt bedroom slippers on his feet, he padded out to the other room, took the tall glass to the kitchen where he crushed new ice cubes and made another glass of ice water.

Returning, he set the glass carefully on the table, poured a wineglass of cognac, and set cigarettes and matches on the small stand near by. Next he lowered himself info the deep chair, lit a cigarette, and proceeded to gaze through the blue smoke at the chiffon-wrapped butcher knife before him.

It was a few minutes after ten when he sat down. Two hours later the ash tray was filled with half-smoked butts, the level of the liquid in the brandy bottle was considerably lower, the small amount of water remaining in the glass was warm, but he had reached no conclusion. Carefully he poured another glass of cognac and debated whether he should get more ice. Deciding it was too much trouble, he lifted the glass to his lips.

He held it there, but his eyes shifted toward the door as a soft tapping sounded on the panel. After one reflective sip, he set the glass down carefully and stood erect. The tapping sounded again. Shayne’s arm shot out and opened the table drawer. The other arm swept the knife and nightgown in it. He closed the drawer soundlessly and padded to the door.

When he opened it and looked out, he said, “I’ve been expecting you,” and stood aside to let Phyllis Brighton enter.