Murder and the Married Virgin

CHAPTER SIX

Lucy Hamilton was powdering her nose at her desk when Shayne walked into the office. She smiled at her image in the mirror and asked, “How’s sleuthing?”

Shayne tossed his soggy hat aside. “Not so hot. All I’ve been doing is asking questions and getting answers.”

“Isn’t that the way to solve cases?”

“Not my way,” he answered morosely. “Philo Vance might be able to sort out the truth from the lies, but I’ll be damned if I can.”

She carefully rouged her upper lip, asked casually, “Want to buy an emerald necklace?” and applied rouge to her lower lip.

“What?”

“I said, do you want to buy an emerald necklace?” She ran a powder puff around her smooth chin and throat. “A man has a necklace for sale and he’s been calling you.”

“Who?”

“That seems to be a secret,” she told him, and patted her brown curls. “He won’t tell who he is. If you’d ever let me know what to tell people who want to sell you emerald neck-”

“He’ll call again,” Shayne interrupted. His eyes glistened. “It’s pretty fast for the fix, so they must know I’m ready to light a fire.”

The telephone rang and Shayne said, “If it’s him I’ll take it in the other room. You have the call traced.”

Lucy was saying, “Mr. Shayne has just this minute returned. I’ll connect you.” She nodded, covered the mouthpiece and whispered, “It’s the man with the necklace.”

Shayne reached his desk phone in six long strides. He said, “Hello, Shayne speaking.” He heard Lucy flip the switch and frantically call the operator to trace the call.

A softly modulated voice said to Shayne, “I talked to a Mr. Teton at Mutual Indemnity this morning. He told me you were handling the Lomax matter.”

“That’s right. Who’s speaking?”

His caller chuckled urbanely. “Let’s waive introductions. And if you’re having this call traced, don’t bother. I’m in a public booth and I’ll be here only a minute. The necklace is for sale.”

“How much?”

“Forty grand.”

Shayne sent a derisive laugh over the wire. “You’ll be lucky to get rid of it for half that amount.”

“Maybe.” His caller remained unruffled. “I’ll call every day or so until you’re ready to talk business.” He hung up.

Lucy came in swiftly, her eyes glowing with the pride of success. “I had the call traced,” she announced. “It’s a public phone in a drugstore on the corner of St. Charles and Poydras.”

“Skip it.” Shayne went around the desk and sat down, pulled out the top right-hand drawer and brought out a bottle and two glasses.

Lucy’s bright eyes dimmed with disappointment, “And I thought I was doing something. Wasn’t that the man?”

Shayne poured a drink of cognac into a glass and offered it to Lucy. She shook her head and said, “I have to stay sober and earn my eighty a week.”

Shayne grinned. “You stay so damned sober you’ll never earn it.” He drank the cognac and poured another moderate drink. He said, “It seems our young lieutenant was right about his fiancee,” and sipped his second drink while he told his secretary the salient facts concerning Katrin Moe’s death, ending with, “What do you make of it? Give me the woman’s angle.”

Lucy answered helplessly, “It just doesn’t make sense, Michael.”

He finished his drink, put the glass and depleted bottle back in the drawer and closed it. “I’ll see Teton, and then I’ll see Doc Mattson. And I’ll get some more answers that don’t add up. Then I’ll go out and get drunk…”

“Be sure to call Lieutenant Drinkley first,” Lucy said hastily. “He called just before lunch and begged me to have you call him this afternoon. I promised you would, without fail.”

Shayne regarded her balefully. “That’s a nice assignment. More poetic maundering about the sweetness of undefiled love.”

“Sometimes,” said Lucy angrily, “I could slap you, Mike Shayne,” and went back to her desk.

Shayne sighed, got up and followed her into the outer office. He jammed his hat down over his bushy hair and asked, “Where is our knight in shining armor staying?”

“If you are referring to Lieutenant Drinkley,” she answered stiffly, “The Dragoon Hotel on-”

“I know where it is,” He picked up his coat from the railing and went out, took the elevator up to the tenth floor and strode down the corridor to the offices of the Mutual Indemnity Insurance Company.

Mr. Teton showed no surprise when Shayne entered. He said, “A man called here this morning, Shayne, and hinted that he might be able to recover the Lomax necklace. I told him-”

“Yeh. He just called me,” Shayne interposed. “Have you got that financial statement on Lomax yet?”

“Called you, did he?” Mr. Teton took off his glasses and dangled them on the black ribbon. “What did he-ah-”

“He wanted forty grand.”

“Forty thousand! Why that’s-”

“I told him it was too early to start dickering, and he hung up. If you have that statement-”

“Was that wise, Mr. Shayne? Wouldn’t it have been smarter to pretend to be eager to deal with him? Then, after you’ve learned his identity we could have him arrested.”

Shayne slammed his fist down on Teton’s desk and growled, “I don’t run my business that way. People like that come to me because I’ve always played straight with them. If I ever pulled a fast one I’d never be able to put over another deal.”

“But when one is dealing with crooks,” Mr. Teton protested, “I think one is justified in using any means to an end.”

Shayne said, “No. I’ll run this my way. If you haven’t got that dope on Lomax, I’ll be on my way.”

“It’s right here,” Teton said hastily. “I was just going over it when you came in.” He nervously adjusted his glasses on his nose, picked up several bound sheets of legal paper. “All assets are listed and segregated as to-”

“Give it to me this way,” Shayne interrupted. “Is Lomax hard up for cash?”

“Definitely not,” Teton snapped, as though it were Shayne’s fault that he wasn’t. “Six months ago it might have been a different matter. He was organizing this new company on a shoestring, but now his profits are simply prodigious, Mr. Shayne.” His round eyes ogled solemnly. “Mr. Shayne, you-”

Shayne was on his way out. He said, “Write me a letter about it,” and closed the door behind him.

He glowered at the mist of rain drifting with the wind when he stepped outside the building. The fog of mystery surrounding the stolen necklace and the death of Katrin Moe was no more penetrable than the lowering clouds and the rain mist. He turned the collar of his trench coat up and stood beside his car for a moment with the key in his hand.

He put the key back in his pocket and went halfway down the block to a liquor store. Inside, he studied the labels on the shelves, stepped behind the counter and took down a bottle that proclaimed Ancient Age in big letters. Handing it to the clerk, he said, “Wrap it up.”

The drive to the police station was short. He found the police surgeon sitting in a straight chair cocked back against the edge of a battered desk. He was reading a pulp magazine with a picture of a nude girl on the cover. The girl was cowering away from a slant-eyed yellow man who brandished a blacksnake whip.

Doctor Mattson looked up when Shayne entered. His eyes twinkled happily behind round, thick lenses. “You’ve come at a good time, Michael. I need a drink to dispel the horrors of the occult I’m delving into.”

Shayne grinned and thumped the wrapped package on the desk.

“Is it potable?” Mattson asked, holding the bottle up to the light and squinting at its contents. “Ah, there’s a delightful word, Michael. Potable! One hears it too seldom nowadays.”

Shayne took the bottle from him and uncorked it, saying, “This is a bribe, you know.”

“So be it. I’m easily bribed these days. There was a time when I wouldn’t sell my soul for less than a case of Dewar’s finest.”

Shayne tilted the bottle and took a long drink, rolled some of it around in his mouth, swallowed and nodded his head with approval. Handing it back to the doctor, he said, “Go ahead and guzzle.”

Mattson sighed. “I’d best have a small nip first. You may change your mind and take it back, for you’ll not like what I’ve got to tell you.”

“Let’s have it,” Shayne said.

The police surgeon took a nip from the bottle, replaced the cork and set it on the table. “You asked me for two things on the girl. Here they are in simple terms. She died from inhalation of gas fumes. She was not drugged and there is no evidence of poison. She didn’t fight death. I told you that this morning. A quarter of a century of intimate association with stiffs has taught me to read the facial distortions of death.”

Shayne was absently rubbing his angular jaw, his gray eyes staring thoughtfully into space.

“You don’t like it, do you, Michael?”

“No. I’d hoped you’d find something else. Thanks just the same.”

Before driving away from the police building, Shayne sat sprawled in the driver’s seat, his big hands gripping the steering wheel. Abruptly he raced the engine and lurched into a stream of traffic.

The Dragoon was a small, modern hotel on Race Street. The time was a quarter past four when he went into the lobby and asked the clerk for Lieutenant Drinkley. The young man consulted a card-index file and said, “Four-twelve, sir. There’s a house phone if you wish to call,” pushing the instrument forward.

Shayne lifted the receiver and asked for 412. The phone rang four times before Lieutenant Drinkley answered.

“Shayne speaking,” he said, and when no further answer came immediately, he added, “the detective.”

“I know,” the lieutenant said. “I’ve been hoping you’d call.”

“I’m coming up to see you.” Shayne started to hang up, but the lieutenant said quickly, “Let me come to your office. In about half an hour.”

“I’m downstairs in the hotel now,” Shayne told him. He hung up and went to the elevator. It took him to the fourth floor at once. He stepped from the elevator into a corridor, glanced at the numbers, and turned right to 412 and knocked.

He knocked again after waiting a few seconds, glanced up to see that the transom was tightly closed. No sound came from the room. He tried the knob, but the door was locked, and he rapped again.

The door opened with a rush. Lieutenant Drinkley faced him with a strange expression of anxiety. His khaki shirt was rumpled and his blond hair was tousled as it had been that morning, and the lines of strain had deepened at the corners of his thin mouth.

He said, “I’m sorry. I was-I couldn’t come to the door at once.” He appeared nervous and confused, like a man wakened suddenly from deep sleep, but he didn’t look sleepy. The bed in the center of the room was neatly made.

Shayne heeled the door shut and brushed past Drinkley. The room was quite small, with a single window at one end and an upholstered chair turned to face a small, straight chair beside a writing table.

A bottle half filled with scotch and a bottle of white soda stood on the desk and a glass of the mixture floating with ice cubes made a wet ring on the blotter.

Shayne looked sharply at Drinkley. His cheeks were highly flushed, but he didn’t act or talk drunk. Shayne crossed over to the armchair and sat down, shook his head negatively when the officer invited him to have a drink.

“I never drink at this time in the afternoon,” he lied, and fished out a cigarette.

An open book of matches lay beside a glass ash tray on the desk. He struck one to light his cigarette and noticed that the folder had the picture of a bubbling glass of champagne on the front and the printed words, The Laurel Club.

The ash tray was full of half-smoked stubs. One of them still smoldered. It had a streak of lipstick on the end, as did two others in the ash tray.

Shayne slid the match folder into his pocket. He said, “I’m afraid I’m not getting very far on your case, Lieutenant.”

Drinkley sat on the foot of the bed resting his elbows on his knees. He said gloomily, “I suppose it was foolish to hope you could do anything. You think that Katrin did”-he paused to wet his lips with his tongue and looked up at Shayne doggedly-“commit suicide?”

“That’s the way it stands now.” Shayne drew in a deep breath, his nostrils flaring when he smelled the faint odor of perfume. He glanced around and noted that a clothes closet stood partially open. Another door, evidently leading to the bathroom, was closed.

“And I still can’t turn up any motive,” Shayne went on gravely. “Nor any indication that she made any attempt to leave you a message.”

In a bitter tone, Drinkley asked, “Do you suppose the jewel robbery out there has anything to do with it? I’ve been reading about it in the papers. An emerald necklace. I didn’t know anything about it this morning when I talked to you.”

Shayne hunched forward and asked, “Does the stolen necklace mean anything to you?” Then added harshly, “Some of the family seem to think Katrin stole it-and gave it to somebody who was working with her-on the outside.”

Drinkley drew back as though to evade a physical blow. “That’s a lie,” he shouted. “Katrin wouldn’t steal-and she wouldn’t be working with a criminal.” He got up and went to the writing table, took the mixed drink and carried it back to the bed after taking a large swallow. He set the glass on the floor and bowed his head in his hands and moaned, “I’ve been trying to think all day. I don’t know-I simply don’t know.”

Shayne said casually, “For a man who doesn’t drink, Lieutenant, you seem to be doing pretty well for yourself,”

“Yeh. I’m beginning to feel sort of numb.” He raised his head and glanced at the closed bathroom door, shifted his gaze to Shayne.

Shayne was looking at the door and his mouth was set in a grim line.

Drinkley came to his feet. “I’ve been trying to find out a few things for myself,” he said thickly. He walked up and down the room, hands thrust in his pockets, his head bowed. “I had a fantastic idea that perhaps someone might have been gossiping about me to Katrin. You know how those things are, and she was so idealistic. If someone who wanted to break up our marriage had lied to her-oh, God!” He sank down on the bed and moaned, “I still can’t realize this has happened to me-and to Katrin. It’s like I was seeing it happen to someone else. I guess I was just about out of my mind when I went to see you this morning.”

Shayne watched him with eyes that were like gray steel. He said harshly, “Whom do you suspect of gossiping to Katrin?”

“It was just-an idea-that came to me when I racked my brain for a motive. You haven’t-you didn’t learn anything that might make you think that’s what happened?”

“Not yet,” Shayne said softly. Then without warning he demanded, “Was Clarice Lomax in love with you?”

“Clarice? Of course-not,” he stammered.

“Did you ever encourage her? Go out with her?”

“Never. I saw her and talked with her a few times when I went to the house.”

“I just wondered,” Shayne mused. He got up and walked to the window. His back was turned to the officer when he asked, “Do you know what Katrin did on her day off-on Wednesdays?”

Drinkley didn’t answer immediately. Shayne pivoted to look at him. Drinkley was frowning as though he tried to remember. “When I was here,” he said, “we spent Wednesdays together. After I left, I-don’t-know. She never mentioned anything special in her letters. Is it important?”

“I don’t know.” Shayne took a step toward the bathroom door, asked, “May I go in here before I go?”

Drinkley came up from the bed abruptly, restrained himself with a palpable effort and sank back. Shayne was twisting the knob of the door and pushing.

“I’m sorry,” the lieutenant said. “It must be locked. You see, it’s a connecting bathroom and the other occupants must be using it-or forgot to unlock it.”

Shayne arched one eyebrow. “It doesn’t matter.” He strode to the door saying, “Take it easy and don’t drink too much. I’m working on several angles.”

Drinkley followed him to the door and opened it. He said, “I might be able to find out something-”

“Why don’t you have dinner with me this evening?” Shayne interrupted. “I’ll drop by for you-say in an hour or so,” and went out without waiting for a reply.

He walked swiftly down the narrow corridor past the elevator to a turn. Stepping around the corner he took up a position where he could hear the door of 412 open.

The vigil was short. Less than five minutes later the door opened. Peering around the corner he saw a girl come out. She paused to say something to the lieutenant and Shayne ducked out of sight, turned his coat collar up and pulled his hat brim low. When he heard the elevator stop he sauntered around the corner and hurried when he saw the girl stepping into it. The operator waited for him.

She was the only occupant besides himself. A tall, shapely girl wearing a severely tailored suit of tan with green trimmings and a green hat with a jaunty feather tucked into the band. Her tawny hair blended with the tan of her suit and her eyes were a shade darker than her hair. Her mouth was very red and drooped sullenly at the corners. After one quick, wide-eyed look at Shayne her long curling lashes veiled her eyes and she appeared preoccupied with unpleasant thoughts.

Shayne moved to a corner in the elevator and rested his elbows on the rail. When it stopped at the main floor he waited for her to exit, then followed her slowly across the lobby. She was getting into a taxi when he came out the door. There was no other cab in sight. He jotted down the number of the taxicab, noted the company’s name, and went to his car and drove away.

The rain had stopped but clouds lowered threateningly. The wind was damp and cold. The street lights were on. Shayne looked at his watch and was surprised to find that it was after five o’clock. Something tugged at his memory as he drove.

Suddenly he recalled that Lucy was angry when he left his office. He pressed his big foot on the accelerator and exceeded the speed limit until he reached the International Building.