Murder by Proxy

14

Michael Shayne didn’t bother to go back to the Beach that night. With a dead woman on his hands, he knew that Painter would have detectives swarming all over the Gray Gull to check every detail of Blake’s story and try to get a line on the man Blake claimed he had last seen her with.

He stayed late at Lucy’s apartment and slept late on Sunday morning before getting up to make coffee and get the morning paper from in front of his door.

It contained a brief account of the discovery of the body in the parked convertible, with a few details that Shayne didn’t already know. No purse had been found with the body, and the entire car was completely clean of fingerprints. Mr. Harris was quoted as saying that a wide wedding ring set with diamonds was missing from the dead woman’s hand, and that she had left New York with about three hundred dollars in cash and her credit card. The lack of positive identification was mentioned, but not stressed.

Painter was quoted as stating that he believed robbery to have been the motive without mentioning why he thought a robber would have beaten her face up beyond possible recognition. It was guardedly stated that she was known to have left her hotel the preceding Monday evening in the company of a strange man, but Gene Blake’s name was not mentioned, nor was the Gray Gull. At the end of the story it was stated that Michael Shayne, well-known private detective from Miami, had been retained by the bereaved husband to help solve the case, and that he was working in close conjunction with the Miami Beach police.

Shayne put the newspaper aside thoughtfully and went into the kitchen to pour himself another cup of coffee. He added a dollop of cognac to this one, and settled himself comfortably back in the living room.

His telephone rang. He answered it and a nervous voice asked if he was Michael Shayne. He said he was and there was a pause at the other end of the wire, and then the voice went on hurriedly:

“In the morning paper it says you’re working on the Harris murder case. Is that right?”

Shayne said, “Yes.”

“Then I have to see you at once. It’s very important. I… have to tell you something. May I come to your place?”

Shayne gave him his address and apartment number. He hung up more thoughtful than before, and drank his coffee royal, then showered and shaved and was just finished dressing when there was a knock on his door.

Shayne opened it to admit a very worried and frightened man. He was in his forties with a fairly bulky body and a clean-shaven, nondescript sort of face. He was neatly dressed in a dark suit with a white shirt and maroon tie.

He said, “Mr. Shayne. I’m sorry to bother you at home like this, but… I have to talk to you. I need your advice desperately.” He carried a brown fedora in his hands which he twisted nervously.

Shayne said, “Come in. Sit down. Care for a cup of coffee?”

“No, I… I had coffee. My name is John J. Benjamin from Detroit. I’m on vacation at the Beach… with my wife. I…” He slumped into a chair and gulped nervously, then raised harried brown eyes to Shayne and confessed, “I have information about Mrs. Harris which I think the police should have. Ever since yesterday afternoon when I saw her picture in the paper, I knew I’d have to come forward. But I kept hoping…”

He paused and shook his head. “But when I read about her being murdered this morning, probably last Monday night, I knew I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. I’ll pay you well, Mr. Shayne, extremely well, if you can arrange to relay my information to the police without my becoming involved.”

“I can’t promise anything until I know what it is.”

“Of course not. I didn’t expect… I saw her Monday night, Mr. Shayne. At the Gray Gull. That’s a gambling casino at the Beach. I’m not really a gambler, but… on vacation like this… and my wife was ill that night. I’m not really one for picking up strange women either,” he added with a self-conscious smile. “But I was alone there and she was extremely attractive. We were playing roulette at the same table… for small stakes… and it was she who actually spoke first. In another type of woman, I might have thought her forward, but she seemed very ladylike, and in the informal atmosphere of a gambling house…” He broke off and looked anxiously at the detective for man-to-man understanding.

Shayne said with a slight smile, “I know how it is. Tell me what happened.”

“Well, we just got to talking and she told me she was Mrs. Harris from New York… I noticed her wedding ring set with diamonds just the way it was described in the paper… and she mentioned, kind of sadly, I thought, but spunky about it, that it was her husband’s idea for her to come down alone and have fun… and, by golly, she was determined to do just that.

“Well, I couldn’t help but remark that if I were married to a looker like her I’d keep her locked up at home… not that Mrs. Benjamin isn’t a fine-looking woman,” he broke in to explain, “but a different type, you might say.

“Anyhow, she confided in me that she had met this man in the cocktail lounge at her hotel that evening and he seemed like a gentleman and she’d come to the Gray Gull with him, but she guessed it was a mistake because he seemed to think that… well, you know… that it was all right for him to be forward with her because she had let him pick her up in a bar. And she asked me real nicely if I’d help her get rid of him and I told her I’d be delighted to help, so the next time he came to the roulette table to speak to her she hardly looked at him, but pretended to snuggle up to me and talked in a low voice that sounded intimate, I guess, and he got the idea and, after a little, we saw him leaving with another woman. And she giggled and said, well, that had taken care of him, all right, and that she was tired of playing roulette and why didn’t we go on somewhere else?”

“What did the man look like?” Shayne asked when Benjamin paused in his recital.

“Like just the sort of self-assured young man who would try to take advantage of a lady. You could spot him for a gigolo right away. That’s an old-fashioned word, I guess, but I’ll bet he makes a living preying on lonely women, who just want to have a little innocent fun. He was tall and tanned, and had brown hair, I think.”

Shayne nodded. “Did you and Mrs. Harris leave then?”

“Very soon afterward. We cashed in our chips… she had about forty dollars left out of the fifty she said she’d started with, which was a little better than I had done, because I dropped thirty-two dollars. Not that I was worried about that,” he added hastily. “I could afford it all right. Well, she said she had her own car and I don’t have a car with me down here, so we went downstairs and they brought it around… a cream-colored Pontiac convertible with the top down. She asked the attendant to put the top up because it was getting a little cool, and she drove.

“Since she didn’t know the Beach, I suggested a little hotel near mine for dinner where they have a small, quiet dining room and serve really excellent food until midnight. The Mirabel.”

He paused nervously and Shayne nodded. “I’ve eaten there. The Pompano Amandine is terrific.”

“Yes… well… I don’t wish to attempt to completely exculpate myself, Mr. Shayne. I want to be thoroughly honest, and, perhaps, what did happen was partially my fault. But she had been so friendly up to then, and appeared to like me very much, and I had had several drinks with a very early and very light dinner… and I sat close to her while she drove and put my arm about her shoulders, and she laughed quite charmingly and encouraged me, turning to smile in my face and pat my cheek once, when she stopped for a traffic light. And she said, very sweetly, that I wasn’t like the other man and she felt perfectly safe with me. Which I assure you she was, Mr. Shayne,” he added earnestly.

“I really had no thought of anything more than a pleasant late dinner with a charming companion. But she… perhaps she misinterpreted things. I still don’t really understand. It came as a complete surprise and shock.” He stopped, shaking his head in puzzlement.

“What did?” Shayne asked.

“When we reached the canopy in front of the Mirabel. There was a doorman there, and a parking attendant to take the car. I got out and the attendant was on her side and started to open the door for her. He just had his hand on the handle when she whooshed away leaving me standing there dumfounded. There’s a turn-around that the taxis use, and she just sailed around it and disappeared. I felt an awful fool, of course, with the doorman and attendant standing there looking at me and you could tell they were feeling sorry for me.

“Well, I passed it off as best I could. I summoned up a rueful laugh and said, ‘Women!’ And the doorman was sympathetic and asked me if I was going in or wanted a cab, and I told him I guessed I’d just walk on to my own hotel… which is only three blocks… and I did.”

“And that was the end of it?” Shayne demanded. “The last you saw of Mrs. Harris?”

“That was the end of it,” the man from Detroit declared firmly. “She just vanished out of my sight into the night. Naturally I told my wife nothing about what had occurred. But since yesterday afternoon, when I saw her picture in the paper and learned she was missing, I knew I should eventually have to go to the authorities with my story.”

Shayne nodded slowly, “Yes, they’ll have to be told.” He sat for a time, pondering what Benjamin had told him. Here again was the same inexplicable pattern of behavior repeating itself. What hidden impulse had driven Ellen Harris to act as she did last Monday? She had apparently invited passes from every man whom she encountered, and then backed out of the situation as soon as it began to develop. It was almost as though she had been asking to have her pretty face beaten to a pulp by some sexually frustrated male.

He shook his head and turned his attention to the problem presented by Mr. Benjamin and his wife. At the moment he felt thoroughly sorry for the man. If his story was true… and Shayne believed it was… he was a perfectly innocent guy who had taken one very small step aside from the straight and narrow path and was likely to be pilloried for it.

“Do I have to go in and tell them, Mr. Shayne?” he asked unhappily. “It will be quite an ordeal. I’ve never had any experience with the police.”

Shayne said, “It would be better for you to go in than wait for them to pick you up. You see, they got your description at the Gray Gull last night, and right now you’re probably the most hunted man in Miami.”

“Oh, God.” His face went ashen. “You mean I’ll be arrested and held in jail?”

“At least until your story is thoroughly checked.” Shayne hesitated, tugging at his earlobe and thinking out loud, “If I were positive in my own mind that you’re telling the truth, I can’t see that it would help the murder investigation any for them to know your name. If we could place her at the Mirabel that night, and if the police were convinced she had ditched her escort from the Gray Gull at that point, they’d lose interest in you.”

“Could you manage that? I can’t begin to tell you how everlastingly grateful I’d be.”

“Do you think the Mirabel doorman would remember the incident?”

“I feel certain he would, Mr. Shayne. And the parking attendant, too. It was so very obvious that she was getting rid of me and that I was taken completely by surprise. They were too polite to laugh at me openly, but I’m sure they snickered about it after I left.”

Shayne nodded and muttered, “I think that’s Mandel.” He looked up the number of the Mirabel Hotel and called it, and asked for Pete Mandel.

In a moment a voice said, “Mandel speaking.”

“Mike Shayne, Pete. How’re things with you?”

“Quiet, Mike. No luscious blondes getting themselves murdered in our parking lot.” He sounded very smug about it.

“Yeh? I congratulate you. Can you quick get me the names of the man on the door and the parking lot attendant who were on last Monday evening… and how to get hold of them if possible?”

“Couple of minutes. Will you hold on?”

Shayne said, “Sure,” and lit a cigarette while he waited.

Mandel’s voice sounded worried when he came back on the wire. “Tom Thurston was parking cars. He’s on right now. Ned Brown was on the door. I can get you his home address… listen, Mike. Monday evening? This hasn’t anything to do with a dead blonde, has it?”

Shayne grinned and said cheerfully, “I’m very much afraid it has, Pete.” Then he relented and reassured him, “Nothing to tie the Mirabel into it, I think. I’m coming over to see Thurston. If it’s anything you should know, I’ll tell you before the police.”

“Thanks, Mike.”

Shayne hung up and told Benjamin briskly, “I’ll drive you over to the Beach, if you like, but drop you at your hotel first. At the moment, I don’t want you seen at the Mirabel. If this checks out, I see no reason why anyone ever has to know you were involved.”

“That would be wonderful. If you could know how I’ve felt ever since I saw her picture in the paper yesterday. Like a condemned man, Mr. Shayne. And now you’ve given me a reprieve.”

“Don’t be too sure,” Shayne warned him, leading the way out of the apartment. “If I don’t get a positive check at the Mirabel, you’ll have to go in and face the music.”

“I understand.” Mr. Benjamin had acquired a new sort of dignity in the past few minutes. “I deserve whatever happens to me.”

When Shayne dropped him in front of his hotel half an hour later, he said, “Sit tight and try not to worry. I’ll call you either way as soon as I know what the score is.” He wheeled away and drove the few blocks to the Mirabel where there was a canopy leading from the door to the porte-cochere.

As Benjamin had described it, there was a drive leading straight on into the parking lot, and a curving drive for taxis or cars which merely discharged passengers.

The parking attendant was a small, wiry man with a pleasant smile. He stepped up smartly and opened the door on Shayne’s side, and the redhead got out. “Your name Tom Thurston?”

“That it is, sir.” The man waited inquiringly.

Shayne said, “I’ve got a couple of questions. First off, do you recall ever seeing this woman?” He took Ellen’s photograph from his pocket and showed it to him.

Thurston studied it carefully and drew in a deep breath and then said, “Well, now, that’s a question that’s been bothering me since yesterday afternoon. I just wasn’t sure in my own mind and I was waiting for a talk with Ned Brown first. He was on the door that night.”

“Which night?”

“Monday was when it happened. I know because that’s the last night Ned and I worked the same shift.”

“What happened?”

“Well, it was a funny one, sir. There was this big cream-colored convertible drove up about ten o’clock… I disremember whether it was a Pontiac or not. There was a lady driving and a man in with her. Ned was right there to open his door, and he stepped out just as I was reaching out to open her door. And whoosh! Damned if she didn’t step on the gas and go around the circle on two wheels, leaving that poor devil standing there staring after her with the funniest expression on his face you ever did see.” Thurston chuckled broadly at the memory. “Ned and I kept our faces as straight as we could, and he asked the man if he wanted a cab, but he said no, it was just a few blocks to his hotel.”

“And this woman was driving?”

“I can’t swear for sure. I just got a glimpse of her behind the wheel before she took off like a bat out of hell, practically jerking my hand off me. But I’ve had this funny feeling ever since that picture was in the paper yesterday. I do believe it was her. Maybe Ned got a better look.”

“Can you describe the man?”

“Sort of. There wasn’t anything special about him.” Thurston hesitated, thinking back, and then gave a vague description that fitted Benjamin as well as hundreds of other men.

Shayne thanked him, and said, “This may be important. The police will be around to talk to you about this. And they’ll want to check with Brown. Don’t try to embroider it any. Just tell it straight as you’ve told it to me.”

“Sure. Say, aren’t you Mike Shayne, the famous detective?”

“I’m a detective and my name is Shayne.”

“Gee, my kid’ll be nuts when I tell him. He watches your T-V show every Friday night, but that actor doesn’t look like you much.”

Shayne grinned and got back in his car as a taxi drew up behind him.

He drove direct to police headquarters and went in.