Murder Is My Business

CHAPTER TWENTY

It was almost midnight, and Jefferson Towne’s house was dark when Shayne stopped out in front. He went up the steps and held the electric button down as he had done the preceding night. As before, he faintly heard chimes echoing through the silent mansion.

After a long time the light came on over his head. He took his finger off the button and listened to the inside bolt being thrown and the night-chain loosened.

Towne’s Mexican butler stood in front of him, blocking the entrance, when the door opened. He wore a woolen bathrobe, with his bare legs showing below it and with Mexican sandals on his feet. He grunted, “W’at you want?”

“Towne.” Shayne moved forward.

The Mexican gave way before him reluctantly. “I do not think-”

Shayne said, “Call him down here or I’ll start hunting.”

The Mexican turned to go up the stairs, shaking his head and muttering to himself. Shayne stayed behind in the big hallway. He didn’t have to wait long before Jefferson Towne appeared at the head of the stairs and called down irritably, “Shayne? What the devil do you want?”

He wore a brocade dressing gown over yellow silk pajamas. His hair was tousled and he scowled angrily down at the detective. Shayne sauntered toward the foot of the stairs, saying pleasantly, “I thought you might like to know that your daughter is in the Juarez jail charged with murder.”

Towne said hoarsely, “Carmela? Murder?” He started down, planting each foot solidly and heavily on the succeeding steps. “What are you talking about, Shayne?”

“Murder,” the detective repeated implacably. “Don’t act so surprised. You must have expected something like that when you sent her over to the worst dive in Juarez with a man-killing pistol in her bag.”

Towne stopped three steps above him. One hand gripped the banister tightly. “Who? What happened? For God’s sake, man, speak up!”

“Don’t pull an act on me,” Shayne growled. “You knew what might happen when she went over there. You advised her to pack that sawed-off cannon with her. And then you calmly went to bed. You must have had a hunch she wouldn’t be back tonight,” he probed fiercely. “The door was barred and chained so she couldn’t get in.”

“She has her key to the side door,” Towne mumbled. His rugged face was flaccid for a brief moment, and his big body appeared to shrink before Shayne’s hard gaze. Then he got hold of himself and went on angrily: “Whatever happened is the result of her own stubbornness. She would go to see for herself. Who’s dead? How did it happen?” He descended the last three steps, and his eyes were level with Shayne’s.

“A bullet out of her gun killed Neil Cochrane.”

“Cochrane?” The name seemed to surprise Towne more than Shayne’s blunt announcement of her predicament.

“Cochrane,” Shayne repeated. “Who did you expect her to kill when you let her go off like that?”

“I don’t know,” Towne confessed. “Somehow, I thought of Bayliss. How did it happen? Why the devil did she turn on Cochrane?”

Shayne shrugged his broad shoulders. “She claims she didn’t do it.” He hesitated. “Did you see her gun before she started out?”

“No. But she promised me she’d take it with her.”

“How lately have you seen it?” Shayne persisted.

“I don’t know. It’s been years since I thought of it. What’s that got to do with it, Shayne?”

“The only way she can beat the rap is by proving the gun held an empty cartridge before she started out. Which I don’t believe,” he went on frankly. “All three cartridges appear to be freshly fired.”

“Wait a minute,” Towne protested. “You’re talking in riddles.” He moved past Shayne toward the library, muttering, “I need a drink.”

“I can use one myself.” Shayne followed him inside the somber room.

Towne went directly to a built-in cabinet beside the fireplace and opened it. He stooped and got a tall bottle and two thin-stemmed goblets. He poured bonded tequila into both glasses and handed one to Shayne. He seemed dazed and unsure of himself, as though he was just awakening to the full seriousness of Shayne’s news. He tilted his glass and drank it down as though he enjoyed it, breathing gustily as he finished.

Shayne grimaced at the odor rising from his glass but tried a gulp of the Mexican liquor. To his surprise, it wasn’t half bad. Towne poured himself some more, and set the bottle down on a table in front of Shayne. He said, “Suppose you tell me what happened.”

“The Mexican police can give you all the details. From all the evidence at present, one of those lovely, homemade dumdums from Carmela’s thirty-eight killed Cochrane in the alley leading to Papa Tonto’s. Carmela declares she fired twice at some vague form running away in the darkness after Cochrane was killed. But three bullets have been fired from her gun. Only three shots were fired altogether. One of them killed Cochrane.”

“If they find the bullet, can’t they compare it with one fired from her gun?” Towne asked eagerly.

“A dumdum?” Shayne snorted. “Fired from a gun with less than half an inch of rifling? Not a chance in the world of getting a decent comparison.”

“You think she’s lying?” Towne muttered.

Shayne said, “It looks as though she might have recognized the man lurking in the alley who grabbed her pistol and shot Cochrane — and is covering up for him.”

“Then that can mean only one man,” Towne pointed out. “Lance Bayliss. And he’s mixed up in some crooked work, Shayne. Neil Cochrane came here this afternoon and threatened to tell Carmela the whole story if I didn’t pay him to keep it quiet.”

“And you paid him?” Shayne asked curiously.

“I promised to. What else could I do? Carmela still loves the man. I couldn’t see her hurt.”

“That’s quite a change of heart,” Shayne snorted. “Ten years ago, when Lance was decent, you broke her heart by separating them.”

“She was too young to know what she wanted. I distrusted the fellow. And rightly, too. You can see that now. Her life would have been like hell if she had married him.”

Shayne finished his tequila. He set his glass down and asked, “What is the English translation for plata azul?”

Towne looked at Shayne as though he thought he had lost his senses. “Plata azul? Blue silver. Silver blue, actually, but the Mexicans put their adjectives behind-”

“I know,” Shayne said impatiently. “Does that have any particular meaning to you?”

“There’s a silver mine in Mexico by that name. I don’t know-”

“What about Senora Telgucado?” Shayne interrupted.

“What about her? What the hell are you getting at, Shayne?”

“I don’t know,” the detective admitted. “But I hope to before long.” He turned on his heel and started to walk out.

“Wait a minute!” Towne hurried after him. “I want to talk to you about this, Shayne. About Carmela. We’ll have to find Lance Bayliss. You can name your own price-”

Shayne kept on going toward the front door. He flung over his shoulder, “I expect to name my own price, Towne. And you’re going to be damned glad to pay it.” He went out the door and pulled it shut behind him.

He got into his car and drove away, swinging east to avoid the business section and to hit the highway leading down into the Rio Grande Valley — and on toward the Big Bend and a closely guarded silver mine from which Jefferson Towne had taken a fortune in the past ten years.