Pay-Off in Blood

CHAPTER ELEVEN

This morning, Shayne parked directly in front of the doctor’s office. He went briskly down the flagged walk and found the door closed. He turned the knob and discovered it was locked. There was an electric button beside the door, and he put his thumb on it. He could hear a buzzer sounding inside the office, but nothing happened.

While he stood there in the morning sunlight, a young and pretty girl in a nurse’s uniform looked out at him from the open door of the adjoining office. “They’re not open today. Didn’t you read in the paper about Dr. Ambrose?”

Shayne said, “Yes. But I thought his nurse would be here.” He turned away from the locked door toward her. “Do you know Belle? Miss Jackson?”

“Oh, yes. Quite well. Isn’t it terrible about the doctor? He was such a nice, gentle man. I don’t see why anyone would do a thing like that.”

“Do you happen to have Miss Jackson’s address?”

“No. But I know it’s here on the Beach. She always came to work by bus. It might be listed in the telephone book,” she offered helpfully.

Shayne asked, “Do you mind if I look?”

“Of course not.” She turned away from the open door to the interior of a reception room similar to the one next door Shayne had glimpsed briefly the preceding night. She went behind her desk and leafed through the directory, and looked up and nodded. “Belle Jackson.” She started to read off the street address, and Shayne said, “If I could borrow a piece of paper…”

She said, “I’ll write it down for you.” She did, and handed it to him, her eyes bright with curiosity. “You’re that famous detective from Miami, aren’t you? Michael Shayne?”

He said, “I’m Michael Shayne,” and accepted the slip of paper. “Thanks a lot.”

“Do you have any idea who did it? I remember I was still working when he left the office last night about seven. He smiled at me so nicely as he went past the door, and called out, ‘There are better things for a pretty girl like you to be doing of an evening.’ He was always kidding me about working so hard and not having dates.”

Shayne asked, “Why don’t you?” as he backed out of the door.

“Oh, I do. All I want. You tell Belle if there’s anything I can do, to just call me.”

Shayne said, “I will, and thanks again.” He walked back to his car, glancing down at Belle’s address. It wasn’t very far. South of Fifth Street near the bay side of the peninsula. He got in his car and circled back, threading his way among narrow streets until he found the address. He frowned incredulously, and checked the number on the paper again to be sure he had it right. It was one of the very old buildings of Miami Beach, that had been built long before the Beach became an exclusive and luxurious resort center. A two-story building of crumbling stucco built around a patio with outside iron stairways leading up to private little balconies by which the tenants could go to and from the beach in dripping bathing suits without discommoding their neighbors. There were beach towels and bathing suits displayed on most of the balconies, and a squad of small children playing in the patio.

It had been originally designed for cheap summer rentals where a family could come from the mainland and occupy cramped quarters near the Bay at weekly or monthly rates, and Shayne knew it was the sort of place now occupied mostly by permanent residents who worked on the Beach and could not afford the higher rentals farther north.

A professional woman like a registered nurse, he thought, should be able to afford better living quarters. What was it the doctor had said last night? Something about paying his nurse over six thousand dollars a year.

He shrugged and opened the door to get out. Maybe Belle Jackson had a pair of crippled parents and a couple of small children to support. Or maybe she was a miser and preferred to live like this and hoard her money.

He crossed the sidewalk to the main entrance, and went into a small, damp-smelling hallway that had rows of dingy mailboxes with names above them. He found one marked Miss B. Jackson, and the number I-F. He went out and started to circle the patio, finding, as he had guessed, that the first-floor apartments were numbered I and alphabetically.

I-F was halfway down on his right. The children stopped their noisy play and stared at the stranger with bright, inquisitive eyes, and there was a curious sort of silence in the sun-drenched courtyard as Shayne stopped in front of I-F and knocked on the door.

The door opened after a brief interval, and Belle Jackson faced him across the threshold. She wore her white nurse’s uniform this morning, and it bulged in the right places. Her hair was neatly coiled up in braids again at the back of her head, and though her eyes were red-rimmed, her face was carefully made up and she seemed placidly in control of herself.

Her baby-blue eyes widened and she blinked at him, and then she said, “It’s Mr. Shayne, isn’t it?” She hesitated only momentarily, sucking in a full underlip between her teeth, and then stepped backward, saying formally, “Won’t you come in, Mr. Shayne?”

He entered the dim coolness of a large, disordered room. A double bed, which could obviously be folded into the wall in daytime, occupied the left side of the room. It was unmade, with rumpled covers, and an open suitcase lay on the end of it, half-packed. Across the room, bureau drawers stood open, and a couple of dresses lay on the bed beside the suitcase. On the right, an archway opened onto a very small and very compact kitchenette, and there was a closed door on the left which Shayne assumed led into the bathroom.

It was just about the layout he had expected to find in this building, and he knew it must rent for about $75.00 per month.

There was one overstuffed chair and two straight chairs and a cardtable against the wall. A coffee-cup and a jar of instant coffee stood on the cardtable. Two pairs of stockings and a brassiere were draped over the back of the big chair. Belle Jackson picked them up and dropped them on the bed and said, “Won’t you sit down? I was just having a cup of coffee.” She waved toward the table. “There’s hot water on the stove and I can get another cup…”

Shayne grimaced at the thought of instant coffee and said, “No, thanks. I’ve had my coffee this morning.” He sat down and smiled at her. “You go right ahead. I just came from the office where I thought I’d find you this morning.”

She sat in a straight chair in front of the coffee cup with her profile to him. “There’s no need for my being there. Doctor’s dead.”

She spoke the two words thoughtfully, as though she needed to keep on saying them aloud, and listening to the sound of them, to make the fact real to her.

Shayne said, “There must be the telephone to answer… appointments to cancel.”

“The answering service will transfer all calls to Dr. Transom, who always covers for Doctor.” She lifted the coffee cup and drank from it as though she enjoyed the stuff.

Shayne glanced at the half-packed suitcase on the bed, and asked, “Are you going on a trip?”

“No. Just out to Doctor’s house for a few days. I telephoned Mrs. Ambrose this morning and insisted that I would stay with her for a little. My salary is paid through the week,” she went on placidly, “and I thought that was the least I could do for Doctor.” She put down her empty coffee cup and turned a tortured face toward him. “Have they found anything about who did it? That policeman seemed awfully stupid last night, but Mr. Rourke told me you’d be handling the case, and that you never failed to get your man. Have you got him yet?”

“Not quite yet. I hoped you might help me.”

“How?”

“You’ve been with him many years,” Shayne said gently. “You probably know more about him than anyone else… including his wife.”

“Celia?” she said simply. “She’s a child.”

Shayne lit a cigarette and leaned forward. “What enemies did he have, Belle? Who wanted him dead?”

“Doctor?” she said wonderingly. “Enemies?”

Shayne said, “Someone shot him last night.”

“It was those gamblers who were forever after him for money.” She sighed and placed the palms of her hands flat on the table in front of her, turning her profile to Shayne again. “It was his only weakness. He did think he could beat the races. He was always on the verge of making a big killing… and never did.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“For years. Ever since I’ve been with him. But it hasn’t got real bad until these last few months. They’re the ones that did it. They’ve been threatening him, and he’s been so worried.”

Shayne asked, “Did you know he was being blackmailed, Belle?”

“Blackmailed? Doctor?” She swung her head to look at him with absolute incredulity on her face. Then she began to laugh. Softly at first, gurgling and chuckling from deep inside, and the laughter grew until it took possession of her, shaking her heavy body and coming out gaspingly which slowly grew to the proportion of hysterics.

Shayne got up and stood behind her and put both his hands on her shoulders and shook her ungently. “What’s so funny about it, Belle? Tell me what’s funny and maybe I’ll laugh, too.”

“Doctor? Blackmailed?” She lolled her head from side to side and tried to stifle her laughter. “What on earth for? If you only knew…”

Shayne said, “I know. He was kind and gentle and ethical and everything in the book that a doctor should be. But he was paying blackmail, Belle. Why?”

“I don’t believe it,” she said flatly. She had stopped laughing and had control of herself now.

“Nevertheless, he was.” Shayne took his hands away from her shoulders and went back to his chair. “They were sucking him dry, and last night was the big pay-off. He admitted to me last night that he had explained the drain on his income to his wife by pretending to her that he had been losing heavily on the horses. He evidently told you that, too.”

“Yes. Yes, he did.” Belle nodded emphatically. “I never dreamed…” She paused and became silent, then arose from her chair and turned briskly toward her suitcase. “Goodness! Celia will be wondering what on earth has happened to me. If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Shayne…”

He got up and said, “Sure. I’ll step outside while you finish packing your bag. Then I’ll drive you out to the doctor’s house, if you like. I’d like to talk to Mrs. Ambrose for a moment… while she’s still sober,” he added, tossing out the bait and waiting expectantly in the doorway.

Belle ignored it. She said placidly, “That will be nice. I’ll be ready in just a few minutes.”

He walked slowly out to the sidewalk and waited for her, wondering again about her choice of living quarters, mentally comparing the one-room layout with Lucy Hamilton’s pleasant three-room apartment in Miami. Yet the two girls earned about the same salary. Well, he told himself, some people liked to spend their money on one thing, and others on another, and reminded himself again that he had no idea what sort of private drains Belle Jackson might have on her income.

He watched with pleasure as she came toward him from her room, erect and statuesque, swinging the suitcase along in her right hand as though it were filled with feathers. She had a free-swinging stride and a lightness of step that minimized her bulk and weight and betokened an inner vitality that was good to see.

He opened the back door of his car and took the suitcase from her, and opened the front door while he put it inside.

As he drove away, he said, “One thing I wanted to ask you. About the doctor’s pistol. Did he take it with him last night?”

She didn’t answer for a moment and he glanced aside at her curiously. She was looking straight ahead and appeared to be frowning.

She said, “His pistol? I didn’t know he had one.”

“Mrs. Ambrose said last night that he had owned one for a long time. She also said he usually kept it at the office or in the glove compartment of his car.”

“I don’t know anything about it. He certainly never kept one at the office. Wait a minute, though. I do believe he said something once, a long time ago, sort of jokingly, I guess, about having some sort of gun at home, and he hoped his wife wouldn’t get jealous of him making late calls on some of his women patients and decide to use it on him.

“I know he was just joking about that,” she went on quickly. “I remember now that we both had a good laugh about Celia either being jealous or being able to shoot a pistol, if she were.”

She paused and then asked, in a queerly strained tone, “Was that what they used to do it with? Doctor’s own pistol?”

“I haven’t got the official report yet. A thirty-two automatic was found lying beside his body with one shot fired. I don’t even know if it was his own gun.”

They drove on a short distance further in silence, and then Belle Jackson asked hesitantly, “Where was Celia when it happened?”

“In the house. Passed out cold in the bedroom, I guess. With about a quart of straight vodka inside her, according to the police doctor. Do you know if that was habitual with her?”

“I don’t know much about her personal habits. Doctor wasn’t one to gossip about his home-life. Sometimes he did say little things that… that indicated he… was worried about her.”

“Was he popular with his women patients?”

“He was popular with all his patients.” She made this statement with a note of finality which seemed to rule out further discussion of the doctor’s private life and personal habits, and Shayne found himself wondering again about the past relationship between Dr. Ambrose and his full-bodied nurse.

Given a wife like Celia, sipping on her vodka bottle at home, and thrown into close, day-by-day intimacy with a woman like the one who sat beside him, you couldn’t rule out the possibility of an adulterous triangle.

Could that have been the basis for blackmail? If it were true, how far would the good doctor have gone to conceal the knowledge from his wife? What incriminating proof could have been contained in the white envelope for which he had been willing to pay twenty thousand dollars?

This was a question that Shayne kept coming back to in his own mind. Since the very beginning, last evening, he had wondered why the doctor had been so certain he was buying back complete immunity from further blackmail. Any document can easily be duplicated… as he had tried to point out to the doctor.

He turned onto the quiet side street and slowed to a stop in front of the modest house where Dr. Ambrose had met his death.

He turned off the ignition and said, “I’ll carry your bag inside. If Mrs. Ambrose is up to it, there are a few questions I would like to ask.”

Actually, what he wanted more than anything else was to witness this meeting between the two women on the morning after the doctor’s death. On the surface, everything appeared placid and proper, with the widow requesting the doctor’s nurse to come and stay with her for a few days, but, inwardly, Shayne wasn’t so sure.

He carried Belle’s suitcase in his left hand and took long strides to stay abreast of Belle up the walk, and he stood close to her when she rang the doorbell.

The door opened immediately, and Shayne was completely unprepared for the appearance of the widow this morning.

Her platinum curls were carefully arranged as though she had just come from a hairdresser, and the flesh of her rounded cheeks was as smooth and firm as a young girl’s, and her mouth was like a rosebud. She was effectively attired in a black, silk skirt that clung caressingly to her hips and thighs, and a short-sleeved blouse of dull bronze which reflected a metallic sheen in the sunlight. She was wearing tiny, bronze pumps with very high heels which gave her a look of poised youthfulness utterly at variance with the spectacle she had presented the previous night.

She put out both her hands to the nurse and said too sweetly, “Oh, Belle, honey. I know you loved him, too.”

Belle took Celia’s small hands in her big ones and said throatily, “I just can’t make myself believe it yet. I couldn’t go near the office anyhow… with it being empty and all.”

Celia Ambrose looked past her at the redhead, and a small, puzzled frown marred the smoothness of her forehead. Her blue eyes rounded inquiringly, and Shayne was positive she didn’t remember him at all from the night before.

He said, “I’m Michael Shayne, Mrs. Ambrose. A private detective whom the doctor consulted last evening.”

“A private detective? But how absurd! Why should Philip consult a private detective?”

“Because he was being blackmailed, Mrs. Ambrose. Don’t you remember being told last night…”

“I remember some sort of vicious innuendo being made,” she told him calmly. “I think you had better go away now. Do come in, Belle.” She drew the larger woman inside composedly.

“Mr. Shayne is working on the case, and wants to help find Doctor’s murderer,” the nurse told her. “He’d like to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Oh, very well.” Celia appeared completely indifferent. She nodded to Shayne. “You may bring her bag in, if you wish.”

She turned away from the open door, holding Belle’s arm lightly, and led her across the room, saying, “You’ll have the blue room at the back. I’ve closed up Philip’s room, of course, and, later on, I hope you’ll help me go through his things.”

The two women disappeared down a hallway to the left without a backward glance from either of them toward Shayne, and he carried Belle’s bag into the living room and closed the front door.

He stood there, flat-footed, looking about the basically feminine room and reinforcing the first impression he had received last night.

It was not a room designed for a man to relax in comfortably after a hard day at the office. He tried to imagine Dr. Ambrose and Celia inhabiting it happily together over the years past, and the picture refused to focus clearly.

He heard the light clack of high heels returning from the rear, and he moved forward to one of the overstuffed chairs, noting that there wasn’t an ashtray in sight, and putting aside his desire for a cigarette.

The doorbell rang behind him as Celia reentered the carpeted room, and she made a little moue at the sound and went past him to open the door.

He sat down on the edge of the chair, and his body stiffened as he heard a familiar voice say brightly,

“Good morning, Madam. I represent the Women’s Civic Betterment Association, and I would appreciate just a few minutes of your valuable time to get some statistical information for a survey we’re making that is of vital importance to every homeowner in Miami Beach.”