She Woke to Darkness

15

Ed Radin was seated at his desk disgustedly drumming slender fingertips against the bare wooden surface when Michael Shayne returned. He shook his head and shrugged when the detective arched ragged red brows inquiringly at him.

“Not much luck, damn it. Those police files are supposed to be closed, of course, but I can generally get access to them. None of the right guys were on duty this morning, so I didn’t get to first base. Late this afternoon will be the best I can do. How’d you make out with Avery Birk?”

Shayne grimaced and crossed to the filing cabinet where the whiskey bottle still stood. “What a lug! Is he really a writer?” He carried the bottle to the water cooler, fitted two cups together and half-filled them, diluted the whiskey with cold water and turned to replace the bottle.

“He writes,” said Radin. “There’s quite a difference between the two, though he does sell to the cheaper markets. I guess he is pretty much of a bastard, though I don’t know him well. You get anything from him?”

“One name.” Shayne sat down and crossed his long legs. “Lew Recker. Birk claims Elsie Murray was his mistress.”

“That’s not hard to believe, though mistress is not exactly the word I’d use for one of Recker’s women. To me,” Radin added, “the word implies some degree of faithfulness on both sides. If Lew was sleeping with Elsie, you can be sure he was hopping into other beds at the same time.”

Shayne nodded thoughtfully. “He goes to some trouble to give that impression.”

“You saw him?”

“I saw him,” Shayne said grimly. “He was at the banquet last night and saw Brett at the bar with Elsie, though he doesn’t claim he saw them leave together.” He paused a moment to take a sip, and a reminiscent grin spread over his rugged face. He imitated Recker’s voice: “Check up on an out-of-town writer named Brett Halliday. He writes those lousy books about a dumb redheaded private eye in Miami.”

Radin laughed gleefully. “Lew Recker said that to you?”

“That and more. He appears to hate Brett’s guts, and has the greatest contempt for his books. And for me.”

“Lew has the greatest contempt for any writer more successful than he. I gather he didn’t recognize you.”

“Not at first. I introduced myself as a detective and he assumed I was local. He did catch on at the last. Only real piece of information I got from him was about Elsie passing out sometimes from too many drinks and getting very loose in her morals when she did so.”

“Exactly like Aline Ferris in her story,” Radin pointed out.

Shayne nodded. “Which makes it look as though her manuscript was based on fact. Damn it, Ed, we’ve got to check further into the unsolved murder of Elbert Green three months ago. If we can find other points of resemblance, we’ll know better where we’re going. Late this afternoon may be too late for Brett. That is, I’m assuming he hasn’t turned up yet.”

“He hasn’t,” said Radin moodily. “I checked by phone just before you came in. I did get this,” he went on slowly. “Ran into one of the detectives who covered the Green case and he remembered it somewhat. Not any names for sure, but he sort of inclines to believe the one woman who was questioned might have been named Elsie Murray.”

“Somehow, I’m beginning to be sure of it.”

“So am I. One thing he was positive about… the questioning of her was fairly routine. They didn’t have anything to go on except rumors from a couple of people that she had played up to Green at the party and might have left with him. When her escort alibied her on that, they dropped it. Though they did show her picture at the hotel without getting a yes or no identification.”

“That indicates,” said Shayne, “that she was successful in putting over the deal with Ralph suggested to her by Dirk. She certainly must have persuaded Ralph to forget her phone call to Torn at midnight, otherwise the police wouldn’t have let up on her so easily.”

“Definitely,” agreed Radin. “If they’d known that one fact, they’d still be questioning her. And don’t forget that when Dirk fixed it up for her, he was fixing himself an alibi at the same time. The telephone call would have ruined his story of spending those hours with her.”

“I’m not forgetting that,” Shayne told him grimly. He drained his whiskey and water and crumpled up the paper cups. “Damn it, Ed! We’ve got to stop speculating and get some facts to chew on. We have one name out of the Green case so far. His room-mate. What was it?”

“Alfred Hayes.”

“That’s it. Does the clipping give the address where he and Green lived together?”

“Probably.” Ed Radin picked up the clippings from his desk and looked at the second one. He read off a street address and told Shayne, “That’s pretty far up town. A good residential neighborhood.”

Shayne made a note of the address. “Hayes has probably moved since his friend’s death, but I may get a lead on him there. One other possibility is the bar from which Aline Ferris is supposed to have made her midnight call. The bartender might recall something important that happened after her phone call.”

“How can you hope to locate the right bar?”

“I have Elsie Murray’s former address. The place she was living when Elbert Green was murdered. Your friend Recker gave me that. Assuming that the whole thing happened to Elsie much as she wrote it, I can check the bars near her old address and see if anyone knows her and recalls the incident.”

He arose decisively as he spoke. “You want to come along?”

“That’s more in your province. Can’t I do more by staying as close as possible to developments in the present investigation? Halliday may contact me.”

“Let’s hope so,” agreed Shayne. “How can we keep in touch if something breaks?”

“Tell you what. Let’s both check in every hour on the hour at the MWA office, or oftener if we have something important. I’ll give the executive secretary a ring so she’ll be alerted to take messages.”

Radin lifted his phone and dialed it, said, “Dorothy? Ed Radin speaking. Look, I want you to… “

He paused abruptly as though he had been interrupted, listened for a long moment while a look of incredulity and then of intense anxiety spread over his face.

He nodded emphatically and said, “It’s probably damned important, Dorothy, and thank you for passing it on. I’m working with the police on the case, and Mike Shayne is in town from Miami working with me to clear Halliday.”

He paused a moment, said with a grin: “That’s right. Michael Shayne in person. We’re separating now, and will be calling in to you from time to time to leave messages for each other. Can do?”

He listened again, nodded and said, “Swell. I knew we could count on you.”

He hung up and turned, shaking his head in puzzlement. “You figure this one out. Dorothy just heard a report that the police are looking for Halliday to question him about Elsie’s death. She immediately recalled that she was awakened at home about seven o’clock this morning by a man who said he was George Harmon Coxe, wanting her to tell him where Brett was staying in New York. George Coxe,” Radin went on flatly, “is a past president of MWA, a hell of a swell guy and a good friend of Brett’s. Naturally, Dorothy had no hesitancy about giving him the name of Brett’s hotel and room number, which she happened to remember.”

“Might mean something.” Shayne frowned. “Could this Coxe have been tangled up with Elsie?”

“Whether he could or couldn’t,” said Radin grimly, “is very much beside the point. George Harmon Coxe wasn’t in New York last night, though Dorothy was too sleepy last night to think of it. Both Dorothy and I know positively that he’s in Panama. That phone call was a phony, Mike. And it was made by someone inside MWA… who knew Dorothy’s home telephone number and enough about things to use a highly respected name like Coxe’s to get the information he wanted.”

“Lew Recker?”

“He’s one. Avery Birk. Fifty others, of course, who were around last night.”

“Give it to the police.”

“Dorothy has already done that.”

“Good. What’s the number where I can reach her?”

Radin gave it to him and Shayne jotted it down. Again, they left the building together.