She Woke to Darkness

19

Radin stood back to let the Homicide officer enter first, telling Shayne in a low voice, “Brett is absolutely okay. He’ll be conscious by five or six this afternoon and able to tell us what happened.”

Shayne nodded. “I almost know already.” He turned away from Radin, told Hogan, “I don’t know whether you’ve met any of these people or not. Detective Peters had a talk with Mr. Recker this morning, I think. Lew Recker,” he added sardonically with a wave of his hand. “An author, one of Elsie Murray’s lovers, and one of the persons who provided her with an alibi for the murder of a man named Elbert Green about three months ago.”

The Lieutenant nodded noncommittally. “We finally got onto that tieup and we’ve been checking all the testimony in that case.”

“Then,” said Shayne, “you’ll know all about Estelle Stevens and David Jenson.” He waved his hand again. “It was Jenson, you know, who backed up the alibi Recker gave Elsie.”

“I know,” said Hogan flatly. “According to Ed Radin, you’re trying to prove Miss Murray’s death last night sprang out of the Green murder.”

“I’m going to prove it,” said Shayne confidently. “In providing an alibi for her, one of the three parties involved also made an alibi for himself. Once I break hers down, his goes kaput too. That’s why Elsie was murdered.”

“Fair enough.” Lieutenant Hogan shrugged irritably. “Quit being cryptic about it and tell us something we don’t already know.”

“One thing you never found out while investigating the Green murder,” Shayne told him, “was that Elsie Murray reached her apartment house that midnight not only completely passed out, but also without her purse containing her keys and money. She couldn’t get in the front door, and she hadn’t even a dime with which to call a friend.”

“Wait a minute,” said David Jenson, stepping forward fast. “If you have been going over the testimony, Lieutenant, you’ll recall that point was mentioned. Elsie had given me her extra key at the party, and I followed Lew Recker’s car to her place. I was right behind them when he let her out, and I had her extra key which gave us entrance.”

“That may be the testimony,” said Shayne savagely, “but it isn’t the truth. Miss Murray was left on her own doorstep without a key, Lieutenant. She hesitated to waken the superintendent in her condition, and went down the street instead to the nearest bar where she was known to make a telephone call.”

He paused dramatically, then added, “She did make her call. To a man named Elbert Green. Asking him to come by and pick her up in front of the place.”

“Prove that statement.” Lew Recker was breathing heavily. “I challenge you to do so.”

“I intend to. My proof will be here in a moment. Green picked her up and they drove to the Beloit Hotel and registered as man and wife,” he went on conversationally to Lieutenant Hogan. “You can take it from there. It’s my theory that she was followed to the Beloit by a jealous suitor who later got into their room and killed Green. He then made himself an alibi for the night by pretending to alibi her.

“And here comes the proof I promised you,” he added with a sigh of relief as another knock sounded on the door. “Open it up, Ed.”

Ed Radin, who had remained standing close to the door did as Shayne requested. This time it was uniformed officer, Grady, and Jack, the bald-headed bartender from the Durbin.

Grady drew himself up and saluted smartly when he saw the Homicide Lieutenant, and Shayne introduced them: “This is one of your smarter harness bulls, Lieutenant. If anyone gets a promotion out of this, I think it should be Grady. Now Jack,” he went on sharply to the bartender. “You can see the jig is up. Lying won’t get you anywhere now. Point out which person in this room paid you to say, if you were asked, that Elsie Murray did not come in your place and borrow a dime from you to make a phone call the night Elbert Green was murdered.”

“He did.” The bald-headed bartender’s face was pale and he stood stiffly erect with a long forefinger pointed accusingly at David Jenson. “The next day after it happened, he came in and beat around the bush some and ended up by offering me a thousand dollars if I’d promise I wouldn’t tell the police that Miss Murray had made a call from our place the night before.”

“You knew it was in connection with a murder,” said Lieutenant Hogan sternly.

“I realized that, yes sir.”

“And you must know that withholding evidence is a crime in New York.”

“I suppose it is, yes, sir.”

“Then why did you agree to do it?” roared the Lieutenant. “You’ll be lucky, by God, if we don’t pull your license for this.”

“I don’t think so, sir.” The bartender was respectful but unfrightened.

“Why not?” thundered Hogan. “You admit you took a bribe to suppress relevant evidence in a murder investigation.”

“I admitted nothing of the kind, sir.” Jack retained his calm. “I admitted I took a thousand dollars from this gentleman…” Again he pointed directly at David Jenson. “…at his insistence, sir. To not tell the police if I was asked that Miss Murray had made a phone call from our place the preceding midnight.”

“What sort of quibbling is that? Suppression of evidence…!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said Jack smugly. “I saw nothing wrong in what I did. Suppose, sir,” he went on before the Lieutenant could explode again, “right here and now I was to offer you a thousand dollars if you’d promise me faithfully you wouldn’t tell my wife you’d caught me in bed with another woman this afternoon. Would it be a crime for you to accept the money?”

“Not necessarily. Because I haven’t caught you doing that.”

“Exactly, sir. And Miss Murray didn’t make any such telephone call as this gentleman paid me not to tell the police about.” Jack paused and shrugged elaborately. “He offered me the money, you see, to simply tell the truth. Why shouldn’t I have taken it? Was that a crime?”

“Wait a minute,” said Shayne harshly. “Are you trying to tell us Miss Murray didn’t come in at midnight and borrow a dime from you to make her call to the man who was subsequently murdered?”

“I don’t know how I could say it any plainer, sir,” sighed Jack. “I not only say that’s the truth, but I’ll swear to it on a stack of Bibles ten feet high.”

“Then why,” demanded Shayne, “did you tell Mr. Recker here,” he turned to point to Lew Recker, “just before you closed up that morning, that Miss Murray had made such a call?”

“I didn’t do no such thing,” said Jack earnestly. “I never saw this one before, so help me God.” He paused to draw in a deep breath and then addressed himself plaintively to Lieutenant Hogan: “God knows, Commissioner, I’m sorry if what I did was wrong. But it seemed all right to me. I was just getting paid to tell the truth, and I couldn’t see anything wrong in that.”

“Hold everything,” said Ed Radin authoritatively, moving forward past Lieutenant Hogan to confront the others. “We happen to know you’re lying,” he told the bartender. “We have Elsie Murray’s word for it that she did make such a call.

“I’m sorry, Mike,” he went on swiftly to Shayne. “I decided it was best to turn our copy of Elsie’s script over to the Lieutenant. He’s read it and knows as much as we do about it.”

“Your copy?” The words were torn from deep in Lew Recker’s throat. “There were only two copies.”

“And you think you destroyed both of them, don’t you?” Michael Shayne moved in fast and grabbed the writer as he whirled to make an attempt to rush for the windows overlooking Madison Avenue.

“You slipped up, bud!” He whirled Recker back roughly, sending him flat on the floor in front of the others. “Elsie’s manuscript had you worried, and rightly. If the investigation into Green’s death was ever reopened, you knew it was inevitable that some smart dick would eventually get around to questioning Jack here about that non-existent telephone call and would learn the truth. That would finish you. They’d learn there had been no such call. That you had lied about it wholly and completely to poor Elsie Murray who trusted you to go out that night to question Jack.

“And once they learned you had lied to her about that,” he went on harshly, “the cops would have kept digging until they got the truth. You dropped her in front of her apartment that midnight,” he went on inexorably, “jealous as hell because she wouldn’t let you come up with her. You drove on half a block or so and stopped to see whom she was meeting. What man she preferred to you. And you saw Elbert Green drive up right behind you and pick her up.

“And you followed them in your car to the Beloit. You managed somehow to discover the number of their room and you went up. You killed Green in a jealous rage, and you added the crowning touch by slipping a folded two-dollar bill into the top of Elsie’s stocking before you hurried away to meet Estelle and establish an alibi for yourself.”

“No!” screamed Lew Recker, rising on one elbow to glare up at the redhead. “How do you know about the two-dollar bill? How does anybody know…?”

“He’s all yours, Lieutenant,” Shayne said disgustedly, turning away from the prostrate writer before his worse instincts overcame his better judgement and he swung his foot as he had threatened to do a little earlier. “Don’t be too tough on David Jenson, though he did bribe Jack to tell the truth. He was in a pretty tough spot himself, not knowing where the hell he’d been that evening and whether or not he had murdered Green. Let’s all have a drink of Recker’s whiskey,” he added, “and if any of us pass out we’ll understand exactly how David Jenson felt the next morning when he woke up with Elsie’s extra key in his pocket.”