Stranger in Town

17

There wasn’t much business in the Union Cafe when Shayne entered a few minutes later and stopped just inside the front door to look it over. In the lull before dinner, only three of the wooden tables covered with red-and-white checked cloths were occupied.

A young couple sat against the wall near the front, more interested in each other than in the food before them. Halfway down the long room a farmer and his wife and two children sat at a table for four, sipping water from tall glasses while they waited for their meal to be served, and farther on a white-uniformed waitress was standing with her back to Shayne in conversation with a male customer who sat alone at a small table.

The waitress appeared taller than Shayne remembered Jean Henderson to be, but at that distance the soft ringlets at the nape of her neck looked as golden as Jean’s and he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t she without seeing her face.

A tall, white-haired man sat behind a cash register at Shayne’s right as he stood there looking down the room, and when Shayne did not move for a matter of thirty seconds, he asked, “Would you like a table, sir?”

Shayne hesitated, still watching the waitress at the rear, but she showed no inclination to turn so he could see her face. He moved over in front of the cash register and told the proprietor with a worried frown, “I’m really looking for my sister. She had a fight with Mom last night and left in a huff and hasn’t come back. We live in Orlando,” he went on swiftly, “and a friend of mine here in Brockton telephoned me this afternoon that there was a new waitress just started here today that looks like her. I drove right over and I wondered…” Again his speculative gaze went to the rear.

“Your sister, eh?” The white-haired man’s voice was sympathetic. “I did hire a new girl this morning. We’ve been short-handed for a week and I didn’t bother much about references. You know how it is getting help these days. She said her name was Marion Smith. Would that be her?”

“She probably wouldn’t give her right name. Mom’s terribly upset, and if I don’t get her to go home with me…”

Then he saw her. She pushed through swinging doors at the rear carrying a heavily loaded tray held out stiffly in front of her gripped tightly in both hands. She was wearing a white uniform like the other waitress and her head was bent forward, gaze fearfully fixed on the loaded tray as she came with short, mincing steps toward the party of four waiting for their dinner.

“That is Jean,” Shayne said swiftly to the man. “Imagine her coming here and getting a job. I hope you don’t mind if I…”

Jean Henderson lifted her gaze from the tray at that moment and looked directly at Michael Shayne. Her eyes widened and her mouth made a big O, and her hands let go of the tray.

It crashed to the floor with a clatter of broken crockery, and Jean stood stiff and frightened for a moment, then whirled about frantically as though to escape.

But Shayne was striding toward her, and he leaped over the broken food and dishes on the floor to catch hold of her wrist and jerk her back.

A little whimper of anguish broke from her lips as she tried to tug away, but Shayne inexorably drew her close and tucked her arm through his.

“I’ve come to take you home with me, Sis,” he said loudly, and pulled her toward the cash register while getting out his wallet with a free hand.

He grinned with embarrassment at the proprietor and proffered a ten-dollar bill. “I hope that’ll pay for the damage, Mister. And maybe another five for the uniform she’s wearing, huh?” He laid another bill on top of the first one. “Don’t want to let her loose even to change now I’ve found her. Aren’t you ashamed of going off like that and frightening Mom half to death?” he went on severely to Jean. “You come right on home and apologize.”

She stood beside him laxly, staring straight ahead with a blank look on her face and with her lips tightly compressed.

“Well, sir, I guess that’ll cover it all right,” said the proprietor uncertainly, scooping up the bills. “If she’s a minor, I reckon I don’t blame you any, wanting to take her home.”

Shayne said, “Sorry for all the trouble. Come along, Sis.”

She moved beside him through the door like an automaton, as though she had no will of her own, like a small child bewildered and frightened by the inexplicable rage of an adult and timidly afraid to question the cause of it.

Shayne held her arm firmly locked inside his and hurried her toward Main Street. The light changed on the corner as they reached it, and he crossed to the other side where his car was parked in the place he had left it when he had first sighted Flo.

He led her around to the left-hand side, not trusting her to sit quietly while he got in, opened the door and thrust her in under the wheel roughly, maintaining his grip on her wrist.

He said quietly, “Move over so I can get in and don’t try anything, Jean. I’m not in a mood for arguments right now.”

She stiffened and jerked her head around and her eyes were wondering and puzzled as he spoke the name aloud. She said, “Is… that my name? Are you… my brother?”

“Don’t you remember?” Shayne kept his voice casual. He got in beside her and inserted the key with his left hand, started the motor and put the automatic transmission in gear.

She went to pieces then, and sank back against the seat sobbing piteously. “I don’t remember… anything. You’re not my brother, are you? You can’t be. You’re the man that I… that I saw in the bar last night. What are you going to do with me?”

With the car moving in traffic toward the hotel, Shayne let go of her wrist and glanced at her appraisingly. She was as beautiful as he remembered her. And her bewilderment and distress seemed genuine. He said, “We’re going to have a long talk. About lots of things.” He was nearing the hotel and he saw an alleyway running back along the side of it with a sign that said: PARKING FOR HOTEL GUESTS.

On an impulse, he turned into the alley and drove back where there was a lot of empty space in the rear. And, as he had surmised, there was a rear entrance into the hotel for the use of guests who left their cars there.

He stopped and let Jean get out on the right side and come around to him. The expression on her face puzzled him as she came up to stand directly in front of him and put both her hands on his arms. Tears glinted in her blue eyes and there was a look on her young face that was almost exaltation. She looked directly up into his eyes and her voice was tremulous.

“I don’t know who you are, but… I have the strangest feeling that I’m not frightened any more. That everything is all right finally. Are you my brother? Tell me, are you?” Her fingers tightened on his arms and she shook him hysterically.

Shayne looked down into her face and believed her. And he felt sorry as hell for her, though he didn’t know why he should feel sorry for a girl who had done her best to get him killed.

He said, “I’m not your brother, Jean, but we’re going in the hotel the back way and up to my room. And if anybody sees us going up or sees you there, you’re to tell them you are my sister. Do you understand?”

She said very simply, “Yes. I’m so tired of not understanding. If you only knew how terrifying it is.”

He said gruffly, “We’ll talk inside,” and took her arm and led her toward the rear door.

There was a narrow hall leading directly to the lobby in front, but just before they reached it they came to a stairway leading up.

Shayne told her, “This will be better than the elevator,” and they climbed the stairs silently to the fourth floor. They reached his suite without encountering anyone, and he unlocked the door and stood back to let her enter. She walked ahead of him docilely and seated herself on the extreme edge of a chair with her hands folded in her lap, looking around the room with grave interest as though she had never seen a hotel sitting room before.

Shayne took a DO NOT DISTURB sign off the inside knob and hung it on the outside. He double-locked the door, flung his hat across the room and stood looking at her while he rumpled his red hair fiercely.

She sat and looked at him submissively.

He crossed to the open cognac bottle and turned to her with it in one hand and a glass in the other. “Would you like a drink before we begin?”

“I… don’t think so. You see, I don’t think I drink. It tasted awful when they gave me some whisky a couple of days ago.”

Shayne bit his underlip in perplexity and turned away from her to pour an inch in the bottom of the glass. The ice cubes were melted in the pitcher, but he diluted the liquor with an equal portion of cool water.

He sat down and regarded her soberly and said, “Let’s start with last night. You remember that all right, do you?”

“Oh, yes.” She seemed eager to answer. “I remember everything perfectly well after that one night. They said at the hospital I had a concussion and it caused amnesia.”

“Last night,” Shayne reminded her, “you walked into a barroom and came to my booth and spoke to me. Then all hell broke loose and I got slugged by three of your friends. Why?”

She shuddered. “Not my friends. That awful Gene and Bill. And the other one I’d never seen before we picked him up in the car last night. Mule, they called him.” Her face contorted and tears slid down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I thought they’d killed you when I ran out. I didn’t know what to do. I… I… what did they do?”

“They tried to kill me. Why?”

“Because they thought… because I… because I stopped at your booth instead of going on to the right one beyond you. I couldn’t do it to him,” she tearfully pleaded with Shayne. “Don’t you see I couldn’t? He’d been so kind to me that night. And he looked so little and defenceless sitting there. And you were so big and… and, well, tough-looking. It just came over me all at once when I saw you both. I hadn’t planned it that way. But I knew they planned to do something terrible to him as soon as I told them which one he was, so I just couldn’t do it to him. You do see why I couldn’t, don’t you?” She was leaning far forward with glistening eyes that begged him to understand and forgive. In a moment Shayne thought she’d be on her knees before him.

He said, “I don’t see… yet. Sit back and relax and let me get one thing clear if I can. They brought you there to identify someone for them? And he was sitting in the booth behind me. But you didn’t want to put the finger on him, and so you picked me instead. Someone you’d never seen before. Is that the picture?”

“Yes,” she said gladly. “I know it was a terrible thing to do, but like I said, you looked, well…”

“A little better able to take care of myself with Gene and his pals than he did,” Shayne ended for her with a wry grin, recalling the meek little man he’d noticed sitting alone in the rear booth when he first entered the bar. “All right. So I did manage to take care of myself… no thanks to you. Who was the man you were supposed to finger for them?”

“I don’t know his name. He picked me up on the road and dropped me in front of the hospital that night.”

Shayne considered this a moment, tugging at his earlobe. “What did Gene have against him? Strong enough to cause him to try and kill me after you pointed me out as the man?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Jean Henderson shuddered and her blue eyes pleaded with Shayne to believe her. “I knew they might do something awful. I just felt it. From the beginning when they started in on me and kept after me to describe him. I kept telling them I didn’t know anything about him. And I don’t really. I just had one good look at his face when he stopped to let me out at the hospital. When they first asked me, I made the mistake of admitting I had seen his face. But I didn’t describe it to them. I kept saying he was just sort of ordinary. But that’s why they took me to the bar last night. Because I had seen his face once. Please tell me what it’s all about,” she begged. “Why did they keep me locked up in a room? What happened to my… to the man who said he was my father and took me away from the hospital?”

“Let’s finish up last night first. What happened to you?”

“I got away from them. I saw my chance when you started fighting and Bill came running in to help Gene and the other one. He had stayed outside, you see. To keep me from running away. I was supposed to point you out and then turn and go out to Bill again. He had a car waiting and was going to take me away while Gene and Mule ‘took care’… that’s what they called it… of you.”

“So you ran out?” Shayne prompted her. “What then?”

“I didn’t know where I was. Not even what town I was in. I didn’t have a penny. I just ran up the street to get away. And I came to a little hotel sign with stairs leading up off the street, and I ran up. There was a dirty lobby and a really nice old clerk. I made up a story about being on a date and having a fight with a man and running away. And I offered him my wristwatch if he’d give me a room for the night. So he did. And I signed the first name I thought of, Marion Smith from Miami. And went to bed.”

“And this morning you walked down the street and stopped at a restaurant where you saw a Help Wanted sign in the window, and applied for a job as waitress?” Shayne supplied for her.

“Yes, I… I didn’t know what to do. I was hungry and desperate. You don’t know what an awful, desolate feeling it is.” Tears ran down her cheeks and she struggled to hold back her sobs. “I’m not anybody. I don’t know where to go or what to do. And with those men after me…”

“Why didn’t you go to the police at once? That’s what they’re for.”

“I was afraid to. I don’t know just why, but from things Gene and Bill said, I think they’re in with the police in Brockton. They didn’t seem a bit worried about any of the things they did. And that awful fat Chief of Police! I couldn’t bear facing him again.”

“When did you meet Ollie Hanger?”

“At the hospital. When Mr. Buttrell came to take me away. He was there with Doctor Philbrick. I was scared even then and felt there was something wrong. I just didn’t think he was my father. But he insisted that he was, and I was so dazed and frightened, and so happy to have somebody recognize me that I didn’t protest. But later, after Gene and Bill had me locked up, I thought about it a lot and it seemed to me Chief Hanger was awfully anxious to have me go with Mr. Buttrell. I don’t know. They didn’t say anything out loud, but I had the impression they knew each other and were sort of in it together. That’s why I was afraid to go to the police.”

“You were probably smart,” Shayne told her somberly. “Before we go back any farther, tell me what happened after Mr. Buttrell took you away from the hospital?”

“He was awfully kind. And fatherly, I guess, in an oily sort of way. He had a car waiting, a blue Buick sedan, and said we’d drive straight back to Miami to have my doctor examine me. And we drove out of Brockton and stopped at a drive-in place where he got a bottle of beer and a chocolate malted for me. I thought it tasted funny and sort of bitter, but I wanted it and drank it down. I began to feel dizzy and sleepy before we even drove away… and that’s all I remember. Until I waked up in that locked room all by myself, and I haven’t been out of it since, until last night.”

Michael Shayne took a long drink of his diluted cognac and set the glass down firmly. “It’s all over now. You have nothing to be afraid of, and you’ll be home with your own father soon. You believe that, don’t you? You trust me?”

She said, “Yes,” gladly and without hesitation. “Back in the restaurant when you said you were my brother, I had the strangest feeling of peace and happiness. I just didn’t know how you could be, but it came to me that maybe that was why I’d picked you out last night in the bar. And I wish you were my brother,” she added impulsively.

Shayne acknowledged the undoubtedly sincere compliment with a grin. “Your name is Jean Henderson,” he told her slowly. “You live in Orlando with your father, Professor Henderson. You’re a student at Rollins College where he teaches. Does that bring anything back to you?”

She knit her brow fiercely and put her fingers up to her eyes. He watched while her lips moved inaudibly, and he knew she was repeating the name to herself over and over again. When she looked up at him and shook her head, her face was blank, her eyes frantic with disappointment and fear again. “It just won’t come back. Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“It will,” Shayne told her cheerfully. “Stop trying so hard. Think about other things. It’s all there. Locked away in your subconscious mind. There’s just a physical block caused by your head injury between conscious memory and your unconscious. Let’s go back now to what you do remember. What is your first conscious memory?”

“It was night and dark and I was alone stumbling down a strange road,” she said in a low monotone as though she had repeated it often before and the lines were memorized. “I had a dreadful headache and I was bruised all over and I didn’t know who I was or where I was or how I’d gotten there. I just didn’t… know. I kept walking and after a time a car came up behind me and it stopped when I waved and a man jumped out and asked me what was the matter? And I tried to explain to him how it was. And he was nice and didn’t ask many questions and helped me into the back seat and said I needed a doctor. And he drove on in the dark for what seemed a long time, and there were the lights of a town ahead and he said it was Brockton and he’d take me to the hospital and drop me off at the door, and he asked me to promise to let him drive away without being seen and not to tell anybody what he looked like or anything about him. And I promised, but I asked him why, and he said it would just ruin everything for him if his wife found out he was out in that direction that night because she thought he was somewhere else. And he sounded sad and frightened and I felt sorry for him and promised. Because he had been kind and stopped on the road to pick me up, and he stopped in front of the hospital and I got out and he drove off fast, and I waited until he was out of sight before I went in.”

Shayne sat silent for a moment, considering her story. It sounded to him like the truth. But how did it tie up with the other bits of information he had gleaned? Her sister’s death in an auto accident in the same vicinity a month ago. Randolph Harris’ fatal accident the same night she had been hurt. The coincidence of her sister having been taken to the Brockton Sanitarium after her injury, and a man answering Harris’ description having asked directions to the Sanitarium a short time before he died.

He emptied his glass and said quietly, “Lean back and relax, Jean. Shut your eyes and try to make your mind a complete blank. I’m going to mention some names. Don’t tussle with them. Don’t try to remember. Tell me if any of them evoke anything.”

She nodded and wet her lips and settled back in the deep chair. She drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes, folded her hands in her lap.

“First there’s your own name. Jean Henderson. That didn’t get us anywhere. Let’s try Jeanette. Jeanette Henderson. A sister, perhaps. A younger sister. Don’t bother to answer me unless something comes through. Randolph Harris.” He spoke the name distinctly and waited a moment. “A young lawyer, Jean. From your home-town of Orlando. Assistant to the State’s Attorney there.”

He waited again but there was no flicker of response on the girl’s face.

“The Larches who live in Apalachicola and have a sailboat. Mr. and Mrs. Roy Larch. They have a daughter about your age, Jean. I don’t know her name but you are assumed to be on a cruise on the Gulf with the Larch family now. Lois Dongan,” he went on slowly when there was still no response from Jean. “Your younger sister’s best friend. Also a student at Rollins. Will Lomax. Another friend of your sister’s. The Brockton Sanitarium, Jean. Not the hospital you were taken to. The Sanitarium.”

Her eyelids flew open and she sat up, her face showing excitement and hope. “It was there! I almost had it. I know it was there. Something dreadful, it seemed. Something so dreadful my mind just closed down and refused to admit it. The Brockton Sanitarium! What is it? What should I know about it?”

Shayne studied her tortured young face gravely, reminding himself that he knew nothing whatever about psychiatry, and this fooling around with a human mind might be dangerous as hell. But there was a fierce urgency within him to get on with it. Hardly more than an hour before, he had seen another girl gunned down in broad daylight in front of his eyes because she had been with him and was wearing Jean Henderson’s distinctive dress.

He set his teeth together hard and said, “For one thing, Jean, the Brockton Sanitarium is where your younger sister, Jeanette, died last month after an automobile accident.”

Her face went white and she shrank back in the chair from the impact of his words. “My… sister… died there?” she said weakly: “Oh, God! If I only could remember. If I could only remember something. I think I’ll die if I don’t. I can’t go on living this way! Don’t you see that I can’t?” Little bubbles of spittle showed on her lips as her voice rose in hysterical shrillness. Her eyes were round and glazed and she beat her clenched fists impotently on the upholstered arms of her chair.

Shayne was on his knees beside her instantly, cursing himself for a blundering fool while he caught both her hands in a grip tight enough to cause physical pain.

“Stop it, Jean!” His voice was harsh and commanding. “Stop it and listen to me. I’m not going back any more. Not yet. Not until you’re ready. We’re going to talk about the last few days. About Gene and Bill and the room where you were kept prisoner.”

She quieted gradually, and the glazed look went away from her eyes. “I’m sorry. But I wish you’d tell me who you are and how you know all these things.” Shayne released her hands and stood up to look down on her broodingly. “I should have told you sooner. I’m a private detective from Miami. My name is Michael Shayne, and many years ago I was married to a girl whom you remind me of very much. I got pulled into this situation by sheer accident last night when you selected me in the bar as a recipient for Gene’s attentions rather than the man you were supposed to betray. I’m not sore about that,” he added quietly. “It was an honest impulse on your part to protect a man who had been kind to you, and I’m glad you picked me for the scapegoat even if it was pure accident.

“Not knowing why I was attacked last night, I’ve been digging into things all day, and I soon learned that you weren’t Amy Buttrell at all. I’m convinced now that the man who called himself Mr. Buttrell and pretended to identify you was just a tool used by Gene to get you away from the hospital before your own father came to take you home. I talked to Professor Henderson this afternoon, Jean. He’s a hell of a nice guy, and you’re a lucky girl to have him for a father. As soon as this mess is cleared up and you’re in your own home in familiar surroundings, your memory will return all right. Stop worrying about it. This is a perfectly normal course for an amnesia case such as yours to take.” He wondered if this were true as he spoke, and hoped to God it was. At least, he was rewarded by a tinge of color in her pallid cheeks and an expression of trust in her eyes.

“I’m sorry I went to pieces for a moment. All right, Mr. Shayne, what can I do to help… other than making my mind remember things it refuses to remember?”

Shayne went back to his chair and sat down heavily. “Right at this point, there’s only one thing in your story that I question. The fact that Gene didn’t know who I was when he assaulted me last night. You see, there was a man waiting for me to show up at my office in Miami this morning who seems to have some connection…”

“My God!” He sat up suddenly with an expression of fierce disgust on his lined face. “How dumb can a man get? Of course. My wallet last night. When Gene made Mule put it back in my pocket in the car. They wanted it to look like a straight hit-run accident. But it told them who I was. And when I got away, Gene thought I’d head straight for Miami… and he still thought I was the man who’d rescued you previously. Because you had identified me as that man for him. So he sent someone, maybe Bill, to finish off the job he and Mule had bungled.”

Listening to him with a puzzled frown, Jean asked timidly, “Does it help? What you just said.”

“It puts me back on the right track. Our job right now, Jean, is to figure out why you were dangerous to them; why they went to the trouble to snatch you from the hospital and keep you prisoner for several days.” He sprang to his feet and began to stride back and forth across the room in front of her. “The obvious answer is something that occurred before you lost your memory. Something that someone can’t afford to let you remember. Your attack of amnesia was okay, but they couldn’t trust it to last forever. In fact, Dr. Philbrick stated plainly in the paper that you should recover your memory quickly once you were home among familiar surroundings and faces. And they evidently could not allow that to happen. So Buttrell came in to the picture. That much seems fairly clear. But what about the stranger who picked you up in his car that night? Why is he important in the picture? Why were they prepared to kill him out-of-hand last night as soon as they thought you had showed them the right man?” He stopped in the midst of his stride and his theorizing to glare down questioningly at Jean.

“I don’t know,” she responded helplessly. “They’ve been after me for days to identify him for them. From the way they acted, I knew it was terribly important for them to find him. They kept asking me questions about him and threatening me when I told them over and over again that I just had one good look at his face and didn’t recall a single distinguishing feature. I didn’t tell them any of the things he told me in the car either,” she added firmly. “Not even that he lived in Brockton or anything like that that might have helped them find out who he was.”

Shayne drew in a deep breath and turned away from her to pick up his empty glass and pour a very moderate drink of straight cognac in the bottom of it. He sank back into his chair and said, “That’s where we’ll pick up the pieces, Jean. Start back from the moment his car stopped beside you on the highway. Tell me every word he said, every tiny detail you can remember until he drove away in the night leaving you in front of the hospital.”