Stranger in Town

18

“I’ll do the very best I can,” Jean Henderson promised him solemnly. “But it’s all sort of blurred, particularly at the beginning. I was in a state of shock, I guess. I didn’t know how I’d got there on the strange road at night. I didn’t know who I was or…”

“And then a car came down the road from behind you and stopped,” Shayne put in to get her on the track he wanted. “Did you signal the driver to stop?”

“I… don’t know,” she faltered. “Probably I did. At least I stopped on the side of the road and turned to look at the headlights. And he slowed down and stopped right beside me and jumped out on the other side and came around behind and caught my arm just as I seemed about to faint. And I went all to pieces. Hysterical and crying like a baby and asking him who I was and how I got there. And he was awfully gentle and had a soft soothing voice. I remember he kept saying, ‘There, there, you poor lamb. Don’t take on so, dear child,’ just as if I were about twelve instead of nineteen. And when he finally understood I had hurt my head and lost my memory, he didn’t waste time with any more questions, but said right off, ‘We’ll have to get you right to a doctor, child. No doubt your loved ones are badly worried about your whereabouts this very moment,’ and he helped me into the back of the car and told me to lie back and relax and he would take care of me.”

“What kind of car?”

“I don’t know. A sedan. It ran smoothly and the motor was quiet. He drove quite slowly. I don’t know whether it was ten minutes or an hour, but it seemed a long time to me. He spoke back over his shoulder to me half a dozen times without turning his head, worried about how I felt and whether I was comfortable. And then when the town lights showed ahead, he slowed down some more and began talking real fast, explaining that he did want to do what was right, and his conscience just wouldn’t let him pass me up on the road back there even though he hadn’t wanted to because it might get him in a lot of trouble if it ever came out that he was the one brought me to the hospital.

“I didn’t know what he meant by it at first. It just didn’t make sense. And then he hinted very delicately-because he thought I was too young to understand about adultery I guess-that he had been visiting a lady friend that night. Well, that’s exactly what he called her,” she protested in response to Shayne’s amused look.

“And that his wife thought he was tending to a business matter in another direction entirely, and if she ever found out the truth that it just wouldn’t be possible to live with her any more.”

“He didn’t tell you the name of his lady friend or anything helpful like that?”

“No, but he kept on talking sorrowfully about what a burden it was to be married to a woman whom he didn’t respect or love, and how wonderful it would be to be free again-feeling awfully sorry for himself, you know, and explaining it all to me so I’d understand why he wanted to drop me off in front of the hospital and drive away before he was seen.

“And he kept on about it so much that I asked him why he stayed married to her if it was so terrible, and he told me I was too young to understand. First he quoted from the Bible or marriage service about people whom God had joined together no man should put asunder and it sort of disgusted me because I just don’t believe in that sort of… You know what?” she broke off suddenly, sitting erect and alert.

“No… what?”

“Maybe that’s a clue. To me. I hadn’t thought about it before, but I must be sort of irreligious. But I forgot. You already know who I am and all about me, don’t you? Jean Henderson?” She repeated her own name uncertainly.

Shayne said, “You’re a modern young woman who has evidently been reared with a liberal attitude toward religion. So you thought he was being hypocritical and told him so?”

“Not in so many words.” She smiled at Shayne and it was the first real smile he had seen on her face. “But I did tell him that kind of talk sounded sort of silly when he admitted he was sleeping around at the same time, and then he sighed very dolefully and said if he could only get away from his wife and Brockton and make a new start in the world that he’d be the happiest man on earth.

“But it was impossible, he said, on account of every cent he had on earth was invested in his business here, and it was in his wife’s name, and from one year to another he just couldn’t seem to get any extra money laid aside that he could use to make a new start somewhere else.

“And about that time we were getting close to the hospital, and he begged me not to tell anyone who had brought me there-to just let him go on without trying to find out who he was or anything like that. So, of course I promised. I felt sorry for him, and I did appreciate him stopping to pick me up under those conditions. Plenty of other men, I thought, might just have speeded up instead of stopping, for fear of getting involved in something that would cause them trouble at home.

“So he pulled up under a street light in front and I got out of the back seat, and I saw his face just that once when he turned his head to wave to me before driving on. And when I saw how middle-aged and meek he was I felt sorrier for him than ever… and that’s why I just couldn’t get him in trouble last night when they pushed me inside the bar and told me to pick him out from the men inside.”

Michael Shayne set his empty glass down and lit a cigarette as Jean Henderson finished her story. He tugged at his earlobe thoughtfully while he considered the meager information she had been able to furnish about the man he had seen waiting in the rear booth the previous night. He hadn’t really appraised the man carefully. Had just given him an incurious glance when he first entered and was looking for a place to be comfortable while having his drink.

But there had been something about the man’s appearance that now tugged at Shayne’s memory. Something he had noticed and forgotten, but which had almost been brought back to his memory by something Jean had just said. He didn’t struggle to get the memory back. It would come to him faster if he let it lie.

He said, “After Mr. Buttrell took you away and you passed out in his car after drinking a malted milk… you say you woke up a prisoner in a room where you were kept locked in until last night? What sort of room was it?”

“Just a room,” she said helplessly. “Not quite as big as this one. With a single bed and a dresser and vanity. There was a tiny bathroom opening off it, and two windows in one wall that were solidly boarded-up outside the glass. Just a… an impersonal kind of room.” She puckered up her face in thought.

“That’s it,” she said finally. “It was impersonal. Just like this hotel room Like any hotel room. You had a feeling hundreds of other people might have occupied it briefly, but none for a long enough time to leave the slightest imprint of their personality on it. It was very quiet inside the room,” she went on slowly, “almost as though it were soundproofed. There was an airconditioning duct so I didn’t lack air. I think it must have been a farmhouse. Out in the country at least. I never heard any traffic.”

“And you saw no one all that time except the men you call Gene and Bill?”

“No one else. One of them would unlock the door three times a day to bring my meals on a tray. It was good food and there was plenty of it. And whichever one brought it would sit and talk to me while I ate. They wouldn’t answer a single question, except that I would be released as soon as I told them more about the man who had picked me up on the road. They kept at me about him all the time. About him and about whether I remembered any farther back than I did at first. I didn’t mind Bill so much, but something about Gene frightened me terribly. Something cold and… and reptilian almost.” She shuddered. “He’d sit and look at me with those cold eyes and I’d have the most awful feeling that he would enjoy killing me. That he hated me for being alive.”

Shayne nodded and said grimly, “Your instincts were fairly valid, I think. Tell me about last evening.”

“Bill brought my supper. And Gene came in, too, just as I finished eating. He told me we were going for a little ride. He said they were going to blindfold and gag me and take me out to a place where the man would be. It would be a barroom, he said, and I was to walk in the door alone while they stayed outside… and they’d shoot me if I said a single word to anyone except the right man. I was to go right up to him and say something… and then I was to turn around and walk out the door where Bill would be waiting for me.

“So they put a gag in my mouth and blindfolded me and led me out to a car and put me in the front seat between them and drove awhile and then stopped and picked up the one they called Mule. He got in the back seat and Gene drove some more and I could tell we were in the center of some town, and then they stopped and took off the blindfold and gag and we were right in front of the place where you were sitting in the booth. And you know the rest of it,” she ended simply. “I hadn’t thought of getting away. It just came to me suddenly that it was my one chance when I saw Bill run in the door to help the other two. I ran behind them and was out the door before they saw me, they were so busy with you. And right at that moment,” she went on with a timid attempt at a smile, “I was glad I’d picked you out for them instead of the right man because I knew he would never have given enough trouble to bring Bill in and give me a chance to get away.”

Shayne scarcely heard her final words. He sat up and snapped the fingers of his right hand excitedly. It had come to him! Something about the man’s outward appearance last night, coupled with a phrase of his that Jean had repeated a short time previously.

A phrase that only a certain type of man would use in normal conversation. A minister, or perhaps a doctor. But he was neither. He had explained to Jean that he was tied to Brockton by owning a small business which did not earn him enough to make a get-away.

A small businessman who talked the way that man had talked to Jean when he picked her up on the road.

It came to Shayne suddenly. Jean was beginning to talk again, but Shayne leaped to his feet without hearing her. He caught up the telephone directory and turned to the yellow, Classified pages in the back. In a town of forty thousand, he didn’t know how many such business concerns would be listed, but he didn’t believe there would be a great many.

There weren’t. There were only four listings under the heading he wanted. He reached for pencil and paper to write down the four addresses, then hesitated. Not knowing the town, he would have to ask directions for getting to each one. It might take hours going from one to another until he struck the right man.

He settled back beside the telephone with the open book in his hands and grinned reassuringly at Jean who had risen from her chair and was demanding to know why he was acting so pleased with himself.

He said, “I’ll explain in just a moment. First, I want to invite your friend up to have a talk with us.” He lifted the phone and gave the hotel operator the first number on the list.

When a cool female voice replied, he said, “I’d like to speak to the proprietor, please.”

She said, “Certainly, I’ll call Mr. Johnson.”

Mr. Johnson had a rounded voice that might have been sonorous had it not obviously been hushed. “Yes sir? What service may I render?”

“I’m not well acquainted in Brockton,” Shayne told him. “And my wife…” He paused and gulped audibly. “It was very sudden. Could you come at once to my room in the Manor Hotel to discuss the details privately. I just don’t feel up to going out and…”

“Precisely. I understand only too well, sir, and our services are yours to command. Ah… your name?”

“Mr. Shayne. Room four-ten.” Shayne hung up on Mr. Johnson’s eager assurance that he would be around at once.

He called the second number and a mellifluous voice informed him that Mr. Magner of the Final Tryst Funeral Home was entirely at his disposal. Having been assured by Mr. Magner that he was, indeed, the proprietor and owner of the Final Tryst, Shayne made the same arrangements with him and hung up.

His third call brought forth the information that the owner of the Home was in Arizona on a vacation, that he had been gone for two weeks and was not expected back for another week. The manager, however, pleaded to be of service, but Shayne cut him off and called the fourth number.

A pleasantly seductive female voice cooed back at him over the wire, and when Shayne asked for the proprietor, she assured him that he was speaking to her at that moment and that nothing would fill her cup of happiness so full to overflowing as to personally take care of whatever his needs might be.

Shayne grinned wryly at this offer, and told her, “Another time, lady, I may take you up on that. But I wonder if I could deal with your husband this time?”

She was extremely sorry, but she was Miss Elroy, and if he would put his problem in her hands he was assured he would never regret it. He politely declined the invitation and hung up, turned to Jean and told her confidently, “Sit down and relax. He’ll be here very shortly.”

“Who will be here?”

“Either Mr. Johnson or Mr. Magner,” he told her. “I’m inclined to pick Magner as my candidate right now. Of the Final Tryst, you know?” he ended blandly.

“I don’t know.” Enough of her spirit had returned under the relaxing quiet of her talk in Shayne’s hotel suite to cause her to stamp her foot on the floor. “Why are you looking so smug?”

“Because we’ve got our man on the hook. Don’t you understand yet? He’s an undertaker, Jean. A funeral director, I suppose he calls himself.”

“However do you know?”

“Who else,” demanded Shayne, “would call your relatives your ‘loved ones’ when he mentioned how worried they must be about you? Who else… in business for himself as he told you he was? And think back on the man sitting in the rear booth last night nursing half a warm highball in his hand.” He laughed confidently and got up to pour himself a small drink while he waited for the two undertakers to come to him.

“Let me do the talking, Jean. You sit back there on the side and stay as relaxed as you can, and listen. Break in on us if anything is said that strikes any chord in your memory.”