The Corpse That Never Was

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Lucy had left her door ajar for him and Shayne had the photo in his hand when he entered five minutes later. He laid it down with a grimace, and answered her questioning look by reporting, “Your Mr. Barstow is a very cautious soul. Maybe… and maybe not. It could be Lambert, all right. But on the other hand…”

“He only saw the man once, Michael.”

Shayne growled, “I know. Let’s hope Mrs. Conrad does better.” He paused for a moment, rubbing his chin and regarding Lucy thoughtfully. “Let’s see if we can kill two birds with one stone. Suppose you come up the stairs with me, Lucy? We’ll peek and see if she’s in her room with the door open. If so, you stay back out of sight and take your high-heeled shoes off. I’ll go in her door and close it behind me and distract her attention by showing her the picture. You take this key to the Lambert apartment.”

He produced the padlock key from his pocket and handed it to her. “As soon as I close her door, you go up quietly and unlock the door. You’ll find Mrs. Nathan’s wide black hat still lying on the table by the door where she put it last night. Get it and close the door and go back for your shoes. Put the hat on, pulling the brim down on the left side to conceal your face and let your heels go clackity-clack up the corridor. I’ll open her door so she can get a good look at you. Have you got that?”

“I guess so,” she said uncertainly. “But I don’t see…”

“It’s just an experiment,” he said hurriedly, “which may prove one thing I’d like to know. Come on.”

He led her firmly out the door and up the flight of stairs, and at the top he peered down the corridor and nodded with satisfaction when he saw Mrs. Conrad’s door standing open a foot or more and heard music coming out of her room.

He squeezed Lucy’s arm and nodded reassuringly, left her standing there on the third step from the top taking off her shoes, while he strode down the hall; through the open door he saw Mrs. Conrad sitting inside her room in a strategic position where she had a clear view of the hallway.

She recognized the detective and got to her feet as he paused at the open door, and he stepped quickly inside and pushed it shut behind him, saying, “I’m so glad to find you in, Mrs. Conrad. You can be a great help to me if you’re willing to.”

“Of course, Mr. Shayne. I’ve been wondering and wondering…”

“It’s this picture, Mrs. Conrad,” Shayne stayed between her and the closed door, extending the print. “I wish you’d look at it very carefully and see if you recognize it.”

She took the picture from him and glanced at it, then nodded her head and spoke firmly and positively. “That’s him all right. That’s Mr. Lambert.”

“You couldn’t be mistaken?”

“I’ve got eyes in my head, haven’t I? I looked right at him across the hall there… not once but three times. How could I be mistaken?”

“You may have to swear to it on the witness stand, Mrs. Conrad,” Shayne warned her gravely. “With a lawyer cross-questioning you and trying to get you confused. I want you to be very positive.”

“I am. I’ve got a memory for faces. Oh, I’ll testify on the witness stand, all right.”

Shayne said, “That’s wonderful, Mrs. Conrad. You’ll be a very important witness.” He took the print back from her and slid it into his coat pocket, then turned and reopened the door and glanced out into the corridor to see that it was clear and the door across the hall was properly closed.

“Not many people using this hall tonight I guess.” At the end of the hall he saw a slender figure wearing a droopy black hat suddenly materialize from the stairway and start toward them. He stepped back to stand beside Mrs. Conrad so she could have a clear view through the open door, and heard the clack of high heels nearing them briskly.

“There hasn’t been for a fact.” She stiffened as she heard the heels, and peered past him inquisitively. Then her mouth fell open and she gave a little shriek of panic as Lucy came into her view, and she shrank back and caught Shayne’s arm with thin fingers.

Then she straightened herself, her eyes bulging as Lucy went past with the brim of the hat concealing her features, and she stammered, “My goodness, I thought for a moment…” Then her voice rose excitedly. “It’s the same hat though. I know it is. Who do you suppose…?”

Shayne smiled down at her reassuringly and pulled the door open and said, “Okay, Lucy. Let Mrs. Conrad see who you are.”

“Well I never! It’s Miss Hamilton,” she exclaimed as Lucy turned toward them and showed her full face.

“Just that first minute I thought I was seeing a ghost,” she chattered excitedly. “Then I saw you weren’t near as tall or heavy as her. My goodness, you did give me a turn.”

“I’m sorry,” Shayne said smoothly. “I was testing your memory and your powers of observation, Mrs. Conrad. I must say they are both excellent, and I’m sure you’ll be a perfect witness if it comes to identifying Lambert’s picture.”

When they were able to get away from her questions and back to the apartment downstairs, Lucy threw the droopy black hat on the sofa and turned on Shayne with her hands on her hips to demand angrily, “What did you prove by that stunt, Michael? I felt like a Mata Hari with that dead woman’s hat on my head.”

He told her seriously, “I proved two things. First, that Mrs. Conrad is a very observant woman with an excellent memory… so I don’t think there’s much doubt that Grogan is the man she saw… wearing a trick mustache and blue glasses. We can also now be fairly positive that Suzie Conroy didn’t impersonate Mrs. Nathan by wearing that hat. She’s about your size, Norris said, and Mrs. Conrad spotted the discrepancy in size at once.”

“Suzie Conroy?” Lucy sank down onto the sofa, her face a mask of bewilderment. “The secretary whom Paul Nathan took to dinner a few times? Whatever made you think…?”

“All right,” said Shayne harshly. “I’m grasping at straws. Every elimination helps.” He strode up and down the room, pounding his left fist into his palm, a scowl of concentration on his face. “After I get the answers to a few more questions, everything will be clear to me. About as clear as mud, probably,” he added in disgust, pausing in the center of the floor to glare at her. “But I want to know whether Joe Grogan was left-handed… and whether he owned a shotgun. Let’s see. Mrs. Grogan said she went to work in the Hotel Griffin Lounge as a waitress at six o’clock. See if you can get her there, Lucy.”

Lucy compressed her lips, and went to the telephone book to get the number while Shayne resumed his impatient pacing up and down.

She called a number and spoke into the phone, then replaced it and told him, “Mrs. Grogan did not come to work. She’s at home sick.”

Shayne said, “Good. If I can see her at home I can pick up another piece of the puzzle I need. I think I have her phone number here.” He began to search his pockets for the telephone message Mrs. Grogan had left.

Lucy said, “Michael,” in a queer, stifled voice. He looked up, still searching his pockets.

“I’ve just remembered something.”

He said, “Oh?”

“Talking about people who are left-handed. Did you know Mr. Armbruster is?”

“Eli?” Shayne stood very still and stared at her. “Is left-handed?”

Lucy nodded emphatically. “I don’t suppose it means anything, but… he is. When he wrote out that check in the office this morning. He wrote and signed it with his left hand.”

Shayne sat down heavily, his eyes narrowed, his features tight in concentrated thought. He muttered, “Eli? I don’t see…”

He sat like that for several minutes, shaking his head and moving his lips although no words came out. Then he began looking in his pockets again, found the slip of paper he wanted and held it out to Lucy. “Please call Mrs. Grogan and see if she’s well enough to see me. Get her address if she is.”

Lucy took the slip and asked, “Do you think it’s important, Michael? About Eli?”

Shayne shook his head with a harried grin and ran fingers distractedly through his red hair. “Right now I’m so mixed up with half a dozen fantastic theories that I don’t know what’s important and what isn’t. We have to take it a step at a time, Angel. Call Mrs. Grogan.”

He got up and went into the kitchen to pour a drink while Lucy made the call. She turned to him with the phone in her hand when he came back with a glass in his hand. “She’s not sick… just didn’t feel like working tonight. Do you want to talk to her?”

He shook his head. “Just ask if Joe is left-handed.”

She asked the question, then shook her head at Shayne. “No.”

He said briskly, “Get her address and tell her I’d like to come around for a minute.”

He went back to the sofa to sip his drink, and Lucy hung up and told him, “It’s close by. On N. E. Sixteenth Street.”

He nodded, thinking hard. “You come with me, Lucy. Have you got a paper bag or something you can carry that hat in?”

“Mrs. Nathan’s?” Lucy looked doubtfully at the black hat lying beside him.

He nodded, his gray eyes very bright. “I’ve got one more crazy hunch to check out.”

Lucy knew better than to ask him any questions at a time like this. She went into her bedroom and emerged with a brown paper bag large enough to hold the hat without crushing it too much. Shayne tossed off the rest of the drink and they went out together.

The Grogan address on 16th street proved to be an old two-story stucco building that had been divided into four apartments. When he stopped in front of it Lucy told him, “She said it was the downstairs front. Do you want me to come in, Michael?”

He said, “I’ll be only a few minutes,” and got out briskly and went up the walk to the lighted front porch.

Mrs. Grogan opened a side door on the left and peered out at him as he opened the front door. She said anxiously, “I thought that’d be you, Mr. Shayne. You brought news of Joe?”

Shayne shook his head and told her gently, “I’m afraid it’s going to be bad news when I do bring it, Mrs. Grogan. May I come in a minute?”

She stepped back to let him enter a shabby but pleasant sitting room, saying unhappily, “I’ve been getting that feeling more and more. Seemed like I just couldn’t go to work tonight. When your secretary called me… why did she want to know if Joe is left-handed? Like I told her, he just couldn’t do anything with his left hand.”

Shayne said, “I haven’t time for explanations now. There’s one other question. Did your husband own a shotgun?”

“Not a shotgun nor no other kind of gun. Joe wasn’t a killing man, Mr. Shayne. Why he even hated to catch a fish on a hook.”

Shayne said, “There’s one more thing. I’ve got to get something to take with me that will have Joe’s fingerprints on it.”

“What for? Why do you need his fingerprints?”

Shayne said flatly, “To help me catch a killer, Mrs. Grogan. Think a minute.” He looked around the sitting room. “What would he have handled… and not you? Did he smoke a pipe?”

A look of infinite sadness settled down over her face and Shayne knew she must have guessed why he wanted a set of her husband’s fingerprints. She said, “No, but there’s a whiskey bottle in the kitchen that Joe kept for when he wanted a nip. I never touched it because I hate the stuff. Would that be what you need?”

Shayne said, “That should be just right.” He followed her out to a neat and sparkling clean kitchen, and she opened a cabinet beneath the sink and pointed to a bottle of bourbon with a few drinks left in the bottom of it. It was the same blend, Shayne noted grimly, as the whiskey bottle in the Lambert apartment.

“I guess you want I shouldn’t touch it,” Mrs. Grogan said in a hushed voice.

Shayne leaned down and lifted it out by two fingers gripping the cork. He went back through the sitting room and paused by the open door. He wished to God he could think of something comforting to say to her, but there was nothing. He said gruffly, “You’ll be hearing very shortly, Mrs. Grogan,” and hurried out to the car.

He set the bottle carefully on the seat beside Lucy, warning her, “Fingerprints,” then got in and drove swiftly to headquarters.

Lucy didn’t speak until he stopped at the side entrance. Then she asked, “Shall I wait?”

He got out, lifting the bottle by the cork again. “If I’m lucky I’ll know in a few minutes, Angel.” He hurried across the sidewalk and disappeared inside the building.

Lucy shivered and huddled down on the seat to wait for him. If she only knew what was in his mind. If he would only tell her the direction in which his thoughts were taking him. But she knew he wouldn’t. Not now. Not when he was possessed by this driving, feverish impatience to get on with it. She had seen him like this too often in the past.

She set her teeth together tightly to keep from asking any questions when he hurried back and got behind the steering wheel again.

He pulled away from the curb and headed north, glanced fleetingly at her strained face and said, “I guess you must be wondering, Lucy. Our corpse is Joe Grogan.”

Her teeth chattered as she said, “I th-thought so. After Mrs. Conrad was so sure.” She hesitated, then asked in a small voice, “Where are we going now, Michael?”

“Seven twenty-nine Hibiscus Road. It’s out in the northeast section about fiftieth street. I don’t know just how we’re going to play it with Mona Bayliss, but I may need your help. We’ll see when we get there.”

He found the address near the bayfront, a large, new and very modern apartment building covering at least half a block. Shayne found a parking place near the entrance and got out and hurried around to Lucy’s side to open her door for her. “Bring your paper bag,” he said quietly. “Just carry it inconspicuously under your arm and don’t mind mashing it.”

He took her elbow and they went to the canopied entrance and into a large, well-lighted and aseptically neat lobby, past a small reception desk to a pair of elevators at the rear. One of them stood open with a neatly uniformed operator inside. He was young and pallid-faced, with hot, greedy eyes which regarded the couple thoughtfully as he closed the door. Shayne told him, “Six,” and then got out his wallet and extracted a twenty-dollar bill which he held loosely under the operator’s avid eyes. “How long have you worked here, son?”

“Almost a year now.” They were going up slowly and very smoothly.

Shayne dropped the wallet in his side pocket and brought out the doctored photograph of Joe Grogan. “Ever see this fellow around?”

They stopped at the sixth floor but he didn’t open the door at once. He looked hard at the picture and nodded, “He used to come around I think. Haven’t seen him for a month or so.”

Shayne moved the twenty closer and his hand closed over it. He reached for the control to open the door, but Shayne checked him by getting out another twenty. “I’ll bet this one against that one you can’t tell me who he visited here.”

The youth hesitated. But just for a moment while his scruples fought a very faint and losing battle. “That’d be Miss Bayliss.” The second bill disappeared and again he reached to open the door.

Shayne said quickly, “A little thin girl?”

He grinned triumphantly, showing bad teeth. “Not on your life, Mister. She’s a hunk of woman.” As the door opened on the sixth floor he made the traditional hour-glass gesture with both hands to describe Miss Bayliss.

Shayne said, “She must have grown since I saw her,” and stepped out behind Lucy. He took her firmly by the arm and led around a corner from the elevator as though they belonged there and knew exactly where they were going. There was an EXIT sign at the end of the corridor and he told Lucy hurriedly, “We’ll walk down to five. Her number is five-eleven, and she isn’t home. At least she wasn’t when I phoned from headquarters.”

“Michael,” Lucy quavered as they went through the doorway and found stairs leading down. “What are we doing here?”

He said cheerfully, “We’re going to be breaking and entering in just a moment.”

He opened the door at the bottom of the flight and they went into an empty hallway with numbered doors on both sides. He had his key-ring in his hand when they stopped in front of 511. He knocked perfunctorily while he studied the lock and selected a key.

Lucy stood beside him unhappily, looking up and down the corridor and wondering what on earth they would do if one of those doors opened.

With a start she realized that he had the door open and was pulling her inside. He closed the door and pushed a wall switch to light a small foyer with a fair-sized living room through an archway beyond it. On their left a door opened into a bedroom.

Shayne pushed her toward the bedroom and said urgently, “Check her closet, Angel. On the shelf where she keeps her hats. If there’s not a match to the black one in your bag, plant yours on the shelf and let’s get out of here fast.”

Until that moment Lucy Hamilton had not had the faintest idea of what they were doing in Mona Bayliss’s apartment, nor why Shayne had insisted that she bring Mrs. Nathan’s hat with her in a bag.

She still didn’t understand, but she responded to the urgency in his voice by hurrying into the bedroom and opening the door to the large clothes closet in one corner. She stood on tiptoe to scan the shelf above an array of dresses on hangers, saw two turbans and a dressy straw hat with flowers, but no drooping black one.

Her fingers trembled as she pulled it from the bag and pushed it back on the shelf with Mona’s other hats.

Shayne was waiting for her with his hand on the doorknob when she rejoined him, breathing hard and shaking all over.

He grinned at her reassuringly as he turned off the inner light and eased the door open for a quick look down the corridor.

Then he drew her out boldly and closed the door and hurried her back toward the stairway.

When the door to the stairs closed behind them, he put his arm about her waist and squeezed tightly and told her admiringly, “You went through that like a veteran, Angel. By God I think I’ll put you on the payroll.”

She got a tremulous smile on her lips as they started to climb the stairs. “If I only knew what I was doing, Michael! If you’d only told me before…”

“Then you wouldn’t have done it,” he told her with a grin. “I didn’t know myself until we got here. We’re playing this strictly by ear, and when that lad recognized Grogan’s picture I figured this might be it.” He squeezed her waist again, slid his arm away and took hold of her elbow decorously as they emerged on the sixth floor again.

They went to the elevator and he pressed the DOWN button, and Lucy fought to get her breathing under control before the door opened to take them down.

It was the same car and the same boy. When they got in, he closed the door and told Shayne with a sly grin:

“That lady we mentioned… Miss Bayliss… I just let her off at five.”

Shayne stiffened and glanced sharply at Lucy. She averted her gaze from him and he knew she was thinking how close they’d come to being caught by Mona in her room.

Neither of them spoke until they reached the bottom. Then Shayne said casually to Lucy, “Why don’t you go on and grab a taxi for home? I think I’ll drop in on Mona for a moment.”

Lucy did not stir from the car. She said steadily, “I’ll go up with you, Michael. I am on the payroll, damn it.” The youth stood by listening to them with his hand on the control bar and not understanding at all.

Shayne said to him, “What are you waiting for? We’ll go back up to five.”

He said, “Yes, sir,” and they went up. When they got out he watched them go out of sight around the corner toward 511 and wondered what in hell this was all about. But he had two twenties in his pocket, and he quickly decided it was no concern of his.

Lucy stood close beside Shayne, stiff and white-faced and with a churning in her stomach when he again knocked on the door of 511, loudly and commandingly this time.

It opened after a moment, and a tall, voluptuous blonde looked out at them questioningly. She wore street clothes and had a light coat folded over her arm, and she looked frightened when she saw them, and exclaimed, “What is it?”

Shayne said gruffly, “Police,” and pushed the door open.

She fell back in front of him protesting loudly. “What do you want? You can’t come in here and…”

Shayne pushed her back roughly toward the archway and growled, “We’re already in. I’ve got a warrant for your arrest, Mona Bayliss, on a charge of murder.”

“Oh, God… no!” She swayed backward, her face going white. “There’s some awful mistake. You can’t…”

Shayne said grimly, “We don’t think there’s any mistake, Miss Bayliss. This is a police-woman, Miss Hamilton. Take a look in her bedroom, Hamilton. If you can find that hat in there…”

“What hat?” Mona practically screamed at him, her eyes big and rounded. “What do you mean by murder? You can’t…”

“This what you want, Sarge?” Lucy emerged from the bedroom carrying the big, drooping, black hat carelessly. “It was shoved back on the closet shelf…”

Mona’s eyes became glazed when she saw what Lucy carried in her hand. She staggered back, almost falling, and whimpered, “Oh, no, I… ditched it. God in heaven! I never meant it. You’ve got to believe me. I never knew.” She sank down onto her knees, tears piteously streaming from her eyes. “It was just a gag, he said,” she sobbed. “Just to get a divorce. I swear I never knew… until I read in the paper this morning. Oh, God, you’ve got to believe me,” and she slid forward onto the floor in a crumpled heap.