The Homicidal Virgin

17

Shayne had time to make one telephone call from the Chicago airport before his jet flight took off. He made that call to Timothy Rourke in Miami, and as a result the reporter was at the airport to meet him when his plane landed at dusk.

“Everything set?” Shayne asked as they went toward the exit together.

Rourke nodded, his thin face serious and unhappy. “I came out in a taxi so we could talk in your car.” He lengthened his stride to match the detective’s as they went toward the car Shayne had parked there at noon. “Lucy has Mrs. Harry Gleason in tow and will meet us at Henderson’s house in half an hour. Will Gentry has persuaded Painter to meet him there, though Will is sore as hell because you jumped off to Chicago without telling him any more about those mysterious fingerprints you turned over to him in connection with the case. And that’s more than you told me about them,” Rourke added angrily as he got in the front seat beside his oldest friend.

Shayne started the motor and threaded his way out of the parking lot and into an eastbound stream of traffic. “What did Gentry tell you about the prints?”

“Just that Washington identifies them as belonging to a wanted man. Whose prints are they, Mike?”

“Saul Henderson’s of course. I’m willing to bet none of your newspaper contacts picked up any back trail of Henderson’s from New York. That should have tipped you off.”

“They didn’t,” Rourke admitted uncomfortably. “Is that what your sudden trip to Chicago was all about?”

Shayne said, “Yeh. Henderson is a worthless bastard, Tim. Harry Gleason took a rap for him twenty years ago and came to Miami to collect when he discovered Henderson was in the chips.”

“Instead, he collected a forty-five slug,” muttered Rourke. “With Henderson absolutely in the clear on that kill whether Gleason threatened him or not.”

Shayne said, “He still has to answer to that old charge.”

“No statute of limitations on it?”

“That’s one question I’ve been afraid to ask,” Shayne admitted irritably. “Arson and possible manslaughter. Are they subject to the statute?”

“Damned if I know. Some states, I guess. Hey! There’s something else, Mike, that bothers hell out of me. That girl. Muriel Graham. The one you said Henderson had brought in as a ringer to fool Painter.”

“What about her?”

“I’ll swear she isn’t, Mike. Isn’t a ringer, I mean. I interviewed her today after Painter put her through his personal ringer, and her fiance was right there with her. A chap named Paul Winterbottom, rather well known locally. She’s the real goods, all right. How could you have made such a mistake?”

Shayne said grimly, “It’s easy for me. How does she feel about her stepfather?”

“Exactly the opposite from the way you expected. Insists he’s a wonderful man, and can’t understand why anyone would have it in for him. The only way I can figure that deal, Mike, is that you had the wool pulled over your eyes by an impostor… Jane Smith.”

Shayne said, “You’re improving, Tim. One of these days I’m going to turn my license over to you.” They were on the Causeway now, leading to Miami Beach, and Shayne sighed deeply, glancing at his watch and then stepping harder on the gas as he realized they were due at Henderson’s in a few minutes.

Chief Will Gentry’s inconspicuously marked car was already parked in the circular driveway when they arrived, with Peter Painter’s official car standing close behind it, uniformed chauffeur lounging at the wheel. A Miami taxi turned into the driveway behind Shayne and stopped behind him when he pulled up under the porte-cochere.

Lucy Hamilton got out of the taxi first, and hurried up to him with both her hands outstretched, a look of uncertainty on her face. “I’ve got Mrs. Gleason, Michael.” She lowered her voice, glancing over her shoulder at the woman getting out of the taxi behind her.

“I couldn’t explain why you wanted her here, Michael… to confront the man who killed her husband. She’s… pretty near the breaking point.”

Shayne squeezed her hands tightly and pushed her toward Rourke. He went past her to Hilda, and linked his arm in hers while he leaned inside the cab and gave the driver two dollars. “I’ll take the ladies home, driver.” He stood for a moment and looked down into Hilda’s taut face and questioning eyes. He said, “I know this is going to be an ordeal, but it will soon be over and you can go home to Algonquin.”

“Accompanied by my husband in his coffin,” she said in a tight voice.

Shayne continued to look down into her upturned face without speaking. Then he turned her about firmly with his arm in hers, and they followed Timothy Rourke and Lucy Hamilton onto the porch where Harry Gleason’s bloodstains from the previous night had been cleanly washed away.

The same maid opened the door for them, and motioned them through the archway into the square room where the cocktail party had been held just twenty-four hours previously.

This time there were only four persons in the room: Henderson and his stepdaughter, and the two police officers from Miami and the Beach.

Muriel Graham sat at Henderson’s right, and gravely acknowledged the introductions made by Will Gentry, who stood in front of the fireplace with a half-smoked cigar in his hand, and as soon as the formalities were over and the others had seated themselves, Peter Painter addressed Shayne aggressively:

“Suppose you come to the point, Shayne; I understand it was your suggestion that we all come here.”

Shayne nodded and ruffled his red hair. He moved over to a position at the other end of the mantel from Gentry where he could look down at all the others. “I made a flying trip to Chicago today. To a little town called Denton, where I talked with a young couple named Mr. and Mrs. Roy Combs.”

Gentry and Henderson were the only two who reacted to the name. The police chief paused with his cigar halfway to his mouth, and turned to look at Shayne quizzically. Henderson sat bolt upright and opened his mouth twice as though to speak, but closed it both times.

“Your son, Henderson,” Shayne told him harshly. “Born twenty-two years ago when your wife died in a hospital as the result of burns she received when you and Harry Gleason burned down an empty warehouse to collect insurance on its non-existent contents.”

“No!” The exclamation was torn from Hilda Gleason’s lips. She wrung her hands together and her face twisted tragically. “Not Harry. I knew there was something, but…”

“Not Harry,” said Shayne, and his voice softened. “In fact, you can go right on being proud of Harry Gleason, Hilda. He was a hero twenty-two years ago even though he did serve a ten-year prison sentence for arson. It was he who went into the burning building and saved his partner’s wife from certain death while her own husband left her there to die with their unborn child still in her womb.”

Henderson dropped his face into his hands and did not speak. Painter jumped to his feet and thumbed his mustache. “I knew there was something like that about you all the time, Henderson. I sensed it from the beginning. That’s why your life was threatened… why Gleason was after you. Why you had to kill him on your own doorstep.”

Henderson lifted his face from his hands, looking old and broken. “I had to fire in self-defense. As soon as I saw him standing outside the door last night with a gun in his hand I knew it was he who had made the two previous attempts and that it was his life or mine. The law can’t touch me for that,” he ended fiercely. “And God knows I’ve paid through all these years for the terrible mistake I made that night so long ago. Don’t you think I’ve paid ten times over in sleepless nights and agony of spirit?”

He got to his feet slowly and faced seven stony faces with his arms outstretched and tears streaming down his cheeks.

“I didn’t know what I was doing that night. I thought they had both died in the fire. Do you understand? I thought I could do nothing to help them. Harry and I had a chartered plane waiting nearby, and I was in New Orleans before morning and aboard a ship bound for South America. It wasn’t until months later that I learned the full truth. By then, my wife was dead and Harry was serving his time. There was nothing I could do to help them by giving myself up. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand?”

No one answered him. Slowly, one by one, their eyes dropped from looking at him. Will Gentry chewed on his cigar for a moment and then said conversationally to Painter: “He’s your pigeon, Pete. I’m glad I don’t have to dirty my hands by taking him into custody.”

Henderson looked around at the ring of impassive faces slowly. He sat down jerkily and regained control of himself. “I don’t know what this fuss is all about,” he told them coldly and with an evil ring of triumph in his voice. “There is a statute of limitations that applies to a case like this. In the state of Colorado it went into effect some years ago… as I was very careful to ascertain on the best legal advice. So now I will have to ask you all to leave my house, reminding you that you are uninvited. Except you, Muriel,” he went on hastily and pleadingly, “I do hope and pray that you will listen to my side of it…”

She stood up and said coldly, “I have heard quite enough already. I’ll be happy to go with the others.”

Shayne said, “Wait a minute,” and the tone of his voice made them all stand very still. “The statute of limitations doesn’t apply to murder, Henderson.”

“It wasn’t murder,” he cried out fiercely. “The charge was suspicion of manslaughter… and to that charge, my friend, the statute of limitations does apply.”

“I’m talking about last night, not twenty-two years ago,” growled Shayne.

“But you know now why Gleason came here. That was the only thing that bothered Chief Painter before. All right. Now he knows. I hoped I could hide the truth, but… since I cannot, at least it will serve to clear me.”

Painter turned to Shayne angrily, and said, “The fact is, Shayne…”

“The fact is,” Shayne interrupted him blithely, “that Painter has been ahead of you all the time, Henderson. He put his finger on it from the first moment last night when he suspected that those first two attempts on your life had been planned by you as a build-up to last night so that you could shoot an unarmed man down in cold blood and claim self-defense. Remember, Petey, how you pointed that out yourself in this room last night?”

“I did, didn’t I?” Painter agreed in a pleased tone.

“But Harry Gleason wasn’t unarmed,” interjected Henderson. “He was carrying that twenty-two pistol you found on the porch beside him. The same one he’d tried to shoot me with in my car on Monday evening. Chief Painter’s own ballistic tests proved that, didn’t they, Chief?”

“Of course they did,” agreed Shayne. “And that’s exactly how Petey tied a noose around your neck.”

“Is it?” asked Painter with intense interest.

“Because Harry Gleason has an alibi for Monday evening when that twenty-two bullet was fired into your car cushion. He was drinking beer steadily in a bar in Miami from four o’clock in the afternoon until ten o’clock that evening. He never had that twenty-two in his possession, Henderson. You fired that decoy shot yourself just as you exploded the gas tank on your boat when you were at a carefully calculated distance from a rescue craft so you knew you’d be picked up before you drowned. You had it in your pocket last night when you went to the front door after inviting Gleason to come here and discuss payment of blackmail, and all you had to do was press his fingerprints on it after you killed him with a slug from your forty-five.

“For God’s sake, Henderson,” Shayne went on in a tone of deep disgust. “Painter has had you figured for this all the time and he already has a salvage crew bringing up the remains of your boat to get proof that there wasn’t any bomb at all, but just a gas tank that you blew up yourself.”

“Shayne is right, Henderson.” Peter Painter strutted forward officiously. “We’ve got you dead to rights for premeditated murder. I’m inviting you to be my guest for a few months until they hang you.”

“Why,” demanded Lucy Hamilton indignantly a little later while they were driving back to Miami with Rourke and Mrs. Gleason in the rear seat, “did you kow-tow so to Chief Painter and practically force him to take the credit for solving the case when you did everything yourself?”

Shayne grinned and reminded her, “We’re going to be in business here for a long time, angel. Cheapest way in the world to keep Petey in a good humor… and this time there wasn’t any money involved.”

“What’ll become of Jane Smith?” demanded Rourke from the rear.

Shayne chuckled and said, “Legally, I suppose Roy Combs will inherit his father’s money when Henderson hangs. So Jane will come out with just what she started out to get… and without murder on her mind.”