The Uncomplaining Corpses

Chapter Six: NO HEED FROM A HEEL

The room was in perfect order, the bed made and smooth except for the rumples around the inert body. The windows were closed and the sodden air somehow managed to give the room an atmosphere of disorder.

Shayne opened a window and stood for a moment looking down at Carl Meldrum. His eyelids were wrinkled and unhealthy-looking. His cheeks were puffed and florid. He wore a tuxedo and black tie, and his blunt chin rested against the bow.

Carl Meldrum groaned fretfully and tried to get his face out of the way of Shayne’s hard palm the first time Shayne slapped him. Shayne slapped him on the other cheek, cursing in a low monotone. He dragged Meldrum from the bed and placed him in a deep hotel chair where he slumped laxly. He began to whimper and little bubbles oozed out between his lips.

He seemed to be trying to open his eyes but wasn’t quite able to make it. A large vein throbbed in his forehead and the bubbles continued to form at the corners of his lax mouth.

Shayne tried slapping him again, with no result. His condition was evidently not altogether alcoholic. Shayne was familiar with all the symptoms of an alcoholic stupor and was frankly puzzled by Meldrum’s sodden condition. He knew that if he could get the slightest response from a drunk he would be able to slap him into some semblance of sensibility, but Meldrum had been whimpering and jerking ever since Shayne began working on him and he was no nearer consciousness than before. Shayne shook his head worriedly and wiped sweat from his forehead. It was hot work trying to slap life back into this senseless hulk. There was no doubt of Meldrum’s being drugged in addition to being drunk. He went to the window and leaned his elbows on the sill, looking out over the shimmering blue of the Atlantic Ocean, which was now touched with a red glow from the rising sun.

The Herald would be on the streets with Painter’s story by this time. Early risers were rubbing their eyes and reading the headlines-many with astonishment and others with satisfaction. Ten years in Miami had made him many enemies and few friends. A lot of people were going to nod sagely this morning and say to each other, “I see they got Shayne at last. He’s had it coming for a long time.”

He didn’t mind so much except for Phyllis. It was going to be tough on her.

He turned from the window with his face grim. Meldrum’s eyes were open. They focused imperfectly but there was life in them. They shifted in red sockets, bulging a little, as if the swollen sockets shoved them outward.

Shayne said, “Okay, Meldrum, come out of your fog.”

Meldrum’s thick lips moved in and out against his teeth but he didn’t speak. He lifted his right hand in a limp, despairing gesture, then let it drop. Wrinkled lids closed over his eyes again.

Breathing heavily through flaring nostrils, Shayne tangled his fingers in Meldrum’s hair. He crooked his elbow and lifted the man’s dead weight by a handful of hair. He dragged him into the bathroom and slid him to a sitting position in the tub. He turned the cold-water tap for the shower and stepped back, a frown creasing three vertical lines in his forehead.

Meldrum remained supine, lolling against the edge of the tub. Shayne tried the hot-water tap, holding his hand under the shower until it was too hot for him to endure.

Muscles twitched in Meldrum’s thick calves but he made no other movement. Convinced that the man wasn’t faking, Shayne turned off the water and left him bent over the tub.

He went into the bedroom and began ransacking it. At the end of half an hour he had a tiny address book for his work. The book had been lying in plain sight in the top bureau drawer on top of a pile of clean handkerchiefs. He took another look in the bathroom and grunted with disgust when he saw that Meldrum had not moved, then went back and sat down on the edge of the bed to thumb through the address book.

It seemed innocuous enough. There was nothing more incriminating than two or three dozen names and addresses scattered through it in alphabetical order. They were all feminine names, which was natural enough for a man of Meldrum’s type. Dorothy Thrip’s was next to the last name in the book. He slid the book into his breast pocket and his gray eyes roamed disconsolately around the room. An avid light gleamed in them when he espied a bottle of whisky on the bedside table. The top of it showed above the telephone.

A few long strides took him within reach of the bottle. He uncorked it, sniffed the bouquet, held it up to the light and saw that it was a little more than half full. He tasted a few drops, washed it around in his mouth, nodded his head, and drank a long draught. His hand touched the telephone when he set it back on the table.

Shayne lifted the receiver and asked for room service, then ordered two enormous breakfasts sent up to the room. He replaced the receiver and looked at his watch. He was surprised to find that he had spent nearly two hours working with Meldrum. He took another look in the bathroom. Meldrum had apparently not moved a muscle.

Thirty minutes later two white-coated men brought a wheeled service table laden with food. Shayne said, “Mr. Meldrum is in the bathroom. Just leave everything covered and we’ll serve ourselves.” He took a card from one of the men and signed Carl Meldrum to the breakfast charge.

Carefully arranging the table for two people, Shayne sat down and ate more than half of both breakfasts, his ears keen for a sound from the bathroom. When he finished, two sets of silverware had been used. He covered the table and wheeled it to the door, opened the door and peered out, and seeing no one in the hallway wheeled the table out.

Back in the room he stood for a moment tugging at the lobe of his left ear, then went to the bathroom again. From a small ice-water spigot above the lavatory, he saturated a towel and slopped it over Carl Meldrum’s face; wet it again and wrung ice water over his hair and face. Meldrum moaned quietly and turned his head, but his eyes did not open. Shayne repeated the process for twenty minutes without effect.

There was a knock on the door. Shayne dried his hands hurriedly and answered the knock. A postal messenger had a special delivery for Carl Meldrum.

Shayne signed Carl Meldrum on the dotted line without hesitation, closed the door and locked it, and sat down on the bed with a blue envelope of heavy paper held gingerly in his hands.

It was addressed in ink. The return address was M. Tabor, and a post office box number at the Little River Station. It had been mailed less than an hour before.

Shayne opened it carefully to preserve any fingerprints and drew out a sheet of folded blue notepaper. He read:

I have just seen the morning Herald and I would be dumber than I am if I couldn’t put two and two together. They add up to four and a tough lay for you. You should have come clean last night instead of lying to me. I’ve fixed it so you can say you were here from one o’clock on. Don’t try to beat me out of my split when the Thrip girl gets the money coming to her.

Mona

Shayne read it twice, then put the note in the envelope and slid it into an inside pocket.

He took a last look in the bathroom and saw that Meldrum was inert in the tub. He shook his head, felt the man’s pulse to reassure himself, then shoved him down in the tub until his feet rested against the other end.

Shayne didn’t bother to lock the door when he went out of the room. He drove along Fifth Street, where newsboys were getting rid of their morning Heralds in a hurry. Their raucous calls reached his ears faintly but he drove on to the causeway without stopping to buy a paper.

In Miami he drove straight to the side entrance of his hotel, parked at the curb, and got out. He went in through a private entry and climbed the service stairway two flights to his old apartment, which had been retained as an office.

A thin-faced legman for the Herald was camped in front of his door. Shayne shouldered him aside and shook his head at the reporter’s questions. He put his key in the lock and went in, slamming the door shut behind him with unnecessary force. He went straight to the telephone and called Phyllis in their new apartment one flight up.

When Phyllis answered, he said, “Hello, darling, I’ve been up to my neck in work. I’ll be home pretty quick.”

“Thank goodness you still have a neck all in one piece,” she answered.

“You’re not worried?” His voice was anxious.

“Of course not. But hurry-I have breakfast ready.”

Shayne grinned and said, “Okay,” and hung up. He looked at his watch. It was nine o’clock. He lifted the receiver and called the hotel desk clerk and asked if there were any messages.

The clerk said, “A telegram came five minutes ago. I was just going to send it up.”

Shayne said, “Send it up to my third-floor apartment. I’ll wait for it. Don’t send any messages to my living-apartment.”

The clerk said, “Yes, Mr. Shayne,” and in two minutes a boy was at the door with the telegram.

Shayne stared at the yellow envelope quizzically, then ripped it open.

It was a telegram from Mr. Sorenson, an executive of a New York insurance firm which for three years had retained him on an annual basis as special investigator for their southern district. The message tersely quoted a clause in their contract and advised him that he was no longer connected with the firm as of that date.

Shayne crumpled the yellow paper in his big fist and tossed it into the front drawer of his desk. He went out and up the one flight of stairs to his living-apartment.