This Is It, Michael Shayne

Chapter Twelve

There was utter silence in the room-and something else Shayne couldn’t quite define as he stared at the broken thing that could rob Beatrice Lally of her girlish prettiness in the brief instant required to slide the arms behind her ears. Then a gust of wind rattled the lone window in the room, and he realized that the stench of stale smoke, the fumes of alcohol, and the sweetish odor of blood were thick and stifling.

He started to the window, remembered Garvin, and whirled around to see him still standing in the door. His face was ashen, and his gray-green eyes were glazed with terror.

“Is-he-dead?” Garvin asked in a hoarse whisper.

Shayne gave a snort of disgust. “Is it Morton?”

Garvin nodded and continued to stare while Shayne went to the window. The sashes were locked. He turned the latch and yanked the window open. A blast of wind emptied an ash tray on the table in front of it before he could lower the sash again. He left it open an inch and went over to the bed.

Ralph Morton was lying on his back and there was a neat round hole in his right temple. A splotch of blood on the counterpane showed where blood had soaked through onto the sheets and mattress. He was a large, heavy-featured man, and a stubble of black beard stood out against the death pallor of his face. A small pearl-handled automatic lay on the bed close to his right hand, and Shayne guessed it to be either a. 22 or. 25. There was an empty glass on the bedside table, and a whisky bottle was overturned on the floor beside it.

Shayne picked up the telephone receiver and when the drowsy clerk answered gave police headquarters’ number. Gentry answered, and Shayne asked:

“Picked up anything on Miss Lally yet?”

“Nothing, Mike. I’ve got Paisly’s room staked out in the Edgemont, but he hasn’t showed yet. There’s no evidence she went there. My men worked the neighborhood, but no luck.”

“Call them off, Will. Bring your homicide boys to the Ricardo Hotel on Eleventh. Room three-oh-nine.”

“What’s up, Mike?” Gentry’s voice changed from a weary rumble to alert interest. “Is she there? Dead?”

“She’s been here, all right,” Shayne said grimly. “But Ralph Morton is the stiff.” He hung up and turned to see Garvin hesitantly advancing across the threshold. He was staring down at the broken spectacles with the glazed terror still in his eyes.

“They look-like-Miss Lally’s,” he stammered. His pointing finger trembled. He looked from the glasses to the body on the bed and exclaimed, “Good Lord, Shayne! Do you think she did it?”

“Right now I’m not trying to think,” Shayne told him. “Stand where you are and don’t touch anything until Gentry’s boys get here.” He went across to the open bathroom door and glanced inside, came back, took Garvin firmly by the arm and led him out into the hall.

“When were you up here to see Morton last?” he asked casually.

Garvin trembled violently. “I haven’t been here at all. I told you-”

“Keep your voice down,” Shayne admonished. “We don’t want to wake up the whole floor. You told me a lot of things,” he went on wearily. “Now I want the truth.”

“But I’d even forgotten this address,” Garvin whispered hoarsely. “Even having that memorandum at the office had slipped my mind until you reminded me of it.”

“That was all hocus-pocus. You also told me you didn’t know Morton’s room number, but you walked straight to this door from the elevator and stopped.”

“I-heard the desk clerk give you the number,” he whispered desperately.

“No, you didn’t. You were outside the lobby door when he told me. And I’m guessing now that you knocked your hat off in the wind purposely when I insisted that you come with me. You hung back outside until I was ready to come up so you could rush past the clerk with your glasses off and rubbing your eye in the hope he wouldn’t recognize you. Quit stalling, Garvin. With a hat on your head and your glasses on, you know he’ll recognize you.”

“I did come up to see him yesterday,” Garvin quavered. “But he was drunk and abusive, and-”

The elevator stopped on the third floor and the first contingent of police filed out. Shayne nodded to them and jerked his head toward the open door of 309.

When the men came up, Shayne stopped a tall thin man and said, “Lend me your hat a minute, Riley.”

The man glanced at Shayne’s bushy red head and started to grin, but when he saw Shayne’s grim face he looked puzzled. He slowly lifted a snapbrim brown felt from his head and handed it over, stood by while Shayne passed it to Garvin and demanded, “Put it on.”

Garvin set the hat on top of his head. It was half a size too small, and he made no attempt to pull it down until Shayne said grimly, “Don’t stall, Garvin. Put it on and pull the brim down the way you wear yours.”

Both men could hear Garvin’s teeth grinding together as he yanked the hat to a tight fit and pulled the brim low. Shayne said, “Thanks, Riley. I’ll bring it back in a minute.”

Riley went into 309 and Shayne led Garvin to the elevator, where the boy was leaning out and staring with goggle-eyed wonderment toward the death room.

“Have you ever seen this gentleman before?” Shayne asked the boy pleasantly.

“See here, Shayne.” Garvin’s voice cracked on an absurdly high note. He started to remove his glasses, but Shayne ordered sternly, “Keep them on.”

“I-reckon-” the Negro boy stammered, rolling his eyes fearfully from Shayne to Garvin.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Shayne said soothingly. “Just tell the truth and you’ll be all right.”

“I reckon he’s rightly the one what was heah not more’n a hour ago askin’ fo’ three-oh-nine,” he blurted out rapidly. “Didn’t stay but jes’ a li’l while.”

“I was a fool to think I could get away with it,” Garvin said miserably. “But when I looked in that room and saw him lying there, blood trickling out and gunpowder smelling in the room, I–I didn’t know what to do. I realized he’d killed himself,” he broke off hysterically.

The elevator buzzer was sounding frantically while the Negro boy’s eyes bulged with curiosity and fear, and his hands seemed paralyzed.

“Take it down,” Shayne ordered, and heard the door close as he walked toward the death room with Garvin. “Are you going to claim Morton was dead before you got here?”

“He was. I tell you he was lying there just like you saw him. The light was on, and when he didn’t answer my knock I tried the door. It was unlocked, so I opened it and looked in. I know I should have reported it, but I didn’t think of anything but getting out as fast as I could. I was frightened.”

“Why?” Shayne insisted.

“Because-Good Lord, Shayne. I didn’t want to be caught here with a man who’d just shot himself.”

They had reached 309 and Shayne glanced in at the homicide experts. “Suicide or murder?” he asked.

Riley looked up, shrugged, and spread out his hands significantly, then walked over to Shayne. “It could be either,” he said.

Garvin had removed the tight-fitting hat. He handed it to Riley without a word or a glance. Riley looked at Shayne with a grin, but Shayne was looking toward the elevator.

The door opened and Will Gentry stepped out, followed by Tim Rourke and Lieutenant Hastings, who was in charge of the homicide division. They stopped at the door, and Shayne answered the unspoken questions in Gentry’s eyes:

“Ralph Morton is dead and Miss Lally’s glasses are lying on the floor just inside the door-broken. This is Carl Garvin, who paid Morton a visit about the time it happened, but sneaked away without reporting it. Claims he thought Morton had shot himself.”

Garvin moved unsteadily and leaned against the wall. Shayne swung around and demanded, “What about Miss Lally? Did you see her here? Was it you who phoned her to meet you here?”

Garvin’s face was gray. He began to retch and clawed at his throat, reeling sideways and then sliding limply to the floor. He lay very still on his side and the smell of liquor from a sour stomach rose from the vomit oozing from his mouth.

Shayne looked at him for a moment, then said to Gentry, “He’s all yours,” and swung on his heel toward the elevator.

“Hold on, Mike,” Gentry called out “Where are you going?”

“To see what I can find out about Miss Lally,” he flung over his shoulder. He got out a five-dollar bill as he approached the boy, who now stood boldly outside the elevator, watching and listening.

“You hit the jackpot a moment ago,” Shayne told him. “How are you on ladies?”

“I dunno, suh.”

“About an hour ago,” Shayne interrupted. He swiftly described Miss Lally and her glasses, and added, “It may have been a little more or a little less than an hour ago.”

The boy shook his head, looking wistfully at the bill in Shayne’s hand. “I tell you how ’tis,” he confided. “We gets lotsa ladies goin’ in an’ out all hours. Don’t none of ’em hardly wears glasses, though.”

“This lady might not have had hers on,” Shayne said. “Think hard. It would have been around twelve-thirty.”

“Sho wish I could say, but I jest cain’t.”

Shayne heard a commotion in 309 and turned to see Rourke’s head peering through the door and beckoning to him frantically.

Thrusting the bill into the boy’s hand, Shayne broke into a trot. Rourke met him outside the door and said excitedly:

“It’s Beatrice, Mike! They found her locked in the closet. I’m afraid she’s dead, too.”

Shayne stepped past him to the doorway. Beatrice Lally was lying on the floor and one of the detectives was applying artificial respiration. She was as limp as a rag doll and looked pitifully helpless with her hair disheveled and her clothing torn. Streaks of dirt and tears mingled on her waxen white face.

Gentry got in front of Shayne and shoved him back as he started toward the girl. “Take it easy, Mike,” the chief advised gruffly. “She’s breathing. She’ll come out of it. But my God, she must have been locked in there with no air for an hour or more.”

Shayne thought swiftly of the dead, thick air in the room when he first entered with Garvin. He caught Gentry’s arm and growled, “Where’s Garvin?” after looking around the room and not seeing him.

“In the next room,” said Gentry sourly. “It’s empty and I shoved him in there when he pulled that faint-or a phony. Where’d you get him, Mike? Where does he fit in?”

“He’s the local manager for Miss Morton’s syndicate. He first denied knowing Morton’s address, but we got it from his office and came here. I caught him in a couple of lies and he finally admitted coming here after midnight to see Morton. Claims the room was unlocked and the light on and Morton was lying like that when he looked in. So he beat it.”

Shayne spoke swiftly and in a low voice, watching Beatrice Lally steadily. When she blinked her eyes and moaned, he elbowed Gentry aside and pushed forward to drop on his knees beside her. She moved her head restlessly and her eyes fluttered open, only to close quickly as though to shut out the painful light.

When she finally held them open long enough to see Shayne’s grimly concerned face, she smiled faintly and said:

“What happened?” Her voice was a whisper and her round, sooty eyes looked wonderingly into his. “I came here-like you said-and-and someone hit me.” She shivered and closed her eyes tightly.

Shayne realized then that the window was wide open and a cool, strong breeze was blowing in, but the gusty blasts of the impending storm has passed. “Better close that window,” he said. “She’s shivering with cold.”

Miss Lally was trying to sit up. Still on his knees, Shayne put his arm around her and lifted her to her feet as he came up. There was a dull reddish bruise high on her right cheekbone, just in front of the ear. Shayne kept his arm around her. She drew in a deep breath, moistened her lips, and looked around dazedly.

“Get her a glass of water,” Shayne ordered, and helped her to the only comfortable chair in the shabby room.

Gentry brought the water and she drank a few sips gratefully. “When you feel like talking-”

She puckered her near-sighted eyes at the chief and Shayne explained:

“This is Chief Will Gentry. But don’t talk until you feel like it.”

“I was unconscious for a time, I guess. Then I came to. Or, it seems I did. Perhaps I dreamed it. It’s like a horrible nightmare,” she went on, stopping to breathe deeply after each short sentence, while the men moved in closer to hear more clearly the words she spoke only slightly louder than a whisper. “It was all black and silent. Like being in a coffin. I screamed and pounded-and crawled around like an animal. I was so weak. Then everything faded. There wasn’t any-air-to breathe.”

“You were locked in the clothes closet over there,” Shayne explained gently. He looked at Gentry, who was bending close to her on the other side of the chair. “Do you think it’s wise to question her now, Will? Sometimes a case of shock has serious consequences.”

“It’s all right,” Beatrice said. “I’m all right now. I can breathe again. I’ll take another sip of water, please.”

Gentry held the glass until she had it firmly in her hand. She took larger swallows now, draining the glass. When Gentry took the glass and set it aside, Miss Lally squinted up at Shayne and asked:

“What happened? You said you’d be waiting for me.”

“Tell me exactly what I did say.”

“Don’t you remember?” She frowned and rubbed her hand weakly across her eyes, murmuring, “My-glasses.”

“I didn’t phone you at Miss Hamilton’s,” he told her patiently. “It was some other man.”

“His voice-sounded like yours,” she faltered. “He called me by name and said he was you and I was to meet him right away in his hotel room. Number three-oh-nine,” she went on, her voice growing gradually stronger and her breathing freer. “But I wasn’t to tell anyone where I was going. Not even Miss Hamilton. And I shouldn’t come directly here by cab because it might be traced, but to get out at a corner and walk a block or so. And I did, and-” Her voice trailed off and she began rubbing her eyes like a sleepy child. “Please, may I have my glasses? My eyes hurt and I can’t see very well.”

“Your glasses are broken,” Shayne told her. “You say someone struck you?”

“The minute I opened the door.” She shuddered with the memory. “I knocked and a man asked who it was. I still thought it was you. I told him my name. He said to come in. I opened the door and took one step inside. Then the lights went out and something hit me on the head.” She touched the bruised spot with shaking fingers. “I didn’t see anything or anyone. It was just black-like death-until I sort of half came to. But I’ve told you about that. If it wasn’t you, Mr. Shayne, who was it?”

“I don’t know,” he said soberly. “Try to recall the voice. Could it have been Ralph Morton?”

She frowned briefly, closing her eyes to concentrate. “I don’t think so. Oh, I don’t know,” she cried out in despair. “How can I tell? I thought it was you.”

“I think we’ve got enough from her right now,” Gentry said gruffly. “There’s an ambulance downstairs. She’d better get to a hospital for a thorough examination.”

The back of her chair was toward the bed. Shayne and Gentry each took one of her arms and helped her up. The other men stood back, and with Shayne’s body blocking her short vision she was carried out without discovering the sheet-covered body of Ralph Morton.

In the hallway Gentry turned her over to the ambulance driver and his assistant, waited until they were in the elevator with the door closed, then turned a quizzical gaze on Shayne and asked:

“What do you make of it now, Mike-with all the inside information you’re holding out on me?”

“I’m not holding out anything, Will. That is-” He hesitated, shrugged his rangy shoulders, and said, “Not any more, I’m not. With Garvin tied into this so closely, you’ll have to hear where Burton Harsh comes in and decide for yourself.”

“Do you think Morton lured her here-attacked her and locked her in the closet and then either shot himself or was shot by someone who came in after she passed out?”

“I don’t know. How would Morton have known where to phone her?”

“I thought you might tell me that,” Gentry rumbled mildly.

“I want to talk to Garvin. And I’d like to get my hands on one Edwin Paisly.” Shayne started to the door next to 309 and Gentry went with him. He had his hand on the doorknob of 311, and before turning it he asked in a low voice:

“Do your boys make Morton murder or suicide?”

“Could be either from the preliminary examination,” Gentry told him. “But they’re inclined toward murder. No suicide note-several small indications-”

Shayne nodded and pushed the door open.