This Is It, Michael Shayne

Chapter Fifteen

Her back was toward him, touching the front of his coat, his arm reaching around her side and his hand still covering hers. The top of her head was just under his chin. She didn’t move or breathe for a full minute.

Then she turned and lifted her face, sliding the glasses off, and looking up at him with round, sooty eyes that held only defeat.

“So-you know,” she breathed. She crumpled against him and pressed her face against his chest, sobbing like an exhausted child. “I’ve been so frightened-so alone-keeping it locked up inside me. I want to tell you, Mr. Shayne. It will be a relief. And you can tell me what to do.”

He put his arms around her and she clung to him until she stopped crying. When she drew away she asked tremulously, “Can we go-some place where it’s quiet and maybe-we could have a drink?”

“My place?” Shayne suggested.

“Oh, yes,” she breathed. “I’d like that.”

He said, “I know,” and withdrew the key from the lock.

They went in silence to the elevator and down to the car. Miss Lally sat self-consciously close to the door while Shayne drove slowly to a garage half a block from his hotel, left the car there, and they walked back together.

Neither of them spoke, but she put her hand in his as they neared the entrance. He squeezed it gently and held it as they went through the lobby and past the desk where he nodded casually to the clerk. In the elevator he spoke just as casually to the operator, asking, “Much going on tonight?”

“Not much, Mr. Shayne.” The operator didn’t look at Miss Lally as they rose to the third floor. He opened the door and said, “Good night, Mr. Shayne,” before closing the door.

Beatrice was gripping his hand. She said shakily, “They do this sort of thing very well at your hotel, Mr. Shayne. As though you often bring women to your room.”

He stopped in front of his door and said angrily, “I’m not bringing you to my room. We’ll go in and have a drink and I’ll listen to your story. Then you can trot back to your own bedroom if you’ve convinced me I can conscientiously decide not to turn you over to the police.”

He unlocked the door and strode inside, tossed his hat on a hook near the door, ruffled his red hair, and asked, “What do you want to drink?”

She had closed the door quietly and was leaning against it. “Do you have rum?”

“A daiquiri? Sit down and make yourself at home while I mix one.”

He stopped at the wall liquor cabinet and took out a bottle of light rum and carried it to the kitchen. He used bottled lemon juice, and returned shortly with her drink and a glass of ice water.

Beatrice was sitting on the couch. Her glasses lay on the serving-table, and she had removed the short jacket of her suit and fluffed her hair. She had turned out the top light, leaving only a shaded table lamp burning on a table against the wall.

Softly lighted, she looked young, defenseless, and she leaned eagerly forward when he set her drink before her. He poured himself a drink from the bottle of cognac he had left on his desk and sat down beside her. She picked up the glass that was full to the rim with rum, lemon juice, and ice and drank half of it, quickly covering her mouth to hide a sour grimace at the strong taste of rum. “I needed that,” she said when she could speak, and turned her body slightly toward him. “Please understand this, Mr. Shayne. I’m willing to do what is right. If telling my story to the police will help them catch Miss Morton’s murderer, I’m willing-more than willing to do so. I want you to decide.”

“I will,” he said shortly. “And I’m listening.”

She puckered her eyes at him, unsure of herself before his bleak gaze and the deep trenches in his cheeks. “I was so terribly confused when I first came to in the hotel room and saw you and all those men. When I didn’t tell the truth then, I didn’t know what was best-later.” She appealed to him by timidly touching his arm with her hand. “You do believe me, don’t you? That I would have told the truth eventually if I became convinced it would help catch the murderer?”

Shayne took a long drink of cognac and chased it with ice water. “I’m not believing anything until I hear the whole story,” he said harshly.

She took her hand away. “Tell me-first-how did you guess?”

“A number of small things that added up only one way. When you speak of catching Miss Morton’s murderer-does that mean you’re convinced Ralph Morton didn’t do it?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I just don’t know. Did he?”

Shayne settled back and warmed half a tumbler of cognac between his palms. “I’d like to hear from you first.”

“It’s still like a horrible nightmare. I was so dumbfounded when I opened the door and saw Ralph Morton in that room instead of you. He was awfully drunk, Michael.” She spoke his first name tentatively and a little gasp of surprise or apology followed.

“Go back a little,” he ordered gruffly. “You went up to three-oh-nine, as you told Gentry, still thinking I had called you?”

“Of course. I had no reason to think otherwise. I knocked and a man’s voice said come in. The door wasn’t locked, and I opened it. He was sprawled out on the bed and I thought he looked surprised when he saw me. As though he expected someone else. I asked Ralph if you had got there yet and he didn’t even answer. He just leered at me. He got up and grabbed me and blew his foul whisky breath in my face and said insulting things. He was slimy and revolting, and I fought him as hard as I could. He tripped once and nearly fell. I started to run, but he caught my ankle and dragged me down to the floor and started cursing me. That’s when he struck me with his fist.” Her mouth primped up and she put her finger tips to the bandage. Tears covered her eyes, but she tightened her lips and the tears didn’t overflow.

“That’s when I was first really afraid. It was one of those things that just don’t happen to people. But it was happening to me. That’s when I saw the gun on the bedside table beside a bottle of whisky. He was puffing and out of breath and staggering, and I snatched the gun. I heard the whisky bottle fall to the floor, then everything turned sort of blurry and red.” She covered her face with her hands and shuddered. Shayne took a sip of cognac and waited. When she took her hands from her face she looked at him with imploring eyes. “I didn’t hear the gun go off. I wasn’t conscious of it, but suddenly I was standing over him and there was-a hole-in his head-and blood.” She fell against Shayne and sobbed uncontrollably.

Shayne held her until she was calm. “Finish your daiquiri,” he said gruffly, “then tell me how you came to lock yourself in the closet where you almost suffocated.”

The ice had melted, weakening the drink, and she finished it with a few swallows. “That’s too horrible to think of. And nerve-wracking. I hardly had time to realize what had happened when there was a knock on the door. I knew it was still unlocked, and that whoever it was could just turn the knob and catch me in there with him-dead.

“I was too frantic to think. I guess I acted automatically. The gun had dropped on the bed close to his hand. I grabbed it and wiped it clean and put it in his hand and curled his fingers around it. I was terrified for fear it would go off again.” She shuddered and sank weakly against the couch, her hands clenched tightly in her lap.

“The closet door was open,” she resumed after a moment. “The person at the door knocked again, impatiently. I stepped in the closet and shut the door quietly. I didn’t realize for several minutes that the door had latched and locked me in. There wasn’t even a doorknob inside. I hardly dared to breathe. I thought I could hear sounds in the room and kept expecting someone to open the door any minute. That’s when I made up the story I would tell whoever found me. The same story I told you and Chief Gentry. It was all I could think of.

“After a while everything was quiet. It was a strange silence-like my ears were all stopped up. Then I started hurting in my chest. I couldn’t get a good breath. I was sweating all over, and I knew I had to get out of there.

“That’s when I discovered there wasn’t a doorknob inside. The door was so tight I couldn’t even see a crack of light from outside. I went all to pieces and flung myself against the door time and time again, but it didn’t budge. I tried to scream, but not a sound came out. I kicked and pounded on the door until I was too weak to stand up. Then I fell to the floor and crawled around like a trapped animal looking for a place to get out. And that’s all I remember,” she ended, and expelled a breath in a series of jerky sighs.

Shayne took a long drink of cognac and an ice-water chaser. “It was a brutal experience,” he said quietly, “and you tell it very well. Now, let’s have the truth.”

She stiffened and squinted at his set features. “I’ve told you everything-just as it happened,” she said.

“You’ve told it the way you hope I’ll think it happened,” he corrected her harshly.

“Please, Mi-Michael,” she stammered. “I’m so tired. I can’t fence with you tonight.” She moved slowly as if to stand up, then whirled about and threw herself into his arms, clasping her arms around his neck and pressing against him.

He stiffened his neck when she tried to pull his head down. Her lips were parted and her sooty eyes were wide open and misty.

“It might be interesting to kiss a murderess,” he said in a calm, speculative tone, “but I think I’ll skip it if you don’t mind.”

She relaxed and closed her eyes, squeezing a tear from under each lid. “That’s a horrible word, Michael,” she said drearily. “Is it really murder-what I did?”

“It’s murder when you go to a man’s room of your own volition with a gun in your handbag and the determination to kill in your mind.”

“But I’ve told you-”

“A lot of lies mixed in with a few grains of truth,” he said brutally, pushing her away from him. He stood up and took his empty glass from the table, went to the desk and refilled it. Returning, he toed a light occasional chair along, stopped on the opposite side of the serving-table, and sat down.

“You had every intention of killing Morton when you went to the Ricardo Hotel,” he resumed, “after covering yourself carefully with a story about a fake telephone call.”

“But it wasn’t a fake. Lucy can tell you.” There was naked fear in her eyes.

“Lucy didn’t hear the phone ring at all,” he snapped. “You waited until she was under the shower and couldn’t know whether it rang or not. Then you called Morton to tell him you were coming over. When Lucy came out of the bathroom and caught the tag-end of the conversation you gave her the story about me calling.”

“Have you lost your mind, Michael? It wasn’t that way at all. Lucy will tell you-”

“I say it was,” he cut in sharply. “And so does the switchboard operator at the Ricardo,” he added untruthfully.

“That horrid old man-” She burst out angrily.

“Heard every word you said,” he supplied. “No call went out from three-oh-nine tonight, but your call came in about twelve-fifteen.”

“Suppose I did go over to see Ralph,” she jerked out viciously. “But the rest of it happened just as I told you. He misinterpreted my reason for going there at that time of night.”

“I’ll grant some of it did happen as you’ve told it,” Shayne said wearily, “but I don’t believe there was any struggle. You warmed up to him just as you’ve been doing to me, and then you let him have it. Carl Garvin messed up your plan by knocking on the door and opening it. I imagine you planned to write some sort of scrawled suicide note, didn’t you, after slipping those magazine pages you’d clipped the words out of into Ralph Morton’s wastebasket. You knew the police would find them-and assume that he sent those threatening notes to his wife.”

“Michael!” she exclaimed. “I don’t understand-”

“Oh, yes you do,” he burst out savagely. “You felt yourself pretty much of an expert at murder by that time-after the beautiful job of improvisation you did after killing Sara Morton.”

“Michael!” she wailed. “You can’t seriously think-” Her voice broke and she was weeping again.

“Save your tears,” he snapped. “You knew you had to kill Ralph Morton when you heard the midnight newscast saying he was seen outside her door pounding for admittance about six-thirty. No one saw him go in, and no one knew he didn’t get in because she was dead. But he knew. And your whole complex alibi depended on us believing she was alive at six-thirty. That’s why you double-locked the door, as an insurance against someone, a maid, for instance, opening the door and discovering the body before six-thirty.”

“You are insane, Michael Shayne. Do you think I’d have locked myself in that closet where I almost suffocated on purpose?” She blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

“I’m pretty sure you didn’t lock yourself in with any intention of suffocating. Where were you when Garvin opened the door? Behind it? When he ran away after seeing Morton’s body you thought he was hurrying to report it to the police. You figured you didn’t have time to get out of the hotel, so you smashed your glasses on the floor in front of the door, then locked yourself in the closet, thinking you’d be found within a very few minutes. That minor bump on your head was easily self-administered.”

She stared at him in helpless amazement. “I don’t see how you can think such things,” she said weakly.

“Your glasses were not on the floor when Garvin opened it,” he stated flatly. “But they were there when he and I arrived together an hour later. What does that do to your story?”

She drew in a long quivering breath and said wildly, “It’s all so preposterous! Have you forgot that special-delivery letter you got from Miss Morton! If you’ll check the pick-up times for mail at the Tidehaven you’ll see it had to be mailed between six-ten and seven-fourteen. Mr. Rourke will tell you I met him at six o’clock downstairs. If she mailed it after I met him-”

“That’s what made a damn near perfect alibi,” Shayne agreed. “If she had written and mailed the letter, you’d be in the clear. But I can prove she didn’t do either. You wrote the letter on her typewriter. I imagine you’ve pretty well perfected copying her signature, but not so well as to fool an expert. You had already shoved those fancy shears in her throat some minutes before six o’clock. After writing the note, you hastily concocted a series of three threatening messages to serve as a blind for mailing the letter-and to make me believe that was the reason she was so eager to contact me all day. It was a simple matter from then on. You didn’t have time to go up to the fourteenth floor and murder Sara Morton in those three or four minutes you left Rourke in the cocktail lounge. But it was plenty of time to drop the letter in the mail box.”

Beatrice Lally was crumpled on the couch with both hands over her face. There was no tearful weeping now. Her body shook with dry, convulsive sobs.

Shayne had his chair tilted back and his head rested against his clasped hands. His eyes stared thoughtfully at the ceiling and his voice was calm as he continued his inexorable summing up:

“I thought there was something fishy about those enclosures from the beginning. Will Gentry put his finger on it when he wondered why the devil Sara Morton waited behind a locked door for death to come without even asking for police protection after giving up hope of contacting me. You overplayed your hand-as most murderers do.”

He thumped the front legs of the chair down and unclasped his hands from the back of his head, took the two letters he’d brought from Gentry’s office and selected the special-delivery one.

“This letter to me is evidently typed on Miss Morton’s personal typewriter as distinguished from yours by comparing it with this script of the Harsh story I brought along. But the same person typed both notes and the script. Don’t you know that a person’s typing is as distinctive as handwriting? Any expert will testify that you typed the letter. You’ve probably signed her letters for years, as well as opening and sorting all mail, as you told me yourself.”

The girl on the couch writhed and moaned, but she didn’t take her hands from her face.

“That’s where you made your first big mistake,” he went on. “As soon as I read the blackmail note to Burton Harsh, I knew you wrote it. You told him to mail the money directly to Miss Morton. It would have been insane for her to tell him that, because you open all her mail before she sees it. But it was perfectly safe for you to try it-after learning three days before that she was killing the story on her own initiative.

“And that’s why you had to kill her,” he continued, disgust and contempt rising in his voice. “Because Harsh got tight and came to her room and angrily protested the note. She realized immediately that you were trying to extort money from him by using her name-and that’s what the violent quarrel was about.”

Miss Lally’s moans had gradually subsided. She sat up and her eyes blazed at him. “If you’re so damned smart and knew I killed her, why did you make a fool of yourself stirring up a mess with Mr. Harsh and Carl Garvin-and Paisly?”

“I didn’t say I knew you killed her,” he said mildly. “I only stated that I knew you had written the letter. But Harsh didn’t know you wrote it. Nor Garvin.”

“And you don’t know it either,” she screamed in wild anger.

“Wait till I finish,” said Shayne. “I’m giving you credit for being plenty smart. You brooded about things all day while she tried to get in touch with me to tell me what you’d been doing. She probably wanted me to check back for several years and find out how often you’d done the same thing successfully in other big cities. Just before six o’clock, when you found out she hadn’t been able to reach me and there was still time to save yourself, you grabbed up the shears and killed her.

“The crowning touch,” he went on angrily, “was that torn half of a bill enclosed in my letter and the other half dramatically clenched in her dead hand. By God, I fell for that. The perfect macabre touch to convince me the letter and the enclosures were genuine. It screamed out: This is it, Michael Shayne. At the moment of death this is my way of saying to you what I left unsaid in my hasty note.

“Sure. I fell for it. I stood over her dead body and thought just that. That was a nice touch, too, when you built up the story about her not being able to face the disgrace of being exposed as a blackmailer, and insisted on having it handled privately.”

“You can’t prove it!” she screamed. Beatrice Lally had her bag in her lap and was digging into it frantically. “No one else suspects a word of it, and you’ll never-”

“Michael! Look out!” Lucy Hamilton was shouting from the open doorway of the darkened bedroom.

Beatrice dropped the bag and soft light gleamed on the silvered barrel of a twin to the automatic she had used to kill Ralph Morton.

Shayne acted the same moment Lucy screamed. He ducked low and came up with the serving-table turned sideways and rammed it forward, knocking Beatrice off balance. The gun dropped to the floor and she was pinned against the couch.

Lucy Hamilton ran in, dropped to her knees in front of the girl, and came up with the gun.

“Good girl,” Shayne said. “I hope you got all this down.”

“Every word of it,” she panted. “If I can read the pothooks I made in the dark. When you told me Miss Lally was coming here replete with toothbrush, I knew you wanted me to come here for some reason. But why did you insist on doing it this way, Michael? Couldn’t you have just told Chief Gentry.”

Shayne was getting the service table back on four legs. When he took the top away from Miss Lally’s body she fell on the couch and lay quiescent and exhausted, with the hot fires of hatred flickering in her naked eyes.

“I could have jumped the gun,” he said cheerfully, picking up the articles that had clattered to the floor from the upturned table. “But I wanted to get hold of this manuscript first.” He had just picked it up from the floor and handed it to Lucy. “Burton Harsh owes me a balance of five grand on it. And I might have been wrong,” he added, “if Beatrice could have talked herself out of it. Who knows but what having the toothbrush on tap might have come in handy after all?”