What Really Happened

Chapter five

THE COURTLAND ARMS was located on East Fortieth Street, one of the newer and larger apartment houses in the city. A severely utilitarian building with the entrance near the sidewalk. The lobby was small, equipped with a long, narrow table centered by a tall potted plant, and two large ash trays; there were three leather chairs, an information desk on the left, and a switchboard behind it.

An elegant white-haired lady sat at the switchboard. She turned to look Shayne over with impersonal disinterest as he approached.

He said, “Flannagan? Number twenty-six, I believe.”

“Yes. Is Mr. Flannagan expecting you?”

Shayne said he was, and she told him that the apartment was on the second floor to the right of the elevator.

The cage was waiting on the ground floor, and the detective tramped over, pushed the button to open the door, and went up He pressed the button of Apartment 26, and the door was opened almost immediately.

Ralph Flannagan said, “Mr. Shayne? Come right in. My God, am I glad to see you!”

His hand was well-fleshed, but his grip was hard, and he wrung Shayne’s with an effusive heartiness that seemed a trifle out of place under the circumstances.

In fact, the immediate and over all impression conveyed by Flannagan was that he was working hard at being hearty and masculine and vital. His heavy black hair was cut too short, and his features were plump; his body thick and stocky. He gripped a bulldog pipe between his teeth, and managed to look tweedy and outdoorish, though he wore a shabby smoking-jacket over a white shirt with the two buttons open to reveal a tanned and hairy neck. Walking behind him as he led the way through the small foyer, Shayne noted that his rump was exceedingly fat, and it jiggled with each step.

Through the archway, and over Flannagan’s head, Shayne saw Timothy Rourke’s emaciated body sprawled in a deep chair. He had a highball glass in his right hand. On his left, atop an end table, a deep ash tray was heaped with cigarette butts.

The reporter raised his glass and said, “Hi,” as his host hustled the detective through the archway into the living-room. Low bookshelves along one wall were crammed with much-handled volumes, and an imposing radio-phonograph combination was flanked by two tall, well-filled record cabinets. The couch and three comfortable chairs were covered with maroon slipcovers, and all were equipped with convenient end tables and ash trays. A room where a man could relax with smokes and drinks and good books.

But, he thought wryly, it was a little too much for the room. It was as though the effect had been carefully calculated instead of merely accumulative through the normal course of living. As though the occupant was aggressively determined to prove himself the sort of man who would have such a room. A tenuous impression, he told himself, and probably unfair to Ralph Flannagan.

“Hi, Tim,” Shayne greeted Rourke. He grinned widely and added, “The body looks natural — with a tall glass in one hand.”

“Have a seat, Mr. Shayne,” Flannagan said. “Make yourself comfortable. I don’t have to ask what you’d like to drink,” he went on effusively. “Cognac, eh?” His white teeth flashed in a smile that would have been a simper on a less masculine face.

“About three fingers in a washtub,” Shayne told him. “With a glass of ice water on the side. I see that my reputation has preceded my visit,” he added, glancing at Rourke.

Flannagan chuckled and went toward the kitchen. Shayne’s gaze followed him, curiously, until he disappeared through a door at the far end of the room.

Timothy Rourke said lazily, “Don’t blame Ralph for being a little edgy and determined to please. He’s really up against a tough problem, and he figures you’re the only man in Miami who can help him.”

Shayne was still standing, looking around. He shrugged, noncommittal, and turned to look at the bookshelf. Three brightly jacketed modern novels attracted his attention, along with a much-thumbed copy of Guyon’s The Ethics of Sexual Acts, two novels by Arnold Bennett, The New Way to Eat and Get Slim which didn’t appear to have had hard usage, and a bulky three-volume set of The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz.

Flannagan returned with a tray holding a full bottle of Martell and an empty four-ounce glass, some ice water, and a highball glass with just enough Scotch to faintly color the contents.

Shayne sat down on the couch, and his host set the tray on the small table at his right, remarking, “You see, I’ve heard and read a lot about you, Mr. Shayne, and know just how you like things.” He lifted the highball off for himself and sat down.

“Thanks,” said Shayne. He turned to Timothy Rourke and asked, “What was it you wanted to tell me about Wanda Weatherby, Tim?”

“It’s Ralph’s story.”

“Let’s have it,” Shayne suggested. He poured cognac in his glass, took a long drink, and chased it with ice water.

“By all means,” said Ralph Flannagan eagerly. Seated in his favorite chair, he stuffed tobacco in the bowl of his big pipe. “I’m going to be completely frank with you, Mr. Shayne. I know your reputation, and I know you’re a good friend of Tim’s. I have a feeling you’ll understand and won’t let me down.”

Shayne didn’t say anything. He took a drink of Martell and chased it with ice water.

“It goes back to a party about three months ago,” Flannagan began. “The first time I met Wanda. It was at a friend’s place over on the Beach. One of those informal, Bohemian affairs where people drift in and out for drinks and talk after dinner.”

He paused, puffed vigorously on his pipe for a moment, then resumed. “I don’t know how to describe Wanda. She wasn’t beautiful, but there was something that hit a man right in the solar plexus when she looked at him. Something that came from deep within her, and was honest and strong.” He shrugged his thick shoulders and stared down at the door. “Call it sex appeal, if you like. We looked at each other across the crowded room — and there it was. Pulsing between us so you could feel it — so it was almost material. We hadn’t been introduced, but I remember crossing the room to her and holding out my hands.”

“Save the harrowing details of the seduction for your radio audience,” Rourke advised dryly. To Shayne he added, “Ralph writes and produces a daily radio serial for frustrated housewives, so don’t blame him too much for clichés. They’re his living.”

Flannagan smiled patiently and said, “It was hardly a seduction, Tim. God knows I had no thought of anything like that when I sat down beside Wanda and we introduced ourselves. I was engaged to Edna, and as much in love with her as a man can be. But this was different. It was something outside ourselves. Something that was meant to be. We both had quite a few drinks, of course.”

He paused again, then went on in an honest and man-to-man way. “I won’t say it was she who made the advances, though I will say she did her part to make things easy. I told her about Edna. I was very careful to explain that I was deeply in love with a wonderful girl for the first time in my life, and she understood perfectly. She told me she was married and in love with her husband, and suggested that the thing between us had nothing to do with love or with any other aspect of our individual lives.”

Shayne broke in sarcastically, “Okay. It has happened before. Then what?”

Flannagan frowned. “I’m telling you how it happened,” he protested, “so you won’t get any wrong ideas about Wanda. She was perfectly marvelous all the way through, and that’s why I don’t understand — well — But I’ll come to that later. We did break away from the party, and there was mutual understanding as we went out to my car. No questions and no coyness. I suggested coming here to my apartment, but she vetoed that. Said it put things on too personal a basis, and she’d feel she was intruding on my private life. She wanted it completely impersonal. Just a beautiful experience that we could hold in our memories forever. A meeting, a mingling, and separation.”

Shayne settled back more comfortably and emptied his cognac glass. It was easy to understand why Flannagan was a success at producing a radio serial. The man probably took himself seriously — actually believed the platitudes that were mouthed over the microphone every day. He was under thirty, Shayne guessed. Flannagan’s voice flowed on smoothly, and the detective listened while he refilled his glass, seeing Wanda Weatherby’s face in death as Ralph’s story brought her to life for him.

“She suggested a motel as being most discreet,” he was saying, “and we drove out the Boulevard to a nice one on the outskirts of the city. I registered as Mr. and Mrs. Albert Smith and we were assigned to a clean, attractive cabin. I got a bottle from a near-by liquor store, and some ice and glasses from the motel manager, and we had a few more drinks.” He stopped, reddening a little, and knocked out his dead pipe in an ash tray.

“I suppose this part won’t bother you much, Mr. Shayne, being a private detective, but the thing that happened was horrible. Absolutely horrible. I never felt so sickened and cheapened in my life.”

Flannagan drew in a deep breath, set his jaw, and went on rapidly. “I was just getting up when the cabin door opened. I could have sworn I’d locked it securely, but I guess I hadn’t. Naturally I turned to see who was coming in. Then, a sudden brilliant flare burst in my eyes, half blinding me, but I saw a man with a camera. He slammed the door and ran, and we heard a car pulling away in a hurry.

“Wanda was terribly frightened and upset, and — Well, I was, too, to admit the truth. Everything was ruined. The whole affair was suddenly dirty and vicious. Neither of us could understand how on earth anybody had followed us, or why. It was simply inconceivable, but there it was. We drove back to town fast, sobered and ashamed and without talking much.

“What was there to say?” the radio producer continued “She made me let her out on the Boulevard and wouldn’t even tell me where she lived. It was over — and we both knew the golden moment would never come again. Not for us. There would always be that nasty memory between us.”

“Did she make a telephone call,” Shayne demanded, “after you registered at the motel?”

“Why — yes. While I went for the bottle of liquor. You see, she was living here with her husband’s sister and had to call her to give an explanation for not coming home from the party until quite late.”

“Maybe,” Shayne said curtly, “And maybe that phone was made to an accomplice with a camera. It happens every day in Miami.”

“No — you’re absolutely wrong, Mr. Shayne,” said Flannagan flatly. “I confess thinking something of the sort after — what happened. But I learned the truth later. It was her husband, you see. He’s a businessman in Detroit and insanely jealous. When Wanda came down here to visit his sister, he had a private detective watching her. She told me about it a week later. This detective had come to her with the evidence. He had the picture and a Photostat of my signature on the motel register. He was one of the unethical members of your profession, Mr. Shayne, and was quite willing to sell out his employer for a price. He offered Wanda the evidence against her for a thousand dollars.”

“What was his name?” asked Shayne,

“She didn’t tell me. In fact, I doubt if she knew herself. She was terrified, of course, both for herself and for me. There was my engagement to Edna and her marriage both at stake. She felt exceedingly guilty about getting me into such a mess, and was very decent about the whole thing, I thought. She insisted on paying half the money if I would pay the other half. I wanted to pay the whole thing, but she wouldn’t hear of it.”

Shayne said, “So you got the picture and Photostat back and felt damned lucky to get out of it for only five hundred.”

“I gave her the money and she got them back. Yes. She called me two days later to say it was all right and I had nothing to worry about. I didn’t hear from her again for almost a month.”

Ralph Flannagan got up abruptly and began to pace up and down the room, thumping the bowl of his pipe into the palm of his left hand. His brow was corrugated.

“She telephoned to say she was going to have a baby. I met her in a bar and we talked it over. She had been to a doctor and there wasn’t any doubt. And she hadn’t seen her husband for more than two months. It was a terrible mess. Even then she was wonderful and courageous about it,” he went on doggedly. “After learning what a swine her husband was in having a detective follow her, she was determined not to go back to him. She was equally determined not to break up my life, either. She wanted nothing at all from me except some help to support herself until the baby came, and until she was well enough to support herself.

“I felt like a complete heel about it,” he went on huskily. “I offered to break my engagement with Edna and marry her at once. She wouldn’t even consider it. She said quite calmly that it was as much her fault as mine, and that my life mustn’t be ruined by that one moment of giving way to madness.

“And she was completely reasonable and realistic about the financial arrangements, too.” He chewed on the stem of his pipe, and his face was gloomy. “Sometimes I think women are a lot more realistic than men about such things. We didn’t love each other, she pointed out, and it would be foolish for me to throw everything up and marry her just to be quixotic. She had learned more about Edna by then, and insisted that I go right ahead with our wedding plans next month.” He sank heavily into his chair and sighed.

“What Ralph has neglected to explain,” Tim Rourke said into the brief silence, “is that his fiancée is the daughter of the guy who sponsors his radio program. To put it crudely, Wanda preferred a steady income to a husband who couldn’t support her.”

“That was only part of it,” said Ralph with dignity. “We did discuss that aspect. Why not? I admitted I’d likely lose my program sponsorship if the truth came out, or if I jilted Edna without a good explanation. After all, that wouldn’t have made things easier. Keeping things as they were meant that I could earn enough so I could afford to give Wanda what she needed. And why shouldn’t she have security at such a time?”

“How much?” Shayne asked.

“How much do I earn?”

“How much did she want?”

“Oh. A hundred a week. You see, she had to move away from her sister-in-law’s and get a place of her own where she wasn’t known.”

“And you paid her that?” Shayne queried.

“Of course I did. What else could any decent man do? I was glad to. It was definitely my responsibility.” Flannagan leaned forward and thrust his jaw out pugnaciously, as though challenging Shayne to disagree.

Shayne nodded and said mildly, “What’s the latest development?”

“That’s what I simply cannot understand.” Flannagan twisted his pipe around and around in his big, boyish hands.

“I was working here on a script about six o’clock, and expecting some actors in to audition for some new parts in my show. A messenger brought me a letter. Show it to him, Tim.”

Timothy Rourke took a square white envelope from his pocket and handed it to the detective. Then he got up and asked, “Mind if I mix myself another slug, Ralph?”

“Of course not. You know where things are.” The producer was watching Shayne anxiously. “When you read the enclosure you’ll understand what a thunderbolt it was to me and why I called Tim Rourke to come over.”

The envelope was addressed to Ralph Flannagan on a typewriter with elite type. There was no return address. Shayne took out the single sheet of plain white notepaper and found a carbon copy of a letter addressed to him:

The signature, Wanda Weatherby, was typed on the carbon.

Rourke sauntered back from the kitchen with a fresh drink and resumed his sprawled position as Shayne laid the letter aside.

Flannagan said rapidly and in an anguished voice, “You can see how I felt when I read what Wanda had written to you. My God! I didn’t know what to think. I thought she had suddenly gone mad. Everything had been perfectly straight between us. I’ve sent her a hundred every week. And I certainly have not threatened her — or had any notion of doing so.”

“She says here,” Shayne reminded him. “that you’ve tried to kill her twice in the last week.”

“It’s fantastic! I haven’t seen her or had any communication with her for over a month. If anyone tried to harm her, it certainly was not me. Do you think she’s suddenly gone crazy, Mr. Shayne? Some sort of persecution complex? I’ve heard that some women act funny and get all sorts of ideas when they’re pregnant.”

Shayne said, “Her letter sounds quite sane — well reasoned out.” He paused, recalling Wanda’s voice as she had spoken to him over the telephone such a brief time before she died. Highly emotional, yes, but sensible enough. And the bullet in her head was proof enough that she had sufficient reason to fear for her life.

He said to Flannagan, “You got this by messenger about six o’clock. What did you do?”

“First I tried to telephone her. She has an unlisted number, and it didn’t answer. Then I recalled the name of your hotel and tried to call you. But you were out. I didn’t know what to do. Then I called Tim Rourke. That was about seven o’clock, I guess.” He glanced inquiringly at the reporter.

Rourke nodded. “A little after seven,” he told Shayne. “Ralph gave me an idea of what was up, and I agreed to come over and read the letter and maybe help him get hold of you.”

“I had some important audition appointments,” the producer went on, “and asked Tim if he could come about a quarter of ten. I thought if I could get in touch with you and explain things before you opened that letter from Wanda in the morning, you might be willing to help me by finding out what in hell she meant without dragging my name in,” he ended unhappily.

“What time did you get here?” Shayne asked Rourke.

“About ten of ten. I was only a few minutes late. Ralph was just finishing a shower, and he gave me the letter to read. We talked it over briefly. Then I called you.”

“About five after ten,” the detective agreed, “What did you do then?”

“We sat here and talked about life and Wanda Weatherby,” the reporter told him with a grin. “And had a few drinks and waited for you to show up.”

“Can you swear that Flannagan was right here from ten o’clock on?” Shayne asked. “He didn’t go out to mail a letter — or for any reason?”

“No. He was right here with me. Biting his nails down to the quick and waiting for you.”

Shayne picked up the carbon copy of Wanda’s letter and tapped it against his knuckles. “I wouldn’t worry about this too much,” he told Ralph Flannagan somberly. “Someone did you a big favor by disposing of Wanda Weatherby between ten and ten-thirty tonight — during the time that Tim swears you were here with him.”