What Really Happened

Chapter seven

THE TIME WAS a few minutes past twelve when Shayne strode into the lobby of his hotel-apartment house. The man on the desk beckoned to him as he headed toward the elevator. Shayne swung toward him with ragged brows lifted inquiringly.

“There’s a lady waiting for you upstairs, sir. I sent her up a few minutes ago,” he added apologetically. “But you always said I should use my own judgment.”

“That’s all right, Bennie,” Shayne told him with a grin. “But I’ve never known you to unlock my room for a lady before.”

Bennie licked his thin dry lips. “I don’t recall any ladies wanting in to your room before, Mr. Shayne.” The clerk grinned briefly, then added seriously, “This one is real class. She claimed she had an appointment.”

“Green eyes?” asked Shayne negligently.

“What’s that? N-No. But maybe they are, at that,” he added after thinking for a moment. “Sort of grayish-green. And there was a phone call for you about half an hour ago. Some man — wouldn’t leave his name, but wanted to know when you’d be in. I told him I didn’t know, and he said he’d come over and wait. He seemed pretty anxious.”

“Call me if he comes in,” said Shayne. “And thanks, Bennie.” He swung away and strode to the waiting elevator, got in, and went up to the second floor. He took his key out as he went down the corridor, put it back in his pocket when he saw his apartment door ajar and light streaming through the door. He pushed the door wide open when he reached it, and stood for a moment observing the woman sitting on the couch.

Her legs were crossed, and a short, expensive-looking fur jacket was thrown carelessly back from her shoulders. She wore a sheer black dress with a bright-orange scarf fluffed out at the throat, and was hatless. Her hair was long and straight, parted in the center and hanging down to her shoulders. It gleamed brightly in the overhead light, and the word “tawny” leaped into his mind. She had a high forehead and dark, thick brows and eyelashes. Her features were smooth and regular, her chin firm, her mouth wide and painted a deep shade of red that looked almost purple.

She appeared to be about thirty-five. Her head rested against the couch and her eyes were closed. She was smoking a cigarette, blowing smoke toward the ceiling, and was evidently unaware that she was being observed.

Shayne said, “Sorry to be late,” pulling off his hat and tossing it on a wall hook near the door.

She opened her eyes and her lips formed a faint, questioning smile.

Shayne moved toward her, saying, “You were supposed to be a brunette. With limpid green eyes.”

Her smile widened and the sensuous, sultry voice flowed out as it had over the telephone wire. “I hope you’re not too disappointed, Michael Shayne.”

“I hope I won’t be. Drink?”

“Please.” She leaned forward sinuously to crush out her cigarette in an ash tray beside the couch.

Shayne went past her to the liquor cabinet. “There’s rye and cognac.”

“Cognac, of course. Wouldn’t it be a sacrilege to drink anything else in Michael Shayne’s apartment at midnight?” Her tone was light, but there was a nervous tremble that told the detective she was afraid in spite of her casual manner.

“Soda or water?” he asked.

“Straight, please. With some water on the side. And I need a big one before I lose my nerve and run out of here without telling you a word of what I came to say.”

“We can’t have that,” said Shayne pleasantly. He took two four-ounce glasses from the shelf and filled one, handed it to her, adding, “I’ll be right back with some ice water.”

In the kitchen he put ice cubes in two tall glasses and filled them with water. When he turned, Sheila was standing in the doorway, watching him intently. Her glass was half-empty and spots of color flamed in her cheeks. Her eyes did look greenish, and wide and imploring.

“Are you the kind of man they say?” she asked breathlessly.

Shayne stopped in front of her with a glass in each hand. She didn’t move from the threshold. He said, “I don’t know, Sheila.”

She looked up into his eyes, lips parted and chin lifted. “Why don’t you kiss me? Don’t you know that’s what I want you to do? Hold me tight and comfort me and tell me I’m beautiful and promise to do what I’m going to ask you. Don’t you know that’s why I chose midnight? And came here to your place where we would be alone?” A pulse trembled in her rounded throat as she strained upward.

He said, “I didn’t know, but I’m glad to have you tell me.” He set the glasses aside on a kitchen table and put an arm around her. She went limp and buried her face against his chest and began to sob. The cognac glass fell from her hand and spilled liquor on the floor.

She was talking in a choked voice between sobs, but her words were not clear. He held her tightly for a moment, looking down somberly at the glistening, tawny hair against his chest. Then he sighed, picked her up in both arms, and carried her in to the couch. He put her down gently, and she huddled there with her hands over her face, sobbing convulsively.

Shayne returned for the glasses of water, retrieved her glass, and brought it back to the living-room where he refilled it and poured a drink for himself.

Sheila Martin sat erect after a while, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. Shayne set her cognac and ice water on the low table in front of her and said, “Nothing is as bad as that, darling. Relax and make yourself kissable again if you’re determined to seduce me.”

She smiled wanly and blew her nose. “I’ve been holding it in so long,” she said in a husky whisper. “I couldn’t tell anyone, and it’s been absolute hell. Then I got her letter tonight. You don’t know Wanda Weatherby, do you?”

Shayne said, “No.” He dropped into a chair close to the couch and stretched his legs out.

“When you do meet her you won’t believe what I’m going to tell you,” she burst out angrily. “She’s vicious and depraved and evil. But you won’t see that. No man ever does. She’ll lie to you, and you’ll believe her, even though you will already know the truth from me. I wish to God I had killed her,” she went on violently, her face paling. “I should have done it right then when I threatened to. That’s why she thinks it’s I who tried to kill her, you see.”

“I don’t see much of anything,” Shayne told her in a mild tone. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

“I’ll have to, I suppose. But first you’d better read this letter. You’ll be getting a duplicate of it in the mail tomorrow morning, so you may as well read it now.”

She reached for her handbag, opened it, and took out a square white envelope similar in size and shape to the one Ralph Flannagan had showed him. She handed it to him, saying, “It came by special messenger. Read it, and you’ll understand why I’m so terribly upset.”

Shayne took out the single sheet of folded paper and glanced at it, already suspecting what he would find. His hunch was right, for insofar as he could determine without comparing the two of them word for word, it was a duplicate of the carbon copy Flannagan had received, except her name and address was substituted for Flannagan’s.

He frowned and pretended to read it carefully while he did some fast mental acrobatics. Was it possible that Jack Gurley had also received a duplicate by messenger, but with his name on it? That would explain a lot of things. If none of the three knew about the other letters—

He put speculation out of his mind as he refolded Sheila’s letter and returned it to the envelope. Looking up to meet her eyes again, he said quietly, “If you haven’t harmed her and don’t plan to, why did this letter frighten you so?”

“Because you’ll naturally want to see Wanda tomorrow as soon as you read the original of that, and she’ll tell you — well, I don’t know what she’ll tell you about me. The truth, perhaps. Though I doubt it. If she can think up anything worse than the truth, she’ll tell you that. And then you’ll start checking up, and everything will come out, and Henry will be sure to find out. So you can see why I wish I had killed her,” she ended defiantly.

Shayne leaned back and took a long drink of cognac. He indicated her glass and advised, “Take another sip and tell me why Wanda Weatherby suspects you want to murder her.”

“She doesn’t just suspect. She knows I do. I am going to tell you the truth, Mr. Shayne, even if I die of shame, because after you hear it maybe you’ll be willing to disregard her letter in the morning and think of some way to prevent her from absolutely ruining my life.”

Shayne said, “I never knew anyone to die of shame. How is she trying to ruin your life?”

“It goes back a long time. To nineteen thirty-five, in Detroit. I was eighteen and dewy-eyed from a farm in Iowa. My mother had just died, and I hated my stepfather, so I went away to the city to make my fortune.” Her mouth twisted over the recollection. “Remember nineteen thirty-five, Mr. Shayne?”

He nodded. “I know what you mean.”

“There weren’t any jobs. Long lines of girls answering one advertisement. So, what does a girl do under those circumstances when her money runs out and she can’t go back home?”

Shayne avoided her angry gaze, He frowned and suggested, “You tell me.”

“It looks easy to a man. I’ve had lots of them say, ‘My God, I wish I were a girl. You can bet I wouldn’t go hungry.’ But it isn’t easy. Not when you’re eighteen and fresh from the farm. You don’t know how to start, damn it. You just don’t know what to do. Not that girls don’t think about it if they get hungry enough. That’s when I met Wanda Weatherby. Just when I was down to my last penny and desperate enough to try anything.

“She was sitting beside me in a restaurant one day when I had ordered a bowl of soup, the first thing I’d eaten in twenty-four hours, and I guess it showed. She was a few years older and beautiful and poised and, well, I guess I thought of her as being sophisticated. Anyway, she insisted on ordering me a lunch.

“Afterward, I went up to her apartment. I was ready for anything that afternoon. I wasn’t so naïve that I thought she was just being generous. I’d heard about girls who like other girls, and I was all ready for even that. I didn’t know what it was going to be, but I just didn’t care.”

Sheila Martin paused and took a big sip of cognac and a drink of ice water, then continued.

“Then when she sprung what she really wanted of me it didn’t seem so bad after all. Because I was all keyed up for something worse, you see.” Her voice trembled with earnestness, as though it was terribly important that she make him understand.

He said, “What did she want with you?”

“Well — for me to make moving pictures. She built it up gradually — all about how I didn’t actually have to do anything. Just pose in the nude. And what did it matter? No one who knew me would ever see the picture. And she offered me a hundred dollars. A whole hundred dollars!” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, and tears glittered in her grayish eyes. She swallowed hard, then hurried on.

“Dear God! I can remember even now how magical that sounded. A hundred dollars just for a few afternoons’ work. So I said yes, and she gave me ten dollars in advance. And two days later I did it. You know. One of those awful pornographic pictures they rent out for stag parties and smokers at men’s clubs and conventions. Do you want to know exactly how awful it was?”

Shayne said moodily, “You don’t have to go into details. Take another drink and relax. That was seventeen years ago. I gather you didn’t continue — make a career of obscene movies.”

“No. I invested the money in a shorthand and typing course. I managed to get a job afterward, and everything went all right. Wanda Weatherby and everything about her gradually faded into the background like a bad dream that actually hadn’t happened. A year ago I met Henry and we were married.” She paused again and took another sip from her glass.

“Then I met Wanda again,” she continued, “here in Miami, and quite by accident. She hardly seemed to have changed at all. A little older, but you’d certainly never guess she must be at least forty. Henry was with me. She recognized me and began talking about old times in Detroit, just as though we’d been close friends. I had to introduce him, and the next day she came out to our house.”

She stopped talking and laced her fingers tightly. Spots of color again flamed in her unrouged cheeks, and she lowered her lids to cover the hatred in her eyes.

“And then?” Shayne prompted her.

“She wanted me to do it again,” Sheila told him in a listless voice. “I refused, of course, and begged her to leave me alone, but she just laughed and said it was so hard to find girls nowadays, with all the good jobs begging to be taken.

“She was hard as nails. She just sat back and laughed when I offered to pay her money to leave me alone. She didn’t want money. She wanted me. And when I flatly refused she threatened to show Henry the old film I made in Detroit.

“It would kill Henry if he saw it. And I’ll kill myself if he ever does.” Sheila Martin was leaning toward him, her body tense, and her face pale again. “That’s when I went out of my mind and told Wanda I’d kill her if she ever did that. But it didn’t frighten her at all. She just said it was up to me to decide. And I have until next week. She still has some of those old films, you see, and still rents them out. Next week there’s going to be a special party at the Sportsman’s Club where Henry works, and she’ll either give them the one of me — or a different one. I have until next Friday to make up my mind,” she ended, and sank back limply.

“Your husband works for Jack Gurley?” Shayne asked sharply.

“He’s a waiter there. And when they have these special parties he has to work overtime to serve drinks, and he will have to see the pictures with the rest of them. You can see how viciously clever she is. She figured out that way of doing it without actually going to Henry and telling him. She doesn’t have to appear in it at all. He’ll just see the picture and that will be the end of everything. But I won’t let her. I’ll kill her first.”

“Having failed twice already?” Shayne asked quietly.

“No. I haven’t done anything. I don’t know what she means in her letter. I’ve been crazy with worry, but I don’t even know where she lives. All I have is a telephone number and I’ve called her three times to beg her not to do it. She won’t even talk to me, just asks me if I’m ready to do what she wants, then hangs up when I try to plead with her.

“She’s a devil, Mr. Shayne. She doesn’t deserve to live. I don’t think a jury would convict me if I killed her, not if they knew the truth. But that would be just as bad, because the whole story would come out and Henry would know, and nothing would be gained. So what am I going to do? What are you going to do about her letter?”

Shayne said, “I don’t know yet. If you’re telling me the truth—”

“I am,” she cried huskily. “I swear I am. Do you think I wanted to tell anyone a thing like that? If I pay you a thousand dollars, can I be your client instead of her? Maybe you could get the film and destroy it — do something to keep her from letting Henry see it.” She opened her purse and took out a handful of bills. “I haven’t got all of it yet. But I can get the rest in a few days. If you’ll take this much as down payment—”

Shayne waved it aside. “First, I want to know what you did tonight after telephoning me.”

“I was out trying to raise this much money. There’s six hundred and twenty dollars here. That’s why I didn’t want to see you until midnight. I knew what I had to do as soon as I hung up, and I called a friend who lives down the street and told her I had to raise a thousand dollars by midnight. She helped me — gave me all the cash she had — sixty dollars, then drove around with me to different friends of hers and mine borrowing whatever they could spare.”

“How soon did you see your friend after phoning me?”

“Right away. Within five minutes. Henry is working, you see, and I went right over. It was just a few minutes when Betty and I started out.”

“Will this Betty corroborate that?”

“Of course she will. Betty Hornsby is my best friend. Why? Does it matter?”

“It does,” the detective told her. “Can you tell me the other friends you visited?”

“Certainly. I made a list of how much I got from each one.”

“I’ll want the list, and your friend Betty’s address. It matters a whole lot, Sheila,” he said slowly, “because Wanda Weatherby was murdered tonight between ten and ten-thirty.”

Sheila Martin was still leaning toward him with the money in her outstretched hand. She stared at him without moving for a long moment. Then she murmured, “Thank God,” and slid forward on her knees, clutched at the arm of her chair, and pressed her forehead against it.

The telephone rang. Shayne jumped up and hurried to answer it.

The desk clerk’s excited voice tumbled into Shayne’s ears. “They’re going up, Mr. Shayne. The chief of police and that reporter friend of yours. Just getting in the elevator. They didn’t even stop at the desk.”

Shayne barked, “Thanks,” and slammed the receiver down. He leaped to Sheila’s side, dragged her erect, and said swiftly, “Kiss me good — and ruffle your hair. Hurry. Finish your drink and spill a few drops down the front of your dress. The cops are on their way up here, and if we’re going to keep you out of this we’ve got to make them think they’re interrupting a necking-party.”

“Oh, God,” she breathed, and was instantly alert. She stood on tiptoe, flung her arms around his neck, and put her parted lips hard against his. Shayne kissed her back, all the while tousling her tawny hair. Her eyes were shining when she drew back and she said, “I liked that, Michael. If you can get rid of them—”

“I liked it, too.” He grinned and gave her a shove toward the couch, saying, “Drink up — and make like a loose woman.”

She said tremulously, “It won’t be hard, Michael Shayne. You make me feel like one.”

Shayne grabbed up his own drink and finished it off, snatched a bottle from the cabinet and set it on the table in front of the couch. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it on a chair, jerked open the neckband of his shirt and pulled his tie awry as heavy footsteps sounded in the corridor outside.

He looked at Sheila and nodded approvingly. She lolled back on the couch with her skirt well above one knee, and her long hair slid forward over one side of her face. Her lipstick was smeared, and the picture was complete.

Shayne was refilling his glass with cognac when an authoritative knock sounded on the door.