When Dorinda Dances

Chapter X

Rourke gunned the press car and drove toward the boulevard. He asked excitedly, “What about your Mrs. Davis turning out to be a phony?”

“That was Will’s word for it,” Shayne reminded him. “My guess is that she was covering up her real identity even from me.” He brought the reporter up to date on developments, then added, “She evidently checked in at the Waldorf just for an address to give me. If she was at La Roma the night before, she must have had a room somewhere else. Probably still has it, and I hope to God that’s where she is now — with nothing more the matter with her than too many sleeping-tablets.”

Rourke wheeled the car onto the boulevard and stepped hard on the accelerator. “I don’t get it, Mike. She could have called up and got your message if—”

“If,” Shayne cut in angrily. “That damned two-letter word has got this whole thing wrapped around it. If Mrs. Davis is Mrs. Davis; if Dorinda is Julia Lansdowne; the corpse on the beach is Milton Brewer; if Elliott Gibson is telling the truth.” He made a savage gesture and added, “Pull in at that tavern ahead and let’s have a drink. I only caught about three hours sleep last night.”

“It was early enough when you dropped me at the poker game.”

Shayne grunted. “I made another trip to La Roma, and a lot of things happened.”

“Besides the thing at the Waldorf Towers?” Rourke asked eagerly. His thin nostrils quivered like a bloodhound’s on the scent. He pulled into the curved driveway and stopped just beyond the door of the rustic tavern.

There were two other cars in the drive, and when they entered the gloomy room, two booths were occupied by couples who had reached the amorous stage of letting their drinks get warm. The tall, rangy bartender was lounging against the bar eating a sandwich and washing it down with beer.

Rourke ordered a double cognac with water on the side for Shayne, gin and bitters for himself, and they found a booth in the rear.

The reporter waited impatiently until the bartender brought the drinks and returned to the bar, then referred back to Shayne’s last statement and asked, “Such as what? Give me a complete fill-in, Mike. I didn’t get to bed until after four, and just reached the office when the Brewer flash came in.”

Shayne’s wide yawn ended in a sardonic grin. “You don’t know about Moran?”

“Moran? The dancer’s manager?”

Shayne took a drink of cognac and chased it with ice water. “The guy you steered me away from at La Roma. Ricky Moran killed himself in my apartment last night.”

“What the hell, Mike? Why didn’t somebody at the office mention it?”

“Will’s keeping it quiet until we find out whether Dorinda actually is the Lansdowne girl — and until we find her.”

“Where is she?”

“I wish I knew. With this Brewer thing, we’ve got two dead men and two missing women.”

“You think there is any connection?”

“I don’t see how,” Shayne told him absently. “But damn it, Tim, I don’t like coincidences. Let me give you all of it, and see what you make of it.” He took another drink of cognac, then settled back to rehash the entire story.

Timothy Rourke listened with quivering nostrils and burning eyes. He shook his head dubiously when Shayne finished. “It looks like two distinct cases to me.”

“Yeh. That’s what it looks like.” Shayne’s gray eyes were bleak. “But there are so damned many angles that don’t make sense.” He drained his glass and thumped it down on the table. “Are Mrs. Davis and Dorinda being cagy and hiding out? Or, are they both — dead?”

“But who could have killed them? And why?” Rourke protested. “Even if your guess about Moran is right and he did trail Mrs. Davis from La Roma and put the bite on her after she hired you, he couldn’t be responsible for whatever happened to Dorinda, too. Who else is there?”

Shayne spread out his big hands in a gesture of futility. “Who did that job on Milton Brewer?” he parried.

“But that’s different. He expected to be murdered last night.”

“Yeh,” said Shayne sourly. “And the guy he was afraid of is the one guy in Miami who has an unimpeachable alibi. Yet, someone did it, just as someone apparently grabbed Dorinda between my place and Lucy’s apartment.”

Rourke’s thin face wrinkled with feverish thought. “And the only line you’ve got so far on a possible connection between the two,” he said slowly, “is the girl telling you that either Godfrey or Brewer was a friend of her father’s.”

“Which we don’t even know is the truth. But why in hell would she toss in a piece of information like that if it wasn’t true?” He swallowed the last of his drink and got up. “Let’s take a look at that packing-plant on West Flagler.”

Rourke drained his glass and they went out to the press car. He drove at high speed, and silently, until he parked in front of a low, sprawling stucco building with a sign reading: Brewer and Godfrey. A smaller sign over the door read: Office.

They entered a small room where an elderly white-haired woman sat before a switchboard. Her eyes were red-rimmed from recent tears, and her hands lay listlessly in her lap.

She looked up as the two men approached and said, “If you’re here on business you’ll have to see Mr. Broom. He’s back in the packing-room.” She indicated a door leading off to the right and added, “There’s no one else here today.”

“We’re from the police,” Shayne told her gently.

She stiffened and asked anxiously, “Then it’s true that Mr. Brewer — is dead?”

Shayne nodded gravely. “I’m afraid it is, Miss—”

“Mrs. Grayson,” she supplied. Angry spots of color came to her cheeks. “It’s that Mr. Godfrey that did it. I know it is. They were at each other’s throats all the time. I heard him threaten Mr. Brewer.”

“Right now we want to look through the private offices of the partners,” said Shayne. “Save any statements for men from the homicide squad. They’ll be along presently.”

“That I will, and gladly. The office is right through that door marked ‘Private’ to the left.”

Shayne started to the door with Rourke following. He stopped abruptly, turned, and said, “By the way, Mrs. Grayson, how long has Mr. Brewer been dyeing his hair black?”

“Why, three or four years,” she answered, surprised and apparently annoyed at the question. “I don’t see what that has to do with it.”

“Just checking,” Shayne assured her, and went on to the door. It opened upon a large, pleasant office, paneled in pine, with a low railing dividing the room in the center. Each office was similarly furnished with a large oak desk, swivel chair, water cooler and filing-cabinets. Even the deep-pile rugs were twins, and of a cool-green color.

“What are you looking for, Mike?” Rourke asked.

“For one thing, an entrance to this office from the rear.” He strode along the dividing rail until it ended near a door. He opened it and found a dead end. The small room contained a lavatory and toilet with a medicine cabinet above the lavatory.

Before entering he switched on the ceiling light and went to the cabinet, opened the small mirrored door, and began examining its contents.

He found a small bottle labeled: Little Peerless Wonder Hair Dye and carried it into the office. With a puzzled frown between his gray eyes he muttered, “I wouldn’t think a man of Brewer’s type would dye his own hair, Tim.”

Rourke shrugged his emaciated shoulders. “Probably kept it to touch up the roots when it began to show gray,” he suggested. He took the bottle from Shayne and studied it curiously.

Shayne went over to another door on the other side of the rail. It opened into an accounting-room where typewriters and bookkeeping machines clanked at the touch of operators. The packing-department lay beyond, separated only by a crude lattice-work, and the air was almost chilly from an air-conditioning plant. He closed the door and turned to Rourke.

“Well, that’s that. Gibson knew about this rear entrance.”

“That guy seems to know everything,” Rourke observed casually as they went back to the outer office where Shayne thanked the switchboard operator for her co-operation before going out to the press car.

“Where to now?” the reporter asked.

“My office. I want to ask Lucy whether she noticed anything at all between Brewer and Mrs. Davis that would give her the idea they knew each other.”

Rourke jockeyed the car into the heavy traffic, then said, “Even if it was Brewer who was Judge Lansdowne’s friend, it wouldn’t necessarily mean that a friend of the judge’s wife would know him by sight.”

“I’m grabbing at straws right now,” Shayne grated. “Just checking — because of them being in my office at the same time.”

“I see,” said Rourke, and they fell silent during the short drive to Miami’s business center. He double-parked on Flagler and they got out and went up to Shayne’s office.

Lucy Hamilton was idly turning the pages of a fashion magazine when they entered. She looked up curiously when Shayne asked, “Do you recall whether Mrs. Davis and Mr. Brewer spoke to each other when they were in the office here yesterday afternoon?”

After a moment’s reflection she said, “No, Michael. I’m positive they didn’t. He came in after she had gone in with you. She just stayed a moment when she came out. Just long enough to leave a retainer and give her address. And — oh, I wanted to ask you—”

“It’s that moment I’m wondering about,” Shayne interrupted patiently. “When she came out and they first saw each other. Did you notice any sign of recognition, any sign that they might have been concealing the fact that they knew each other?”

Lucy Hamilton shook her brown head slowly, and her eyes were puzzled. “No. I don’t remember that they even glanced at each other. He was nervous and impatient to get in to see you.”

Shayne whirled about and faced Rourke with a wry grin.

“Let’s drop in on Will and see if he’s got anything new.”

“But Michael—” Lucy began urgently.

The door closed, and the two men went down in the elevator.

Will Gentry did not have anything new, nothing whatever on the dancer who had disappeared. The Washington street address which Mrs. Davis had given at the Waldorf Towers did not exist, and there was no Elbert H. Davis listed in the Washington directory. Authorities in that city were checking all females bearing the Davis name in an effort to learn if any had left recently on a trip. They were also making discreet inquiries among Mrs. Lansdowne’s friends for a woman answering the description of Shayne’s client.

“I even called Rollins College,” Gentry rumbled with disgust, “but no one there knows for sure the name of the girl Julia Lansdowne is supposed to be visiting in Palm Beach.”

“But she is supposed to be visiting there,” Shayne contended.

“That much of Dorinda’s story seems to be true,” the chief agreed reluctantly.

“Anything more from the doctor on Brewer?”

“Not yet. I should be getting a preliminary report shortly. It’ll take longer for a full report. After you left, though, the doc did say definitely that the hair was dyed.”

Timothy Rourke said excitedly, “I’m beginning to get a crazy hunch about this case. I keep thinking about the way the body was smashed up. Like Mike said, it looks as though a deliberate effort had been made to destroy any possible identification. Even fingerprints.”

“How about the prints, Will?” Shayne asked.

“Sergeant Harris got some, but he doesn’t know if they’re good enough for comparison. He’s out at Brewer’s house now seeing what he can find.”

“I’ll bet ten to one the body is not Brewer’s,” Rourke said eagerly. “But before I say what’s on my mind, tell me one thing, Chief. In going over Henry Black’s report on Godfrey’s movements last night, is there anything to absolutely prove that the man he was following was Hiram Godfrey?”

Gentry rolled his lids down until his agate eyes were mere slits.

“What are you driving at? As I recall Hank’s report — no.”

“Take a look at it this way. Black had never seen Godfrey. He had nothing but Mike’s description over the telephone as given by Milton Brewer. Now, Black goes out to the packing-plant and sits himself outside and waits until a man answering that description comes out of the office and gets in a blue Buick that he’d been told was Godfrey’s. Now, what did the man do then? Did he see anyone who knows Godfrey? Did he go any place where Godfrey would be recognized? Rourke shifted his feverish eyes from Shayne to Gentry. Both were listening, the chief leaning forward with his arms folded on the desk, and the detective tugging at his ear lobe with a faraway look in his eyes.

“I don’t think he did,” Gentry said. “According to Black’s report he went directly home from the plant — a small bungalow where he lives alone and has a cleaning woman come in by the day.”

Gentry paused long enough to hurl a soggy cigar butt toward a wastebasket, then resumed. “The woman wasn’t there at night. Godfrey changed into a business suit and went out to dinner at a small restaurant. We can easily check on whether he usually went there, if necessary. After dinner, he went home and went to bed about eleven o’clock. Black and Mathews stayed up all night watching the house, both front and back exits. Then they tailed him to the airport this morning. He called a taxi. They watched him board the plane for New York and saw the take-off. That finished their job.”

“So, anybody who superficially resembled Godfrey could have done exactly that,” Rourke pointed out with satisfaction, “and Black would not have been any wiser.”

“Wait a minute,” Shayne interposed sharply. “What the devil makes you think it wasn’t Godfrey?”

“I’ll come to that in a minute,” Rourke resumed. “Right now, I think we’ll all agree that Black would swear on the witness stand that he had followed Godfrey all night, because he tailed a man answering the general description Shayne gave him over the telephone.”

“That’s true enough,” the detective granted. “But what does it get you?”

For answer Rourke took the small bottle of dye from his pocket. “I read the directions on this when you handed it to me in the plant, Mike. You didn’t. Listen to this:

“‘May be easily applied within minutes. Moisten a piece of absorbent cotton with the dye and apply thoroughly to dry hair. Can be washed out with any soap or shampoo and leave no trace. To achieve a permanent effect, the hair should be wet before application with a strong salt solution, and must be rinsed within fifteen minutes with a further salt solution to set dye.’”

Shayne lifted one shoulder negligently and said, “I don’t get your angle.”

“I’m betting big odds that the man Black saw board that plane this morning was not Hiram Godfrey.”

“Then who was it?” Shayne exploded.

“Anyone answering the general description Black had. Somebody who had been coached for the role and who had Godfrey’s car and house keys.”

“According to your theory,” Gentry rumbled, “maybe you can tell us where Godfrey was all this time.”

“Dead — murdered,” said Rourke. “Hiram Godfrey was murdered before Black went out to the plant to get on his tail.”

Shayne started to protest, but the telephone on Gentry’s desk interrupted him.

The chief answered, listened a moment, then hung up. He said, “That was Sergeant Harris out at the Brewer house. He picked up some prints, but reports that it will be difficult to make a definite comparison with what he got from the corpse. It looks as though we’re stymied — unless we can get hold of enough of Brewer’s teeth for a dentist to work on. If Doc doesn’t find some scars, or other identifying marks, we may never know for certain who the corpse is.”