When Dorinda Dances

Chapter VIII

The alarm woke Shayne from druglike sleep at nine. A glance at his fully clothed body brought swift realization that the alarm had been set for a purpose. He dragged himself up and padded into the living-room where he put through a call to Washington. It netted only the information that Judge Lansdowne was expected back sometime before noon. He left his number with an urgent request that the judge call him collect the moment he came in.

He then called Lucy Hamilton and said, “You may as well go to the office and take any calls. I’ll be in and out — in touch with Will Gentry most likely, and maybe Tim Rourke.”

Returning to the bedroom he stripped off his clothes as he went, bathed and shaved, and by nine-thirty had disposed of three scrambled eggs, four slices of bacon, and three slices of toast. He was smoking a cigarette and working on his third cup of coffee when someone knocked on the door. He answered it, and was surprised to see Henry Black.

There was a stubble of dark beard on his sallow face and his brown eyes were bleared with sleepiness. He shambled into the living-room with his shoulders drooping wearily and asked, “Got another cup of that Java?”

“Sure. Sit down. You want a stick in it, Hank?”

“Not this morning. I better stay sober.” He sank into a chair, stretched his legs out, and closed his eyes.

Shayne went into the kitchen and returned with cream, sugar, and an extra cup and saucer. He filled the cup from the pot on the coffee table, passed it to Black, and resumed his seat on the couch.

Henry Black declined the offer of cream and sugar. After a long drink of coffee he asked quietly, “You hiding Brewer out, Mike?”

Shayne didn’t try to hide his surprise. “No. What happened?”

“He seems to have disappeared.” Black’s voice was toneless. “Would he duck out just to avoid paying me two hundred fish — and expenses?” he added wryly.

After a moment’s thought, Shayne said, “I don’t think so, Hank. Did you pull off last night’s job okay?”

“Nothing to it. Mathews and I picked up Godfrey at the plant when he came out the front door and got in his car. If the guy had murder on his mind, I spent the night trying to rape the mayor’s wife. We didn’t lose him for an instant, not until he boarded the eight-o’clock plane. And we watched it take off.”

“Sleep with him?”

“Practically.” Black yawned widely and emptied his coffee cup. “Except I didn’t sleep. So I’m waiting at the office for this Brewer character to show up at nine o’clock and pay off,” he continued in an aggrieved voice. “The help says he’s always prompt. But he doesn’t show. At nine-twenty I call his house. A woman answers — housekeeper, I guess — and snaps that Brewer hasn’t been home all night and hangs up. So then I wonder.” Black shrugged his thin shoulders. “I remember the lawyer you mentioned, so I call his office. He’s not in, and the gal sounds funny. Won’t tell me where he is or when he’ll be back. But when I mentioned it was in connection with Mr. Brewer she got excited and said I’d better talk to the police. I got the idea maybe lawyer Gibson is at headquarters. So I wondered what the angles were. Thought you might know something, Mike. So I came here before I walked into something down there.”

Shayne massaged his lean jaw, then spread out his hands. “I gave you everything I know last night. I never saw Brewer until he walked into my office about five-fifteen, and haven’t seen or heard from him since.”

“You think he really thought his partner was out to bump him last night?”

“That’s the way he told it to me, and he acted plenty worried.” Shayne leaned back and tugged abstractedly at his left ear lobe.

“Reason I asked, near as I could tell this Godfrey didn’t have a thing on his mind last night except getting a good dinner and going to bed early.”

Shayne said, “Suppose I check with Will Gentry.”

“Suppose you do,” Black agreed.

Shayne crossed the room to the telephone, gave the hotel operator a number, and waited. The police chief’s gruff voice answered almost immediately.

“Mike Shayne, Will. I’m trying to locate an attorney named Gibson — Elliott Gibson. I’ve got a hunch he’s around headquarters. Could you find out?”

“He’s raising hell here in my office right now,” Gentry told him. “Why do you want him?”

“In connection with a client of his,” said Shayne cautiously. “A man named Brewer.”

There was a brief silence, then a long, audible sigh at the other end of the line. “You’d better come down here, Mike. Right away.” Gentry hung up with a bang.

Shayne turned to Black. “It’s something, all right. Gentry wants us right away.”

Miami’s chief of police rolled his rumpled eyelids far up and looked at Shayne curiously when he entered the office followed by Henry Black. Another man was pacing nervously up and down before Gentry’s desk. He paused in midsentence as the two private detectives came in.

Gibson was younger than Shayne had expected Brewer’s attorney to be — not more than thirty — with indefinable signs of weakness about his eyes and mouth. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and ruddy-faced, yet there was the impression of flabby muscles rather than physical well-being. He had the smooth, bland sort of good looks that some men and many women would probably consider charming, and Shayne had a hunch that the attorney was accustomed to coast along in his profession on the strength of his charm rather than on intelligence or ability.

He nodded curtly, without speaking, when Gentry introduced him to Shayne and Black as Gibson, and when they seated themselves at the chief’s invitation, the lawyer burst out impatiently.

“I warn you, Chief, that I shall hold you strictly accountable for wasting time this way. I don’t see what information two private detectives can possibly have about this affair. Even though one of them happens to be the ubiquitous Michael Shayne,” he added with an ironic note that brought the redhead’s ragged brows up in a questioning scowl at Gentry.

The chief said, “Mr. Gibson is insisting that I wire ahead and have his client’s partner removed from the New York plane and brought back in irons.”

“On what charge?” asked Shayne.

“Suspicion of murder,” said Gentry easily. “Though as a lawyer, he should be able to realize it’s difficult to make a charge like that stick when we have no evidence of murder.”

“You haven’t looked for such evidence,” Gibson said angrily. “You’ve sat here chewing on that stale cigar and done exactly nothing. Mr. Brewer is missing, isn’t he? He hasn’t been seen since going out on the bay with Hiram Godfrey in his boat yesterday afternoon. I’ve repeatedly explained that Mr. Brewer was in deathly fear of his partner, that he often told me Godfrey would be his murderer if he ever came to a violent end. And Godfrey ducked out on the early plane this morning.”

Gentry lifted a big hand to silence Gibson, then rumbled at Shayne, “You said over the phone you wanted to see Gibson in connection with Brewer. What connection, Mike?”

“Wait a minute.” Shayne looked at the attorney and asked, “Are you saying that Brewer didn’t reach your office last night?”

“He did not. I haven’t seen him for several days. What makes you think—”

“How long did you wait for him?” Shayne cut in.

“What do you mean? How long did I wait for whom?”

“Brewer,” said Shayne patiently. “How late did you stay in your office last night?”

“Until shortly past six.”

“Weren’t you worried when he didn’t show up?”

“Why should I have been worried?” Gibson looked honestly puzzled. “I wasn’t expecting him last evening. I had no reason to be worried until this morning when his office called to say he hadn’t come in, and apparently hadn’t been home all night. As soon as I made some inquiries and learned that he had gone out in Godfrey’s boat yesterday and no one had seen him return from that trip, I came to the obvious conclusion. Which seems borne out, I must say, by Godfrey’s hurried departure this morning.”

Shayne shook his red head slowly. “Do you deny that Brewer telephoned your office after returning from the boat trip, asking you to wait there for him?”

“Certainly, I deny it. If I had expected him and he didn’t appear, I should have started a search for him much sooner. Why do you ask that question?”

“Because he told me, in my office, at about five-thirty yesterday afternoon that you were expecting him in your office just a couple of blocks up the street. And that’s where he was going when he left a few minutes later.”

Gibson stared with openmouthed amazement. “You saw Brewer late yesterday? You can swear he did return safely from that boat trip with Godfrey?”

“He claimed that Godfrey tried to kill him while they were alone on the bay,” said Shayne, “but lost his nerve at the last moment. He was afraid the attempt on his life would be repeated last night, and came to me for protection.”

“Then Godfrey must have done it later — instead of in the afternoon as I suspected,” said Gibson excitedly. “Now that you have Shayne’s confirmation,” he added, turning to Gentry, “do you still refuse to arrest Godfrey for murder?”

“First, let’s clear up this telephone call Brewer spoke of,” Shayne interjected hastily. “Could your secretary or someone else have taken it and forgotten to tell you?”

“No,” Gibson stated flatly. “My secretary had the afternoon off and I was alone in the office. You must have misunderstood him.” He paused, frowned, then went on impatiently. “Perhaps he did plan to see me. He knows I often work late.”

Shayne said, “All right. Perhaps I misunderstood him. If he did reach your office late — around six — after you left, would anyone have seen him?”

“Probably not. I have a ground-floor suite with a private entrance in the arcade.”

“Look, Mike,” growled Gentry, “maybe I had better pull Godfrey off that plane. If Brewer actually expected to be murdered.”

Shayne said wearily, “You tell them, Hank.”

Henry Black had been silent since they entered the office. He took a black notebook from his pocket, flipped the pages, and began to read in a monotone.

“Phone call five twenty-six from Mike Shayne. Milton Brewer of Godfrey and Brewer in his office to hire me and another operative to keep a close tail on his partner, Hiram Godfrey, suspected of intention to murder. Two hundred and expenses to shadow subject entire night and see off on eight-o’clock plane. Subject placed supposedly at firm’s office on West Flagler, blue Buick convertible parked outside. Description of subject—”

“Cut that part for the moment,” Shayne interrupted. “Give Gentry what he wants fast. You can go over the details later.”

Black closed the notebook and resumed. “Mathews and I found the Buick convertible parked outside the office when we arrived at five thirty-four. Lights were on in the office, but shades down. We waited until five forty-eight when a man answering Godfrey’s description came out the front door after turning out all the lights. He got in the Buick, and we tailed him. We didn’t lose him for a single instant until that plane took off this morning. Every movement is written down here, and Mathews kept his own report for corroboration.” He tapped the notebook with a thin forefinger and added plaintively, “And for that job somebody owes me two hundred bucks and expenses.”

“Nonsense,” said Elliott Gibson. “You couldn’t possibly have kept an eye on him every minute through the night. He probably fooled you by pretending to go to bed, and you don’t want to admit it.”

Black ignored the lawyer. He said to Gentry, “If Brewer was alive at five-thirty, you’ll never be able to make a charge against Godfrey. Not with Mathews and me on the stand.”

“There’s no actual evidence that he’s dead.” Gentry growled disgustedly. “So he’s afraid his partner plans to kill him, and he goes off some place where he isn’t known, and hides.”

“He was in a tizzy to get away from my office at five-thirty to see Mr. Gibson,” Shayne reminded the chief. “It’s a five-minute walk. Yet Gibson says he hadn’t turned up by the time he left, sometime after six.”

“Maybe he changed his mind after he left your office.”

Shayne shrugged. “Maybe. It’s no skin off my nose either way.” He got up.

“Nothing more on the dancer?” Gentry asked.

“Nothing at my end.” He looked inquiringly at the chief.

“Nothing from the radio pickup.” Gentry regarded him quizzically. “You sure there was any dancer, Mike? Sure that wasn’t a fast story to cover up something entirely different on Moran’s death?”

Shayne snorted. “You saw her picture and cased her apartment.”

“I know. But you’re the only one that places her in your apartment at the right time.”

“Try the night clerk at my hotel,” Shayne suggested sourly. “He’ll describe her.” He paused, noting Gibson’s growing impatience with this interchange which excluded him, and went on before the lawyer could interrupt.

“What sort of story have you given to the papers on Moran? They haven’t been around my place for hot copy.”

“I haven’t given them anything,” the chief told him in a mild rumble. “Until we find the girl — if she is what you say—”

“Thanks, Will. We should know for sure by noon when I get a call from Washington. What about the Waldorf Towers? Have you checked further on Mrs. Davis?”

“What sort of run-around am I getting here?” Gibson broke in angrily. His face grew very red and he pounded his fist on the chief’s desk. “I believe my client to be murdered, and I demand immediate action.”

Gentry calmly disregarded the attorney. He nodded in answer to Shayne’s question and consulted a memorandum on his desk. “I had a man waiting for the day shift. I got his report just before this Brewer thing came up. She still hasn’t returned to her room. No one remembers seeing her go in or out last night, or any visitors. No outgoing phone calls and no recollection of any incoming calls except your attempt to reach her.”

“What about her reservation?”

“It was made by telephone the previous day. But get this, Mike. The clerk who made the reservation thinks it was made by a man. He won’t swear to it, but has that distinct impression.”

Shayne scowled heavily. “No name, of course.”

“Only the Mrs. Davis.”

“A local call?”

“He thinks so. But suppose it was long-distance? You call a hotel, and the operator connects you with the desk. He has no way of knowing whether it’s local or not.”

Shayne said abruptly, “I’m going to check that room. Have you got a man there?”

“I told Olsen to stick around.”

Shayne went out, hearing Attorney Gibson’s wrathful voice raised behind him as he closed the door.

He drove swiftly to the Waldorf Towers with the additional fact of Milton Brewer’s disappearance nagging at his mind. Brewer and Mrs. Davis. And Dorinda—

As yet, he couldn’t see any connection between the first two. Two clients who happened to pass each other in his waiting-room. One client, and a prospective client, he amended. If it hadn’t been for the accident of Mrs. Davis reaching his office first, he would have been on Hiram Godfrey’s tail instead of Henry Black.

Now they were both missing. How did that add up? Was the girl a connection between them? She had mentioned that either Brewer or Godfrey was a friend of her father’s (if she was Julia Lansdowne) and Mrs. Davis had claimed to be her mother’s closest friend.

If it were Brewer who was her father’s friend — that indicated a connection between him and Mrs. Davis. Yet, he could recall nothing to indicate that either was more than casually aware of the other. Of course, he had not given Brewer more than a glance during the brief moment when he escorted Mrs. Davis into the outer office. That was something he would have to ask Lucy.

At the Waldorf Towers, he looked around for Olsen whom he knew by sight. Gentry’s man was not in the lobby, but as Shayne started toward the desk he was accosted by Ben Hutch, the house detective.

“Hi, Mike,” said Hutch. “You here on Mrs. Davis?”

Shayne nodded. “Gentry told me Olsen was staked out here.”

Hutch was a wiry man of medium height. He wore a quiet brown suit and a deceptively casual expression. “Olsen stepped out for a cup of coffee,” he said. “I promised to keep an eye out.”

“Let’s go up to four-eighteen,” Shayne suggested, and moved toward the elevators.

“Okay, Mike. But she can’t be up there. She left her key in the box. I’ve got it right here.”

“People have been known to leave hotel doors on the latch when they went out — for various reasons,” Shayne told him equably. “Maybe Mrs. Davis had a reason.”

“What?” Hutch asked as an elevator took them up.

“She’s in the middle of something funny. I’m worried, that’s all.”

They stopped at 418, and Ben Hutch knocked perfunctorily before trying the doorknob. It was locked. He inserted the key and opened the door, and stepped cautiously inside.

Shayne entered a large, pleasant room that showed no sign of occupancy except the presence of an obviously new case of expensive airplane luggage standing unopened on a luggage stand. The bed was neatly made, and the spacious closet was empty.

Ben Hutch went into the bathroom and returned with a puzzled frown between his eyes. “Looks like she didn’t even wash her hands. I forgot to mention that the maid reported this morning — said the bed hadn’t been used, and towels all clean.”

“So you forgot to tell me,” Shayne growled. “Are you going to open that bag? Or shall I?”

“If it’s not locked.” Hutch went over and pressed the center catch. It opened, and he withdrew its entire contents, a heavy bundle wrapped in a cheap dressing-gown with a Burdine’s price tag still attached to a button on the sleeve. He laid it on the bed, unrolled the gown, and revealed four new novels with bright jackets.

“An obvious plant,” Shayne said with disgust. “Those books make about the right weight, and the robe kept them from sliding around and attracting attention when her luggage was carried up.”

“In the name of God, why? This bag cost a lot more than a night’s room rent, and she didn’t even sleep here.”

Shayne’s gray eyes were narrowed and remote. “I don’t know, Ben. Leave the room locked, and I’ll have Gentry send up a fingerprint man right away.”

He left the house detective and long-legged it to the elevator where he went down and out to his car.

So now both women were really missing, he thought, as he drove to his downtown office. And Mr. Milton Brewer.

He increased his speed, suddenly hopeful that Lucy Hamilton had noticed a glance between Brewer and Mrs. Davis, a casual word, perhaps. His hunch that the woman’s name was not Davis persisted, but he had liked her and wanted to help her. She had obviously had no intention of spending the night at the Waldorf Towers. There were no toilet articles in her case — nothing.

Then why? Just for an address? An address, he thought grimly, for her to give to a dumb private detective so he could contact her without any chance of his learning who she really was?

She had been at La Roma two nights ago, he reminded himself. Yet, she hadn’t checked into the Waldorf as Mrs. Davis until the next afternoon. Just before going to his office and telling him an interesting story and hiring him to do what?

Shayne shook his head savagely as he stopped in front of his office building and got out. When he entered his office Lucy Hamilton looked up from the telephone and said happily, “Here he is now. Just a minute, Mr. Black.”

Shayne nodded and strode into his private office. He picked up the receiver and asked, “What is it, Hank?”

“Looks like they just hauled Brewer’s body out of Biscayne Bay up beyond Seventy-Ninth Street,” Black said in a nasal monotone. “Thought you might be interested.”

Shayne exhaled his pent-up breath in a long, low whistle.

“Me, too,” said Black sadly. “Who the hell’s going to pay my fee now?”

“You might bill his widow. From the way Brewer talked last night I gather she’ll feel this is worth two hundred, plus expenses.” Shayne’s voice was callous, and he hung up before Black could say anything else.

Now only two of the three were missing.