When Dorinda Dances

Chapter IX

The telephone rang immediately, and Shayne was not surprised when Timothy Rourke’s voice came over the wire.

“Thanks for the tip on that story last night, Mike. But why didn’t you tell me to print it fast?”

“What story?”

“The Brewer thing. I could have gotten the jump on the other boys if I had taken a chance and said the man was dead.” Rourke’s tone was aggrieved.

“When did you hear it?” Shayne asked.

“We just had a flash at the office that they had pulled his body out of the bay around Ninetieth Street a little while ago. I’ll pick you up in five minutes.” Rourke hung up before Shayne could reply.

Shayne cradled the receiver slowly. He got up, tugging at his left ear lobe, and went to a window where he stared out with a distracted expression on his lean face. He whirled abruptly and stalked into the outer office. On the way to the door he said to Lucy, “I’m out with Tim Rourke to take a look at the body of the man we didn’t take on for a client last night.” He was halfway down in the elevator when he remembered that he hadn’t asked his secretary the questions that seemed so important when he entered the office and found Henry Black on the phone.

Rourke pulled up to the curb a couple of minutes after Shayne stepped outside the building. He got in, and the reporter sped away toward Biscayne Boulevard, saying, “I guess your man knew what he was talking about, Mike.”

“It looks that way,” Shayne agreed morosely. “How much have you got on Brewer’s death? When did it happen?”

“I don’t know. Just a flash from headquarters. As soon as I heard the name Brewer, I called you. I think some boys found the body just a short time ago, and Gentry’s on his way out.” He turned north on the boulevard, and continued. “It seems your friend, Henry Black, wasn’t any too efficient last night.”

“I’m not too sure about that, Tim.” Shayne told him about Black’s visit to his apartment that morning and the talk with Will Gentry at police headquarters. “I didn’t go over Black’s notes on Godfrey’s movements,” he added, “but I imagine Will checked pretty thoroughly. If we accept Henry Black’s statement at face value it appears that Godfrey is the one man in Miami who couldn’t have murdered Brewer.”

“But he was the one man Brewer was afraid of,” Rourke protested.

“As far as I know,” Shayne conceded. “That’s the story Brewer told me. If Godfrey didn’t murder him, I would say Brewer was either mistaken or lying.”

“What about Elliott Gibson — Brewer’s lawyer? Shouldn’t he have been worried when Brewer didn’t turn up at his office last night?”

“Yeh,” said Shayne absently. “There’s something peculiar about that. Brewer told me he had phoned Gibson to say he was coming. Yet Gibson denies it.”

“Why would he deny it?”

“How do I know? Maybe Brewer lied to me.”

Rourke said in a puzzled voice, “I don’t see why either one of them should lie about a thing like that.” He paused, then added reflectively, “How did the lawyer strike you, Mike?”

“Negative. Not too good, not too bad. I wouldn’t pick him for a murderer at first glance.”

“Let’s see how the timing works out,” Rourke suggested. “Brewer was in your office about five-thirty?”

“That’s right. Black’s notes indicate that I called him at five twenty-six.”

“And Brewer left your office soon after that?”

“Within a couple of minutes after I finished talking to Black. He seemed in a great rush to get to Gibson’s office a couple of blocks away.”

“Yet he never reached that office?”

“According to Gibson he didn’t,” said Shayne.

They passed 79th Street, and Rourke slowed his car to watch for street numbers. Just beyond 90th Street he swung to the right toward Biscayne Bay, and at the dead end of the street they saw a group of police cars and an ambulance. The beach was wide at this point, and glaring sunlight beat down upon a group of men gathered around an object lying on the sand close to the water’s edge.

Will Gentry arose from his knees and turned as Shayne and Rourke joined them. “I’m glad Tim picked you up, Mike,” he rumbled. “This is a bad business.”

“Brewer?”

Gentry nodded. “I guess so. Plenty of identification on him, but maybe you can help us.”

Henry Black stood to one side of the group. He gave Shayne a sour glance and said, “Looks like I wasted a night tailing the wrong guy.”

Shayne shook his red head slowly, and made no comment.

Elliott Gibson detached himself from the group and came toward Shayne exclaiming bitterly, “Do you still think that Godfrey shouldn’t be taken off the plane and brought back here on a murder charge?”

Shayne shrugged. “Do you identify the body?”

“Of course I do. It’s my client and friend, Milton Brewer. If you and Gentry had taken me seriously this morning you’d have Godfrey picked up by this time. God knows where he may have gotten to by this time!”

Shayne lifted one ragged red brow inquiringly at the police chief. “How did Black’s story check, Will?”

“On the head. I don’t see how Godfrey could have swatted a fly last night without Black’s knowledge.”

“Nonsense,” Gibson interposed angrily. “What makes you think you can trust one of these private dicks to tell the truth? Can’t you see that Black and Shayne are probably in on this together?”

“A little more of that, Mr. Gibson, will be too damned much.” Shayne turned away from the bristling attorney and asked Gentry, “How long has the man been dead?”

Gentry looked doubtful. He said, “We’ll have to let Doc make a guess on that. He’s been in the water a long time, and he’s pretty well smashed up.”

Shayne moved closer to the corpse and nodded to a chubby little man with a worried face. “What can you make out of it, Doc?

The police surgeon hunched one shoulder toward the body stretched out on a length of canvas. “Not much right now. Take a look for yourself.”

Shayne took a look. The body lay on its side. The man’s face was brutally smashed and beaten. His drenched hair was as glossy black as Shayne recalled it, but his beautiful light suit was water-soaked. The collar of the shirt had the tabs buttoned tightly, but the tie was awry. His nose was so bludgeoned that it was impossible to tell whether he had ever worn glasses. He was dressed exactly the same as when he visited Shayne’s office, down to the white-and-tan sports shoes on his rather small feet.

Turning back to Gentry, he said, “Don’t take this for an official identification, Will. Remember I’d only seen the man once. Except for his face, he is identical in appearance with Brewer when he left my office about five-forty yesterday afternoon, headed for Elliott Gibson’s office.”

“But I told you he never reached my office,” raged Gibson.

“You also told me he hadn’t phoned you he was coming,” Shayne reminded him.

“And I still say he didn’t phone me yesterday afternoon.”

Shayne shrugged and said to Gentry, “There you have it, Will. This isn’t my case, you know.”

“I demand that Godfrey be arrested immediately and brought back to Miami to face a charge of murder,” said Gibson.

“What can we base it on?” Gentry asked. “According to Black’s report—”

“You’re forgetting one thing,” Gibson interposed hastily. “I went over Black’s report with you in your office. He didn’t reach the packing-plant until several minutes after Shayne called him. When he did get there he found Godfrey’s car parked outside and there was a light in the office. He assumed — assumed, mind you — that because the car was there and lights in the office that Godfrey was inside all the time he waited. But there is absolutely no proof that Godfrey was in the office during that period.

“I submit,” he raged on, “that there was ample time for Godfrey to have been waiting downstairs at Shayne’s building, that he picked up Mr. Brewer as he left, murdered him, and then hurried back to enter the plant through the rear, turn out the lights, come out, and get in his car and drive away just as Mr. Black said he did.”

Will Gentry frowned. “How about that, Black?”

The disconsolate detective said, “Could be. I don’t believe it, but Gibson is right about one thing. I did assume that Godfrey was in the office all the time I waited — about ten minutes. I can check my notes, but I believe Godfrey came out at five forty-eight. If Brewer left Shayne’s office at five thirty-eight, that’s pretty fast work.”

“Nonsense,” Gibson said. “It’s not more than a four-minute drive from Shayne’s office to the plant on West Flagler.”

“That’s true enough,” said Shayne. “That leaves six minutes at the outside for Godfrey to get a man who was deathly afraid of him into a car, smash him up, drive him to the bay and dump the body, and then get back to the plant in time to emerge as Black saw him do. And don’t forget, Will, that Godfrey’s car was parked outside all the time. What car did he use for the murder vehicle? A taxi?”

“Gibson’s theory leaks like a sieve,” said Black. “It couldn’t be done. If Brewer was alive at five thirty-eight as Mike says, I’ll go on the stand and testify that Godfrey could not possibly have done this job.”

“Perhaps you have put your finger on it, Mr. Black,” Gibson said in a queer voice. “How do we know Milton Brewer was in Shayne’s office at five thirty-eight as he states?”

Shayne grinned and rubbed his angular jaw. “Don’t forget that I called Black and gave him all the dope.”

“But did Brewer actually speak to Black?” Gibson demanded.

Shayne said, “No. I did the talking. He was excited, and wanted me to get a good man for him.”

“What Brewer seems to have accomplished by putting Black on his partner’s trail,” Timothy Rourke interposed, “was an unimpeachable alibi for Godfrey.”

“There again,” said Gibson quickly, “perhaps you’ve put your finger, inadvertently, on something else.” He turned to the police chief, disregarding the smoldering anger in Shayne’s gray eyes. “Here’s a possibility. I’ll give it to you for what it’s worth. We know Godfrey planned to murder Brewer—”

“We know nothing of the sort,” Gentry rumbled wearily. “All we know is that Brewer told Shayne he suspected his partner planned to murder him.”

“I have absolute knowledge that it’s true,” Gibson argued. “Take this as a working hypothesis. Godfrey planned to murder his partner last night. He knows he will be suspected since he knows that I am fully aware of the situation. Therefore, he does exactly what this man — Mr. Rourke — said. He arranges an unimpeachable alibi. How? By picking out a private dick who is well known by reputation to be willing to do anything for money.

“I mean you, Mr. Shayne,” he went on bitterly, turning his head slightly. “If I were in Godfrey’s position, that is what I would have done, arranged the same setup. Then, after I had killed Mr. Brewer while out in my boat late in the afternoon, I would have had you do exactly what you did — telephone another private detective, give him the same song and dance you gave Black, and have him hurry out to trail Godfrey all night.”

Turning to Gentry again, Gibson continued. “According to Black’s notes, it is evident that Godfrey was exceedingly careful to do nothing that would make it difficult to follow him last night. In other words, he was building an alibi. Shayne states that Brewer was in his office and alive at five thirty-eight. Who saw him? We have to concede that Shayne phoned Black, and Shayne says Brewer left his office headed for my place. He also says something that I deny — that Brewer told him he telephoned me that he was coming. Isn’t that worth talking about, Chief?”

Gentry pushed his hat back and mopped his brow. “Let me see if I can get your reasoning straight, Gibson. You’re contending that Godfrey actually did kill his partner late in the afternoon while they were out on the bay together. He then went to his office, after having previously arranged for someone to follow him all night, in order to give himself an alibi for a crime he had already committed. Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“Haven’t I said it clearly enough? Why didn’t Shayne take this job himself? I know Mr. Brewer was willing to pay well for protection.”

Gentry looked at Shayne, who was absently rolling his left ear lobe between thumb and forefinger.

“I’ll tell you why,” raged Gibson, before Gentry could speak. “He called in another man because he and Godfrey realized that the alibi would be much stronger if it were strengthened by the testimony of a second man.”

“What about that, Mike?” Gentry asked.

Shayne’s eyes were very bright. He shrugged and said pleasantly, “I’ll discuss this privately with Mr. Gibson when there aren’t any cops around. Right now, just for the record, you can tell him that I turned down the tailing job because I had another client — an important assignment for the night that I had already accepted before Brewer came in.”

“Who was your important client, and what was the assignment?” Gibson demanded.

Shayne ignored the attorney and said to Gentry, “You know what the other job was, Will.”

“I know what you told me it was. And I know we’ve got two dead men now.”

Shayne turned his back on the two men and stepped over to look searchingly down at the corpse. The doctor was making notations in a black notebook, and Shayne asked, “Is that hair dyed, Doc?”

“I think so. Haven’t made a thorough examination yet.”

“I thought it was when he came to my office. What will you be able to do about the time of death?”

“That depends on a lot of things. Have to get him in where we can work on him. Give you something in two or three hours.”

“What can you give me now?”

“Couldn’t place it closer than between four and twenty-four hours.”

Gentry and Gibson joined them, and Shayne asked, “How positive are you of the identification, Will?”

“Mr. Gibson is willing to swear the body is that of Milton Brewer. You say he’s dressed exactly as Brewer was when he was in your office. And there was this wallet in his inner coat pocket.” Gentry held out a water-soaked pigskin wallet and added, “Business cards in it, and the usual identification. About eighty-five dollars in cash. If it isn’t Brewer, who is it?”

Shayne said, “Looks like the one he had in my office. I’m not denying that it is Brewer. In fact, I would be almost willing to go on the stand and swear to the identification. But I’m always suspicious when a man’s face is smashed up like that.” He asked the doctor, “What about it? What did that job on him? And was it necessary to accomplish death? Or just some added stuff?”

“I’d say it was done with some fairly heavy object,” the doctor said. “He probably died after the first couple of blows, and either the murderer continued beating him in a violent burst of rage, or—”

“Or he continued pounding until there wouldn’t be much left to identify when he was taken out of the water,” said Shayne grimly.

“Not even enough teeth left,” the doctor agreed, “for a dentist to do anything with.”

“Yeh.” Shayne nodded his red head slowly, turned to Gentry and said, “Don’t get me wrong on this, Will. I have absolutely no reason to think the man isn’t Milton Brewer. On the other hand, before we get very far with this we need a positive identification. When this guy Gibson,” he went on, as though the attorney were not present, “states that he can positively identify the body as Brewer, I question it. Are there any identifying marks? What’s he got to go on? I admit he has the same build and dyed hair; the same sort of clothes, and maybe there’ll be laundry marks. What about fingerprints?”

“Take a look at his hands,” Gentry rumbled.

Shayne dropped to his knees and turned one of the dead man’s hands over. The fingers were smashed to a pulp. Intentionally? He wondered. Or had he clung desperately to the edge of a railing, refusing to drop into the water, while the killer pounded his hands until he was forced to let go? Both hands were the same.

“Can you get any sort of prints from them?” he asked Gentry.

“The boys are trying for it. They won’t be too good, but if we’re lucky we’ll get enough if we can find prints to check with.”

“You can probably get them at his house,” Shayne suggested. “Do this for me, Will. Make as positive an identification as you can that this body is Milton Brewer.”

Gentry rolled his rumpled eyelids far up and looked at Shayne curiously. “What’s on your mind, Mike?”

Shayne’s eyes were bleak, and he shook his head gravely. “I don’t know. I do know this whole thing is screwy as hell. First we’ve got to know that this man is Brewer. Once we establish that, we’ll have something to go on.” He paused briefly, then asked, “Did you get that call from the Waldorf Towers Hotel?”

“Yeh,” said Gentry sourly. “Olsen called and told me what you found in Mrs. Davis’s room. Looks like she was a phony from the word go. Probably the whole story she told you about the dancer was just as phony as the hotel room.”

“Why? The girl corroborated it in every detail.”

A voice behind them asked with interest, “What’s that? Are you talking about Dorinda? She denied everything at La Roma, Mike.”

Shayne glanced around at Timothy Rourke and said, “This was afterward, Tim. You’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Let’s get out of here where we can get a drink and see what we can make of it.”