“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:
Dear Mr. Shayne:
I tried to call you at your office twice today, but you were out, and now it’s five o’clock and I suppose I can’t reach you tonight. So I’m going to put this in the mail with $1000 as a retainer and if anything does happen to me tonight you’ll know that Ralph Flannagan, Apt. No. 26, the Courtland Arms, is guilty. The $1000 will be your fee for convicting him of my murder. He has tried to murder me twice in the last week and I’m desperately afraid he is getting ready to try again.
I am going to send Ralph a carbon of this letter by special messenger so he’ll know there’s no use his doing it tonight, hoping he’ll go unsuspected. It’s the only way I see to protect myself until I can talk to you.
I will telephone you for an appointment first thing in the morning if I’m alive.
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 Weather by,” 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.”
CHAPTER SIX
Both men sat very still and stared at Shayne for a long moment. Then Ralph Flannagan said in a hoarse whisper, “Disposed of her? Do you mean—”
“With a rifle bullet through her head,” Shayne stated in a flat voice. “She called me at ten o’clock—and was dead when I arrived at her house on Seventy-Fifth Street.”
The radio producer shuddered and buried his face in his hands and moaned, “Wanda.”
Rourke dragged his thin body up and leaned toward Shayne, his cavernous, slate-gray eyes feverish with interest. “Then she had picked the wrong guy to be afraid of. Any other dope, Mike?”
“Nothing. She probably didn’t see her killer. He stood outside and fired through the wire screen.”
“To prevent her from talking to you?”
“It’s a fair inference,” Shayne told him with a shrug. “It’s even possible he was standing close enough to the open window to have overheard her call. If he knew about this letter she had written me accusing Flannagan, it would have seemed a perfect time to bump her and hope that you would be the fall guy, Flannagan.”
“Which I might have been so easily,” the producer muttered, lifting his head and shaking it distraughtly. “If I didn’t have an alibi. If Tim hadn’t happened to be here at the right time.”
“Who else did you tell about the letter?” Shayne demanded.
“Why—no one,” he protested in a shocked voice. “My God! It isn’t the sort of thing a man would discuss.”
“You said some people came in for auditions,” Shayne pressed him. “Are you sure you didn’t mention it?”
“Positive,” said Flannagan.
“How many people knew about your affair with Wanda? And that you were paying her blackmail?”
Flannagan’s face suffused with anger and his heavy jaw jutted. “It wasn’t blackmail at all. I won’t let you think that about Wanda. It was I who insisted on paying her the money.”
“Nevertheless,” Shayne pointed out grimly, “it’s a hell of a good motive for murder—on the surface. Here you are, engaged to a wealthy girl, with your livelihood at stake if your affair with Wanda comes out. What I’m trying to point out is that anyone who knew the truth about you, and who had some personal reason for wanting Wanda out of the way would know you’d be the prime suspect if anything happened to her. Look at her letter,” he went on. “No matter how you felt about the affair, Wanda herself suspected you of planning to kill her. She accuses you of having made two previous attempts. How many people knew the truth?”
“No one. I swear I never told anyone. Good heavens! If a word of it had leaked out—” He broke off, shuddering at the thought.
“Do you know a man named Gurley?” Shayne asked abruptly.
Flannagan frowned, then said, “I don’t—think so.”
“Jack Pierson Gurley,” Shayne amplified, “sometimes known as Jack-The-Lantern.”
“Oh, that one? I’ve heard about him and his swanky gambling-club, but I’ve never met him personally.”
“Ever hear Wanda mention his name?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve explained that we weren’t actually intimate. That is, I honestly don’t know much about her personal life. We only met briefly those few times.”
“Think back on those few times and concentrate,” growled Shayne. “Can you remember anything at all to indicate a connection between her and Jack Gurley—or the Sportsman’s Club?”
The producer shook his head helplessly. “Not a thing, I’m afraid.”
“What’s this about Gurley?” Rourke asked eagerly.
“I don’t know. There’s some connection, all right.” Shayne hesitated, thinking back over his talk with the gambler.
Gurley was one person who knew about the letter Wanda had written accusing Flannagan of planning her death. He had known about the letter even before her death, as evidenced by the first telephone call by one of his goons earlier in the evening. But why the devil should Gurley be so anxious to have the letter destroyed unread? What was his interest in Ralph Flannagan? If Gurley had ordered her death because she had pointed the finger at Flannagan, he certainly wouldn’t want the letter destroyed.
Unless, of course, he had some personal reason for wanting to protect Flannagan from suspicion.
Shayne’s brow was furrowed when he said harshly, “Don’t lie to me, Flannagan. What about Gurley’s daughter, Janet? How well do you know her?”
“I don’t know Gurley and I didn’t know he had a daughter,” the radio producer told him. “So far as I can recall right now, I don’t know any girl named Janet.”
“What about a woman named Sheila Martin?”
Again Ralph Flannagan shook his head helplessly. “That doesn’t click, either. I’ve told you I didn’t really know Wanda. I was never in her home. I’ve never met any of her friends or talked about her personal affairs.”
“What about the party where you met her? Didn’t anyone there know her?”
“Why—I suppose someone must have invited her. But I don’t really know. I’ve explained the sort of party it was. She might have come with someone else who had been invited. You know how those parties are. I didn’t see her talking to anyone. She was sitting alone when I noticed her, and we left together shortly afterward.”
Shayne sighed and said, “All right. So we get back to the situation between the two of you and the fact that she suspected you of having tried to kill her twice and of planning another attempt. Who could have known you were responsible for her condition—and thus a logical suspect if she were killed?”
“I swear I have not told anyone. Do you mean you think perhaps Wanda didn’t actually write that letter to me?” His face lit up hopefully. “That must be it. I just can’t believe Wanda felt that way about me. But who could have found out the truth?”
“Wanda knew,” Shayne reminded him. “She might have told others. And there is the detective who took the picture of you and sold it back to her. There’s no way of knowing whether a louse like that actually did sell it back to her or not,” he went on disgustedly. “Having shaken her down for a grand, what was to prevent his going ahead and turning over a duplicate set to her husband to collect his fee?”
“Oh, no. I’m certain he didn’t do that. Wanda told me he gave her the original Photostat and the negative—and that she destroyed them immediately.”
“Photostats can be copied,” Shayne reminded him wearily. “And a duplicate negative can easily be made from a print. The police will probably check pretty closely on her husband.”
“What! You mean they’ll have to—know all about this?” Flannagan faltered. “It will ruin me, Shayne! Can’t you keep the information confidential? Work on the case yourself? If I’m your client, you don’t have to tell them, do you? Isn’t there something in the law about a private detective having the same right to refuse to divulge confidential information from a client as a lawyer?” The radio producer grew more excited as he spoke, leaning tensely toward the detective.
“There is that,” Shayne agreed. “But as soon as I receive the original of this letter in the morning’s mail with Wanda Weatherby’s retainer, she will legally become my client.”
“Can’t we both be?” pleaded Flannagan. “I’ll employ you on the same terms to do the same job. I want her murderer found, too.”
“The way her letter reads,” the detective reminded him gruffly, “the thousand dollars is being paid me to convict you of her murder.”
There was a brief, heavy silence, then Timothy Rourke sai
d, “You know you can’t prove Ralph murdered her, Mike, because I can prove he didn’t. It seems to me you’re ethically bound to turn her retainer down. Hell, Mike. Give the guy a break. You can do more with information like this in solving the case than the police can,” he continued persuasively. “Why drag Ralph through the mud when you know he’s innocent?”
“I’m not eager to drag anybody through the mud,” said Shayne angrily. “You’ve known me long enough to know that. It’s just that my hands are practically tied on this thing. I don’t see any chance of keeping the police out.”
“You mean you told them about coming here to Ralph’s place?”
“No. As a matter of fact, I didn’t. Will Gentry was there and he rubbed me the wrong way by disbelieving me when I said I didn’t know a damned thing about Wanda Weatherby except her telephone call.”
“Why tell him now?” Rourke urged. “He’ll just be sore because you didn’t bring him along. Let Ralph pay you the retainer, if you want to get legal about it, and have an out for keeping this letter quiet.”
“Please, Mr. Shayne,” Flannagan broke in earnestly, “I’d want to help find Wanda’s murderer, even if I weren’t involved as a suspect. Let me give you a check for a thousand dollars right now.” He had both hands on the arms of his chair, ready to spring up.
When Shayne hesitated, Rourke said in a cynical tone, “He can afford it, Mike. It only amounts to the next ten weekly payments that he won’t have to pay Wanda now.”
“I don’t like to have you put it on that basis, Tim,” Flannagan said swiftly and angrily. “You make it sound as though I’m glad Wanda is dead.”
Shayne apparently ignored both of them. He said soberly, “Even if I don’t turn this carbon over to the police, there’s the original arriving in the mail tomorrow morning. Gentry knows about that, and he’ll be waiting in my office to grab it when it’s delivered.”
“How did he know about it?” Flannagan asked.
“She told me about it over the telephone, and she also explained to my secretary that she was going to mail it when she called my office and couldn’t get me.” Shayne paused, then added, “Of course, Will Gentry has no idea what will be in her letter. Neither did I until I came here.”
What Really Happened Page 4