So Lush, So Deadly

by Brett Halliday

  “Was he involved in your disappearance from the boat, Mrs. De Rham?” Painter said.

  “Ask Mike. You can see that I’m not doing any talking.”

  Painter hesitated, then turned to Shayne. “Was he?”

  “Obviously. She couldn’t have worked it without help.”

  “Mike—” she said.

  “Did Henry ever play you the statement the night watchman from the Winslow plant made before he died? I have it. They steered me to it. They didn’t think it mattered because they thought you were dead and they couldn’t get any more mileage out of it. In my hands it would back up the fire-at-sea story.”

  “O.K., Shayne,” Painter said, “what statement are you talking about now?”

  “The De Rhams and the Bradys and Tom Moseley were all at a college reunion in Cambridge. Dotty and Tom sneaked out in the middle of a dance and set a fire that burned down a factory. One of them had left a bottle of liquor in the night watchman’s locker, and he didn’t turn in an alarm. He died of his burns, but before he did he told De Rham that he’d seen a woman in a red dress, a white Olds, and a man in a hat with a funny band, the kind that’s worn to college reunions. Henry got it on tape, and so long as he had it she was stuck with him as a husband. Moseley probably had her promise that she would marry him when she could get something to counteract that tape. They set up the disappearance carefully. Moseley was already in Florida. He rented a boat and made a night rendezvous with the Nefertiti. Everybody but Dotty was drunk and asleep. When he was near enough she slipped overboard and swam across to him.”

  “Is that how it happened, Mrs. De Rham?” Painter asked.

  “That has to be how it happened,” Shayne said when she didn’t answer. “She destroyed her will and left things in such a mess that both Paul and her husband thought the other had killed her. She knew they wouldn’t report that she had fallen overboard. It was too dangerous for both of them. They were both connivers. All she really needed was one forged check or fraudulent transfer order and she could divorce Henry without parting with any cash. She’s the one who called Petrocelli and threatened him in a way that made him notify the police. She called Loring. Loring was getting two kinds of calls—from Henry pretending to be Dotty and from Dotty herself. She was horrified to hear that the boys were already into her for a couple of hundred thousand. She had to know what their plans were, so she hired a detective, Teddy Sparrow. Tom Moseley was probably semi-hysterical by this time. He was over his head. He may even have changed his mind about marrying her—certainly he wouldn’t marry her on these terms. He wanted to call everything off, just when it was beginning to work. So he had to go.”

  “If you can prove I killed Tom Moseley,” she said, “you’re a magician, Mike. I won’t admit for a minute that anything you’ve said is true. I walked off the boat the minute we got to Miami. I was so sick of that man! I moved into the St. Albans and did some drinking. When I started functioning again I called Joshua, and before I could say a thing he scolded me about something I’d said on the phone the day before. I hadn’t made any phone calls the day before. I decided I’d better know what that pair of scoundrels was up to. That’s all. I didn’t even know Tom was in town.”

  She should have left it at that, but she couldn’t resist adding, “You’ve created a brilliant monster named Dotty De Rham. Surely that Dotty De Rham—not the real one—could manage to get in and out of a hotel room early in the morning without being seen?”

  Shayne grinned at Painter. “What do you think, Petey?”

  Painter said cautiously, “Do you have anything you’re holding back? Some final tricky surprise to make people think you’re a genius?”

  “No, that’s about all.”

  Painter considered. “Well, good old-fashioned police work may turn up something you’ve missed, Shayne. It’s been known to happen. My men are interviewing every guest on Moseley’s floor, every guest on Mrs. Brady’s—” he corrected himself—“Mrs. De Rham’s. The murder room is going to be given complete scientific analysis. Fingerprints. We’ll do a thorough job on that piece of beard—”

  Shayne and Mrs. De Rham smiled at each other.

  Shayne said, “I know. But in some ways Petey’s a pretty good cop, and he has good people working for him. They may actually come up with something. If we can’t get you for murder, we’ll have to put you in a mental hospital for the rest of your life.”

  Her smile disappeared. “You’re beaten for once, Mike. Admit it.”

  He shook his head. “You start fires and you kill people. It’s all in the record. When I tell Joshua Loring about your latest caper, he’ll sign the papers. Commitment proceedings don’t operate on strict rules of evidence. Those incendiary episodes in your history are going to count against you.”

  “Those—” She stopped.

  “I know,” Shayne said gently. “You’d been planning to burn down that factory for a long time, for entirely rational reasons, and you planted those episodes to give you an out in case anything went wrong. I know damn well you’re sane. Too much so, if anything. You’re so damn sane you can’t see any reason why things can’t always go your way. You’ll be the sanest patient in the booby hatch.”

  She lifted one eyebrow. “A romantic to the end, Mike. Life isn’t that bad in a mental hospital. I rather enjoyed my stay there. There’s a social life. They take care of you, you don’t have to worry about what’s happening in the rest of the world, you’re not involved.”

  She looked away, but not before he had seen the fear in her eyes.

  Paul Brady said in a harsh whisper, “Dotty?”

  He had been forgotten, lying rigid and unseeing under the hospital sheet. Henry’s body would come ashore with a bullet hole in the chest, matching the hole in the cotton jacket. The money Henry had turned over to him would be found. Unlike Dotty De Rham, he would be tried and convicted, and would probably go to the chair.

  “I’m sorry, Paul,” Mrs. De Rham said.

  “Dotty, I have to—This is the last time we’ll ever talk. Please come closer.”

  He groped for her. She put her hand in his, her face softening, and came down beside him.

  “Dotty, I know you thought I was pretending, but I—loved you.”

  His hand came up to caress her face. Suddenly he seized her hair, pulled her head back, and went for her eyes.

  She cried out. Shayne covered the intervening space in one long stride and seized his shoulder. He twisted, his body charged with fury. Shayne thrust one arm around his neck and tore him away. He had used a hypodermic needle with the point broken off. His first thrust tore into one eye. The only thing that saved the second eye was the fact that she was wearing a wig, and she managed to turn her head. Before Shayne could subdue him he connected twice more, grinding the sliver of glass into her face and ripping downward.

  When Shayne let him go he fell back unconscious. Dotty was screaming terribly.

  Later, after Rourke phoned in the story and Shayne made an unpleasant call to Joshua Loring, the reporter joined his friend for cognac and coffee in the officers’ mess. Shayne was drinking moodily, unable to forget the sight of Dotty De Rham’s slashed face as they led her away.

  “I suppressed one thing,” Rourke said.

  “What?” Shayne asked somberly.

  Rourke gave him a sideward glance. “That you had such a hard time telling the men from the women.”

  “I told you! The dark room, the wig—”

  “Absolutely. I’m not smiling, Mike. That’s a nervous tic. I can’t control it.”

  “You’d better learn to control it.”

  He was having a second coffee royale, feeling better, when Sally Lyon came running in. She had a bundle of clothes.

  “I had a hard time finding you, Mike. You were just—just magnificent!”

  “Yeah,” Shayne said. “The only thing I did wrong was that I couldn’t tell the difference between—” He waved. “The hell with it.”

  “I haven’t the faintes
t idea what you’re talking about. What are you drinking?”

  Shayne explained about the therapeutic effect of brandy in coffee after a violent night, and she decided it was just what she needed. They decided to skip the coffee on the next round, and to try the effect of straight cognac.

  “Tim Rourke,” Sally said. “I’m very glad to make your acquaintance, but will you go to the men’s room for a minute?”

  “I don’t need to—”

  She kicked him under the table. He got up and hobbled off.

  “Mike, now don’t pretend you’re too drunk,” she said, “because you’re famous for carrying your liquor. I’m afraid I was lying when I told you I wasn’t a virgin.”

  Shayne clucked. “Well, a girl of eighteen—”

  “I’ll be nineteen in two weeks! Mike, I’m determined to get some experience on this Florida trip. I admire you tremendously! I’d really be very flattered if you’d—”

  He wagged his head. “No.”

  “Not under any conceivable circumstances?”

  “Not under any conceivable circumstances.”

  “Not even if we were on a boat alone on a hot night and we took an air mattress out on deck to look at the stars, and music was playing—”

  “Not even then. I have great will power.”

  He used some of it to stand up. He leaned down to kiss her on the forehead.

  “You’re a nice kid, Sally, and you’ve been a lot of help. I’ll drive you home after I make a phone call.”

  “Mike—”

  He shook his head, smiling, and went to the phone. He dialed a number. A woman’s voice answered.

  “Mike!” she said, pleased. “I take it you caught your rabbit?”

  “A couple of rabbits. Are you free for dinner tonight?”

  There was a pause. “Do you really want to wait that long?”

  “I’ve been up all night. I thought—”

  She laughed. “Mike, you nut, I have a bed.”