The Corpse That Never Was ms-45

by Brett Halliday

  Shayne drove back to a small restaurant on Eighth Street just off the boulevard where a double cognac washed the cloying taste from his mouth, and he ate a hasty steak sandwich.

  His next stop, he decided, should be at the office of Harry Brandt, a nationally known expert on handwriting and the validation of questioned documents. Harry’s office was only three blocks away, and after he left the handwriting samples with him, a trip across the bay to Miami Beach and an interview with Paul Nathan was indicated.

  And that would about wind it up, Shayne told himself sourly. Thus far he hadn’t accomplished a damned thing to earn Eli Armbruster’s ten grand retainer. It was an easy way to pick up a hunk of cash, but Shayne didn’t like to earn his money so easily. There was still Nathan’s alibi to be checked, he reminded himself. Not that he expected to prove anything by it because there wasn’t yet a single circumstance that pointed the finger of suspicion at the husband, but it was one more thing to do before he made his final report to his client.

  Harry Brandt had the ground floor of an old Stucco residence on Fifth Street near the bay where he kept bachelor quarters and did the work which found its way to him from all over the country.

  He was a pleasant-faced tweedy man in his forties, and he took a foul-smelling pipe from his mouth to greet the redhead with a smile at his front door. “Come in, Mike,” he urged. “I see by the paper that you were on the spot again last night. Anything in it for me?”

  He led the way down the hall to a pleasant, masculinely-appointed sitting room and waved Shayne to a comfortable chair.

  “A very simple thing, but I have to check it out to satisfy a client.” Shayne dug into his pockets and extracted the two suicide notes and the letter that had been found in Elsa’s handbag. He pushed them over to Brandt, together with the rental agreement signed by Lambert.

  “I guess there’s no doubt that those first three were written by the same man. I don’t think there’s much doubt that this is also his signature… but that’s the thing I have to know.”

  Harry Brandt glanced through the notes and letter alertly. He said, “The man’s left-handed, of course. The second note shows more haste and strain, which is natural, if I understand the circumstances, but there’s enough difference that I’ll have to make a few tests to be positive the same person wrote them both. This signature…” He studied the name at the bottom of the agreement carefully, glanced aside to compare it with the other two “Robert Lambert’s.”

  “Off-hand, I’d say yes, Mike. You want more than that?”

  “I need a positive yes or no. And my client can afford to pay for it.”

  “Nice to have clients like that these days,” Brandt told him with a twinkle in his eye. “Okay. I’ll give it the works. You just want an opinion… not blow-ups to go into court with?”

  “I don’t think it’ll reach court, Harry. Certainly not if your answer is in the affirmative. Can I call you?”

  “Around four.”

  Shayne thanked him and went out to his car. He had memorized the Miami Beach address from the telephone book in Lambert’s apartment, and it was a pleasant thirty-minute drive to a modest, two-story, ocean-front house set in the middle of beautifully landscaped grounds.

  The glistening white driveway of crushed coral rock led past the house to a triple garage at the rear, and also curved past the colonnaded front under a porte-cochere to a circular turn-around.

  There were no other cars in view when Shayne got out and left his car under the porte-cochere. He went up stone steps and rang the doorbell, and the door was opened by a trim, colored maid in a dark blue uniform. She had nice, clean-cut features and intelligent eyes, and she shook her head gravely when Shayne asked, “Is Mr. Nathan at home?”

  “Not right this minute, he isn’t. I expect him back any time.” She had a soft, melodic voice and she formed her words carefully without too much of a southern slur.

  Shayne said, “Perhaps you could answer a few questions. I’m a detective and I have to check on a few things.”

  “Yes, sir. I reckon I can try. Mr. Nathan, he said the police might come around and I was to tell them whatever they asked. He went to the burial parlor and I expect he stopped out to have lunch. Won’t you come in, sir?”

  Shayne followed her down a wide central hall to double doors that opened onto a square library. She stood aside for him to enter, and followed him inside hesitantly. He sat in a leather chair and smiled at her and said, “Why don’t you sit down, too? Tell me your name first.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She sat warily on the extreme edge of a chair across from him. “Alyce Brown, sir.”

  “Were you surprised by what happened last night, Alyce?”

  “Yes sir. Real shocked. I just can’t believe it’s true. Not even yet, I can’t.”

  “Didn’t you suspect that Mrs. Nathan was… having an affair with another man?”

  “No, sir. She was always a real lady.”

  “You never heard anything peculiar. Like… well, phone calls from a strange man?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How long have you worked here, Alyce?”

  “Most a year now. Ever since they were married and moved in this house.”

  “What other staff is there?”

  “Just the cook. She’s my aunt. The two of us do everything needed.”

  “How did Mr. and Mrs. Nathan get along?”

  “Like most married folks, I guess.”

  “No quarrels or fights?”

  “No, sir. No more than most married folks, I guess.”

  “Did you ever hear them discuss a divorce… anything like that?”

  “No, sir. They wouldn’t… not in front of a servant.”

  “Do you and your aunt sleep in?”

  “Yes, sir. Except on Friday nights. That’s our day off. Friday noon to Saturday noon. Of course, we both came early this morning when we heard about the terrible thing that happened last night.”

  “But you’re both always off on Friday nights?”

  “Yes, sir. Mrs. Nathan wanted it that way. It was… well, like Mr. Nathan’s night off, too. He never came home for dinner on Friday nights.”

  “Has this been going on ever since they were married?”

  “Yes, sir. Mrs. Nathan explained how it was to us when she first set our night off on Friday. How that she thought a husband should have one night off to himself every week away from his home and his wife, just like a servant should. And that’s the way they did.”

  “Then you’d say that Mrs. Nathan was generally alone in the house on Friday nights?”

  “Either that, or she’d go out some place by her own self.”

  Shayne settled back and got out a cigarette. Alyce arose swiftly and got a table lighter from beside her and held the flame for him. Shayne waited until she had reseated herself before reaching into the two side pockets of his coat and bringing out the slippers in their plastic container and the red nightgown set.

  He handed the slippers to Alyce and shook the nightgown and peignoir out from extended fingertips.

  “Do you recognize these?”

  Alyce was turning the tiny slippers over and over in her hands. She looked up and Shayne caught a glint of tears in her soft brown eyes. “They… just like some Mrs. Nathan had.”

  “When did you last see hers?”

  “I… just couldn’t say. Hanging up in her closet… she lay them out when she wanted me to launder them.”

  Shayne got to his feet. He said, “Let’s go to her room and see if hers are there.”

  She nodded with downcast eyes and got up carrying the slippers. She held out her hand for the two flimsy garments as though she felt it was not quite proper for a man to be handling them, and Shayne followed her out of the library to a wide stairway leading to the second floor. It was very still inside the house as they climbed the carpeted stairway.

  At the top, Alyce led the way to the front where she entered a pleasant, sunny sitting room with doors ope
ning out on both sides of it. There was a cretonne-covered sofa and two rocking chairs near the wide window at the far end of the room; at the left of the entrance door was a gleaming rosewood desk with a matching chair in front of it.

  Alyce motioned to the door on the right and said, “That is Mr. Nathan’s room.” She turned to open the door on the left and said, “I’ll go see,” closing the door behind her as though she deemed it improper for a strange man to see the interior of her dead mistress’s bedroom.

  Shayne strolled across toward the window and stubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray on the small table between the two rocking chairs.

  Alyce came back through the bedroom door and her features were tight and strained, her lips were trembling. She said brokenly. “It must be so then, isn’t it? I didn’t… I just couldn’t… I kept thinking… I’m sorry, sir.” She tried to draw herself up stiffly, avoiding Shayne’s gaze.

  He said quietly. “Then they are hers, Alyce?”

  “Yes, sir. Her slippers and that same set aren’t there. You’ll have to excuse me, sir, but… it just came to me, like…”

  Shayne said, “It’s all right. We had to be sure. You’ve been very helpful.” He moved to her and touched her arm gently. “Who uses this desk, Alyce?”

  “That one? Mrs. Nathan. That’s where she makes out the marketing lists, does the household accounts and writes out checks to pay bills.”

  Shayne said, “She did all that? Not Mr. Nathan?”

  “She always said it was the duty of a lady to take care of household things.”

  Besides, Shayne couldn’t help thinking to himself, it was her money she was spending. She would be one to keep a firm grip on expenditures.

  He turned to the desk and pulled out the wide center drawer. A large flat checkbook lay on top of other neatly arranged papers, the kind that has three checks to the page.

  He lifted it out and opened it on the desk to the final entry she had made before her death.

  It was the top check on that page, dated four days previously and the stub was neatly made out to “cash,” $100.00. The balance in the account after that check was deducted was $2,962.25. Above the line for the signature on the checks themselves was the printed name, “Elsa Armbruster.” So, she hadn’t opened a joint account with her husband after they were married. Shayne wondered if he had a personal account of his own, and if so, what his balance was.

  He turned the stubs backward slowly, glancing down at the three separate notations on each sheet of stubs. Elsa had been a methodical account-keeper. Each stub was dated, the payee and amount noted clearly, and the purpose of each check meticulously entered.

  The entries seemed ordinary enough; dry cleaner, a florist, a doctor bill, a $50 donation to a charity. She didn’t write a great many small checks. They were all for fair-sized sums, indicating that she waited for bills to be rendered monthly.

  He stopped on the third page back, his eyes glinting with excitement. The stub was dated almost exactly one month previously. The amount was $250, payable to “Max Wentworth.” Beneath the name, the single word “Retainer” appeared.

  Shayne knew quite a bit about Max Wentworth, none of it very good. He straightened up with the checkbook open in front of him, a questioning scowl on his face, when he heard a car coming up the drive fast, and slow with a protesting screech of brakes beneath the porte-cochere beside his own car.

  Behind him, Alyce said hurriedly, “That will be Mr. Nathan now. Maybe I’d best go down…”

  Shayne said, “I’ll go with you,” and followed her, leaving the checkbook open on the rosewood desk behind him.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Paul Nathan was closing the front door behind him when they reached the foot of the stairs. He was a few years younger than the man Shayne had expected from the picture in the paper; smooth-faced with the ruddy glow of good health in his cheeks, wearing a dark suit and a neat, black bow tie. He had thinning, dark-brown hair, and he looked just about as distraught and harried as one would expect of a man who had been making funeral arrangements for an unfaithful wife who had taken her own life.

  He moved toward them slowly, glancing at the maid and then to Shayne behind her with somewhat hostile curiosity, and then back to the maid again. He stopped in front of the open library door and said, “I see we have company, Alyce.”

  “Yes, sir. This man, he’s from the police. You told me I was to…”

  Nathan interrupted, “Of course, Alyce. I can use a drink, please.” He looked at Shayne again with lifted eyebrows. “Will you join me?”

  Shayne nodded and told Alyce, “A straight brandy, if you have some on tap.” She turned toward the rear of the house and Shayne moved forward with hand outstretched. “I’m sorry to bother you at a time like this, Mr. Nathan.”

  Nathan narrowed his eyes and his lips pulled away from his teeth slightly. He disregarded Shayne’s proffered hand. “You’re not from the police,” he exclaimed. “I recognize you now. You’re Michael Shayne. You… found them last night. What right have you to be here impersonating the police?”

  “I simply told your maid I was a detective. She invited me in.”

  “Did she invite you to go snooping around upstairs?” demanded Nathan angrily.

  “I brought a nightgown of your wife’s and a pair of her bedroom slippers home with me,” Shayne told him coldly. “We went upstairs to be positive they were hers.”

  Nathan’s face crumpled suddenly, and he turned his head aside, took a stumbling step into the library where he stood with his face averted.

  Behind him, Shayne said in a gentler tone, “I’m doing a job, Nathan. You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to, but I think we can close the case fast if you’re willing to answer a few questions.”

  “Close the case?” Nathan whirled on him, his face distorted. “I thought it was closed. God in heaven! Haven’t I suffered enough?”

  “There are still a few loose ends.”

  “What concern are they of yours? If the police are satisfied, what possible business is it of yours?”

  “I told you I’m doing a job,” Shayne reminded him inflexibly.

  “Old Eli, eh?” Paul Nathan spoke bitterly. “That old buzzard! I might have known he’d stir up a stink. Can’t let his own daughter lie quietly in her grave the way she wanted. Damn his meddling old soul to hell. He tried to turn her against me from the beginning. I hope he’s satisfied now that the whole world knows what his precious daughter was.” He turned away abruptly again, stalked across the library to a deep chair and dropped into it, breathing hard.

  The maid entered unobtrusively, carrying a tray. She went directly to Nathan and he took a tall highball glass from it, and she turned back to Shayne with a large snifter glass and a small amount of cognac in it.

  Shayne accepted it with a nod of thanks, and she left the room silently. He didn’t wait for an invitation, but moved to a chair in front of Nathan and sat down. “Did your wife leave you a note, Mr. Nathan?”

  Nathan had the glass to his mouth and was avidly gulping the contents. He set it down beside him when it was half-empty, and his face hardened.

  “If your wife left you a note under the same circumstances, do you think you’d make it public?”

  “I’m not suggesting you make it public. If I could testify to the existence of such a note it would go a long way toward satisfying your father-in-law that further investigation would be useless.”

  “You mean it would convince the old bastard that I had nothing to do with my wife’s death. Isn’t that what you mean?” sneered Nathan.

  Shayne said cautiously, “He does harbor some such suspicion.”

  “And he’s willing to spend a fortune trying to smear me though it wasn’t I who brought this about. It wasn’t I who broke up our marriage and shacked up with someone else. He can’t do very much about changing that fact.”

  “Did she leave you a note?”

  “Yes, damn it. And I destroyed it as soon as I read
it after coming here from the morgue last night. It was a private communication between wife and husband, and I shall respect it as such.”

  Shayne sighed and took a sip of cognac. It was fine, mellow stuff, but somehow it didn’t taste very good in his mouth. Nathan truculently lifted his glass and drank deeply from it again.

  Shayne asked quietly, “Were you aware that your wife was having this affair?”

  “God, no!” Nathan’s hand jerked and he set the glass down. “I hadn’t the faintest idea. I still can’t believe…” He lifted his left hand to his face and rubbed the spread fingers across it slowly.

  “I understand she was always alone on Friday nights?”

  “Yes. That was her idea. I was allowed that night out.” There was an underlying note of bitterness in Nathan’s voice. “You’d have to know Elsa to understand. She was always so logical. So… so right. She had it all figured out, you see. The basis for an enduring marriage. That we should each have one night a week on our own… with no questions asked on either side.”

  “But it didn’t make for a happy marriage?”

  “Oh, it was happy enough. At least, I considered it so.”

  “Then why did you ask her for a divorce?”

  “I?” Paul Nathan jerked his head up in astonishment.

  “Some months ago, according to her father. And you demanded a quarter of a million dollars cash settlement.”

  Nathan shook his head disbelievingly and then settled back with a short, harsh laugh. “That old bastard! It was Elsa who asked me for a divorce, and he knows it. Sure. I told her okay if she felt like putting out two hundred and fifty thousand. What’s wrong with that?” he demanded angrily. “Why shouldn’t a woman pay off to get a divorce just the way men do? They rave about equality of the sexes. Elsa was always harping on the subject. So I said, ‘Let’s make it a two-way street.’”

  “And Eli knew this?”

  “Of course he knew it. He egged her on to get a divorce. In fact, she told me that he offered to make up half the amount himself.”