Weep for a Blonde

by Brett Halliday

  “I just this moment got here, Officer.” Kane stepped forward. “He killed her. Arrest him. And be careful because he’s armed.”

  “With Kane’s gun which I had to take away from him,” Shayne explained, lifting the .38 from his pocket and holding it out to Painter. He put the palm of his other hand up to the side of his neck and took it away to display a smear of blood. “He came running in and threw a bullet at me without asking questions.”

  “Why not?” raged Kane. “Why should I listen to your lies? See here, Officer. This man has been molesting my wife. I warned him last night to stay away from her. And again this noon after I caught her telephoning him this morning. I demand that you arrest him for murder.”

  “There’s nothing I would enjoy more,” Peter Painter assured him coldly. He took the gun from Shayne’s hand and glanced at it, passed it to one of the detectives. “You admit this is your gun, Kane?”

  “Of course I admit it. Ask him where his is. The one he killed her with.”

  “All right, Shayne.” Painter seemed to strut as he held out his hand. “Give us your gun, too.”

  Shayne lifted his arms and said wearily, “Search me if you like. I haven’t any.”

  “Where is it?”

  “If you’d settle down and ask a few pertinent questions, you’d find out. I said over the phone that the killer got away in a car after I chased him through the water on the beach below. Any results on the radio pick-up?”

  “Not yet,” Painter told him happily. “We had every street in this vicinity cut off within two minutes of your call. Did you dive into the ocean after the guy?”

  Shayne looked down at his wet clothing. He said, “I stumbled on the beach.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “I didn’t see him.” Shayne shrugged and moved back to the sofa to sit down, disregarding the damage he might do to the upholstery. He splashed a small portion of cognac into his glass and Painter watched him for a moment with compressed lips, then motioned to his men and strode with them to examine the corpse. “You go into the other room where I can talk to you privately,” he told Kane. “Don’t worry about getting this straightened out.”

  Two other police cars pulled up outside and Shayne sat back on the sofa nursing his drink and watched grimly while technicians bustled in and pictures were shot of the corpse from various angles, chalk marks made on the rug, and Painter withdrew to the dining room beyond the stairs to interview Richard Kane.

  He returned happily with a sergeant who had a stenographer’s notebook, and motioned him to sit at a side table while he stood erect in front of the redhead and said, “It looks real bad this time, Shamus. According to Mr. Kane, you slipped out here tonight as soon as his back was turned, and were alone with the lady when she got killed. It looks like a .38 did the job. That’s what you have a license to carry, isn’t it?”

  Shayne said, “Yes.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I grabbed it out of the glove compartment of my car when I heard a shot in here.”

  “After Kane had telephoned his wife and heard her tell you that it was her husband on the phone?” demanded Painter.

  Shayne said, “That’s right. She was afraid of her husband and wanted me to get out before he got here. Before we get involved with all this,” he went on, “I can prove my story about chasing someone through the water. Send a man around to the other side of the stone wall south of here and they’ll find a stairway leading down to the shore. There’ll still be damp footprints there where he ran up out of the water to get in his car. At least, I hope to God they haven’t dried out yet.”

  “You waited long enough to tell us that. Why? So if they are dried now we won’t be able to prove they were never there?”

  “Because I didn’t think of it in time,” Shayne said angrily. “And now you’re wasting more time.”

  Painter turned his head to order one of the detectives to go around the wall and check the stairs beyond for wet footprints. Then he said, “I’m still asking where your gun is?”

  “I lost it when I fell in the water. It’s there in the sand. All we have to do is find it to prove it hasn’t been fired for months.”

  After soaking in salt water for a few hours? Sure you didn’t throw it away just so it couldn’t be checked?”

  “For God’s sake,” Shayne said roughly. “Ballistics will tell you soon enough that my gun didn’t kill her.”

  Painter nodded. “If it is ever found. If you didn’t take care to throw it out so far it can’t be found … after wading out a good distance to make sure,” he added with a significant glance at Shayne’s wet clothing.

  “You can’t seriously believe I killed her, Painter. She was a client. I don’t go around killing my clients.”

  “How much more than a client was she? My God, Shayne, don’t you realize the spot you’re in? Twice during the last twenty-four hours a woman’s husband has publicly warned you to leave her alone. You admit you sneaked out here tonight to be alone with her and that you knew what he’d do if he caught you here and that she was fool enough to let him hear her speak your name when he called home. Wouldn’t she let you run away in time, Shayne? Is that why you killed her? Did she beg you to stay here like a man and take the consequences?’

  Shayne took a sip of cognac and said, “Nuts. You see the back door standing open and the stairs where I ran down after the killer. If I had done it, why would I go to all that trouble?”

  “It’s just the sort of thing a smart cookie like you would do, Shayne.” Painter’s thin voice vibrated with anger. “A chance to get rid of the gun before Ballistics got hold of it … a pretense of chasing somebody who was never here at all. Just the sort of thing you would think up fast with a dead woman lying on the floor and her husband likely to pull up any moment. You’ve played it just that smart in the past, Shayne. You’ve been pulling your crooked deals in Miami for a lot of years, but this time you’re really on the spot. You can’t deny you were Lydia Kane’s lover and that her husband knew it and was insanely jealous. Good Lord, both the Miami papers have front-page stories attesting to that.”

  Shayne said, “I hadn’t seen her for at least ten years before last night.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  Shayne shrugged. “Can you prove differently?”

  “We’ll have Richard Kane’s testimony in court. Isn’t it a fact that she tried to phone you surreptitiously this morning the instant she thought her husband was safely out of the way? And that you sneaked out here tonight to be alone with her?”

  Shayne said, “I couldn’t stop her from phoning me this morning and I drove up tonight in clear view without doing any sneaking. Instead of wasting your time on me, start looking for the man she was seeing behind her husband’s back a few months ago. The one who did use the beach and the back stairs as a way of getting in and out of the house after her husband put a detective on her. He’s the logical one to look for.”

  “Kane didn’t mention him to me.”

  Painter turned away as the detective whom he had sent to check the other stairway returned. The man shook his head stolidly, not looking at Shayne. “Nothing very definite,” he reported. “It’s a vacant lot there, with a dead-end street ending at a stairway for bathers to get down to the beach. I’d say somebody has maybe been up or down in the last half hour or so. Don’t see how you’d come closer than that.

  Peter Painter turned back to Shayne and demanded, “What do you say to that?”

  “I say that about fifteen minutes ago when I ran through the water to the bottom of that stairway there were soaking wet footprints leading up. And I heard a car start up at the top and pull away fast. That had to be the killer.”

  “Everything points to you being the only person here with her, Shayne.”

  Michael Shayne emptied his cognac glass and sighed and turned to address the sergeant with his stenographic pad. He said, “Here’s my statement for the record. I met Mrs. Kane by chance at La Martinique las
t night for the first time in more than ten years. I had my secretary to dinner, and Mrs. Kane came to our table and spoke to us. Mr. Kane misinterpreted it, being insanely jealous. Mrs. Kane telephoned my office this morning and my secretary monitored the call. Kane broke in on the line from the upstairs extension, and later he hunted me up where I was having luncheon with Timothy Rourke and repeated his ridiculous accusation. I tried to reason with him and knocked him down.

  “When I got home this evening, my phone was ringing and it was Mrs. Kane. She was practically hysterical with fear and asked to consult me professionally. So I came out. I found her here in this room, apparently alone in the house, and she told me she was deathly afraid of her husband’s jealous temper and wanted me to recommend a detective whom she could employ to check up on her to convince her husband she was a faithful wife. She told me she had had a love affair with someone whom she called Roger a few months ago, and that her husband had gotten the goods on them by having them watched by a local detective.

  “She further related, as proof of her husband’s dangerous temper, that her lover had come around by the shore one night … at low tide when there’s a dry strip of sand against the cliff … and up the back stairs through the kitchen while her husband was out. Kane returned unexpectedly, flourishing a gun and chased him away. She gave this as reason for her husband’s jealousy of me, and while I was advising her to leave the guy and get a divorce if necessary, the telephone rang. She answered, and it was her husband. She was startled and told me who was calling, and he overheard her telling me. He threatened to come home at once, and she was frightened and begged me to leave. She was practically hysterical and I went out to my car, planning to drive down the driveway and intercept Kane at the gate to try and reason with him.

  “Before I could start my motor … not more than sixty seconds, I’d say … after walking out of this room, I heard a single shot from inside. I got my gun from the glove compartment and ran back into the house.”

  Painter, who was listening to the recital with patient interest while the sergeant took it down in shorthand, interrupted to ask, “How long did you stay inside here after Kane hung up the phone?”

  “Not long. No more than a minute, certainly.”

  Painter nodded happily, caressing his thin mustache with a glossy thumbnail. “Then, according to your own testimony, she was shot within two minutes after the telephone connection with her husband was broken?”

  Shayne hesitated, thinking back carefully, then nodded. “As closely as I can place the sequence of events, yes. That’s about it.”

  “Definitely not enough elapsed time,” Painter pressed him, “for Kane to have got here, slipped inside and gunned her … no matter where he made his call from.”

  “Definitely not time enough for that,” Shayne conceded. “In fact.…” He hesitated again, tugging at his earlobe thoughtfully. “I’ve been a damned fool,” he exploded. “Whoever killed her had to have been right here in the house all the time. There’s that floodlight on the back stairs. When I first turned it on and ran down them, the stairs were dry. No wet footprints … proving the killer had not crossed that strip of beach at high tide to get in. So he must have been concealed in the house all the time I was here with her. As soon as I went out the front door, he shot her and ran out the back.”

  “Seems to me you’re making it tougher for us to believe all the time,” said Painter complacently. “You’re suggesting she had another visitor who was here already when she phoned you to come out?”

  Shayne growled, “I’m trying to avoid suggesting anything. I’m telling you the facts for the record.”

  “All right. Get on with it,” said Painter sharply.

  “When you interrupted me,” Shayne thought back, “I told you how I ran back into the house with my gun out. I found her lying like that. My first thought, naturally, was that she had committed suicide. But there was no weapon in sight, and a good look at the wound showed no powder marks. Then I realized the back door was standing open and a breeze blowing in … which hadn’t been when I went out. I ran down the hall to the kitchen and turned on the light, found the back door wide open. I switched on the floodlight and ran down the dry stairs, and through six inches to a foot of water along the base of the cliff, and stumbled as I told you and lost my gun. But I went on to the next stairway up and heard a car pulling away. So I hurried back and telephoned in a report. Then I waited about five minutes before Kane showed up. He ran in with a gun, took one look at his wife and saw me, and threw one slug at me before I jumped him and disarmed him. That’s the whole story,” he ended flatly.

  “I see. And you contend she had another man hidden here all the time while you were talking to her?”

  Shayne said, “I contend there was someone here, whether she knew it or not. All that strip of beach must be under water for at least two hours at high tide. Maybe he had slipped in through the kitchen unknown to her and was hidden in the back or upstairs all the time.” Shayne shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. From the way Lydia acted, I certainly gathered the impression she thought we were alone.”

  “Ah. From the way Lydia acted.” Painter pounced on the phrase triumphantly. “How did Lydia act, Shayne? Tell us exactly what you mean.”

  “Not what you suppose with your dirty little mind,” said Shayne disgustedly. “She was frightened half to death and wanted help. Frankly, I don’t believe she suspected the presence of anyone else.”

  “And frankly,” said Peter Painter happily, “I don’t suspect anyone else either.” He turned to issue a crisp order to one of the men behind him. “Do a complete job of dusting for fingerprints over the entire house. Top to bottom. You can get samples of Mr. and Mrs. Kane’s prints … and he tells me they have a maid who comes in days. You should be able to segregate her prints from some of the kitchen utensils. If there has been any other person hiding in this house for an hour or more this evening, he must have left his prints some place superimposed on the Kanes’ or the maid’s. I want proof that will stand up in court that there has been no such person here. You agree, don’t you, Mr. Shayne,” he added silkily, turning back with his lips drawn away from his teeth, “that it’s quite unlikely any intruder could stay concealed in the house a couple of hours without leaving some fingerprints?”

  “Unless he took the precaution to wear gloves.”

  “Then there’ll be smudged indications,” said Painter promptly. “And my men will find them. You know, Shayne? I think you’ve really outsmarted yourself this time.”

  Shayne said, “While you’re making so much effort to hang it on me, why not get Kane back in here and ask him the identity of his wife’s friend who used to slip in the back way? The killer had to be someone who was familiar with that way of getting in and out of the house.”

  Peter Painter said, “We’ll do just that.” He nodded to another of his men. “Bring Kane in now.”

  The man went out the archway from the living room, and returned a few minutes later with Richard Kane. Lydia’s body still lay on the floor, but it had been covered with a silk scarf taken from the piano, and the widower averted his eyes from it as he went by. He carried a highball glass in his hand and his dark features were sullen and brooding, but he appeared more sober than when he had first burst into the room with gun in hand.

  “What you fooling around for?” he demanded angrily of Painter. “Why haven’t you got that murdering redhead in jail where he belongs?”

  “All in good time,” Painter told him happily. “He’s squeezed out of some tight places in the past, and this time I want it tied up without any loopholes. You can help us head him straight for the chair by giving us the name of the man your wife was too friendly with a few months ago. His testimony is about all we need right now.”

  “What man you talking about?” Kane seemed scarcely to have heard Painter’s words as he stood flat-footed glaring at Shayne who was still relaxed on the sofa.

  “First name of Roger,” Painter prompted him. “S
hayne tells us you had a detective following your wife and him, and caught him here with her practically in flagrante one night.”

  “Lydia and a man?” Kane was jarred out of his sullen belligerence. He scowled angrily at Painter. “Never heard of anybody named Roger. Never had any detective follow my wife. What sort of nasty lies is he telling to save his own skin?”

  Peter Painter chuckled happily and said, “That’s one you’d better answer, Shamus.”

  9

  Michael Shayne surged to his feet at Painter’s jeering remark. “You know all about it, Kane. Don’t try to hold anything like that back. Who is the man Lydia had an affair with a few months ago?”

  “You damned scoundrel.” Kane set his glass on the table and doubled his fists. “Nobody can say a thing like that about my wife.”

  Shayne said, “She’s dead now. And this is a police investigation. There aren’t any reporters here. None of this will get out … unless the guy murdered her and the truth comes out at the trial. But you can’t cover up for the man who most likely shot her.”

  “I’m not covering up for anybody. I know you killed her as well as the police do. I haven’t any idea what sort of red herring you’re trying to drag in.”

  Shayne stood very still, breathing hard and fighting to control his anger. “We’ll get it anyhow, Kane. The local detective you retained will come forward to testify. You can’t hide things in a murder investigation. Give us the man’s name now so Painter can check his alibi fast.”

  “There isn’t any man. There hasn’t been any man … until you came along, damn it.” Richard Kane’s voice was hoarse with anger.

  Shayne said, “She told me the whole story tonight … though she did deny it was anything more than a flirtation with some man she called Roger. But she explained that was the reason you were so suspicious of her now. Because she had been foolish previously. You can’t deny putting a detective on her trail.”