Murder and the Wanton Bride

by Brett Halliday

  Shayne stopped with his back to Painter and to the other Beach cops. He stood for a moment with his back to them, big shoulders hunched forward a trifle, legs widespread and planted firmly as though they refused to carry him forward in response to Painter’s suggestion.

  Then he moved away from the spotlights without looking back, walked stolidly down the street in search of a cruising taxi to take him back across the Causeway to Miami.

  4

  Michael Shayne had been gone about forty-five minutes when he reentered the hotel. The desk clerk looked up with an eager smile and planted both elbows on the counter as the detective approached.

  “Gee, Mr. Shayne. No trouble, huh? I thought you and that detective from the Beach were really going to tangle.”

  Shayne said, “No trouble, Pete. The woman you phoned about still here?”

  “Sure. Up in your place. I had Charley take her up after I talked with you at Miss Hamilton’s. Then when you went off, I sent him up to say you’d been delayed. Look, Mr. Shayne, it sounded like you maybe didn’t get it straight on the telephone. I tried to tell you she wasn’t much to look at, but you kept going on about her being young and passionate and all. I just didn’t get it.”

  Shayne grinned widely and said, “Forget it, Pete. I was trying to make Miss Hamilton jealous. Call her, will you?”

  “Miss Hamilton?” Pete straightened up.

  “Yea. I’d like to speak to her before I go up.”

  “Sure. Take it in the booth there.”

  Pete turned back to the switchboard which he handled on night duty, and Shayne sauntered over to a booth at one side of the desk. He lifted the receiver after Pete nodded to him, and heard Lucy’s telephone ringing. It stopped after three rings and her voice sang over the wire, “Hello?”

  “Lucy? Still awake?”

  “Is that you, Michael? I certainly am awake. I’ve been wanting to call you, but hated to interrupt at just the wrong moment.”

  “Painter call you?”

  “He certainly did. And sounded particularly nasty even for Painter. He didn’t actually call me a liar out loud, Michael, but he gave the definite impression he didn’t believe me when I told him you do not have a nine o’clock appointment with a client tomorrow.”

  “I don’t, do I?”

  “Of course not, Michael. Nine o’clock in the morning? Nor any other time tomorrow for that matter. In fact, we haven’t got any clients at the moment period. Unless, of course, the one you’ve got in your bedroom is.”

  Shayne chuckled and said, “Tut, angel, and a couple more tuts. I’m calling from downstairs after returning from the Beach and a hassle with Painter. I’ll report on her in the morning.”

  “What is it with Painter, Michael? Honestly, I never heard him sound so furiously frustrated.”

  “His usual trouble, angel,” Shayne told her airily. “He’s got himself a murder he doesn’t know how to solve, and this time I’m not going to help. Get your beauty sleep.”

  “I will. And you … well, there’s no use my telling you what to do. I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time … damn it.”

  Shayne hesitated a moment, then said gently, “You know I won’t, angel. You’ve spoiled me for that. I’ll … be thinking of you.”

  She said, “Good night, Michael,” and her voice was soft.

  He felt better as he hung up, and squared his shoulders and strode toward the waiting elevator with Charley inside the door.

  “Understand I’ve got company,” he said as the door closed.

  The colored lad beamed at him and said, “You sho have, Mist’r Shayne. A real nice lady in bad trouble I reckon.”

  Shayne got off on the second floor and went down the corridor and found his door closed, though light showed through the transom. He knocked lightly and waited, had his hand raised to knock again when the door opened and his midnight visitor stood there in front of him.

  She was plumply thirtyish, he guessed, with decidedly nice features that were badly in need of fresh makeup. Her blue eyes were red-rimmed from tears, and her taffy-colored hair with Dutch bangs framed a round face and what should have been a peaches-and-cream complexion, but wasn’t.

  She wore a blue and white cotton print housedress that was belted a little too high and a little too tightly and managed to give the impression that she had made it herself, service-weight hose and sensible, low-heeled brown pumps.

  Her eyes and mouth made three round O’s as she looked up at him, and Shayne dragged off his hat to tell her matter-of-factly, “I’m sorry I was held up. I’m Michael Shayne.”

  “Oh, Mr. Shayne.” She swallowed hard and ducked her head in embarrassment. “I know it’s awful for me to come here like this and I don’t know whatever you’ll think of me, but … but I just had to see you and tonight was my only chance. I told the clerk downstairs I’d just as lief wait for you in the lobby, but he insisted I’d be more comfortable up here and said it was sort of your office, like, and that you always said he should send people up to wait.”

  Shayne said gravely, “It is sort of my office, like. For many years I had no other office.” He walked past her, tossing his hat onto a rack near the door, and went on to a wall liquor cabinet at the rear and asked with his back to her, “Can I get you anything to drink? Waiting is a dry business.”

  “Oh, no. Nothing for me, thank you. I almost never take anything, and I have to drive all the way back and all. But you go right ahead.”

  Shayne took down a bottle of cognac and a four-ounce glass, carried them into the kitchen where he arranged them on a tray, put ice-cubes and water in a tall glass.

  When he returned with the tray his visitor had seated herself primly at one end of the sofa and was gazing with downcast eyes at her stubby, work-roughened fingers writhing together in her lap.

  Shayne put the tray on the center table and turned a deep chair in her direction but not looking directly toward her. He poured cognac in the small glass and took a sip, then drank a gulp of ice water and lit a cigarette. He settled back with long legs stretched in front of him and head against the cushion and said, “You haven’t introduced yourself yet.”

  “I’m Mrs. Harvey Barstow, Mr. Shayne. From Denham. That’s up in the interior. A little town.…”

  Shayne said, “I know the place. Have driven through it at least. What brings you to Miami, Mrs. Barstow?

  “To see you. To beg you to … That is, you haven’t talked with Mr. Carson yet, have you?”

  “Carson?” Shayne managed to keep most of the curiosity out of his voice. “No.”

  “I didn’t think so, knowing he’d made the appointment for early tomorrow morning. When you do talk to him, I just wish … oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s crazy for me to ask. But don’t some private detectives have a conscience. Don’t some of you think about the consequences to other people when you go snooping and prying into a person’s private life?”

  Shayne said gravely, “Private detectives aren’t much different from other people, Mrs. Barstow. We get paid for a job … we do it. Hadn’t you better start at the beginning and tell me what you want.”

  With her head still hanging and in a muffled voice, she said, “I’m trying to. It’s so hard to get started. It’s Harvey, Mr. Shayne. My husband. And Mrs. Carson. Belle Carson.” Speaking the name brought resonance to Mrs. Barstow’s voice. She lifted her head and looked directly at the detective.

  “That’s what Mr. Carson made the appointment about. I know it is, though Harvey’s such a trusting fool he doesn’t believe it for a minute. He thinks it has something to do with the bank … like some money missing or something. He doesn’t even believe that Mr. Carson even suspects anything between him and Belle, when everybody in Denham knows how they carry on. It’s all that awful woman’s fault, Mr. Shayne. Harvey’s a good man, but a woman like Belle can make a fool out of any man. Look at how long it took her to get her hooks into Mr. Carson … and him a bachelor over forty.”

  “How long did it take?”
Shayne asked with interest.

  “No more’n a month after she showed up in Denham to work in the bank. But was she satisfied with marrying the most eligible bachelor in town? Not Belle, you can bet your life. Anything that wears pants is fair game to her. So you can’t hardly blame Harvey. Working there with her in the bank in the beginning like he did.”

  “Your husband works in the bank?”

  “Has for years. Even before Mr. Carson became the president. He’s Mr. Carson’s right-hand man, you might say, and that’s another reason why it’s so terrible for him to mess around with Belle. Soon as Mr. Carson finds out for sure, what do you think’ll happen to Harvey’s job? And to me and the children?”

  “You think Mr. Carson does suspect, and that he made an appointment with me tomorrow morning to get evidence against his wife and your husband?”

  “I don’t know as he really suspects Harvey. People always say a husband is the last one to know about such things. But I know good and well what you’ll find out as soon as you start checking up, and that’s why I came here tonight.”

  “How do you know about Carson’s appointment with me?”

  “Harvey told me about it that evening after he wrote the letter to you. He takes all Mr. Carson’s dictation since Belle married him and quit the bank. She wouldn’t stand him hiring another woman secretary, Harvey says, and him being such a good typist and all, he does it instead.”

  “And you came here to ask me … what?” Shayne drained his glass and turned his head slightly to look into her round blue eyes.

  She wet her lips and looked down at her hands and then up again, half-frightened, half-defiant.

  “To see what kind of man you are, Mr. Shayne. To beg you not to break up our marriage. I know it’s just a job to you like you say, but how can it help anything for Harvey to maybe lose his job, and all that scandal and Mr. Carson maybe getting a divorce and then Harvey quitting me and the children and going off with her for all I know.” Her voice was hoarsely despairing. “Do any of you detectives ever think about the harm you bring into people’s lives when you do a job like that? Well! Do you?”

  Shayne didn’t bother to tell her that he never touched divorce cases. He asked, “Do you want me to refuse to take the job, Mrs. Barstow?”

  “What good would that do? Mr. Carson would just go to another one, and he might be worse. You look like a decent man, Mr. Shayne. Not at all like I thought a private detective would be.”

  “What did you think a private detective would be like?” Shayne asked with a smile.

  “You needn’t laugh.” She tightened her lips. “I had one experience that taught me a lesson about detectives.”

  “What was that, Mrs. Barstow?” Shayne half-filled his wine-glass from the bottle and stared down at the amber fluid as he turned the glass slowly in his fingers.

  “It was last year,” she told him tremulously. “When it got so I just couldn’t stand the way Harvey was about Belle … pretending to be working late at the bank when he wasn’t at all, and slipping out to meet her on the back roads. All I could think of was to scare her into leaving Harvey alone and I wrote a letter to this detective … picked his name out of the telephone book because I didn’t know any other way. I told him I was just sure there must be something bad back in her past … a woman like Belle … it just stands to reason that she wasn’t any innocent girl when she came to take the bank job in Denham. I just knew that if a detective checked back on her in Atlanta … that’s where she comes from … that he’d turn up something she wouldn’t want Mr. Carson to know about.”

  “You wanted the information to blackmail her with?” asked Shayne.

  “Is it blackmail for a woman to try and save her own home?” she demanded fiercely. “I just thought if I could find out something I could hold it over her to make her leave Harvey alone and send him back to his home to be a father to his two little innocent children.”

  “Did you get something?”

  “That’s just it, Mr. Shayne. I got crooked out of my money, that’s what. Money I’d scrimped and saved from Harvey’s salary and that he didn’t know about. This detective wrote back that I was to send him two hundred dollars for what he called a retainer and expenses, and I did. And then three weeks later I got another letter from him in Atlanta, and he was excited and said he’d found out something all right that would cook Belle’s goose for her good, but it needed another week’s work for him to get the evidence and I was to send him another hundred. I didn’t even quite have that much, but I borrowed fifteen from a friend to make up the hundred and sent it to him. And I never heard another word from him, Mr. Shayne. After a month, I wrote a letter to his office where I’d written first and it came back stamped No Forwarding Address. What do you think of that? He just plain stole my money, that’s what. Can you blame me for being leery of private detectives?”

  “No,” Shayne agreed gravely. “But I assure you we’re not all of us like that. Let’s get back to the present situation. You haven’t told me yet exactly what you hope to accomplish by this trip. Does your husband know you’re here, by the way?”

  “Goodness, no. He’d have a fit if he knew. Like I say, he doesn’t even suspect why Mr. Carson wants to see you. Thinks it’s just some business to do with the bank … and that worries him because he’s just positive there’s nothing wrong with the accounts or like that, and he can’t figure why a private detective is needed. And I just haven’t had the heart to tell him Mr. Shayne. How can I? He’d fly right off the handle if I ever dared mention him and Belle.

  “But where do you think he is this very night? That’s when I made up my mind to drive in and see you. Right after dinner he made the excuse of Mr. Carson seeing you tomorrow to say he had to go back and do night-work to be sure everything was in perfect order. With me knowing as well as he did that Mr. Carson was spending the night in Miami and Belle there alone in her big house. Night-work! I knew well enough the kind of night-work he had in mind. So I waited about an hour and when I couldn’t stand it any longer I bundled the children up in the car and left him a note saying I’d gone to my sister’s to spend the night. And I drove by the bank just to be sure, and sure enough there weren’t any lights there. And I drove past the Carson house and you can bet there were plenty of lights on there. So I dumped the children at my sister’s and drove straight on in to try and see you. I knew you wouldn’t be in your office so I looked up this address in the directory.”

  Shayne drank from his glass and took a sip of ice water. “You still haven’t said what you expect me to do.”

  “I thought … well … couldn’t you take the case and then come out to Denham and snoop around a little, and then maybe have a little private talk with Harvey and frighten him good? Tell him right out that you’ve got the evidence, but don’t want to break up a couple of homes by telling Mr. Carson the truth. Tell him that if he so much as looks at Belle Carson again that you’ll send your report in.”

  “Withholding information from my client would be exactly as unethical as what your detective did, Mrs. Barstow. Do you realize what you’re suggesting? That I accept a retainer from Mr. Carson and then doublecross him by not reporting the truth.”

  “You could give him back his money, I thought,” she said faintly. “We’d make it up to you. I’d see that Harvey did that. We’ve got a savings account with almost five hundred dollars in it.” Her voice was pitiably low and her work-roughened hands were writhing together in her lap again. “Pay you extra, even, if you didn’t charge Mr. Carson that much.”

  Shayne sighed, marvelling again as he had so often in the past at the elasticity of feminine morality. It was perfectly clear that Mrs. Barstow saw nothing at all wrong with her suggestion. She was fighting desperately for a weakling husband whom she loved, and ethics or morality simply didn’t enter her mind.

  But he kept his voice gentle as he told her, “I couldn’t possibly take any money from you or Mr. Barstow … nor could I withhold information from a client
if I took on the job. On the other hand,” he went on swiftly, “I may be able to handle it a different way so no one will be hurt. Tell me what sort of man Mr. Carson is. Describe him for me.”

  “He’s … well, medium height and sort of plump-faced. Has a mustache, grayish and cut short, and wears rimless glasses because he’s near-sighted. He’s just, well, sort of ordinary-looking. But he’s a real nice man,” she went on quickly. “A lot too nice for a woman like Belle, everybody in Denham thinks. Quiet and conservative, you know, like you think a banker should be.”

  “How does he generally dress, Mrs. Barstow?”

  “Real nice. A dark suit winter and summer, and a bowtie.”

  “Do you know how he got my name?”

  “No, I don’t. Harvey was some puzzled by that, too. Why he picked you out. He wondered about it that evening after he mailed the letter Mr. Carson dictated making the appointment. He’d read a lot about you in the paper, Harvey had. About some of your cases here in Miami, and it worried him some because you’re supposed to be so tough and ruthless. He kept harping on that and wondering if there was something he didn’t know about at the bank. Like, maybe, some danger of a holdup by city hoodlums, because he said that’s the only reason he could think of why Mr. Carson would pick out a detective with your reputation. So you can imagine how frightened I was coming here to see you tonight. Mercy! I didn’t know what to expect. But you’re not like that at all, Mr. Shayne. I just feel perfectly at home and comfortable talking to you, but it is mighty late and I guess I better be getting back.”

  She got up, smoothing down her cotton dress nervously, and Shayne got up with her.

  “I’m very glad you did come, Mrs. Barstow,” he told her truthfully. “You go back to Denham and those two children of yours and try not to worry. I give you my word that things will work out. I don’t think Harvey deserves a wife like you, but if he’s what you want I’ll do my best to see that he stops straying in the future.”