Murder and the Wanton Bride

by Brett Halliday

  “He thinks you did … or had something to do with it.”

  Shayne said shortly, “I don’t make a practice of bumping off my clients … or prospective clients either. Why did Walter want to see me?”

  “Don’t you really know?” She reached out for the glass and drank from it deeply.

  “I got some ideas in Atlanta. I want you to confirm them.”

  “I told you today that Walter didn’t confide in me.”

  “How much did you confide in him?”

  “What about, Red?”

  There was an unreal quality about the question-and-answer session that bothered Shayne tremendously. Her voice was languid and slurred and he knew she must be very drunk indeed, yet she appeared to be in full possession of her faculties. On the other hand, she appeared to be more amused than alarmed by his reappearance and his questions. It was as though she had no personal interest in the matter under discussion. As though she remained completely untouched by her husband’s death and by Shayne’s allusion to Atlanta.

  “About neglecting to get a divorce before you married him, for one thing.”

  She said, “Oh, that?” and her voice expressed utter contempt for such legalities.

  “You admit you didn’t?”

  “I’m admitting nothing, Red. Look. You’re acting stone cold sober. Whyn’t you pour some more from the pitcher and try to catch up with me?”

  “How did Walter feel about the bigamy charge?” persisted Shayne.

  “You mean when that other louse of a stinking private eye brought it up, Red?”

  “Sure. I’ve forgotten his name.”

  “I never knew his name myself. You in cahoots with him, Red?”

  “No. Did he come to Walter instead of you with the bigamy thing?”

  “Course he hit Walter! Wanted a pay-off, didn’t he? Who the hell you think is the money-bags around this house?” She reached out gropingly for the glass beside her without looking at it. There was half an inch of liquid in the bottom, and Shayne watched her drain it in the moonlight. He reached out to retrieve the empty glass from her listless fingers, and set it down out of her reach.

  “How much?” he asked quietly.

  “How much what, Red?”

  “How much money did he hit Walter for?”

  “I dunno. Not too heavy, I guess. Walter said I wasn’t to worry about it. Whyn’t you move over closer to me, Red?”

  Shayne moved his chair a little closer to hers. She lifted her hand and moved it toward him, and he enclosed it between his palms. Her eyes were closed and she said dreamily, “You know what, Red?”

  “What?”

  “I sure didn’t think you were any detective when you first showed up this morning.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Hell, no.” Her voice was quite belligerent. “Why should I? You don’t look like a detective.”

  “What do detectives look like?”

  “You know. Know what I did think at first, Red?”

  “No. What did you think at first?”

  “That Whitey’d sent you. That’s why I made that fast play for you. Remember?”

  Shayne said, “I remember. But I didn’t know that was why.” He wanted to ask her who Whitey was, but restrained himself. Her eyes remained closed and her voice was somnolent. In her present mood she might tell him anything if she weren’t aroused from it.

  “That was why at first. Until you kissed me, Red.”

  Shayne didn’t bother to mention the fact that his recollection of the incident was that she had kissed him. “After that, you didn’t think Whitey had sent me?”

  “After that, I didn’t give a damn,” she told him. She turned on her side toward him and her fingers tightened on the flesh of his palm. Her eyes remained closed but her lips were wetly parted. “Do it again, Red.”

  “What?”

  “Kiss me so I won’t give a damn again.” Her voice was thicker than before and he realized she was slipping away into an alcoholic stupor. He released one hand from hers and bent forward a little to press fingertips against her parted lips. The tip of her hot tongue came out to move against the calloused flesh.

  He said roughly: “Listen to me, Belle.”

  She complained, with her lips pressed hard against his hand, “You talk too much, Red.”

  “There’ll be time for other things later. Right now, I’ve got to move fast to find your husband’s killer. You want that, don’t you?”

  “What good’ll it do? Walter’s dead.”

  “Did you kill him, Belle?” Shayne’s voice was fiercely urgent. “Did you set him up on that street corner for a bullet in his forehead?”

  She remained lying indolently facing him with her eyes lightly closed. In the moonlight he could not detect the faintest quiver of emotion on her smooth face.

  “Suppose I told you I did, Red? What kind of guy are you? Would you arrest me and let me burn for it?” There was a queer sort of eagerness in her reply, a sense of ghoulish anticipation.

  Shayne asked harshly, “Did you?”

  “Would you like me better if I said yes? How do you get your kicks, Red? Is that what you look for in a woman? There was something about you when you first looked at me today, Red. Something that went right through me. What makes you tick, Red? Tell me and let’s tick together.”

  Her fingers gripped his hand fiercely, tugging to pull him closer to her. Her eyes opened abruptly under his gaze and flame glinted there in the moonlight. She had the tips of his fingers between her white teeth and was biting hard into the flesh and bone. There was something utterly wanton and primitive about her, and an instinctual drive deep within Shayne’s body responded to the naked lust that called out to him from her in the night.

  He found himself leaning closer and closer to her and her breathing became ragged and harsh in the silence, and then there was another sound that impinged on the pounding of blood in his eardrums.

  A slight, grating sound from beyond the terrace, but completely alien in the night silence.

  He continued leaning toward her, but lifted his eyes to look beyond her to the edge of the terrace without otherwise changing his posture.

  He saw a faint glint of moonlight on blued steel and the dim outline of a crouching figure blurred against the background of green shrubbery. Light from behind him faintly touched the hawklike, pallid features of a man he had never seen before.

  His muscles tensed and he slowly got his feet solidly underneath him as he bent closer to brush his lips across her forehead.

  Without warning, he launched his body across hers toward the crouching figure, smashing her lounging chair to the floor of the terrace with the weight of his body at the instant that a tongue of flame lanced at them from the glint of steel.

  The bullet raked his left bicep, passing inches above Belle’s body as it struck the floor, and there was a crashing sound in the shrubbery as Shayne disentangled himself from her chair and leaped off onto the grass.

  He hesitated a second, heard fleeing footsteps to his left around the front of the house, started running in that direction but came to an abrupt halt when a motor roared loudly by the front porch.

  He turned back, saw one of the French doors swing open and the figure of the colored man-servant dart out onto the terrace and bend over the figure of his mistress whom Shayne knew was not harmed.

  He circled back swiftly around the shrubbery and beyond the range of light, reached his own car and leaped in, turned on the headlights, started the motor and lunged forward around the garage and into the driveway from the rear of the house just in time to see red taillights turning into the highway at the end of the gently curving drive.

  He stepped on the accelerator and gained speed down the slope braking hard at the end of the driveway when he saw a car parked without lights just inside the turnoff.

  His headlights showed the insignia, “DENHAM P. D.” in large white letters on the side of the car, and he slammed to a stop beside it at sight of a unifo
rmed figure slumped behind the wheel.

  He got out and jerked the door of the police car open, felt first for the man’s steady pulse, and then found a large lump on the side of his head just above his left ear.

  He slammed the door shut and grimly got back into his own car and pulled away fast. It was a cinch the Carson servant would already be phoning in an alarm about the attack on his mistress, and he would have a hard time explaining his presence in the vicinity if he were caught there now.

  13

  There were no street lights in Denham, but several of the business establishments were lighted as Shayne turned into Main Street, and the Traveller’s Rest Hotel was one of them. Shayne drove past the hotel slowly and without slacking speed when he saw a police car parked conspicuously in front. His suitcase with its half-bottle of cognac would have to remain there under police guard until a more opportune time to pick it up.

  Beyond, at the town’s single traffic light, the plate-glass windows of the modernistic bank building blazed with light. Shayne calculated his speed so he had to ease to a stop for the changing light, and a side glance showed two figures inside the bank busily at work at their desks. One of them was Harvey Barstow.

  The redhead pulled smoothly ahead when the light changed, and turned in at a filling station a few blocks ahead. He told a coveralled youth to fill his gas tank, and got out to stand beside him while gasoline gurgled through the flexible tube.

  He agreed that it was a nice night, a little cool, mebbe, for Florida even in January, but real nice anyhow. Then he asked, “Doesn’t a man named Barstow live in Denham? I’m just driving through from Tampa and I’ve been trying to remember.…” He let his voice trail off as though he were still trying to remember, and the attendant said briskly: “Harve Barstow? Works in the bank?”

  “Yeh. Harve.” Shayne chuckled. “Working in a bank now, huh? Married, too, isn’t he?”

  “Sure is. Say, you hear about the excitement here in town? Harve’s boss in the bank was murdered in Miami last night. Way I heard it there was a gang figgering on holding up the bank and Mr. Carson, he went in to put the law on ’em and they shot him dead.”

  Shayne said, “That’s a hell of a note. Where does Harve live? I might stop by a minute.”

  The gasoline stopped gurgling and the youth removed the metal nozzle and hung it up. “Right ahead two blocks and you make a right turn and it’s the second house on the right. That’ll be four sixty-five. Puhlenty of excitement here today, I can tell you. Detectives from Miami all over town. Some says there was FBI men too.” He took Shayne’s five-dollar bill and asked briskly, “Check your oil and water?”

  Shayne said, “Everything’s okay.” He waited to get his change, got in and drove two blocks more and made a right turn. The second house on the right was an old frame two-story house that needed paint but had a wide well-tended lawn. There was one car parked in front and another in the driveway. He slowed almost to a stop as he passed, and grimaced when he saw three women seated in the living room through uncurtained front windows.

  He increased his speed to the next corner, turned left and then left again back to the highway, and then right in the direction of Miami. He pulled in to the next open filling station he came to, parked inconspicuously beyond the lighted area of the gasoline pumps, and walked back briskly to the small office, noting the name over the door, MONTY’S SERVICE STATION.

  He told the attendant he wanted to make a phone call, and looked up the number of the Barstow residence in the well-thumbed book hanging by a chain beside the public telephone.

  He called the number and Mrs. Barstow’s voice answered after several rings, “Hello?”

  He said, “Listen to me for a moment, Mrs. Barstow, and don’t say anything out loud if you can be overheard. This is Michael Shayne. I’m in town and I must see you at once.”

  He heard a sibilant gasp of surprise from the other end as he hesitated, and he guessed that the telephone must be where her visitors could hear her.

  “Just answer yes or no,” he went on swiftly. “Can you get away at once and drive out on the Miami road to meet me without telling anyone where you’re going?”

  “Y-yes. Of course I can. Right away.” Her voice was stronger on the last two words.

  “I’m calling from Monty’s Filling Station. As soon as I hang up I’ll drive down the highway toward Miami to the first turn off to the right. I’ll turn there and stop just off the road and leave my parking lights on. Do you understand all right?”

  “Of course. I’ll be down to pick you up right away, Harvey. Mrs. Eldreth and Sue Parson are here and they’re just dying to hear all about everything. They’ll stay with the children.”

  She hung up and so did Shayne. He went out into the coolness of the night and back to his car with a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. A dilapidated pick-up truck was getting gas and the attendant didn’t glance at him. Had Mrs. Barstow been a little too pat, a little too quick to agree to meet him? It was a cinch that Painter had interviewed Harvey this afternoon, and warned him against Shayne, and Harvey would certainly have told his wife. Under the circumstances, would she have confided in Harvey that she had driven to Miami last night to interview Shayne? If so, might Harvey have arranged with her to trap the detective if he tried to contact her later?

  Shayne just didn’t know. What man could ever know what any woman was likely to do? It was a chance he had to take because he desperately needed a certain piece of information which only Mrs. Harvey Barstow could furnish him.

  He drove slowly away from Monty’s Filling Station, followed the highway eastward to the first road turning off to the right.

  He pulled to the side two hundred feet beyond the highway, and turned off the ignition and switched his lights down to “Parking.” Then he lit a cigarette and relaxed behind the wheel and waited to see whether Mrs. Barstow or a police car would keep the rendezvous with him.

  He hadn’t long to wait. His cigarette was not more than half-smoked when headlights made a sweeping curve off the highway behind him and were brilliantly reflected in his rear-view mirror for a moment as the car pulled in behind his and stopped, and the lights were turned out.

  Shayne exhaled deeply as he leaned forward to turn his out also. Then he got out and walked back to the four-year-old Plymouth in which he had watched Mrs. Barstow drive away from his hotel the preceding midnight.

  She was at the wheel, and alone. Her plump features and taffy-colored hair with the Dutch bangs looked out at him in the moonlight, but they were strained now, and her eyes were rounder than when he had first introduced himself to her.

  “Oh, Mr. Shayne,” she ejaculated in a wretched voice. “I’m so horribly worried and frightened. I just don’t know whatever I should do.”

  Shayne put a reassuring hand on the round arm that lay along the top of the door. “Just take it easy, Mrs. Barstow. You’ve done fine, coming out to see me like this.” He squeezed the soft flesh, went around the car to get in the front seat beside her. “No one knew you came?”

  “No. I had company when you phoned. I told them … that Harvey was ready to come home and I was going to pick him up. Please tell me what to do, Mr. Shayne. It’s just awful. About Mr. Carson and all. I can’t help feeling guilty. Maybe if I’d stayed home last night.…” She began to sob piteously, and then turned to him suddenly and fiercely clutched his left bicep with fingers that bit to the bone. “Tell me you didn’t do it. I can’t believe you did, but tell me.” Her voice rose hysterically. “I’ve thought and thought and thought until I’m just about to go crazy with thinking.”

  “Of course I didn’t do it.” Shayne was genuinely astonished. “Why should I have done it, for God’s sake?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know,” she moaned. “Harvey said the policeman from Miami Beach said awful things about you. And I remember how you looked standing there last night when I drove away, and how you promised me so nice that I wasn’t to worry and everything would be all rig
ht. And then I couldn’t help thinking and wondering about what happened … and thinking that if … well, if you did see Mr. Carson and he got real nasty about Harvey and all … that maybe you, Oh, I just don’t know. Can’t you see how I’d wonder?”

  Despite the anguish in her voice, Shayne couldn’t repress a faint grin as he said, “You’ve been thinking that perhaps I did it for you? Killed Mr. Carson because you asked me to help Harvey? Forget it. You haven’t checked the time sequences carefully or you’d realize that Carson was dead before I ever met you. Your coming to Miami had nothing to do with it. Do you understand?”

  “He was? How do you know?”

  “I know,” Shayne told her shortly. “And I had nothing whatever to do with it. Moreover, I’m beginning to doubt whether the affair your husband and Belle Carson were having had anything to do with his murder either … except perhaps very indirectly. Get that in your mind and hold onto it.”

  “You don’t? You really mean …?”

  “At the moment, I’m doing a lot of guessing,” Shayne told her impatiently. “One thing I am sure about: Your trip to Miami had no bearing at all on Carson’s murder. He was dead before you reached the city … before I’d even ever heard of him. Right now, I need the name and present address of the first detective you contacted in Miami. The one who took your money to investigate Belle Carson in Atlanta and never turned in a report to you.”

  “Didn’t I tell you his name last night? I thought I did. It was Walsh. Jeffery Walsh. He had an office in Miami. It was on First Street, I think. Or First Avenue. But I told you how my latest letter to that address came back saying he was no longer there.”

  Shayne said, “Walsh?” ruminatively. The name was tantalizingly familiar to him though it didn’t strike any real chord in his memory.

  “I remember you telling me about your letter being returned. But I want you to think hard and tell me this. In these last few months has your husband hinted anything about the possibility that Mr. Carson was being blackmailed by Walsh?”

  “Blackmailed? No. I never even thought.…”