Counterfeit Wife ms-14

by Brett Halliday

  “For my sake, I hope the M.E. makes that at least thirty.” Shayne picked up the suitcase and went into the bathroom while Painter went officiously to the telephone and curtly ordered the desk clerk to come up to the apartment.

  Shayne closed the bathroom door and quickly opened the Gladstone. He picked up one of the bundles of hundred-dollar bills and riffled through them, scowling deeply. They looked like ordinary bills, not new and not too old. Just like the two Dawson had given him at the airport. He couldn’t see anything wrong with them.

  He judged there were about a hundred bills in each flat packet. There were five such bundles in the suitcase. That added up to the amount Bates had mentioned over the telephone to ex-Senator Irvin.

  He didn’t have time to worry about the money now. He pushed it down under the neatly folded clothing out of sight, then pawed through Dawson’s belongings to find something he could put on without making it too apparent that the clothing was not his own.

  The dough-faced man was a lot shorter than Shayne, and heavy around the waistline. The detective found a short-sleeved sports shirt that could remain open at the neck, with a short tail designed to hang outside the trousers. He pulled that on over his naked torso, selected a pair of light flannel trousers and stepped into them. Without a belt, they slid down on his hips so that the cuffs were low enough not to be conspicuous, and the sports shirt hid the fact that they weren’t up around his waist.

  He knew that shoes would be hopeless, but was lucky enough to discover a pair of heelless beach sandals which clung to his toes and stayed on, though his heels extended a couple of inches beyond the soles.

  Attired in this manner, he opened the bathroom door and scuffed out in time to see Henry back out of the bedroom. The night clerk’s face was white and he was wiping it with a handkerchief.

  He said to Painter, “That’s Mr. Slocum. I certainly didn’t know he had come back to spend the night when I let Mr. Shayne come up, or I wouldn’t-”

  “Or you wouldn’t have let Shayne come up to murder him,” Painter snapped.

  “I didn’t mean that at all.” Henry glanced at Shayne. His answer to Peter Painter was voiced in a tone of hopelessness, but the sight of his friend gave him courage. He spoke out boldly when he said, “I’m positive Mr. Shayne didn’t do it. A burglar must have broken in, though I don’t see how.” He became the prim and efficient little man Shayne had known for many years. He examined the windows and the door to the fire escape outside the kitchenette, then came back to stand unobtrusively near the bathroom door.

  Timothy Rourke was sitting at one end of the couch on the other side of the room, nursing the cognac bottle between his thin knees. He cocked his head and leered as Shayne came over to him.

  “That’s a new outfit isn’t it, Mike? You know, I think I like it on you. Gives you a certain flair.”

  Shayne said softly, “Shut up, you fool,” as he sank down beside the reporter. He took the bottle from Rourke, tilted it to his mouth and drank deeply just as the front door opened to admit Chief Will Gentry and members of the Miami homicide squad.

  Gentry was a big, slow-moving man with a florid and honest face lined with worry. He looked at the two men sitting on the couch, then advanced stolidly, chewing on the soggy butt of a cigar and pushing his hat back from his perspiring forehead.

  Shayne said, “Make yourself at home, Will. I’m holding open house, as usual.”

  “With a corpse in his bedroom, as usual,” snapped Painter. “This way, men,” he told Gentry’s squad of experts.

  Gentry didn’t look toward his fellow official from the Beach. He thrust his hands deep in his pockets and said to Shayne, “I thought you were on a plane and halfway to New Orleans by now.”

  “That’s what he wanted us to think,” Painter said, strutting back from the bedroom door after Gentry’s men had entered. “I told you I smelled something rotten about that fast take-off. He quit the plane at Palm Beach, hurried back here and bludgeoned a man to death.”

  There was a thick silence in the room. Timothy Rourke’s voice broke it when he said quietly, “Last time I heard it, Painter, you had Mike mixed up in a kidnap killing.”

  “Keep out of this,” Painter barked. “Shayne’s mixed up in that, too. I’m sure of it. But he hasn’t got an alibi for this one.” He jerked a forefinger toward the bedroom.

  “What did Henry tell you?” Shayne demanded.

  “Him?” Painter looked scornfully at the night clerk. “He’d lie for you any day.”

  “Suppose someone tells me what this is all about,” Will Gentry rumbled mildly. “Who’s the stiff this time, anybody here know?”

  Peter Painter pounced upon the question and said, “The night clerk here says it’s a man who rented this apartment this afternoon. He gave the name of Leonard Slocum-from Mobile. The clerk didn’t think he’d moved in yet, so he let Shayne in with a passkey to bathe and change clothes-according to his story.”

  “What time?” Shayne asked quietly.

  “He says it wasn’t more than fifteen minutes ago at the time I questioned him,” Painter admitted. “But-”

  “You can check with Joe, the elevator boy,” said Shayne.

  “I will. Perhaps it was just fifteen minutes, or they may both be lying. Here’s the way I see it, Will,” Painter went on pompously, turning his back on Shayne and Rourke. “Whoever killed that man must have gotten spattered with blood. What do you think we found Shayne doing when we came in here?”

  “Taking a drink,” Gentry grunted sourly.

  “He was stark naked and drying himself after a shower. Now, Henry admits he came into the lobby in his stocking feet and wearing a pair of coveralls. I’ve checked carefully and discovered that’s all he was wearing.” Painter pointed to the coveralls and socks still lying in the center of the floor. “Now, I ask you, why would a man dressed only in a pair of coveralls enter a sleeping man’s apartment at three in the morning?”

  “You tell me,” Gentry said.

  “A man like Shayne, remember. A man who has had a lot of close contact with murder and knows it’s likely to be a messy business. I’ll tell you why. Because coveralls are a one-piece garment that can be stepped out of in a moment. Not even any underwear, you understand. Does he mind a little blood from his victim? Why should he? He’s naked. It’ll wash off in the shower.”

  “Astounding,” murmured Timothy Rourke, reaching over to pluck the bottle out of Shayne’s hands. “There you have it, Will. Premeditation and motive and everything. This guy had rented this apartment right out from under him. So, Mike strips to the skin and slips on a pair of coveralls-Oh, my sainted grandmother! Sometimes you make me so sick I need a drink, Petey.” He took a long one.

  “I told you to keep out of this,” Painter said angrily, half turning to glare at Rourke. “We’ll find a motive, all right,” he continued tenaciously. “It’s quite evident that Shayne used the ticket to New Orleans as a ruse to fix up an alibi for slipping back and murdering Slocum. Why else did he jump the plane and rush back here?”

  “Suppose you tell us, Mike.” Gentry removed the sodden cigar stub from his full lips, contemplated the full inch of dead ashes at one end of it, and laid it on an ash tray. When Shayne hesitated, Gentry looked at him solemnly from under the crinkled folds of his lids.

  Shayne gestured impatiently. “There’s no mystery about it. You know all about the Belton case in New Orleans that I was in such a rush to get to after the Leslie Hudson case was solved-by me,” he looked sourly at Painter. “But Painter had me tied into another murder on the Beach less than twelve hours ago, so I had to stay over and solve it for him. Just before the plane left I had a phone call from my secretary in New Orleans. She told me I was too late. The Belton case had gone flooey. And that took the pressure off getting back to New Orleans.”

  “You say you had that phone call before the plane took off?” Painter pounced on his story and began to worry it like a terrier worrying a bone.

  “You can c
heck with one of the clerks at the terminal,” Shayne told him.

  “Then why did you take off at all?”

  “My bag was already checked,” said Shayne lazily. “I didn’t have time to think things over. But I did have time to think on my way to Palm Beach, and I remembered some unfinished business in Miami. I wanted to know more about a certain girl, so I came back to find out,” he ended serenely.

  “Was she-” Rourke began.

  “I’ve never known Shayne to take off all his clothes to commit a murder,” Gentry interrupted, “but I’ve heard rumors to the effect that he does sometimes to go to bed.”

  “How did you get back from Palm Beach?” demanded Painter.

  “Has Petey started running your department?” Shayne asked Gentry.

  “He’s interested in your movements tonight from another angle, Mike. Better give it to him straight.” He took out a fresh cigar, examined the wrapper carefully, then lit it.

  Shayne said, “I hitchhiked back from Palm Beach. The plane was a few minutes late and it was almost one o’clock by the time I got my bag and got out of the terminal. Happened to be an old fellow there who was driving down here, and I hooked a ride with him. It was almost two when he dropped me off on the outskirts of town.”

  Gentry nodded and told Painter, “I don’t believe Shayne need be any further concern of yours on the kidnaping. If you’ve checked with National Airlines and know he actually rode as far as Palm Beach, he couldn’t possibly have been in that wrecked car.” He gave Shayne a despairing look and puffed on his cigar.

  “What kidnaping?” Shayne asked with innocent interest. “That’s the second time I’ve heard it mentioned. What wrecked car?”

  “Painter has been sucking wind ever since an eyewitness testified he saw you crawl out of a wrecked car on Thirty-sixth Street and slip away at one o’clock,” Rourke broke in.

  “Who was the witness?”

  “A character named Chick Farrel,” Painter informed him.

  “Oh, Chick?” Shayne lit a cigarette and looked at the reporter over the match flame. “I get it now. That’s why you asked a while ago if Chick had it in for me. Anyone can see he was lying. I was in Palm Beach at one o’clock; and thank you for establishing my alibi,” he ended mockingly to Painter.

  “Farrel may have been mistaken,” Painter admitted unhappily. “But what about this job? Shayne certainly had time to pull it off just the way I described.”

  Will Gentry turned to the Medical Examiner as he came from the death room carrying his satchel. “How about it, Doc? Give us the T.O.D.”

  The M.E. was bald-headed and brisk. He said, “Not less than forty-five minutes nor more than an hour and a half.” He looked at his wrist watch. “Two o’clock is the best I can do.”

  “Wait a minute, Doc,” Shayne said. “Will you testify that the man must have been dead by two-thirty?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Shayne said, “Thanks,” and turned to Painter. “What time does Henry say I came into the lobby?”

  “He claims it was two-forty-five,” Painter admitted, “but if I were running this investigation I certainly wouldn’t accept that as gospel.”

  “Since you’re not running the investigation,” Will Gentry rumbled, “hadn’t you better run along and look for some kidnapers?”

  Rourke snickered. Peter Painter’s face flared red. A manicured forefinger shook with impotent rage when he pointed it at Gentry and said, “I acknowledged in the beginning that Farrel might be mistaken as to Shayne’s identity, but I’m convinced his reason for making such a mistake was that he confidently expected the man with Gerta Ross to be Shayne. I’m also convinced that Shayne’s shenanigans tie in with the Deland kidnap pay-off and I shan’t sleep until I prove it.” He went stiffly from the room and slammed the door behind him.

  “Does he think Chick Farrel is mixed up in a kidnaping?” Shayne asked incredulously.

  Rourke shook his head. “Chick happened to know the dame in the wreck. Painter knows it couldn’t have been you with her, but he’s grilling Farrel trying to establish some connection between you and the blonde kidnap-murderess.”

  Shayne sighed and said, “I wish someone would bring me up to date.”

  Will Gentry pursed his lips around the cigar and looked balefully at Shayne. He gave a grunt of disgust and disbelief, got up and started toward the death room with a firm stride. He stopped, turned, and said casually, “There was a big fire out on West Thirty-eighth Street a little after two o’clock. Two-story frame house burned down.”

  “Anybody hurt?” asked Shayne with interest.

  “Not by the fire. But there was a funny thing. A Negro’s body was found in the basement garage by firemen. Face was all torn up-like he’d tangled with a meat chopper.” Gentry hesitated, moving his cigar across his mouth to the other side, then added, “They found part of a whisky bottle with bloody, jagged edges lying close by.” He turned and went on to the bedroom.

  “Whisky bottle?” Shayne called out. “It’s a good thing I’m a cognac drinker or they’d be hanging that on me, too.”

  “Now why the hell,” asked Rourke when Gentry’s bulky body disappeared into the room, “did he take time out to tell us about that?”

  Shayne said, “You never know about Will,” and reached for the bottle.

  Chapter Nine

  FATAL KIDNAPING

  After Gentry’s men had taken pictures and measurements in the bedroom, fingerprinted the entire apartment, and carefully documented the possessions of the dead man, they departed, taking Slocum’s body with them.

  Shayne and Timothy Rourke remained on the couch. When Gentry followed his men out of the bedroom he looked tired and harried. Shayne got up, went into the kitchen and put ice cubes and a small quantity of water in a tall glass. He returned and poured cognac in with the water and ice, sloshed it around to mix it, and handed it to Gentry.

  He said, “Drink that down, Will, and tell us what you found out in there.”

  “Not much of anything, Mike,” he said quietly, belching out a cloud of smoke from a freshly lit cigar. “The dead man appears to be Leonard Slocum, minor executive of an oil firm, recently transferred here from Mobile, Alabama. Contents of his wallet and suitcase are about what you’d expect from a man in his position. No fingerprints in the apartment except yours, his, and another set, probably the maid’s. The vase could be the death weapon. It’s heavy enough, and a man could get a pretty good grip on the neck of it, but the Doc doubts it. More likely the barrel of a heavy gun. Slocum’s prints are on the vase, but they could have been pressed there by the killer as a silly kind of blind after he’d wiped his own prints off. Doc is testing the blood on the vase to see if it’s Slocum’s-or yours, Mike,” he ended solemnly.

  Shayne nodded. “What else?”

  “Not much,” Gentry sighed. “A few drops of blood on the carpet in here leading to the front door. Didn’t that vase use to stand on the shelf by the door?”

  “For years,” Shayne told him. “If someone knocked and Slocum answered the door and was attacked, he could’ve grabbed it to defend himself.”

  “Or the killer could have grabbed it to use on him,” Gentry countered. “He may have been attacked right there in the bedroom, by someone who entered with a key and surprised him in bed.”

  “What about the blood drops leading to the door?”

  “If the killer got slugged he could have dropped those as he went out. Slocum’s about your size, Mike. How many people in Miami knew he’d be sleeping in that bed tonight and that you wouldn’t?”

  “Not many.”

  “Slocum isn’t the type of man to have many enemies here. Besides, he’s a stranger. On the other hand, Miami is lousy with mugs who’d like nothing better than to knock you off. By the time the killer swung a couple of times and bashed in Slocum’s face, he might not have known the difference.”

  Shayne didn’t argue with him or point out several inconsistencies in this theory. At the moment he w
as quite happy to have the police go on thinking Slocum had been killed as a result of mistaken identity. He wished he could think so, but too many things pointed to Perry and Senator Irvin, with himself as the innocent instigator.

  “Why did you come back to Miami so fast?” asked Gentry casually.

  Shayne grinned and it hurt his swollen lip. “Didn’t you like the story I told Painter?”

  Gentry set his glass down and got up to go over to the coveralls and socks which Shayne had discarded. He bent over them and studied them for a moment, then went back to his chair. “Some garage mechanic has been wearing those coveralls, and there’s old grease on the bottom of your socks.”

  Shayne didn’t say anything. Rourke tried to help by remarking, “Some garage mechanics have good-looking wives and are jealous of them.”

  Gentry paid no attention to the remark. He frowned and said, “I keep thinking about that dead Negro in the basement garage of the house that burned tonight. The boys found an open razor gripped in his right hand. He was about the size to have worn those coveralls.”

  “How did the fire start?” Shayne asked blandly.

  Rourke sat quietly, looking suspiciously from one to the other, trying to fathom the meaning of the seemingly irrelevant remarks.

  “Short circuit in the electric wiring, apparently,” Gentry rumbled. “Fuses kept blowing out and when they had no more, some damn fool tried to make a connection by putting a penny in the fuse box socket. If it wasn’t for a telephone call I received I wouldn’t think so much about it,” he ended gently.

  Shayne nodded. “I know what you mean. Have you picked up Irvin?”

  “Not yet.” Gentry took a couple of swallows of his drink, then added, “I’ve got men asking questions.”

  Shayne tugged absently at his ear lobe as the police chief got to his feet. He said, “Let me know as soon as you get any answers.”

  Gentry stared for a moment at Shayne’s bland face and said, “It might help a lot if you’d tell me where you were between midnight and two-thirty.”