“This is just perfect,” Shayne assured him. He unlocked the door and stepped in, held his hand out to Renslow. “Got it on you?”
“Yes, I–I got it.” Renslow dug a roll of bills out of his pocket and pressed them into the detective’s hand. He tensed and swung toward the door when he heard the tramp of feet sounding in the hallway.
Shayne unconcernedly thrust the roll in his pocket without counting it, reached out, and pulled the door open.
Will Gentry came in first. He was followed by Mr. Thrip and by Peter Painter, who was bowed over by the weight of an office model typewriter.
Arnold Thrip looked hot and nervous. His eyes sought Shayne’s worriedly. Renslow took a quick backward step when he saw Will Gentry. He frowned with sudden perplexity and fear when he recognized his dead sister’s husband. He darted forward to get out the door when Painter stepped inside.
Shayne casually got in his way and thrust him back. He grunted, “You’re not going anywhere, Renslow,” and locked the door, putting the key into his pocket.
Desperation flamed in Renslow’s eyes. He started a forward movement against Shayne, then sagged back limply against the wall. Almost soundlessly he intoned, “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God,” and the phrase was not blasphemy.
Gentry and Thrip stopped a few feet inside the room, while Painter went on to the table, where he thumped the typewriter down and straightened up with his fingers pressed against the small of his back.
Shayne leaned his shoulder blades against the locked door and said, “Welcome, gentlemen. Will, I believe you and Mr. Thrip know Renslow, but Painter hasn’t met him. The mustache with the handsome man behind it is Peter Painter-our persevering chief of detectives from across the bay who still hopes to solve a case some day.”
Painter took a step forward and nodded with dignity. He caressed his threadlike mustache with his forefinger and did not deign to reply to the insult.
Renslow remained sagged back against the wall, his eyes darting from one to another of the trio in a frenzy of fearful speculation.
Mr. Thrip inclined his head and spoke in a tone of pompous irritation. “Perhaps I misunderstood you, Mr. Shayne. I didn’t-ah-realize there would be such a gathering here.”
“That’s quite all right. You can pay me off in the presence of these witnesses as well as though we were alone. Mr. Thrip,” Shayne gravely explained to the heads of the two detective bureaus, “has retained me on this case to solve his wife’s murder. On payment of a specified fee I have promised to deliver evidence into the hands of the police that will convict the murderer. I’ll take that six grand now, Mr. Thrip.”
Behind him Buell Renslow moaned faintly. “You dirty double-crosser! I might’ve known.”
No one paid any attention to Renslow’s laments. Painter and Gentry watched in silence while Mr. Thrip hesitantly offered Shayne a long sealed envelope. The detective tore it open and counted out six thousand-dollar bills with an expression of pleasure on his gaunt face. He nodded and thrust the bills into his pocket on top of the wad Renslow had passed over just previously.
He went past the three men to the center table, saying briskly, “I think we can finish up our business in short order.” He frowned down at the typewriter Painter had brought. “Is this Carl Meldrum’s machine?”
“Not his,” Painter explained. “It belongs to the Palace Hotel, but Meldrum often used it, In fact, the clerk definitely recalls that he used it just before noon yesterday.”
Shayne said, “U-m-m. To type the note I recovered after Renslow tore it up, I suppose. Also, to type the extortion notes, no doubt, if he authored them.”
He slid a sheet of paper in the roller and began punching keys aimlessly, suggesting to Painter and Gentry, “Let’s take a look at the notes and make some rough comparisons to see if the typing checks.”
Thrip’s eyes bulged when Gentry pulled out the sheet with strips of a typewritten message pasted on it. He shot an angry glance at Shayne. “But I thought-I understood the message was in your possession and you threatened to withhold it from the police unless I-ah-”
“Unless you paid off,” Shayne finished for him. He took the note from Gentry and held it so Thrip could not see the words. “Well, you wouldn’t have paid the six grand otherwise, would you?” he demanded, then turned to call to Renslow, who had slumped down into a chair behind them. “Better join us. You’ll be interested in the results of these comparisons.”
Renslow sighed abjectly. He looked ten years older than when he entered the room. He muttered, “It doesn’t matter. You’ve got me hooked. What do you want to fool around for?”
Shayne pulled his sheet of typing from the roller and laid it on the table beside the note he had forged. He stepped back to make way for the trio to compare the typing, saying pleasantly, “I don’t believe they check very well.”
Thrip’s eyes raced over the text of the note and his head jerked up and around at Shayne. “That isn’t it,” he exclaimed hotly. “That’s not at all what you led me to believe Meldrum had written.”
“Perhaps Meldrum didn’t write that one,” Shayne agreed. “How about it?” he asked the two detective chiefs.
Gentry shook his head negatively. “It doesn’t take an expert to tell that this wasn’t typed on this typewriter.”
“Check the extortion notes,” Shayne suggested to Painter.
Painter drew an envelope from his side coat pocket and extracted a number of folded sheets of paper. Shayne stepped back and poured himself a drink of cognac, red eyebrows lifted quizzically while they made the second comparison.
Again Will Gentry shook his head. “Not alike at all. What sort of game is this, Mike? What does all this stuff matter when we already know-”
“Here’s something you don’t know.” Shayne handed him the original pasted-together note written by Carl Meldrum and torn up by Renslow. “See how this one checks.”
Gentry grunted surprise when he read the note. Painter stiffened disbelievingly and turned toward Renslow like a bird dog on point. Thrip’s eyes bulged with pleasure and gratification as he read the accusing document.
“What the hell is this?” Gentry demanded roughly. “By God, Mike, what monkey business are you pulling this time?”
“Did Meldrum type it?” Shayne demanded.
After giving him a long moment of searching scrutiny, Gentry leaned forward and made the comparison. This time he nodded slowly. “No doubt about this one.” He straightened his burly shoulders with heavy dignity and looked sorrowfully at the private detective. “This is the real McCoy, isn’t it? This is exactly what I figured the note would be before you passed off a phony on us last night. It supplies the motive for Renslow to have killed Meldrum, and it clears Phyllis. Why in God’s name did you pull this shenanigan, Mike?”
“You made me. You tried to force my hand at Mona’s apartment last night. What would you have done if I’d handed it over to you then? You would have thrown the book at Renslow and he would have stayed locked up. That would have ruined my chance of making anything off him. Holding that note out on you was my only possible lever to jimmy some dough out of him.”
“I get it,” Gentry growled. “You saw a chance to chisel on the poor devil. You got him turned loose long enough to dig up some jack for you on your promise not to turn him in?”
“It was that simple,” Shayne gibed. “Those few hours I gained were worth five thousand of Renslow’s money. He paid it over just before you walked in.”
Gentry was breathing hard through set lips. A revulsion of disgust shook his heavy body. He said, “By God, that’s about the rottenest deal I ever saw cooked up.”
Shayne laughed. “You know me. Always smelling out a profit. Sometimes they stink a little, but I’m used to that.” He paused, then added casually, “On the other hand, if I’d told you the whole truth last night you would have grabbed Thrip right then, and I never would have got six grand out of him. Altogether, it was worth eleven thou-” He got no further before the s
ignificance of his casual words seeped through to the other four men in the room. Painter and Gentry exclaimed, “Thrip?” in disbelieving unison, while the real estate man straightened slowly and stared at Shayne in utter consternation. Hearing Shayne’s words but not quite daring to believe what he heard, Buell Renslow slowly began to rise from his chair as though propelled by a force outside his own volition.
Shayne said, "Of course. It was Thrip all the way. Not only one murder, nor two-but three. His wife, Darnell, and finally Meldrum."
“How utterly preposterous.” Thrip laughed hollowly. “With this convincing evidence before you-” He gestured toward Meldrum’s note.
Shayne said, “Exactly. The note clinches the whole thing against you, Thrip. I promised you I’d deliver evidence into the hands of the police that would convict Mrs. Thrip’s murderer. There’s the evidence. I’ve kept my promise to the letter. It’s a hell of a trick to charge a man six thousand bucks for his own conviction, but you should have thought of that when you made me the offer.”
“I don’t get it,” Gentry growled. “Here’s this note to Renslow-”
“The note wasn’t sent to Renslow. That’s the answer. Neat, wasn’t it? Thrip got the note from Meldrum some time yesterday. He realized the jig was up unless Meldrum was permanently silenced. He had already suggested to me that Renslow had sent the extortion notes, and had explained that Renslow stood to profit by his sister’s death.
“That made Renslow a swell suspect, and Meldrum’s failure to put a salutation on the note gave him an idea for getting rid of Meldrum and framing Renslow for it “Shut up!” he exclaimed viciously when Thrip tried to break in. “You tried to frame me in the first place with your lie about planning a fake jewel robbery. You had that note delivered to Renslow at the Tally-Ho so he’d just have time to reach the apartment by midnight. You got there ten minutes early and raised a ruckus so the police would be called, killed Meldrum, and ducked out just before Renslow showed up. As you planned, the police arrived in time to catch Renslow there with the body. You had naturally hoped he’d stick the note in his pocket and be caught with it. That would supply the motive for him to have murdered Meldrum, and with his past record there wasn’t a chance for him to wriggle out-and his share of the estate would go to you. When you learned he had torn up the note and it was in my possession you were glad to pay six grand to have it turned over to the police. All right, they’ve got it. And I hope you like your bargain.”
“Good heavens! the man has lost his senses.” Thrip appealed vehemently to Painter and Gentry. “This is the most outrageous tissue of lies-”
Buell Renslow was on his feet gripping Shayne’s arm fiercely. “You’re right. You must be right. I didn’t understand that note from Carl. I saw it for a frame but I didn’t know what to do. After just getting out of stir-”
“Everything’s okay now.” Shayne patted his shoulder. “Take it easy. Nobody’s going to frame you. Hell, didn’t you pay me five thousand berries to keep you out of jail?”
“What did you mean about Darnell?” Gentry demanded. “And a fake jewel robbery?”
“That’s a little secret between Mr. Thrip and me,” Shayne told him grimly. “For months,” he went on, “our upright Mr. Thrip has been planning one of the most cold-blooded and most nearly perfect murders I’ve ever run up against. He’s the man who wrote those extortion notes to his wife. Maybe he first actually hoped to collect from her on them. She told me he urged her to pay the demands when they first came. When she refused to be intimidated, he got another and what he hoped was a better idea. He used the notes as an excuse to his wife and to Painter for hiring a private detective to guard his house. He gave me a different story. He didn’t mention the notes to me. He asked me to send a man out to plant evidence of a burglary and steal an empty jewel case as a means of collecting insurance on the jewels.”
Shayne paused, eying the financier coldly. Thrip’s body seemed shrunken, the flesh hung limply from his jowls.
“I fell for his story,” Shayne admitted bitterly. “Not hard enough to accept the job, but I did send Joe out there-to get murdered, as it turned out. I refused to help him stage the fake robbery,” Shayne went on slowly, “because at that time I represented the insurance company he was going to victimize. One of the few things I don’t do is to bite the hand that writes a pay-check. But I happened to run into Joe Darnell, who was trying to go straight and starving at it. Thrip had promised to leave a thousand-dollar bill in the empty jewel case. I didn’t see why Joe shouldn’t have that bill.”
Shayne again paused in his rapid recital, his lips twisting wryly. “I guess you can stick me for compounding a felony. I told Joe to go on out there and pretend he was going through with it-to grab the money but leave the jewel case and leave no marks of a forced entry-which I thought would be a sweet double-cross on Thrip.
“But he already had a tougher double-cross planned.” Shayne shrugged his shoulders. “The jewel case story was no more than a decoy to get a man of questionable character into his wife’s boudoir at night so he could kill the poor devil in cold blood and hand a dumb cop like Painter a perfectly solved murder with a victim who couldn’t deny his guilt. He might have got away with the whole thing if Meldrum hadn’t accidentally come from his daughter’s room at the psychological moment and seen him strangling his wife. Always on the lookout for a blackmail angle, Meldrum realized what his information was worth and he detained Ernst downstairs long enough to let Thrip finish the job. Does that add up?”
“A damnable tissue of lies,” Thrip sputtered. “Not supported by a single provable fact. The man is insane. With not one iota of proof-”
“There’s your proof.” Shayne gestured toward Meldrum’s note. “As soon as I read it I knew it had not been addressed to Renslow originally. Meldrum knew Renslow quite well. He knew Renslow was intimate with Mona. If he was asking Renslow to meet him in Mona’s apartment, he would have said just that-Mona’s apartment. Not three-o-six Terrace Apartments. The note was obviously addressed to someone unacquainted with Mona. Check up on Thrip’s movements at midnight, Will, and I think you’ll find he wasn’t at home.”
The strength oozed out of Arnold Thrip’s body. He swayed back, put a trembling hand on the table to support himself, guilt in every feature and movement.
Shayne stepped back and glanced at his watch. A loud knock sounded on the door. He said, “That’ll be the press. You and Painter give Rourke the story, Will. And play up my refusal to go into the jewelry insurance racket to the AP man. I want that to make headlines in the New York papers. There’s an insurance executive up there who’s going to come crawling on his knees when he reads how I was too ethical to play a gyp game against him.” He went to the door and admitted Rourke and another reporter, hesitated with his hand on the knob. “Before you get tied up in this press conference, Will, how’s for getting on the phone and ordering Phyl released? I haven’t seen that girl for more than twenty-four hours-and that’s a hell of a long time to keep a man and his wife separated.”
Gentry laughed and started for the telephone. Shayne hurried down the corridor with one hand deep in his pocket, where his fingers curled lovingly about the double wad of bills.
Chapter Twenty-One: “SHAYNE SPEAKING…”
The elevator had just stopped in the basement of the Dade County courthouse when Shayne’s roadster rolled down the incline and stopped. Phyllis stepped from the conveyance accompanied by a uniformed policeman. Shayne’s car lights shone dimly in her face and he saw that she looked pale, but her chin was square and tilted as she stepped toward his roadster.
Shayne opened the door for her, and she said icily, “It was nice of you to come.”
“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world, angel,” he said with a grin. “From now on I want to be in on and enjoy all your new experiences.”
Phyllis shuddered and got in beside him. “The worst thing is that long trip in a nonstop elevator. I thought-I was-going to smother.”
<
br /> Shayne drove on through the basement and came out into Miami’s bright sunlight on the west side. When he looked down at Phyllis she had her lower lip caught between her teeth. For a moment he thought she was going to cry. Her chin was slightly unsteady. He laughed and asked, “Well, how do you think you’re going to like detecting, angel?”
She said, “Don’t you start that, Michael. You could at least have come to see me and-keep me-so I wouldn’t be so worried that maybe something terrible had happened to you.”
“What I should do is take you straight home and give you a good beating,” Shayne told her. His right arm went around her waist and held her like a vise. The wheel wobbled a little and he controlled it with his left hand.
“I wouldn’t blame you,” she said in a small and solemn voice. “I wouldn’t blame you at all.”
“There you go taking all the pleasure out of it. Who wants to beat a quiescent woman? Where’s your spunk? Why don’t you say, ‘You and who else is going to beat me?’”
A little gurgle came out of her throat and she snuggled her face against his arm. She said, “Oh, Mike! I love you!”
Shayne nearly smashed a fender on an oncoming car when he turned the corner. He was laughing outright and holding Phyllis tighter. He drove down Second Avenue and turned toward the hotel apartment just as a group of men emerged from the front door. A man was snapping pictures of the group.
Phyllis lifted her head, nudged Shayne with her elbow and said, “Look. There’s Mr. Gentry. There must have been some trouble here at the hotel.”
“The portly gentleman sporting the silver-plated bracelets and who is having his picture taken is none other than Arnold Thrip, angel,” he told her quietly.
“Arnold Thrip?” Phyllis leaned forward and peered through the windshield. “Do you mean-was he-?”
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