When Dorinda Dances

by Brett Halliday

  “First, let’s clear up this telephone call Brewer spoke of,” Shayne interjected hastily. “Could your secretary or someone else have taken it and forgotten to tell you?”

  “No,” Gibson stated flatly. “My secretary had the afternoon off and I was alone in the office. You must have misunderstood him.” He paused, frowned, then went on impatiently. “Perhaps he did plan to see me. He knows I often work late.”

  Shayne said, “All right. Perhaps I misunderstood him. If he did reach your office late—around six—after you left, would anyone have seen him?”

  “Probably not. I have a ground-floor suite with a private entrance in the arcade.”

  “Look, Mike,” growled Gentry, “maybe I had better pull Godfrey off that plane. If Brewer actually expected to be murdered.”

  Shayne said wearily, “You tell them, Hank.”

  Henry Black had been silent since they entered the office. He took a black notebook from his pocket, flipped the pages, and began to read in a monotone.

  “Phone call five twenty-six from Mike Shayne. Milton Brewer of Godfrey and Brewer in his office to hire me and another operative to keep a close tail on his partner, Hiram Godfrey, suspected of intention to murder. Two hundred and expenses to shadow subject entire night and see off on eight-o’clock plane. Subject placed supposedly at firm’s office on West Flagler, blue Buick convertible parked outside. Description of subject—”

  “Cut that part for the moment,” Shayne interrupted. “Give Gentry what he wants fast. You can go over the details later.”

  Black closed the notebook and resumed. “Mathews and I found the Buick convertible parked outside the office when we arrived at five thirty-four. Lights were on in the office, but shades down. We waited until five forty-eight when a man answering Godfrey’s description came out the front door after turning out all the lights. He got in the Buick, and we tailed him. We didn’t lose him for a single instant until that plane took off this morning. Every movement is written down here, and Mathews kept his own report for corroboration.” He tapped the notebook with a thin forefinger and added plaintively, “And for that job somebody owes me two hundred bucks and expenses.”

  “Nonsense,” said Elliott Gibson. “You couldn’t possibly have kept an eye on him every minute through the night. He probably fooled you by pretending to go to bed, and you don’t want to admit it.”

  Black ignored the lawyer. He said to Gentry, “If Brewer was alive at five-thirty, you’ll never be able to make a charge against Godfrey. Not with Mathews and me on the stand.”

  “There’s no actual evidence that he’s dead.” Gentry growled disgustedly. “So he’s afraid his partner plans to kill him, and he goes off some place where he isn’t known, and hides.”

  “He was in a tizzy to get away from my office at five-thirty to see Mr. Gibson,” Shayne reminded the chief. “It’s a five-minute walk. Yet Gibson says he hadn’t turned up by the time he left, sometime after six.”

  “Maybe he changed his mind after he left your office.”

  Shayne shrugged. “Maybe. It’s no skin off my nose either way.” He got up.

  “Nothing more on the dancer?” Gentry asked.

  “Nothing at my end.” He looked inquiringly at the chief.

  “Nothing from the radio pickup.” Gentry regarded him quizzically. “You sure there was any dancer, Mike? Sure that wasn’t a fast story to cover up something entirely different on Moran’s death?”

  Shayne snorted. “You saw her picture and cased her apartment.”

  “I know. But you’re the only one that places her in your apartment at the right time.”

  “Try the night clerk at my hotel,” Shayne suggested sourly. “He’ll describe her.” He paused, noting Gibson’s growing impatience with this interchange which excluded him, and went on before the lawyer could interrupt.

  “What sort of story have you given to the papers on Moran? They haven’t been around my place for hot copy.”

  “I haven’t given them anything,” the chief told him in a mild rumble. “Until we find the girl—if she is what you say—”

  “Thanks, Will. We should know for sure by noon when I get a call from Washington. What about the Waldorf Towers? Have you checked further on Mrs. Davis?”

  “What sort of run-around am I getting here?” Gibson broke in angrily. His face grew very red and he pounded his fist on the chief’s desk. “I believe my client to be murdered, and I demand immediate action.”

  Gentry calmly disregarded the attorney. He nodded in answer to Shayne’s question and consulted a memorandum on his desk. “I had a man waiting for the day shift. I got his report just before this Brewer thing came up. She still hasn’t returned to her room. No one remembers seeing her go in or out last night, or any visitors. No outgoing phone calls and no recollection of any incoming calls except your attempt to reach her.”

  “What about her reservation?”

  “It was made by telephone the previous day. But get this, Mike. The clerk who made the reservation thinks it was made by a man. He won’t swear to it, but has that distinct impression.”

  Shayne scowled heavily. “No name, of course.”

  “Only the Mrs. Davis.”

  “A local call?”

  “He thinks so. But suppose it was long-distance? You call a hotel, and the operator connects you with the desk. He has no way of knowing whether it’s local or not.”

  Shayne said abruptly, “I’m going to check that room. Have you got a man there?”

  “I told Olsen to stick around.”

  Shayne went out, hearing Attorney Gibson’s wrathful voice raised behind him as he closed the door.

  He drove swiftly to the Waldorf Towers with the additional fact of Milton Brewer’s disappearance nagging at his mind. Brewer and Mrs. Davis. And Dorinda—

  As yet, he couldn’t see any connection between the first two. Two clients who happened to pass each other in his waiting-room. One client, and a prospective client, he amended. If it hadn’t been for the accident of Mrs. Davis reaching his office first, he would have been on Hiram Godfrey’s tail instead of Henry Black.

  Now they were both missing. How did that add up? Was the girl a connection between them? She had mentioned that either Brewer or Godfrey was a friend of her father’s (if she was Julia Lansdowne) and Mrs. Davis had claimed to be her mother’s closest friend.

  If it were Brewer who was her father’s friend—that indicated a connection between him and Mrs. Davis. Yet, he could recall nothing to indicate that either was more than casually aware of the other. Of course, he had not given Brewer more than a glance during the brief moment when he escorted Mrs. Davis into the outer office. That was something he would have to ask Lucy.

  At the Waldorf Towers, he looked around for Olsen whom he knew by sight. Gentry’s man was not in the lobby, but as Shayne started toward the desk he was accosted by Ben Hutch, the house detective.

  “Hi, Mike,” said Hutch. “You here on Mrs. Davis?”

  Shayne nodded. “Gentry told me Olsen was staked out here.”

  Hutch was a wiry man of medium height. He wore a quiet brown suit and a deceptively casual expression. “Olsen stepped out for a cup of coffee,” he said. “I promised to keep an eye out.”

  “Let’s go up to four-eighteen,” Shayne suggested, and moved toward the elevators.

  “Okay, Mike. But she can’t be up there. She left her key in the box. I’ve got it right here.”

  “People have been known to leave hotel doors on the latch when they went out—for various reasons,” Shayne told him equably. “Maybe Mrs. Davis had a reason.”

  “What?” Hutch asked as an elevator took them up.

  “She’s in the middle of something funny. I’m worried, that’s all.”

  They stopped at 418, and Ben Hutch knocked perfunctorily before trying the doorknob. It was locked. He inserted the key and opened the door, and stepped cautiously inside.

  Shayne entered a large, pleasant room that showed no sig
n of occupancy except the presence of an obviously new case of expensive airplane luggage standing unopened on a luggage stand. The bed was neatly made, and the spacious closet was empty.

  Ben Hutch went into the bathroom and returned with a puzzled frown between his eyes. “Looks like she didn’t even wash her hands. I forgot to mention that the maid reported this morning—said the bed hadn’t been used, and towels all clean.”

  “So you forgot to tell me,” Shayne growled. “Are you going to open that bag? Or shall I?”

  “If it’s not locked.” Hutch went over and pressed the center catch. It opened, and he withdrew its entire contents, a heavy bundle wrapped in a cheap dressing-gown with a Burdine’s price tag still attached to a button on the sleeve. He laid it on the bed, unrolled the gown, and revealed four new novels with bright jackets.

  “An obvious plant,” Shayne said with disgust. “Those books make about the right weight, and the robe kept them from sliding around and attracting attention when her luggage was carried up.”

  “In the name of God, why? This bag cost a lot more than a night’s room rent, and she didn’t even sleep here.”

  Shayne’s gray eyes were narrowed and remote. “I don’t know, Ben. Leave the room locked, and I’ll have Gentry send up a fingerprint man right away.”

  He left the house detective and long-legged it to the elevator where he went down and out to his car.

  So now both women were really missing, he thought, as he drove to his downtown office. And Mr. Milton Brewer.

  He increased his speed, suddenly hopeful that Lucy Hamilton had noticed a glance between Brewer and Mrs. Davis, a casual word, perhaps. His hunch that the woman’s name was not Davis persisted, but he had liked her and wanted to help her. She had obviously had no intention of spending the night at the Waldorf Towers. There were no toilet articles in her case—nothing.

  Then why? Just for an address? An address, he thought grimly, for her to give to a dumb private detective so he could contact her without any chance of his learning who she really was?

  She had been at La Roma two nights ago, he reminded himself. Yet, she hadn’t checked into the Waldorf as Mrs. Davis until the next afternoon. Just before going to his office and telling him an interesting story and hiring him to do what?

  Shayne shook his head savagely as he stopped in front of his office building and got out. When he entered his office Lucy Hamilton looked up from the telephone and said happily, “Here he is now. Just a minute, Mr. Black.”

  Shayne nodded and strode into his private office. He picked up the receiver and asked, “What is it, Hank?”

  “Looks like they just hauled Brewer’s body out of Biscayne Bay up beyond Seventy-Ninth Street,” Black said in a nasal monotone. “Thought you might be interested.”

  Shayne exhaled his pent-up breath in a long, low whistle.

  “Me, too,” said Black sadly. “Who the hell’s going to pay my fee now?”

  “You might bill his widow. From the way Brewer talked last night I gather she’ll feel this is worth two hundred, plus expenses.” Shayne’s voice was callous, and he hung up before Black could say anything else.

  Now only two of the three were missing.

  CHAPTER IX

  The telephone rang immediately, and Shayne was not surprised when Timothy Rourke’s voice came over the wire.

  “Thanks for the tip on that story last night, Mike. But why didn’t you tell me to print it fast?”

  “What story?”

  “The Brewer thing. I could have gotten the jump on the other boys if I had taken a chance and said the man was dead.” Rourke’s tone was aggrieved.

  “When did you hear it?” Shayne asked.

  “We just had a flash at the office that they had pulled his body out of the bay around Ninetieth Street a little while ago. I’ll pick you up in five minutes.” Rourke hung up before Shayne could reply.

  Shayne cradled the receiver slowly. He got up, tugging at his left ear lobe, and went to a window where he stared out with a distracted expression on his lean face. He whirled abruptly and stalked into the outer office. On the way to the door he said to Lucy, “I’m out with Tim Rourke to take a look at the body of the man we didn’t take on for a client last night.” He was halfway down in the elevator when he remembered that he hadn’t asked his secretary the questions that seemed so important when he entered the office and found Henry Black on the phone.

  Rourke pulled up to the curb a couple of minutes after Shayne stepped outside the building. He got in, and the reporter sped away toward Biscayne Boulevard, saying, “I guess your man knew what he was talking about, Mike.”

  “It looks that way,” Shayne agreed morosely. “How much have you got on Brewer’s death? When did it happen?”

  “I don’t know. Just a flash from headquarters. As soon as I heard the name Brewer, I called you. I think some boys found the body just a short time ago, and Gentry’s on his way out.” He turned north on the boulevard, and continued. “It seems your friend, Henry Black, wasn’t any too efficient last night.”

  “I’m not too sure about that, Tim.” Shayne told him about Black’s visit to his apartment that morning and the talk with Will Gentry at police headquarters. “I didn’t go over Black’s notes on Godfrey’s movements,” he added, “but I imagine Will checked pretty thoroughly. If we accept Henry Black’s statement at face value it appears that Godfrey is the one man in Miami who couldn’t have murdered Brewer.”

  “But he was the one man Brewer was afraid of,” Rourke protested.

  “As far as I know,” Shayne conceded. “That’s the story Brewer told me. If Godfrey didn’t murder him, I would say Brewer was either mistaken or lying.”

  “What about Elliott Gibson—Brewer’s lawyer? Shouldn’t he have been worried when Brewer didn’t turn up at his office last night?”

  “Yeh,” said Shayne absently. “There’s something peculiar about that. Brewer told me he had phoned Gibson to say he was coming. Yet Gibson denies it.”

  “Why would he deny it?”

  “How do I know? Maybe Brewer lied to me.”

  Rourke said in a puzzled voice, “I don’t see why either one of them should lie about a thing like that.” He paused, then added reflectively, “How did the lawyer strike you, Mike?”

  “Negative. Not too good, not too bad. I wouldn’t pick him for a murderer at first glance.”

  “Let’s see how the timing works out,” Rourke suggested. “Brewer was in your office about five-thirty?”

  “That’s right. Black’s notes indicate that I called him at five twenty-six.”

  “And Brewer left your office soon after that?”

  “Within a couple of minutes after I finished talking to Black. He seemed in a great rush to get to Gibson’s office a couple of blocks away.”

  “Yet he never reached that office?”

  “According to Gibson he didn’t,” said Shayne.

  They passed 79th Street, and Rourke slowed his car to watch for street numbers. Just beyond 90th Street he swung to the right toward Biscayne Bay, and at the dead end of the street they saw a group of police cars and an ambulance. The beach was wide at this point, and glaring sunlight beat down upon a group of men gathered around an object lying on the sand close to the water’s edge.

  Will Gentry arose from his knees and turned as Shayne and Rourke joined them. “I’m glad Tim picked you up, Mike,” he rumbled. “This is a bad business.”

  “Brewer?”

  Gentry nodded. “I guess so. Plenty of identification on him, but maybe you can help us.”

  Henry Black stood to one side of the group. He gave Shayne a sour glance and said, “Looks like I wasted a night tailing the wrong guy.”

  Shayne shook his red head slowly, and made no comment.

  Elliott Gibson detached himself from the group and came toward Shayne exclaiming bitterly, “Do you still think that Godfrey shouldn’t be taken off the plane and brought back here on a murder charge?”

  Sh
ayne shrugged. “Do you identify the body?”

  “Of course I do. It’s my client and friend, Milton Brewer. If you and Gentry had taken me seriously this morning you’d have Godfrey picked up by this time. God knows where he may have gotten to by this time!”

  Shayne lifted one ragged red brow inquiringly at the police chief. “How did Black’s story check, Will?”

  “On the head. I don’t see how Godfrey could have swatted a fly last night without Black’s knowledge.”

  “Nonsense,” Gibson interposed angrily. “What makes you think you can trust one of these private dicks to tell the truth? Can’t you see that Black and Shayne are probably in on this together?”

  “A little more of that, Mr. Gibson, will be too damned much.” Shayne turned away from the bristling attorney and asked Gentry, “How long has the man been dead?”

  Gentry looked doubtful. He said, “We’ll have to let Doc make a guess on that. He’s been in the water a long time, and he’s pretty well smashed up.”

  Shayne moved closer to the corpse and nodded to a chubby little man with a worried face. “What can you make out of it, Doc?

  The police surgeon hunched one shoulder toward the body stretched out on a length of canvas. “Not much right now. Take a look for yourself.”

  Shayne took a look. The body lay on its side. The man’s face was brutally smashed and beaten. His drenched hair was as glossy black as Shayne recalled it, but his beautiful light suit was water-soaked. The collar of the shirt had the tabs buttoned tightly, but the tie was awry. His nose was so bludgeoned that it was impossible to tell whether he had ever worn glasses. He was dressed exactly the same as when he visited Shayne’s office, down to the white-and-tan sports shoes on his rather small feet.

  Turning back to Gentry, he said, “Don’t take this for an official identification, Will. Remember I’d only seen the man once. Except for his face, he is identical in appearance with Brewer when he left my office about five-forty yesterday afternoon, headed for Elliott Gibson’s office.”