Stranger in Town ms-26

by Brett Halliday

  The detective glanced anxiously at the two officers as he entered. The younger one, Burke, he assumed, was drawn up very stiffly with folded arms, and he glared at Shayne as though he had never seen him before and hoped never to see him again.

  His red-faced companion was not quite so obviously at attention. He had a bulbous nose, and a network of tiny red veins showed in his cheeks, and Shayne was happy to detect the trace of a human twinkle in his eyes. There was a slight swelling on his upper lip which Shayne supposed had resulted from contact with his fist the night before, and he played it by ear by nodding solemnly to the judge and then turning impulsively aside to Officer Grimes and saying:

  “I must have been crocked last night, Sergeant. Buy you a drink to make up for it if I get out of here with the price of one.”

  Grimes grinned momentarily, but the clerk was reading the charges against Shayne aloud in a sing-song voice, and the detective swung back to listen to them solemnly.

  “Over-time parking… Drunk and Disorderly on a public street… resisting arrest… How say you, Michael Shayne?”

  Shayne looked down at the judge and said, “I plead guilty, your Honor.”

  Judge Grayson leaned back in his swivel chair and judicially placed the tips of five fingers against the tips of five other fingers beneath his chin. “Any extenuating circumstances?”

  Shayne hesitated and gulped once. He lowered his eyelids and said humbly, “I’m afraid I had one too many to drink, your Honor.”

  “I see. I understand you are a licensed private detective in the State of Florida.”

  “Yes, your Honor.”

  “Is it your habitual custom to drive your automobile while under the influence?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Yet you were attempting to do so last night when Officer Burke intercepted you.”

  Michael Shayne drew in a deep breath and lifted his eyelids to look squarely at the judge. “I will always be thankful that he did, your Honor. I congratulate Brockton on their diligent and alert police officers.”

  “Very well.” The judge’s voice was peremptory, but Shayne felt he had scored a point. “Brockton is a community of children and of homes. We like to think of ourselves as a friendly community, but we do love our children. Ninety-five dollars and costs,” he told the clerk. He looked past Shayne to the doorway where the next offender was being ushered in. “Next case.”

  Grimes and Burke disappeared while Shayne was paying his fine and receiving his wallet and other possessions back from another uniformed man who took him in tow.

  It was almost ten o’clock before he sat in his car again, parked in the rear of the police station, and was free to drive away, to put the smell of Brockton and their efficient police force behind him.

  Instead, he had gotten directions to the Manor Hotel, and he drove directly there. It was a large, six-story modern building on Main Street, and his spirits rose when he saw a liquor store with its doors open for business directly beside it. He maneuvered the Hudson into a small parking lot in front of the hotel, got out and handed his keys over to an impressively uniformed doorman.

  “Two bags in the back seat,” he told him. “I’ll be right in to register.”

  He found a bottle of Monnet in the liquor store, returned to enter the cool, modernistic lobby with it tucked securely under his arm. His head had almost stopped aching, and he had learned to turn his head slowly and gingerly so it didn’t feel that it would fall off each time he did so. The world was distinctly a better place to live in than it had been two hours ago.

  The room clerk had a sandy mustache and a deferential manner. His manner became almost effusive as he studied the registration card Shayne filled out and the detective asked him for a suite.

  “Yes, indeed, Mr. Shayne. From Miami, eh? In our little town on business?”

  “Certainly not for pleasure.”

  “Indeed… yes.” His toothsome smile stayed in place, though very slightly awry. “I can give you a lovely suite, Mr. Shayne. Double bedroom and a lovely sitting room. Will you be with us long?”

  Shayne shrugged. “No longer than it takes me to clear up a few things.”

  “A pity, Mr. Shayne. We in Brockton pride ourselves on our hospitality to strangers within our gates. We are a small community of home-lovers, but friendly we like to think. Front!” He struck a bell on the desk sharply.

  A neatly uniformed young bellboy took Shayne’s bags up to the fourth floor. Shayne took the bottle out of its paper wrapping as the boy bustled about opening windows and checking towels. He gave him a dollar and said, “Bring up a pitcher of ice, please. I’ll leave the door unlocked because I may be in the shower.”

  As the boy nodded and started to leave the room, Shayne stopped him with another dollar bill in his outstretched hand. “This is for not explaining how friendly Brockton is to strangers.” He turned away and started shucking off the clothes he had slept in the night before.

  The pitcher of ice cubes waited for Shayne when he emerged naked from the bathroom ten minutes later. He padded across to the cognac bottle, opened it and poured a water glass half full. With two ice cubes tinkling in the glass, he lit a cigarette and sat down beside the telephone. He gave the hotel operator the number of his Miami office, and drank half the contents of the glass while he waited to hear Lucy’s voice lilting over the wire.

  5

  But Lucy’s voice sounded unlilting and strained when it finally came over the wire: “Michael Shayne. Private investigations.”

  He said, “You sound queer, angel. Could it be you’re worried about me?”

  In a very brief silence he heard her swiftly indrawn breath at the other end of the wire. Then, “I’m not just sure about that, Mr. Johnson. Will you hold on please while I go into Mr. Shayne’s private office and see if I can find the memo?”

  Shayne said, “Sure,” and the knuckles of his left hand became white as he gripped the receiver hard. Sweat started creeping down the trenches in his cheeks as he waited. In about thirty seconds, Lucy’s cautiously lowered voice came over the line again:

  “Michael! Where are you? I expected you back last night and I waited up late at my place with a bottle of cognac expecting you to call me, and…”

  “What’s all the hush-hush about?” he interrupted harshly.

  “There’s a man in the outer office, Michael. He was waiting in front of the door when I came in this morning. He… gives me the creeps. Won’t give any name or say what he wants, except to see you. I told him I expected you back any moment, and he just settled down in one of the chairs and there he sits. Smoking cigarettes and watching every move I make from under the brim of his hat. Do you know…?”

  “Describe him,” Shayne interrupted.

  “He’s just sort of medium. Honestly, Michael, he looks like a fugitive from a private eye program on television. Like he’d modeled himself after one of those gunmen they’re always showing. And Michael… I’m sure he does have a gun. Once or twice when he twisted in his chair I’m positive I saw a bulge inside his coat like a gun. Where are you? At home? I just thought I’d slip in here where it’s private to warn you so you wouldn’t walk in the door and be caught unawares.”

  “I’m in a town called Brockton, Lucy. In the middle of the state.” Michael Shayne’s tone was peremptory. “I may be stuck here for a day or so… so listen to me carefully.”

  “Brockton? What on earth…?”

  “It’s a long story, angel. I stopped in here at a bar on my way home last night for a drink before dinner… and there was this girl. She came into the bar and… well, hell, Lucy, it’s too long a story and too crazy for you to understand.”

  “But you did spend the night in Brockton on account of her?” Lucy Hamilton’s voice was suddenly icy.

  Shayne grinned and took a drink of cognac from the glass in his right hand. “That’s right, honey-chile,” he drawled. “I sure did. All on account of her. And I’m sticking around for awhile hoping to get another look at
her.” His voice became crisp. “Tell me this fast. Anything come up there at the office after I phoned you yesterday morning? Any new clients? Anyone whom you told I was driving back from Mobile who might have made a guess at my itinerary?”

  “No. There’s been nothing at all. Until this man who showed up this morning. Is it trouble, Michael? Are you mixed up in… something?”

  “I’m plenty mixed up,” Shayne told her grimly. “Write this down. The Manor Hotel in Brockton. Number four-ten. And, angel… that goon in the front office may be part of it.”

  “Part of what?” wailed Lucy.

  “That’s what I’d like to know. As soon as I hang up, you stay in my office and call Will Gentry. Tell him I’m out of town and you’ve got a suspicious character in the front office. Have him send a couple of men up to pick the guy up and go over him. Find out who he is and why. Then you go back to your typewriter and distract him until Will’s boys get there.”

  “All right, Michael. Please… be careful.”

  “In Brockton,” said Shayne, “it doesn’t seem to help much. Call Gentry now.”

  “He probably isn’t what I think at all. It may just all be my imagination, Michael.”

  “I know. But if it ties up with this thing here last night, he’ll be playing for keeps. Good luck.” He slammed down the phone and stood up. He had planned to phone down for a decent breakfast while he dressed leisurely in fresh clothes, but all thought of food was driven from his mind by this development.

  He hurried to a suitcase and unstrapped it, got dressed swiftly and went out, leaving the cognac bottle standing uncorked beside the telephone. He had only one faint clue to work on. The Girl whose picture had been in the newspaper a few days previously. The local newspaper, he presumed, though the man from the barroom hadn’t stated specifically.

  Downstairs the doorman directed him a block and a half down the street to the building housing the Brockton Daily Courier. It was a large, modern brick building with presses in the basement, advertising and make-up on the first floor, editorial offices on the second.

  Shayne climbed a stairway and explained what he wanted to a spectacled girl on the switchboard and information desk. She motioned to a long table at one side where a week’s issues of the Courier were neatly stacked up.

  Shayne started with yesterday’s paper, turning them swiftly and glancing at each front page for the picture he sought. If that didn’t work, he’d start back, going through the inside pages also.

  But it worked. Her picture leaped out at him from the front page of the preceding Friday’s issue. Not too good a likeness in the somewhat smeared newsprint reproduction, but good enough for Shayne in whose mind her features were indelibly imprinted.

  Heavy black letters over the picture asked: WHO IS SHE?

  The caption beneath, in smaller letters was: AMNESIA VICTIM IN LOCAL HOSPITAL.

  Shortly before two o’clock this morning, the girl pictured above presented herself at the front door of City Hospital in a dazed state of shock.

  Sobbing and distraught, she was unable to give a coherent story of the events leading up to her appearance at the hospital, and had absolutely no knowledge of her own identity, with no memory whatsoever prior to a short time previously when she stated she had found herself wandering alone on some deserted stretch of highway near Brockton with no knowledge of how she came to be there or where she was or who she was.

  According to her story, a passing motorist stopped his car to pick her up, and after hearing her story, drove her directly to the hospital entrance where he let her out and drove away at once without giving his name or any clue to his identity. He was driving a shabby coupe, she stated, either dark blue or green, and one of the popular makes, Ford, Chevrolet or Plymouth.

  She could not describe his physical appearance in any detail, but said he was kind to her and she was very grateful for his help.

  A physical examination disclosed that she had suffered a hard blow on the right temple from some blunt instrument an hour or so previously, which undoubtedly was responsible for her amnesia.

  Dr. Jay Philbrick, who was summoned from his home to conduct the examination expressed his opinion that it was entirely possible she might recover her lost memory after the first state of shock passed, although he admitted that in many similar cases the victims had remained with no vestige of memory of past events for weeks or for months.

  “The very best treatment for a case of this type,” Dr. Philbrick stated emphatically after his first examination, “is to place the patient in contact with familiar surroundings and with her own family and friends. Recovery is generally swift under those conditions, and there is little reason to fear this young lady will not be as good as new as soon as her memory is jolted by some familiar face or circumstance and begins to function again.

  “It is of the utmost importance, however,” he concluded, “that she should be identified as soon as possible, and placed among friends.”

  For this reason the Courier is running her photograph, taken last night by a staff photographer, on our front page with an appeal to our readers for any information that may lead to her identification.

  A detailed description of the Mystery Girl follows: Age: about 20. Height: five feet four inches. Weight: 115 pounds. Fair complexion; blue eyes; naturally curly golden hair; no distinguishing scars or marks. She was wearing an obviously expensive white silk dress, sheer nylon stockings and bronze evening pumps, and no jewelry of any sort except a gold wrist watch.

  It is particularly requested that the Good Samaritan who brought her to the hospital and left her there without identifying himself should come forward to tell the authorities where and under what conditions he found her, because the police theorize that she may have been the victim of an auto accident, and the spot where she was first found may help to pinpoint inquiries along that line. This theory, Dr. Philbrick conceded, is wholly plausible as a possible cause of the concussive blow she had sustained.

  Shayne laid the paper aside with a frown creasing his forehead. Maybe that explained the crazy set-up-she was wandering around loose still a victim of amnesia. Maybe she had thought she recognized from out of the blankness of the past.

  But they wouldn’t have released her from the hospital, would they? Unless she had recovered fully?

  He turned the next day’s paper, shaking his head dubiously. On the front page, he found the answer. There was no picture this time, but a headline told him: AMNESIA VICTIM IDENTIFIED.

  The girl who mysteriously appeared at City Hospital early yesterday morning suffering from advanced shock and complete loss of memory was identified early yesterday afternoon by means of the photograph which was displayed on the front page of the Courier as a public service.

  Her father, Mr. Amos Buttrell, wealthy socialite of New York and wintering at the Roney Plaza Hotel in Miami Beach, drove here from that city after seeing his daughter’s picture prominently displayed on the front page of the Courier at a newsstand there.

  “I recognized my daughter, Amy, immediately,” he stated to a representative of the Courier who was on hand at the hospital when the happy reunion occurred, “though I haven’t yet the vaguest idea how she came to be wandering on the highway near Brockton in such a condition.”

  She had left the hotel two days ago to visit friends in St. Petersburg, he explained, driving her own car, a two-toned, 1954 Pontiac convertible, and expected to reach St. Petersburg late that evening. When he received no word of her safe arrival yesterday morning, he telephoned her friends in St. Petersburg and learned that she had not arrived in that city as expected.

  “I wasn’t actually worried at first,” Mr. Buttrell explained. “Amy is a competent and careful driver and I knew she had sufficient cash to tide her over any ordinary emergency. I was surprised, though, that she hadn’t called either her friends or me to explain the delay, for Amy is usually very punctilious about such things. I was completely bowled over when I recognized her picture on the front page of
the Courier which I just happened to see at a newsstand. I drove here at once, of course, to find her in this distressing state.”

  Though Brockton is not on the most direct route between Miami and St. Petersburg, it is on an alternate route which Miss Buttrell might easily have chosen for her trip.

  The whereabouts of her automobile, however, remains a complete mystery as we go to press, as do the events leading up to her dramatic appearance at the door of the local hospital in the small hours of the morning. A statewide description of the missing automobile has been broadcast by the police, and Chief Ollie Hanger has issued an urgent request that anyone possessing any information at all about the girl or her car should communicate at once with the Brockton police.

  There were a couple more paragraphs of straight sob stuff describing the meeting between the distraught father and his beautiful daughter who did not recognize him, with some reassuring words from Dr. Philbrick to the effect that he was positive she would swiftly recover her memory when returned to familiar surroundings.

  Shayne folded the paper thoughtfully, picked up the preceding issue that carried Amy Buttrell’s picture and the first story, and as an afterthought, also gathered up all the following issues so that he might go over them at his leisure to see if anything further had been learned about the girl and the accident that had brought on her attack of amnesia.

  He paid for the papers at the Information desk and hurried back to his hotel room with them tucked under his arm. He dropped the pile of papers on the floor and strode directly to the telephone where he asked the hotel operator to connect him with the Roney Plaza hotel in Miami Beach.

  After a brief wait, “The Roney Plaza, good morning,” came through the receiver, and he asked for Mr. Amos Buttrell.

  There was a short wait while Shayne sank into a chair, worried a cigarette out of a limp package and got it lighted with his free hand. Then the voice said, “I’m sorry, sir. We don’t have any Mr. Buttrell. Did I get the name correctly?”