Blood on the Stars ms-15

by Brett Halliday

  “I was very careful not to touch it,” said the doctor. “It was lying right there when I first came in.”

  Lucy moved her head slightly and moaned. Faint color was beginning to show in her cheeks. Miss Naylor said, “Her pulse is much stronger, Doctor. I think she’s reacting perfectly.”

  Harvey turned the gun over to Wentworth and said, “Have Richardson go over it.” He turned back to Shayne, who was now on his knees beside the wall radiator examining the dried bloodstains on the corner nearest the door.

  “We can almost reconstruct it from this,” he said to Harvey. “Lucy knew I kept my gun in that drawer. I showed it to her a couple of days ago. If someone frightened her and she ran in here to get it, she could have turned back to meet him in the doorway. Standing about where Doctor Price is now would bring the back of her head against the radiator if she was shoved violently. How about this, Doctor? Could she possibly have gotten up and onto the bed under her own steam after falling?”

  “No. It would have been utterly impossible. Someone picked her up and laid her on the bed and pulled the sheet up over her.”

  Lucy moaned again and her arm jumped convulsively in the nurse’s hand. Dr. Price leaned forward to observe her carefully, and Shayne pushed forward to look down at her. Her eyes opened and his face was the first one she saw.

  “Michael,” she said weakly. “What-?”

  “Now, Miss Naylor,” the doctor said quietly, then bent closer to Lucy and said, “You’ve had an accident, Miss Hamilton. Don’t let yourself become excited. Mr. Shayne is going to ask you a few questions and I want you to answer them as briefly as possible. You must try to be calm and not become frightened.”

  “I understand,” Lucy whispered. Her wide brown eyes were fixed on Shayne’s face, and she appeared not to notice the injection being administered by the nurse.

  Shayne said softly, “Everything is all right, Lucy. Dr. Price is giving me two minutes to ask you questions. Do you remember everything clearly?”

  “Yes.”

  “You had undressed in your room and came back here for something,” he went on swiftly. “Leaving the door on the latch. Did someone come in?”

  “I thought it was you. I stepped in here to-surprise you, just as the door opened. The telephone rang. The man called ‘Shayne,’ and I knew it wasn’t you and I was frightened. The phone kept ringing and he looked in the kitchen and bathroom and then came-in here. I was hidden behind the door. Then he answered the phone. He said, ‘This is Mr. Shayne,’ and then I got angry and remembered your pistol.

  “I got it while he listened on the phone, just saying a word now and then. He hung up as I tiptoed back to the door after saying, ‘I’ll be there right away, Mrs. Dustin.’ I-guess-he was more-frightened than I was when he saw me standing there-with your pistol. He jumped at me before I could-”

  Her voice trailed off and she closed her eyes. The color was ebbing out of her face again.

  Shayne said urgently, “We know about what happened, Lucy. You fell and struck your head. Did you know the man?”

  “No.” She roused herself with visible effort. Shayne and Sergeant Harvey bent close to hear her murmured words: “Heavy-set. Gray suit and Panama hat-mustache. About fifty years-old. I tried-to shoot-but he-I-couldn’t-” Her lips stopped moving.

  “Pulse still strong,” Miss Naylor reported crisply.

  “How long will that stuff keep her out?” Shayne asked, wiping sweat from his face.

  “Six or eight hours if she isn’t disturbed. And she must not be disturbed. If she is allowed to waken normally tomorrow morning we have nothing to fear. I’ll have Miss Naylor remain with her tonight.”

  “And I’ll get Sergeant Harvey to leave a man here on guard,” said Shayne as they went into the living-room and closed the bedroom door.

  “What does it mean, Mike?” Harvey asked, then to his fingerprint man: “Get anything Richardson? From what we just learned, the doorknobs and telephone are your best bets.”

  “Nothing doing on any of them. The guy who drank out of that extra glass, Mike-?”

  “Tim Rourke.”

  “I thought that’d be Tim.”

  “Try the bedroom,” Harvey directed, “and keep it quiet. Now then, Mike, who was it and what did he want?”

  Shayne had turned away and was opening a fresh bottle of cognac. He said over his shoulder, “You heard exactly as much as I did.”

  “Well, I’ll be going along,” Dr. Price said. “Miss Naylor has full instructions and will call me if there’s any change.”

  Shayne turned about with the full bottle in his hands. “Wait and have a nightcap with us, Doctor. Monnet. Or, I’ve some Scotch if you’d prefer.”

  “Not tonight, thanks.” He started out and Shayne set the bottle down and hurried to open the door and say earnestly, “You don’t know how much I appreciate this. If ever I can-”

  “If ever I require your particular brand of services, Mr. Shayne, I won’t hesitate to call on you. Good night.”

  Shayne was worrying his earlobe and there was a seeking look in his gray eyes when he re-entered the room. “Know the Sunlux telephone number by any chance?” he asked Harvey.

  Harvey said he didn’t. Shayne looked it up in the directory and called the number and asked for the Mark Dustin suite. After half a minute, the operator at the hotel said, “Sorry. They do not answer.”

  “Connect me with Harry Jessup, the house detective,” Shayne said. His face was furrowed with worry and his eyes low-lidded as he waited an interval of about two minutes before he spoke again.

  “Harry? Mike Shayne. I’m worried about the Mark Dustins. That’s right. He got conked in a jewel heist. They don’t answer their phone but they’re supposed to be in. Maybe they’re asleep, but Mrs. Dustin has been trying to get in touch with me and I don’t like it a damned bit. Check for me, and have her call me at my apartment at once if everything’s all right-and you call me fast if it isn’t.” He gave his telephone number, hung up, and stalked across the room to pour himself a drink. He shoved the bottle toward the sergeant. “Pour yourself a drink in this glass,” indicating the one Tim Rourke had used.

  Sergeant Harvey helped himself to the rye. He waited until Shayne was comfortably seated, then said, “What’s this about Mark Dustin at the Sunlux, Mike?”

  “I’ll give you everything I’ve got, which is damned little. We know someone walked in here tonight and answered my phone, impersonating me. He promised Mrs. Dustin he’d be over immediately and hung up. That was about an hour ago.

  “Dustin was banged up pretty badly, and went to a hospital to get patched up. He and his wife returned to the hotel about midnight. They don’t answer their telephone, and I’m pretty sure Dustin is in no condition to go out. Maybe they doped him up at the hospital and he’s sleeping too soundly to hear the phone, but Mrs. Dustin should be there. Judging from her actions when I saw them, I don’t think she’d go out and leave him alone.”

  “You working on the stick-up for them?”

  “Not exactly.” Shayne warmed his glass of liquor between his palms. “Dustin did mention something about wanting to see me tomorrow-after Painter had shot off his mouth about me staying out of the deal. He gave the impression he might hire me to recover the bracelet. Damned if I know why his wife would call me tonight.” He shook his red head angrily and took a sip of cognac.

  “Who was the man your secretary described?”

  Shayne kept on shaking his head and protested. “How would I know? You heard Lucy. Heavy-set. Gray suit and Panama hat. Mustache. About fifty years old. Good God, ten thousand people in Miami answer that description.”

  “Not very many of that number know you well enough to walk into your apartment at midnight when they find the door unlocked.”

  “Lots of people know me. Lots more know where I hang out.”

  “Nice friends you’ve got,” said Harvey dryly. “What man who answers that description and knows your apartment number would feel free to wa
lk in, answer your telephone, and then impersonate you and make a date with a dame who’s just lost a fortune in jewelry?”

  “If it happened to be someone who knows me well, he might start out thinking it was funny. You know-midnight and a woman asking for me-”

  “Then tries to kill your secretary, and did actually walk out leaving her to die. That won’t do, Mike. You know who it was.”

  Shayne said, “Maybe I do.”

  “Give.”

  “I’ve got to figure this Dustin angle. There’s a wad of reward money to be picked up from that if a man plays his cards right. Maybe this guy was somebody looking for an angle to cut himself in.”

  “Goddamn it, Mike, are you going to cover up for a murderer in hopes of getting a cut on some lousy reward money?”

  Shayne quirked a bushy red brow at the homicide sergeant and shrugged. “The way I read that stuff in the bedroom it was more an accident than attempted murder. I doubt whether Mr. X meant for her to crack her head on the radiator.”

  “Hold on, Mike. It became attempted murder as soon as he saw how badly she was hurt and walked off and left her like that. Dr. Price himself said a few minutes more delay might have been fatal.”

  “The guy might not have realized how badly she was hurt,” said Shayne.

  “Nuts,” exploded Harvey. “He took the pains to pick her up and put her on the bed. She must have bled a lot, and he’d have known she was unconscious. First time I ever knew you to stick up for a murderer.”

  Shayne’s eyes were bleak. He leaned back and crossed his long legs and lit a cigarette. He kept his gaze on the telephone and didn’t reply.

  Harvey sighed and finished his drink as Richardson came in from the bedroom. “Nothing in there,” he reported.

  “You boys report back to headquarters. I’ll be along later.”

  “How about sending a flatfoot up to keep Miss Naylor company and see that Mr. X doesn’t pay a return visit?” Shayne asked.

  “What’s the matter with you?” demanded Harvey. “Afraid you can’t handle him alone?”

  “I’ve got a hunch I won’t be in much the rest of the night. If you don’t want to assign a man here, I’ll call Will Gentry at home and get him to send somebody.”

  Harvey turned to Richardson and said, “When you get down to headquarters tell Jerico to send one of the reserve squad over.” He waited until his two subordinates had gone out, then poured himself another small drink of rye. “You got a late date?” he asked Shayne casually.

  “I’m hoping Mrs. Dustin still wants to see me.”

  “Good looker?”

  Shayne said, “U-m-m,” as though he hadn’t really heard the question. He stood up and began restlessly pacing up and down the room in front of the telephone, tugging at his earlobe and glaring at the silent instrument each time he passed it.

  Sergeant Harvey watched him and said nothing. He knew the redhead’s moods, knew it was useless to argue with him further. He hadn’t been fooled by Shayne’s apparent indifference to the plight of the wounded girl. He shrewdly suspected that Shayne either knew or could guess the identity of her attacker and that he wasn’t giving out information which might help the authorities get to him first.

  When the telephone rang both men started as though the sound was the last thing in the world they expected to hear. Shayne whirled to grab the receiver. He said, “Shayne speaking,” and listened for a long time without interrupting the flow of words coming over the wire.

  His voice was grim and urgent when he finally said, “I get the picture, Harry. Keep a man in the room with him. Get hold of Peter Painter and start turning the Beach upside down until they find her. Check every phone call to and from their suite since the robbery, fine-tooth the hotel for anything you can find out. I’ll be over quick.”

  He hung up and turned to report succinctly, “Mrs. Dustin has disappeared. Mr. Dustin is alone in bed, passed out from an overdose of sleeping-tablets. They can’t rouse him. We’ve got to find her and we’ve got to find Mr. X. Will you stay here until your man comes?” He was striding toward the bedroom as he spoke. He went in, and emerged a few moments later with the Colt automatic in one hand and a tie in the other. He dropped the gun on top of his coat, swiftly knotted the tie around his throat.

  Sergeant Harvey said, “Sure. I’ll stick around, Mike. I thought you never packed a rod when you’re working,” he added with a curious glance at the gun.

  Shayne shrugged into his coat and dropped the. 38 in a side pocket. “This is a special sort of case. Be seeing you.” He grabbed his hat on the way out and closed the door gently.

  Chapter Eleven

  A LADY IS MISSING

  Michael Shayne found chief painter interrogating one of the elevator operators when he reached the Dustin suite at the Sunlux Hotel. Painter looked worried and his black eyes flashed angrily as he disposed of the man with a scathing: “If you birds had eyes to see with or minds to remember with, a police officer’s job would be easier. Go on back to your elevator.”

  Harry Jessup was seated comfortably in a deep chair across the room. He was a paunchy man with gray hair and a placid face. He rolled out his thick lips in a grimace at Shayne as Painter whirled on the Miami detective and demanded, “What’s all this about?”

  Shayne said, “Suppose you bring me up-to-date. Have you found Mrs. Dustin?”

  “Not a trace of her. She’s vanished completely. Flown out the window as near as I can make out from what I can learn around here.” He gestured savagely toward one of the wide-open windows. “Jessup says you sent him up here to investigate. Why? How did you know anything about it?”

  “You should realize by this time that I generally know quite a lot about what’s going on.” Shayne looked over Painter’s head and asked Jessup, “Has her husband had anything to say yet?”

  “The doctor’s in there trying to bring him out of it,” snapped Painter. He thrust himself forward aggressively as Shayne walked over toward Jessup.

  “According to Jessup,” Painter went on, “you suspected something was wrong because Mrs. Dustin had tried to get in touch with you earlier and then didn’t answer her phone when you called back.”

  “I didn’t waste time telling Jessup the whole story. Some bird entered my apartment while I was out, tried to kill my secretary, and answered the telephone, impersonating me and promising Mrs. Dustin he would see her at once.”

  Shayne went on to give both men a swift resume of Lucy Hamilton’s condition and the fragmentary story she had told. He left out all reference to his encounter with the two men in Mickey’s Garage basement, and spread out his big hands when he added, “That’s everything I’ve got. I don’t know any more than you do why Mrs. Dustin called me. I don’t know who knocked Lucy out and answered my phone.”

  “Where did you go after you left here earlier?” Painter demanded, eyeing the bruise on Shayne’s face. “Who did you tangle with?”

  “Too much liquor,” Shayne said ruefully. “I dropped in a couple of bars and overestimated my capacity. Ended up ramming a culvert on Delaware Road and knocking myself out. What have you found out about Dustin tonight?” he asked Jessup.

  “Nothing that’s worth a damn. They went to the hospital to get his hand X-rayed and bandaged. They returned a little before twelve and came right up. A few minutes later Mrs. Dustin phoned for the house physician who had temporarily bandaged her husband’s hand and asked for some sleeping-tablets. Said Dustin was suffering considerably. The doctor himself came up and gave her a vial with six tablets, prescribing one tablet immediately and another within half an hour if necessary, but she was positively instructed to call him again if two of the tablets didn’t give him relief. She and her husband were together in the bedroom when he gave the instructions, and he is sure both had understood. Yet when I entered the room with a passkey after you called, Mike, I found Dustin alone in bed in a deep sleep from which he couldn’t be roused. Half a glass of water stood on the bedside table, and four of the six tab
lets were gone. In the doctor’s opinion, four of the tablets were sufficient to produce Dustin’s present stupor, though the wounded man is in no danger, and in all probability will be able to tell his story soon.

  “The only other telephone call from this apartment,” Jessup continued, “was about fifteen or twenty minutes after the doctor was here. To your number, Mike. Unfortunately, the operator didn’t listen in. That’s all. The rest is a blank. No one saw Mrs. Dustin go out-nor anyone visit her here. Their car is still parked where the doorman left it after the hold-up this evening.”

  “Any back stairs where she could go without being noticed?”

  “Sure. Right down the hall there’s an exit stairway for bathers. It leads down to the foot of the bathing-pier and anyone might go up or down it at night without being seen by any of the hotel attendants.”

  “It’s quite evident that’s the way she left the hotel,” said Painter. “It’s also quite evident that she slipped her husband four of the pills, or induced him to take the overdose before she called you-or before she went out. Presumably to be sure he didn’t waken and catch her at it. Why?” He pounded a small fist in his palm for emphasis.

  Shayne said, “You heard every word that passed between us tonight. I haven’t the faintest idea why she called me. As for doping her husband, that doesn’t necessarily carry all the implications you suggest. He was in bad shape and she wouldn’t want to worry him if she had discovered some lead she wanted to follow up on the robbery. It’d be just like a woman to decide to go out detecting on her own and slip her husband a Mickey so he wouldn’t worry.”

  “It could also easily mean she had an inside track on the robbery which she had concealed from her husband,” Painter broke in. “He seemed a very decent sort to me. Just the sort of fool to be taken for a ride by a woman who soft-talked him into buying a bracelet worth a fortune which she then arranged to have stolen from him.”

  “Why would she call me if she was in on the robbery?”