“Because of what you told Gentry,” said Rourke bitterly.
“All right. Because of what I told Gentry. That’s water over the dam. Right now we’ve got to think of some place for you to duck out of sight for a day or so.” Shayne got up with drink in hand and paced the floor restlessly. “It would be best if you’d get out of town, hole up in some small town upstate-”
The ringing of the telephone stopped him in midstride. Rourke sprang to his feet and went toward it.
Shayne growled a warning. “Hold it, Tim. We don’t know-”
The reporter’s face was set and inscrutable as he strode on, lifted the receiver, and said, “Tim Rourke speaking.”
An apologetic and worried voice came over the wire. “Ned Brooks, Tim. Sorry if I wakened you at this ungodly hour.”
“You didn’t waken me, Ned. What’s on your mind?”
“Two cops just left my place,” said Brooks rapidly. “I’m afraid, damn it, that they’re on their way to see you. I didn’t know what in hell it was all about, pounding at my door and throwing accusations at me-questioning me about Bert Jackson and his wife, wanting to know who were their close friends, and when did I see either of them last.”
“Well?”
“I told them the truth, damn it, and now I wish I hadn’t. Did you know Bert is dead?”
Rourke said, “Yeh. Go on, Ned.”
“I didn’t know what they were after, so I told them about running into Bert on the street last night a block from his house. That he was pretty drunk and raving about you and a big news story he’s planning to break. The same stuff he and I have been trying to dig up at City Hall, I gathered, except tonight he acted as though he was on to something I didn’t know about.
“Anyhow,” Ned Brooks went on rapidly, “he said he wanted to see you. I asked him if he’d tried his own house. But, hell, Tim, I didn’t mean anything. He was tight, and I thought he ought to get home.”
“You told the cops all this?” Rourke asked.
“Sure. Before I knew what was up. Honest to God-”
“Isn’t your wife out of town, Ned?” Rourke cut in sharply.
“Why, yes. Visiting her folks in New York. I’m batching it, and-”
“You’re going to have company if I can get away from here before the cops grab me. Sit tight, Ned. You can tell me the rest when I get there.” He slammed up the receiver and looked at Shayne with eyes that glittered with excitement.
“What’s up, Tim?” Shayne hadn’t moved. He had stood quietly, listening and gently massaging his ear lobe and staring bleakly into space.
“That was Ned Brooks-reporter on the Trib who was working with Bert on the City Hall run. Claims he doesn’t know much about the story Bert dug up, but if I pump him for details I might pick up something useful. His wife’s out of town, and he can put me up for a few days.”
“Is he a good friend of yours?” Shayne asked doubtfully.
“One of my best friends,” said Rourke with heavy irony. “Like you, he’s gone out of his way to tell the cops how friendly I am with Betty. He ran into Bert after he left the Las Felice tonight and he told the cops Bert was looking for me. They’re probably on their way here now.”
Shayne’s face was very grave. He caught Rourke’s arm and said brusquely, “Get out the back way-down the fire escape. I’ll go out front to your car. If I meet the cops coming up I’ll stall them and say I’ve been trying to rouse you without any luck. Give me Brooks’s address, and for God’s sake stay in out of sight until I contact you there. Are you sure he’ll keep his mouth shut and not turn you in?” he ended desperately.
“Ned owes me a few favors,” said Rourke. He gave Shayne the address, shrugged off the detective’s grip on his shoulder, and went through the kitchenette to the fire escape without another word.
Shayne hastily turned out the lights and left by the front door, closing it and making certain it was locked. He went down the corridor at a leisurely pace. He met no one, and outside he waited until Rourke got in his car and drove away.
As he walked toward the side street where his own car was parked he heard a speeding motor come up behind him, heard the squeal of brakes when it stopped in front of the apartment building. He glanced over his shoulder and saw two uniformed men entering, and without breaking his stride he went on, got into his car, and wheeled it away toward Sixtieth Street.
Chapter Nine
NOSY NEIGHBOR
The Jackson residence on Sixtieth Street was one of a row of bungalows erected from the same architectural plan. The monotony was relieved by reversing the design with every other house, and by the use of different colors of paint on the stuccoed exteriors. Here and there wide awnings had been installed on front porches to shut out the sun’s glare, thus obscuring the numbers. Set back some twenty feet from the sidewalk, each narrow lot boasted a patch of St. Augustine’s grass, and the houses were separated by graveled driveways leading back to one-car garages.
Shayne didn’t have to check the house number. An official police car and a gray coupe were parked in front of a bungalow a third of the way down the block. He drew in behind them and got out. He recognized the gray coupe as Doctor Meeker’s, and felt quite sure that the police weren’t getting anything from Betty Jackson.
As he started up the walk he heard the front door of the house next door slam and a voice say, “Pssst-young man.”
Shayne turned his head and saw a little old lady standing at her porch steps. She beckoned a gnarled finger imperiously. He hesitated briefly, then took off his hat and crossed the driveway, smiling his pleasantest smile.
“Now, young man, I want to know exactly what’s going on next door,” she began without preamble, her bright-blue eyes glittering with curiosity. “You come right in here and tell me. I saw the doctor come first,” she continued, catching his arm and urging him toward the open living-room door, keeping her voice low. “Then I saw those other men. They’re policemen. You’re not a policeman, are you?”
“Not exactly,” Shayne told her as they entered an immaculate room with a large window directly opposite a similar window in the Jackson house.
“I know there’s trouble next door, and land sakes! I’ve been expecting it. Such a nice young couple, too, when they first moved in. Neighborly and all. Took right in to calling me Grandma Peabody just like everybody else in this whole block, and her popping in for a visit most any afternoon. But it didn’t last long. These young people nowadays! Playing at being married, that’s what. It’s easy divorce that does it.
“Now you sit right down there, young man, and tell me what’s going on. Who’s sick, and what’re the police doing there? I’d of been over long ago, but it’s no more’n a month or so since she says to me snippylike, ‘I’ll tell you why I keep my living-room curtains drawn, Mrs. Peabody. Because I like a little privacy in my own house, that’s why.’ As if I cared a whit what she does in her own house, and it’s not my fault our houses happen to be built so my window is right opposite hers with no more’n the driveway between us. A body can’t help glancing out her own window now and then. Not if you’re neighborly the way I’ve always been.
“‘Oh, you needn’t try to pull the wool over my eyes, Mrs. Jackson,’ I told her right off. ‘It’s just when that other newspaper reporter comes visiting you while your husband’s not home that you’re ashamed to have anybody see in. And him ’most old enough to be your father,’ I told her right out. I’d of given her a real piece of my mind if she hadn’t slammed the door shut right in my face. I’ll tell you right now I haven’t set foot on her porch since that day and don’t expect to without I’m straight out invited.”
“I’m sure you’ve been a good neighbor, Mrs. Peabody,” Shayne broke in when she stopped to catch her breath.
He started to get up, but she commanded, “No you don’t, young man. You stay right here and tell me what’s going on. I’ll not rest easy until I know. He was there yesterday afternoon. Walking up brazen as you please at six m
inutes after three o’clock, and Mr. Jackson never home till six or after. Some people think things like that don’t get noticed in the daytime, but land sakes! I always say there’s just as much sinning goes on in the daytime as at night, and nobody can pull the wool over my eyes that way.”
Shayne settled back, suppressing a grin. “What time did this reporter leave, Mrs. Peabody?”
“They went out together at twenty-five minutes of six,” she told him triumphantly. “I made special note of the time because I was watching to see did Mr. Jackson come home early and catch him there. He did once,” she continued, hitching her chair closer and lowering her voice to a confidential tone. “Almost a month ago it was, and there was all manner of a row. After he left, the two of ’em went at it hammer and tongs till almost midnight. A body can hear a lot goes on over there if you leave the window up and sit right close to it. Now I want to know who’s sick-or what. I didn’t hear anything last night after he finally did come home, and drunk as a hooty owl, too. At nine minutes after ten, but then you never do know, do you, and I always say-”
“Do you mean to say that Bert Jackson came home at ten o’clock?” Shayne cut in sharply. “Was Mrs. Jackson home?”
“She was home all right. After leaving with that man, like I said, she came back alone at six-fifteen in a taxi and kept it waiting outside while she went in the house for a few minutes. Then she came back at ten of seven and didn’t stir out again.”
Shayne pressed four fingers of a hand against his wide mouth to hide his mirth at the definite timetable. He asked, “How can you be sure she didn’t go out?”
“With me sitting right here by the window every minute of the time watching out?” she said scornfully. “There’s a street lamp lights their front walk at night bright as day ’most.”
“Isn’t there a back door?” he persisted.
“It doesn’t go anywhere except to their garage, and they don’t have a car. Isn’t even an alley they can get to. What are you trying to make out, young man? Does he claim she wasn’t in when he came in staggering all over the walk? And you haven’t told me yet what the trouble is.”
“Bert Jackson was killed last night,” Shayne told her, “and Mrs. Jackson seems to have taken an overdose of sleeping-tablets and can’t be aroused.”
“Killed? Right next door to me and I didn’t hear it! Mercy me, you’d of thought I’d heard something.” Her toothless mouth worked nervously, and she shook her snow-white head from side to side in anger or sheer disappointment. She made a clucking sound and said, “So she did it so quiet I never even suspected. Oh, she’s a sly one, all right. Cut his throat-or was it a blunt instrument like they say in the radio plays?”
“He was shot and his body found in a ditch several miles from here,” Shayne told her gravely. He watched keenly for her reaction, and decided that it was definitely one of disgust and disappointment.
“How’d he get out of the house?” she asked, greatly agitated, the end of her sharp nose twitching. “I thought for sure he was dead drunk when I heard the telephone ringing and ringing and nobody answering it.”
“When was that?” Shayne asked quietly.
“About half after ten-and then again a minute or two past eleven.”
“How can you place the time so close?”
“Because I had my radio on, that’s why,” she retorted. “I keep it on all evening with the lights out while I’m sitting here-now that they’ve got so careful to be quiet that a body can’t hear anything even when it’s off.”
“If you think he was too drunk to answer the phone, didn’t you think it was queer that she didn’t? Didn’t it make you wonder if maybe she had slipped out before he got home without your seeing her?”
“I know she didn’t, so why should I think that? Besides, she’s always taking those sleeping-pills and going to bed early so she doesn’t hear the phone, and it rings lots of times at night when she’s by herself. Too many sleeping-pills, eh? I’m not surprised. No, sir, not one speck surprised. Are they pumping her out-or is it too late to save her?”
“I imagine the doctor is pumping her out,” Shayne told her. “What time did Bert Jackson go out again after he came in?”
“He didn’t,” she said flatly. “Not till after midnight anyway when I went to bed. Land sakes! If I’d just had any idea-”
Grandma Peabody went on to assure him emphatically that if she’d known what to look forward to she certainly wouldn’t have closed her eyes during the night, but Shayne was convinced of that fact and he didn’t listen to her.
His mind was busy with the puzzle of Bert Jackson returning at ten o’clock when Rourke had told him positively that at twelve o’clock Betty denied that she had seen him all evening. If Mrs. Peabody was right-if Betty had been home at ten-
But perhaps she had already taken the sleeping-tablets by that time, he thought, trying not to listen to the old woman’s chatter which had turned into personal grievances.
That didn’t check. Rourke admitted talking to her at twelve-and comforting her. And he distinctly recalled that Rourke had mentioned talking to her on the phone again at two o’clock and advising her to take the tablets.
He got up suddenly and moved across the room to the window, looked out, and noted that the corner of the Jackson house cut off her line of vision of the front walk at a point about ten feet in front of the Jackson’s front porch.
Pointing this out to her he said casually, “When the police get around to questioning you, I advise you not to be too positive in saying that Mr. Jackson entered his house soon after ten o’clock and didn’t leave it until midnight.”
She came over and peered out the window with him, reluctant to give up her role as the all-seeing eye. “I’d like to know why not,” she snapped. “I saw him with my own eyes, didn’t I? Staggering up that path and land knows how he managed to walk all the way from the bus in that condition.”
“You saw him walk up the path to within ten feet of the front porch,” Shayne corrected her. “You don’t know that he went in. He could have circled around either side of the house without you seeing him.”
“Why in the name of goodness would he do a fool thing like that?” she asked, slightly crestfallen.
Shayne shrugged and returned to his chair. “Drunks get queer ideas sometimes. I’m just showing you what a lawyer would do with your testimony if you got on the witness stand.”
Her old eyes beamed with anticipation. “I’ve never been a witness in court before.” She paused, savoring the idea, then said, “Still and all, I don’t see why he’d sneak around his own house without going in. Not unless he saw something through the front window when he came up-or somebody inside with his wife. But-I reckon that couldn’t of been,” she ended limply, “because nobody else came after she came home by herself.”
“There’s always the back door,” Shayne reminded her, hoping to God as he implanted this thought in her mind that Rourke would be able to prove where he was between ten and twelve last night.
“You mean that other man slipped back in the back way after going off with her so openlike?” She was eager again, nodding her white head knowingly. “Just like in a play I saw once. And him so broke up and noble he went off and shot himself so he wouldn’t be in their way any longer and they could get decently married.”
“You have to keep in mind that drunk men get queer ideas sometimes, Mrs. Peabody,” Shayne reminded her, choking a desire to laugh. He arose and added, “This has been very pleasant, and I’m sure the police will want to hear everything you can tell them.” He paused near the door, a frown creasing his brow, asked, “Are you positive Bert Jackson didn’t come home in a taxi when he arrived at nine minutes after ten?”
She shook her head emphatically. “I watched him walking all the way from the corner. But I did notice a car come up behind him when he turned in his walk, and I remember thinking it was stopping at his walk and wondering who it’d be at that time of night, but it went on after a minute, and
I guess it was just somebody watching him stagger down the sidewalk and was curious to see if he’d fall flat on his face or make it home all right. Some people are pretty curious like that.”
Shayne gravely agreed that some people were. He escaped by promising to bring her news of Betty Jackson’s condition before he left, and recrossed the driveway and patch of lawn to the Jacksons’ walk.
The front door opened as he stepped up on the porch. A detective sergeant whom he knew slightly said with an unwelcoming scowl, “Sorry, Shamus. We got orders you’re not to talk with Mrs. Jackson.”
Chapter Ten
MR. BIG BAITS A TRAP
Shayne lifted his ragged red brows in simulated surprise. “Oh?” He lounged against the doorframe and lit a cigarette, then asked, “Who gave the orders, Sergeant?”
“The chief,” Sergeant Allen replied mildly. He smiled briefly, then added in a confidential tone, “Not that you’re missing much, just between you and me and the gatepost. Some doctor got here first, and he’s in there working on her now. Looks to me like she did a job with sleeping-pills that’ll keep her quiet for a good long time.”
“She’s not dead?” Shayne asked quietly.
“Nope. But she’s sure as hell out like a light. Morgan’s in there arguing with the doc.”
“If she isn’t conscious,” said Shayne good-naturedly, “it can’t do any harm to go in and see what the score is.”
Sergeant Allen pursed his full lips, creased his forehead and finally agreed, “I guess not. Chief didn’t say anything except you wasn’t to talk to her.”
“I’m sure Morgan will be happy to run me out if she recovers enough to talk.” Shayne pushed past the sergeant into a living-room identical in size and shape with Grandma Peabody’s. There the resemblance ended, for here was cluttered disorder in contrast to the immaculate neatness of the other room.
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