Die Like a Dog ms-35

by Brett Halliday

  “How can you be so certain of that?” sneered a rather fruity voice from the hallway, and a fair-haired young man lolled between the parted doors. He swayed a little and clenched a highball glass in his hand, and his bloodshot eyes didn’t focus very well. “Nashty-tempered little bitch, I always said. Snapped at my ankle once and, by Jove, you were more worried about me kicking her than about me getting bit. What’s all the ruckus about anyhow, Sis?” He peered owlishly at Shayne. “Atom bombs going off in our backyard, doctors running hither and yon. You haven’t introduced us, you know.”

  “This is Michael Shayne,” said Anita distinctly. “My brother, Marvin.”

  “The noted private eye, eh?” Marvin blinked at him and moved closer to peer into his face with bleared eyes. “You don’t look the part at all, you know. Not like it is on television with all your beautiful blonde clients ripping off their clothes and crawling into bed with you first crack out of the box. Does he, Sis?” he asked her with a leer. “Can you imagine any beautiful blonde clients climbing into bed with this redheaded Mick? I ask you now. You’re a blonde and you ought to know. Would you climb in bed with his ugly mug?”

  In a coldly vicious voice, Anita said, “Get out of here, Marvin. You’re drunk.”

  “Coursh I’m a little bit drunkie.” He smiled vacuously and took one more look at Shayne, shuddered and almost feel over his own feet exiting.

  She said, “So much for my brother, Mr. Shayne.” A dreamily contemplative expression chased the anger from her face. “I would, you know.”

  Shayne said, “I know,” very matter-of-factly.

  She closed her eyes and clasped her arms about her full breasts and shivered. Then she started gliding toward him with her eyes closed.

  Shayne emptied his glass and set it on the table and waited for her to reach him.

  The voices of Mrs. Blair and Dr. Evans came from the hall, approaching them. Anita stopped three feet from Shayne, unclasped her arms and opened her eyes. The hypnotized expression faded from her face, and she turned and went to the door and asked lightly, “How is Charles, Doctor?”

  “As well as can be expected.” His enunciation was precise, with a studiedly genteel inflection. “I had to take six stitches and administer a sedative for the pain. Later, he’ll have to see a good dentist. I must have the straight of this, Anita. From Charles and Mrs. Blair I am given to understand that some hulking brute of a private detective forced his way onto your property tonight bent on desecrating the grave of your dog, and Charles was injured while defending the place. Have you called the police to lay charges against this ruffian? I am required to report the incident, you know.”

  “Why don’t you discuss it with Mr. Shayne?” Anita moved aside and Dr. Albert Evans stepped through the sliding doors. He was young for a practicing M.D. Not more than his early thirties, Shayne thought. He was slender and of medium-height, with slightly protuberant eyes behind gold-rimmed nose glasses attached to a black cord around his neck.

  He stopped and looked severely at Shayne, but the detective could have sworn there was the suggestion of a twinkle in his eyes as he asked, “What did you hit Charles with? He insists you attacked him with a large rock.”

  Shayne held out his right hand with the fist doubled. “If you’ve any adhesive left you might put a little on my knuckles.”

  “It’s no joking matter,” the doctor told him. “It’s trespassing, Anita. And assault and battery at the very least. This man should be arrested.”

  “He claims he lost his way on the bay in a rowboat and put ashore to get help when Charles mistook him for a vandal and threatened him with a shotgun.”

  “Can you prove that?” demanded Dr. Evans of Shayne.

  “Can you prove I didn’t?”

  “There’s still assault with a deadly weapon.” The doctor glanced at Shayne’s fist and the suggestion of a twinkle was back in his eyes.

  “Assault?” snorted Shayne. “While the idiot followed me at six feet with a cocked double-barrelled shotgun loaded with buckshot? The slightest misstep on his part would have blown me into two pieces. If anybody lays any charges around here, it’ll be me.”

  “I think Mr. Shayne is right,” said Anita sweetly. “Let’s be happy no greater damage was done.”

  “Yes… well…” The doctor took off his glasses, blinked rapidly and fiddled with them. “I’ve done all I can for Charles tonight.” He turned to go, but Shayne stopped him.

  “If you’re going toward town, Doctor, could I bum a ride with you? I meant to call a cab, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

  “Why, yes. Certainly, if you like. I go down the Avenue to Flagler.”

  “Right past my place,” Shayne told him genially. He walked past Anita and her fingers swung out to catch his hand as he went by. He pressed her fingertips hard and said, “Thanks for everything, Mrs. Rogell. I hope we meet again.”

  She dug her fingernails fiercely into the fleshy part of his palm and then released his hand. He followed Dr. Evans down the hall, glancing through portieres on the left as he went by and seeing Marvin across the library at the bar intent on mixing himself another drink.

  Dr. Evans opened the door and held it for him, and they went across the wooden porch and down stone steps to a neat dark sedan under the porte-cochere.

  The doctor put his bag in the back and went around to get under the wheel, and Shayne slid in beside him. He put the car in gear, and as it moved smoothly down the winding drive, he said quietly, “I take it you are a private detective, Mr. Shayne?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I also take it you were attempting to disinter Mrs. Rogell’s pet dog to have its stomach contents analyzed?”

  Shayne said, “I have no intention of admitting that fact, Doctor.”

  “Yes… well…” The sedan turned north on Brickel. “I can only wish you had been successful,” the doctor said fretfully. “I confess I’m dreadfully bothered.”

  “You think the dog was poisoned?”

  “I have no opinion in the matter… not being a veterinarian. I do wish Mrs. Rogell had not been so precipitate in having the little beast buried. But she has a dreadful complex about death in any form. The result of some childhood trauma, I daresay, though I’m not a psychiatrist either. And the death of her husband, just two days ago, left her dreadfully upset, of course. A remarkable woman, though. She’s bearing up exceedingly well.”

  Shayne said, drily, “Yes. I imagine Anita Rogell will survive okay,” with the memory of that tempestuous embrace still rocketing through his body.

  “I understand you signed the death certificate,” he added.

  “Certainly, I did. I had been attending him for months and was called immediately after his death was discovered.”

  “Is there any possibility whatsoever, Doctor, that he could have been poisoned?”

  “You’ve been listening to Henrietta,” he said bitterly. “Spreading her spleen wherever anyone will listen. Mr. Shayne, if you are an experienced detective, you must know that no competent medical man in his right mind can absolutely rule out the possibility of some kind of poison in any death. No matter how normal it may appear on the surface. If we took that fact into consideration, perhaps we should have an autopsy on every cadaver… no matter what the circumstances of death.”

  “Perhaps we should,” Shayne said equably.

  “Yes… well…” The doctor slowed as he approached the bridge across the Miami River. “Since that is not accepted practice, I can only tell you there was no scintilla of evidence to give me the slightest doubt that John Rogell’s death was the normal and natural result of his heart condition. That is the statement I gave the police, and I stand behind it.”

  “Right here, Doctor,” Shayne said hastily as they drew abreast of his apartment hotel. “Thanks for the lift… and for the information.” He got out at the curb and lifted a big hand in farewell, waited until the doctor drove on and then trudged across to the side entrance where he climbed one flight
of stairs and went to his corner apartment to wait for Timothy Rourke to show up or telephone him.

  7

  It was almost two hours and three drinks later when the door opened and Timothy Rourke shambled inside with his trench-coat belted tightly about his thin waist, eyes glittering balefully at the tranquil picture Shayne made, sitting at ease in a deep chair with smoke curling up from a cigarette and a drink beside him.

  He said, “By God, Mike! You’re one who’d come up covered with diamonds if you fell into a sewage pit.”

  Shayne grinned amiably and asked, “Had rough going?”

  “Look at my goddamned hands.” Rourke strode forward, holding the palms up for Shayne’s inspection. They were puffed with blisters, some of which had broken and the red flesh beneath was cracked and bleeding. “Been rowing around in circles on that lousy bay for two hours,” grated Rourke, turning aside to a wall liquor cabinet and lifting down a bottle of straight bourbon with the ease of long familiarity. He pulled the cork as he returned to the center table, tilted the bottle over a tumbler containing two half-melted ice cubes and a small quantity of water that Shayne had been using for a chaser. He poured four fingers into the glass, sloshed it about for a moment, and then drank it off in four gulps.

  He smacked his lips expressively, draped his knobby body into a chair across the table and grated, “The things I do for you, Mike Shayne! By God, that dog had better have poison in her belly.”

  “She has,” Shayne said flatly. “You got her, huh?”

  “Sure I got her,” said Rourke belligerently. “While you were inside getting cozy with the widow. I got a peek through the bushes after the shotgun blasted. I figured I’d take one look at you with your fool head blown off so I could give Lucy the morbid details. And what did I see? You standing there under the floodlight with that unconscious lug in your arms, and that babe fawning up at you like she’d never seen a man before in her life.”

  “It was a diversionary tactic,” said Shayne cheerfully, “to give you an opportunity to do your stuff with the shovel.” He reached in his pocket for a small address book and began thumbing through it.

  “How was she, Mike? After you got her in the house and dumped the chauffeur?”

  “There were too many people around to really find out. Some other time, maybe, I’ll give you a detailed report. Where’s the dog?”

  “Downstairs in my car.” Rourke sighed and pulled himself to his feet with a grimace of pain from long unused muscles. He went out to the kitchen to get a fresh glass and more ice cubes for himself while Shayne found the number of Miami’s most noted toxicologist, lifted the phone and gave it to the switchboard downstairs.

  Shayne spoke into the mouthpiece as Rourke sauntered back and sloshed whiskey into the glass: “Is that Bud Tolliver? Mike Shayne, Bud. Can you do a fast job for me tonight?”

  He listened a moment and said, “I don’t think this will take long. You should be able to handle it right there in your basement lab. Analysis of the stomach contents of a dead dog for poison.”

  He lifted one eyebrow at Rourke and grinned slightly, holding the receiver inches from his ear as a torrent of protest poured out.

  Then he cut in persuasively, “I don’t blame you a bit, Bud, but this is a hell of a lot bigger than just a pooch. If I’m right, we’re going to get a P.M. ordered on a corpse who’s due to be cremated tomorrow. That’s why it’s got to be fast.”

  He listened a moment longer and nodded. “I’ll bring it right over to your place.” He hung up and told Rourke, “Tolliver feels his professional status is being impugned by working on a dog. Coming along, Tim?”

  Rourke had sunk back into his chair with tall glass clamped tightly in both hands. He shook his head, got a leather key-case from his pocket and dropped it on the table. “Take my car. It’s parked in front with the dog locked in the luggage compartment. Drop Daffy off at Bud’s and then come back here, huh? I’m trying to remember something about Henrietta Rogell. If it comes through, I think we can stand a trip to the News morgue. If it doesn’t, at least I’ll be catching up with you.” He lifted his glass significantly.

  Shayne took the keys and said, “Try to make it come through, Tim.”

  He went out the door and down on the elevator, through a deserted lobby to Rourke’s battered sedan in front.

  Bud Tolliver was a bachelor who lived in a five-room stucco house in the northeast section of the city. The porch light was on when Shayne pulled up in front of the house, and the redhead got out and unlocked the luggage compartment and opened it. The tiny body of a Pekinese lay stiff-legged on the floor, its formerly shiny coat matted with dirt, its mouth half open in what appeared to be a derisive grin.

  Shayne lifted the light body out by a front and rear paw, carried it up the walk held stiffly out in front of him, and the front door opened as he stepped onto the porch, and Tolliver motioned him inside.

  The toxicologist was as tall as Shayne, and a few years younger. His head was completely bald, and he had an intelligent, bony face that puckered thoughtfully as he drew aside and looked at the detective’s burden. “How long has the pooch been buried?”

  “Just about twenty-four hours.” Shayne paused inside the neat living room while his host closed the front door and led the way toward the back where he opened a door off the kitchen and switched on a light leading down to his basement laboratory.

  Downstairs, Shayne lowered Daffy’s remains to a gleaming white enamel table, and brushed off his hands.

  “You know I haven’t got too much equipment here at home, Mike. Just enough for some simple tests. What am I looking for?”

  “She’s supposed to have died last evening in convulsions about ten minutes after eating a dish of creamed chicken fed to her by an old lady who suspected it contained poison. On the other hand it’s reported that she’s been a sickly dog, often subject to stomach upsets.”

  “The convulsions in ten minutes sound like a solid dose of strychnine,” said Tolliver absently, lifting a starched surgeon’s garment from a hook on the wall and sliding his arms into the sleeves. “If so, it’ll be easy.”

  “It needs to be definitely tied in with the creamed chicken to give us an open and shut case, Bud.”

  “Sure,” the toxicologist said cheerfully, turning to a rack of shining surgical instruments and selecting one. “You want to stick around and watch it done?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Shayne hastily. “Not tonight. Tim Rourke and I have things to do. Call me at home, huh? About how long?”

  “Half an hour or so.”

  Shayne said, “Swell,” and went up the stairs quickly while Tolliver bent over the dead dog with professional interest and zeal.

  Timothy Rourke got to his feet quickly when Shayne walked into his own apartment ten minutes later. He drained the last of his drink and said triumphantly, “Got it, Mike. Let’s run up to the News and check it out.”

  Shayne waited at the door for him to come out, and pulled it shut on the latch, and asked, “Got what?” as they went back to the elevator.

  “The thing that’s been nibbling at my so-called memory ever since you sprung this Rogell deal on me this afternoon. Gives a pretty good sidelight on Henrietta. It was about five years ago, Mike, when she made the headlines with a lawsuit against her brother. Demanding an accounting of his estate and claiming a one-half share for herself. The details are hazy in my mind,” he went on as they crossed the lobby. “I forget how it came out. But he made his fortune out west, in mining, I think, and I believe that she claimed she worked in the mines with him and that half his millions were rightfully hers, and she wanted the money legally and in her own name instead of living with him in that big house and having him dole it out to her.”

  They reached Rourke’s car and Shayne asked if he wanted to drive.

  The reporter shook his head and opened the right-hand door. “Not with these blisters. Not until I have to.”

  In the huge file room in the Daily News Tower, R
ourke led the way confidently down a long aisle lined with filing cabinets, pulling dangling cords to switch on overhead lights as he went. He slowed and finally stopped in front of a cabinet, pulled out a drawer marked Re-Ro.

  He fumbled through cardboard folders, drew a thick one out and opened it on a table under a bright light. “Here’s the last stuff on Rogell. His obit and so on.” He slowly turned clippings over as he spoke, stopped at another batch and looked down with interest at a bridal picture. “And here’s the old boy’s wedding just a few months ago. The April-December wedding that had the sob-sisters gushing all over the society pages.”

  Shayne leaned over to study the picture with him. It had been taken on the steps of a local church as the couple left after the ceremony. It was the first picture Shayne remembered seeing of John Rogell. He was tall and lean and leathery-faced like his sister, wearing top hat and cutaway. He looked a sound and vigorous sixty in the picture, not like a doddering old man whose heart might be expected to give way under the importunities of a demanding young bride.

  Of course, there was a startling difference between the ages of the couple. In her white bridal dress and clutching her wedding bouquet, Anita was radiantly beautiful, the personification of a virginal young bride on the happiest day of her life.

  “Mr. and Mrs. John Rogell as they emerged from the noonday solemnizing of their wedding rites,” Rourke read drily from the text beneath the picture. “Hell, if the old boy had three months of that, I’d guess he died happy.”

  He turned the clippings back slowly. “There were scads of feature stories as soon as news of the engagement broke. It was real Cinderella stuff. It can and does happen in Miami. Anita Dale. Small-town girl, from a poor upstate family, coming timidly to seek her fortune in the Magic City of sun, sin and sex with a high school diploma and a six-month secretarial course as her only assets. A filing job at forty bucks a week with the Peabody Brokerage firm… and then the jackpot. Like that.” He snapped bony fingers and grinned wickedly. “Six months later she sits out in that stone mansion heir to a lot of millions of bucks. How’s that for rags-to-riches in one easy installment?”