Brett Halliday - Bodies Are Where You Find Them

“I’ll do my best,” Shayne promised, “but I’m afraid they’ll only laugh at my story.” He relaxed his jaw, suddenly conscious that his teeth were grinding together.

A door opened down the hall.

“There they come,” the little man whispered stridently. “The Gestapo. But I’ll outwit them yet.” He jumped up and scurried to the front door.

An orderly laughed indulgently as he approached Shayne. “Has Sherlock been plotting with you against the Gestapo?”

Shayne grinned and nodded. “He’s lost without Watson.”

“What was it this time? Last week he was working on a plan to save the President from assassination.”

“He appears to have succeeded.”

The orderly passed on, and the nurse came to the side door and beckoned Shayne. “Doctor Patterson will see you now.”

She led him through a small, neat office to a comfortable inner room with overstuffed furniture and smoking-stands.

A tall, bronzed man in a light-gray business suit met Shayne at the door. “Come right in, sir. I’m sorry you were forced to wait.”

Dr. Patterson was a youngish forty with strong, regular features and piercing blue eyes. He motioned Shayne to a comfortable chair and offered him a cigar. Shayne declined it and lit a cigarette, explaining with a grin, “I haven’t been bored in the interim, doctor. One of your patients entertained me.”

The doctor laughed genially. He exuded an air of good-fellowship and man-to-man camaraderie, but his blue eyes followed Shayne’s slightest movement, dissecting and analyzing the man before him with the cold impersonality and precision of a trained scientist.

“Now what can I do for you, Mr. Shayne?” His voice was rich and warm. “We’re entirely private here. Don’t hesitate to speak your mind freely.”

Shayne nodded. “I’d like to discuss a hypothetical case, doctor. A friend of mine.”

“Yes, of course. A hypothetical case.” Dr. Patterson leaned back and carefully placed the tips of his fingers together, frowning down at them. He made it quite evident that he suspected his caller of stalling. “So many who come to me wish to discuss hypothetical cases,” he added pleasantly.

“I’m a detective, doctor. A private detective. Michael Shayne is the full name.”

Dr. Patterson stiffened slightly and bent forward at the waist, his eyes full upon Shayne. “Ah, yes. I’m sure you’ll find it pleasant here. We have another guest with whom you’ll have a great deal in common.”

Shayne said, “I met Sherlock Holmes outside. I’m not applying for admittance, doc. I’ve come to discuss the case of a client.”

“I see.” The doctor’s manner changed abruptly. His gaze lost its probing impersonality, became shrewd and searching. He warned stiffly, “If you’ve been retained to effect the discharge of a patient you’re wasting your time and mine. This is strictly a private institution and no legal technicalities are involved. I prefer not to deal with intermediaries, Mr. Shayne.”

Shayne said, “If you’d let me speak my piece we’d get along faster. I want to talk to you about Mrs. Burt Stallings. You’re her personal physician, I believe.”

“Mrs. Stallings? Yes.” Patterson hesitated. “What information do you want concerning Mrs. Stallings?”

“What’s the matter with her?” Shayne asked bluntly. “You’re not a general practitioner. Why were you called in?”

“What is your authority for these questions?” Patterson parried bluntly. “I don’t make a practice of discussing my patients with an outsider.”

“I’m making an investigation for Stallings. He sent me to you. Call him if you want to verify it.”

Shayne’s voice and manner were so assured that the doctor did not call his bluff. He said reproachfully, “I don’t understand why Mr. Stallings didn’t come directly to me. But that’s neither here nor there. Mrs. Stallings had a mental and physical breakdown and I’ve been treating her for that. Though she might have recovered faster here at the sanitarium, her progress has been very satisfactory and I expect another few days to see a complete recovery.”

“This breakdown,” Shayne asked, “it came right after her daughter’s return home — after the daughter clashed with her stepfather and filed suit against him for mishandling her father’s estate? Was that the cause of Mrs. Stallings’s breakdown?”

“It was a contributing factor.”

“But the girl withdrew her suit almost immediately.”

“After her mother had broken under the strain,” Dr. Patterson pointed out. “Too late to undo the consequences of her act.”

“But she’s going to be all right, is she?”

“Indeed, yes. She has responded to my treatment in a splendid way.”

“One more question, doctor.” Shayne leaned forward and his voice roughened. “Has your treatment included the use of drugs — hypodermics?”

“Certainly not.” Dr. Patterson started up indignantly. “What put that thought in your mind?”

Shayne stood up. He said casually, “Maybe Briggs is the dopehead over there,” then strolled out of the inner office.

There was no one in the anteroom. He hesitated there a moment, heard Dr. Patterson dialing a number in the other office. He stepped to a desk where there was an extension and lifted it cautiously to prevent its clicking.

A voice said, “Hello,” and Dr. Patterson said, “Let me speak to Mr. Bugler.”

The thin-lipped nurse came hurrying in. She glanced suspiciously at Shayne with the telephone to his ear. He grimaced at the instrument and cradled it gently, remarking, “No answer.”

He strode out into the empty hallway humming a careless tune. Bright sunlight on the grass and trees and the faint street noises beyond the wall were a welcome relief after the drear silence inside.

To the right of him and close by, he heard a “Pssst,” and turning his head toward the sound saw a skinny arm with a crooked forefinger at the edge of a latticework thickly covered with leaves and purple bougainvillaea.

Sauntering toward the latticework, he lit a cigarette and flipped the match away. The sepulchral voice of the gnomelike little man who had accosted him inside came from behind the screening vine.

“Pretend you are interested in the flowers while I deliver my final instructions.”

A grin quirked Shayne’s wide mouth. He obeyed instructions by leaning forward and sniffing a flamboyant, odorless blossom.

“The Duke must be notified at once, of course, but inform Scotland Yard that they must attempt no action. My life is in constant danger while I remain here.”

“Then why don’t you leave? Your work is finished, isn’t it?”

“Don’t you understand that I can’t leave?” the little man demanded with asperity. “I gained entry by feigning insanity and I’ve played the role so perfectly they think I am insane.”

“That,” Shayne agreed, “makes it tough.”

“And I couldn’t desert my post while the scoundrels are still plotting against the Kingdom,” the withered shade of Sherlock Holmes insisted. “I don’t know what new devilish stratagem is afoot, but I believe I have discovered why the Duchess was executed last night. They have substituted another female in the dungeon disguised as the Duchess. Soon I hope to have a clue. I’ll communicate with you by Code X 4 9 B X. The password is Audentes fortuna juvat. You may go now.”

Shayne said, “Thanks.” He turned away and went down the path. An orderly, smiling knowingly, came forward to unlock the heavy wooden gate.

“Sherlock is really on the job today,” the man said.

Shayne grinned and nodded, passed through the gate, and got into the rented car and cruised slowly south toward Arch Bugler’s roadhouse.