Хал Эллсон: Mink Is for a Minx

“We don’t usually have observers in our bedroom,” Sally Helpman said.

A tall, grizzled man standing near the yawning fireplace said, “I saw you Max, about ten o’clock. You were out in the garden.”

“Now you listen to me, Paul Macadam,” Sally Helpman began.

Paul Macadam had the shoulders of a truck driver. A man in his fifties, he had the lined and leathery face of a man who had spent most of his life in the open air. His hair was grey, and his blue eyes were hard and amused as he looked at Sally Helpman. The tall, hard-faced woman stared at Macadam.

“I came down for some air,” Max Helpman said. “I forgot that. I wasn’t down more than ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes is enough,” Shayne said drily. “How about you, Macadam? If you saw Helpman, you were down here yourself. Suppose you tell me a little more about that.”

Paul Macadam nodded. “I was down here. In fact I was down from after dinner until past midnight. I like to sit outdoors. No one saw me. I saw Max, and later I saw Berger and Laura, well after midnight. They did look like they had been swimming. But no one saw me. No alibi.”

Shayne looked toward Sally Helpman. “Does that mean you were alone while your husband was down here? Did you see anyone?”

“I remained in my room, Mr. Shayne,” Sally Helpman said coldly.

The tall woman had square shoulders and a low, throaty voice. Shayne liked voices like that. The tall woman was a cool person, and yet, very sexy.

Myrna Mix, the actress, giggled. “This is fun! Ask me my alibi, Mr. Shayne. Go ahead.”

Myrna Mix was over forty now, and she had never been a beauty. She was a real actress, with all the hard life and hard work and hard insides it was difficult not to think about when you called anyone that. She was tall and going to fat. She had always been a big, mannish woman. The giggle sounded ridiculous from her.

“Where were you?” Shayne said.

“I drove into town to the summer theater,” Myrna Mix said. “I didn’t stay for the performance, though. That much I can’t do for my admirers. They’re such bad actors. So no one saw me from eight o’clock until I arrived back here about ten-thirty. Ally saw me then.”

“Eight o’clock until ten-thirty to drive five miles?” Shayne said.

“I made a few stops,” Myrna Mix said. “I drink, you know.”

“No one saw you?”

“Not until Ally did.”

Shayne looked at Finch. “Then you were downstairs, too?”

“Me?” Finch said in surprise. “I took a walk, Mike.”

“On the beach?”

Finch reddened. “No, along the road. Mike, I called you!”

“So you did,” Shayne said. He studied all of them for a long minute. “Well, it seems that any one of you could have killed Pietro Corelli.”

The next day Mike Shayne found out that not only could all the guests have killed Corelli, but that they all could have known the dead Italian. Finch was simply the only one who admitted having known Corelli.

Shayne spent the morning studying the murder scene in the garden. He went to town and read the Coroner’s report. The only unusual facts in the report were that Corelli’s clothes were all new, and seemed to be Italian. The clothes had been wet and had smelled of salt water.

It was in the afternoon that Shayne found out that all the guests had been either in Italy or in the war at the right time.

“Yes, I was in the Wehrmacht,” Kurt Berger said. “I was a Hauptman — a Captain of Signals. I was exonerated of Nazism.”

“It figures,” Shayne said. “Where did you serve?”

“Norway, Poland, Russia, France, and Yugoslavia.”

“You got around for a Captain of Signals,” Shayne said. “Italy?”

“No, not Italy,” Berger said.

Helpman admitted having been in Italy. “I was in Finch’s OSS outfit. I thought you knew. I didn’t happen to be on the Corelli mission.”

“Tell me about the betrayal charge,” Shayne said.

“The Partisans accused Finch, Olney, and Maltz,” Helpman said. “One or all. There was no proof, so the charges were dropped. It came damned close to a court-martial, though. The story sounded fishy.”

“I didn’t know it was that serious,” Shayne said.

“No one does,” Helpman said. “Ally likes being a war hero. Besides, if there had been any real proof at the time, he’d be in trouble with the Government now. And his business would be hurt badly. His friends in Washington have covered up even the accusation.”

Finch burst into the room at that point. The industrialist was angry. “You’re a liar, Max! Those Commie Partisans accused everyone! What about Gerry Olney and Marty Maltz!”

Helpman said to Shayne, “The Partisans admitted it could have been any of the three of them.”

“And how about you?” Finch said.

“I wasn’t on that mission,” Helpman said.

Finch laughed. “No? But you came up with a message twice. I remember very well. You could have seen Corelli and turned him in. You had plenty of chance while you were crossing the lines!”

“I never saw Corelli!”

“You knew his name,” Finch said. “Maybe they picked you up and you talked, so they let you go.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Helpman said.

Shayne did not believe Berger when Berger said he had never been in Italy. He asked Captain Masters to check with the German Government. Masters agreed, and said he would try, but that would take time. Masters had located Olney and Maltz, but had not reached them yet. Olney lived in Connecticut, and Maltz in Chicago.

The other three guests turned out to have interesting pasts also. Myrna Mix, the famed actress, had been touring Italy in a USO Show at the exact time of Corelli’s capture. Her show had gone close to the front lines and had remained on tour for months.

Sally Helpman had been a nurse in a field hospital near the front lines. She had met Max Helpman during the last year of the war, and they had been married by a chaplain at the hospital.

Paul Macadam had been a Lieutenant Colonel with an Intelligence unit just behind the lines across from Milan.

“All right,” Macadam admitted, “I knew about Corelli. In fact I knew about the charge of betrayal. But I never met Corelli. As a matter of fact, I can tell you something more. When Corelli was captured, a hundred thousand good American dollars went with him!”

Alistair Finch was furious when Shayne faced him with the omission in his story. Finch had said nothing about the money.

“Look, Mike,” Finch said, “there wasn’t any money. I’m sure of it.”

“Maybe,” Shayne said.

Finch was beginning to smell very bad to the redheaded detective. It would not be the first time that a guilty man had hired him to try to make himself look innocent.

“Damn it, Mike,” Finch said, “those Partisans always said every mistake was a betrayal, and that there was money involved. If Corelli had that kind of money from us, I’d have known it. If any money changed hands, it was the Partisans who profited. Those Partisans probably betrayed Corelli themselves. They’d have betrayed their own mothers for a hundred dollars.”

Shayne was about to point out that Finch was protesting too much when Captain Masters came into the room. Masters was grim.

“Anyone here know a Martin Maltz?” Masters said.

“I do,” Finch said.

“You did,” Masters said. “We just found his body out in the bushes.”

Marty Maltz had been stabbed. The coroner said it was with the same kind of weapon that had been used in the earlier slaying. A long, thin knife. No one knew what Maltz had been doing in Westhampton.

“I didn’t know he was anywhere near,” Finch said.