Хал Эллсон: Mink Is for a Minx

“Neither did I,” Helpman said.

“I did not know the man,” Berger said.

“Sure you knew Marty, Kurt,” Finch said. “I introduced you a few years ago when Marty came to the reunion of the old outfit. Remember?”

“Of course,” Berger said. “I had forgotten. He seems to have changed.”

“Lost most of his hair,” Finch admitted.

“He’s lost more than that now,” Captain Masters said grimly.

After they had taken Maltz’s body away, Shayne stood on the curving driveway of the big house and tugged on his left earlobe. The big detective ran his hand through his thick red hair. None of the guests, of course, had a real alibi for this murder. Why had Maltz been killed?

“Why did Maltz come here?” Shayne asked Masters.

“We were looking for him,” Masters replied. “Our check found he was away on a trip. His wife thought he was in New York on business.”

“What about the other man, Olney?” Shayne said.

“He doesn’t know anything. Connecticut police checked,” Masters said. “He hasn’t been away from home in six months.”

“Maybe they didn’t ask the right questions,” Shayne said.

Shayne decided to visit Gerry Olney, ex-sergeant of OSS. He borrowed the car from Finch and drove off early next morning. The drive across Long Island was uneventful. But Shayne enjoyed the changing scenery as he passed from the marsh and sand of the South Shore to the flat farmlands further inland and then to the wooded and hilly North Shore.

He drove into Port Jefferson a half an hour before the ferry was ready to sail for Bridgeport, and he had a sidecar in an elegant bar near the ferry dock. On the ferry the detective left his car to go and lean on the forward rail and watch the high white cliffs of the North Shore fade behind as the ferry rolled lightly on the water of the open Sound.

Shayne’s was the second car off the steep ramp in Bridgeport. He drove fast along the Connecticut parkway until he reached New Haven. Olney was in his office when Shayne arrived at the house. Olney’s wife called him and Olney said he would come right home. When the ex-sergeant arrived, Shayne saw that he was a tall, heavy-set, honest-looking man.

Shayne introduced himself and explained the reason for his visit.

“Anything I can do to help,” Olney said. “Marty Maltz was a good guy.”

“What was Maltz doing at Finch’s house?” Shayne said.

“I wouldn’t know, Shayne,” Olney said. “Like I told the cops, Marty and I wrote to each other once in a while — but I hadn’t seen him for a year or so. Maybe it was something Corelli told him.”

“Corelli? He went to see Maltz?”

“Sure. He came to see both of us,” Olney said.

“Why didn’t you tell the police that?”

“They didn’t ask me,” Olney said. “Frankly, Shayne, I didn’t want to get mixed up in a murder. Now that Marty’s dead, maybe I was wrong.”

“Maybe you were,” Shayne said. Or maybe Olney had a better reason for hiding the fact that Corelli had visited him. “Tell me about Corelli’s visit.”

The tall ex-sergeant shrugged. “It was a hell of a shock at first. We all thought he was dead. There was quite a stink right after the war. They accused one of us, or all three of us, of betraying Corelli and getting him killed.”

“Did you?”

Olney looked straight at Mike Shayne. “I didn’t. I don’t know about the other two.”

“How did Corelli survive?”

“He said that the Krauts who captured him were in a big hurry and turned him over to the regular Army instead of the Gestapo. The Krauts who had him didn’t know who he was, so they sent him to a labor camp in Germany instead of shooting him. He was lucky.”

“Where had he been for nineteen years?” Shayne asked.

Olney shook his head. “He didn’t say. He just wanted to know where Finch was, and what had happened to the money. He accused me of turning him over to the Krauts. I told him he was crazy. He said maybe, but he’d watch me. I told him to watch.”

“He mentioned money?”

“Yeh. There was rumor about a lot of money after the war. I never really believed it. We’d have known.”

“You didn’t know? None of you?”

“Not as far as I know,” Olney said. “But I was just the radio man.”

“What else did Corelli say?” Shayne asked.

Olney seemed puzzled. “Well, he asked about Steiner. That was funny. I didn’t know Corelli even knew about Steiner.”

“Who was Steiner?”

“That’s a good question,” Olney said. “No one knew for sure. It was top-secret hush-hush Gestapo stuff. I used to monitor calls from the high brass about Steiner. There was talk Steiner could have been a double agent. All we knew was that Steiner was the name of a Gestapo troubleshooter who operated near the front all the time.

“There were all sorts of rumors who he could be; some even thought Steiner was more than one man. We’d get reports about him being on both sides of the line. One thing I know. He was a killer and the Kraut officers were scared as hell of him.”

“What did Corelli want to know about Steiner?”

“That was funny, too. He wanted to know if I knew where Steiner was. I told him I wouldn’t even know what Steiner looked like. I’d barely heard of him. Corelli said, of course, he had just heard of Steiner, too. He told me to forget he even asked.”

“What about that betrayal in Italy?”

“What about it?” Olney said.

“Did any of you betray Corelli?” Shayne said.

“No,” Olney said. Shayne had the definite feeling that the ex-sergeant was lying. Olney went on. “However, it would have been justified. We’d have died if he hadn’t got caught. That crazy Italian had planned a raid that was just about a suicide job. Finch tried to argue him out of it, but Corelli insisted.”

“Corelli was captured before that raid?”

“Two days before,” Olney said. “We were pretty damned glad, I can tell you.”

“What else do you know about Steiner?”

“Well, Corelli said—”

That was as far as Olney got. The shot was sudden and low. A silenced gun. Olney did not fall. He straightened up instead, stared, and slid to the floor. There was a neat hole in the side of his head. It was bleeding. When Shayne bent over the man, Olney was dead.

Shayne ran for the door. He reached the sidewalk and had a glimpse of a thin man sprinting around the near corner. Shayne ran after him. When he reached the corner a small grey coupe was already pulling away. Shayne went back to the house. He got the New York license plate, but he did not think that would do much good.

In the house Olney’s wife was bending over the dead man. She blinked her eyes and stared at Shayne.

“I’m sorry,” Shayne said.

The woman blinked again. “He went through the war.”

The woman was clearly in shock. Shayne called the police and a doctor. He found the name of the doctor in the Olney address book. The police detained him when they arrived. He told them to call Captain Masters, and after Masters had identified him they got his story and let him go. He gave them the license plate number of the grey coupe. Then he left.

Shayne got into his car and lighted a cigarette. Maltz and Olney. Only Finch was left of the men Corelli had accused of betraying him. And Corelli was dead. Shayne could understand why Corelli would have wanted to kill Maltz and Olney and Finch.

But who would kill Corelli, and Maltz, and Olney? And why not Finch? Unless it was Finch himself because there was more to the betrayal in Italy than had come out, and Maltz and Olney had known about it.

Shayne put the car into gear and headed for the parkway into New York. On the way he stopped to call Masters. He asked the State Police captain to check on the whereabouts of Finch and all of his guests that afternoon. He asked Masters to send a picture of Corelli to the New York Police right away.