Хал Эллсон: Mink Is for a Minx

“Take it easy, Ally,” Shayne said.

“You’re fired, Mike!” Finch cried. “Do you understand? I hired you, and I can fire you. I don’t want you around, I—” The man was raving hysterically now.

Shayne reached out and slapped Finch. Finch stopped and stared. Then the industrialist began to cry. Finch was still crying in the hallway when Masters arrived. The State Police captain looked at Finch.

“Two guests for your calaboose,” Shayne said.

“What charge?” Masters wanted to know.

Shayne looked at the two men. “Illegal entry,” he said. “I want them around a few days, okay?”

Masters nodded. “I can hold them a few days, I suppose. No other charge?”

“Not right now,” Shayne said.

The thin Italian, Marcello, nodded to Shayne. There was a certain gratitude in the eyes of the Italian. The charge could have been much worse.

Masters took the two men away. Finch had vanished somewhere. Shayne rubbed his big jaw for a moment. It was beginning to make some sense, but he had two more things to find out.

After the two Italians had gone, the rest of the night was uneventful. Finch did not appear again. Macadam got quietly drunk by himself on the enormous terrace. The Italian trouble seemed to have disturbed Macadam, and Shayne kept his eye on the yachtsman.

Myrna Mix got noisily drunk, as usual. Helpman took a long walk alone. Berger and Laura Finch went off together for a drive. Sally Helpman did not leave the house. She sat and watched television all night.

Shayne went to his room, and with a cognac in his hand sat in the oversized armchair cogitating on his analysis of the case. The case boiled down to two questions: Had Finch betrayed Corelli and then killed him when he showed up again? If Finch had not killed Corelli, who else knew Corelli? They all could have known Corelli.

One thing was certain. Whoever had killed Corelli had thought that Corelli was dead. Therefore it had to be someone who had known Corelli in Italy and had also known Corelli had been captured and, presumably, shot.

The next morning, Shayne puzzled over this all the way into New York along the sunny Southern State Parkway. He did not strike bad traffic until he reached Cross Island Parkway and turned north. He went into Manhattan through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. He drove straight to Finch’s lawyer.

Alistair Finch’s lawyer was an old man. His name was Whitestone Gibbs, and he had been the lawyer for the Finch family for fifty years. The old man was brusque.

“All right, Shayne, I’ve heard about you. I don’t like petty legal peeping toms.”

“And I don’t like shysters,” Shayne said. The redhead eased his big frame into a deep leather chair in Gibbs’ fine office. Shayne smiled. “But then, you’re no more a shyster than I am a peeping tom, are you? Why trade insults for no reason at all?”

Gibbs glared. Then the white-haired old man laughed.

“All right, Shayne. We’ll play it clean.” The old man sat down. “What dirt do you want to know about my client?”

“Does he have any dirt to find?”

“Who doesn’t,” Gibbs said evenly. “I advised him against hiring you, you know, when he asked my advice.”

“He’s smarter than I thought,” Shayne said, “to ask you.”

“I’ll flatter any man who flatters me,” Gibbs said. “What is it, his women? Alistair has three passions, Shayne, but murder isn’t one of them. He is not a violent man despite his war record. As a matter of fact, I imagine he got more medals for less killing of the enemy than any man in history. His forte was clean, safe work. He has courage.”

“What are his passions?” Shayne said.

“Blonde women too young for him, plenty of money and his social position that money helps him keep, and the reputation for being a patriotic industrial genius,” Gibbs said.

“You’ve given him three good reasons for killing Corelli,” Shayne said. “That is, if he betrayed Pietro Corelli. I am presuming Finch told you the whole story!”

“Most of it,” the lawyer said. “And what I told you about Finch would also do for his partner, Kurt Berger, just as well. Berger likes money, he likes position, he likes being the industrial tycoon, and he likes young and blonde women. In fact, he likes the same young blonde woman, I’m very much afraid.”

“But he didn’t know, or betray, Corelli,” Shayne said. “If Finch betrayed Corelli over there in Italy, he could be made to smell very bad.”

Gibbs agreed. “I doubt if they could touch him, but the Government would put a lot of pressure to get him out of his own company. That I will concede. A traitor makes a bad patriotic industrialist.”

“What about the money? If Finch took the money, Italy and the United States might wonder about his whole operation.”

Gibbs looked at a point above Shayne’s head. “You know, Shayne, I’ve always wondered how Kurt Berger got so high in Alistair’s company so quickly. Berger’s a sly one. There he was, a supposedly unimportant captain in a defeated army, tainted with Nazism, and within two years after the war he owned half of a large international company.”

“Money?” Shayne said.

“Where would Berger get money? On the other hand, how did Berger happen to contact Alistair and go so far so quickly?”

“You’re suggesting that Berger somehow got the Partisan money, found out about Finch at the same time, and looked him up? Is that it?”

“It is a bit of a coincidence that Berger was a Nazi officer, and Alistair operated within the German lines,” Gibbs said. He looked at Shayne. “I suppose you’ve found out that Bonn is interested in Berger’s career?”

“You don’t miss much,” Shayne said.

“No, not much,” Gibbs said. “I believe that Berger stole something from someone back in those days.”

“And you know if Finch needed money before the war,” Shayne said.

The white-haired old man frowned. His lined and weather-beaten face became severe. Shayne watched the old man struggling with himself over something.

“Did he need money?” Shayne said.

Gibbs stared straight ahead. “I’ve been the Finch lawyer a long time, Shayne. I can’t answer that.”

“You mean you won’t? I think the police could find out very quickly,” Shayne said.

“I suppose they could,” Gibbs said. “Let me say this much, Shayne. Old man Finch, Alistair’s father, was not a good businessman. He was a financial wizard, but he was careless about money. It seems a contradiction, but it isn’t. The old man loved finance, the manipulation of money and goods. But he did not care about personal money.”

“When Alistair came out of the Army,” Shayne said, “how much money did he have? No, I’ll phrase that question differently. How much money should he have had?”

Gibbs shook his head. “I can’t tell you, Shayne. If the police want to know, they can go to court.” He turned to look at Shayne. “But I will tell you that two years before the war the Finch company was in bad shape. Then, when he went into the Army, Alistair put all his money into war bonds. At least he said he did.”

“Did anyone ever see the actual bonds?” Shayne said.

“No,” Gibbs said. “They were in a safety deposit box; he had the key with him.”

“Thank you,” Shayne said.

Gibbs watched Shayne stand up to leave. “Alistair is not a killer, Shayne.”

“No killer ever is,” Shayne said grimly.

Shayne drove fast out of the city toward the east. The sun was at his back all the way. It had still not set by the time he reached the State Police barracks. Masters was in his office.

“No trace of the guy who killed Olney,” Masters said. “Your two Italians are safe and cooling off. Bonn says that Kurt Berger could have been in Italy at the time. Records are bad from Nazi days. But he had a personal friend on Kesselring’s staff. He was at Peenemunde for a time, something he never mentioned.”