Brett Halliday - In a Deadly Vein

PHYLLIS LEANED BACK comfortably against the high headboard of the bed. She looked diminutive and ridiculously childlike snuggled into a rose-colored wool dressing gown with the blankets drawn up to her waist.

Shayne extinguished the lights and rolled the window shades high to let the gray light of morning into the room. For fifteen minutes he paced up and down the spacious room while Phyllis reported her interview with Christine in elaborate detail, bringing Celia Moore into the story with dramatic effect.

“I suppose none of it’s important,” she ended with a sigh. “We don’t even know for sure that there was any note from Joe Meade to Nora. Celia might have just been making that up.”

Shayne shook his head. “Christine evidently didn’t think she was making it up. And I don’t believe so either. Remember her hesitancy backstage tonight? I thought she was holding something out on us.” He continued his long-legged pacing with shoulders hunched forward, hands clasped behind his back.

After a few moments, Phyllis cried, “For heaven’s sake, stop impersonating Krazy Kat and tell me whether I did all right or messed everything up. You give me the jitters.”

Shayne said, “I’ve already got ’em.” He stopped at the window and stared broodingly out into the mist of dawn.

There was the sound of starting motors and blasting horns, signaling the end of a full night of revelry. In the cold, merciless light of morning, the little town with its ancient dwellings looked bleak and drab, robbed of all the glamour and intoxicating warmth that had come back with the glory of departed days for one night.

Shayne sighed and turned away from the window. He filled a wineglass from a cognac bottle and sank into an easy chair. He felt drab and bleak and robbed of something.

He reassured Phyllis. “You did all right, angel. Swell, with the material you had to work with. I suppose there wouldn’t be any chance of dragging the contents of the note from the Moore woman?”

Phyllis shook her head and laughed shortly. “Not unless you want to stick pins in her to wake her up.”

“And when she sobers up, she’ll tighten up,” Shayne prophesied gloomily. “She’ll probably deny having seen a note. Oh, hell.” He took a long gulp of cognac, set the glass down dejectedly.

“Maybe I could have kept at her — forced her to tell me.”

With bitter irony, Shayne said, “Oh, no. That wouldn’t have been cricket. Hell, no. We’re solving this case without getting our kid gloves soiled —if we solve it. First, I let Joe Meade give me the run-around, then you let an important clue slip through your fingers.” Phyllis swallowed hard and blinked rapidly to hold back tears. Above everything else, her red-headed husband detested a weepy woman. But she had been so proud of the way she had handled a difficult situation—

Through a salty mist, she saw Shayne get up and stalk to the telephone. He told the operator, “I want to get hold of Sheriff Fleming.” Then, with snarling irritability, “How do I know where you’ll find him? Try his office and home and all the bars. Of course it’s important. Call me as soon as you locate him.”

He slammed up the receiver and went back to pour himself more cognac.

With determined cheerfulness, Phyllis asked, “Have you thought of something, Michael?”

“Something I should have thought of an hour ago.” He nursed the wineglass between his big palms and complained, “I’m losing my grip, Phyl. This thing is getting to be a nightmare. Every time I think I’ve got my finger on something — it eludes me. None of my usual methods work. I’ve always managed to bull my way through a case before. Take hold of a lead and squeeze it between my two hands until something broke. But there’s nothing—”

The telephone interrupted him. He jumped to answer it. He said, “All right, put him on. Sheriff? Mike Shayne talking. I want a guard put over Joe Meade. I don’t want him left alone a moment. Have you got a good man?”

He listened a moment, frowning at the wall. “Well, I want him guarded for both reasons. Station a man in his room to keep Meade in, and everyone else out. I’ll depend on that.”

Phyllis asked in a stifled voice, “Do you think Joe did it — then got remorseful and shot himself?”

Shayne grunted, “Could be. And could be he shot himself for a gag.”

Phyllis shuddered. “A gag?”

Shayne stopped at the foot of the bed with an impatient gesture. “To throw suspicion off himself — if he felt we were closing in.”

“Isn’t it pushing a gag pretty far to almost kill himself?”

Shayne said carelessly, “Some men go a little bit nuts when they get scared. He might have planned to have the bullet just graze his temple. The slightest miscalculation would make the difference.” He went back to his chair.

“But, if you think Joe did it — why did you tell the sheriff you wanted a guard to keep Joe in and everybody else out? That sounds as though he might be in danger.”

“I didn’t say I thought Joe did it. I didn’t say I thought Joe shot himself. Hell, I don’t know what to think. If someone else shot him, it must have been the murderer. And Joe saw him. In that case, I’d expect the killer to make an attempt to finish the job before Joe is able to talk.”

Phyllis shuddered and snuggled deeper into the covers. “Hadn’t you better come to bed? It’s cold.”

“I’ve got thinking to do. And the cognac keeps me warm.”

After a short silence, he asked, “How far is it to Telluride?”

“Didn’t we drive through it last week? That tiny old mining town at the base of those terrific towering mountains? Remember? It’s at the bottom of that gloriously dangerous road — the Million Dollar Highway.”

Shayne nodded. “It’s about a good day’s drive from here.”

“It took us three days,” she reminded him.

“But we stopped in Gunnison and Colorado Springs. You had to have your laugh at me trying to catch a rainbow trout, and you had to see Pike’s Peak.”

“All right,” she assented meekly. “It’s about a day’s drive. When do we start?”

“We don’t.” He took a Prince Albert can from his pocket and shook the clippings and photograph out on the table.

Watching with interest, Phyllis asked, “What’s that?” He told her briefly about his search of Screwloose Pete’s cabin, and the resulting find. He selected the clipping telling of Peter Dacor’s disappearance, and carried it to the telephone.

He told the long distance operator, “This is Michael Shayne at the Teller House. Calling Telluride, Colorado. I want the editor—” he glanced at the clipping “—of the Telluride Chronicle. He hung up and went back to his chair, tossed the clips and photograph to Phyllis. She thumbed through them, murmuring:

“Poor old man. He looks henpecked. Think how he must have felt when he saw Nora’s picture in the Central City newspaper right next to his on the front page, and read about her looking for him all these years. Why do you suppose he didn’t go to her at once?”

“Either of two reasons: He had just made his first decent strike after ten years of poverty and prospecting, and he didn’t want to share it with her. Or, he was frightened away by Nora’s success — ashamed of his shabbiness and what he had become — afraid of shaming her before her rich friends.”

The telephone rang. When the long distance connection was made, he spoke slowly and distinctly: “This is Michael Shayne, a detective in Central City. That’s right. Sorry to disturb you at this hour, but we’ve got a couple of murders over here and need your help.”