Brett Halliday: In a Deadly Vein

Shayne said, “It looks as if Nora was putting up a front while Miss Moore was in the room. When she left, Nora realized she couldn’t go on. So, she probably went to the hotel to be alone.”

“It isn’t that simple.” Carson ran long, slender fingers through his black hair. “Nora would never leave us in the lurch. She would have told Christine so she could be getting ready.”

“Maybe not.” Shayne frowned. “Miss Moore spoke of them hating each other.”

Carson didn’t reply immediately. He appeared more relieved than at any time since Shayne approached him. He faced Shayne squarely and said, “That’s not the way we do things in the theatrical world. There is plenty of professional jealousy everywhere. Nora suspected Christine of plotting to supplant her, but Nora wouldn’t let that cut any ice if it came to a showdown.”

Shayne caught the lobe of his left ear and worried it between right thumb and forefinger. After a brief silence, he said:

“After seeing Nora’s understudy handle the part, I don’t blame her for feeling a trifle insecure. That means she felt a terrific compulsion to go on, no matter how distasteful it was to her. I would guess that when she left the theater she intended to return in time to catch her cue.”

“I agree,” Carson said hesitantly, “but why the devil did she go out at all? She knew there wasn’t much time.”

Shayne released his earlobe and massaged his chin. “Something came up,” he speculated. “Or, she thought of something in connection with her father’s death. She might have dashed out to find me, expecting to hurry back.”

Frank Carson threw his arms out dramatically, his fingers clenched. “I don’t know — I just don’t know,” he raved. “I’ll see you outside as soon as I get this damned grease off and get on some decent clothes.”

Outside, Shayne and Phyllis simultaneously drew in deep breaths of the clean, cold air. Phyllis looked up at the star-studded sky and breathed, “It’s hard to believe anything can be wrong on a night like this. Don’t you think you’re worrying a lot about nothing, Michael?”

Shayne said, “No.”

She lengthened her step to keep pace with his swift stride. “But, Michael, it was perfectly natural for Nora not to feel up to facing an audience after what happened, and she knew Christine Forbes was competent to take her place.”

“You don’t know much about actors, angel. They give up a part about as easily as you’d give up your life.” He led her out into the street to avoid plowing through the crowd still lingering in front of the opera house. “It had to be something damned important to keep her off the stage tonight.”

Eureka Street was again jammed with celebrants intent upon a long night of revelry, now that the play was ended. They sauntered on boardwalk and street, drifting from the square dance to the casinos, from fortune-telling booths to the tintype photograph booths where old-fashioned costumes were miraculously revived for personal adornment. They swarmed before the Teller House, trying to get through to the night club where the midnight floor show was getting under way.

Shayne hesitated on the fringe of the throng in front of the hotel and was hailed by Patrick Casey from the boardwalk which rose high above the street level. Shayne beckoned and Casey came down, using the shoulder of a convenient spectator to steady his jump, and sauntered toward Shayne with half of an unlit cigar protruding from his mouth.

Shayne asked, “Have you been up to see the body?”

“I hung around until they carted him off to the undertaker’s ten minutes ago. We turned up a big rock smeared with blood, but nothing else.”

“Did you see the girl up there?”

“Nary a girl,” he said sadly, “blast it.”

“And you went right after we left?”

“Sure. ’Twas the favor you asked of me.”

Shayne said, “I’m going into the hotel.”

He used his right shoulder to force a path to the lobby. Phyllis and Casey were engulfed behind him, reaching him as he turned away from the desk to ascend the winding mahogany stairs.

“Any luck?” Phyllis panted.

“The clerk hasn’t seen Nora go up or down since dinner. But that doesn’t mean a damned thing in this madhouse. She could have gone in and out a dozen times without being noticed. The room key is out,” he added as the trio gained the first landing.

They turned into a dark-paneled corridor, and after a quick look at room numbers, Shayne muttered, “One-twenty-three should be down this way.”

He stalked ahead of them, stopped in front of a closed door and knocked. The sound was echoed back from dead silence inside the room. No light showed around the door or through the keyhole. The muted infusion of merriment drifting up from revelers in the night club below was irritating.

Shayne frowned and knocked again, loudly. Phyllis shivered. The high corridor reeked with the musty smell of disuse during most of the year. Until now the smell had been ghostly and alluring, a part of choosing Central City for a vacation spot. But now it chilled her as ominous, portentous, when Shayne’s knock was unanswered.

Sweat formed little rivulets on Shayne’s gaunt cheeks when he fumbled for his key-ring. He dropped to his knees and went to work on the lock with a sliver of tempered steel.

Casey stood aside and chewed on his cigar butt, his eyes round and owlish. Phyllis held her breath when Shayne finally opened the door and switched on a light to reveal an enormous, high-ceilinged room with antique furnishings.

Shayne made a quick circuit of the room, looking in the closet and under the four-poster walnut bed. He came to an abrupt stop in front of a marble-topped walnut chest of drawers in the far corner. Planting his hands on his hips, he stared somberly at a note.

Phyllis hurried to him, her heart panting violently again after recovering from the expectancy of seeing Nora Carson’s body in the room. She pressed against her husband and read the note in a small, awed voice: “Frank darling, I must find the sheriff at once. I’m writing this so you won’t worry if I should have to miss tonight’s performance. Nothing matters now but Father. Lovingly, Nora.”

Brooding silence held the trio. There was stark, uncompromising bitterness in Shayne’s gray eyes.

“Mike — don’t look like that,” Phyllis cried. “Nora wasn’t looking for you. She went to find the sheriff.”

Shayne’s head nodded almost imperceptibly. He muttered, “She intended to return to the theater in time for her cue — but she didn’t.”

PATRICK CASEY had been pacing back and forth, his short legs taking slow, measured steps. He came back to the high chest of drawers where Shayne and Phyllis stood. He said, “I don’t get any of this. An old man looks in a window and a girl screams. You go tearing after her through the lobby. You come back and say the guy is her father. Now, you can’t find the girl. What about her?”

“You should learn the formula for how much liquor you can carry to the square inch,” Shayne told him.

Phyllis intervened hastily. “It’s this way, Pat. Nora Carson slipped away from the opera house as soon as the play started. This note indicates she had an urgent reason for contacting the sheriff. I think Mike’s afraid that — well, that maybe the person who killed her father knew she had an important clue.” She turned breathlessly to Shayne and asked, “Isn’t that it, Michael?”

Shayne nodded indulgently. “Something prevented Nora Carson from getting back to the theater,” he said, not looking at either of them. He clawed bony fingers through his coarse red hair, then broke out angrily:

“She was a walking invitation to death if she had information pointing to the killer, and if that information was even hinted to anyone she was doomed. Murder breeding murder. I’ve seen it happen so damned often. The fact that she hasn’t shown up yet—” He broke off abruptly at the sound of movement in the doorway.