Brett Halliday - Shoot the Works

“That,” said Shayne to the two partners, “is the big mistake one of you made this morning when you were so insistent that I get into the Wallace apartment to search for the money or some trace of it. After planting the note in the bureau drawer while you were there previously, it required a further search to turn it up. What you didn’t realize was that I have enough confidence in Gentry’s men to know it must have been planted after their search of the premises last night. Since you two were the only ones who had been inside the apartment, it had to be one of you two who did it.”

“Planted there?” burst out Tompkins. “By one of us? Why, in the name of God? I certainly didn’t do it, because it made things look as though Jim and Lola were intimate and gave me an apparent motive for killing Wallace.”

“Of course you didn’t, Tommy,” said Martin with asperity. “And neither did I. Mr. Shayne and Chief Gentry are simply overestimating the efficiency of his detectives. They obviously overlooked it in their first search.”

Shayne shook his red head decidedly. “It was planted there for me to find. By you, Martin. You’re the one who intercepted it in the mail, here at the office, not Wallace. After shooting Wallace, you suddenly realized what a nice piece of incriminating evidence it was against your remaining partner and you slipped it in the bureau drawer this morning.”

“Do I have to sit here and listen to this outrageous nonsense, Chief Gentry?” blustered Martin. “There is such a thing as slander. Good heavens, I have an absolute alibi for the time of Jim’s death. My wife and three other women will swear on a stack of Bibles that I was at home in bed from early in the evening until the time you notified me that Jim was dead.”

“Those four women,” said Shayne, “will swear that you retired early, and three of them believe you remained in your bedroom all the time. But Kitty Heffner has a different story to tell, Martin. She saw you slip out through the kitchen door about ten o’clock, and saw you return fully dressed some time later. You have no more alibi than Tompkins for the crucial period.” He spoke with such complete assurance, adding just enough to Kitty’s real story to make it sound wholly damning, that Martin’s face turned ashen and he wet his lips several times before essaying a weak smile and stammering:

“I–I believe I did slip out to the corner drugstore to get a cigar. That must have been when Kitty saw me.” He didn’t add in words, The damned tattletaleing bitch, but his tone did it for him.

Shayne shrugged and said, “Maybe. Anyhow, it shoots a nice, fat hole in your alibi for Wallace’s murder. And that brings us to this afternoon and Lola. After planting that note for me to find, it became imperative that she should die before I had a chance to question her. Otherwise, the case you were building against Tompkins would fall flat on its face. She was killed with the same gun that murdered Wallace. Your second murder, Martin.”

“But that is preposterous. Utterly impossible. Are you out of your mind, Shayne? You’re the one man in the world who knows I couldn’t have killed Lola. Good heavens, man! You were sitting right here with me in this very office when I spoke to her on the telephone. I understand that you rushed straight to her door from here, leaving me to report her number to the police. And found her dead when you got there. Do you think I’m Superman?”

“No,” said Shayne with infinite disgust. “I think you’re a murdering son-of-a-bitch who blundered all the way down the line. Where you really outsmarted yourself, Martin, was when you were so eager to throw suspicion on Tompkins that you gave me this photograph of all three of you after I asked for a picture of Wallace to show at Lola’s apartment. You felt sure that someone would have seen Tompkins there and he would be the one identified as Lola’s lover. Coupled with the note I’d found at Wallace’s place, that gave Tompkins a sexual motive for killing Wallace, and, with his alibi dead, you figured he was a cinch to take the rap for you.”

Martin tried to sputter an angry denial, but Shayne went on coldly: “What you didn’t realize, Martin, was that your picture in this group photograph would be recognized by the couple next door to Lola as the man who entered and left Lola’s apartment just about the time she was being murdered.”

“That can’t be true. There wasn’t a soul… there isn’t a soul on earth,” Martin amended tremblingly, “who can say I was ever there.”

“That’s because you don’t know the old couple’s propensity for peeking through keyholes when Lola had visitors,” Shayne told him drily, waiting with bated breath to see if Martin would challenge the untruth.

“But it’s a dreadful mistake. I don’t care what they say, you know I wasn’t there, Shayne. I was right here in this office.”

“You were here in this office, all right. After hurrying back from shooting Lola. And trying to use me to establish an alibi.”

“But you heard me speak to her on the phone.”

“I heard nothing of the sort. You were very careful that I shouldn’t hear anything. I heard you speak into a dead phone… pretending to speak to a dead woman.

“You can have him, Will,” Shayne ended with a grimace. “We’ll find the million dollars wherever he stashed it last night and you’ll have the case tied up in a knot.”

He stood up just as the telephone rang.

It was Tompkins who answered his partner’s telephone. Martin seemed not to hear it. He was hunched forward in his chair, staring unseeingly at the floor while his lips worked in and out and perspiration streamed down his fat jowls.

Tompkins said respectfully, “It’s for you Mr. Shayne,” and handed the instrument to him.

Shayne said, “Hello,” and Lucy Hamilton’s voice lilted over the wire to him:

“Michael? I called Chief Gentry’s office and they gave me this number. I’ve got the most wonderful news. We’ve solved the case… at least… that is, partly anyhow. The important part. You can go ahead and tell about those airplane tickets, Michael. They were just a fake and Jim Wallace couldn’t have been planning a trip abroad because we found his expired passport and it hasn’t even been renewed. Don’t you see what that means, Michael? It means…”

He interrupted her excited voice fondly, “I see exactly what it means, angel, and you’ve been a great help. Where are you?”

“At my place. Mrs. Wallace is with me, and…”

“Stay right there,” Shayne ordered, “and break out the cognac. I’ll be right along.”

He replaced the telephone and told Gentry with a grin. “You take over, Will. I’ve got a date with my secretary and a bottle.”

Lucy Hamilton met him in the doorway of her apartment with outstretched arms and glistening eyes. He grabbed hold of her in a bear hug and lifted her feet from the floor while he looked over the top of her head at Myra Wallace sitting sedately on the long sofa in the sitting room with a glass of sherry in her hand.

Last night, in the presence of her dead husband, Mrs. Wallace had been a shattered woman. Today, the shadow of bereavement showed on her face, but her eyes were clear and shining, and while there was still evidence of grief for the loss of her beloved husband, there was no longer perplexity and fright engendered by the circumstances under which she had found his body.

Michael Shayne was glad for that as he looked at her while holding Lucy in a tight embrace. Mrs. Wallace had lost her husband, but she had not lost her faith in Jim Wallace. That was good. At the moment, Shayne realized it was damned important. It was something he hadn’t known before, but after this revelation he knew he would never forget it in the future.