Brett Halliday - The Corpse That Never Was

“Could it have been something to do with photography? Photographic supplies?”

Barstow blinked rapidly and then pressed fingertips to his eyes in an attitude of deep thought. His face brightened when he removed them. “I do believe that was it. I do, indeed. Is that important?”

“It may be. Now, I understand he signed some sort of rental agreement? I’d like to take that with me, Mr. Barstow.”

“It’s a very simple form. Miss Mayhew will get it for you. Ah… I understand the police put a padlock on the door after it was broken in last night. Do you know when they will be through… when his possessions will be removed? I understand it will require a thorough cleaning before it will be available for rental again.”

“It will require that,” Shayne agreed somberly. “A couple of days, I imagine. I’m going up now to make another check. I’m expecting a couple of men from headquarters in about half an hour. Will you see they are let in the front?”

“Certainly.” Barstow got to his feet as Shayne did, and came around the desk. “I’ll speak to Miss Mayhew.”

Shayne stood aside and followed him out of the office where he spoke to the typist and she twisted around in her chair to pull out a drawer of a filing cabinet and find a cardboard folder which she opened and laid before him. It contained only a single page of fine print, headed RENTAL AGREEMENT at the top and signed at the bottom, “Robert Lambert,” in what appeared to Shayne to be the same handwriting as the suicide notes in his pocket.

He took it from the folder and folded it up with the other papers Gentry had given him, and told Barstow, “You can have this back after we’ve compared signatures.”

“No hurry at all. I’m sorry I haven’t been of more assistance.”

Shayne smiled and shrugged. “I’m sure you’ve done your best. I assume you’ve discussed Lambert with Miss Mayhew and she has nothing to add to your description?”

She said, “I was at home ill the day he rented the apartment. So far as I know I didn’t even see him at all.”

Shayne was about to turn away when he had a sudden thought. He turned back and asked, “The telephone. Are tenants charged for their calls?”

Mr. Barstow and Miss Mayhew nodded in unison. Barstow said, “They are billed at the end of each month.”

“Then you keep track of each apartment,” Shayne said to the girl.

“On the outgoing calls, yes. It’s twenty cents for each call. I simply make a notation on each card.”

“And don’t keep a record of the numbers,” Shayne guessed.

“Not on local calls. On long distance, of course.” She turned to her desk and a circular index file. She flipped it expertly to the letter L, and Shayne leaned over her shoulder to look at the card headed, LAMBERT, Robert.

The first date on the card was that same Friday, three weeks before, on which Lambert had rented the apartment. He had made a call to Miami Beach at 9:20 p.m. and the number was written down. Beneath that in a lightly penciled scrawl was jotted down a local telephone number.

Shayne put his finger beneath it, saying, “I thought you didn’t list local numbers.”

“We don’t normally. That number was probably busy, and Nina wrote it down and told the party she would keep trying.”

On the following Friday evening at 9:15 Lambert had called the same Miami Beach telephone number as before, and last night he had again called that same Beach number at 9:25.

Shayne picked up a scratch pad and pencil from her desk and made a note of the only two numbers that had been called from the Lambert apartment. He asked, “Is there any chance that you overheard anything that was said on these calls? You or the other operator?”

She shook her head strongly. “We don’t eavesdrop.”

“Mightn’t you just hold on long enough to hear the answer… enough to know whether it was a man or woman he called?”

She hesitated, giving the appearance of trying to give an honest answer. “Sometimes, I suppose… I just might. If I weren’t too busy. But I don’t remember any of his calls.”

“Not even last night?” persisted Shayne. “Stop and think. You can’t be very busy at nine-thirty in the evening. You were on last night, weren’t you?”

“Happens I was. Nina… that’s the girl usually takes the switchboard at five to midnight… had a heavy date and I took over for her. Last night?”

She puckered her brow and thought deeply. “I think… maybe… a woman answered. And he said, ‘Darling’ or something like that. And then I cut out. Because I don’t ever try to eavesdrop,” she ended strongly with a glance at Mr. Barstow.

Shayne thanked them both for their cooperation and promised to keep them informed of developments. He then went out to the elevator and up to the third floor.

The police had put a new hasp and a padlock on the outside of the door that Shayne had crashed in the preceding night, and as he stopped in front of it to fit the key Lieutenant Hawkins had given him into the lock, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that the door directly opposite stood slightly ajar. The muted sound of a TV set or a radio came from inside the room, and he hesitated a moment as the padlock came open, wondering whether to try to talk to Mrs. Conrad now or wait until later.

She solved the problem for him by opening the door wider and poking her head out and saying happily, “Well there, now. It’s Mr. Michael Shayne, isn’t it. I recognize you from last night, you know. My! The way you did slam yourself against that door when all the rest of us were just standing around wondering how to get in. I said right then that you were just about the strongest man I ever did see, and after seeing you in action I know how you go about solving your cases all right. I said that very thing to Mr. Carmichael down the hall last night, and he sneered and said, ‘More brute force than brains,’ and I said, ‘Well, he’s got to have brains too, you bet your sweet life,’ to have achieved the national reputation you’ve achieved, and that shut him up all right.”

Shayne turned with a smile and said, “You’re Mrs. Conrad, aren’t you? The only one who was able to give the police any worthwhile information about your neighbor. It’s lucky you’re so observant.”

“I keep my eyes open and my wits about me.” She tossed her head importantly. She was a tall, thin-faced woman, with a long, sharp nose and beady eyes. “Not that I ever thought I’d be giving information to the police, you understand. Not about something like what happened in there, last night. But you never can tell these days. Goodness! Such goings-on in a respectable apartment building like this. From the very first time I saw that woman come traipsing up to the room late at night, I said to myself, I said: ‘Oh-oh. Monkey business, I bet.’ You could tell right off. There was something sneaky about her.”

Shayne glanced at his watch and said, “I wonder if you’d mind telling me all about it again, Mrs. Conrad. I’m expecting a couple of men from headquarters in about twenty minutes. If we could leave your door open so I’ll know when they come…?”

“You come right in and wait,” she invited him happily. “’Course we’ll leave the door open a little. I always do, you know. To make the air-conditioner work better. It says right on it that a window or door should be left open across the room for most efficient operation. And a good thing too, if you ask me. No one else around here sees very much that goes on.”

Shayne followed her into a starched, polished and hygienic sitting room, the same size and shape as Lucy’s on the floor below, but managing to look completely unlived-in. There were no books, magazines or newspapers visible. There were stiffly starched white doilies on every table, and immaculate white antimacassars on the back of the sofa and the two upholstered chairs, A large TV set dominated one end of the room with a picture flickering across it and the sound turned low, vying with the hum of an air-conditioner opposite the front door.