Brett Halliday - The Corpse That Never Was

Shayne said coldly, “I’m taking these home where they belong.”

“For the bereaved husband? I’m sure he’ll love to have them as souvenirs.”

Shayne shrugged; they went out together and he snapped the padlock on the outside of the door. “Let’s walk down a flight,” he suggested. “See if Lucy’s back from the office. I could use a decent drink to wash the taste of that stuff out of my mouth.”

They walked down a flight, but a knock on Lucy’s door indicated that she hadn’t returned. They went down to the ground floor where Rourke announced that he was late keeping a date for a free lunch, and drove off hastily.

Shayne drove back to a small restaurant on Eighth Street just off the boulevard where a double cognac washed the cloying taste from his mouth, and he ate a hasty steak sandwich.

His next stop, he decided, should be at the office of Harry Brandt, a nationally known expert on handwriting and the validation of questioned documents. Harry’s office was only three blocks away, and after he left the handwriting samples with him, a trip across the bay to Miami Beach and an interview with Paul Nathan was indicated.

And that would about wind it up, Shayne told himself sourly. Thus far he hadn’t accomplished a damned thing to earn Eli Armbruster’s ten grand retainer. It was an easy way to pick up a hunk of cash, but Shayne didn’t like to earn his money so easily. There was still Nathan’s alibi to be checked, he reminded himself. Not that he expected to prove anything by it because there wasn’t yet a single circumstance that pointed the finger of suspicion at the husband, but it was one more thing to do before he made his final report to his client.

Harry Brandt had the ground floor of an old Stucco residence on Fifth Street near the bay where he kept bachelor quarters and did the work which found its way to him from all over the country.

He was a pleasant-faced tweedy man in his forties, and he took a foul-smelling pipe from his mouth to greet the redhead with a smile at his front door. “Come in, Mike,” he urged. “I see by the paper that you were on the spot again last night. Anything in it for me?”

He led the way down the hall to a pleasant, masculinely-appointed sitting room and waved Shayne to a comfortable chair.

“A very simple thing, but I have to check it out to satisfy a client.” Shayne dug into his pockets and extracted the two suicide notes and the letter that had been found in Elsa’s handbag. He pushed them over to Brandt, together with the rental agreement signed by Lambert.

“I guess there’s no doubt that those first three were written by the same man. I don’t think there’s much doubt that this is also his signature… but that’s the thing I have to know.”

Harry Brandt glanced through the notes and letter alertly. He said, “The man’s left-handed, of course. The second note shows more haste and strain, which is natural, if I understand the circumstances, but there’s enough difference that I’ll have to make a few tests to be positive the same person wrote them both. This signature…” He studied the name at the bottom of the agreement carefully, glanced aside to compare it with the other two “Robert Lambert’s.”

“Off-hand, I’d say yes, Mike. You want more than that?”

“I need a positive yes or no. And my client can afford to pay for it.”

“Nice to have clients like that these days,” Brandt told him with a twinkle in his eye. “Okay. I’ll give it the works. You just want an opinion… not blow-ups to go into court with?”

“I don’t think it’ll reach court, Harry. Certainly not if your answer is in the affirmative. Can I call you?”

“Around four.”

Shayne thanked him and went out to his car. He had memorized the Miami Beach address from the telephone book in Lambert’s apartment, and it was a pleasant thirty-minute drive to a modest, two-story, ocean-front house set in the middle of beautifully landscaped grounds.

The glistening white driveway of crushed coral rock led past the house to a triple garage at the rear, and also curved past the colonnaded front under a porte-cochere to a circular turn-around.

There were no other cars in view when Shayne got out and left his car under the porte-cochere. He went up stone steps and rang the doorbell, and the door was opened by a trim, colored maid in a dark blue uniform. She had nice, clean-cut features and intelligent eyes, and she shook her head gravely when Shayne asked, “Is Mr. Nathan at home?”

“Not right this minute, he isn’t. I expect him back any time.” She had a soft, melodic voice and she formed her words carefully without too much of a southern slur.

Shayne said, “Perhaps you could answer a few questions. I’m a detective and I have to check on a few things.”

“Yes, sir. I reckon I can try. Mr. Nathan, he said the police might come around and I was to tell them whatever they asked. He went to the burial parlor and I expect he stopped out to have lunch. Won’t you come in, sir?”

Shayne followed her down a wide central hall to double doors that opened onto a square library. She stood aside for him to enter, and followed him inside hesitantly. He sat in a leather chair and smiled at her and said, “Why don’t you sit down, too? Tell me your name first.”

“Thank you, sir.” She sat warily on the extreme edge of a chair across from him. “Alyce Brown, sir.”

“Were you surprised by what happened last night, Alyce?”

“Yes sir. Real shocked. I just can’t believe it’s true. Not even yet, I can’t.”

“Didn’t you suspect that Mrs. Nathan was… having an affair with another man?”

“No, sir. She was always a real lady.”

“You never heard anything peculiar. Like… well, phone calls from a strange man?”

“No, sir.”

“How long have you worked here, Alyce?”

“Most a year now. Ever since they were married and moved in this house.”

“What other staff is there?”

“Just the cook. She’s my aunt. The two of us do everything needed.”

“How did Mr. and Mrs. Nathan get along?”

“Like most married folks, I guess.”

“No quarrels or fights?”

“No, sir. No more than most married folks, I guess.”

“Did you ever hear them discuss a divorce… anything like that?”

“No, sir. They wouldn’t… not in front of a servant.”

“Do you and your aunt sleep in?”

“Yes, sir. Except on Friday nights. That’s our day off. Friday noon to Saturday noon. Of course, we both came early this morning when we heard about the terrible thing that happened last night.”

“But you’re both always off on Friday nights?”

“Yes, sir. Mrs. Nathan wanted it that way. It was… well, like Mr. Nathan’s night off, too. He never came home for dinner on Friday nights.”

“Has this been going on ever since they were married?”

“Yes, sir. Mrs. Nathan explained how it was to us when she first set our night off on Friday. How that she thought a husband should have one night off to himself every week away from his home and his wife, just like a servant should. And that’s the way they did.”

“Then you’d say that Mrs. Nathan was generally alone in the house on Friday nights?”

“Either that, or she’d go out some place by her own self.”

Shayne settled back and got out a cigarette. Alyce arose swiftly and got a table lighter from beside her and held the flame for him. Shayne waited until she had reseated herself before reaching into the two side pockets of his coat and bringing out the slippers in their plastic container and the red nightgown set.

He handed the slippers to Alyce and shook the nightgown and peignoir out from extended fingertips.