Brett Halliday - The Corpse That Never Was

Shayne accepted it with a nod of thanks, and she left the room silently. He didn’t wait for an invitation, but moved to a chair in front of Nathan and sat down. “Did your wife leave you a note, Mr. Nathan?”

Nathan had the glass to his mouth and was avidly gulping the contents. He set it down beside him when it was half-empty, and his face hardened.

“If your wife left you a note under the same circumstances, do you think you’d make it public?”

“I’m not suggesting you make it public. If I could testify to the existence of such a note it would go a long way toward satisfying your father-in-law that further investigation would be useless.”

“You mean it would convince the old bastard that I had nothing to do with my wife’s death. Isn’t that what you mean?” sneered Nathan.

Shayne said cautiously, “He does harbor some such suspicion.”

“And he’s willing to spend a fortune trying to smear me though it wasn’t I who brought this about. It wasn’t I who broke up our marriage and shacked up with someone else. He can’t do very much about changing that fact.”

“Did she leave you a note?”

“Yes, damn it. And I destroyed it as soon as I read it after coming here from the morgue last night. It was a private communication between wife and husband, and I shall respect it as such.”

Shayne sighed and took a sip of cognac. It was fine, mellow stuff, but somehow it didn’t taste very good in his mouth. Nathan truculently lifted his glass and drank deeply from it again.

Shayne asked quietly, “Were you aware that your wife was having this affair?”

“God, no!” Nathan’s hand jerked and he set the glass down. “I hadn’t the faintest idea. I still can’t believe…” He lifted his left hand to his face and rubbed the spread fingers across it slowly.

“I understand she was always alone on Friday nights?”

“Yes. That was her idea. I was allowed that night out.” There was an underlying note of bitterness in Nathan’s voice. “You’d have to know Elsa to understand. She was always so logical. So… so right. She had it all figured out, you see. The basis for an enduring marriage. That we should each have one night a week on our own… with no questions asked on either side.”

“But it didn’t make for a happy marriage?”

“Oh, it was happy enough. At least, I considered it so.”

“Then why did you ask her for a divorce?”

“I?” Paul Nathan jerked his head up in astonishment.

“Some months ago, according to her father. And you demanded a quarter of a million dollars cash settlement.”

Nathan shook his head disbelievingly and then settled back with a short, harsh laugh. “That old bastard! It was Elsa who asked me for a divorce, and he knows it. Sure. I told her okay if she felt like putting out two hundred and fifty thousand. What’s wrong with that?” he demanded angrily. “Why shouldn’t a woman pay off to get a divorce just the way men do? They rave about equality of the sexes. Elsa was always harping on the subject. So I said, ‘Let’s make it a two-way street.’”

“And Eli knew this?”

“Of course he knew it. He egged her on to get a divorce. In fact, she told me that he offered to make up half the amount himself.”

“Why,” demanded Shayne, “did he want his daughter to divorce you?”

“Because she was his daughter, I’d guess.” Nathan laughed nastily. “Because he couldn’t stand the thought of anybody else sleeping with her, if you ask me.”

Although the “else” was deliberately stressed, Shayne chose to disregard it.

“At that time did you think that possibly your wife had some other man in mind?”

“Elsa? Hell, no! She wasn’t what you’d call… very sexy. I thought it was the old man’s idea entirely.”

“Does the name of Robert Lambert mean anything to you?”

“I never heard it until last night.”

“Then you have no idea when or how she met him… how long it’s been going on?”

“None.”

Shayne sipped at his drink and pondered. There were a lot of contradictions here. He thought back over his interview with Eli Armbruster that morning, and he wondered. Had the old man lied to him… twisted the facts in order to put Paul Nathan into a bad light? There was no doubt that Eli hated his son-in-law. Why?

He asked Nathan that question: “Why did Eli hate you?”

“Because he would have hated any man his daughter married,” Nathan told him promptly. “She was almost thirty-five when we were married, you know. An attractive woman with more money in her own name than she knew what to do with. Does it occur to you to wonder why she hadn’t married earlier in life?”

“Why hadn’t she?”

“She told me after we were married. Because the old man busted up every affair she had in the past. Twice, he put private detectives on prospective sons-in-law and managed to dig up enough dirt to make her change her mind. She thought it was because he suspected they were all fortune hunters. I had a different idea.”

Shayne didn’t ask him what that idea was. It was altogether too plain from Nathan’s attitude.

Instead, he asked, “What did you do with your Friday nights?”

“I went on the town.” Nathan gestured vaguely. “Night spots. Gambling.”

“Have any luck gambling?”

“Not much. I generally ended up loser. Elsa was very generous and forgiving.” Nathan’s mouth twisted sourly. “She bailed me out a couple of times when I got in too deep… with a nice long lecture on the value of money.”

Shayne said, “Let’s go to last night. Did you come home at all?”

“From the office, you mean? No. I scarcely ever did. I… went out for dinner, and then on to make the rounds.”

For the first time during the interview Shayne noted a slight hesitation on Nathan’s part. He didn’t press the point.

“Then you last saw your wife yesterday morning?”

“That’s right. We had breakfast together before I left for the office.”

“How did she seem then? Upset or anything?”

“Not that I noticed. She was a woman who didn’t display her emotions. Goddamn it, if I’d had any idea…” He sighed and relapsed into silence.

“When did you hear… what happened to her?”

“It was about two o’clock this morning. I was having a lousy run at the crap table at El Cielito here on the Beach. Fellow I know from the office, Jim Norris, came in and told me. He’d heard it on the radio. My God! I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t. Not Elsa. Any other woman… sure. But your own wife…” He shook his head angrily from side to side, then picked up his glass and drained it.

Shayne said, “I’d like to have a time table of your movements… from the time you left the office until your friend spoke to you at the crap table.”

Nathan glared at him angrily. “Do I need an alibi for God’s sake?”

“It would help,” Shayne told him equably, getting the paper from his pocket on which the police had noted a record of Nathan’s evening as he had given it to them.

“I told it to the police last night. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

Shayne said, “Then tell it to me again. If it checks out, the case will be closed so far as I’m concerned.”

“I left the office about five.” Nathan screwed up his face in a look of concentration. “Stopped with Jim Norris and a couple of others at a bar for a few drinks. Drove over the Venetian Causeway to keep a dinner date at six-thirty.”

“Where? With whom?” Looking at the sheet of paper in his hand, Shayne noted that it did not mention dinner. The first entry was eight o’clock.