Brett Halliday - The Corpse That Never Was

“What the hell does it matter? I understand nothing happened until about ten o’clock?”

“Then why do you mind telling me where you had dinner?”

“I don’t. That is… I don’t think it’s any of your damned business, but I ate at the Red Cock. I had a reservation for six-thirty.”

“By yourself?”

Paul Nathan colored slightly and wet his lips. “As a matter of fact, no. I was with a girl from the office. A secretary. But it was perfectly innocent and you can leave her name out of it. I drove her home at eight o’clock and left her without even a good-night kiss.” A sneer on his lips told Shayne to try to make something out of that. Shayne made a mental note to do exactly that.

But he said, “And after you left her?”

“I went to the Fun Club and played some blackjack and roulette. My luck was lousy. I stayed about two hours and went on to the Bay Breeze where I thought maybe the grass was greener. I know I got there a few minutes before ten because I looked at my watch and mentioned it to the girl when I bought chips. I generally didn’t make it there on a Friday night until about ten-thirty.”

“Do you mean you made the same rounds every Friday night?”

“More or less. Mostly more. You know how it is, gambling. You get to know the dealers and croupiers at certain places.”

Shayne said, “Go on.” He continued to check the list in his hand as Nathan mentioned the joints he had visited before two o’clock, with the approximate time he had spent at each place.

His statement checked closely with what he had told the police the preceding night, with a variance of no more than fifteen minutes in any instance.

“And that’s the story of my night,” Nathan concluded nastily. “Check them out if you like. I’m known at all those places. I should be, by God. I’ve donated enough money in the past year.”

Your wife’s money, Shayne thought, but he didn’t say so. Instead, he folded the paper and returned it to his pocket. “Just one more thing, and then I’ll get out of your hair. Do you know a man named Max Wentworth?”

“Wentworth?” Nathan shook his head. “No. I don’t recall the name.”

“Your wife knew him,” Shayne said.

“What do you mean?” asked Nathan uglily. “Was he another one of my wife’s secret lovers?”

“No. Max happens to be a private detective.”

“A private detective? What was my wife doing with a private detective?”

“I hoped you’d be able to tell me that.”

“But… how do you know?”

“There’s a stub in her checkbook upstairs. Dated about a month ago. She paid Max Wentworth two hundred and fifty dollars as a retainer. A retainer for what, Nathan?”

He said, “I’ll be damned,” his lower jaw drooping slightly, and reached for his empty glass. He lifted it half-way to his lips before he noticed it was empty.

He set it down and shrugged with an elaborate show of nonchalance. “Why don’t you ask Max Wentworth that?”

Shayne said, “I intend to,” and got up. “Thanks for bearing with me, Mr. Nathan. I hope I won’t have to trouble you again.”

Nathan said with forced lightness, “I hope so too. Find your way out?”

Shayne said, “I’ll manage,” and turned away.

Michael Shayne got in his car and drove away from the Nathan residence thoughtfully. Had Nathan or Armbruster lied about the divorce that had been discussed between the couple? Why would either one of them lie about it? If it had been Elsa’s idea, as Nathan stated so positively, it might indicate that her affair with Lambert had been going on for several months. Eli didn’t believe that… or didn’t want to believe it. Would that be sufficient cause for him to lie about the divorce?

Yes. Shayne guessed it would. He didn’t have very many illusions about Eli Armbruster. With his implacable determination to clear his daughter’s name and somehow put the blame for her death on Nathan’s shoulders, the old man was perfectly capable of telling any lie that fitted his purpose. He wondered idly if Max Wentworth had been Eli’s idea. Nathan had mentioned the fact that Eli had used a private detective in the past to break up his daughter’s marriage plans. Max Wentworth?

Shayne knew the man only slightly. He ran a one-man agency in Miami, and had been in business for a decade or more. His reputation was none too good among other members of the profession, although Shayne knew of nothing that had ever been proved against him. He was simply one of those fringe operators who serve to bring an aura of disrepute to all private detectives. Specializing in divorce cases and marital disputes, and probably not above framing evidence to fit his clients’ needs if factual evidence was not obtainable.

Another matter for thought was Paul Nathan’s clearly evident disinclination to discuss his dinner partner of the preceding evening. A secretary from the office was all he had vouchsafed. And last night he hadn’t even told the police that much. There might be something there.

Though, for the life of him, Shayne couldn’t see why any of these things were particularly important. What good would it do Eli Armbruster if he could prove that Nathan was involved with another woman? It didn’t change any of the plain facts in the case. It didn’t put Elsa’s obvious relationship with Robert Lambert in a better light. All that Shayne had managed to do thus far was to dig up more evidence to clinch the cut-and-dried aspects of the suicide pact.

And he still didn’t know any more about Robert Lambert than when he started. That irked Shayne. Maybe it wasn’t important to the final solution of the case, but damn it! a man couldn’t just come out of nowhere and carry on a passionate liaison with one of the wealthiest women in Dade County without leaving some traces behind him. How had a man like that met Elsa Nathan… and courted her? What, he wondered, had Elsa been in the habit of doing with her Friday nights while her husband was conveniently going the round of gambling places? At her insistence, too. Paul Nathan had made it very clear that it had been her idea from the very beginning of their marriage. And it was she who had decreed that the servants should have Friday nights off. How far did Robert Lambert go back into her past?

By the time Shayne reached this point in his thinking he was back in the business section of Miami Beach, and he slowed while he watched for a public telephone sign. He parked in the first convenient place near to one, and looked in the Miami directory for Max Wentworth’s office number.

He dialled it and let it ring six times before hanging up, and looking again for a home telephone number. He found that Wentworth lived in the Northwest section, not far from Miami’s central business district, and he tried the number listed.

A woman’s voice answered after the second ring, and Shayne asked, “Is Max Wentworth in?”

“Not just this minute. Can I take a message?” Her voice sounded listless and disinterested.

“Do you expect him soon?”

“He shoulda been home an hour ago. Said he’d be back for lunch and he never is this late. Probably be here any minute… hungry as a bear. Who’s calling?”

“Tell him it’s Mike Shayne.” He glanced at his watch. “And that I’ll be out to see him in about twenty-five minutes.”

“Mike Shayne?” Her voice became interested. “Say, ain’t you in his line of work?”

Shayne said, “We’re practically buddies,” and hung up. He went back to his car and drove across the causeway to the mainland, continued westward across Miami Avenue and found the address he was looking for on a shabby street a few blocks beyond the avenue.