Brett Halliday - The Corpse That Never Was

Shayne took the folder carefully by its extreme edges again, and replaced it in the drawer where it had been. He hesitated before closing the drawer, recalling his former question about Eli Armbruster and the detective. He looked behind the folder he had just studied, and nodded with grim satisfaction when he discovered that the next folder was tabbed, Armbruster, Eli. He opened it and saw that it was dated a year before, and was headed: SUBJECT, Paul Nathan.

He lifted it out, glanced at the next folder to note that it was also labeled, Armbruster, Eli. He opened it enough to see that it went back three years and the Subject was a man named John L. Pierson. The following folder was also Armbruster’s, dated four years previously, and was a report on someone named David Lobb.

Shayne opened the Nathan folder on the desk, leaving the other two in place. He wondered if Paul Nathan realized that he, also, had been investigated by a private detective, as well as the other two men who had evidently sought to marry Elsa.

He skimmed through the report swiftly and found that it contained no derogatory information about Paul Nathan who was described as 33, 5–9? 145 pounds, from Sandusky, Ohio and a graduate of the State University. He had lived in Miami three years at the date the report had been made, employed continuously during that time as an insurance salesman by a Miami Beach broker on a drawing account of $100 per week against commissions which averaged between $125 and $150. He lived quietly in a bachelor apartment, was well-liked and industrious, and for six months had been engaged to a girl employed as a secretary in the same office whose name was Mona Bayliss.

The report noted merely that the engagement had been broken off just a month before without indicating whether this had occurred before or after Paul Nathan had met Elsa Armbruster.

Shayne replaced the folder in its proper position in the file and pushed the drawer shut.

Nothing he had found so far proved very much of anything. Except that Eli hadn’t missed a bet in checking up on prospective sons-in-law, and it seemed likely that Elsa had come to Wentworth on her father’s recommendation when she decided to hire a private detective to tail her husband on his Friday nights away from home.

He sighed and turned back to the stiffening corpse on the floor, not liking what he was about to do, but knowing it had to be done before he called the police in.

A careful search of Max Wentworth’s pockets, however, failed to reveal any notes the detective might have jotted down the previous evening. He either had not kept any… or he hadn’t brought them to the office with him… or his murderer had found them first.

Shayne rocked back on his heels while he considered this possibility. It was still, he conceded to himself, far out in left field to believe there was any connection between the Nathan case and the murder of Max Wentworth. He had no doubt that Max had made dozens of enemies in his somewhat checkered career who might have been happy to do the job. Max wasn’t, he told himself grimly, above trying a spot of discreet blackmail if the occasion arose… and the opportunity for blackmail often did arise during the course of a private investigator’s daily work.

He got to his feet and stretched out a big hand toward the telephone on the desk, halted the movement before he touched it.

Thus far he had touched nothing in the office. Better leave it that way. Gentry would be happier if he didn’t find any of Shayne’s fingerprints in the room, possibly smudging some others.

He pulled the door open with the tips of his fingers on the edge of the wood, went back down the stairs to a telephone booth in the lobby.

There he dialled the number that gave him a direct line to Will Gentry’s private office, and was pleased to hear the chief’s gruff voice a moment later.

“Mike Shayne, Will. I’ve got one here that I think you’ll want to look at.”

“Got one what?” demanded Gentry.

“A stiff.” Shayne made his voice sound surprised, as though Gentry should have guessed without being told.

He groaned and said sourly, “Who, and where?”

Shayne told him, and ended cheerily, “I’ll be waiting to fill you in,” then hung up quickly and went back up the stairs to wait for the police to arrive.

Shayne was standing in the hallway outside of Max Wentworth’s office when Chief Will Gentry came heavily up the stairs five minutes later. He glanced in the open door at the body lying on the floor, and drew back, nodding to the two detectives who accompanied him to go on into the office.

He said, “All right, Mike,” getting a black cigar from his pocket and glaring down at it. “Business so bad you got to start knocking your competitors off?”

“Max wasn’t much competition,” Shayne protested mildly.

“All right. How-come you’re in on it?” Other members of the homicide squad were coming up the stairs and Gentry and Shayne moved down the hall out of their way.

“I was out at the Nathan house,” Shayne told him, “and found a check stub for two hundred fifty bucks Mrs. Nathan had paid Max as a retainer last month. Her husband claimed to know nothing about it… and I wondered. I tried Max’s home, but he wasn’t there… and came up here. He’d been dead a couple of hours before I got here.”

“Door standing open and you just walked in, huh?”

Shayne said carefully, “I knocked and then… I walked in when there wasn’t any answer.”

Gentry was putting flame to his cigar and he grunted something indistinguishable without looking at the redhead. When black smoke billowed out of the side of his mouth, he settled himself truculently on wide-spread feet. “So what’d you find out… in his files and all?”

Shayne gave him a hurt look. “You know I know better than that, Will. It’s strictly against the rules to touch anything at the scene of a homicide until the police get there.”

“You didn’t, huh?”

“You won’t find a fingerprint of mine in the place,” Shayne assured him heartily.

Gentry said, “That, I’ll buy.” He rocked back on his heels and surveyed Shayne glumly. “You trying to tie this in to the suicides last night?”

“I’m not trying.” Shayne shrugged. “I told you how I happened to find Max. Have you traced Lambert yet?” he went on swiftly.

Gentry shook his bullet head. “Nothing on him yet. Preliminary report from Washington is negative on his prints. That’s only the active criminal file, you know. May be something in a day or so. You dig up anything?”

“Nothing you haven’t got. Except three telephone calls from Lambert to the Nathan residence the last three Friday nights. About nine or nine-thirty, they were made.”

“Um. And the woman turned up at the apartment about half an hour later each time?”

Shayne said, “That’s the way it is.”

A detective came briskly out of the office and said, “They’re ready to cart him off to the meat wagon, Chief. Okay?”

“Sure.” Gentry rolled the cigar to the other side of his mouth. “What you got so far?”

“Been dead about two hours. One lick on the side of the head with something like a lead pipe or the butt of a pool cue. Dropped him in his tracks. Left-handed blow.”

Gentry took the cigar from his mouth and echoed gently, “Left-handed?” and a puzzled look spread over Shayne’s face.

“That’s right,” the detective told them. “That’s about all they got for sure. No sign of a struggle. Door was on the night-latch. Boys are just about through dusting for prints.”

Gentry turned to Shayne with a scowl as two ambulance attendants came out of the office carrying a stretcher with a sheet-covered body on it.