Brett Halliday - The Corpse That Never Was

What could that have to do with Elsa Nathan committing suicide last night?

Shayne found himself looking down at the photograph of Joe Grogan again. He narrowed his eyes and brought back a visual memory of the man’s body in pajamas and robe with his features shattered by the blast from a shotgun in his mouth. The dead man could be Grogan, he decided, though he didn’t see how or why. It was simply that Grogan was inexplicably missing, and there was an unidentified dead man in the morgue.

Had Paul Nathan planned this whole affair somehow, with devilish cunning? Could he have arranged for Grogan to meet his wife in the expectation that she would fall desperately in love with him and they’d end up as the principals in a suicide pact?

It was utterly impossible. No husband could possibly plan such a thing… and foretell the consequences. Besides, there was Mrs. Grogan’s positive opinion of her husband’s character, the fact that he had been on the job at the Hacienda each one of those Friday nights when Elsa was keeping a rendezvous; there was the discarded clothing in the bedroom which didn’t fit Joe’s description as a “sharp” dresser at all. It was absurd. Shayne took a hefty drink of cognac and shoved that line of thought out of his mind. What other angles were there to follow up? There was the secretary who worked in the office with Nathan and whom he had taken to dinner at least three Fridays in a row. Suzie Conroy, her name was.

What was the name of the other man in the office whom Nathan had mentioned twice from the preceding night? Once as having a pre-dinner drink with him, and again as the person who had told him the news about Elsa’s death at two o’clock in the morning.

Shayne scowled as he dug back into his memory for the man’s name.

Jim Norris! That was it. Shayne picked up the pencil and jotted the name down on a pad in front of him, and wrote “Suzie Conroy?” behind it. Norris might be able to tell him whether Nathan was having a serious affair with a secretary who worked with them.

The only other name Shayne could add to those was Mona Bayliss, the girl whom Paul Nathan had jilted a year ago soon after he met the heiress to the Armbruster fortune.

Shayne didn’t know why he wrote her name down underneath Jim Norris. Force of habit. In a case like this you checked everything out. True, Wentworth’s report to Elsa stated that he had been unable to discover any link between Mona and Nathan after their engagement had been broken.

But why had Elsa suspected such a link? What had caused her to give Mona’s name to Wentworth when she retained the man to tail her husband every Friday night? Under normal circumstances, she would have been scarcely aware of Mona Bayliss a year ago when she and Paul were married. It was improbable that they had even met at that time. Yet, a year later the woman had been enough in her thoughts that she had ordered a detective to check up on her.

A tiny thrill of excitement coursed through Shayne’s veins. Maybe this was an angle. Something, certainly, had occurred recently to make her suspicious of Mona.

He settled back in his chair, tugging at his earlobe and reflectively draining his glass of cognac.

His telephone rang as he set the empty glass down. He picked it up and spoke into it and recognized the forceful voice of Eli Armbruster at once:

“Mr. Shayne. I called to ask what progress you’ve made.”

Shayne said, “Very little.”

“I see.” Armbruster’s voice remained suave but there was a hint of iron in it. “May I inquire how you have employed your time during this entire day since I retained you to investigate my daughter’s death?”

Shayne hesitated before he replied, repressing his natural reaction to the question. He made his tone as suave as Eli’s when he said, “I’ve mostly been engaged in gathering evidence which corroborates the fact that your daughter died by her own hand as the result of a suicide pact with her lover whom we know only as Robert Lambert.”

“Nonsense, Shayne. I explained to you this morning the utter inconsistency of this with Elsa’s character. She would never have entered into such a liaison.”

Shayne said grimly, “I’m looking at facts, Armbruster. Lambert telephoned your daughter where she was at home, alone, each Friday evening since he rented that apartment. She was observed arriving to keep a tryst with him within half an hour of each phone call. She remained in the apartment with him until after midnight each of those nights. She brought her own nightgown and bedroom slippers with her and left them in the apartment. There is no evidence that any other person has been in the apartment since Lambert rented it. These are facts. Did you know, too, that she had asked her husband for a divorce a couple of months ago?”

“Elsa? Had asked him for a divorce? Nonsense. I told you how she felt about that. Refused him absolutely even though I urged her to go ahead and pay the man off.”

“And offered to pay half the sum yourself?” Shayne asked pleasantly.

“Where did you get that information?”

“From Paul Nathan. He admits asking for two hundred fifty thousand as a cash settlement, but insists it was Elsa’s idea.”

Eli Armbruster barked, “The man is an unmitigated liar. I warned you not to believe a word he said.”

“He warned me the same thing about you.” Shayne kept his voice completely neutral.

“Surely you don’t take him seriously.”

“I’m trying to sift out the facts. If Elsa did not want the divorce, Mr. Armbruster, why did she hire a private detective to report on her husband’s movements?”

There was a slight pause before Armbruster said thoughtfully, “So she did, eh?”

“You suggested it, didn’t you?” Shayne pressed him. “Recommended Max Wentworth to her?”

“I told her I had found Wentworth an efficient person for that sort of job in the past, and that if Paul Nathan continued to pester her about a divorce she might do well to see if Wentworth could gather evidence to take into court against him.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that this morning?”

“Why should I?” countered Eli sharply. “What bearing has it on the case?”

“Max Wentworth might be alive at this moment if you had told me.”

“Wentworth… alive? What on earth do you mean?”

“He was found murdered in his office a short time ago. That makes three people dead in less than twenty-four hours, Armbruster. Are you keeping anything else back from me?”

“I don’t care for your attitude or your tone of voice, Shayne. I fail to see how Wentworth’s death has any possible bearing on what happened last night.”

“Goddamnit!” said Shayne angrily. “If you knew this morning that Elsa was having Paul tailed on Friday nights you must have realized that his testimony concerning last night would be very important. Maybe it was important enough for someone to murder him before he had a chance to make out his final report.”

“I see. Yes, of course.” Armbruster seized the idea happily. “If Paul knew he was being followed last night, he would most certainly feel he had to silence the man. Because I’m convinced he engineered those two deaths.”

“I wish you’d tell me how he managed it.”

“I’m paying you to work out the details,” Eli reminded him acidly.

Shayne said, “I don’t think he knew he was being followed. It’s not the sort of thing a wife would be likely to tell her husband.”

“Perhaps Wentworth approached him… with an offer to keep his silence for a price.”

“Perhaps. Did you get the impression Wentworth was that sort of double-dealer from your previous contacts with him?”

“I got the impression that he had few moral scruples… that he would have little hesitancy about selling out to the highest bidder.”