Brett Halliday - The Corpse That Never Was

Shayne said, “I haven’t time for explanations now. There’s one other question. Did your husband own a shotgun?”

“Not a shotgun nor no other kind of gun. Joe wasn’t a killing man, Mr. Shayne. Why he even hated to catch a fish on a hook.”

Shayne said, “There’s one more thing. I’ve got to get something to take with me that will have Joe’s fingerprints on it.”

“What for? Why do you need his fingerprints?”

Shayne said flatly, “To help me catch a killer, Mrs. Grogan. Think a minute.” He looked around the sitting room. “What would he have handled… and not you? Did he smoke a pipe?”

A look of infinite sadness settled down over her face and Shayne knew she must have guessed why he wanted a set of her husband’s fingerprints. She said, “No, but there’s a whiskey bottle in the kitchen that Joe kept for when he wanted a nip. I never touched it because I hate the stuff. Would that be what you need?”

Shayne said, “That should be just right.” He followed her out to a neat and sparkling clean kitchen, and she opened a cabinet beneath the sink and pointed to a bottle of bourbon with a few drinks left in the bottom of it. It was the same blend, Shayne noted grimly, as the whiskey bottle in the Lambert apartment.

“I guess you want I shouldn’t touch it,” Mrs. Grogan said in a hushed voice.

Shayne leaned down and lifted it out by two fingers gripping the cork. He went back through the sitting room and paused by the open door. He wished to God he could think of something comforting to say to her, but there was nothing. He said gruffly, “You’ll be hearing very shortly, Mrs. Grogan,” and hurried out to the car.

He set the bottle carefully on the seat beside Lucy, warning her, “Fingerprints,” then got in and drove swiftly to headquarters.

Lucy didn’t speak until he stopped at the side entrance. Then she asked, “Shall I wait?”

He got out, lifting the bottle by the cork again. “If I’m lucky I’ll know in a few minutes, Angel.” He hurried across the sidewalk and disappeared inside the building.

Lucy shivered and huddled down on the seat to wait for him. If she only knew what was in his mind. If he would only tell her the direction in which his thoughts were taking him. But she knew he wouldn’t. Not now. Not when he was possessed by this driving, feverish impatience to get on with it. She had seen him like this too often in the past.

She set her teeth together tightly to keep from asking any questions when he hurried back and got behind the steering wheel again.

He pulled away from the curb and headed north, glanced fleetingly at her strained face and said, “I guess you must be wondering, Lucy. Our corpse is Joe Grogan.”

Her teeth chattered as she said, “I th-thought so. After Mrs. Conrad was so sure.” She hesitated, then asked in a small voice, “Where are we going now, Michael?”

“Seven twenty-nine Hibiscus Road. It’s out in the northeast section about fiftieth street. I don’t know just how we’re going to play it with Mona Bayliss, but I may need your help. We’ll see when we get there.”

He found the address near the bayfront, a large, new and very modern apartment building covering at least half a block. Shayne found a parking place near the entrance and got out and hurried around to Lucy’s side to open her door for her. “Bring your paper bag,” he said quietly. “Just carry it inconspicuously under your arm and don’t mind mashing it.”

He took her elbow and they went to the canopied entrance and into a large, well-lighted and aseptically neat lobby, past a small reception desk to a pair of elevators at the rear. One of them stood open with a neatly uniformed operator inside. He was young and pallid-faced, with hot, greedy eyes which regarded the couple thoughtfully as he closed the door. Shayne told him, “Six,” and then got out his wallet and extracted a twenty-dollar bill which he held loosely under the operator’s avid eyes. “How long have you worked here, son?”

“Almost a year now.” They were going up slowly and very smoothly.

Shayne dropped the wallet in his side pocket and brought out the doctored photograph of Joe Grogan. “Ever see this fellow around?”

They stopped at the sixth floor but he didn’t open the door at once. He looked hard at the picture and nodded, “He used to come around I think. Haven’t seen him for a month or so.”

Shayne moved the twenty closer and his hand closed over it. He reached for the control to open the door, but Shayne checked him by getting out another twenty. “I’ll bet this one against that one you can’t tell me who he visited here.”

The youth hesitated. But just for a moment while his scruples fought a very faint and losing battle. “That’d be Miss Bayliss.” The second bill disappeared and again he reached to open the door.

Shayne said quickly, “A little thin girl?”

He grinned triumphantly, showing bad teeth. “Not on your life, Mister. She’s a hunk of woman.” As the door opened on the sixth floor he made the traditional hour-glass gesture with both hands to describe Miss Bayliss.

Shayne said, “She must have grown since I saw her,” and stepped out behind Lucy. He took her firmly by the arm and led around a corner from the elevator as though they belonged there and knew exactly where they were going. There was an EXIT sign at the end of the corridor and he told Lucy hurriedly, “We’ll walk down to five. Her number is five-eleven, and she isn’t home. At least she wasn’t when I phoned from headquarters.”

“Michael,” Lucy quavered as they went through the doorway and found stairs leading down. “What are we doing here?”

He said cheerfully, “We’re going to be breaking and entering in just a moment.”

He opened the door at the bottom of the flight and they went into an empty hallway with numbered doors on both sides. He had his key-ring in his hand when they stopped in front of 511. He knocked perfunctorily while he studied the lock and selected a key.

Lucy stood beside him unhappily, looking up and down the corridor and wondering what on earth they would do if one of those doors opened.

With a start she realized that he had the door open and was pulling her inside. He closed the door and pushed a wall switch to light a small foyer with a fair-sized living room through an archway beyond it. On their left a door opened into a bedroom.

Shayne pushed her toward the bedroom and said urgently, “Check her closet, Angel. On the shelf where she keeps her hats. If there’s not a match to the black one in your bag, plant yours on the shelf and let’s get out of here fast.”

Until that moment Lucy Hamilton had not had the faintest idea of what they were doing in Mona Bayliss’s apartment, nor why Shayne had insisted that she bring Mrs. Nathan’s hat with her in a bag.

She still didn’t understand, but she responded to the urgency in his voice by hurrying into the bedroom and opening the door to the large clothes closet in one corner. She stood on tiptoe to scan the shelf above an array of dresses on hangers, saw two turbans and a dressy straw hat with flowers, but no drooping black one.

Her fingers trembled as she pulled it from the bag and pushed it back on the shelf with Mona’s other hats.

Shayne was waiting for her with his hand on the doorknob when she rejoined him, breathing hard and shaking all over.

He grinned at her reassuringly as he turned off the inner light and eased the door open for a quick look down the corridor.

Then he drew her out boldly and closed the door and hurried her back toward the stairway.

When the door to the stairs closed behind them, he put his arm about her waist and squeezed tightly and told her admiringly, “You went through that like a veteran, Angel. By God I think I’ll put you on the payroll.”