Brett Halliday - The Corpse That Never Was

Shayne had to say thoughtfully, “No. Under the circumstances that sort of procedure didn’t seem called for.”

“Exactly. Under the circumstances. Now… who is this man who signed his name Robert Lambert?”

“I don’t know what success the police have had in tracing him.”

“None,” said Armbruster triumphantly, pointing a lean forefinger at Shayne. “Up to this point they have not discovered one single clue leading to his identity. Why not? I’ll tell you why not. Because they don’t really care. What difference does it make after all? The case is closed. A man named Robert Lambert is dead and my daughter is dead. Do they know it was Lambert himself who wrote those notes? Suppose they were clever forgeries? Do they know my daughter had been meeting him there frequently? Perhaps she was just lured there last night.”

“And induced to drink a cyanide cocktail against her will?” Shayne tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice because he liked the old man and admired the indomitable spirit which refused to accept the obvious, but he didn’t quite succeed because Armbruster flushed slightly and his penetrating blue eyes glittered with anger.

“I expected better of you, Shayne. You’ve gotten a lot of publicity in Miami and there’s been a public image built up of you as a man of imagination and of unorthodox methods which have produced results in the past and solved crimes which the police considered insoluble. I believe there is even a fiction writer who has made a small fortune writing up your cases in book form and selling millions of copies of them. Yes, goddamn it, Mr. Shayne. It is not inconceivable to me that Elsa was lured to that apartment last night and induced to drink a cocktail containing cyanide against her will. Without her knowledge, at least. My daughter had a peculiar taste in drinks. Her favorite potion was equal parts of heavy, dark rum and creme de menthe. Have you ever tasted that particular mixture?”

Shayne couldn’t repress a faint shudder as he confessed, “Not that I recall.”

“I suggest you try it so you’ll know what I’m talking about. I think you will then agree with me that a lethal dose of cyanide or any other poison could be introduced into that concoction without the drinker’s knowledge. Now, do you begin to see what I’m getting at, Shayne? If you can throw away all your preconceptions, do you see how each physical fact in that seemingly cut-and-dried suicide set-up might be interpreted differently?”

Shayne took a long pull on his cigarette and tried to readjust his thinking to fit Eli Armbruster’s ideas. It was very difficult. He had seen it, damn it. Armbruster hadn’t. He said slowly:

“I’m sorry, but as you probably already know, I was just downstairs one flight when it happened. I heard the blast of the shotgun, Mr. Armbruster. I ran upstairs and broke in the locked and chained door.”

“I know you did. That’s one of the reasons I have come to you. Stop just a moment and think, Shayne. How much time elapsed between the time you heard the gun go off and the moment you burst into the room?”

Shayne considered his reply carefully. “Probably three or four minutes. Not more than five, certainly.”

“Ah.” Eli Armbruster grunted his satisfaction. “So, by your own admission, from three to five minutes went by between the time the shotgun was fired and anyone entered that apartment?”

“The door was locked and chained on the inside,” Shayne reminded him.

“Mr. Shayne. Does that building have fire escapes as required by the building code?”

“Yes.”

“Can they be reached through each separate apartment?”

“Yes. Through the bedroom windows mostly.”

“Were the bedroom windows of that particular apartment locked on the inside last night?”

Michael Shayne hesitated, scowling heavily. He recalled standing there with his back to the door looking down at the two bodies, and the acrid smell of discharged gunpowder in the room. And he distinctly recalled the light breeze blowing in from the bedroom which dissipated the odor.

He said, “As a matter of fact, Mr. Armbruster, I’m quite certain that the bedroom window was open at the time.”

“Aha! But no one… including you, Shayne… thought that significant?”

“Frankly, no. We had no reason to suspect…”

“Exactly what I have been trying to point out to you,” crowed Eli Armbruster triumphantly. “It was all so cut-and-dried. Thinking back over it now, you can’t be positive there wasn’t a third person in that apartment when the shotgun went off, can you? A third person who went out the bedroom window onto the fire escape while you were running up the stairs and breaking down the locked door?”

Shayne shook his red head and confessed, “No. I can’t be positive. On the other hand…”

“Wait a minute,” ordered Armbruster peremptorily. “Stop right there, Shayne. This is all I asked in the beginning. That you allow a tiny iota of doubt to enter your mind. No more than that. Only that two and two do not have to always equal four. Will you take the case?”

“I still don’t admit there is a case, Armbruster. I think you’ll be wasting your money…”

“Whose money is it?” bristled the erect old man. “I’ve got millions to waste if I see fit, Shayne. All I want from you is your promise to suspend judgment and make a thorough investigation of this affair, putting aside any preconceived ideas of what may or may not have happened before you broke the door into that apartment. I want to know who Robert Lambert was, how he met my daughter, and what he meant to her. I don’t expect you to whitewash Elsa, Shayne. I want the truth… so far as you can ascertain what the truth is. For this, I will pay you a retainer of ten thousand dollars. This is not contingent on anything… except that you will take the case and investigate it to the best of your ability.”

Shayne said, “I’m afraid you’ll be wasting your money, Mr. Armbruster.”

“Will you allow me to be the judge of that?”

Michael Shayne hesitated, and then shrugged his wide shoulders. “It’s difficult to turn down a fee like that,” he conceded. “You’ve hired yourself a private detective, Mr. Armbruster.”

“Splendid. But that is only one part of my proposition, Shayne.” The old man leaned forward and his voice became deadly serious. “I will pay… happily… an additional fifty thousand dollars for evidence that will convict Paul Nathan of my daughter’s murder.”

Shayne blinked at this. He shook his red head slightly, as though to reassure himself that he had heard correctly. “You’re not trying to tempt me, are you?”

“Tempt you, Sir?”

“To manufacture evidence,” Shayne said evenly.

“Certainly not,” snapped Armbruster. “I’m convinced in my own mind that Paul Nathan engineered my daughter’s death somehow.”

“In the name of God, how?”

“You’re the detective, Shayne. That is for you to discover. I know the man is a wastrel and a scoundrel. A thoroughly evil man, Shayne. I am convinced that he married my daughter only because she was a wealthy woman, and when he discovered that she was also a strong-willed woman who had no intention of turning her fortune over to him, I am certain in my own mind that he plotted her death.”

Shayne said, “That is a strong accusation.”

“I mean it to be. I would gladly make it publicly if that would accomplish anything. I warned Elsa. I begged her months ago to give the man a divorce and a cash settlement that would take him out of her life forever. She refused. Elsa was a peculiar woman, Shayne. There was a lot of Armbruster in her. She had a feeling for property. What she bought, she held onto. In her own mind, I am convinced that she realized full well that she had bought a husband when she married Paul Nathan. She was perfectly willing to pay the price but she had no intention of relinquishing her purchase.”