Brett Halliday - Never Kill a Client

“Without flattering myself unduly, Mr. Shayne,” Rexforth went on complacently, “as soon as I read the newspaper story about Long’s death, some such possibility of an arrangement flashed through my mind. It was so obvious… if one has dealt with thieves and crooks as long as I and know how their minds work. And so I waited, continuing the same careful surveillance over O’Keefe in prison that I have maintained ever since he was sentenced. And when I was informed of your first visit to him shortly after Long’s death, I knew my deductions were correct. I knew I had only to wait for you to conclude your careful arrangements to recover the money, and be ready to claim it for my company.”

He stopped talking abruptly, took off his glasses and polished them carefully with a corner of the sheet from the bed.

“It seems to me,” Shayne protested mildly, “that you’re making a lot of wild assumptions based on very few facts… or no facts at all. I’m not admitting anything at this point, you understand? Since I don’t know any of the background on the case, I simply don’t see how you arrived at any of these conclusions.”

Rexforth replaced his glasses firmly on his nose and smiled boastfully. “The embezzlement stunk to me from the beginning,” he announced. “When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, you get a feeling about such things. There was Julius O’Keefe, a six-thousand a year bookkeeper completely bonded by our company, and there was Robert Long, owner of the brokerage firm and consequently not bonded at all. O’Keefe did not impress me as the type of mentality to work out the details of a theft on such a grand scale. He was a little man, driven to distraction by a young, avaricious and very beautiful wife, who might pilfer a few hundreds or a few thousands from his employer, but would never think beyond that.

“So I looked for a master-mind who had planned and guided the operation, and there was only Robert Long who could possibly fit into the picture. He was in the perfect position to have conspired with O’Keefe, and I was convinced almost from the first that he had done so.”

“But you say he was owner of the business,” Shayne protested. “How could he profit by stealing from it?”

“It is not at all new in my experience,” said Rexforth didactically, as though delivering a lecture on economics in a classroom. “Consider first: He had absolutely nothing to lose. O’Keefe was fully bonded and North American would make good every penny of the loss if O’Keefe were convicted. He had only to confess and accept full blame, and we had no alternative. We did pay that loss, Mr. Shayne. The full hundred thousand. Not a penny of it was ever recovered. O’Keefe’s story was that he had spent it all over a period of time… on gambling and women. It was a manifest absurdity when you explored the man’s past life, but there was no proof. It is almost impossible to prove a negative.”

Shayne said slowly, “I see. So you think they split the proceeds and O’Keefe went to jail while Long remained a free man. Why would he do a crazy thing like that?”

“It wasn’t so crazy. It would have been planned that way from the beginning. He had to assume full responsibility if North American were to refund the loss. Why did he do it? Look at it from O’Keefe’s viewpoint. Here’s a man earning six thousand a year with very little prospect of advancement. He has an extravagant young wife, tries to keep up with the Joneses, lives in a heavily mortgaged house and never has a penny he can call his own.

“Why wouldn’t such an arrangement appeal to a man like that? Prison sentences for embezzlers are notoriously short. By pleading guilty and throwing himself on the mercy of the court, he can anticipate spending a few years in the penitentiary as a guest of the taxpayers, and emerge a free man… and with a bankroll of fifty thousand dollars. How else could a man like that hope to ever amass such a sum even as a result of a lifetime of hard, honest work? Of course he would jump at the opportunity if properly presented to him.”

“I can see it from O’Keefe’s viewpoint,” Shayne conceded. “But why should Long take a risk of that sort? You say he was owner of a brokerage firm large enough to sustain a loss of a hundred grand. He wasn’t living in middle-class poverty. And if I understand you rightly in discussing the recovery of the full hundred thousand, it must be your opinion that he didn’t even get his half at the time.”

“I’m positive he didn’t, Mr. Shayne. I’m certain in my own mind that the two men agreed beforehand to put the money in a safe place where neither of them could touch any of it until O’Keefe had paid his debt to the State and was free to enjoy his portion of it. Several things lead me to that conclusion,” he went on precisely.

“His brokerage firm went bankrupt within a year after the affair, indicating that it was not as firmly solvent as appeared on the surface, and certainly that he had not an extra fifty thousand to pour into it. From that point, he went downhill. I have kept very careful track of him, Mr. Shayne. The case has been almost a personal obsession with me. Long was connected with a couple of shady ventures, which were not successful, and he eventually ended up in Miami as a cheap gangster, who was murdered because he welshed on a bet.”

“That may all be true,” agreed Shayne. “But I still don’t see enough motive for a man to take such a chance in the first place.”

“There was another motive, Shayne, as I am sure you know already. In fact,” he went on fussily, “I’m sure you must be at least partially aware of everything I’ve told you here. The only reason I go over it is to convince you how perfect my case is… to show you beyond the shadow of a doubt that I can go into court and prove that the money is legally the property of my company.”

“You’re doing pretty well,” Shayne commented sourly. “But you still haven’t convinced me that Long had enough motive back in those days to take the risk you think he took.”

“You’re forgetting O’Keefe’s wife. A lovely young woman.” Rexforth’s eyes glinted behind the glasses, and he smacked his thin lips. “You know, of course, that she divorced O’Keefe a few months after he was jailed as a felon… and promptly remarried, taking Long as her second husband. That clinched the case in my own mind,” he went on solemnly. “They had kept their interest in each other completely hidden up to that point, and, like you, I had wondered about Long’s motive.

“But there it was, out in the open at last. He coveted his bookkeeper’s wife and he acquired her soon after O’Keefe was put away safely in prison. Indeed I have often wondered if he didn’t hope that O’Keefe had foolishly entrusted his secret to his wife in the beginning before he went to prison… give her, perhaps, whatever portion of documentary proof he held that would be required to recover the stolen money in collaboration with Long.

“If that was Long’s hope, I am certain it was in vain. O’Keefe was a fool, but evidently not enough of a fool to trust his wife to that extent.”

“Documentary proof?” Shayne frowned as though he did not understand. “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, come now, Shayne. You’re not precisely a novice in these matters yourself. If you had been in O’Keefe’s position what precautions would you have taken to be certain the money would be intact when you completed your prison term?”

“I would have taken my half right then,” Shayne told him promptly, “and put it away in a safe place. And let Long have his half to do with as he wished.”

“You have a point,” Rexforth conceded. “Under certain circumstances that would be the easiest and most sensible procedure. But consider this: Let us assume that the original agreement between the two men was that Long would use his position and his influence… yes, and even some money in the right places… to obtain a parole for O’Keefe as soon as he was eligible. And if you didn’t trust your partner in crime implicitly, wouldn’t you plan to retain a hold over him that would make it advisable for him to carry out his part of the agreement? Give him a strong reason… to state it plainly… to do all he could to get you freed as soon as possible?