Brett Halliday - Pay-Off in Blood

She said, “Mr. Shayne?” and, when he nodded, she stepped back and said, “Madam expects you. Come this way, please.”

Shayne followed her down the long hall for at least forty feet, past closed doors on both sides, to an archway with portieres , which she parted for him to enter.

The room was pleasant and well-lighted by a chandelier and wall-sconces on all sides, carpeted from wall to wall with a light blue rug that gave back a springy feel to his feet, pleasantly furnished with good, modern furniture that harmonized with the rug and the golden-flecked wallpaper.

Mrs. Montgomery sat facing him across the room, in a wheelchair with big, rubber-tired wheels. She was a large, grossly-fat woman, with completely white hair that needed brushing, snapping black eyes, almost hidden by the rolls of fat on her face, wearing an absurdly youthful bed-jacket of baby-blue silk with peek-a-boo lace strained over the bulging breasts and threaded with pink ribbons tied in bow-knots at the throat and short sleeves. A knitted afghan was tucked in at the sides of the chair to cover the lower portion of her body.

There was something grotesque and something frightening about her silent scrutiny as Shayne hesitated on the other side of the room, and the words, “sweet,” “little,” and “old” flashed through his mind.

Her voice was unexpectedly resonant and placid now. “Well, Mr. Shayne. You needn’t stand there gawking. Sit down and I’ll ring for a drink, if you like.”

Shayne said, “Thank you. It’s a little too early-right after lunch.”

He crossed to a blue-brocaded chair she indicated and sat down.

She cackled with unexpected mirth. “I didn’t know it was ever too early for a private eye to accept a free drink. Perhaps I should have phrased it: ‘Be my guest’?”

Shayne said, “You’ve been watching too much television.”

“Possibly. Now then: aren’t you thoroughly ashamed of yourself, Mr. Shayne?”

“What for?” he asked in complete surprise.

“For encouraging and abetting blackmail, of course! Don’t you agree that a blackmailer is the most loathsome human being on earth? You don’t need to answer that,” she added sharply. “It’s already quite evident that you don’t. Probably you have no morals whatsoever.”

Shayne couldn’t repress a grin. “What is all this about blackmail?”

“Don’t play coy with me, Mr. Shayne. Please. I’m an old woman, confined to a wheelchair, but that’s no reason for you to treat me like a half-wit. I’m talking about the pay-off you arranged and supervised for Dr. Ambrose last night at the Seacliff Restaurant. You’re not going to sit there and deny it, are you?”

Shayne said, “I’m not denying anything, but what do you know about it?”

She leaned forward and peered into his face with shining, suspicious, black shoe-button eyes behind a roll of fat. “Don’t pretend to me that you are unaware that it was my son, Cecil, who participated in that unwholesome affair.”

“I was until this moment,” he told her honestly. “Is Cecil the one with a crew-cut?”

“Yes. Cecil persists in that childish haircut. Who did the doctor tell you he was meeting last night?”

“He insisted to me that he didn’t know. That the man had kept his identity a secret.”

“And you fell for that line?” she cackled incredulously.

Shayne said, “I saw no good reason to doubt him.”

“How well were you acquainted with Dr. Ambrose?” she demanded imperiously.

“I met him last night for the first time.”

“Yet you went along to protect him?” she marveled. “A great, big man like you to protect him from my Cecil? Shame on you!”

Shayne started to explain to her about his old friend, Tim Rourke, who owed the doctor a debt of gratitude, but decided the hell with it. He said, “All right, Mrs. Montgomery. So your son stuck his neck out last night. Did he kill Dr. Ambrose?”

“Cecil? Why ever would he? You witnessed the entire transaction, from what Cecil told me. You know he got what he went after… all fair and square. Why would he want to kill the doctor?”

Shayne said, “I came here hoping you were going to tell me that.”

“Hoping I was going to tell you my son is a murderer? Really, Mr. Shayne…!”

“What do you want to tell me?”

“Very frankly, I’m worried. The doctor’s murder upset everything. Naturally, I want my son’s connection with the affair kept out of it entirely. If… if I were able to give you a lead to the identity of the real murderer, would that suffice?” She leaned forward eagerly in her wheelchair.

“You mean in return for my promise to keep Cecil in the clear?”

“Yes. Is that too much to ask? He did nothing wrong… really.”

“You’re the one,” he reminded her sharply, “who recently asked me to agree that a blackmailer is the most loathsome human being on earth. Yet, you’re now asking me to protect an admitted participant in blackmail.”

“Mr. Shayne.” Her voice was tremulous suddenly, and old. “Cecil is all I have left in life. I have protected him for years, from the results of his own folly. No mother can be blamed for doing that. Whatever mistakes he has made in the past… can they not be forgiven now? I assure you he had nothing to do with murder last night. Except… possibly… as an indirect result of his own folly. That is why I asked you to come here today. To listen to a mother plead for her only son. He acted in a misguided and foolish manner last night. In a sense, I have myself to blame for having protected him in the past. But… he is my son, Mr. Shayne.”

Shayne said, “If I’m convinced Cecil is in the clear on the killing, I’ll make a deal with you, Mrs. Montgomery. Give me the name of the man Cecil was working for when he collected that twenty thousand dollars from Dr. Ambrose… and give me the name of the man who killed the doctor… and, if humanly possible, I’ll keep your son out of it.”

She worked her lips in and out slowly, and her eyes showed complete perplexity.

“When he collected twenty thousand dollars?” she repeated slowly and emphatically. “Are you out of your mind, Mr. Shayne? Cecil paid him twenty thousand dollars of my money… and you saw him do it.”

Michael Shayne sat very still for a long sixty seconds while he absorbed the impact of Mrs. Montgomery’s statement.

“Are you going to sit there and try to make me believe you thought it was the other way around?” she demanded, tartly, before he could get his thoughts in order.

He sighed deeply and got out a cigarette. He very carefully struck a match and put flame to it, drew in a deep puff of smoke and found a clean ash-tray at his elbow into which he dropped the matchstick.

“Mrs. Montgomery,” he said earnestly. “Do you know what was in that white envelope your son passed over to Dr. Ambrose at the Seacliff?”

“Most certainly, I know. There were ten one-thousand-dollar bills, and one hundred one-hundred-dollar bills. They were delivered to me by the bank yesterday afternoon, and I placed them inside the envelope myself, and sealed it in Cecil’s presence.”

“Then what was in the doctor’s envelope?” Shayne protested weakly.

“Exactly what he had promised in return for the money. Certain documentary proofs of a page out of Cecil’s youth which I have no desire to discuss with a stranger. They are destroyed now, and the subject is closed.”

Shayne drew sharply on his cigarette and leaned back in his chair with his eyes half-closed, tugging at his earlobe while the scene with Dr. Ambrose in his apartment came clearly into focus.

The doctor’s appeal for sympathy… for help in meeting a blackmail demand! The thick envelope he had produced from his inner pocket with the statement that it contained $20,000!