Brett Halliday - Pay-Off in Blood

Dr. Ambrose’s widow had soft, platinum hair that was cut quite short and formed a riotous mass of tiny curls all over her head. She had a petulant face that was streaked with tears and needed make-up badly, and a babyish mouth that Shayne supposed had often been likened to a rosebud when it was properly lipsticked. Right now, the lips were plump and pouting.

She had very wide and very blue eyes in which tears were forming and sliding down her cheeks. She wore some sort of formless Mother Hubbard housecoat of citron yellow and lavender blue which effectively concealed whatever sort of figure she had.

Peter Painter rocked back on his heels in front of her and said gravely, “I realize this is a terrible ordeal for you, Mrs. Ambrose, and I’ll make this as brief as possible. Tell me first: When did you last see your husband?”

“This morning. When he left for the office.” She shut her eyes tightly and two big tears squeezed through under the lids.

“Did you hear from him during the day?”

She nodded violently without opening her eyes. “His nurse telephoned about four o’clock to say Doctor was tied up and wouldn’t be home for dinner. She said not to expect him until some time late this evening.”

“Was this… unusual?”

“Not so very,” she faltered. “He was a doctor, you know. And this morning he said, well… that something might come up to detain him tonight and I shouldn’t plan anything fancy for dinner.”

“What sort of thing, Mrs. Ambrose?”

She hesitated and tightened her plump lips and then opened her eyes wide and said, “It was those gamblers. I know it was. I knew it all the time. They killed him. He couldn’t get enough money for them and so they killed him. Oh God, what am I going to do now?” She turned her head to the police doctor and implored in a trembling voice, “Couldn’t I please have just a tiny drop of something for my nerves? I’m going to pieces. I know I am.” Her voice rose thinly. “Don’t just stand there looking so supercilious. I know what I need. What do you know about it? Is your husband lying out there in the yard murdered by gangsters?”

Painter glanced at the doctor who shook his head slightly, and told her cheerfully, “I’ve administered a sedative, Mrs. Ambrose. It will begin to take effect in about five or ten minutes and you’ll be fine. Please try to answer Chief Painter’s questions in the meantime.”

Painter asked, “What’s this about gamblers?”

“They were after him… hounding him all the time for money. He’s always gambled. It was a sort of compulsion with him. On the horses, you know. He confessed to me the first year we were married, and I forgave him. He was lucky and often won as much as he lost. Sometimes he was real lucky and we’d go out for a big splurge. But lately it’s been different. He was unlucky, and I’m afraid he started plunging. Just a month or so ago he told me he was in too deep. He said they were pressing him, and he broke down and cried like a baby with his head in my lap and said he was afraid they’d do something to him, if he didn’t pay up. And he promised he’d never bet on the horses again, if I’d help him this time, and I signed all the papers. You know. Insurance and on the house and all.

“And I thought it was enough and everything would be all right again and just the same as before, but I could see he was worried again, the last few days, and it frightened me and I wondered. And now… oh God!” She put the backs of both her hands up against her mouth and her wide blue eyes were anguished as they looked up at the chief of detectives.

“He didn’t say anything about this this morning?” asked Painter patiently.

“He didn’t have to. I could tell. You can’t be married to a man for twenty-two years without having an intuition. And when Nurse called this afternoon I had a premonition.”

“Is that why you hit the bottle of vodka so hard that you passed out and didn’t even know when he came home… didn’t even hear the shot that killed him?” asked Painter, folding his arms and thrusting his chin forward.

“Now I like that! Why, you, you… No gentleman would make an insinuation like that to a lady. I was worried and frightened, and I took a little sip of spirits, and it relaxed me and I took a nap. That is absolutely all.”

“Dr. Cross,” said Painter flatly, “tells me you had the better part of a quart of ninety-proof vodka in your stomach when he found you passed out in the bedroom half an hour ago.”

“Of all the insolent lies!” She turned her head and looked at the doctor like a little girl reproving a parent. “Don’t you realize I could sue you for slander and libel for making such a gratuitously untrue statement? What sort of doctor are you, anyway? I don’t know you, do I? Doctor Cross?” She spat out the two words venomously. “What sort of doctor are you? An osteopath?”

Dr. Cross studied her patiently and disapprovingly, and did not reply.

“This gambling of your husband’s,” said Painter. “On the horses, you say? Did he bet at the tracks?”

“Oh, no.” She turned her round, blue eyes on him in a manner to indicate that she thought him some sort of imbecile to ask such a question. “With his patients and all, he hardly ever had time to get out to the racetracks. It was a… a bookie, I guess you call them.”

“Can you give us his name, Mrs. Ambrose?”

“The bookie’s name?” She registered mild surprise. “You know them all, don’t you? You’re a policeman. I remember asking Doctor if it wasn’t illegal, and he said they couldn’t operate five minutes without police protection. So you must know lots more about that than I do.”

“We’ll skip that,” said Painter brusquely. “Now then, Mrs. Ambrose, answer me this: Were you aware that your husband was being blackmailed?”

Watching her face closely, Shayne could have sworn that her surprise was genuine. “Blackmailed?” she wailed. “Doctor? Whatever for?”

“I hoped you could tell us that.”

“But how could I? I simply don’t believe it! That’s something you made up because you’re a policeman in cahoots with the gamblers who murdered my husband. And so you start accusing my poor, dead, murdered husband of blackmail! Shame on you!” She turned to the doctor again, trembling violently now, and holding out both her shaking hands, palms upwards. “Now, couldn’t I?” she beseeched him. “You can see how overwrought my nerves are.”

“In about three minutes,” Dr. Cross told her austerely, “your nerves will be perfectly all right again.”

“Let’s not waste those three minutes, Mrs. Ambrose. Let’s go back to this afternoon. After the doctor’s nurse telephoned you that he would be detained. You say you had a premonition that it had something to do with his gambling debts?”

“Yes… I… I thought about that.” The widow slumped sideways on the sofa. Her eyes were becoming slightly glazed.

“What did you do?” demanded Painter urgently.

“What could I do? I… waited for him to come home. I was so worried. Mercifully, I dropped off to sleep about nine-thirty when he still wasn’t here.”

“And you didn’t see his car come in the driveway at ten? You didn’t hear the shot that killed him?”

“I was taking a nap,” she murmured defensively, sighing and blinking her eyes shut and open rapidly.

“One more thing, Mrs. Ambrose.” Peter Painter glanced at Dr. Cross and received a brief nod. He took the.32 automatic from his pocket and held it out in front of her face. “Have you ever seen this before?”

“Is it Doctor’s?” she asked weakly.

“I’m asking you.”

She murmured, “It looks like Doctor’s,” and closed her eyes, slumping a little more to the side and cuddling down among the nest of puffy pillows.