Brett Halliday - The Private Practice of Michael Shayne

Helen nodded, confused.

“I hope I can do it.”

“What I want is for him to take you out to his yacht without anyone recognizing you. Keep your face down when you go aboard so none of the crew will see your face. And when you leave the yacht, try to slip away so unobtrusively that no one will be able to swear you haven’t spent the night. Have you got all that?”

“Y-e-s,” Helen mumbled, “but I don’t understand why-”

“I don’t either,” Shayne grunted sourly. “I’m playing a couple of long shots. While you’re with Thomas, use everything God gave you to find out anything he knows about Larry. Pretend you hate my guts and hope I’m on the spot for the Grange killing. Thomas’ll be drunk or at least half drunk. Pretend to drink with him. Dash his champagne under a table if you have to, but pretend. Find out things. We’ve got to find Larry to keep him from popping up and confessing while I’m trying to keep him out of it. You know about how long his conscience will bear the torture.”

Helen Kincaid nodded soberly.

“I’m getting the idea, Michael. I’ll make myself do everything you say.”

“That’s swell.”

He saw the glint of uncertainty in her big, dark eyes and laid a rough hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t forget. When you come out of the bedroom you’re peeved at me, make a scene and accuse me of neglecting you. I’ll guarantee Thomas will console you, and you have to make the most of it. Cuddle up to him. He’ll console you all right.” He repressed a chuckle.

Helen smiled wanly.

“Be sure to slam the bathroom door hard so I won’t miss the cue.”

“I will. And I’ll stay in long enough for you to get in your dirty work.”

The elevator clanged to a stop on that floor, and they both tensed, listening to solid footsteps coming down the hall. Shayne pulled her up from the chair and shoved her to the bedroom door.

He smiled and said, “Don’t worry-and don’t fail me.”

He closed the door when she entered the bedroom and hurried to admit Elliot Thomas when he rapped on the front door.

In spite of his size, the millionaire sportsman was dapper in creamy trousers and a double-breasted coat of blue serge. He came in, saying fretfully, “I don’t understand the urgency of this call, Mr. Shayne. This is hardly the hour for a business discussion.”

Shayne closed the door and gestured toward the chairs and table.

“Have a seat-and a drink. You ought to know why it’s urgent. That affidavit you made to the police today is likely to put me behind the bars any minute.”

Elliot Thomas sat down in a soft chair and met Shayne’s lowering gaze with cool indifference.

“I did my duty as a citizen by throwing what light I could on the murder of Harry Grange.”

Shayne sighed. “I don’t blame any man for doing his duty as he sees it. Drink?”

“Scotch-if you have it.”

“I’ve got some stuff here that’s labeled Scotch.” Shayne went to the liquor cabinet, adding over his shoulder, “No soda, though, I’m afraid.”

“It will do very nicely straight,” the yachtsman assured him.

Shayne came back with a squatty bottle and a six-ounce glass. Uncorking the bottle, he let amber liquid gurgle into the glass, handed Thomas the heavy potion, and sat down in a chair conveniently near the cognac.

“Did Larry Kincaid tell you I had agreed to handle Grange for him?” Shayne asked.

Thomas was sniffing the uncertain bouquet of Shayne’s cheap Scotch with no show of pleasure. He took a sip and looked up with some surprise, but Shayne couldn’t tell whether it was directed at his question or at the Scotch, which was, undoubtedly, a new brand to the millionaire.

“Why, no,” he said. “I made no such statement in my affidavit to the police. I merely gave a resume of the scene in Kincaid’s office, with his final statement as I left, to the effect that he would bring you around all right.”

Shayne waved his hand.

“I’m not worrying about what you told the police. I want to know what Larry told you — after that scene in the office?”

He struck a match and lit a cigarette, pretending that the question wasn’t of vital importance.

“I didn’t see him later. When the news story concerning your presence at the scene of Grange’s death came out, I realized that Kincaid must have persuaded you to take over-and that you had handled the affair very injudiciously. You were lucky, of course, to get rid of the incriminating gun before the police arrived.”

He frowned distastefully at his glass, then lifted it and poured half the contents down his throat with a do-or-die look on his face.

“How did you know about the gun?” Shayne bent toward him grimly.

“There must have been a gun. The man was shot through the head.”

Shayne tipped back, lacing his fingers around his knee. Very quietly he said, “You’re a self-righteous bastard, aren’t you, Thomas? Because you’ve got all the money in the world you think you can hire saps to pull your chestnuts out of the fire, and if they get burned, you figure it’s their hard luck. You don’t pull that stuff on me. I’m warning you-”

“Save your breath, Shayne.” Thomas spoke coldly. His usually pleasant ruddy face was set in stony lines of disapproval. “When I hire men to do a job for me, I don’t accept the responsibility if they bungle it. I didn’t order you to murder Grange. I wash my hands of any complicity in the affair.”

He polished off his drink and got up.

Shayne said, “Sit down, Thomas. I’m not through.”

“I am. I didn’t come here to discuss your difficulties with you.”

Shayne stayed in his chair. He didn’t even look up. He said, “You’re still on the spot with the racing commission.”

Elliot Thomas was halfway to the door. He stopped and turned slowly.

“What do you know about that?”

Shayne looked up in surprise.

“Everything, of course. How Jake Kilgore and a tout named Evans planned it. About Grange getting sore because they didn’t cut him in-and how he got the dope from Chuck, and then held out for a price-letting you bid for it.”

Thomas appeared to count his steps coming back.

“I have nothing to conceal. The more light shed on the affair, the better I like it. You can’t blackmail me, Shayne. I advise you not to try it.”

Shayne’s mind plopped back to his conversation with John Marco. He pushed the Scotch toward Thomas and said grumpily, “Take another drink and cool off.”

The millionaire shuddered at the suggestion.

“No, thanks. Your liquor is as bad as your manners.”

“Do you mean to say,” Shayne asked incredulously, “that you’re not willing to make the payoff alter all?”

“My arrangements were made with Mr. Kincaid,” Thomas reminded him. “I will be glad to deal with him when he comes to me.”

He started out of the room again.

Shayne was desperately trying to think of some reason for further detaining him when a light rap sounded on his door.

Elliot Thomas stopped two paces from it and swung about, questioning Shayne with suspicious eyes.

The knob turned in the unlocked door as the detective got up, and Phyllis Brighton stepped inside. She started a lilting, “Hel-lo…” then saw Elliot Thomas and her eyes widened.

“Why, Elliot,” she exclaimed, “fancy meeting you here!”

Thomas bowed stiffly, not bothering to hide his amazement at seeing Phyllis Brighton standing in the doorway of the detective’s apartment and evidently on intimate terms with him.

Even more nonplused than Elliot Thomas by Phyllis’s unexpected appearance, Shayne made the best of the awkward situation by stepping close to her and exclaiming, “If it isn’t Miss Brighton! On a slumming tour, Miss Brighton?”