Brett Halliday: Stranger in Town

Shayne drew in a deep breath and turned away from her to pick up his empty glass and pour a very moderate drink of straight cognac in the bottom of it. He sank back into his chair and said, “That’s where we’ll pick up the pieces, Jean. Start back from the moment his car stopped beside you on the highway. Tell me every word he said, every tiny detail you can remember until he drove away in the night leaving you in front of the hospital.”

“I’ll do the very best I can,” Jean Henderson promised him solemnly. “But it’s all sort of blurred, particularly at the beginning. I was in a state of shock, I guess. I didn’t know how I’d got there on the strange road at night. I didn’t know who I was or…”

“And then a car came down the road from behind you and stopped,” Shayne put in to get her on the track he wanted. “Did you signal the driver to stop?”

“I… don’t know,” she faltered. “Probably I did. At least I stopped on the side of the road and turned to look at the headlights. And he slowed down and stopped right beside me and jumped out on the other side and came around behind and caught my arm just as I seemed about to faint. And I went all to pieces. Hysterical and crying like a baby and asking him who I was and how I got there. And he was awfully gentle and had a soft soothing voice. I remember he kept saying, ‘There, there, you poor lamb. Don’t take on so, dear child,’ just as if I were about twelve instead of nineteen. And when he finally understood I had hurt my head and lost my memory, he didn’t waste time with any more questions, but said right off, ‘We’ll have to get you right to a doctor, child. No doubt your loved ones are badly worried about your whereabouts this very moment,’ and he helped me into the back of the car and told me to lie back and relax and he would take care of me.”

“What kind of car?”

“I don’t know. A sedan. It ran smoothly and the motor was quiet. He drove quite slowly. I don’t know whether it was ten minutes or an hour, but it seemed a long time to me. He spoke back over his shoulder to me half a dozen times without turning his head, worried about how I felt and whether I was comfortable. And then when the town lights showed ahead, he slowed down some more and began talking real fast, explaining that he did want to do what was right, and his conscience just wouldn’t let him pass me up on the road back there even though he hadn’t wanted to because it might get him in a lot of trouble if it ever came out that he was the one brought me to the hospital.

“I didn’t know what he meant by it at first. It just didn’t make sense. And then he hinted very delicately-because he thought I was too young to understand about adultery I guess-that he had been visiting a lady friend that night. Well, that’s exactly what he called her,” she protested in response to Shayne’s amused look.

“And that his wife thought he was tending to a business matter in another direction entirely, and if she ever found out the truth that it just wouldn’t be possible to live with her any more.”

“He didn’t tell you the name of his lady friend or anything helpful like that?”

“No, but he kept on talking sorrowfully about what a burden it was to be married to a woman whom he didn’t respect or love, and how wonderful it would be to be free again-feeling awfully sorry for himself, you know, and explaining it all to me so I’d understand why he wanted to drop me off in front of the hospital and drive away before he was seen.

“And he kept on about it so much that I asked him why he stayed married to her if it was so terrible, and he told me I was too young to understand. First he quoted from the Bible or marriage service about people whom God had joined together no man should put asunder and it sort of disgusted me because I just don’t believe in that sort of… You know what?” she broke off suddenly, sitting erect and alert.

“No… what?”

“Maybe that’s a clue. To me. I hadn’t thought about it before, but I must be sort of irreligious. But I forgot. You already know who I am and all about me, don’t you? Jean Henderson?” She repeated her own name uncertainly.

Shayne said, “You’re a modern young woman who has evidently been reared with a liberal attitude toward religion. So you thought he was being hypocritical and told him so?”

“Not in so many words.” She smiled at Shayne and it was the first real smile he had seen on her face. “But I did tell him that kind of talk sounded sort of silly when he admitted he was sleeping around at the same time, and then he sighed very dolefully and said if he could only get away from his wife and Brockton and make a new start in the world that he’d be the happiest man on earth.

“But it was impossible, he said, on account of every cent he had on earth was invested in his business here, and it was in his wife’s name, and from one year to another he just couldn’t seem to get any extra money laid aside that he could use to make a new start somewhere else.

“And about that time we were getting close to the hospital, and he begged me not to tell anyone who had brought me there-to just let him go on without trying to find out who he was or anything like that. So, of course I promised. I felt sorry for him, and I did appreciate him stopping to pick me up under those conditions. Plenty of other men, I thought, might just have speeded up instead of stopping, for fear of getting involved in something that would cause them trouble at home.

“So he pulled up under a street light in front and I got out of the back seat, and I saw his face just that once when he turned his head to wave to me before driving on. And when I saw how middle-aged and meek he was I felt sorrier for him than ever… and that’s why I just couldn’t get him in trouble last night when they pushed me inside the bar and told me to pick him out from the men inside.”

Michael Shayne set his empty glass down and lit a cigarette as Jean Henderson finished her story. He tugged at his earlobe thoughtfully while he considered the meager information she had been able to furnish about the man he had seen waiting in the rear booth the previous night. He hadn’t really appraised the man carefully. Had just given him an incurious glance when he first entered and was looking for a place to be comfortable while having his drink.

But there had been something about the man’s appearance that now tugged at Shayne’s memory. Something he had noticed and forgotten, but which had almost been brought back to his memory by something Jean had just said. He didn’t struggle to get the memory back. It would come to him faster if he let it lie.

He said, “After Mr. Buttrell took you away and you passed out in his car after drinking a malted milk… you say you woke up a prisoner in a room where you were kept locked in until last night? What sort of room was it?”

“Just a room,” she said helplessly. “Not quite as big as this one. With a single bed and a dresser and vanity. There was a tiny bathroom opening off it, and two windows in one wall that were solidly boarded-up outside the glass. Just a… an impersonal kind of room.” She puckered up her face in thought.

“That’s it,” she said finally. “It was impersonal. Just like this hotel room Like any hotel room. You had a feeling hundreds of other people might have occupied it briefly, but none for a long enough time to leave the slightest imprint of their personality on it. It was very quiet inside the room,” she went on slowly, “almost as though it were soundproofed. There was an airconditioning duct so I didn’t lack air. I think it must have been a farmhouse. Out in the country at least. I never heard any traffic.”

“And you saw no one all that time except the men you call Gene and Bill?”