Brett Halliday: Stranger in Town

“I’m beginning to get the picture straight. Having rubbed up against Ollie a couple of times, I see what you mean. And I heard today that the gunman named Gene is a sort of pal of his. All right. So you came to the conclusion that Jean here was likely in Harris’ car when it went into the ravine, but could recall nothing about it. What sort of lever did you figure that gave you against the Sanitarium?”

“I was the only person who knew where she was picked up that night,” Magner explained simply. “The only person who could place her in the vicinity of Harris’ so-called accident. Because I realized at once it had probably been no more of an accident than the death of the Henderson girl a month ago. I assumed that Mr. Harris and the girl had actually gone to the Sanitarium together after asking directions from the filling station man, and they had somehow learned who Harris was. I even theorized that he might have gone there on official business and threatened prosecution. That would explain the accident. Having been successful in staging a similar accident a month ago, it seemed likely to me they would try the same method again. Criminals do, I believe, tend to follow a sort of pattern in whatever sort of crimes they commit.”

A choked gasp from Jean’s throat brought both their heads around to her. She had one hand at her throat, and her eyes were wide and staring. “Jeanette,” she whispered as though in agony. “Jeanette! I… I’m beginning to remember. Oh, God in heaven, yes! Jeanette!”

Shayne was instantly by her side, peering down into her eyes and to her contorted face. “Take it easy, Jean. Don’t try to make it come back. It will all come eventually.”

“But I want to,” she cried out clearly. “I remember part of it now. It’s vague, like a nightmare. With parts that are clear and parts that are black. My little sister! I knew there was something terribly wrong. I knew there was. But she wouldn’t tell me. She wouldn’t let me help. She denied it, but I knew. Yes, she was pregnant. And she went to that place and they murdered her. They butchered my sister…”

Her voice was rising angrily and Shayne clapped his hand over her mouth. He said grimly, “You’ve got to help us, Jean. Don’t go to pieces yet. Think back now to a month ago. You suspected your sister was pregnant though she denied it. Did you know she was going to the Brockton Sanitarium for an abortion?”

“No. I don’t think I knew. It’s all clouded and indistinct. I remember her clearly. I remember I was worried when she wouldn’t tell me. And I remember…” Her voice dropped and she shuddered. “I remember now that she died. And it was an accident and I was almost glad. Because Father didn’t have to know and she didn’t have the shame of it. And then… oh, I don’t know. It’s mixed up. There was the Sanitarium in it. And a doctor. And then that man… Gene…” She broke down and sobbed frantically.

Shayne patted her shoulder and told her again, “Take it easy. This is all adding up to tie in with Magner’s story. I’m sure you’ll remember more and more as we go on.”

He turned back to the undertaker and said, “So you figured they had tried the same thing again with Randolph Harris and the girl. That she had somehow escaped death in the bottom of the ravine with him and got back to the road where you picked her up.” He nodded approval. “That makes sense. It gives them a damned good reason for arranging to have a man appear at the hospital and claim to be her father because she was a definite danger to them as long as she was alive and might regain her memory. And you saw a chance to pick up a piece of change by offering to keep quiet about where you had picked her up that night. So you tried to put the bite on them for ten grand. That right?”

“Yes, I…” Mr. Magner’s face was flushed with shame. “It sounds so much worse when you say it out loud that way. I… I suppose I rationalized my conduct by telling myself I had no real proof. Nothing I could go to the police with. And I needed money so badly. Just enough to get away from Brockton with.”

Shayne said, “I’m not sitting in judgment on you. Exactly what did you do about the situation?”

“Well, I telephoned the Sanitarium first. From a pay-station and I disguised my voice. I spoke to Dr. Winestock and told him I wanted ten thousand dollars in old hundred-dollar bills for my silence. And I told him I would call again Monday to explain how the money was to be delivered, and then I hung up on him. And over the week-end I thought of a plan for getting the money that seemed safe to me. You see, they had no idea in the world who I was, and I didn’t think they could possibly identify me by sight. So far as I knew she…” He nodded at Jean. “… I thought of her as Miss Buttrell, of course, was safely out of their hands and in Miami, and she was the only person who could identify me. So my plan seemed safe enough.”

“What was your plan?”

“I selected that bar-room as the place because it is on the other side of town from me and not at all the sort of place any of my acquaintances might frequent. I went there Monday morning and took a list of three songs that are on the juke-box there, and when I phoned again Monday afternoon I had it all worked out in detail. I told Dr. Winestock he was to have a man go there at eight o’clock Tuesday night with the money in a long envelope. That he was to put three nickels in the jukebox and punch the numbers of the three songs in the order I gave him. Then he was to sit in a vacant booth and order a drink, and while no one was looking he was to fasten the envelope on the underside of the table with scotch tape, and then get up and leave. I planned to be there at eight and watch for the man playing the songs I had ordered. Then it would have been a simple matter to wait until he left the booth, sit down there myself and detach the envelope at my leisure. I was waiting in the rear booth, and was simply bowled over when she walked in the door. I simply sat frozen in my seat and died a thousand deaths while she walked back toward me.

“Then… she stopped at your booth instead. I couldn’t hear what she said because Gene and that other big tough came in right behind her and… well, you know better than I do what happened then.”

Jean spoke in a quavering voice as he finished, “It’s all come straight in my mind now, Mr. Shayne. It’s like a miracle, the way everything has suddenly clicked into place. I did go to the Sanitarium with Randolph Harris because of what happened to Jeanette. I remember it all. After we heard about her accident, I was in her room cleaning out her personal things and in her desk I found a slip of paper with the words, Dr. Winestock. The Brockton Sanitarium.

“I remember how I sat and stared at it. I couldn’t believe it. The Brockton Sanitarium was where they had taken her after the accident for an emergency operation. But she had written it down there before the accident. As though she had had a premonition, I thought. But I knew that was silly and it couldn’t be a coincidence.

“I didn’t tell anyone and I brooded about it for days. The more I thought… with my suspicions about her condition… the more I came to believe that she had intended going to the Sanitarium when she left home supposedly to visit Lois Dongan. And I knew that she had gone to visit a strange doctor in Orlando named Dr. Jessup a few days before, and that she was different and happy when she came back from seeing him. She had been dragging around and listless before that, and then perked up right after seeing him.

“So I took a chance and went to see Dr. Jessup myself. I gave him a false name and told him I was a student at Rollins and lived at Miami, and that I was… in trouble, and I’d heard from some of the other girls at Rollins that he could help get rid of the baby.