Brett Halliday - Framed in Blood

“All right, Will,” he said, forcing a choke into his voice. “You’ve got me in a corner. If you’re sure you want it this way-”

“I’m sure,” Gentry interrupted.

Shayne took a deep breath and began tonelessly, “Bert Jackson came to me this afternoon to hire me to get divorce evidence against his wife. I threw him out because I don’t like that sort of business.”

“And?”

Shayne spread out his big hands. “That’s all. I refused the job and tossed him out on his ear.”

“Maybe so. But you still haven’t told me why Tim suspected Jackson and his proposition had something to do with the elevator operator’s murder and the ransacking of your office. And where does Tim come into the picture?”

“Tim’s an old friend of both Betty and Bert. A sort of brother-confessor. He got Bert his first job on the News, and-”

“I want to know why Tim brought up Jackson’s name in your office tonight.”

“I’m coming to that,” said Shayne rapidly. “I didn’t understand it myself until Tim and I left the office together. It seems that Bert had told his wife he was hiring me to get evidence against her-gave her the impression, in fact, that I had already got enough dope to get him a divorce. Tim said she was hysterical about it, and wanted him to get the evidence from me. When he refused to help her he was afraid maybe she had gone to whoever is involved with her and gotten him to search my office for it.”

It wasn’t a very convincing story, Shayne knew, but it had to do for the moment. It would provide Gentry a tangent to investigate, and Shayne could only hope fervently that there wasn’t a man involved with Betty Jackson on whom suspicion would fall.

Gentry was frowning and chewing on a fresh cigar. His protuberant eyes were fixed on Shayne’s brightly illuminated face, but the redhead didn’t bat an eye.

“That sounds okay for a beginning,” said Gentry grudgingly, “but how does it fit in with this?”

“I told you I didn’t think Jackson’s death had anything to do with it. If I have to solve all your homicides for you-”

“Beat it!” Gentry roared. “Next time, come clean in the beginning and there won’t be any hard feelings.”

Shayne stalked to his car without replying, got in and gunned the motor viciously in a U-turn, hit Okeechobee Road fast, and followed it to Grapeland Boulevard, where he turned north to 67th Street.

The cool stillness of the hour before the dawn shrouded the city as he drew up in front of a three-story stucco apartment with Las Felice lettered on the archway above double entrance doors.

He got out and went up the walk, found the outer doors unlocked, and entered a small foyer with a row of letter boxes on each side. Shayne tried the inner door and wasn’t surprised to find it locked in the absence of a doorman to admit visitors.

He turned back and found the mailbox for apartment Three A. A small engraved card inserted in a slot read Miss Marie Leonard. He didn’t want to forewarn the occupant of Three A of his impending visit, and decided it was too early in the morning to ring bells at random.

Instead, he took out a well-filled key ring, stopped to study the lock for a moment, then began selecting keys and trying them. The fifth one opened the lock, and he entered a small lobby. A self-service elevator stood waiting. He got in and pressed the button for the third floor.

Three A was the front apartment on the right. Shayne put his finger on the button and held it down while he counted to twenty. He released it, listened, and started to press it again when a crack of light showed under the door and the knob turned cautiously.

A sleepy voice asked through the narrow opening, “Who is it?”

Shayne said, “Police,” and shoved the door hard to confront the occupant.

Marie Leonard looked small and appealing in a blue silk dressing-gown that trailed behind her and swept the floor around her bare feet. Her eyes were enormous and blue, round with fright in a heart-shaped face that seemed waxen without make-up. Her brows and lashes were dark; and blond, touseled hair fell around her shoulders. She looked almost childish until she drew back from the tall redhead and wrapped the robe tightly around her to reveal the mature curves of her body. She opened and closed her lips three times before she succeeded in gasping the three words, “You-said-police.”

“They’ll be here soon enough,” Shayne said gruffly. He closed the door, took off his hat, and absently rubbed his palm over his stubby hair as he looked around the living-room.

He recognized this as one of the widely-acclaimed efficiency apartments in Miami which were usually rented furnished. This one, beyond doubt, had been done over by the occupant with gray and dull-blue stippled walls to accentuate the richness of deep cream silken drapes at the triple windows that blended into the dull-gold brocaded cover of a day bed, replete with blond end tables and fat pillows resting against the inner wall. The rug was silver-gray, leaving a generous portion of polished floor between the edges and the wall. A lacquered Japanese table with splotches of red at the west end held a combination television set, and at the east end, near the windows, two leatherette club chairs were drawn companionably together with a low glass table between.

Directly across from the entrance door where he stood Shayne saw a swinging door which he guessed led into a kitchenette, and opposite the leatherette chairs a door with an inside full-length mirror stood ajar to reveal a portion of the bedroom.

Two small, oddly shaped lamps on the blond end tables, a larger one on the Japanese table, and three or four choice statuettes added to the decorativeness of the small room. There was no suggestion of crowding, nothing expensive, and Shayne’s swift glance of approval gave him the impression that Marie Leonard strove for an effect of simplicity, comfort, and elegance with inexpensive imitations.

His eyes were softer when he turned back to the shrinking figure.

“What do you mean-the police will be here?” she asked tremulously. “Who are you and what do you mean by forcing your way into my apartment?”

“I’m a friend of Bert Jackson’s.”

Color flooded into her face. “But-why the police?” she stammered.

“Don’t you know the sort of mess Bert has got himself into?” Shayne demanded.

Marie Leonard backed away until she leaned against the sill of the swinging door, lifted her pointed chin, and said stormily, “There was nothing wrong about Bert coming here. It was all in his wife’s nasty mind. We never-” She hesitated, her lashes half closing over her eyes.

“It’s not the vice squad you’ve got to worry about.” He turned away, hat in hand, and dropped into one of the chairs opposite the mirrored door. “We’ve got to talk about a lot of things, and I could do with a drink.”

“Has something happened to Bert?” she cried, taking a few quick steps toward him.

As she moved Shayne caught a glimpse of bare legs and guessed that she wore nothing underneath the dressing-gown. “Didn’t you know he was heading for trouble when he left here tonight?” he countered.

She held the robe at her waist with one hand and covered her face with the other as she sank down on the edge of the day bed. “Yes-I was afraid,” she wailed, bending forward until her chin touched her bare, crossed knee. Then she lifted her face. It was waxen-white again. “Damn him, anyway,” she said. “I begged him not to go through with it, but he was wild. He wouldn’t listen.”

“If you could scare up a drink,” Shayne suggested.

She caught her breath in sharply and exclaimed, “I know who you are! You’re Michael Shayne, the private detective Bert went to see yesterday afternoon.”