Brett Halliday: Blood on Biscayne Bay

Painter strutted to the center of the room and whirled to face the trio. “We already had her body. Found it early this morning in the bay less than three hundred yards from here.”

“Her-body?” Christine cried out sharply. “Drowned?”

“Not exactly, Mrs. Hudson,” Chief Painter said. “She’d been struck over the head-” he paused and delicately cleared his throat. “Her throat was slashed,” he ended quietly.

Christine caught her husband’s arm and began to sob. “Now, now, dear,” he comforted her. “You mustn’t take it too hard. We’ve only had her with us a short time.”

Shayne raised ragged brows, looking from the couple to Painter, then went over and sat down in a chair.

Chief Painter confronted him “I suppose you wouldn’t know a damned thing about this, Shayne? You just happened to drop in this morning?”

Shayne looked up at the dapper little man who stood before him, immaculately turned out in the latest style, and stiffly erect. He said, “That’s right.”

“Nuts!” The dynamic chief turned on the heel of one small shoe and snapped to Mr. and Mrs. Hudson, “Whichever one of you called Shayne in on this case, get this through your heads. I won’t have him interfering with police business. The woman was murdered, and I’m taking personal charge of the investigation.”

Shayne’s gray eyes shone with an angry and humid glow. “I told you I was catching the noon plane,” he said.

Painter disregarded him. He continued bitingly, “I’ve had experience with Shayne messing up cases before. I assure you that the Miami Beach officials are capable of handling this murder investigation.”

Leslie Hudson looked inquiringly at Shayne, then turned a puzzled glance on Painter. His right hand came up in a gesture of confusion and embarrassment. “I don’t quite understand,” he said, addressing Painter. “I’m sure it was a purely friendly gesture on Mr. Shayne’s part-dropping in to say good-by to Mrs. Hudson.”

Christine was still clinging to her husband’s arm. She dropped her hands to her side and stepped forward. “Of course it was,” she said, “but now that this terrible thing has come up about Natalie, I want him to find the guilty person. With your permission, of course, Chief Painter.” She appeared to have gained complete control of her emotions, and she flashed a smile at Painter.

Painter nervously fingered his mustache. He said, “But you heard Mr. Shayne say he was catching the noon plane.”

“Just a moment.” Shayne sprang from his chair. He said, “Mr. Hudson, will you describe the maid-Natalie-to me?”

“Of course. She was something under thirty, I suppose. Quite blond, and-” he twirled a hand above his baldish head “and frizzly.” He turned to his wife and asked, “Rather nice looking, wouldn’t you say?”

Christine laughed lightly. “Any maid would look good to us, Leslie,” she said. “She had a rather pleasant face and she liked to laugh and talk. I’d given her some of my old gowns and she looked very nice in them. And,” she added, turning to her husband, “she helped herself to the lovely perfume you gave me.”

Shayne was watching Christine. Her light laughter and her smile and the glow in her eyes went away when she turned away from Painter. He said, “My trip to New Orleans isn’t really important. I can easily put it off a day or so if you really want me to look into this.” He knew, suddenly, that there was more involved than the IOU which Barbizon held against Christine, and he deliberately shoved aside the urgent telegram from Lucy Hamilton and the thousand-dollar retainer in the Belton case.

Leslie Hudson was saying, cordially, “We’d appreciate that, Shayne. Natalie was a maid who’d been with us only a short time, but we owe her that much.”

Shayne scarcely heard him. When Christine’s husband stopped speaking, Shayne said to Painter, “You’re conducting an investigation?”

The chief raised his padded shoulders a trifle straighter and warned him bitingly, “Just try pulling a fast one, Shayne. Just one. That’s all I ask.” He turned his back on the redhead, whipped out a notebook and demanded, “The maid’s full name?”

“Natalie Briggs,” said Hudson.

“Age?”

“About-twenty-eight,” Christine answered when her husband looked at her inquiringly.

“Height and weight?”

Leslie Hudson’s eyes were a mixture of green and gray. He drew his brows together between them, but didn’t look at his wife. “I would say about five-feet-eight or nine inches. She was tall.” He thought for a moment, turned to Christine and said, “A hundred and thirty, wouldn’t you say, dear?”

“Fifty,” Christine murmured, her long lashes half-closed. Her tousled dark head was nestled against Leslie’s arm, and she didn’t look at Shayne.

“Any relatives? Close friends?” Painter asked officiously.

Hudson didn’t answer immediately. He looked down at Christine and said, “None that I know of. She was sent to us by an employment agency a few weeks ago. You know how it is these days. But she was perfectly satisfactory,” he maintained stoutly.

Painter’s small black eyes flashed. “H-m-m. So you don’t actually know anything about her.” His tone indicated that they knew everything about her and were directly responsible for her murder. “When was she last seen by any member of your household?”

Christine lifted her head and spoke in a steady voice. “I can answer that. It was right after dinner. Leslie had gone to the plant, and she had a date. She came in to show me how a green dinner dress looked on her-one I had given her. I was reading the evening paper in the living-room. She said there was something she had forgotten to do and went upstairs. When she came down, I could smell the perfume, but I didn’t care about that. Naturally,” she ended, “I didn’t ask her where she was going.”

“Did someone call for her?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.” Christine seemed to remember all of a sudden that she was a hostess. She moved wearily toward a chair and said, “Let’s all sit down.”

She sank down on a love seat and her husband sat beside her. Painter stood in his tracks, his notebook in his hand and his pencil poised above it. Shayne dropped into a chair and crossed his legs.

“When Natalie wasn’t here this morning, I asked Mrs. Morgan if she knew anything. Mrs. Morgan was in the kitchen just before Natalie left.”

“Who is Mrs. Morgan?” Painter asked.

“Our housekeeper,” said Christine.

Painter raised his right hand which held his pencil and ran a finger over his thin mustache. “Why didn’t you report the maid missing earlier?” he demanded. “Was she in the habit of spending her nights out?”

Leslie Hudson said, “The maid’s room is in the house. We naturally gave her a key to the back door so she could come in on her night out. I suppose she stays out quite late, which is none of our business as long as she does her work the next day. We didn’t know she hadn’t come in until just before I left for the office this morning.”

“There was no wind last night,” Painter asserted, “and your maid was found floating in the bay a short distance from here. It’s my guess she was killed right here and dumped in the bay. Where were you two all evening?”

“There was a pretty high wind this morning,” Shayne said.

Painter’s small black eyes darted to Shayne. “You keep out of this, Shamus,” he snapped. He turned back to the Hudsons. “Where were you last night?”

Leslie Hudson looked at his wife quickly, but she was staring at her pink fingernails. He said, steadily, “My wife and I were out.”

“Where?” Painter asked caustically.

Christine lifted her eyes and looked steadily at Painter. She did not smile. She asked, “Are Leslie and I suspects?”