Brett Halliday - Murder by Proxy

“Yes. A routine assignment. Do you have any question about the validity of the identification, Mr. Shayne?”

Shayne said, “I’m sure you know your job. But there’s some hocus-pocus here that I hope I’ve got figured out. I don’t want to tip my hand beforehand to what I’m hoping to find because I don’t want you to be influenced in advance. Let’s just say I want you to do the same sort of job on Ruth Collins’ apartment as you did on the Harris apartment last Sunday for the Miami Beach police.”

At that time in the afternoon, Gifford chose the Triborough Bridge as his best approach to the upper West Side, and he was able to make fairly good time through traffic so that it was slightly before six o’clock when he drew up in front of an old four-story brown-stone building on West 76th Street.

They all got out, and Angelo Fermi got his black leather case from the back seat that looked like a doctor’s bag, and they mounted the steps leading into a small foyer with mailboxes on either side. Gifford checked the boxes and found one with the typewritten names, Collins-Cranshaw, under the number 1-C.

He pressed the bell button under the number, and after a moment there was a buzz from the automatic door release. Shayne turned the knob and led the way into a dim-lighted hallway with numbered doors on either side. A door on the left-hand side opened down the hallway and a striking brunette peered out. Shayne was in front and close to her, and he asked, “Miss Cranshaw?”

“Yes… I’m… Kitty Cranshaw.” She peered curiously past him at Gifford and Fermi, and half-closed the door, asking, “What is it?”

“Police, Miss Cranshaw,” Shayne told her pleasantly. “About your room-mate who appears to be missing. May we come in and ask a few questions?”

“Have you found Ruth?” She opened the door and drew back to let the three men file past her into a large, high-ceilinged room in a pleasant state of disorder.

Shayne said, “Not exactly, Miss Cranshaw. It’s a matter of identification,” he explained. “This is Detective Fermi, who would like to collect some fingerprints. And Inspector Gifford,” he added casually.

“Fingerprints of whom?” she demanded suspiciously, following them into the sitting room.

“You first, Miss Cranshaw, if you don’t mind,” Fermi said briskly, crossing to a center table and opening his bag. “Just for the record, so we’ll be able to definitely distinguish between your room-mate’s prints and yours.” He removed some articles from his bag and placed them on the table. “It’ll only take a moment, if you’ll just come here and put your fingertips on this inked pad.”

Miss Cranshaw stood back with her hands nervously clasped behind her. “Isn’t that an invasion of personal privacy? I think I’ve read that no one can be forced to have their fingerprints taken for the record unless they are charged with a serious crime. You’re not charging me with any crime, are you?”

“This isn’t actually for the record, Miss Cranshaw.” Fermi smiled disarmingly. “We have to positively identify Miss Collins’ fingerprints from those we can find here, and in order to do so, we must have a set of yours, so they may be eliminated. You should be able to understand that.” He didn’t say, “Even you,” but is was implicit in his tone.

She smiled dubiously and said, “Well, I guess so.” She advanced hesitantly and let him expertly ink the tips of her fingers and get her prints on his pad, and he thanked her and then asked, “Do you have separate bedrooms?”

“Yes. Ruth’s is there.” She pointed to a closed door, “On the right. I don’t think… I’ve been in there since she left.”

Fermi thanked her and disappeared with his bag through the door she indicated. She turned to Shayne and Gifford and asked in a worried voice, “What have you found out about Ruth? Didn’t she go to the Catskills at all?”

“Apparently she didn’t, Miss Cranshaw. In fact…” He hesitated. “Detective Shayne is from Miami, Florida,” he told her firmly. “There is some reason to think… did she ever say anything to you to indicate that she might be planning to go to Florida instead of the Catskills? Did you notice, for instance, whether she packed things more suitable for the South than the mountains?”

“No,” she said instantly. “I didn’t notice that at all. Quite the contrary. What do you think has happened to her?”

Before Gifford could reply, Fermi pussy-footed back from the bedroom. He carried his bag closed and there was a look of satisfaction on his face. He nodded to Shayne and Gifford and said, “All right as far as I’m concerned.”

“Get what we wanted?” Shayne asked.

“Plenty.” He went briskly toward the door and the other two men followed him out leaving a very perplexed Miss Cranshaw standing in the middle of the room staring after them.

When Jim Gifford pulled in to the curb in front of a large apartment building on the East Side, he nodded with satisfaction at a dark blue 1962 Buick parked directly in front of his car. “Our friend, Harris, made it all right. That’s his Buick right there.”

“How do you know it’s his?” Shayne asked as the three men got out. “You’ve never seen it… or him either.”

Gifford chuckled as they walked to the entrance. “I know his license number. Hell, I can tell you the color of the socks he wore on his last birthday.”

There was no doorman. They entered a parqueted foyer with neat rows of shining brass mailboxes. Detective Fermi, who had been there before, said, “I think it was Seven D,” and glanced at a mailbox to confirm the number. He nodded and led the way to a self-service elevator that was waiting, and they went up to the seventh floor.

Shayne pushed the button on 7-D, and after a moment Herbert Harris opened the door. He was in his shirtsleeves and tieless; his face was unshaved and haggard. He had a highball glass in his hand, and he looked at Shayne and the others in disbelieving astonishment. “Mr. Shayne! What on earth are you doing in New York?”

“You hired me to do a job,” Shayne told him levelly, moving forward while Harris backed away into a large, pleasant and very neat sitting room. A suitcase stood near the bathroom door with Harris’ jacket draped over it. “You paid me a fair-sized retainer,” he added. “And I intend to earn it. These are two New York detectives, by the way. Gifford and Fermi.”

Harris nodded politely, but it was evident that he was more puzzled than before. “I hired you to help find my wife when she was missing,” he blurted out. “I’m perfectly satisfied with the results you got.”

Shayne said, “I’m not. I’m still looking for her, Harris.”

“You’re still… looking?” he asked weakly. “But she… her funeral was yesterday morning.”

Shayne shook his head. “Not your wife’s funeral. The body of Ruth Collins was cremated in Miami yesterday morning. Where is your wife hiding?”

“This is utterly fantastic.” Harris dropped into a chair, rubbing the back of his left hand across his eyes. “Have you gone mad? Dozens of people in Miami identified my wife’s photograph.”

Shayne said easily, “Oh, it was your wife who was in Miami Monday evening drawing attention to herself. But it wasn’t her body in the trunk of the convertible she had rented. That was Ruth Collins.”

“But she… it was Ellen,” Harris cried out desperately. “The Miami Beach police checked her fingerprints here in New York to get a positive identification.”

Shayne said, “I know all about that. Detective Fermi, here, is the man who came to this apartment to get comparison prints. Tell us how you went about it, Angelo.”