Brett Halliday - The Homicidal Virgin

“This is all pretty ambiguous, Mrs. Gleason. Tell me more about your husband as a person. What does he do for a living?”

“He’s a bartender. He is a fine man,” she went on in a rush of words. “We have been married ten years with great happiness.”

“And now you’re afraid he’s embarked on some criminal enterprise in the hopes of getting a big wad of money fast?”

“That is what I fear, yes.”

“But you have no idea what sort of plan he has in mind?”

“No. He does not tell me this. Only in a note, that he is leaving for Miami and when he returns in a week or two we will have much money. I must find him in this city, but I do not know where to look. So when I see you in the bar tonight I think this is Providence. Michael Shayne is the man who will know. And now you sit so far across the room from me, and so cold. It is difficult to say things.” She smiled tremulously and, Shayne thought, seductively.

He emptied his glass and crossed to the sofa to sit close beside her. “How do you think I can find your husband? Do you have any ideas? Does he have any friends here?”

“Nothing. There is no one.” Her right hand, lying on the sofa between them, lifted to grip his forearm, softly at first and then with surprising strength. “I am a woman alone, Mr. Shayne. I must find Harry soon. If I can talk to him, I know I can make him see he must not do this thing he plans. I have not much money, but… I beg you will find him for me.” She was leaning close to him and her moist red lips were parted, her eyes humidly brilliant and imploring.

He said, “I don’t know what I can do.”

“But they say this is your city, Mr. Shayne. That you know the secret places and have ways of getting information that is not known even to the police. Without your help it is hopeless.”

“Unless you can give me some sort of lead it’s still hopeless. If you had any idea what he’s up to… what sort of contacts he has here…”

“There is that girl,” she said convulsively. “I know she is evil. That she has led Harry to this.” Her brown eyes became round and more luminous, staring into his. Her fingers hurt the hard flesh of his arm.

“What girl?”

“The one who spoke to you tonight. Who called you ‘Mike Wayne’ at the table. Whom you walked out with and went up in the elevator with. What did she tell you? What did she want of you? Did she say the name of Harry Gleason?”

“Jane Smith?” ejaculated Shayne in complete surprise. “What do you know about her?”

“That she is young and beautiful. That she can twist men around her little finger to do her bidding. As she twisted Harry and, as I have no doubt, she tried to twist you tonight. For what purpose, Mr. Shayne? Why did she take you to her room? To offer her young body in exchange for what?” She was against him suddenly, the cocktail glass dropping to the floor, sobbing in terrible anguish, burying her face against his shoulder, and he felt the seeping warmth of saliva from her open mouth and the wetness of tears through his shirt.

He put his arm tightly about her shoulders and held her until the paroxysm of weeping subsided, then released her gently and pressed her back against the cushion. He stooped to pick up her glass and carried it across the table for a refill. He said cheerfully, “Drink that and then tell me about the girl. Everything you know about her.”

She took the glass from him, touching her eyes with a handkerchief. He deliberately turned his back on her while he poured another drink for himself and drank it, and then sank back into his chair and grinned across at her. “I’ll be able to listen better with a little distance between us.”

She said formally, “I am sorry that I gave way to emotion.”

“I’m not. It was damned pleasant while it lasted. Now, this Jane Smith. What do you know about her?”

“That is her name? Jane Smith?”

“That’s the name she gave me.”

“I did not know.” Hilda sipped her drink reflectively. “She came once to the town of Algonquin where we live. It was a week or two weeks after Harry first started to change and be angry about life and money. There was a long-distance call from a town near Chicago, fifty miles south from us. Denton, Illinois. It was for Harry and he listened and grunted yes and no, and I went to the kitchen, and at the end he said in a low voice, ‘I quit work at twelve at the Elite Bar. I’ll talk to you then.’ And he hung up and did not mention the conversation to me afterward.

“And a little before midnight I went to the bar where Harry worked and looked in the window. She was there on a stool. I did not know her, but I knew she was the one. I waited in the street shadow until midnight when the bar closed, and Harry came out with her. They got in a parked car and she drove away. Harry did not come home for two hours.”

Hilda emptied her glass and pursed her lips, looking down at it and continuing her recital in a monotone:

“There were no more calls and I did not see her after that. But Harry got worse. His irritation and his threatening of what he would do. I knew it was that girl. I knew she preyed on his mind and he was planning something bad, but I didn’t know what it was.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Four or five weeks ago.”

“Did Harry say anything about her to you?”

“Never a word. And I didn’t ask. I always believed a man had a right to his own secrets.”

“And he left home without telling you what he planned to do in Miami?”

“That’s right. With just a note for me when I got home from work.”

“How did you locate Jane Smith here?”

“That was purely fate. It was this afternoon on the street. I saw her getting on a Miami Beach bus and I knew her at once. So I suspected Harry had come here to meet her, and I got on the same bus and got off when she did and followed her to that expensive hotel. I stayed around the lobby a long time thinking maybe I’d see Harry, and went back this evening to wait some more. And when you came in the bar I recognized you right away and decided I’d ask you to help me. Then she came in and walked over and took you away from me. Who is she and what has she got to do with Harry?”

Shayne said, “I don’t know,” with real perplexity. “I met her for the first time tonight. In fact when you came over and sat at my table I thought you were Jane Smith.”

“Is it a detective case you’re working on?”

“Sort of.”

“Make her tell you where Harry is, Mr. Shayne. All I want is to see him and talk to him before he does something dreadful. I know I can persuade him to come back home with me. I don’t care what he’s done with her. I love him and I want him back.”

“I don’t even know that I’ll see Jane Smith again,” he told her cautiously.

“How else will I ever find him?”

Shayne shook his head slowly, tugging at his earlobe. What on earth had a girl from Miami Beach been doing out in a small town in Illinois a month ago meeting a married bartender after working hours? Had she already been started on her quest for a man to murder her stepfather? Had a certain Harry Gleason of Algonquin, Illinois, been suggested to her by someone as a likely prospect for the job? If she had made such an offer and he accepted, why had she sent that ad to the newspaper?

He said slowly, “One thing I think I can reassure you about, Mrs. Gleason. From things the girl told me this evening, I don’t believe your husband is having an affair with her.”

“Do you think I care about that?” she cried out scornfully. “He can have all the other women he wants if he just comes home to me afterward.”

“He’s a lucky man to be married to you. Describe him to me.”

“He’s tall and has blue eyes. Going a little bald in front, but not bad for a man of forty-six. Thin-faced, I think you would say. He’s been a good husband to me for ten years and I would do anything to get things back the way they were before.”