Brett Halliday - The Homicidal Virgin

He shook his red head suddenly and hated himself for his thoughts. Just because the girl had accepted a perfectly innocuous dinner invitation last night and had proved an enjoyable companion was no reason for him to get into a tizzy about it.

He knew, of course, that his anger wasn’t really directed at Lucy. He was striking out at her because he hated himself this morning. Lucy was just a symbol. It was Jane Smith who was really in his thoughts. Lucy could take care of herself. Jane Smith couldn’t. If ever a man had been offered an opportunity to help a fellow human being, he had been given that chance last night. And he had muffed it completely. How goddamned self-righteous he must have sounded to the frightened girl when he spouted off to her. How utterly alone she must have felt when he walked out of the room leaving her with her problem!

A frightened kid who wasn’t yet twenty and had never faced the realities of life before. She had bared her heart and her soul to him, and what had he given her in return? A lecture, by God!

He shoved back his chair and stood up, strode to the window overlooking Flagler Street. He’d been a fool to hope she would take the fatuous advice of Mike Wayne and turn to a private detective for help. Instead, he had done exactly what Timothy Rourke accused him of doing. He had driven her on in the quest for some other killer to do the job he had refused to do.

What would be his position, he asked himself now angrily, if Saul Henderson did turn up murdered in the near future? He, Mike Shayne, would be the only one to know the truth. Would he remain silent, or would he speak out against Henderson’s already pitiably ruined stepdaughter?

He could warn Henderson in advance of course. But every decent instinct inside him rose up and shouted that he couldn’t do that. God knew the man deserved no warning, no mercy.

If he could only get hold of the girl-talk to her again before it was too late. Before she put murderous forces in motion that could not be halted. But he didn’t even know Jane Smith’s real name. True, he could find out easily enough. The stepdaughter of a prominent man like Saul Henderson shouldn’t be difficult to trace.

Shayne turned decisively away from the window, strode to the door and pulled it open. David Waring had pulled a straight chair across the anteroom and was seated in it close to the low railing and was in an animated huddle with Lucy Hamilton, who sat at her desk with paper in her typewriter taking direct dictation from him with her fingers flying over the keys. Both his voice and her typing stopped abruptly when Shayne opened the door. Her brown eyes looking past Waring implored him to be sensible as she said, “We’re working out the rough draft of an agreement, Michael. Have you time to check a couple of points?”

Shayne went on toward the outer door, reaching for his hat. “I told Waring you had full authority to set it up any way you want. I’ll sign whatever you have typed when I get back.” He went out and pulled the door shut with unnecessary violence behind him.

Downstairs, he went to the Herald morgue for the information he wanted, instead of the News. He might run into Rourke at the latter newspaper office, and he wasn’t ready to explain to Tim the reason for his sudden interest in Henderson. Knowing Shayne as well as he did, the reporter had a disconcerting habit of reading the redhead’s mind before Shayne himself knew what was in it. Like last night. His casual, parting reference to Henderson’s stepdaughter as “utterly charming” and a “nice” girl-quoting Shayne’s own descriptive words for Jane Smith right back at him-were indication enough that the reporter suspected the truth.

In the back files of the Herald, Shayne found everything he needed. The folder on Saul Henderson was thin, but it went back three years when Mr. and Mrs. Saul Henderson of New York purchased a $60,000 home on Miami Beach and announced their intention of settling in as year-round residents. There wasn’t much background on the couple, just that Mr. Henderson was “well-known in New York financial circles” and Mrs. Henderson was identified as the former socialite wife of Ralph Graham. A daughter of her first marriage was mentioned. Muriel Graham, who will attend the exclusive finishing school on Miami Beach conducted by Miss Overholzer.

Next, a few months later, was the announcement that Saul Henderson had purchased a partnership in the local brokerage firm of Wallach amp; Dutton, and a few brief items following which indicated that Mr. Henderson was establishing himself solidly as a progressive and civic-minded citizen of Miami Beach, first as a member of various committees and local charity drives, and then as chairman of other, more important committees.

There was quite a long obituary for Mrs. Henderson when she died in her home several months before. She was described as an invalid and as having succumbed to a lingering illness, though cancer was not specifically mentioned. Her daughter by a former marriage, Muriel Graham, was listed as the only survivor along with her husband.

That was the last item in the newspaper file on the Hendersons before the final news story dated some weeks previously. This was a front-page feature story covering a banquet at one of the most exclusive and expensive hotels on the Beach which had been televised on a national network because one of the country’s top television personalities had been honored as the “Beach Booster of the Year” and presented with a key to the city by Mr. Saul Henderson, President of the Miami Beach 100-Club and prominently mentioned in local political circles as the Reform Candidate for mayor of Miami Beach in the forthcoming election.

There was a picture of Saul Henderson beamingly presenting the key to the television comedian while three cameras recorded the event for the edification of viewers throughout the country, and Shayne studied the photograph carefully and with increasing aversion as he recalled the story the man’s stepdaughter had told him the preceding evening.

Without that knowledge of the man’s true character, Shayne was honest enough to admit to himself that in the picture Henderson looked very much like a right guy. In his mid-forties, with lean features that appeared almost ascetic, yet with a certain air of boyish bravado, Shayne could see how the man might easily capture the imagination of enough voters to become the next mayor of the beach city.

Yet, with what he knew about the man, Shayne was able to see that the piercing black eyes were a little too close together so that there was something predatory about them, the lips were too thin and too tightly compressed, the chin was pointed rather than prominent, the little tight curls of hair on each side of his high forehead resembled horns rather than carrying out the slightly boyish effect they gave at first glance.

After passing on from the photograph, Shayne glanced through the story which contained nothing new about Henderson, and then closed the file and returned it to the Herald librarian.

Lucy Hamilton was alone in the office when he returned. She stood up determinedly from her typewriter when he breezed in, and said, “Michael. I want to talk to you.”

He said, “Sure, angel. Any time. But first, look up the phone number for Saul Henderson on the Beach. Call it and try to find out how to contact a stepdaughter named Muriel Graham. She’s nineteen years old,” he went on, “and been living on the beach about three years going to Miss Overholzer’s School. Her mother died of cancer a few months ago. Take it from there and think of some good reason for getting her present address if you can’t reach her at home.”

Lucy bit her underlip hard, and then released it. In a taut voice, she asked, “You mean I’m not to mention your name?”