Brett Halliday: The Homicidal Virgin

“Sure, I know.”

“Also, these last two months, Bitsy. Any strangers been in town to see him. Any talk he’s done around the bar about a trip to Miami or prospects for picking up some quick dough. Get whatever you can and call me collect at my office.” Shayne gave him the number. “Say, ten o’clock this morning, your time. I’ll know by then whether I want you to do any more.”

“Sure, Mike. How’re things otherwise?”

Shayne said, “Dull.”

“Same here. Ten o’clock. By.”

Shayne said, “Good-by, Bitsy,” and hung up. He took another small drink and paced the floor a short time longer, and then called the Henderson number on Miami Beach.

Mr. Henderson’s voice answered promptly, indicating that the financier hadn’t been any more able to sleep than Shayne had.

The detective slurred his voice into a slangy southern drawl: “That there Mister Henderson?”

“This is Henderson, yes. Who’s calling?”

“This here’s a frien’ uh Harry’s, pal.”

There was a long pause and Shayne wondered if the man would hang up. He didn’t. He asked uncertainly, “Harry who?”

“Harry Gleason, thass who.” Shayne chuckled evilly. “You didn’ reckon it was all ended nice an’ clean an’ sweet just from you knockin’ Harry off, did yuh?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about.” Henderson was breathing hard and the words sounded as though he almost strangled over them.

“I reckon you kin guess. I’ll be seein’ yuh.” Shayne hung up and wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. He fervently hoped that Henderson was sweating too.

He looked at his watch and went into the kitchenette to put water on the stove to boil, and measured coffee into a dripolator. When it boiled, he poured it into the top and went into the bathroom to shave, then stripped off his clothes and took a fast shower.

Twenty minutes after making his call to Henderson, dressed in fresh clothes and with a mug of hot black coffee at his elbow, Shayne called the Beach number again.

Again Henderson’s voice answered as if he had been sitting waiting for the instrument to ring.

“Mike Shayne, Henderson. I suppose you know your victim has been identified.”

“Yes, I… a reporter called me half an hour ago. Some man from the Midwest, I understand. But under the circumstances, Shayne, I hardly think the word ‘victim’ is the correct designation for him.”

“Let’s let it ride until we have a better one,” Shayne suggested blithely. “A man named Harry Gleason, eh?”

“So they say.” Henderson sounded very unhappy about it.

“What do you think of the story his wife told the police?”

“I was given only the gist of it. I have no comment. I never heard of the man before. But, Shayne…” his voice suddenly became imploring, “… now that you’re on the line… I wonder… I need to talk to you,” he ended desperately. “I just had another very peculiar telephone call and I’ve been wondering what to do. I would like to engage your professional services,” he added formally.

Shayne said wolfishly, “I don’t know whether they’re for hire to you or not. But I’m willing to discuss it with you.”

“Right away? Could you come over?” Henderson sounded pathetically eager.

Shayne said, “I can be there in half an hour,” and hung up. He finished his coffee with satisfaction, and went out to drive over to the Beach.

The sun was up over the Atlantic when he arrived at the Henderson house. There were no cars in the driveway, but an unmarked sedan was parked unobtrusively on the street just beyond the entrance, and the man sitting behind the wheel was smoking a cigarette and had the brim of his hat pulled low on his forehead. Shayne grinned at this evidence of Painter’s thoroughness, and turned in the drive to park in front of the door.

Henderson opened it for him as soon as he pressed the button. He was fully dressed and clean-shaven, but his thin features were strained and his eyes were bloodshot.

“Come right in, Mr. Shayne.” He led the way through the archway and dropped disconsolately into a deep chair beside an ash tray piled high with half-smoked cigarette butts. “This has been a most harrowing experience.” He rubbed the back of his right hand wearily across his eyes. “It was good of you to come. This last occurrence has completely unnerved me.”

“Tell me about it.” Shayne sprawled his rangy body into a chair near him.

There was a bottle of Drambuie and a stemmed liqueur glass on the table beside Henderson’s chair. The glass held a small portion of the thick liqueur, and he picked it up and drained it, asking Shayne, “Would you care for some? Or something else perhaps?”

Shayne shook his head. “I switched to coffee an hour ago. What have you to tell me?”

“There was an anonymous telephone call. Mysterious and definitely threatening.” He settled back and half closed his eyes and repeated what Shayne had said to him over the telephone almost word for word.

“Yet I swear I don’t know anyone named Harry Gleason,” he protested as he finished. “I can’t make head nor tail of it. But it does indicate that… that my life is still in danger. I beg you to take the case, Mr. Shayne. Find out who is threatening me, and why.”

“I’ll consider it if you’ll come clean with me.”

“But I have… ah… come clean with you.”

Shayne said, “You can make a start by telling me what name you used before you started calling yourself Saul Henderson.”

All the color drained from Henderson’s face at the same time that the strength oozed from his body. He wilted in his chair, white-faced and panicky. Then he called on some inner reserves and swung angrily to his feet.

“I don’t know what your game is, Shayne, but whatever it is, I don’t like it. You’ve been throwing out veiled hints and implications ever since yesterday afternoon, and I’ve had enough of it. I’ll see you to the door.” He swung on his heel and walked stiffly toward the archway and Shayne came quickly to his feet to follow him, pausing by his host’s chair to pick up the empty liqueur glass carefully by the fragile stem, and drop it into the side pocket of his jacket.

Henderson was standing holding the front door wide open when Shayne ambled out. He stood in frozen-faced silence while Shayne paused to say, “My secretary will bill you for this visit, Henderson,” and he closed the door loudly behind the detective.

Shayne drove swiftly back to Miami and stopped at police headquarters where he found Sergeant Calhoun on duty in the Identification Department. He took the liqueur glass carefully from his pocket, handling it by the flared bottom, and told the sergeant:

“This should have some pretty good prints that might have a bearing on that Beach killing. Get an authorization from Chief Gentry if you need it, but I wish you’d rush them to Washington fast.”

Sergeant Calhoun said cheerfully, “I’ll get them off first, and ask for the authorization later, Mike,” and Shayne hurried out of the building to his car and drove directly to the airport.

It was two minutes after seven o’clock when he got his car parked and reached the coffee shop. Timothy Rourke occupied a stool near the door, nursing a cup of black coffee. Shayne sat beside him and said, “The same” to a white-jacketed waiter. “Any luck, Tim?”

“About what you’d expect. A few unimportant items going back past his marriage to Mrs. Graham. Reading between the lines, there’s nothing to indicate he was very much of anybody or had too much dough until he latched onto the rich widow. As soon as offices open in New York, there’ll be a squad of legmen going around interviewing everyone who had contact with him before his marriage.” He looked at his watch as the waiter put a cup of coffee in front of Shayne. “Plane’s due in about three minutes. On time, they say.”