Brett Halliday - Murder Takes No Holiday

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” he said. “I heard about it from the customs agent-in-charge in Miami, Jack Malloy. Do you remember him?”

“Of course,” she said quietly. “Another old friend who thinks-”

Her eyes filled, and Shayne said quickly, “Keep talking about it, Martha. It may not seem so bad when it’s out where we can look at it.”

“Michael, don’t you see?” she said desperately. “I knew about it. I’m as much to blame as Paul. Oh, I argued against it, but he could tell I didn’t mean it. He just laughed at me. and went right ahead. I didn’t refuse to take the money he made by it, you notice! Certainly not. That might have convinced him I was serious. I finally laid down the law, gave him a clear-cut set of alternatives, but not until after he’d been caught! I’m so ashamed.”

“How long has it gone on?”

“Oh, Michael, for months and months. A man came to Paul and offered to sell him some cheap perfume for export. He-”

“Was his name Alvarez?”

She drew in her breath in surprise. “Luis Alvarez. Yes. Do you mean Jack Malloy knows about that?”

“Not yet. Go on.”

“Well, Alvarez explained it. What he wanted our firm to handle was bottled as toilet water. Actually it was the concentrated essence of some famous French perfume, worth hundreds and hundreds of dollars an ounce. Paul didn’t tell me about it till it was all over. It was simplicity itself. He consigned the shipment to a dummy company, picked it up and forwarded it to a big perfume company up north. For this trifling service, he was paid fifteen hundred dollars! I was horrified, but apparently not quite horrified enough. Actually, I used to feel irritated by the price my friends paid for imported perfume, and I suppose that smuggling it past the customs didn’t seem like such a terrible crime. Paul put the money in the business, and it just disappeared. Although I’ve suddenly begun to wonder if he could have spent it on-but never mind. Alvarez had another proposition soon afterward. There was never any trouble, and Paul paid less and less attention when I tried to get him to think about what he was doing. Then all of a sudden he was arrested, and it did something horrible to him, Michael. I’ve never seen a man so reduced. And all for a silly little handful of watch movements!”

“You think that was all he had?”

She frowned. “I assumed-but they have some kind of X-ray machine, don’t they? I’ve always been told that once they’re suspicious of you, you can’t bring in as much as a carpet tack without their knowing about it.”

“Jack Malloy has a theory, but there’s probably nothing to it. You said you gave Paul some alternatives?”

“Yes, I told him that if he didn’t stop for good, I’d leave him. From now on they’ll take extra precautions when Paul comes in. I used to think I was a fairly honest person, but I’m learning some unpleasant truths about myself. Did I give him that ultimatum because what he was doing was wrong, or because he’d surely be caught if he tried again? I don’t know, Michael.”

“And he agreed to quit?” Shayne said thoughtfully.

“Finally. We had quite a knockdown, drag-out fight, and even after we’d made our peace and he swore a solemn oath, I think he was still a little tempted. Apparently Alvarez has made a new offer that was very hard to turn down. I don’t know much about that man, but I imagine he got rather ugly when Paul said he was through. I thought he’d sent someone for Paul, and that was who was knocking on my door. But thank heaven it’s after midnight. Paul’s beyond his reach, and I’m going to see to it that he doesn’t come back. As of twelve o’clock tonight, our firm is out of business. What’s more, nobody’s going to miss it but us.”

Shayne poured some cocoa from the little pot into the waiting cup. He had been feeling his way blindly, and he couldn’t do anything effective without knowing a few more facts. He had ten minutes, perhaps fifteen at the outside.

He handed Martha the cup. “Better drink this. I’m going to ask you some questions, and I have a few things to tell you. Then we’ll decide what to do.”

“Michael, before you start, I want to tell you how wonderful it is to see you. I’ve been so terribly tense and upset, and now all at once I begin to think that things may turn out all right. That’s what I remember about you-how reassuring you could be. Without saying anything, just by being there. I’ve kept up with your cases, and I’ve always been so proud of knowing you! I’m afraid I boasted about it a little sometimes. You-never married again, did you, Michael?”

Shayne shook his head. “No. When this is over, I’ll tell you about my secretary, Lucy Hamilton. You were married to a cop. I think you’d understand why I don’t want to let anyone in for-” He broke off abruptly. “But that’s neither here nor there. Why did Paul charter a plane tonight instead of waiting for a regular flight in the morning?”

“His mother’s doctor cabled him. She’s very sick and wants to see him. They’ve always been very close. If you want to know the truth, I don’t think she’s all that sick-she’s a bit of a hypochondriac. I shouldn’t be saying this, but I’ll bet any amount of money that she’ll still be around thirty years from now. But Alvarez had been threatening Paul, and it suddenly occurred to me that here was my chance to wipe the slate clean. I could use my mother-in-law’s sickness to get Paul away before anything happened. Needless to say, we can’t afford to charter a plane. But I insisted. I made all the arrangements and bundled him into a taxi, without giving him time to open his mouth to protest. And to show you how wealthy we’ve become, with all of Paul’s desperate smuggling, after scraping up enough to pay for the plane I was feeling too poor to pay for a taxi back from the airport. So I said goodbye to him here.”

“Did you actually see that cable?” Shayne asked.

“No,” she said, puzzled. “He read it to me on the phone. But why?”

“Well, brace yourself,” he said bluntly. “I may be all wrong, but here’s how it looks to me. I don’t think there was any cable. He needed an excuse to get off the island in a hurry, without waiting till morning. He set up a date with Alvarez for tonight. When Alvarez showed up, Paul slugged him with a monkey wrench and took the contraband without paying for it. This was risky, but he planned to be on a plane half an hour later, and he planned to let you persuade him not to come back.”

Martha set the cocoa back on the bedside table, being very careful to keep it from spilling. She said slowly, “I don’t believe it.”

“I was there with Alvarez,” Shayne said. “I didn’t see who did the slugging, but I do know he was slugged.”

“It wasn’t Paul!” she said, putting her hand impulsively on his arm. “I know him, Michael. He couldn’t have done it.”

Shayne, who had had some experience with husbands and wives, knew how little they often knew about each other. He said skeptically, “When did he leave?”

“He wanted to allow plenty of time for all the red-tape. About a quarter to eleven?” she said hopefully. “Maybe later. He called from the airport to say goodbye. That must have been around eleven-thirty. Wouldn’t that prove-”

“He could say he was at the airport and not be there.”

“Well, I don’t suppose I can convince you, Michael. But you just don’t know how impossible it is. If you could find the taxi driver, couldn’t he settle it? No, the simplest thing will be to cable Jack Malloy. Have him meet Paul’s plane, and find out if he’s smuggling anything.”

“Paul didn’t take off,” Shayne said.

The color drained slowly out of her face as she stared at him. “Alvarez thinks Paul hit him with a wrench and robbed him, and Paul is still on St. Albans?”