Brett Halliday - Murder Takes No Holiday

“It was Wednesday,” she said. “I hired a car and drove across to a fishing village where we know some people who make wonderful glazed bowls. I’ve been in such a daze-I could have sworn it was earlier in the week. I wanted to save paying for a room, so I drove back that same night. I doubt if I got in before eleven. But that doesn’t mean anything, Michael. We just have to ask Paul what he was doing, and-”

She paused, and went on hopelessly, “No, he told me he packed a few sandwiches and went for a long bike ride. Unless he was lying, and he was with that girl? But Michael, it’s all beside the point! He didn’t do it, and that’s that. Why does it have to be Paul, just because it was his name in the cable? Why not Alvarez? Everything else about this was his doing. He could have found out about Watts. Of course he wouldn’t do it himself-he’d hire somebody. I think you’ll find that Luis Alvarez was in some extremely public place, with twenty people watching him every minute.”

She kicked off her high-heeled shoes, and went to the closet for a pair with low heels. She fumbled with the laces. She was trying to speak calmly, but Shayne could see the marks of tension.

“It’s beginning to sink in at last,” she said. “And I can remember when I actually had a sneaking feeling of admiration for Paul, when he made that huge fee taking in the perfume. It seemed almost romantic. But now! My God, Michael. Alvarez thinks Paul robbed him. Watts was killed for considerably less.”

She wasn’t far from hysteria. She pulled one of the laces too tight and it snapped.

“Let it go,” Shane said. “Alvarez is probably getting restless.”

“Michael, find out who did kill Watts! I’ll hire you. If you don’t, they’ll pin it on Paul. I can see it coming.”

“Tell me one thing. In spite of this babe of his and all the rest of it, do you still want to keep the marriage going?”

As she stood up, she gave him one of the direct, candid looks he remembered. “I don’t know,” she said simply. “It was a real kick in the teeth for me, finding out about this girl. Things can’t be exactly the same again, no matter what happens. He promised me today that he would break with Alvarez. If I find out that he lied to me about that-Michael, I don’t know. I think-I’m still in love with him. I probably always will be. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him. But ask me if I want to stay married to him after I find out the real truth.”

Shayne rubbed out his cigarette. “When this is over, will you give me a complete statement of everything you know about the smuggling?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Yes, Michael. It will be a horrible thing to have to put down in black and white, and I hope you won’t have to use it. But I want to put an end to this nightmare, once and for all.”

She felt in her handbag and took out a pound note.

“What’s that for?” Shayne asked.

“If anybody asks you if you have a client, don’t you want to be able to say you’ve been given a retainer?”

Shayne grinned, taking the note and putting it in his pocket. “That doesn’t mean they’ll believe me. No, leave the light on,” he said as she reached automatically for the light switch. “No point in letting them know we’re leaving.”

He approached the window carefully, keeping well back from the lighted rectangle, and drew the curtain aside. The Hillman was where he had left it, and a slightly larger car had pulled up behind it. He could make out two figures in the shadows. One of these, in a dark suit, was probably Alvarez. There was a third man at the wheel of the second car.

Martha was nervously putting on lipstick. She blotted her lips on a Kleenex and said, “We can go out through the laundry room in the basement. There’s a big hotel farther along the shore. I think we can get a taxi there.” She waited with her hand on the doorknob. “You’ve brought me some bad news tonight, Michael. Paying you that silly retainer doesn’t change anything, but it makes me feel better. I’m not exactly unbiased on the subject of Michael Shayne. If anybody can make sense out of this, you can.”

He grinned at her and they went out. The fact that Shayne now had a client would give him a slight tactical advantage when he came to talk to the cops, but in another sense it was unimportant. Sooner or later in most of his cases, a moment came when he no longer cared whether he would end up with a fee or not, even whether he would come through with a whole skin. He had lived with danger so long it no longer meant anything to him. He was like a structural steel worker who spends his working day high in the air on a strip of steel a few inches wide. That was simply the way he made his living. There was only one thing he cared about, and that was to get to the bottom of the problem that faced him.

He had arrived at this point now. He wouldn’t have come this far if Martha hadn’t been an old friend, but that, too, no longer mattered. Someone had killed an obscure Englishman, Albert Watts. Watts meant nothing to Shayne, but his killer meant a great deal. From now on there was an almost emotional bond between Shayne and the killer. It would be broken only when Shayne had trapped him and made him admit his guilt.

On the third floor, Martha rang for the elevator. They could hear the sound of the buzzer beneath them in the shaft. They went quietly to the next landing and waited to hear the clanking as the elevator started up. When there was still no sound, Martha went back to the third floor and gave the desk clerk another long, urgent summons. They listened again. She whispered to Shayne, “He must be asleep.”

They went down the last flight to the lobby. She looked cautiously around the corner. Then, looking back at Shayne, she drew a little diagram in the air, showing him which way to go. He followed her into the lobby. He caught a swift glimpse of the clerk, an old colored man, tipped back precariously on his stool, his eyes closed and his mouth wide open. Martha opened the door to the basement stairs and motioned him ahead of her.

When the door closed they were in utter darkness. He felt her hand on his shoulder. His fingers closed on a railing. He groped ahead with his other hand and went down slowly, feeling his way a step at a time.

At the bottom he whispered, “I’m going to light a match. We don’t want to kick anything over.”

As the match flared they started forward, hand in hand. The way was fairly clear. After the match flickered out he went by memory for a few more steps before stopping to light another. This one took them to the door of the laundry room. Clawing a cobweb out of his eyes, he went on. The third match was still burning when they reached the outside door. He shook it out.

He felt her hands on his arms. She was very close. Her lips brushed his cheek.

“Thank you, Michael,” she said. “For everything.”

She opened the door. For a moment he saw her slight figure against the stars.

He followed her out, and a blinding light struck him in the eyes. A voice said, “Hold it, Shayne,” and something jabbed him hard beneath the left arm.

It was a bad place for Shayne to be hit. A wave of pain rose around him and nearly pulled him under.

He was aware of a flurry of movement just in front of him. The flashlight swung in a vicious upward arc and cracked Martha across the head. Then the man holding the flashlight reached around her and wrested the little automatic out of her hand. He was small and dark, Shayne saw, with a twisted mouth. Shayne raised his arm and looked down at the heavy gun pressed against the break in his ribs. Turning slowly, he looked over his shoulder at Al, the heavy-set bartender from the Camel’s nightclub. He still wore the drooping, villainous mustache, but he no longer had the bandanna over his head or the ring in his ear. He was almost bald.