Brett Halliday - Murder Takes No Holiday

He turned up the volume again. Shayne waited. There was a faint whirring sound from the machine.

A girl’s voice came on, and before she had spoken a dozen words, he knew it was the French girl he had met at the Pirate’s Rendezvous. He quickly fitted her into place beside Paul Slater. Alvarez had undoubtedly pulled those strings, arranging the connection so he could keep an eye on his courier and make sure he would be in need of money. Shayne, who made few moral judgments in this field, knew from his brief talk with her that she would be an expensive hobby for a man without much legitimate income.

That was all the rearranging he had time for before the Camel’s voice was saying, “Are you alone? Is the door closed?”

“Yes, yes,” the girl answered sulkily. “You understand that they have started my music. I must begin singing in one moment.”

“Never mind that. When did you talk to Slater?”

“On the telephone, this afternoon for five minutes. His wife-”

“I know, I know. What did he tell you?”

“About what?”

The urgency in the Camel’s tone came through clearly. “You know very well about what. You know that I have a business arrangement with this man. I received a notice in the mail setting a date for delivery-eleven o’clock tonight. When you talked to him he had already mailed the notice. He must have referred to it in some way.”

“No,” the girl’s voice said, still sulky. “You do not tell me about times or deliveries or such stupid matters, and I wish to have nothing to do with that side of the affair. Nothing whatever, do you hear me? When you want me to ask him what he will be doing at eleven o’clock or something of the sort, tell me what I must ask and I will ask it.”

“Why did he call you, then?”

“Oh, to warn me not to phone him at the hotel. His wife, you understand, had discovered about me and our meetings when she was gone. They had a great quarrel about it. He felt great remorse.”

“Yes, yes,” the Camel said. “But yesterday. Yesterday. I want to know his exact words. Did he say he had not decided? Or precisely what?”

Shayne had heard this question as he brought in the ice cubes and handed them to the Camel. From this point on, he had heard the Camel’s end of the conversation. He leaned forward, intent on the girl’s answer.

“He said he had decided to give it up,” she said. “It is finished. What happened the last trip frightened him severely, so no more dealings with that devil Alvarez. I sighed and told him this was bad news, I must consider how I am to live. You told me to make it clear, and so I made it clear. It is connected, the business with you and the pleasure with me, although I think sometimes it is not such a great pleasure to him, after all. And it is only common sense. If he gives up making money, he must give up seeing me. I spoke to him of another American, who unhappily lives only in my imagination-fat, bald, with much money. This man Paul does not like. Nor do I, to speak the truth.”

“And in the end? How did you leave it? You persuaded him?”

“No, no. There wasn’t time. I did the best I could. In another hour’s time he would have promised anything, though whether he would keep this promise is yet another matter. He is not exactly the Rock of Gibraltar, Paul. But I have no chance to get even a promise. The phone rings. Erring! His wife has returned. She is downstairs in the lobby. I must dash about here and there, picking up clothes, shoes. It is like a comedy on the stage, though I am the only one of the two of us who thinks it is funny. For Paul it is most extremely serious. This wife of his must be truly formidable. I assure you, with my dress half on, in only one shoe, with the fearful Mrs. Slater entering the elevator, I did not ask him if he had changed his mind and would handle one more shipment for you. This would be much to expect, Luis.”

“All right, I understand that. Still, you had a feeling that he would go ahead with it as planned? This is important. I must know exactly.”

The reels revolved in silence for a moment. The girl’s voice said reluctantly, “I wish very much to have the commission you promise me. So of course I wish that Paul would not be such a great fool. Why he is so frightened, I do not see. But I must not seem to care too greatly, or I will lose him. He is a complicated one, our Paul. Before our tete-a-tete is brought to a sudden halt, I think he is convinced at last that if he must choose, he will choose Vivienne Larousse, lately of Paris, France. He knows this is possible only if he has money to spend, and he has no rich uncle who is likely to die in the future, I believe. As I hop out the door with zipper unzipped, one shoe off, one shoe on, I am giggling. Now I have him in my pocket, now he will do as Uncle Luis wants, he will make money, he will give it to me, not to that dried up stick of a wife. But then I think some more. He is in confusion, this young man. One can turn him easily. And Martha Slater had him all night, all morning. Perhaps she used different methods from me, but perhaps not, do you know? And now I think that perhaps you and I should both look for someone new.”

Alvarez made a noncommittal sound. “And today on the phone?”

“It was nothing. He babbled about his wife, she worked so hard, she stuck to him and he was worth nothing-all very boring. He said nothing about you or your affair. I am surprised, you know, that he had arranged to meet you.”

Shayne went on listening to the exchange between the Camel and the girl, but his mind was no longer on it. The Englishman’s pipe had gone out again; another match flared in the darkness. The Camel cut the conversation off abruptly when he learned that Slater was leaving St. Albans, and asked for another number.

“Need any more, Mike?” Powys said quietly.

“I guess not,” Shayne told him.

The Englishman sat forward and turned off the machine. For a moment they sat in silence.

Shayne said, “I think I’d better have a talk with that girl.”

“My idea exactly,” Powys said. “I was thinking it might be interesting to have a whack at her myself. I saw her performance-quite educational, actually. But you’re the logical man. Wasn’t she the one you were dancing with?”

“She was doing the dancing,” Shayne said. “I just gave her moral support. Too bad you don’t have a car. Brannon’s probably shown my picture to all the cab drivers who are still working.”

“More than likely. But we are going to need a car, Mike.” He struck a match. He seemed to be having a hard time getting his pipe to draw. “Stay where you are. I’ll run out and steal one.”

Michael Shayne smoked a cigarette sitting in the darkness on the Englishman’s front steps. When he heard the crunch of tires on the gravel, he gulped the last of his drink and put the glass on a window sill. Powys was driving without lights. He coasted to a stop at the gate, and Shayne got in.

“Nice little Morris,” Powys said with satisfaction. “Amazing how easy it is to steal a car. Never did it before. I think it belongs to Miss Trivers, so let’s try not to get any bullet holes in it.”

He kept the lights off until they were a quarter of a mile from the Lodge. Then he decided not to run the risk of going through the town. Once again Shayne circled St. Albans on back roads.

“Don’t forget there’s a cop in front of the place,” Shayne reminded him.

“Never fear, never fear. That man is very much on my mind.”

They came in through the straggly unpaved streets of the Old Town. “Everybody asleep,” Powys observed. “Wouldn’t mind being asleep myself.”

They passed through the native market. After rejecting several possible parking places, Powys parked on a steep street beside the old church.