Brett Halliday: Murder Takes No Holiday

“You can count on my absolute discretion,” she said. Leaning forward, she added confidentially, “It’s my belief that they’re covering up for somebody.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if that turned out to be true,” Shayne said gravely. “I don’t want to ask for their files until I have to, so I’ll probably take you over ground you’ve already covered with them. I know this must be very hard for you, Mrs. Watts.”

The eagerness faded out of her face, and she became melancholy. She sighed.

Shayne went on, “So far I don’t know anything except what’s been printed in the paper. Your husband called up from work and told you not to expect him for dinner. He locked the office promptly at six, as usual, and walked off down High Street toward the bay, with his raincoat over his arm, also as usual. At that point he disappeared. The cops haven’t turned up anyone who laid eyes on him between two or three minutes after six and midnight, when a native watchman found him lying dead in a doorway. He had been stabbed three times. His wallet was missing and his pockets were turned inside out. From the trail of blood on the sidewalk, he had fallen several times before he collapsed for good in the doorway. His clothes were badly disheveled. He had been drinking heavily.”

“Poppycock!” Mrs. Watts said sharply. “They falsified those blood tests, for obscure reasons of their own, or perhaps not so obscure, after all. Albert was a militant abstainer. He hadn’t touched a drop in twenty years.”

“He never went to bars or nightclubs?”

“Certainly not, Mr. Shayne. He would sooner have patronized-” She blushed. “Well, I almost said a house of ill repute, but if you had known Albert-” She finished with one of her nervous giggles.

She glanced at the small upright piano. There was a photograph on it, obviously of the dead man. He had worn a bristling cavalryman’s mustache, which had been in striking contrast to the rest of his face. His hair and chin had both receded. Even in the photograph his eyes seemed to be watering. There were worried brackets at the corners of his mouth. He had tried to fix the camera with a soldierly stare, but it had been a failure.

Shayne asked, “Was your husband in the war?”

“No, he suffered from a kidney difficulty which kept him a civilian. He was reticent about his feelings, but I believe he felt it keenly. He was painfully shy and introverted, and it might have done him a world of good to rub elbows with men from other walks of life.”

Shayne lifted his cup as though about to drink, then set it back on the saucer. He observed, “Shy people don’t usually work for travel agencies.”

“Oh, he didn’t have the kind of position where he was called upon to mingle with the public. He used to refer to himself-he had a dry sense of humor at times-as a high class baggage clerk. He kept accounts, planned itineraries, placed reservations, and of course he did have a lot to do with baggage. You probably know that American tourists who stay more than a few days are entitled to take back five hundred dollars worth of goods duty-free. You’d be surprised how many people buy things they can’t possibly use, merely because they’re so much cheaper here. Albert didn’t care for tourists, especially ladies. He used to tell some horrendous tales.”

Looking away so she wouldn’t see what her hand was doing, she picked another little cake out of the basket. It was very hot in the room. Shayne could feel himself perspiring.

“What kind of tales, Mrs. Watts?” he said with an effort.

“Oh, you know what they’re like,” she said, chewing. “Brassy, immodest in their dress and language, screeching to each other about the sensational bargains. Albert could take them off quite aptly. The thing he chiefly couldn’t abide was their frightful sentimentality toward the natives. Charming and unsophisticated, so fresh, so childlike.” She snorted. “If they knew these savages the way we do!”

“That’s one of the things we wondered about,” Shayne said. “Did he have any reason to be in the native quarter the night he was killed? Did he have any native friends, or spend any time there as a rule?”

“I should say not! Quite the opposite. The place is filthy, unsanitary, a perfect sink. Albert was fastidious. He wouldn’t have been caught dead in that part of town.” She exclaimed, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Because he was caught dead there, wasn’t he? And that’s the whole point, you see. Reading the account in the newspaper-and I’ve seriously considered suing them for slander-what would one conclude? That here was another respectable and henpecked husband who had kicked over the traces and gone off to some low colored dive to make a night of it. He had more rum than was good for him, blundered among thieves and was just foolish enough and intoxicated enough to put up a fight. All very plausible. But untrue.”

“Let’s go back to the phone call, Mrs. Watts. Exactly what did he say?”

“Well that,” she said, considering, “was a bit queer, one must admit. I won’t bore you with the ins and outs of island politics, which I don’t understand clearly myself, as a matter of fact. In brief, Albert had recently joined a committee to protect the traditional interest in the face of increasing native agitation. He phoned to say that this committee was having an extraordinary session to discuss a confidential matter. He would have a bite of something at a restaurant in town. Very well. So far so good. I had no reason to doubt that there would actually be such a meeting. But he kept on with it, and told me just where the committee would be meeting, who would be there, and this and that-all made up out of whole cloth, because about the one thing our brilliant police have established so far is that no meeting had been scheduled, or even discussed. By the end I said to myself, ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much,’ quoting the Bard, you know. He promised to bring home a magazine I had asked for, and those were the last words I heard from Albert in the flesh.”

She touched a little napkin to her eyes, although Shayne hadn’t noticed any tears.

“Was there any change in him in the last few months?” Shayne asked.

She put her finger to her chin. “Nothing too extraordinary, Mr. Shayne. There were little things. He was wakeful-Albert, who during the whole previous course of our married life had always slept like a log. Sometimes he would go out for what he called brooding walks. He would stride along the sand for hours, and come home drained and exhausted. And he became increasingly irritable. He was always a phlegmatic person, but one night a few weeks ago he took a rolled-up copy of Punch and struck Georgette a violent blow across the face. All she was doing, poor innocent, was scratching to go out.”

Shayne kept his face serious. “Did he ever mention the possibility of coming into a sum of money?”

She shook her head, her fingers moving toward the cake basket. “Money. I think not. One thing-he had always admired the way I managed the household funds, but recently he did tell me that I didn’t need to make do with the cheaper cuts. He specifically told me to get top-round from then on, and leave the spareribs to the natives.”

It was becoming hotter in the room by the minute. Shayne barely managed to resist an impulse to put down his cup and escape into fresh air.

“A couple of other questions, Mrs. Watts. Did he do much traveling?”

“No, I thought I’d explained that. He had to go to Miami recently for some kind of training course, but that’s the only time he stirred off this island in years.”

“Did he ever have any dealings with a man named Luis Alvarez?” She shook her head, and he tried another name: “Paul Slater?”