Brett Halliday - Blood on the Stars

“Mike Shayne. There’s been an attempted murder in my apartment. Murder-maybe.”

“Which was it? Make up your mind.”

“The doctor will have to tell us that.” Shayne’s voice was edged with anger. “You got anybody around there sober enough to come over and dust for fingerprints-or is that too much trouble?”

“Keep your pants on,” said the sergeant wearily. “We’ll be right over. Who is it?”

“My secretary,” said Shayne shortly. “Miss Lucy Hamilton. I wish you’d bring Robertson if he’s on duty.” He hung up and again let his eyes roam slowly over every inch of the room, then strode out to the kitchen and tried the door leading onto the fire escape. It was locked, and the key hung in its accustomed place.

Back in the living-room, he got the night clerk on the wire. The man asked anxiously, “What’s the trouble, Mr. Shayne? Someone hurt up there?”

“My secretary. I’m afraid she’s pretty badly hurt, Jim. Was there anyone asking to see me this evening?”

“Not a soul, Mr. Shayne. I haven’t seen Miss Hamilton go out or come in, either.”

“She didn’t,” Shayne told him. “We had dinner here, and she waited for me when I went out. Notice anything particular about anyone coming in or out of the hotel while I was gone?”

After a brief silence, the night clerk said, “Not a thing, Mr. Shayne. Mostly just the regulars. I’ll ask the elevator boy if you want.”

“I’ll talk to him myself. The cops are on their way over, Jim. Send them right up, will you?” He hung up and went to the closed bedroom door and bent his head to listen through the keyhole. He could hear the low murmuring of voices, but could distinguish no words.

He left the entrance door open when he went down the corridor to the elevator. When it stopped in response to his ring the door opened, the Negro boy asked excitedly,

“What’s up, Mist’ Shayne? You all right? When I brung Doctor Price down-”

“I’m all right. It’s Miss Hamilton. She was slugged in my apartment while I was out. Did you bring any strangers up here tonight? Anybody who asked for my room?”

“Nobody that ast for you. No-suh. Coupla strangers, maybe. Nobody I noticed a-tall.”

“Any friends of mine, then,” said Shayne sharply. “Anybody you may have seen around here with me before.”

“Nobody ’cept that newspaper man. The long thin un-”

“He came after I was back.”

“Thass right. He sho did.” The elevator buzzer sounded. “I’se got somebody waitin’ at the bottom,” the boy said.

Shayne nodded and went slowly back to his open door. The elevator returned to the third floor and stopped before he had entered. He turned to see Sergeant Harvey and two of his men get off and come toward him. They greeted Shayne with grave cordiality when he invited them in.

“Well-let’s have it,” said Sergeant Harvey.

Shayne explained briefly what had happened to Lucy Hamilton, ending with: “Doctor Price and his nurse are in there with her now. I hope she’ll be able to tell us what happened.”

“You say she was dressed for bed?” the sergeant asked delicately.

“It looks as though she had gone to her room and gotten ready for bed and then came back here for something-perhaps a book to read, or a magazine,” Shayne explained. “Or maybe she saw someone coming in my door and suddenly remembered she had left it unlatched, and hurried down here to put him out.”

“You think she was attacked in here-or in the bedroom?”

“We’ll have to get that from the doctor. I didn’t waste any time looking around the bedroom after I found her like that. It’s my impression, though, that there’d be blood on the floor if she was attacked in here.”

“Might as well go over the whole place for fingerprints, Richardson,” the sergeant said to the younger member of the trio. “What’ll be legitimate besides yours, Mike?”

“Lucy’s-she cooked dinner in here, as I told you. And Tim Rourke’s. No one else has been here the last few days except the maid who cleaned thoroughly yesterday.”

The sergeant nodded thoughtfully. “Sure you’re not leaving anything out, Mike? Sure you didn’t know she’d be waiting for you like that when you got here?”

“Slugged?” Shayne’s tone was outraged. “You think I knew she was lying in there slugged and didn’t call the doctor for half an hour?”

“Don’t get sore, Mike. I’m figuring all the angles. Seems funny your horsing around in here with Rourke when maybe calling the doc earlier would have-”

Shayne got to his feet slowly, his big hands flexed. “Go on. Say it out loud, you liver-hearted bastard.”

“What the sarge means,” said Richardson, “is that you must’ve known she wasn’t in good shape or you’d have been in there a lot faster.”

Shayne whirled on the fingerprint man, but Harvey’s voice brought him back to a sense of proportion. “Don’t be like a kid, Shayne. You’ve ribbed enough other guys in your time to take a little of it yourself.”

“One more crack about my secretary and I’ll tear you limb from limb,” Shayne growled.

“You got to admit that lump on your jaw isn’t more than a few hours old,” Sergeant Harvey said. “You’re not leveling with us, Mike.”

Shayne stood very still and his hands slowly unclenched. “Yeh,” he muttered. “I know the whole thing sounds screwy as hell. But I gave you the story straight.” He sank back and lit a cigarette.

Since finding Lucy on the bed slugged, he had wholly forgot his own disfigurement. Now he realized how things must look to the police.

“I got tight over on the Beach,” Shayne resumed, “and rammed a concrete culvert on Delaware Road about midnight and got this. You can check that with a Beach cop named Rawson. He found me passed out under the wheel, and my car’s in the hotel garage banged up right now.”

“What’re you working on now?” Harvey asked.

“I’m not. I haven’t decided whether to settle down in Miami again or not. I’m sort of on vacation.”

“For a guy who’s on vacation,” said the homicide man who stood beside the sergeant, “you’ve been sticking your nose into plenty of stuff the last few months. There was that deal Rourke was mixed in, and then the two stiffs in the Bay, and then just last week the Deland kidnap mess. And I heard down at headquarters that Painter was pulling you in tonight on the jewel theft at the Sunlux.”

“He’d like to tie me in on that,” Shayne snorted.

“There’ll be a nice reward for the man who gets his hands on those rubies,” Harvey commented placidly.

Shayne nodded. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t turn a deal if they dropped in my lap.” He sprang to his feet as the bedroom door opened and Dr. Price came out.

“She’ll pull through, I trust.” The doctor closed the door. “Concussion, all right. She’s still unconscious, but her pulse is stronger and I anticipate she’ll come out of it in fifteen or twenty minutes now.”

“Enough to be questioned?” asked the sergeant.

The physician frowned. “I don’t advise it. She must have absolute quiet. Recovery depends on mental as well as physical calm. Miss Naylor is preparing a hypodermic and watching her condition closely. I’ve instructed her to inject a strong sedative the moment she shows signs of returning consciousness.”

“If you want Lucy Hamilton to feel mentally at ease, you’ll let her answer a couple of questions before you put her out again, Doc,” Shayne told him strongly.

Dr. Price tugged at his goatee and studied the detective thoughtfully. They had known and respected each other a long time, though there were no close bonds between them. “It might not upset her so much if you asked her a couple of questions in strict privacy,” he offered after a moment. “But I wouldn’t advise-”