Brett Halliday - Blood on the Stars

“You don’t quite get it, Doc,” Shayne said. “These cops think maybe I conked her. If they don’t hear the words from her, they’ll never believe I didn’t.”

The doctor’s expression cleared. “I see. You mean to say you don’t mind them hearing anything she may say?”

Shayne tugged at his earlobe and said softly, “I’ll be damned, Doc. I believe you were trying to cover up for me. Do you think I slugged her?”

“I confess the possibility did enter my mind,” said the doctor with dignity. “I find a young lady in night clothes in your bed, a pistol on the floor where she appears to have dropped it, and every indication that she was pushed or slapped and tripped on the carpet, falling backward and striking her head on the radiator.”

“Wait a minute.” Shayne advanced on him, his gray eyes glinting. “You say there’s a gun on the bedroom floor? And Lucy fell against the radiator after being shoved or slapped?”

“I am not a detective,” said the doctor dryly, “but that is what I infer from the nature of her wound and the bloodstains on the radiator. Naturally, I assumed you either knew what had taken place or had drawn the same obvious deduction as I.”

Shayne said, “I didn’t take time to look at anything in the bedroom. You got here so fast I didn’t even have time to go back in there to do any deducing.”

“Lucky I was dressed and could come at once. Another ten minutes might have been too late. If it hadn’t been for some practical joker, the young lady might have been dead by now.”

“What’s this about a practical joker,” asked Sergeant Harvey.

“Some fool who called me about twelve-thirty and got me out of bed and a sound sleep. He insisted there was an emergency in apartment six-oh-three, and I got dressed and hurried up there. I confess I was annoyed when I found the place dark and rang the bell several times before I got an answer. Though not so annoyed,” he went on with a faint chuckle, “as the man who finally answered the door bell. He insisted there was no emergency in that apartment and that he definitely had not telephoned for a physician. He was quite rude about refusing me entrance, and finally suggested we were both the victims of a practical joker. He gave the impression,” the doctor concluded sedately, “that it would be distinctly embarrassing for the lady occupying the apartment with him if I were to enter.”

“What kind of a joint is this?” demanded Sergeant Harvey of Shayne.

Shayne disregarded the sergeant’s coarse humor. He asked Dr. Price, “Do you honestly believe it might injure Miss Hamilton to answer just a couple of questions?”

“Probably not,” said the doctor frankly. “But I warn you she must talk very little and must not be excited. If she regains consciousness shortly, as I anticipate, I will withhold the injection until the moment she is able to talk. It will take possibly two minutes to take effect, and during those two minutes you may ask her any questions necessary.”

Miss Naylor appeared in the doorway as he finished speaking and said quietly, “She’s on the verge of consciousness, Doctor. Shall I give her the injection now?”

“I want to allow her about two minutes of full consciousness, Miss Naylor,” Dr. Price told his nurse. “Give her the injection the moment she is able to talk.”

The nurse went back into the bedroom and Shayne hurried to the door, followed by two of the police officers. Miss Naylor was seated beside the bed with Lucy’s wrist in one hand, the hypodermic ready on a tray beside her. Lucy’s head was bandaged and her eyes were closed. Her face was waxen white, but her features were composed and she appeared to be breathing normally.

Shayne moved inside the room to make way for Sergeant Harvey and Wentworth, his fellow police officer, and pointed to the corrugated wooden grip of an automatic showing from beneath the bed.

“There’s the pistol the doctor mentioned. It looks like a Colt. 38 and is probably mine. I keep it in the top drawer of the dresser in here.” He was walking to the bureau as he spoke, opened the drawer and turned back with a nod. “My gun isn’t here.”

Harvey was kneeling beside the bed. He slipped a pencil through the trigger-guard of the pistol and got up with it dangling by the guard. He sniffed at the muzzle and said, “It’s a Colt. 38. Hasn’t been fired. Did you or the nurse touch it, Doc?”

“I was very careful not to touch it,” said the doctor. “It was lying right there when I first came in.”

Lucy moved her head slightly and moaned. Faint color was beginning to show in her cheeks. Miss Naylor said, “Her pulse is much stronger, Doctor. I think she’s reacting perfectly.”

Harvey turned the gun over to Wentworth and said, “Have Richardson go over it.” He turned back to Shayne, who was now on his knees beside the wall radiator examining the dried bloodstains on the corner nearest the door.

“We can almost reconstruct it from this,” he said to Harvey. “Lucy knew I kept my gun in that drawer. I showed it to her a couple of days ago. If someone frightened her and she ran in here to get it, she could have turned back to meet him in the doorway. Standing about where Doctor Price is now would bring the back of her head against the radiator if she was shoved violently. How about this, Doctor? Could she possibly have gotten up and onto the bed under her own steam after falling?”

“No. It would have been utterly impossible. Someone picked her up and laid her on the bed and pulled the sheet up over her.”

Lucy moaned again and her arm jumped convulsively in the nurse’s hand. Dr. Price leaned forward to observe her carefully, and Shayne pushed forward to look down at her. Her eyes opened and his face was the first one she saw.

“Michael,” she said weakly. “What-?”

“Now, Miss Naylor,” the doctor said quietly, then bent closer to Lucy and said, “You’ve had an accident, Miss Hamilton. Don’t let yourself become excited. Mr. Shayne is going to ask you a few questions and I want you to answer them as briefly as possible. You must try to be calm and not become frightened.”

“I understand,” Lucy whispered. Her wide brown eyes were fixed on Shayne’s face, and she appeared not to notice the injection being administered by the nurse.

Shayne said softly, “Everything is all right, Lucy. Dr. Price is giving me two minutes to ask you questions. Do you remember everything clearly?”

“Yes.”

“You had undressed in your room and came back here for something,” he went on swiftly. “Leaving the door on the latch. Did someone come in?”

“I thought it was you. I stepped in here to-surprise you, just as the door opened. The telephone rang. The man called ‘Shayne,’ and I knew it wasn’t you and I was frightened. The phone kept ringing and he looked in the kitchen and bathroom and then came-in here. I was hidden behind the door. Then he answered the phone. He said, ‘This is Mr. Shayne,’ and then I got angry and remembered your pistol.

“I got it while he listened on the phone, just saying a word now and then. He hung up as I tiptoed back to the door after saying, ‘I’ll be there right away, Mrs. Dustin.’ I-guess-he was more-frightened than I was when he saw me standing there-with your pistol. He jumped at me before I could-”

Her voice trailed off and she closed her eyes. The color was ebbing out of her face again.

Shayne said urgently, “We know about what happened, Lucy. You fell and struck your head. Did you know the man?”

“No.” She roused herself with visible effort. Shayne and Sergeant Harvey bent close to hear her murmured words: “Heavy-set. Gray suit and Panama hat-mustache. About fifty years-old. I tried-to shoot-but he-I-couldn’t-” Her lips stopped moving.