Brett Halliday: Blood on the Stars

“And Voorland is no fool,” Shayne agreed. “So, I don’t believe he trusted to luck. How much easier and surer to arrange with the buyers beforehand to pull their own fake robberies at once. Remember the King affair in Miami? It screamed ‘Fake’ through and through, but no one could pin it on King for lack of plausible motive. You told me that yourself, Randolph.”

“Sure. It stunk from the word go,” Randolph agreed. “But there wasn’t any proof and we couldn’t find any reason for him to have pulled the job.”

“Reason enough,” Shayne said, “if he knew the ring was a fake when he bought it, and had arranged to split the insurance rake-off with Voorland. Of course you couldn’t prove it, because the ring had disappeared. That’s why it disappeared.”

“This becomes more and more ridiculous all the time,” Voorland declared angrily. “I can’t believe you’re serious, Shayne. Why would wealthy men like King and the others enter into such a dangerous arrangement with me?”

“I don’t think any of them were wealthy.”

“Good heavens! A man who pays a cool hundred thousand for a ring certainly isn’t poor.”

“I don’t believe King paid you a hundred grand for the ring,” said Shayne relentlessly. “I don’t believe he paid you a damned cent. I believe you faked the sale-as you did the sales to Kendrick and Dustin each succeeding two years.”

Voorland stopped his frantic chewing to retort, “This gets more and more absurd. I realize that Mr. King had been poor until he inherited a fortune, but these others-Kendrick and Mr. Dustin-are both wealthy men. I’m positive the insurance company checked Kendrick’s background thoroughly, and I’m sure they will check Mr. Dustin’s before they allow his claim.”

“I’m quite sure they will,” Shayne agreed calmly, “and I know exactly what they’ll learn from Denver. I’ve had a detective working on that all morning. They’ll discover no one in Denver knew him or ever heard of him until he popped up there with a bride two years ago-a very short time after Mrs. Kendrick was murdered in New Orleans, and after Kendrick himself dropped out of sight.

“I haven’t yet mentioned the most remarkable coincidence,” he went on with a trace of weariness, “namely, the unnatural physical resemblance of all three ruby buyers-King, Kendrick, and Mark Dustin.

“I have descriptions of the three men here.” He took a typewritten sheet of paper from his pocket. “All are said to be between forty and fifty. All are about six feet tall. All had gray eyes. King’s hair was a faded gray at forty and he was thin and stooped from overwork and worry. Kendrick’s hair was red, and he held himself erect and was described as slender and well-knit. You can all see Dustin for yourselves.”

“But I, remember King quite well,” Earl Randolph protested. “He was worried-looking and stooped-” He paused and turned his protruding eyes on Mark Dustin.

“Four years ago,” Shayne reminded him. “Four years of wealth and good food, absence of worry, and a beautiful young bride can fill a man out and erase the wrinkles. Add some black hair dye-”

“I don’t know what kind of cock-and-bull story you’re trying to frame,” Dustin said angrily. “You started out by promising to arrest a murderer here. If you’ve got anything to say, why don’t you stop this foolishness and say it.”

“Cut it out, King,” Shayne snapped. “I’ve checked and know your story of an inheritance from a rich uncle in Los Angeles was hogwash. It was cooked up between you and Voorland when he went to Massillon, Ohio, in nineteen forty-three with this fantastic plan of his and pretended to be a lawyer named Norwood-or Northcott. He knew the insurance company would investigate your background before paying the claim, and had to fix up a legitimate excuse for you to be buying hundred-thousand-dollar rubies.”

Peter Painter came to his feet and snapped, “I don’t understand this. I don’t understand it at all. Are you saying this man is King? The James T. King who was robbed of a ruby ring in Miami four years ago?”

“And Roland Kendrick,” Shayne said grimly, “who popped up in Westchester County, New York, from nowhere soon after King collected his insurance and disappeared. He spent the next two years carefully building himself a new identity and a reputation as a wealthy playboy that would stand the closest scrutiny by an insurance company after he and Voorland pulled their second coup. His wife was killed in that New Orleans hold-up and he married a new one about a month later, after a whirlwind courtship of just five days. His second anniversary was a few days ago, and the dates check.”

“Haven’t we had enough of this nonsense?” Voorland appealed to the detective chief. “Shayne hasn’t one shred of proof for a single one of his wild theories.”

“In order to disprove it,” said Shayne cheerfully, “all you have to do is produce Mark Dustin’s canceled check. The one he is supposed to have given you for the bracelet. And the checks from King and Kendrick. The banks keep photostatic records of all important accounts these days, and there shouldn’t be any difficulty about that. If you can’t do that, you might like to confront a next-door neighbor of King’s in Massillon, Ohio. A man named Hank Klinger who clearly remembers the lawyer who called on King back in nineteen forty-three. And then you can tell us how you came to be hanging around here last night and heard Celia Dustin arrange to meet me at the foot of the bathing-pier, and how you met her there instead-”

“No. You can’t get me for murder,” Voorland shouted. “I admit-”

“Wait a minute!” Mark Dustin dragged himself up to a sitting position on the couch. He said angrily, “This entire stupid hypothesis rests on your suspicion that the jewel thefts were prearranged. Good God, do you think I arranged that affair last night? Fixed it to get myself cut up and my hand smashed, just to-?”

“No,” said Shayne, “I think that was the one accident you didn’t foresee, and it upset the applecart. All because Voorland was afraid to show his phony bracelet to a certain Rajah of Hindupoor a couple of weeks ago. He knew a star ruby with his reputation behind it would get by an Occidental expert, but the Orientals have a way of spotting fakes by merely handling them, and Walter Voorland knows that as well as any man alive. This refusal whetted the Rajah’s appetite and he let it be known that he was in the market for that bracelet with no questions asked. I’m convinced the heist last night was perfectly legitimate-the only legitimate thing about this whole damned business. I think we can get you for murder,” he added quietly to Walter Voorland. “You know your house of cards has fallen. We’ll have a hundred witnesses to prove-”

“I admit the insurance frauds,” said Voorland gutturally, “just as you describe them. But murder-no! I warned him that other time when-”

Mark Dustin came to his feet, his right hand dangling. With a strangled oath he went toward Voorland, his left hand knotted into a powerful fist. Shayne thrust him back on the couch and turned to say:

“That other time in New Orleans when he killed his first wife, Voorland? You warned him not to mix murder with fraud? You were right. That’s always a mistake.”

“So I told him.” Voorland’s voice was thick with anger. “But no! The hotheaded fool was tired of his wife. She knew too much for him to get rid of her by any other means. So, he must shoot her in the supposed robbery.”

“It gets to be a habit; doesn’t it, Dustin? Were you tired of Celia already? Wouldn’t she divorce you? You played asleep after she gave you that first sleeping-tablet, and heard her telephone me, didn’t you? And then you slipped down the stairs behind her and killed her with a left-handed blow and left her on the sand while you hurried back up here and alibied yourself by taking three more of the tablets. What was she going to tell me, King? What proof was she going to show me?”