Brett Halliday - Murder and the Married Virgin

“Yeh. He just called me,” Shayne interposed. “Have you got that financial statement on Lomax yet?”

“Called you, did he?” Mr. Teton took off his glasses and dangled them on the black ribbon. “What did he-ah-”

“He wanted forty grand.”

“Forty thousand! Why that’s-”

“I told him it was too early to start dickering, and he hung up. If you have that statement-”

“Was that wise, Mr. Shayne? Wouldn’t it have been smarter to pretend to be eager to deal with him? Then, after you’ve learned his identity we could have him arrested.”

Shayne slammed his fist down on Teton’s desk and growled, “I don’t run my business that way. People like that come to me because I’ve always played straight with them. If I ever pulled a fast one I’d never be able to put over another deal.”

“But when one is dealing with crooks,” Mr. Teton protested, “I think one is justified in using any means to an end.”

Shayne said, “No. I’ll run this my way. If you haven’t got that dope on Lomax, I’ll be on my way.”

“It’s right here,” Teton said hastily. “I was just going over it when you came in.” He nervously adjusted his glasses on his nose, picked up several bound sheets of legal paper. “All assets are listed and segregated as to-”

“Give it to me this way,” Shayne interrupted. “Is Lomax hard up for cash?”

“Definitely not,” Teton snapped, as though it were Shayne’s fault that he wasn’t. “Six months ago it might have been a different matter. He was organizing this new company on a shoestring, but now his profits are simply prodigious, Mr. Shayne.” His round eyes ogled solemnly. “Mr. Shayne, you-”

Shayne was on his way out. He said, “Write me a letter about it,” and closed the door behind him.

He glowered at the mist of rain drifting with the wind when he stepped outside the building. The fog of mystery surrounding the stolen necklace and the death of Katrin Moe was no more penetrable than the lowering clouds and the rain mist. He turned the collar of his trench coat up and stood beside his car for a moment with the key in his hand.

He put the key back in his pocket and went halfway down the block to a liquor store. Inside, he studied the labels on the shelves, stepped behind the counter and took down a bottle that proclaimed Ancient Age in big letters. Handing it to the clerk, he said, “Wrap it up.”

The drive to the police station was short. He found the police surgeon sitting in a straight chair cocked back against the edge of a battered desk. He was reading a pulp magazine with a picture of a nude girl on the cover. The girl was cowering away from a slant-eyed yellow man who brandished a blacksnake whip.

Doctor Mattson looked up when Shayne entered. His eyes twinkled happily behind round, thick lenses. “You’ve come at a good time, Michael. I need a drink to dispel the horrors of the occult I’m delving into.”

Shayne grinned and thumped the wrapped package on the desk.

“Is it potable?” Mattson asked, holding the bottle up to the light and squinting at its contents. “Ah, there’s a delightful word, Michael. Potable! One hears it too seldom nowadays.”

Shayne took the bottle from him and uncorked it, saying, “This is a bribe, you know.”

“So be it. I’m easily bribed these days. There was a time when I wouldn’t sell my soul for less than a case of Dewar’s finest.”

Shayne tilted the bottle and took a long drink, rolled some of it around in his mouth, swallowed and nodded his head with approval. Handing it back to the doctor, he said, “Go ahead and guzzle.”

Mattson sighed. “I’d best have a small nip first. You may change your mind and take it back, for you’ll not like what I’ve got to tell you.”

“Let’s have it,” Shayne said.

The police surgeon took a nip from the bottle, replaced the cork and set it on the table. “You asked me for two things on the girl. Here they are in simple terms. She died from inhalation of gas fumes. She was not drugged and there is no evidence of poison. She didn’t fight death. I told you that this morning. A quarter of a century of intimate association with stiffs has taught me to read the facial distortions of death.”

Shayne was absently rubbing his angular jaw, his gray eyes staring thoughtfully into space.

“You don’t like it, do you, Michael?”

“No. I’d hoped you’d find something else. Thanks just the same.”

Before driving away from the police building, Shayne sat sprawled in the driver’s seat, his big hands gripping the steering wheel. Abruptly he raced the engine and lurched into a stream of traffic.

The Dragoon was a small, modern hotel on Race Street. The time was a quarter past four when he went into the lobby and asked the clerk for Lieutenant Drinkley. The young man consulted a card-index file and said, “Four-twelve, sir. There’s a house phone if you wish to call,” pushing the instrument forward.

Shayne lifted the receiver and asked for 412. The phone rang four times before Lieutenant Drinkley answered.

“Shayne speaking,” he said, and when no further answer came immediately, he added, “the detective.”

“I know,” the lieutenant said. “I’ve been hoping you’d call.”

“I’m coming up to see you.” Shayne started to hang up, but the lieutenant said quickly, “Let me come to your office. In about half an hour.”

“I’m downstairs in the hotel now,” Shayne told him. He hung up and went to the elevator. It took him to the fourth floor at once. He stepped from the elevator into a corridor, glanced at the numbers, and turned right to 412 and knocked.

He knocked again after waiting a few seconds, glanced up to see that the transom was tightly closed. No sound came from the room. He tried the knob, but the door was locked, and he rapped again.

The door opened with a rush. Lieutenant Drinkley faced him with a strange expression of anxiety. His khaki shirt was rumpled and his blond hair was tousled as it had been that morning, and the lines of strain had deepened at the corners of his thin mouth.

He said, “I’m sorry. I was-I couldn’t come to the door at once.” He appeared nervous and confused, like a man wakened suddenly from deep sleep, but he didn’t look sleepy. The bed in the center of the room was neatly made.

Shayne heeled the door shut and brushed past Drinkley. The room was quite small, with a single window at one end and an upholstered chair turned to face a small, straight chair beside a writing table.

A bottle half filled with scotch and a bottle of white soda stood on the desk and a glass of the mixture floating with ice cubes made a wet ring on the blotter.

Shayne looked sharply at Drinkley. His cheeks were highly flushed, but he didn’t act or talk drunk. Shayne crossed over to the armchair and sat down, shook his head negatively when the officer invited him to have a drink.

“I never drink at this time in the afternoon,” he lied, and fished out a cigarette.

An open book of matches lay beside a glass ash tray on the desk. He struck one to light his cigarette and noticed that the folder had the picture of a bubbling glass of champagne on the front and the printed words, The Laurel Club.

The ash tray was full of half-smoked stubs. One of them still smoldered. It had a streak of lipstick on the end, as did two others in the ash tray.

Shayne slid the match folder into his pocket. He said, “I’m afraid I’m not getting very far on your case, Lieutenant.”

Drinkley sat on the foot of the bed resting his elbows on his knees. He said gloomily, “I suppose it was foolish to hope you could do anything. You think that Katrin did”-he paused to wet his lips with his tongue and looked up at Shayne doggedly-“commit suicide?”