Brett Halliday - Dolls Are Deadly

Silence crept in again, silence with a weighted, brooding quality. It might have been phony as a district attorney’s pity, except that forces reaching out from this dark room had, in some way and to some degree, been responsible for the death of one person today and were threatening at least one other.

The dim light shone up into Madame Swoboda’s still face. She had closed her eyes, the long lashes resting sootily against the white cheeks. As Shayne watched, she shivered violently once and then was quiet. The circle at the table held.

After a time she said, “I have sent your messages.”

Another silence. The room was filled with breathing. Finally, from somewhere high in the room a man’s voice sounded. It had a curiously metallic quality: “Sharon… I am here. I have your message… My marriage was a mistake. It was you I loved and wanted…”

A woman’s voice came next through the darkness, softly and incoherently, describing the Great Beyond. She addressed a man called Bill. After her, came another voice tiredly reiterating, “I am happy,” and addressing no one.

At last, a child’s thin voice sounded, first far away, then coming closer. “Mother… Daddy… At last I have gotten through to you. It is so far. For two hours and thirty-six minutes I have traveled… through the forty-eight outer worlds…”

Mabel Thain breathed, “It’s Jimsey!” and tightened her grip on Shayne’s finger.

On his right, Ed stirred restlessly, the grip of his little finger loosening, then tightening. What, Shayne wondered again, could be the attraction here for this man who seemed to be only a pleasure-bent tourist? If he had come to please his wife, or only for casual amusement, why the tension? On the other hand, what kind of mystically inclined person drank hundred-and-fifty proof rum, drooled idiotically at a girl doing a hooch dance on a Cuban boat and put a dirtied-up, souped-up engine in Sylvester’s fishing boat?

The child’s voice continued: “I am well… and happy… but when I lay dying Friday night, I spoke your name eight times…” A blue light wavered across the ceiling, then disappeared, “Mother… Daddy… Good-by.”

Madame Swoboda sighed, sat quietly for a long moment as though all strength had left her, then shivered and opened her eyes.

“That is all.” Her voice had a deep, unworldly timbre. “The spirits are tired. The seance is over.”

She rose quickly, passed through the sliding doors, walked down the hall and disappeared. The lights went on, two dim yellow bulbs in a wall fixture. Everyone blinked against the sudden light, released each other’s fingers a little sheepishly, scraped back their chairs and got to their feet. Shayne looked at Ed. His lips were moving soundlessly, his brows knit in concentration.

Ed rose finally and pushed through the low-voiced crowd to reach his wife at the other side of the table. Shayne caught Tim Rourke’s cynical eye, then moved between the stragglers to intercept Ed and his wife, who were pushing with the others to the door.

Clapping Ed on the back, the redhead said, “So we meet again. You never can tell where a tourist will turn up in this town.”

“Or a detective,” Ed retorted. Turning to his wife, he said, “Dear, this is the detective I was telling you about who was on the boat today. Mike Shayne. Mike, meet the wife.”

“It’s a pleasure, Mrs.-”

“Woodbine.” She poked Ed playfully. “Didn’t you even tell Mr. Shayne your last name?”

“We were all on a first name basis,” Shayne said. “It was only by accident that Sylvester happened to mention my name. Where are you folks staying?”

A quick glance passed between the man and woman, then Ed said openly, “Blue Grotto Hotel. Know it?”

“Very well.”

“At one of the cabanas,” Mrs. Woodbine said. “Number sixteen. Come and see us, Mr. Shayne.”

“Maybe I will. Thanks. How did you enjoy the seance?”

She shrugged matronly shoulders. “It’s something to do-I get so tired of canasta-but I don’t think I can ever drag Ed here again. He was bored stiff.”

Shayne said, “Maybe if you feed him bonito again it’ll put him in the mood.”

“Bonito?” She looked genuinely puzzled.

“I started to bring a fish home, honey,” Ed explained, “but I couldn’t face cleaning it, so I gave it away.”

She sighed in exasperation. “You fish all day and then give away what you catch! It makes more sense to play canasta.”

Ed shrugged and winked, probably thinking of the Demerara he had consumed that afternoon, then took his wife firmly by the arm and faced her toward the door, asking, a little brusquely, “What are you doing here, Mike? Casing the joint?”

“You might call it that.”

“As far as I can see, it’s harmless. I don’t go for this out-of-the-world stuff, but the Madame puts on a good show. If this is what they want, they get their money’s worth.” He propelled his wife to the door.

The desk in the arch next to the waiting room was now covered with voodoo dolls, boxes of pink, red, black and white candles, labeled Success, Love, Death and Immortality, small bottles holding Goofer Dust, amulets attached to bracelets and necklaces, and a stack of occult literature. People were crowding around the desk to buy souvenirs from the woman in the horn-rimmed glasses. The prices, Shayne noted, were not exorbitant.

At a touch on his arm, he turned.

“Mr. Shayne, someone has been following me.” Clarissa Milford stood behind him, her eyes wide and disturbed.

“I know. I hired him.”

“Then you must think I’m in danger!” she whispered.

“It’s only a precaution.” Shayne picked up one of the voodoo dolls and dropped a half dollar on the desk. Even without comparing this doll closely to the ones Henny Henlein and Clarissa Milford had gotten, he could tell they were all from the same lot.

“I’d like you to meet my sister and brother-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Thain,” Clarissa said with a complete change of voice. “This is Michael Shayne.”

Shayne nodded to Mabel, took Thain’s limp hand and looked down into brown, hostile eyes.

“The detective?” Thain turned to Clarissa. “What have you to do with him?”

“Oh, you know, Percy,” Clarissa said offhandedly. “It’s about that doll.”

“I see,” Thain said distantly. “I didn’t know you had gone to him.”

“I decided suddenly-”

“If it makes her feel better, Percy-” Mabel said placatingly.

Relations between the Thains and Clarissa seemed a trifle strained. Did Percy Thain believe Clarissa to be more involved in the hit-and-run death of his son than she admitted? And was she?

The Thains left with Clarissa, and Tim Rourke walked over. The sensation-seekers had thinned out, most of them gone. “I’m afraid we wasted our time,” Rourke said. “There’s no story here.”

Shayne ran a hand over his angular jaw. “I’m not so sure. You think it came through O.K. on your pocket recorder?”

“Such as it is, I’ve got it.”

“I’d like to run it through a little later and listen again.”

“What for?” Rourke asked sourly. “It’s gobbledegook. By the way, Sharon, the person the first message was addressed to, was that thin woman. I was sitting next to her. She shook like a leaf.”

“She must be a regular. Otherwise the tape couldn’t have been prepared.”

“It was about the only message that made sense.”

“Maybe,” the redhead said slowly, “the others made sense to someone.”

“What do you mean? All that gabble about the forty-eight outer worlds couldn’t make sense to anyone except another ectoplasm. Maybe you don’t get around in occult circles, Mike. It’s old hat. This kind of thing’s done every day. If it were a con game-But I don’t see any racket angle. The Madame puts on a good show and folks get their money’s worth.”