Brett Halliday - Guilty as Hell

“I’m no detective. I don’t even know how to begin.”

“Begin by thinking about it,” Shayne said. “Who needed money? Who was in trouble? Who had more money and was in less trouble on April twenty-fourth than on April twenty-third? Get to work, Despard. You haven’t much time.”

At first Shayne thought the phone-book address was a misprint. Then he saw a narrow cobbled lane leading between two stucco houses built in the fake-Moorish style of the mid-1920s, ending in a paved court.

He tried Candida’s number again and again got no answer. He left the Buick in a University of Miami parking lot and entered the court on foot. The house he was looking for was a low building which seemed to be a remodeled stable, in spite of the fact that Coral Gables had been built after city people stopped keeping horses. The building contained three duplex apartments. The one in the middle, with “Candida Morse” in decorative script over the wrought-iron bell pull, was dark.

Shayne snapped his lighter to look at the lock. The lock itself presented no problem, but the massive half-inch bolt could only be forced with heavier equipment than Shayne carried with him. He went around to look at the kitchen door. That, too, had been reinforced. He pushed his cast through the kitchen window, reached in carefully and unlocked it. A moment later he was inside the house.

After turning on the light, he broke the slivers of glass still clinging to the sash, found a broom and swept the mess under the kitchen table.

He searched the downstairs carefully. A small antique secretary in the living room had one locked drawer, which he forced. Inside, he found Candida’s passport, her college diploma, copies of income-tax forms for earlier years, bundles of letters and canceled checks. He flipped through the passport to see how much traveling she did, and found her birthdate. She was twenty-seven. The letters were in their original envelopes. He checked the postmarks without finding anything current enough to interest him.

A steep, narrow staircase led to the second floor. In Candida’s bedroom, a very feminine room which she had passed through in a hurry, changing clothes on the run, Shayne looked around speculatively, rubbing his jaw with the ball of his thumb. His reflection in a big mirror over the bureau caught his eye. He needed maintenance. His sling was torn and dirty. His shirt was black with oil and dirty cobwebs picked up crawling out of the basement window of the Buena Vista apartment house.

He continued to look around. The headboard of the oversize bed was divided into compartments holding books, a clock-radio, a phone. He pulled open a sliding drawer and gave a grunt of satisfaction, seeing three flat metal boxes, the size of a standard safe-deposit box, each tagged with a number. Shayne picked the box with the highest number. He worked on it with the flat chisel blade of a combination tool, holding the box with the weight of his cast. He twisted slowly, increasing the pressure, and the lid sprang open. He grinned when he saw what the box contained.

He emptied it on the bureau. In an unmarked envelope there were four 35-millimeter negatives. He held one to the light. It showed a man and a girl on the floor. The girl was only partially clothed. Her blouse was torn. The man’s face didn’t show, but Shayne had no doubt that in an enlarged print the narrow head and thin fringe of hair would be recognized as belonging to Jose Despard.

In the same envelope was a slip of paper with a number and a padlock combination. On a separate page there was a kind of timetable, giving the arrivals and departures of seven or eight people, identified by initials, over a ten-day period. Finally, there was a small film can. Inside it was a tightly wound roll of microfilm. Shayne unrolled an inch or so. It was the top-secret T-239 report.

Still grinning happily, he transferred these objects to various pockets and put the rifled box back in the headboard compartment.

Again the disreputable figure in the mirror caught his eye. He pulled off the sling and worked the shirt over his head and then over the cast. After washing his hands and face, he made a new sling from one of Candida’s pillow slips. Then he washed out the shirt, using part of a bottle of shampoo. He wrung it with one hand. While he was draping it over the shower rail he heard a door open downstairs.

He went to the hall.

“I really do seem to be rattled,” he heard Candida’s voice say. “I left all the lights on. I never do that.”

There were footsteps. The door closed.

A man’s voice said, “Let’s take a trip, shall we, after we get the check? I need a vacation. I’m so damn tense it isn’t funny.”

“Hal, darling, you’re worrying about Michael Shayne again, and will you please stop? I have that situation in hand. Jake Fitch will be calling me promptly at nine. It won’t be with bad news.”

“I need a drink.”

Shayne called down, “So do I. Make one for me.”

He returned to the bedroom and finished brushing his hair. Then he went down the cramped stairs, ducking his head to keep from hitting the low ceiling.

Candida and her employer were standing in the hall below. They watched him emerge-his legs, his fresh sling, then his powerful bare torso. Candida was wearing a straight skirt and a sleeveless evening sweater, buttoned down the front. She had partly turned toward the living room, and Shayne saw that the sweater had no back whatever. Begley’s clothes were a little too sharp, as always. The weekend of heavy drinking had taken the highlights out of his tan.

He said thickly, “This is what you mean when you say you have Shayne in hand? You absolutely don’t give a damn who you get into bed with, do you?”

“Don’t be childish,” she said with her usual coolness.

“Who’s being childish?” Begley shouted, turning on her. “Me? I’m being childish? That’s your opinion?”

“Be quiet, Hal. He obviously broke in and he’s just leaving. I don’t know why he’s not wearing a shirt.”

“I had to wash it,” Shayne said. “I’ve been crawling out windows. If you don’t have cognac, I’ll take bourbon.”

“You didn’t invite him?” Begley said. “You haven’t hit the sack with him yet? Now there’s a switch.”

He came around to face Shayne, nervously unbuttoning his jacket. He was an inch or two over six feet, broad and solid through the chest. At one time he might have been able to stand up to the detective, but he had spent too much time lately making money.

“Miss Morse wants you to leave,” he said. “Leave. We’ll mail you the shirt. Don’t think you’ve got any immunity because of that broken arm. Under your own steam or otherwise, take your pick.”

Shayne stepped in close, his right arm at his side. Begley held his eyes, waiting for the right to the body. Shayne half-feinted with his right shoulder, then struck with the cast.

The hook caught the expensive fabric of Begley’s light sports jacket and tore downward, taking part of his shirt and possibly some flesh with it. Begley flailed out without waiting to get set. Shayne yanked him off balance and blocked the blow easily. Then, his lips twisting, he brought the cast up hard.

The hook tore loose. Begley took two wandering steps backward, collided with an upholstered chair and sat down. Candida hurried to him.

“At this point,” Shayne said, “you offer to settle.”

“Wha-?” Begley said.

Candida turned with a flare of her skirt. “The devil we’ll settle! We have nothing to talk to you about, so now that you’ve asserted yourself on your usual level, why don’t you go upstairs and get your wet shirt and get the hell out of here?”

Her voice was shaking. He grinned at her.