Brett Halliday - The Careless Corpse

Shayne nodded.

“I’ll be there all evening if I win,” she told him with a toss of her head. “Or the length of time it takes me to lose the five hundred my husband allows me to spend on entertainment each evening. If I’m unlucky, perhaps you’ll buy me a drink after I go broke.”

“Perhaps I will,” Shayne agreed pleasantly.

She turned away haughtily and swept out of the room, swinging her buttocks just enough to indicate she was aware two males were watching her exit-one of whom was married to her.

Julio Peralta shook his head and sighed despondently when the door closed behind his wife. “I don’t understand Laura,” he murmured. “I’m afraid I simply don’t understand American women at all. I realize she is young and high-spirited, and that this household may seem dull to her. But she is my wife. I ask only that she keep that fact in mind and do nothing to disgrace the name. In the name of all that is holy, Mr. Shayne, is that too much to ask?”

Shayne shrugged and resumed his seat. He said drily, “We were discussing the possibility that a cheap imitation of the emerald bracelet might have been substituted for the genuine without your knowledge before the robbery occurred. How many people were in a position to have accomplished that?

Peralta puffed on his cigar nervously. “Yesterday I would have said it was an utter impossibility. But since this letter arrived, I’ve been trying to see how it could have been done. How long would it take,” he demanded anxiously, “to make up a convincing substitute of imitation gems?”

“We’d have to ask a jeweler that. A few days would be enough, I should think.”

“And it would be a good enough imitation so it mightn’t be noticed by anyone except an expert?”

“I think so. Depends what you mean by an expert, I guess.” Shayne paused, then went on somewhat harshly because he did not like saying this to the older man: “I’ve been told by jewelers that it is almost impossible to foist off even an extremely good imitation on the owner of a particular piece who loves jewelry and has owned that piece for any length of time. I can’t vouch for this personally, but the experts claim there is a sort of aura about the real thing that can never be duplicated except to the casual observer.”

“What you are saying,” said Peralta impatiently and with a bite in his voice, “is that it is unlikely such a substitution could have been made without Mrs. Peralta’s knowledge.”

“That would be the opinion of experts,” Shayne agreed, cautiously.

The older man drew in a deep puff of smoke and put his cigar down. He turned to the detective with both hands flat on his knees. “What do you advise me to do… about the letter you read?”

Shayne shook his red head slowly. “I’m hardly in a position to advise you yet. I need to know more… about the bracelet and the various people involved. How many know the combination of the safe the bracelet was normally kept in?”

“Presumably, only my wife and I. I impressed the need for secrecy on Mrs. Peralta in the beginning. Not because I didn’t trust others in the household,” he went on hastily, “but because a secret shared is no longer a secret.”

“You said presumably.”

“That is correct. My wife is notoriously careless about such things. I shouldn’t be at all surprised to learn, for instance, that Miss Briggs, the twins’ governess, knows the combination. And probably Freed, also.” He spread out his hands. “Perhaps even the children, too. They do have a surprising way of nosing into things. And my wife’s former maid, Felice, whom I discharged immediately after the theft.”

Shayne nodded. “I understand it was one of her duties to make sure your wife’s jewels were locked up every night.”

“Which she neglected to do that evening.”

Shayne counted the names off on his fingers and frowned. “That gives us a total of seven people who might have had access to the safe in the past and been able to take the bracelet out for a substitute to be made.”

“That is true.” Peralta regarded him steadily. “But there is also the point you made about it being so very difficult to fool the owner with an imitation.”

“There is that point.”

Julio Peralta drew in a deep breath. “So what course of action do you advise me to take?”

Shayne hesitated. “Let’s face it on the assumption that your wife either pulled the switch or connived with someone who did.”

“Haven’t you made it clear that is almost a necessary assumption?”

“Almost,” Shayne agreed, tugging at the lobe of his left ear. “If it was an imitation that was stolen and your wife knows it, she must be on pins and needles waiting to see if it is recovered. How has she been acting?”

“Quite nonchalant about the whole matter. But my wife is an excellent actress, Mr. Shayne.”

“What does Chief Painter actually tell you about the progress of his investigation?” demanded Shayne.

“He was quite noncommittal until very recently. Yesterday, he volunteered the information that he was on a hot lead, as he called it, and today he insisted that we had nothing to worry about… that the bracelet would be recovered very soon.”

“Which is exactly what would worry your wife, if she knows the thing is an imitation. Do you know if she has had any private conferences with Painter?”

“I couldn’t say,” said Peralta, stiffly.

“Your man wants fifty-five grand in his letter,” Shayne pointed out. “As much as he could possibly get from a fence for the genuine bracelet, and twice what he could hope to pick up by making a deal with the insurance company.”

“And if I don’t pay his demand, he will brand me publicly as a crook trying to collect insurance on a worthless imitation. What am I to do?”

“You can’t pay him,” said Shayne, angrily. “Good God, man, that would just be tossing fifty-five grand down the sewer. You have no assurance he’ll return the bracelet after you pay him. Just his word for that. Naturally, he’d hold onto it and blackmail you further.”

“So what am I to do? If I don’t pay him, he will turn it over to a scandal-loving newspaper reporter and the whole unsavory story will come out.”

“How far will you go to protect your wife,” asked Shayne, harshly, “if she was in on the substitution?”

“I don’t know. She can’t have been. What madness it is to suspect Laura of that! There was no need,” Peralta cried out despairingly. “I am a wealthy man. She has all the money she could possibly need. Charge accounts in every store on Lincoln Road and in the best shops in New York. I never protest the size of the household accounts. It’s inconceivable that she should have ever wanted more money.”

It wasn’t inconceivable to Michael Shayne. Not as he recalled her tone when she mentioned the five hundred dollars she was allowed each evening for gambling. To the wife of a man worth many millions, that must seem like peanuts. But Peralta would never be able to understand that. He probably, Shayne thought pityingly, felt he was being wonderfully generous to provide that sum for her to squander at Miami’s gaming tables each night.

“Inconceivable or not,” Shayne said, wearily, “you’ve got to face facts. I’ll repeat my question: how far will you go to protect her in case the worst is true?”

“I suppose,” Julio Peralta said quietly, “I would do anything within reason. So long as it is honest and hurts no innocent person.”

“The man who wrote you that letter deserves no consideration. He is a blackmailer and almost surely a thief. Fix up an envelope for him as he directs and mail it to him tomorrow. Let’s see,” mused Shayne, “fifty bills to the thousand, times fifty-five.” He did the sum in his head. “Twenty-seven hundred and fifty bills in all. In a large manila envelope, they would fit in four packets. About seven hundred to each packet. Have them cut out of old newspapers to size,” he went on briskly, “so it looks and feels right. I’ll arrange to have the receiver of the envelope tailed when he calls for it at General Delivery.”