Brett Halliday - The Careless Corpse

Shayne sighed and finished his drink. He glanced at her empty glass and raised his eyebrows. She said, “One more, thanks. Then I must get back to the twins.”

Shayne signaled the waiter with two fingers, then asked, “So, why did you waylay me?”

“Because I’m frightened, Mr. Shayne. Terribly frightened.” Her voice was pinched and thin, and she vainly tried to repress a shudder.

“Something to do with the theft?”

“It has everything to do with it. I received a threatening letter in the mail this morning.”

“From James Morgan?”

Her blue eyes widened and her lashes fluttered. “I don’t know any James Morgan. It was unsigned.”

She kept her wide eyes steadily on his face while she groped inside her handbag. “Perhaps I’m a fool to show this to anyone. But… private detectives are like lawyers, aren’t they? About respecting the privacy of a client? So if I could be your client…?” Her voice shook with entreaty as she withdrew a cheap white envelope from her bag-the sort that can be bought in any drugstore in packs of half a dozen. She held it in her hand indecisively and went on: “Should I pay you a retainer first… to make it official that I am your client?”

The waiter brought their second round of drinks, and Shayne gestured toward the check on a silver plate. “You pay the bar-bill as a retainer. That will make it official.”

She nodded and smiled wanly, extending the letter to him. “I just have to talk to someone. I’ve read about you in the papers, and it seemed like an Act of God when you came to the house tonight.”

Shayne took the envelope and looked at it. There was a typewritten address: “Miss Marsha Briggs” at the Peralta street address, with an underlined “Personal” beside it. It was postmarked in Miami the previous day. There was no return address.

Shayne took out a single sheet of plain typewriter paper. It was undated. The letter was neatly typed, without a single erasure or error:

“Dear Marsha Elitzen:

“It is unfortunate, is it not, that another similar jewel theft should occur in the Peralta household on the heels of that most unfortunate affair on Long Island last year?

“If you are very lucky and the local police are as stupid as I believe them to be, the case will be solved before they get around to checking the fingerprints and records of the members of the household.

“However, I think they would be most interested in a clipping I have in my possession from the New York Mirror of last August

“I do not want money from you, dear Marsha Elitzen. I desire only your fair, white, young body to hold warmly in my arms for one night.

“This, I think you will agree, is a small price to pay for my silence.

“If you do agree, whole-heartedly and without reservations, call this telephone number at exactly midnight, Wednesday the 13th. (A Miami Beach telephone number followed.)

“Say to whomever answers the telephone: ‘This is Marsha Elitzen. Yes.’ Then hang up. I will contact you later giving the time and place for our one-night assignation.

“Believe me, dear Marsha, you will not regret acceding to this simple request… and if you are foolish enough to refuse I sincerely fear you will exceedingly regret that decision.

“An ardent admirer.”

Michael Shayne read the entire letter without raising his gaze from the typewritten page. Then he slowly shifted his eyes upward to the salutation, and read it aloud in a questioning tone: “Marsha Elitzen?”

He looked up from the sheet of paper in his hands and across the table to the Peralta governess who was leaning forward, fiercely gripping the slender stem of her cocktail glass with both hands.

She nodded slowly, holding his eyes with hers. “That is truly my name.”

Shayne said, “Do you want to tell me what this means?”

“Yes. I want very much to tell you.” She lowered the lids over her round blue eyes and made an obvious effort to relax, unclenching her tense fingers from about the stem of her glass, and slumping her shoulders a little.

She lifted her lids again, and the blue of her eyes was startlingly clear and deep.

“I had a position as a child’s nurse with a wealthy family in East Hampton. I fell foolishly in love like a young girl with a man who swept me off my feet. For the first time in my life, Mr. Shayne, I loved and believed I was loved. I met him frequently at night, and for week-ends, when I was free. I gave myself to this man, and I trusted him the way a woman in love does trust a man, and I talked freely of my position and my employer and the household… and one night it happened.

“There was a jewel robbery at the house. It was the man I thought I loved,” she went on listlessly. “It became obvious that he had carefully planned it that way. He had selected me as a source of information, and made love to me only to accomplish the theft. The police soon discovered our intimacy and traced him to Chicago where he was arrested with the jewels in his possession.

“They believed and tried to prove that I was his willing accomplice,” she continued in the same dead tone. “But there was no proof. Legally, I was guilty of no more than a foolish indiscretion, though both my employer and the police persisted in believing I was as guilty as he. He was sentenced to twenty years in jail, and I was discharged under a cloud of suspicion.” She paused and viciously stabbed out her cigarette in an ashtray between them. Her blue eyes, still holding his steadily, had become pools of agony. Shayne asked gently, “Do the Peraltas know about this affair on Long Island?”

“Of course not. Who would employ Marsha Elitzen if they knew? Who would trust that woman in their home… to care for their child? I came to Miami and I chose the name of Briggs. It seemed to me solid and substantial… and far removed from Elitzen. I faked some references with two friends who knew the truth and felt sorry for me. It wasn’t difficult. Few people today check a servant’s references carefully. Particularly people like the Peraltas with two children like the twins to be looked after. They were happy to employ me… after a succession of four other governesses in less than a year. So I have been happy and thinking I could make a new life under a new name… until this. Until the bracelet was stolen. And then I saw it as a recurrence… as a judgment on me. I have been waiting for the police to check more carefully into my background… to learn the truth about me.”

Shayne thoughtfully pulled at his left earlobe between thumb and forefinger, and then finished his drink. He asked abruptly, “Is the situation today the same as it was on Long Island?”

The question appeared to take her completely by surprise. She put both hands up to her cheeks and opened her mouth into an O and inhaled deeply.

“You mean,” she faltered, “do I have another lover who may have betrayed me by stealing the bracelet? No! There is no one. I swear it. I have learned my lesson. I hate and despise all men.”

Her heaving bosom and flashing eyes attested this. “There has been no man in Miami,” she declared vehemently. “But would that matter to the police if they knew? You know I would be judged guilty without a trial. I would be arrested and tried in the newspapers. They would say it cannot be coincidence.”

Shayne looked down at the typewritten anonymous letter and tapped it with a blunt forefinger. “All right. I’ll take your word for that, Miss… Marsha. Now! Who wrote this letter to you?”

For answer, she silently lifted the bar-bill and looked at the total, then took a bill from her purse and laid it atop the check. “I have paid your retainer,” she said composedly. “You will find out for me?”

Shayne grinned at her spunk in so replying. He said, “With a little help from you, I’ll try. To begin with, how many people know who you are and that you have taken the name of Briggs?”