Brett Halliday - The Careless Corpse

“Yes. From my room, the high wall cuts off the view from the other side of the entrance, but through the trees I can see a small part of the walk in from the gate. At dusk tonight, just before real darkness, I heard a car drive up beyond the side gate and stop. I watched out my window idly, and in a few moments saw Brad hurry out the walk to the gate. It opened before he quite reached it, and a woman hurried in. She stumbled and he caught her in his arms and supported her up the path out of my sight. I could not see her face, but she was young and slender and I had a quick impression it was Felice. The car drove away almost at once. A taxi, perhaps. I did not see it.”

“So you think Felice has kept the key and continues to visit the caretaker at night?”

“There is one other small reason I think it was she. She had been drinking with Brad the night she showed me the key, and she boasted of the exciting time they had together. He is supposed to live in the servants’ quarters over the boathouse, but, for their lovemaking, he took her to the master bedroom in the big house and brought up champagne from the cellar. That bedroom is on the second-floor with windows on my side.”

“And?” Shayne pressed her when she stopped.

“Tonight, soon after the brief scene at the gate, lights came on in that room behind drawn shades. They remained on until I went downstairs to dinner. That is why I think Felice will be late reaching home tonight.”

Shayne looked at his watch and said easily, “I have another stop to make first anyway.”

“I know,” she said composedly, without amplifying what she knew. “No matter how late you call on Felice,” she went on with a twinkle in her eyes, “I am very sure she will be most welcoming.”

Shayne had risen and pulled the end of the table back so she could slip out more easily. He paused, looking down at her. “Just what do you mean by that crack?”

“It is not a crack,” she told him sweetly. “It is a fact of life. I think you will have rapport with Felice.” She stood up and tilted her head back to smile at him challengingly. “I like being your client, Michael Shayne,” she announced seriously and surprisingly.

“You’ll make that phone call tonight?”

“Yes. And now I will take a taxi back and you can hurry to the Green Jungle.”

Shayne was taken aback for a moment. “Where did you get that idea?”

“I saw Laura when she looked at you from the dining-table… and when she came back from talking with you.”

Shayne took Marsha’s arm and led her toward the door.

“The Green Jungle can wait. I’ll drive you back.”

He led her firmly to Tim Rourke’s coupe and helped her in.

Shayne pulled to the side of the road in front of the stone gateposts marking the entrance to the Peralta house. A hundred feet beyond, he could see the high stone wall separating the Peralta grounds from its neighbor, and the second story of the big house beyond the wall.

“The bedroom windows are dark now,” Marsha Elitzen said. “Perhaps Brad has taken her home earlier than I thought.”

Shayne said, “Perhaps.”

She opened the door on her side and slid out. She held the door open and told him, “If you could answer that telephone at midnight, Michael Shayne, it would be much easier for me to say ‘yes.’” She closed the door and walked up the driveway before Shayne could reply.

He sat very still for a moment, and then moved the car forward slowly, keeping to the edge of the road and passing the corner of the ten-foot stone wall Marsha had mentioned. He slowed to a complete stop in front of the big iron gates at the main entrance, and pondered the situation for a moment, then drove on very slowly to the other corner of the wall which led straight back from the street to the bank of a canal connecting with the Inland Waterway. Beyond the closed estate was a large vacant area grown up with scrub pines and underbrush, and leading off the street outside the wall was a narrow pair of ruts which Shayne knew must lead to the service entrance described by Marsha.

He turned into the ruts, leaving his headlights on, and half-way down the wall came to a graveled turn-around with wooden gates barring an archway leading into the estate.

He cut off the motor and took time out to light a cigarette, making himself relax and getting the feel of the place.

He could see nothing beyond the high wall at his left, and could hear nothing inside the grounds. Indeed, the night silence all around him was pervasive, and somehow threatening.

The redhead took three, long, contemplative drags at his cigarette before leaning forward and opening the glove compartment where Timothy Rourke always carried an automatic pistol. He took it out and drew back the slide, saw the firing chamber was empty, pulled the slide back the rest of the way to insert a cartridge, and thumbed the safety into place.

He left the headlights burning, directed straight forward along the wall where the entrance road ended, got out of the car and closed the door firmly, not slamming it but making no attempt to muffle the sound which was loud in the silence.

He slid the loaded automatic into his hip pocket and walked briskly to the solid, wooden gates which were on hinges and met snugly in the middle. There was a Yale lock set flush with the surface near the edge of the right-hand gate, and when he pressed hard against it the gates did not budge a fraction, indicating the presence of a heavy and well-fitted latch.

The headlights from the coupe behind him gave enough light for Shayne to see an electric button set in a wooden frame on the left.

He hesitated a long moment before pressing the button, glancing up at the top of the gates, which were just above his head, and at the clear space above them beneath the stone arch. It would be simple enough to swing himself up and over the gates and inside the grounds without announcing his presence-if there were, indeed, anyone inside.

Did he want to meet Brad just now? If the caretaker was amorously engaged with Felice, it wasn’t likely he would enjoy the interruption.

But Shayne did want to talk to Felice, and, if she were here spending the evening surreptitiously, as Marsha suspected, the element of surprise at being caught in a compromising situation might bring more answers from her than he would get by a more conventional approach.

At this point in his thinking, he hesitated no longer. He dropped his cigarette to the ground and toed it out, then put his forefinger firmly on the electric button and held it there for a dozen seconds.

He could hear no sound of a bell inside to indicate that it was connected, but Marsha’s description of the arrival of Brad’s visitor that evening indicated that he must have been summoned to the gate by some means before it was unlocked.

He waited for at least two full minutes, then put his finger on the button again and held it down for at least sixty seconds.

Again, he waited a long time without getting any response whatever. He studied the tops of the gates once more and debated whether it would be wise to enter that way, and reluctantly decided against it. If Brad had taken Felice away (as Marsha somewhat naively surmised) then nothing much would be gained by entering the vacant grounds. If, on the other hand, the caretaker were inside the wall, he would be fully alerted by the ringing of the bell, and Shayne’s legal position would be indefensible if he swung himself over the gate.

He turned away instead, and made his way down the path of the headlight beams alongside the wall toward the bank of the canal about a hundred feet away.

There was no roadway beyond the gates, and Shayne made his way carefully to avoid the sharp fronds of dwarf palmettos and the cunning thorns of briars that sought to waylay him.