Brett Halliday - The Careless Corpse

These must be the Brats, Shayne realized, looking at them with a grin and wondering which was Edwin and which Edwina.

They were dressed exactly alike in slacks and short-sleeved seersucker sport shirts, and they looked exactly identical at first glance with fair hair cut boyishly short and eager faces studying him with unabashed curiosity. They were about ten, he guessed, and whichever of the two was Edwina hadn’t yet developed sufficient feminine traits to distinguish her from her brother.

“Hey,” one of them said to Freed. “Eddie says she heard Annette whisper to you that Mike Shayne was here. Is that right? Is this him?”

“Are you Mike Shayne?” Eddie, who was evidently the sister, looked at the detective in some disappointment. “Where’s your gat, if you’re a detective?”

“Aw, he doesn’t carry it out in sight, you nut,” said her brother in disgust. “But you don’t look so tough, either,” he added to Shayne. “All those newspaper stories are the bunk, I bet.”

“Ed,” said Freed fretfully, “you and Eddie should be back at the table. I’m certain your father wouldn’t approve…”

“Why not? Hey, Dad!” Ed turned and raised his voice in a shrill shout. “That detective’s in here. You gonna hire him to get back the bracelet?”

Freed clamped his pouting lips together disapprovingly and turned away hurriedly to go back along the hallway, his plump hips wiggling behind him.

Shayne sank back into his chair and grinned at the Brats. “Now you’ve upset him.”

“Oh, him,” said Eddie airily. “He’s always upset. He’s just a nance.”

“Hey,” exclaimed Ed, “why aren’t you guzzling cognac?”

“For the simple reason,” said Shayne, “that no one has brought me any. Most inhospitable house I ever visited.”

“Call yourself a detective?” giggled Eddie. She trotted around in front of Shayne, knelt before the smoking stand in front of his chair and pressed a button at the bottom. The front of the stand swung open showing a shelf holding a cut-glass decanter filled with amber liquid and six large snifters in a neat row. “Right under your nose all the time and you didn’t even know it.”

Shayne grinned appreciatively as he reached a long arm for one of the snifters and held it for Eddie to splash cognac in the bottom. He was holding it to his nose, warming it with the palms of both hands, when they were interrupted by footsteps in the hall and an angry voice saying, “… told you a thousand times you’re not paid to do my thinking for me. I don’t care what the chief of detectives told you…”

The footsteps stopped in the doorway and the voice softened somewhat: “You two youngsters run along now. Daddy has important business to discuss with Mr. Shayne.”

“Aw, heck,” they moaned in unison. “Can’t we stay, Dad? Can’t we watch him detect?”

Shayne took another deep inhalation of the fumes of ancient brandy and lowered the snifter to look at his millionaire host.

Julio Peralta was very tall and very thin. He appeared to be about fifty, and had a gaunt face and black eyes beneath beetling brows. He glanced at Shayne with a brief nod as the detective rose, but spoke to the twins again, “Not this time. I’m sure Mr. Shayne will be glad to explain his methods to you later, but you’re to go in to Mother now.”

They said, “Aw, heck,” again, and started to edge away unwillingly, their round eyes fixed on Shayne. “Aren’t you gonna drink it?” demanded Eddie sotto voce, and Shayne nodded solemnly and tipped up the snifter to empty the contents down his throat.

“You go along with the children,” said Peralta to his secretary, who stood two paces behind him. “I won’t need your help with what I have to say to Shayne.”

He stood just inside the door, waiting until the trio vanished, then sighed heavily and closed the door. He passed in front of the detective with a springy step for his years and said impatiently, “Sit down. Help yourself to the brandy, if you wish. And then explain why the devil you didn’t show up this afternoon.”

Shayne said, “I was shanghaied.” He sat down and poured more brandy, asking with interest, “Why is Chief Painter so determined I shan’t see you?”

“Painter? Is he really? I had no idea… Shanghaied, eh? Exactly what do you mean by that?”

Shayne shrugged. “Your secretary tried to get rid of me by saying you made other arrangements after I failed to show up.”

“Nathaniel sometimes takes too much on himself.” Peralta sank into a deep chair near Shayne and produced a leather cigar-pouch. He started to extend it to the detective, noticed the lighted cigarette between his fingers, and selected a cigar for himself. “I was irritated when you didn’t turn up. Naturally. I spoke of the possibility of getting another detective, and, without instructions, my secretary telephoned Chief Painter for a recommendation.”

“Painter already knew you had called me in, I presume,” said Shayne easily.

“What’s that? Why, yes. He came here around three o’clock to ask if I had some idea of hiring you, and was most offensive in warning me against doing so. It appears he doesn’t think highly of your abilities or trustworthiness.”

Shayne grinned and took a long sip of warm cognac. “Why does he care if you call in outside help?”

“There was a lot of talk,” said Peralta indifferently, “about your connections among the criminal elements and your reputation for arranging deals in cases like this where the thief is offered immunity and a certain sum of money for the return of stolen goods. Chief Painter is too ethical to countenance any such arrangements and threatens to arrest you as accessory if you make any such attempt.

“But all this is beside the point, Mr. Shayne,” Peralta went on impatiently. “The bracelet was completely insured and I am not particularly interested in whether it is recovered or not. I pointed out to Painter that certainly I had no interest in paying out money for its recovery. That is entirely up to the insurance people.”

“Naturally,” agreed Shayne drily. “So, why did you want to see me?”

“Because of a letter I received this morning.” Peralta took an envelope from his inner breast pocket, studied it for a moment, then leaned forward to hand it to Shayne. “Luckily Nathaniel was otherwise occupied this morning when the mail came, and I opened this first. No one else has seen it, Mr. Shayne.”

It was a plain, stamped envelope with no return address. Julio Peralta’s name and address were neatly printed in ink on the front. It was postmarked Miami, Florida, 4:30 the preceding afternoon. Shayne set his brandy down and took a single sheet of plain letter-size paper from the envelope.

There was no heading or date at the top. It was neatly printed, like the envelope:

“Dear Mr. Peralta:

“I’ve got your so-called ‘emerald’ bracelet. I mean the one stolen from your wife recently, which they say is insured for $110,000.

“You can have it back and no one the wiser on payment of one-half the insurance. As a business man, I think you’ll agree this is a bargain.

“Put $55,000 in old, twenty-dollar bills in a plain 9x12 manila envelope, securely sealed and address to James Morgan, General Delivery, Miami, Florida, and mail to me at the main post office in Miami before 12:00 noon on Thursday, the 14th.

“If you do this and don’t try to trace the receiver of the money, your bracelet will be returned to you by registered mail within a few days. Then you can keep the imitation and go ahead and collect the insurance money.

“If you are too greedy to share equally with me, or if anything at all goes wrong, the imitation emerald bracelet will be sent to Mr. Timothy Rourke, feature writer for the Miami News, with a full explanation of your attempt to collect $110,000 insurance on an imitation worth a few hundred dollars. I know Mr. Rourke will enjoy printing the story and exposing you for the crook I, alone, now know you to be.