Brett Halliday - The Corpse Came Calling

Shayne took his hand. “You’re all right, Otto. It isn’t your fault that a mad dog is running things in Germany.”

Otto went to the door with him and unlatched it. Shayne went back to the dining-room and stopped short when he saw that Phyllis was gone from their table.

Gorstmann came up to him and bowed stiffly, held out the dinner check folded twice. “The lady asked me to give you this, sir,” he said.

Shayne took it, noting that Helen Brinstead had also left the dining-room. He unfolded the check and read Phyllis’s hurried scrawl:

That man Leroy came in and spoke to the heliotrope girl. They went out together. I’m following them in a taxi.

Shayne’s big hands shook a trifle as he read the terse note. He asked Gorstmann, “How long ago did my wife leave?”

“Not more than five minutes.”

Shayne took a five-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to Gorstmann. He directed, “Split what’s left from this with my waiter,” and slid the dinner check into his pocket. He got his hat and hurried outside.

There was no sign of either Helen or Phyllis outside the Danube Restaurant.

Shayne went to his car, swung out of the lot, and drove a block south. He parked in front of a two-story stucco apartment building and hurried into the small foyer. He had Helen’s apartment number, so he didn’t stop at the desk, but went up the stairway in long strides and down the hall to her apartment.

No light showed over the transom. He knocked and waited. There was no sound of movement beyond the closed door. Shayne knocked again, then got out a crowded key ring and began trying keys in the lock. The fourth one unlocked the door.

He stepped in and switched on the light, made a swift survey of the tiny two-room apartment without finding anyone at home. There was a man’s dirty shirt and underwear in the closet with Helen’s clothes, and the remains of a tray dinner was in the kitchenette sink.

Shayne went back to the living-room and switched off the light. He had hold of the knob when he heard footsteps stopping outside. He let go of the knob and stepped back softly.

A key turned the night latch, and the door opened. A hand fumbled along the wall for the light switch. When the light came on, Shayne said, “Hello,” to the man who was closing the door.

The man whirled as Shayne spoke, his breath whistling explosively through a gap in his upper teeth. He was short, muscular, and dark, with close-cropped black hair growing low on his forehead. He backed away from Shayne, crouching a little, and his right hand crept upward toward the unbuttoned top of his sack coat.

He asked, “What are you doing here?” in a hoarse voice that quavered a trifle.

Shayne laughed shortly. “I was about to ask you the same question. And I’d like to know how you come to be entering Helen’s apartment with a key of your own.”

He watched incredulity, dismay, then bewilderment succeed each other on Mace Morgan’s face. The last emotion changed to relief as the escaped convict slowly took in the implication of Shayne’s words and his first fear that he had been tracked down as a fugitive began to leave him. He straightened out of his crouch and glanced down at the flat key in his hand as though surprised to see it there.

“You see,” Shayne went on equably, “I thought I had the only extra key to this dump. I didn’t know that Helen passed them out in wholesale quantities. But hell! A man never knows about a woman. They’re all chippies at heart, and what they give to one man they’ll generally give to another. Am I right?”

The paralyzing glitter of fear was leaving Mace Morgan’s eyes. He eagerly followed the lead offered him by Shayne.

“Yeh,” he said. “Yeh, I guess you just about hit it on the head, pal. I’m like you. I thought I had the only extra key. It’s funny, huh? Ha-ha. We’re both suckers.”

“Looks that way.” Shayne stepped backward, getting out a pack of cigarettes. He shook one out and offered it to Mace, took one himself, and lit them both with the same match.

“I just got back to town,” Shayne explained. “Thought Helen would be glad to see me and I came right over. But I guess she hasn’t been lonely while I was gone.”

“I hope you don’t blame me, pal,” Mace defended himself. “I didn’t know I was cutting in on anybody else.”

“That’s all right.” Shayne waved his hand amiably. “I always say a man’s a damned fool to get sore when some floozie throws him over for another guy. Hell, there’s plenty more.”

“Yeh,” Mace chimed in eagerly. “That’s what I say, too. What’s one got that another can’t give you?”

Shayne said, “I’m not complaining.” He let smoke trail lazily from both nostrils. “Where is Helen? She might be embarrassed if she walked in right now and found both of us waiting for her.”

“Not Helen,” Mace Morgan chuckled. “That gal would take anything in her stride. What do we do-flip to see which one of us stays?”

Shayne said, “To hell with that. I know when I’m getting cold-shouldered.”

“You’re all right,” Mace told him generously. “Yeh, you’re a right guy. I’m sorry I was jumpy when I walked in.”

“I don’t blame you.” Shayne laughed. He went to the door, saying, “You don’t need to say anything about this to Helen if you don’t want to. I won’t horn in again.”

He mopped sweat from his forehead as he went toward the stairs. It was a miracle that the escaped con hadn’t thrown lead first and then started asking questions.

Outside the apartment he got in his car and started back across the causeway to the mainland. Phyllis would probably be in when he got back, he told himself. He’d give her hell for walking out on him like that.

But he drove fast, with his eyes intent on the pavement, his thoughts puzzled by the connection between Leroy and Helen. What was the tie-up between them-between Gorstmann and Lacy? He knew that Lacy had never been choosy about the sort of cases he took-like the divorce racket Helen had worked with him-but it was difficult for Shayne to believe that Lacy would be mixed up in any subversive activities with his country at war. On the other hand, Lacy’s professional reputation was hardly the sort to tie him up with the FBI in combating such enemy activities.

He hadn’t reached any conclusion by the time he reached the mainland and turned into Biscayne Boulevard. He couldn’t reach any conclusion until he learned more about the scrap of cardboard he had taken from Lacy. He was quite sure that Gorstmann had sent Leroy and Joe after Lacy that afternoon to secure the piece of cardboard, and the pair had muffed the assignment somehow when they stopped Lacy on the causeway. Perhaps they had trailed him to Shayne’s apartment, expecting him to die at any moment and Lacy had foiled them by making the superhuman effort that took him to his destination before he died.

Shayne shrugged off all the questions that were bothering him as he reached his apartment hotel. The important thing right now was Phyllis’s safety.

The clerk said he had not seen Mrs. Shayne come back, and handed him a telegram that had just been delivered. Shayne read it as he went up in the elevator. It was from Murphy in New York, and read:

Lacy at Tropical Hotel Miami Beach registered as Albert James. On vacation as near as can learn.

Shayne thrust the message into his pocket and unlocked his apartment. It was dark and empty. He went into the bedroom and got the Tropical Hotel on the telephone. He was informed that Albert James was registered in room 416, but he did not answer the telephone when the operator tried his room.

Shayne went back into the living-room and moodily poured himself a drink. “You’d think,” he said aloud into the silence, “that Phyllis would have learned better last time.”