Brett Halliday - The Corpse Came Calling

“You’re in time to write the story as I promised your editor,” Shayne assured him. “I’m under arrest so you don’t have to worry about that angle, Tim.”

Rourke set his teeth and checked a scathing reply. He caught Gentry’s arm and began talking fast in a low tone as they went toward the baggage room. Shayne and his two escorts brought up the rear.

Pearson was waiting impatiently at the counter for reclaiming overdue baggage, glancing at his watch, and chewing his underlip. Outside the station a bell was ringing to warn late passengers that the train was about to depart.

A baggage man came from a back room carrying a shiny pigskin suitcase. He heaved it onto the counter and consulted a slip in his hand. “There’s some storage charges on this bag. Let’s see-”

Pearson grabbed the handle and swung around. “Take care of it for me,” he directed Gentry. “There’s not a moment to be lost getting this to Washington.”

Gentry said, “Sure,” but Shayne cut in:

“This is a lousy climax. How do you know the plans are in that suitcase?”

“Of course they are. They must be.” Pearson was hurrying to catch the train.

Shayne raised his voice. “Hold it, Barton.”

Pearson’s stride faltered. He half turned his head in response, then caught himself, and jerked forward in a trot.

Shayne said, “That does it.” He lunged away from the perfunctory grip of his guards, made a football tackle that brought Pearson and the suitcase down on top of him.

Pearson had his gun almost out of an underarm holster and they threshed around on the floor with Shayne getting a grip on his gun hand and another arm around his neck. He kept twisting and tossing, rolling about so that Pearson was first on top and then underneath. Hands grabbed at them and he heard Gentry shouting for someone to let him have a sap.

Then he heard the chuffing of the locomotive outside and knew the train was pulling away. He heaved himself on top of Pearson and wrenched the man’s gun away from his hand, ducked to avoid the vicious swing of a blackjack, and shouted hoarsely.

“Lay off, you fools!” He threw the gun away from him with a jerk of his wrist, reeled to his feet, and confronted Chief Gentry, who was boiling with anger for the first time since Shayne had known him.

“Put the cuffs on him,” Gentry ordered curtly. Then: “God damn you, Mike. I won’t lift a finger if they court-martial you for this. You’ve made Pearson miss his train with your grandstand play.”

“Not Pearson,” Shayne corrected, holding out his wrists for the handcuffs. He glanced aside and saw Pearson covertly edging toward the door.

“If you don’t grab him now,” Shayne said wearily, “it’s your own fault. His name is Barton and-”

The pseudo G-man leaped for the door as Shayne spoke. For once, Will Gentry acted before asking questions. He drew his own service revolver and bellowed, “Stop.”

Barton glanced over his shoulder at the leveled. 38 and stopped running. He shrugged and came back, saying, “Washington will hear about this, Chief Gentry.”

Shayne said, “I don’t think Washington will be interested. But the New York police are going to be interested in the contents of that suitcase.”

Gentry sighed and asked, “What are you up to, Mike?” and soothed Barton by saying, “Your train has gone now. No use getting in a dither.”

“Don’t waste time being polite to him,” Shayne growled. “He’s no more a G-man than I am. His name is J. Winthrop Barton, junior member of the brokerage firm of Gross, Ernstine, Gross, and Barton, who helped Jim Lacy and Mace Morgan steal a hundred grand from his own firm. If the evidence isn’t in that suitcase I’ll turn in my license.”

“Not a fed?” Gentry expostulated. “But Painter sent him over to me.” He turned slowly toward Peter Painter, whose face showed an agony of indecision and doubt.

“Of course he’s a G-man,” Painter sputtered. “I don’t know what Shayne’s up to, but it won’t get him anywhere.”

Shayne laughed happily. He asked, “Did Mr. Barton show you any credentials to prove he was Pearson of the FBI?”

“N-No. But I had that official wire from Hoover saying he was sending a special agent named Pearson.”

Shayne laughed again. He turned to Gentry. “Painter had a wire from Hoover,” he explained witheringly. “That is, he received a telegram from Washington signed J. Edgar Hoover. I admit I don’t know how Barton worked it, but he sent that telegram. And Painter fell for it. As if Hoover were sending personal wires around to punk detective chiefs. Hell, the FBI has a branch office in Miami. If they’d wanted Lacy picked up they would have communicated with their local office.”

Gentry’s face was purple. He demanded, “Is that right, Painter? Good God! Did you introduce him to me as a G-man with nothing more than such a telegram to go on?”

“But the telegram must have been authentic. It carried the official government designation-and you know no telegraph office in Washington would accept such a wire from just anyone.”

Shayne laughed at the plaintive note in Painter’s voice. Before Pearson could speak, he cut in. “You should have been an actor, Barton. You played your role so well I would have been taken in if I hadn’t known the telegram was a forgery.”

The Wall Street broker smiled with pleasure. “I’ve always had a desire to go on the stage.” He caught himself up with a jerk as he realized the admission his vanity had trapped him into making, then shrugged and continued urbanely. “It seems useless to deny it now. No, Mr. Painter, I filed that telegram myself. It cost me exactly one hundred dollars to convince the telegraph operator it was a harmless hoax and to have it sent as an official message. Though I must confess I expected I would be called upon to produce credentials when I reached Miami, but I had to take that chance and it was the only way I could think of to stop Lacy from getting this suitcase. When you took me at face value and vouched for me to Chief Gentry, I could do no less than take advantage of the situation. It was what I hoped for, of course.”

Painter started to say something but choked over the words. He turned abruptly and stamped away with his shoulders squared and his head high.

“You played the part damn well,” Shayne said to Barton. “Your story about the stolen military plans was a masterpiece and I would have believed it if I hadn’t known you were a phony.”

“For God’s sakes,” pleaded Gentry, “say something that makes sense, Mike. You mean there weren’t any stolen plans?”

“For all I know, government plans are being stolen every day. But not in this case. This is merely the hundred grand swag from a holdup that was supposed to be divided three ways. Barton did a magnificent job of mixing fact with fiction in a desperate attempt to get hold of that suitcase. His spy story contained just enough of the truth to make it plausible.”

Shayne paused and laughed at the bemused expressions on the faces of Gentry and Rourke. Rourke’s lips were swollen from the tape. He wet them and started to say something.

Shayne urged, “Don’t take it so hard. You both had two strikes on you because you accepted Barton as an FBI. I knew he wasn’t, because Painter had told me about the telegram which was supposedly sent by Hoover. I don’t get any credit for figuring it out on that basis.” He looked straight at Rourke and added, “Past records don’t seem to mean much around here, anyway.”

Rourke again moistened his sticky lips and started to say something. His face was very red.

Shayne shrugged and turned to J. Winthrop Barton. “I suppose you have a key to that suitcase. It has the appearance of belonging to a Wall Street broker.”