Brett Halliday: The Corpse Came Calling

“Be sure you’re not holding out anything, Mike,” Gentry advised. “No fast stuff on this one. If the FBI is interested it must be too hot to handle locally. With the nation at war, the public isn’t going to stand for any monkey business along that line.”

Shayne shrugged. He said, “I’ve always been able to take care of myself.”

“Yeh.” Gentry got up, setting his empty glass down. “Be sure you can this time, Mike.”

Shayne said, “I’ll manage.” He turned back to sit by Phyllis again, put his arm around her waist. “Suppose you two birds get on about your detecting. My wife is still upset from having a corpse calling on her.”

“Come on,” Gentry advised Painter. “We’ll get nothing more out of Mike right now.”

Phyllis turned a frightened face to Shayne when the door closed behind the two detective chiefs. “Are you making a mistake, Michael? With the G-men coming-”

He laughed and ruffled her lustrous black hair. “I’ve made mistakes before-and paid for them.” He went to the desk and rummaged in a drawer, drew out a small memorandum book and rifled through it.

“Get long-distance, angel. I’ve got to talk to New York.”

He found the number he wanted and gave it to her when she got the operator. He drew a chair up to the desk and took the telephone when the connection was ready. He said:

“Hello… Murphy. How’s the boy? That’s good. This is Mike Shayne calling from Miami, Florida. I’ve got a couple of jobs for you and I want them fast. Get hold of a pencil and take this down: First, Jim Lacy. New York private license-in Miami at present on a job. Find out what job, his Miami address-anything else pertinent. Next: Check on one Mace Morgan. Sent up the river a few months ago from your town. I want Morgan’s present status-the dope on his conviction, whether he’s married, to whom, when, his wife, if any-her description, everything about her. That’s number two. Number three is Charles Worthing. Supposed to be wealthy, divorce action pending in New York. Get the facts on him and the divorce-corespondent if any; all the dope on her, any rumors about his present love life. That’s all, Murph… Sure, I know it’s a hell of a big order. Wire me on each one as you get anything. That’s it-and the bill comes to me. Start jumping.”

He hung up and smiled when he saw the perplexed expression on Phyllis’s face. “Don’t ask me any questions, angel. I’ve got to move fast to stay ahead of Mr. Hoover’s lads.”

“But I don’t understand any of it,” she wailed.

“Neither do I-yet.” The grin faded from Shayne’s face. He reached in his pocket for the irregularly shaped piece of cardboard he had removed from Jim Lacy’s stiffening fingers. “This least of all,” he muttered, laying it on the desk. “Take a gander at it and see what you see.”

It was little more than an inch square, with ragged edges showing it had been torn on both sides and the bottom.

At the top of the strip, in printed letters, was part of a word without beginning or end: NSYLVA, and directly below was a W and YOR. Below that were rubber-stamped single letters and fragments of words which seemed completely meaningless. At the very bottom, just above where it had been torn, were two large figures, block-printed in red ink, an 8, and a 2.

“It looks like-” Phyllis began, but broke off, shaking her head. “It looks like part of something, but I don’t know what. If there were only a little more of it I have a feeling I’d know.”

Shayne nodded. “Exactly. It strikes some chord in my memory but doesn’t come clear. The other side isn’t any more helpful,” he added, turning the torn scrap over.

He read fragments of printed words aloud:… ice to pa… o avoid pay… ge it shoul… tely on arr… all ord… He stopped, shaking his head. “To hell with it. If it’s a code, I still wouldn’t know. Maybe Lacy just collected such small items as a hobby, treasured them even in death. All we can do right now is to treasure this one as though we intended to start a screwy collection of our own.”

He hesitated with the scrap of cardboard in his hand, frowning in deep concentration. “Wait a minute. I know what this thing is. It’s a piece torn from the middle of a baggage receipt-a railway or express claim check. Both sides and the bottom have been torn off this fragment. But that still doesn’t tell us why Lacy was treasuring it unto death.” He leaned forward and tilted the typewriter up, lifted a corner of the sponge-rubber pad, and deposited the bit of cardboard underneath.

He caught Phyllis’s arm and lifted her from her chair. “We’re stymied until I get a reply from Murphy. Let’s go up to the apartment and change to go out for dinner. And remind me to send this rug to the cleaners,” he ended as they went out. “That splotch of fresh blood might not make a favorable impression on new clients.”

As soon as she entered the upstairs apartment Phyllis stopped and sniffed the air. She turned to Shayne, puckering her nose in distaste. “Heliotrope perfume. In the excitement, I forgot all about the female you were interviewing while Mr. Painter was proving me a liar. Was she pretty, Michael?”

“Ugly as a mud fence,” he assured her. “She had a dripping nose with a wart on the end of it. She tried to hide a bad case of B.O. with heliotrope perfume, but-”

“Stop being funny. I know when you’re trying to throw me off the scent. What did she want? Did she know anything about Jim Lacy?”

Shayne said, “U-m-m,” and strode past Phyllis toward the bedroom. She hurried after him, grabbed his arm. “No secrets, Michael. I’m already in it as an accessory before or after the fact or something.”

Shayne grinned down at his wife’s serious face. “You know I wouldn’t hold out on you. Oh, she was pretty enough, I guess. Big blue eyes and platinum hair and one of those figures that melt into a Lastex bathing-suit. But I girded up my loins and held her at arm’s length. Even if you aren’t very pretty, angel, you’re my wife. I’m stuck with you for better or worse, so I just told the gal-”

“Really, Michael, I’m serious. What did she want?” Phyllis went past him to a dressing-table where she fluffed out her hair, leaning forward to peer at herself in the oval mirror.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Shayne warned. He loosened his tie and tossed it aside, began unbuttoning his shirt. “She pleaded with me to murder her husband.”

“Murder her hus-” Phyllis whirled, open-mouthed with horror. Then she scoffed, “I see. She fell madly in love with you at first sight, I suppose.”

Shayne grinned, peeling off his shirt. “You ought to understand that, angel, the way you acted the first time you met me.”

“I certainly did not fall in love with you. I thought you were the most infuriating male I’d ever met.”

Shayne’s grin widened. “All right, angel. You asked me what the lady wanted and I told you. Do I get into the bathroom to shave or must I wait an hour or so while you soak the lovely body in bath salts?”

“Oh, go ahead and shave your ugly face.” Phyllis stamped her foot. “You make me so damn mad, Mike Shayne.”

“You should learn to curb that black Irish temper of yours,” Shayne reproved. He went into the bathroom whistling cheerily.

Phyllis made a face behind his back, then unzipped her linen frock and drew it over her head. As she put it on a hanger in the clothes closet she called plaintively, “All right, I’ll bite. Why did she want to murder her husband?”

“You haven’t been married long enough to understand,” he called back. “Wait a few years and you’ll know more about that angle.”