Brett Halliday - The Uncomplaining Corpses

“Maybe,” Shayne agreed. “But it’d be damn hard to prove.” He stretched his long legs out in front of him and thrust both hands deep into his trousers pockets. His lips pursed into a whistle and he frowned in perplexity.

Mona shuddered at him over her absinthe. “Good Lord! I never saw anything like this in my life-you two sitting there-planning who to frame for a murder as calmly as if you were deciding what to order for supper.”

Shayne’s frown deepened. He paid no attention to her. “We’ve got to have somebody with a motive and opportunity,” he announced. He looked at Renslow suddenly and asked, “How about those notes you wrote your sister? Any chance of their being traced back to you?”

Renslow’s jaw sagged, his eyes keenly defensive. “What notes?”

“I thought we were through playing round the mulberry bush. We’re going to have to get together if we put this thing over right.”

“Sure. That’s what I say. But I don’t know anything about any notes.” He muttered, and took another drink.

Shayne said angrily, “The hell you don’t. If you’re going to hold out on me I’m through, by God.” He got up and started for the door, his jaw jutting.

“Wait,” Renslow begged. “Don’t go running out on me. Honest to God, I’m giving it to you straight What notes are you talking about?”

Shayne stopped near the door. He half turned back, looking from Renslow to Mona with an expression of slowly dawning understanding. “Maybe you didn’t, Renslow, maybe you didn’t. Then that gives it to us on a platter.” He came back slamming his fist into an open palm. “That puts it up to Carl Meldrum. He fits right in the groove.”

He was watching Mona closely from low-lidded eyes. He saw her body jerk. Liqueur spilled from her glass.

“Carl Meldrum?” Renslow repeated. “Yeah. He fits swell and he as good as told me there was something between him and Leora.”

“He’s got Dorothy Thrip on the string,” Shayne explained swiftly. He continued to watch Mona while he spoke to Renslow. “He got tired of waiting for her stepmother to die and leave the girl money so he could marry her and get his hands on it.”

Mona drained her glass and threw it on the floor. “That’s a lie,” she cried passionately. “Do you think I’m going to sit here and let you frame Carl? That’s too much! Sure, he was playing the girl for what he could get, but don’t you think he wasn’t coming home when she paid off.”

“He was there at one-thirty last night,” Shayne told her. “He beat it to the Tally-Ho and told you to fix him up an alibi from one o’clock on.”

“That’s another lie,” Mona raged. Her splendid poise was gone again. “It’s all a pack of lies. He got to the Tally-Ho at one o’clock. I can prove it by half a dozen witnesses.”

“Sure,” Shayne said easily. “You’re a sap and fixed it for him. You’ve been a sap all this time and don’t know it. Get wise. He’s just using you.”

“If I believed that, I’d-” She leaned toward the men, making talons of her long, red-tipped fingers.

“It’s the truth,” Shayne urged. “Here’s your chance to get even. Bust his alibi for last night-that’s all I ask. I’ll do the rest.” His eyes glittered and his voice was hard.

“All right. Sure, I’ll- No! Get out of here, you rat. Get out before I get sore.” She tottered to her feet and began to mouth out an assortment of curses.

Shayne gave her a push that sent her floundering back onto the divan.

“Think it over,” he said coldly. “Get your eyes open and think over what we’ve said.”

She lay back panting, her eyes distended with hatred and fear.

“If you don’t watch your step I’ll see if I can’t pin the murder on you,” Shayne growled. “I’m hanging the rap around somebody’s neck, and don’t forget it.”

He whirled and went from the room.

When Shayne walked into the lobby of his apartment hotel the clerk had the afternoon News spread out on the desk and was reading Shayne’s statement and story, which was prominently displayed. The clerk looked up and smiled nervously when the tall detective came across the lobby with the exaggerated erectness of a man who is very drunk and knows it.

“Gee, Mr. Shayne,” the clerk said, “I’m sorry about the way I acted this morning. I’ve been reading here in the paper-”

“Still believing what you read in the papers, eh?” Shayne’s wide lips twitched. There was a brooding quality of madness in the stare of his bloodshot eyes upon the younger man. Then he made a savage gesture of impatience, dismissing the subject, and stood flat-footed, swaying a trifle from the hips. The sink between his cheek and chin bones was exaggerated into a deep gash.

“Has my wife come back-or phoned?”

“No, sir.” The clerk kept jerking his gaze away from Shayne’s face, then furtively letting his eyes slide back to a Michael Shayne he had never seen before. Finally getting hold of himself, the young man added, “But you’ve got a visitor-a client, I guess. I sent him up to your office. He wouldn’t give me his name but he looked a lot like the Thrip boy’s picture in the morning paper.”

Shayne nodded with no show of surprise. “I’ll go up, Jim.” He started to turn away, paused, and added in a flat, remote tone, “Don’t ever get married, Jim.”

The clerk gaped after him as he went straight to the elevator, which was letting a load of guests out just then. One fat lady didn’t get out of his way very fast. His shoulder swung her sideways and her escort caught her from falling, steadied her, and started after the detective with an indignant yelp, but Shayne stepped into the elevator without looking back and said, “Three,” to the operator, who shrank away from him and clanged the door shut hastily.

On the third floor Shayne’s feet traversed the familiar route to his old bachelor apartment. The door stood ajar and Ernst Thrip jumped up nervously from a deep chair when Shayne came in on heavy heels. The boy opened and closed his mouth two or three times without making any sound.

After one uninterested glance, Shayne disregarded his visitor. He moved with the precise somnambulism of habit to a wall liquor cabinet and took down a bottle of cognac and a wineglass. He brushed past young Thrip to set them on the center table, then strode into the kitchen, where he put ice cubes in a goblet, filled it from the faucet, and came back to set it beside the bottle and smaller glass. His face wore a harsh, preoccupied expression that took no notice of the other’s presence. He poured a drink, lit a cigarette, and sat down at the table with the manner of an acolyte performing a ritual of tremendous importance.

Ernst Thrip had stopped opening and closing his mouth, but the appearance of extreme youth and unintelligence clung to him even while he kept his mouth shut. He had changed from evening clothes to a tan sack suit, and dark rings in the flesh under his eyes asserted that he had not slept for a long time. Smoke curled up past his face from a cigarette in a long ornate holder and his eyelids and lips kept twitching while he waited for Shayne to acknowledge his presence.

Shayne downed a stiff drink of cognac and a swallow of water. He took a deep drag on his cigarette and let thin smoke curl out his wide nostrils. Staring across the room past Ernst Thrip, he said, “Sit down,” in a wearied, gentle tone.

The lad’s eyes brightened. He sank down in the chair he had been occupying before Shayne entered. “You acted so peculiar,” young Thrip faltered, “I didn’t know-”

Shayne said, “I’m drunk as a skunk.” He took another long drink of cognac and didn’t look at the boy.