Brett Halliday - The Uncomplaining Corpses

The telephone shrilled out between them in the silence.

Shayne’s eyes darted to the wall instrument. He put his hands flat on the table top and pushed himself up slowly.

“Don’t you move a step,” Ernst cried out in shrill warning. “It’s one of your tricks.”

The telephone kept on ringing.

Shayne swung toward Ernst abruptly. In a thick voice he said, “I’m going to answer that phone.”

He took a quick stride forward and a sibilant gasp escaped Ernst’s lips. There was a loud report in the room and a bullet stung Shayne’s thigh.

He whirled and lunged at the youth, who was looking down at the smoking weapon in his hands as though he didn’t know how it got there, Shayne’s rush slammed him to his knees and the detective’s fist crunched against the side of his head. Ernst slid to the floor and lay inert.

The telephone had stopped ringing when Shayne got to it.

He jerked the receiver off the hook and said, “Hello.”

The hotel clerk’s voice answered apologetically. “I’m sorry, Mr. Shayne, but your wife must have hung up or she was disconnected.”

“My-wife?” Shayne repeated.

“Yes, sir. She seemed excited and in a hurry and I tried to get you right away on both phones.”

“She didn’t say anything? Where she was-or anything?”

“No. She waited to talk to you when I told her you were here.”

Shayne said, “Thanks,” in a flat voice and hung up. Sweat dripped from new lines in his face as he walked slowly back to the table. He picked up the drink he had poured for Ernst and emptied it in one gulp.

Then he looked across at the young man, who was struggling to get to his feet, and said, “I think I’m going to kill you. You baby-faced twerp, do you know what you’ve done? You don’t know-and you don’t care, do you? You’re so swelled out with your own filthy affairs that you’re not worrying about anything else.”

Shayne advanced toward him slowly, knotted fists hanging loosely by his sides. Ernst cringed away, scrambling on the floor for the pistol that had fallen from his fingers. Shayne waited until he got hold of it, then very deliberately took a quick stride and brought his big foot down on the hand over the pistol. Ernst squealed with pain as blood oozed from crushed fingers. Shayne laughed.

“You stinking little louse. What gives people like you the idea that they can walk in here and throw slugs at me for the fun of it and then go out under their own power? And stop me from answering my own telephone under gun threats? Answer me that!”

With his hand pinioned under Shayne’s heavy foot, Ernst thrashed about on the floor, his screams racking through the room.

Shayne continued to curse in a low, hard monotone, grinding Ernst’s hand and wrist into the rug. Then, disdaining to touch him with his hands, Shayne kicked the boy’s body once, with savage force.

Ernst’s squeal died away to a rasping whimper; he lay limp. The detective drew back, eying the body reflectively, as though somewhat surprised to see Ernst there. He rubbed one hand over his jaw, and then across his eyes. Ernst didn’t move. From where he stood, Shayne couldn’t tell whether he was breathing or not.

At the moment it didn’t matter a hell of a lot. He was still wondering sickly where Phyllis was and why she had been prevented from finishing her telephone call.

After a time he called Chief Will Gentry, keeping his back turned on Ernst’s figure.

He said, “Hello, Will,” pleasantly. “Mike Shayne on this end. I think maybe I’ve killed young Thrip. Better send a doctor up to my apartment with a basket to pick him up. What? Well, why not? I may kill off the rest of the family before I get through. I don’t give a damn what you do about it, Will. Any dope on Carl Meldrum? Okay. I’ll be seeing you.”

He hung up and went out, leaving the door closed but unlatched. In the hall he shivered and went up the steps to his living-apartment and got a coat.

In ten minutes he was on his way to Miami Beach.

At the Palace Hotel, Shayne asked at the desk for Carl Meldrum. The clerk was not the one who had been on duty when the detective called early that morning. He shook his head with disinterest and said that Meldrum had been out all day.

Shayne questioned the clerk and listened grimly while he learned that a young lady had called for Meldrum before noon, had gone up to his room, and come down with him about an hour later. Meldrum had ordered his car brought around from the garage and they had driven away together.

Again, as he had over the telephone, the clerk described the young lady who had gone out with Carl Meldrum. He had no idea what the girl’s name was. But Mike Shayne recognized Phyllis in his words.

Further questioning produced no information beyond that which Gentry’s man had elicited. As far as the clerk knew, Meldrum was a typical wealthy tourist taking the Miami sun and avoiding boredom by spending much time at the hot spots in the company of various women. He primly informed Shayne that it was not the policy of the hotel management to inquire too closely into the private affairs of their guests, and admitted that it was not unusual for Meldrum to be absent from his room for a couple of days and nights at a time. He understood it was a police matter and was perfectly willing to co-operate, but he had no suggestion as to where to start searching for Meldrum. He was certain, however, that neither Meldrum nor the girl had taken any luggage.

When Shayne turned away from the desk he spotted a Miami plain-clothes man seated unobtrusively in a corner of the lobby. He gave the man a wink as he strolled to the door and the cop joined him outside a moment later.

He said, “Hi, Mike. I didn’t know whether you wanted me to make you in there or not.”

Shayne frowned. “It wouldn’t have mattered a hell of a lot, Fred. Are you laying for Meldrum?”

“Yep. He hasn’t shown yet”

“I don’t think he will. But if he does, for God’s sake don’t lose him. You’ve seen my wife’s pictures in the paper, haven’t you, Fred?”

“Yep. She’s a knockout, Mike. I don’t see how the hell you rated-”

Wearily Shayne said, “Skip it. She’s the woman who went out with Meldrum.”

The Miami detective’s eyes widened. “Your wife? Now, what the hell-”

Again Shayne broke in. “She contacted him with some crazy idea of helping me out of the spot I’m in for the Thrip killing. If Meldrum finds out who she is-”

He paused, his face sober in the deepening twilight. With an effort he shrugged his heavy shoulders. “If they come back together get her away from him, Fred. If he comes back alone, grab him and get him across the line to Miami before Painter can stop you.”

“Sure,” Fred said awkwardly. “Say, I’m sorry as hell.”

Shayne nodded. He turned up the collar of his belted trench coat and thrust his hands deep into slash pockets. He turned away, got in his roadster while the cop watched him anxiously, and drove straight to the Miami Beach police headquarters. There he parked and went in.

A group of cops in the outer office scowled at him as he went by. He went on back to Peter Painter’s private office, turned the knob, and strode through the door. Painter looked up from some papers with a wispy smile on his thin lips. He tilted his swivel chair back and said unpleasantly, “Ah, Shayne. I wondered where you were hiding out.”

Shayne hooked his toe under the rung of a straight chair and dragged it close to Painter’s desk. He sat down solidly and explained, “I’ve been too busy looking for Mrs. Thrip’s murderer to do any hiding out.”

Peter Painter’s forefinger trembled while the tip of it caressed his silky black mustache. “Still determined to make an ass of yourself, eh?”