Brett Halliday - She Woke to Darkness

Her face was cold and restrained now. She said, “I guess so, Lew. They came around to see me, too. But I didn’t know anything except she had smooched with him when she was tight.”

“But what’s his death got to do with Elsie now?” protested Recker to Shayne. “She was completely exonerated at the time. As I recall it she had a perfect alibi which satisfied the police.”

Shayne nodded grimly. “An alibi I’m going to bust wide open with a little help from you two and maybe some others who were involved at the time. There’s a small matter of a telephone call she made to Green that night which the police never heard about. Why did the bartender lie to me about that?” He swung on Estelle with the question.

“I have no idea,” she said thinly. “If he did lie to you. I heard you accuse him of doing that, but I’m sure I know nothing about it.”

“I’m not so sure,” Shayne told her grimly. “Can you prove you didn’t go there this morning after you heard about Elsie’s death to bribe him to lie about it?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you realized that her death would inevitably open up the old investigation again and the police might eventually get around to asking Jack the same question I asked him. Isn’t that why you sent her there?” he flung at Lew Recker.

“I didn’t send her there. First thing I knew of all this was a few minutes ago when she came in frightened to say she’d been insulted by a redheaded drunk. Isn’t that the truth, Estelle?”

She nodded, tight-lipped. “I just happened to drop in for a cocktail before lunch. I’d read about Elsie and so had the bartenders who used to know her. We talked about how awful it was, that’s all. Then you insisted on sitting at my table, and accusing Jack of lying about some telephone call. And that’s all I know about any of it.”

Shayne paused a moment. He was at a distinct disadvantage in not knowing how to connect these two up with the persons Elsie had described in her script. He didn’t know positively, of course, that either of them was the original for any of her characters. But he had a strong hunch that at least one of the couple before him would turn out to be either Ralph or Dirk or Doris or Ina or Bart. If he could guess the true identity of either and throw his knowledge of their involvement in Green’s murder at them, they might possibly break down and start giving him the information he needed.

Elsie had, of course, described Green’s roommate almost exactly as Lew Recker. Yet she had told Halliday she had changed the physical descriptions of all her characters, and also, from Radin’s newspaper clippings he knew the roommate’s name was actually Alfred Hayes.

Dirk, Ralph, or Bart?

“You’re not married, I take it?” he asked Recker abruptly.

“Hell, no. What’s that got to do…?”

“What kind of a car do you drive?”

“I’ve got a Chrysler right now, if that helps solve your case.” Lew Recker was over his first fright now. He was reverting to the suavely sardonic man-of-the-world pose he had adopted with Shayne earlier.

“I think maybe it does,” Shayne said thoughtfully. “Is it the same car you drove Elsie home in the night Green was murdered?”

Recker’s mouth gaped open in utter consternation and fear. His eyes goggled at Shayne and he stammered weakly, “I… I don’t know…”

“Cut it out,” Shayne said wearily. “You know it’s all down in the police records. You told them you drove Elsie home from the party and left her at her door. You also told them that you went on from there to Estelle’s place and visited with her for a few hours, drinking and making a little innocent love to her while Elbert Green was getting himself killed in the Beloit Hotel… and that was your alibi.”

“It was true, too,” flared Estelle. “If he’d needed an alibi. Which he didn’t. Why should Lew have killed anybody?”

“I don’t know,” Shayne confessed. “The police never did establish a motive for Green’s death. But they also were never able to establish the identity of the woman who registered at the hotel with Green that night. I think I can.”

“And who do you think it was, master-mind?” Recker had recovered his sneering poise now.

“Elsie, of course. As you very well know. As you knew very well at the time. You perjured yourself, and that happens to be a felony in New York.”

“Perjured myself? When and how?” His voice was airy.

“When you gave the police your story of the evening.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I certainly did not perjure myself. I believe I can prove I answered every question truthfully.”

“That’s quibbling. Let’s say, then, that you withheld important evidence. You may have told your story accurately up to the point where Elsie turned up at Estelle’s apartment and broke up the thing you were having. But you left that part out. And so did you, Estelle, when the police questioned you.”

“Lew and I agreed to say nothing about it,” she faltered. “We both liked Elsie and knew she could have had nothing to do with that man’s death. Wouldn’t you do as much for a friend you knew was innocent?”

“How could you know she was innocent?”

“Anyone who knew Elsie would know.” Estelle spread out her hands nervously. “Lew and I felt sorry for her and knew it would sound awfully suspicious to the police if they learned she didn’t know what she had been doing or where she’d been during those four hours. They never would have believed she hadn’t gone to the hotel with Mr. Green.”

“I agree with you there,” said Shayne. “Are you going to claim now that you didn’t know she was the woman who registered with Green as Mr. and Mrs. Pell?”

“I’m still sure she wasn’t,” said Estelle spiritedly. “Even passed out, Elsie wouldn’t do a loathsome thing like that.”

“All this is beside the point,” put in Recker. “Stop discussing it with him, darling. He has no official standing at all. If the police want to ask us any questions, we’ll answer them.”

“You’ll answer me… and fast,” Shayne told him harshly. “From what Estelle has just said, I gather you didn’t tell even her about the midnight phone call Elsie made to Green.”

“Telephone call! Telephone call! What telephone call?” demanded Recker irritably. “It’s the first I heard of it. Who says she made such a call?”

“I do.”

“Why? Where did you get such an idea?” Recker’s voice rose shrilly.

“Let’s just say I have private sources of information, I do know she called Green from the bar down the street after borrowing a dime from Jack, the bartender.”

“But he denied it,” Estelle reminded him swiftly. “I heard him myself.”

“He’ll change his story and admit the truth when the pressure goes on.” Shayne spoke directly to Recker. “No matter how much money you or Elsie paid him to remain quiet, he’ll not stay bought when the Homicide boys start pounding. So you may as well start admitting the truth right now.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Recker stubbornly.

Shayne leaned forward and slapped him hard. The force of the open-handed blow knocked him sprawling on the floor.

Estelle screamed and came at the redhead with contorted face and fingers curved into claws. All trace of patrician hauteur had departed. Invectives spewed from her lips when Shayne caught both wrists in one hand and swung her aside to hold her helpless while he glared down at Recker.

“I want one name from you two. A name and an address. Who is the man who completed Elsie’s fake alibi for that night by claiming he was in her apartment with her during the time we all know she was with Green?”