Brett Halliday - Dividend on Death

“Why don’t you and the coroner move your offices up here? Then you could keep a hearse backed up to the door and give these people real service.”

“Why don’t you,” Painter snarled in thin-lipped rage, “go to hell?”

Shayne shrugged his shoulders patiently. “It was just a helpful suggestion.”

“I’ll get dressed,” Mr. Montrose quavered, “if you don’t need me for a minute.”

Painter didn’t pay any attention to him. He advanced toward Shayne. “I’ve been looking for you all morning.”

“I haven’t been hiding.” Shayne slouched back in his chair and drew deeply on his cigarette. Painter stood before him, spread-legged and flatfooted.

“I’ve found out where Charlotte Hunt was last night before she was murdered.”

“Not jealous, are you?”

“You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, Shayne.”

“I don’t intend to do any.”

Painter’s eyes blazed murderously. His fingers curled into claws by his side. He said, breathing hard, “I’ll read Pedique’s confession if you don’t mind.”

“His confession?” Shayne lifted bushy eyebrows.

“Don’t try to hold out on me. Montrose saw it.”

“Mr. Montrose must have been seeing things,” Shayne told him softly. “Doctor Pedique left no confession.”

“Now, by God-” Painter began to tremble.

“Don’t go off the deep end,” Shayne soothed. “Doctor Pedique did leave quite a lengthy private document but it really wouldn’t interest you.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Painter’s anger spilled over into his voice. “Where is it?”

Shayne pointed to the pile of ashes. “I was afraid you wouldn’t listen to reason, so I burned it.”

“After reading it?”

“Naturally.”

Painter drew up a chair and sat down rigidly, as though he might fly into a thousand pieces if he relaxed. He said, “You’re either a fool, Shayne, or the Goddamnedest scoundrel it’s ever been my misfortune to encounter.”

Shayne ground out his cigarette and grinned. “Take your choice.”

“I’m through letting you give me the run-around, Shayne.”

This didn’t seem to call for any reply, so Shayne didn’t give it one.

“You’re doubly implicated now,” Painter warned him. “Triply, by God. You can’t get away with destroying evidence in a murder case.”

“But I have,” Shayne told him mockingly. “And the hell of it is you’ve got to play ball with me, Painter. You’ve got to have what I’ve got and you’re beginning to suspect that you can’t blackjack it out of me.”

Painter waited a moment to get hold of himself before asking, “What was in Pedique’s confession?”

“That’s something you’ll never know.”

“Don’t push me too far, Shayne. I warn you. I’m willing to co-operate, you understand. But your attitude makes co-operation impossible.”

“We’ll co-operate my way,” Shayne told him, watching the dapper little man from beneath lowered lids as carefully as any dry-fly fisherman ever played a heavy trout in a rushing mountain stream. He continued slowly. “I hold the winning cards and all you’ve got is a busted straight. I don’t have to bluff. Get this straight. I burned that damned screwy note of Pedique’s to keep you from making an ass of yourself. You’re under so much pressure to make an arrest that you would have rushed to the newspapers with a fool statement that the case was closed-and ruined everything-including yourself and my client. I’m not under pressure and I’m gathering up the loose ends. If you’ll sit tight for twenty-four hours I’ll hand you a story that will crack the headlines all over the country. I’m talking straight and for the last time. I was in Miami before you came and I’ll be here after you’re gone. If you’re smart you’ll play ball. You can glom onto all the glory when it’s over. I’m after something else. Is it a go, or isn’t it?” He stood up and waited.

“Twenty-four hours,” Painter groaned. “They’re hard on my tail for some action. And this case won’t stand another murder, Shayne.”

“There won’t be any more.”

“The governor’s threatening an investigation.”

“Hell, he’s always threatening an investigation. Stall for twenty-four hours.”

Painter looked at his watch indecisively. “It’s after eleven now.”

“Noon tomorrow.” Shayne edged toward the door. Painter nodded unhappily, and Shayne went out.

He stopped just outside, stuck his head back in the door. “About co-operating-there’s one thing you might do.”

“What?”

“Get the chauffeur’s fingerprints and check with the F.B.I. and New York. I want to know if he’s an ex-con.”

He went on down the hall with Painter’s growled assent.

Driving to Miami, he parked in front of his apartment hotel and went in. The clerk told him Tony had picked up the envelope and there weren’t any messages.

He went up to his room and fortified his aching side with a slug of brandy, then called the Nursing Registry. A pleasant voice answered the call.

He said, “This is Mr. Shayne, private detective. I’m working on a case in which one of the nurses you sent out is more or less involved. I wonder if you could give me the name and home address of the girl you sent out on the Brighton case early this morning?”

The pleasant voice asked him to wait.

Shayne waited.

“Miss Myrtle Godspeed.” The address was in the northwest section of the city. Shayne thanked her and hung up.

He took another drink and went down to his car. There was no choice; he’d have to move fast now, much as he wanted to be quiet. His shoulder gave him hell as he worked gearshift and steering-wheel with one hand. He begrudged the time that it cost him to drive to where Myrtle Godspeed lived, far out on Northwest 24th Street. There were three small stuccoed houses side by side in the block. The address he was looking for was the center house. He stopped his car, got out, and went up to the front door.

The shades were down at the front windows, and no one answered his knock. He went around to the side and found a window through which he could look into the living-room of the small house. It was furnished and seemed to be in perfect order. Shayne went around to the back door and found it locked. He took a skeleton key from his pocket and opened it without any trouble. A woman came out the back door of the house on the west and looked at him curiously. She came across the yard toward him as he opened the door. He saw her coming and waited.

She was elderly and fat with stringy hair and hostile eyes. “There ain’t anybody to home. What you want?” she greeted him.

“I’m a detective,” Shayne told her. “Who lives here?”

The woman shrank back from him, and her eyes clouded. “Miss Godspeed lives here. She ain’t-ain’t in trouble, is she?”

“I don’t know,” Shayne said shortly. “Does she live here alone? And what do you know about her?”

“She lives here all alone. She’s not-particular neighborly, but I ain’t got nothin’ agin her. But there’s been a lot of funny doings about here lately though-and now you’ve come to mention it, I ain’t so sure she’s living all alone, neither.” The old woman’s manner was intriguingly mysterious.

Shayne lit a cigarette and said casually, “What sort of doings?”

“People coming and going all hours of the night. Moving in and moving out till a body don’t rightly know who lives here and who don’t.”

“How long,” Shayne asked, “has this been going on?”

“A couple of days, now. Nights, rather. It ain’t like Miss Godspeed, neither.”

Shayne nodded and said, “I’m going to have a look around. You might come in, with me so I’ll have an alibi in case anything is missing later.”