Brett Halliday: Dividend on Death

“We’ll wait for some of the others to come up,” Shayne protested. “Doctor Hilliard should be here. A crazy woman with a knife is likely to be a tough proposition.”

Dr. Pedique agreed, his breath coming nervously and noisily. Clarence and Dr. Hilliard raced up the stairs; Shayne could hear the tension in Montrose’s voice, below, as he telephoned the police.

Shayne took the newcomers to the open door of the death chamber and they both looked in. Dr. Hilliard fiddled with his eyeglasses and shook his head drearily. The boy, Clarence, drew back after one hasty glance during which his face went white and drawn.

“Where’s the girl’s room?” Shayne asked Dr. Pedique.

“This way.” They followed him down the hall. Arriving at what Shayne knew to be Phyllis’s door, Dr. Pedique stood back and moistened his lips, waiting for someone else to take the initiative.

Shayne stepped to the door and knocked authoritatively. There was no response. Then, he tried the knob. The door would not open. “Hell,” he muttered, “it’s locked.” Making certain that Dr. Hilliard observed his every move, Shayne turned the key in the lock and opened the door.

The others crowded in the doorway behind him. The room was dark. He groped for a switch, found it quickly, and pressed it. As the light came on, Phyllis Brighton sat up in bed with a little scream of fright. She gasped, “What is it?” and stared at them with distended eyes.

Shayne stepped aside so the others could see her, and muttered, “Hell, she doesn’t look like a murderess.”

“What is it?” she screamed again, half rising from her bed. The front of her nightgown showed stainless and clean.

“Hold everything, sister,” Shayne said as he would have soothed a small child, “your mother has had an accident.”

“Oh!” Her knuckles went to her mouth where she bit at them frantically as if to hold back a scream. Her slender body crouched away from the men as she would have drawn back from wild animals ready to attack her.

“Keep as calm as you can,” Shayne told her. “You didn’t do it. Your door was locked on the outside and you couldn’t have got out if you’d tried.”

“Oh! Where is she? I must see her,” the girl cried. She threw the covers back and started to get out of bed.

Shayne stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder and gently forced her back. “Take it easy. You’re not in any shape to see her now.”

She sank back obediently. Shayne turned to Hilliard and said, “Better look after her, doc. Get her calmed down before the police come.”

Dr. Hilliard stepped forward with professional calm, and Shayne said to the others, “We’ll get out. Whoever did the killing must have locked the girl in her room first. It’s a cinch she didn’t do it and then lock herself in.”

Dr. Pedique took a white silk handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face. “I don’t understand,” he said as they went down the hallway.

Shayne grinned at his back. “I don’t, either,” he said, “but I guess my job’s finished. I’ll be running along.”

“Wait!” sputtered Dr. Pedique. “The murderer. The police will be here!”

“Let them worry about the murderer,” said Shayne. “That’s their job, not mine. I’m breezing before they start pestering me with idiotic questions.” He went down the front stairs while the doctor and Clarence stared after him, bewildered.

Shayne lost no time in getting his car out of the drive. Two blocks south a racing automobile passed him with screaming siren. He grinned at the police car and drove leisurely back to his apartment hotel in Miami. This time, he went in the front way and up the elevator. A grin accompanied an involuntary sigh when he closed the door of his apartment and walked over to the center table. He took off his coat and gingerly took the butcher knife and nightgown from his pocket and laid them on the table beside the bottle of cognac. The look of being withdrawn from what he was doing began to come over his face once again. It meant that Michael Shayne was beginning to add up the score. So, when his eye lit on the two hundred-dollar bills, which were lying where he had left them, he merely grunted, picked them up, and stuck them in his pocket without any indication of whether he was surprised to find them still there or not. Then he went to the bedroom and undressed, slipped his gaunt length into tan pajamas, and pulled on a dressing-robe. With felt bedroom slippers on his feet, he padded out to the other room, took the tall glass to the kitchen where he crushed new ice cubes and made another glass of ice water.

Returning, he set the glass carefully on the table, poured a wineglass of cognac, and set cigarettes and matches on the small stand near by. Next he lowered himself info the deep chair, lit a cigarette, and proceeded to gaze through the blue smoke at the chiffon-wrapped butcher knife before him.

It was a few minutes after ten when he sat down. Two hours later the ash tray was filled with half-smoked butts, the level of the liquid in the brandy bottle was considerably lower, the small amount of water remaining in the glass was warm, but he had reached no conclusion. Carefully he poured another glass of cognac and debated whether he should get more ice. Deciding it was too much trouble, he lifted the glass to his lips.

He held it there, but his eyes shifted toward the door as a soft tapping sounded on the panel. After one reflective sip, he set the glass down carefully and stood erect. The tapping sounded again. Shayne’s arm shot out and opened the table drawer. The other arm swept the knife and nightgown in it. He closed the drawer soundlessly and padded to the door.

When he opened it and looked out, he said, “I’ve been expecting you,” and stood aside to let Phyllis Brighton enter.

She was wearing a two-piece knitted dress which clung tightly to her firm young body. Hatless, her black hair was wind-blown and very curly; without make-up, her complexion seemed engagingly fresh, though she was unnaturally pale. Shayne studied her sharply. She passed him toward the center of the room, whirled about to face him with the palms of her hands flat on the table behind her as he closed the door.

“Tell me I-that I didn’t do it.”

“You tell me,” Shayne suggested. He moved toward her, and his face was grim.

Her elongated eyes held his, and her body was tensely arched like a drawn bow. When she answered, her voice sounded as if she had been running. “No one else can help me. I had to come to you.”

He stood close to her and said harshly, “You’ll get us both in the jug and then I won’t be a hell of a lot of help. Why in the name of God did you come here and how close are the cops on your tail?”

“I had to come here. They’re not following me. I slipped my car out of the garage and came out the back way.”

“Who saw you come upstairs?”

“No one. I found a side entrance.”

“Where’s your car parked?”

“In a parking-lot on Second Street.”

Shayne nodded glumly and stepped around her to the table to light a cigarette. The girl’s eyes followed him, her body holding the same tense pose, as if she feared she would wilt to the floor if she relaxed one muscle.

Shayne frowned at the cigarette and went to the cabinet where he got another wineglass. Still only the girl’s eyes and head moved. The rest of her was like a brittle statue.

Shayne poured both glasses full and moved in front of her with one in each hand.

“Drink this.”

She made no move to touch the glass he offered, shaking her head despairingly. “I can’t. I never drink.”

“It’s time you learned,” Shayne told her. “You’ll learn a lot of things not in the book if you stick around. Drink it.”