Brett Halliday - Dividend on Death

Painter had flashing black eyes, a thin face, and mobile lips across the top of which there ran the narrow line of a beautifully trimmed and exceedingly black mustache. He had been a New York detective for three years, and had resigned to head the Miami Beach detective bureau. He nodded and followed Gentry into the room.

Shayne closed the door and moved toward the table. His eyes were hard but his manner affable. He stopped at the cabinet and took down two clean wineglasses, set them on the table, and unstopped the brandy bottle. “Have a drink?”

Gentry nodded absently, his eyes going around the room.

Painter drummed on the table top with hard finger tips and said, “I don’t drink while on duty.”

Shayne lifted shaggy eyebrows in quizzical inquiry as he poured two drinks. “I thought this was out of your territory.” He handed Will Gentry a glass and poured fresh ice water from the pitcher.

“That,” Painter told him, “is why I asked Gentry to come along with me.”

Shayne nodded and drank. Then he drew up a straight chair and motioned toward the two easy chairs close together in front of the table. “It isn’t against your principles to sit down, is it?”

He sat down, as did Gentry. The older man shook his head slightly at Shayne. Painter did not move. He said, “I want that girl, Shayne.”

Shayne shrugged and sipped from his glass. “There are lots of girls,” he said softly.

“I want only one of them. Phyllis Brighton.”

“Christ,” murmured Shayne, “you’re welcome to her.”

Painter’s eyes were fixed on his face. “Where is she?”

Shayne gravely patted the pockets of his dressing-gown and looked at Painter with guileless eyes, murmuring, “Gracious. I seem to have mislaid her.”

Painter’s dapper figure grew tense. He leaned forward angrily.

“Now, now,” Gentry interposed. “Cut out your horsing, Mike. Painter thinks you had something to do with her disappearance from her home.”

Shayne asked, “Has she disappeared?” His tone was noncommittal.

The Miami Beach man said, “That won’t get you anywhere, Shayne. Maybe you can get away with your kind of stuff on this side of Biscayne Bay, but you can’t on my side.”

Shayne grinned and said, “Can’t I?”

“No. By God, you can’t.” Peter Painter’s dark eyes flamed dangerously. “That girl’s guilty as hell, and I’m going to break that case tonight.”

“Fair enough.” Shayne lit a cigarette and smiled mockingly at the little man. “Cherchez la femme.”

“You,” said Painter, “have got her hidden out.”

“Want to search the dump?”

“Hell, no. I don’t think you’re dumb enough to have her here. Where is she?” The question crackled at Shayne.

“She was in bed when I left the Beach.”

“What have you been doing since you drove away?”

“Sitting here drinking some very excellent cognac and cogitating upon the devious ways of murderers and the like.”

“Why,” asked Painter savagely, “did you run away from the scene before I arrived?”

“That’s your bailiwick,” Shayne reminded him. “I wanted to give you plenty of room for your schoolboy antics.”

Painter stiffened and said, “By God-”

“Now, now,” Gentry interposed again. “There’s no use getting tough,” he admonished Shayne.

“Why the hell shouldn’t I get tough?” Shayne flared at him, disregarding Painter. “This mail-order detective busting in here with his damfool questions and accusations. To hell with him! I was all set to give him what dope I had picked up, but now he won’t get a thing from me.”

Through tight lips, Painter said thinly, “I’ll jerk you in as an accessory if you don’t watch your step.”

Shayne didn’t pay any attention to him. He went on talking to Gentry.

“What’s the angle? Suppose the girl has disappeared? Does that make her a murderess? And what am I supposed to do about it? If he can’t keep tabs on his suspects am I supposed to do it for him?”

“See here, Shayne.” Painter sat down, making it evident that he controlled himself with difficulty. “Do you want to answer my questions now or shall I swear out a warrant for your arrest and drag you in where you’ll have to talk?”

“I’ve been in better jails than yours.”

“All right. Come clean and you needn’t get in mine.”

Shayne added, “And worse.”

“Now wait,” Gentry said hurriedly to Painter. “You’re off on the wrong foot. I’ve worked with Mike Shayne before. He’ll rot in your Miami Beach jail before he’ll answer any questions he doesn’t want to answer.”

“And I’ll stink like hell while I’m rotting,” Shayne added sardonically.

Painter compressed his lips and said, “I’ll take that drink you offered me.”

Shayne emptied the bottle of Martell into the third glass and handed it to him. “Off duty,” he said, “you might not be a bad guy.”

Painter drank half the liquor and set the glass down, fiddling with its slender stem. He said slowly, “I understand you were retained on the case by Doctor Pedique.”

“I was.”

“Because he feared the girl might murder her mother.”

“Right.”

“And you arrived this evening too late to avert the expected tragedy.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” Shayne told him. “A tragedy, if you’re talking for the headlines.”

“The girl had already killed her mother when you got there, hadn’t she?”

Shayne emptied his glass and grinned wolfishly. “Had she?”

“Well, damn it!” Painter exploded. “She was dead, wasn’t she?”

“She was dead,” said Shayne carefully, “when Doctor Pedique took me to her room.” He gazed benignly into the Beach detective’s angry eyes.

“Which makes a strong case against the girl,” said Painter harshly.

“Admitted.” Shayne paused, then added casually, “Did they tell you we found the girl’s door locked-on the outside?”

“There might be a dozen explanations for that.”

“Sure,” Shayne agreed soothingly. “The kid might have bumped her mother, gone back and locked her door, and then crawled into her room through the keyhole. Only trouble with that theory,” he added, “is to figure how she got the key back into the keyhole after crawling through.”

Gentry choked on the last of his drink while Painter snorted, “Being funny isn’t going to help.”

“Then your methods,” Shayne told him, “aren’t going to solve the case.”

“For God’s sake,” implored Gentry, “you two guys quit knifing each other.”

Shayne said, “I’ll get another bottle,” and went out to the kitchen. When he came back with a full bottle of Martell neither detective had changed his position.

“I should be getting almost drunk enough to do some real detecting,” said Shayne pensively as he opened the bottle.

Painter rubbed his sharp chin and asked, “Then you don’t think the girl did it?”

“When you grow up enough to shave that silly mustache off,” Shayne muttered, “you’ll maybe have learned not to indulge in too many theories on a murder case.”

Peter Painter stood up, quivering with indignation. “I didn’t come here to be insulted.”

Standing, Shayne towered over the dapper detective chief. “No? Then why did you come?”

“To give you a chance to clear yourself,” Painter snarled.

Shayne poured himself and Gentry a drink, held the bottle invitingly over Painter’s glass. He muttered, “You’re hell on duty,” when Painter shook his head.

Painter turned away indecisively, and Shayne sat down, asking in an interested tone, “Did you find whatever they used to kill Mrs. Brighton?”