Brett Halliday: Die Like a Dog

“I don’t know. I… I guess I didn’t think too hard.”

“Because you had no reason to think about it at the time,” Shayne pointed out soothingly. “You had no reason to suspect that there was going to be a lethal amount of digitalis in his milk that night, so you naturally wouldn’t suspect that Henrietta had poured out the other bottle after dinner and poured digitalis into the last cup that was left… knowing that would be the cup you would put into the thermos for Rogell to drink. But now that you think back, Mrs. Blair, don’t you know there was another bottle that disappeared from the refrigerator before you heated milk for Rogell?”

“You’re putting words in her mouth,” said Henrietta loudly. “No jury will ever believe her.”

Shayne said grimly, “I think they will. Let’s wait and see.”

Lucy Hamilton had luxuriated in a long, soaking, hot bath, and rubbed soothing cold cream on her lips from which Shayne had roughly ripped away the adhesive tape. With makeup carefully applied to offset the deathly pallor of her face and arrayed in her nicest silk dressing gown and most frivolous slippers, she was happily relaxed at one end of the sofa in the security of her own apartment with Michael Shayne lounging at the other end. She had a tinkling highball glass in her hand, and on the glass table in front of the sofa were bottles of whiskey and cognac, a carafe of ice water and a bucket of ice cubes. Up to this point, Shayne had not allowed her to do any talking. Now he looked at her sternly over the rim of a wine-glass nearly full of cognac, and ordered, “Tell me just how it happened last night.”

She said, “I was silly, Michael. I never will forgive myself. But I was worried about you going out to dig up that dog, and when I got the telephone call I didn’t stop to think.”

He said, “There was a telephone call?”

“About nine o’clock.” She took a sip of her drink, then plunged into the recital with downcast eyes.

“I ate dinner alone and came back to wait for some word from you. I was sitting right here relaxing with a drink and a cigarette when the phone rang. I was so sure it would be you. I ran to the phone and a man’s voice answered. He talked fast and I didn’t recognize it at all. But he said: ‘Miss Hamilton, Mike Shayne gave me this number to call you. He needs you fast. Meet him in his office in fifteen minutes. If he’s not there, wait.’ Then he hung up before I could ask any questions. What could I do, Michael? I was worried, and all I could think of was that the call must be from you because this number is unlisted and you’re about the only one who knows it. So I called a taxi and kicked off my slippers and put on my shoes and hurried out.

“There was a car parked just beyond the office, but I didn’t notice it until a man got out as I started across the sidewalk. He called to me and I turned and saw it was Charles. The block was deserted and he grabbed me and dragged me over to his car and shoved me in the front seat and stuck that adhesive over my mouth so I couldn’t yell. Then he drove straight out to the house and carried me down to the boat-house and tied me up and left me. All that time he didn’t say a single word, Michael. I didn’t know what to think.

“It seemed like hours later when he came back. There’s a telephone extension in the boathouse, and he took the tape off my mouth and made me call you and told me exactly what to say to you or else he’d kill me right off, and so I said it and then tried to tell you not to pay any attention to me, but he broke the connection.

“And then Anita’s brother came stumbling into the boat-house.” Her voice trembled momentarily and she paused to take a long drink. “He was obviously drunk, and Charles was enraged when he saw him. Marvin was just drunk enough to exhibit some decent instincts, and he recognized me from yesterday and wanted to know what Charles was doing with me. So Charles told him. That he was doing it all for Anita… to prevent you from analyzing the dog and getting an autopsy on Mr. Rogell, which he told Marvin would probably send her to the electric chair.

“Marvin didn’t seem much surprised, but he drunkenly insisted that Charles had to let me go. And Charles argued with him. He even suggested that Marvin stay out in the boathouse alone with me all night and have all the fun he wanted because, Charles told him, he would have to kill me anyhow as soon as the funeral was over and the danger to Anita was past.

“But Marvin got very angry and swore he would notify you where I was, and Charles laughed at him and said he’d never get away from the grounds and threatened to kill him, if he didn’t keep his mouth shut. And they went away still arguing, and left me there, tied up and gagged for what seemed like days until you broke in the door.

“I was very glad to see you, Michael,” she ended sedately, her brown eyes dancing at him over the rim of her glass as she tilted it for another long drink.

He said gruffly, “The feeling was mutual.” He got out a cigarette and lit it very deliberately, stretched his long legs out in front of him and blew a streamer of blue smoke toward the ceiling.

“There’s just one other question, angel,” he told her in a deceptively mild voice.

“What is it?”

“You mentioned the fact that your phone is unlisted and you were thrown off-guard because only a few people know the number. How do you account for the fact that Charles knew it?”

“I was afraid you were going to ask me that, Michael,” she said in a very small voice.

He waited a long moment without looking at her. Then he said, “Well?”

“I gave it to him yesterday, Michael. When I… when he… was showing me Daffy’s grave.”

“During that ‘little moment out there alone under the cypress tree with Charles?’” Shayne quoted to her from her own words yesterday afternoon.

She wet her lips nervously. “Yes. That’s when. I don’t know what ever came over me.”

Shayne said, “Watch it in the future when you’re alone in the woods with a man and he makes you feel virginal.” He put down his glass and turned to her slowly and he wasn’t smiling. In a thick voice he said, “Honest to God, Lucy…”

There were tears in her eyes and her swiftly indrawn breath made a little whimpering sound, and then she was in his arms, and after that no word was spoken in the apartment for a long time.