Brett Halliday: Date with a Dead Man

He said, “I saw your car still parked in the driveway and thought you might be up here. Mother won’t like it… you talking to him this way,” he added reprovingly to Beatrice.

“How dare you barge in my bedroom without knocking?” she demanded. “Get out and stay out.”

“It’s my bedroom too,” he told her mildly. “Mother will be angry if…”

“Get out!” she stormed at him, advancing with clenched fists.

“All right. But you’d better lock the door behind me.” Gerald Meany turned around and went out.

“You see?” she said triumphantly to Shayne. “I told you he didn’t care what I do. He just married me in the first place because he thought I was rich.”

“And now you’re not?”

A look of cunning came into her eyes. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. That’s why I went out of the room first and waited on the balcony to call to you.”

“Then let’s talk while we have the chance,” suggested Shayne, “instead of lying on the bed.”

“But now you’re here, that’s what I want to do,” she pouted.

“I think we should finish our talking first. What’s really on your mind?”

“As if you can’t guess,” she giggled. Then she sobered and slitted her eyes at him. “Well, you are a private detective, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You do go around finding people and things like that?”

“Many things like that,” Shayne agreed.

“Well then. You’ve got to find those two men who were on the life raft when Albert died. I know one of them was that man Jasper Groat who didn’t come to see me last night after I invited him. And there was another one, the newspapers said.” She put her little finger in her mouth and sucked on it. “Can you find him?”

“I might. Why?”

“Don’t you see? Because the newspapers said four or five days, that’s why. But they didn’t say which.”

“Four or five days what?” Shayne asked gently.

“Before Albert died in the boat. Don’t you see how important it is? Mr. Hastings explained it all very carefully this morning. We didn’t know that it really mattered before that, you see? Not until he read Uncle Ezra’s will this morning and explained it all to us.”

“Exactly what did he explain?”

“How it is because Uncle Ezra died ten days ago… five days after the airplane went down with Albert on it. If he only lived four days on the raft, then he was already dead when Uncle Ezra died and the money comes to us. But if he was still alive when Uncle Ezra kicked the bucket, then that means he legally inherits everything and then that bitchy ex-wife of his gets it all. Everything depends on whether Albert lived four or five days on the life raft.”

“And you want me to get hold of the two witnesses and find out from them definitely whether it was four or five days?” said Shayne slowly, adding things up in his own mind and finally coming up with an answer that made sense.

“Well… get hold of them at least and get them to say it was only four days. You could do that, couldn’t you? If I was your client? If they understood how important it was…?”

“You mean bribe them to say it was only four days even if Albert really did survive for five days?”

Beatrice caught her lip between her teeth and chewed on it, tilting her head calculatingly at Shayne. “What’s wrong with that? The money really belongs to us. Certainly not to Matie… after she divorced him and went off and married another man… even if he was damn fool enough to fix it that way in his will. You can offer them plenty to say it was four days. There’s a couple of million altogether, I guess.”

Shayne shrugged and kept his face impassive. He said, “It’s a thought. Of course, you don’t know yet whether a bribe is needed. Maybe it was only four days… and all they’d have to do is tell the truth.”

“That’s what Mr. Hastings said this morning. But before they find out how important that extra day is, suppose they come right out and say five? Don’t you see why I want you to fix it for us? There’s no use talking to Mother or Gerald about it,” she went on disdainfully. “They don’t understand about things like this. They’d have ethics or something.” She practically spat out the word “ethics.” “But I can tell you’re not like that.” She sidled close to him, stood rubbing her hip against his shoulder and looking down at him with her mouth half-open.

Shayne said, “Maybe we can make a deal.”

“What kind of a deal?”

“Maybe I can help you out if you’ll do something for me.”

She giggled and rubbed her hip harder against his shoulder. “You know I’ll do anything you want, Michael Shayne.”

“Then tell me about Leon Wallace.”

She stopped moving her hip and her mouth closed slowly. “Leon Wallace?” she repeated stupidly. “You mean the gardener?”

“Who worked here on the grounds about a year ago,” Shayne amplified. “What became of him?”

A look of cunning replaced the stupidity on her face. “I never did know… really. Something funny, though. He just wasn’t here at work one morning. That’s really why I wanted to talk to Mr. Groat last night.”

“Why?”

“Because he said he knew all about Leon Wallace. I’ve always wondered, so I told him to come out and tell me. But he never did.”

Shayne considered this a moment, wondering whether to believe her or not. “Then you didn’t ask Groat out just to find out when Albert died?”

“I didn’t know how much it mattered then,” she explained patiently. “Not until this morning when Mr. Hastings explained it.”

“What sort of man was Leon Wallace?”

She pouted her lips consideringly and put the end of her little finger in her mouth. Her hip began moving back and forth rhythmically against Shayne’s shoulder. “He was pretty,” she said with sudden enthusiasm, as though she had just remembered.

“Did you like him?”

“Sure I did. Who wouldn’t? But he wouldn’t hardly look at me. Not with Matie chasing after him the way she did.”

“Albert’s wife?”

“Uh-huh. It was right after he went away that she went off to Reno to get her divorce.”

Shayne considered this bit of information for a moment. “Was Albert jealous of them?”

“Him?” Her voice became venomously scornful. “If he was he certainly never dared show it in front of Matie. She had him right under her thumb, I can tell you. Now why don’t we just go to bed for a little while?” she ended plaintively.

Shayne sighed and stood up. He put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed gently. “Not here in your house, Beatrice. As much as I’d like to,” he lied. “Give me a raincheck, huh?”

“You’re mean,” she pouted as he released her and turned away to the balcony.

He said grimly over his shoulder, “It’s just that I never did like to foul another man’s bed.” He stepped out into the hot sunlight and hurried down the iron stairs to get into his car and leave the decaying old mansion behind him.

The office of Hastings amp; Brandt, Attorneys-at-Law, was on the fourth floor of a shabby office building on Flagler Street. The dingy front office was presided over by a gnomelike little man wearing a shiny alpaca coat. He was humped over a ponderous legal volume and looked up with near-sighted irritation when Michael Shayne entered. “Yes, yes? What is it?”

“I’m Shayne. Mr. Hastings asked me to come in.”

“Shayne?” The clerk pursed his lips disapprovingly over the name. He consulted a memo pad and said reluctantly, “I guess it’s all right.” He pointed to a door that was lettered Private.

Shayne opened the door without knocking. Hastings was seated behind an ancient rolltop desk with papers spread out in front of him. He still wore the black broadcloth jacket buttoned all the way up though the heat in the office was stifling. He removed a pair of rimless glasses from his bony nose and said dryly, “You are very prompt, Mr. Shayne.”