Brett Halliday - Date with a Dead Man

“Giving the Hawley family the same motive for killing him as if he had threatened blackmail?”

“Y-e-s,” Shayne agreed slowly. “If they didn’t know he’d already arranged to publish the diary.” He thought for a moment and a hot glow came into his eyes. “Here’s another thought, Will. Suppose some other unscrupulous person knew what was in the diary and wanted to use it to blackmail the Hawleys. He’d be unable to do so as long as Groat was alive. But with Groat dead, and with him having possession of the diary, he’d be in a position to make a deal.”

“Who else knew about it?”

“Joel Cross, for one. He read the diary yesterday. I’d check and see what he was doing at eight o’clock last night.” Shayne turned to the door again, and kept on going this time.

Lucy Hamilton looked up with a grimace when he entered his office half an hour later. “A woman called just a few minutes ago and insisted that I give her your home address when I told her you weren’t in.”

Shayne ruffled his red hair and grinned at her. “Who was the lady?”

“I didn’t say she was a lady,” said Lucy primly. “She giggled when I asked her, and refused to give her name.”

“Did she also nibble on her finger?”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Lucy replied disdainfully. “She sounded mentally retarded and man-crazy.”

Shayne nodded grave approval. “You’re developing quite a knack for character analysis over the telephone. I suppose you gave this charming maiden the information she wanted.”

“I gave her the name of your hotel. You once told me I was never to refuse it to a female inquirer.”

Shayne said, “That’s swell. My liquor supply won’t be safe from now on. Anything else?”

Lucy was shaking her head when her telephone buzzed. She lifted it and said dulcetly, “Michael Shayne’s office.”

She listened and said, “One moment, please. I’ll see if Mr. Shayne is in.” She covered the mouthpiece with her hand and said, “Another female. This one doesn’t giggle, and I bet she doesn’t nibble on her finger either. But I’ll also bet she just loves to chew on redheaded he-man detectives.”

“Mrs. Meredith?” Shayne asked with a grin.

“You’re so smart to guess, Mr. Shayne,” Lucy said with a bitter smile.

“I’ll take it inside.”

Shayne went through a door into his private office and lifted the phone there. “Hello.”

“Matie… Michael.” There was a slight pause, and Mrs. Meredith went on rapidly, “How is the headache?”

“Better, but… not good.”

“I’m so sorry,” she purred seductively. “I just happen to have a terrific headache remedy here. My own private recipe.”

Shayne said, “At the Biscayne Hotel.”

“Suite twelve hundred A,” she told him matter-of-factly.

Shayne said, “It’ll take me ten minutes,” and hung up.

He sauntered out to the reception room and Lucy looked at him with snapping brown eyes as he unhooked a panama from a rack near the door.

“I’ll just bet she’s got a private brew for headaches. A mixture of absinthe and benedictine and… and every aphrodisiac in the book.”

Shayne said, “Tut, Lucy. You shouldn’t listen in on private conversations. I’ve warned you before.” He settled the hat carefully on his throbbing head and went out.

Mrs. Meredith was waiting for Shayne in the living room of her hotel suite. She had changed to a clinging hostess gown of gray satin and her hair was brushed out in tiny ringlets that gave her a more youthful appearance. She took his hand warmly between both of hers and drew him into the room.

Shayne held back a trifle, looking down at her with an odd look in his gray eyes. She tilted her head and asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’ve decided I had better be afraid of you,” Shayne told her bluntly.

She gave his hand an extra pressure between her soft palms, and released it. “I like that very much. It’s every woman’s secret desire to be considered dangerously alluring. I assume that is what you meant, Michael Shayne?”

“I suspect you’re intelligent along with the allure,” he told her. “Which warns me that I should get the hell out of here while I can.”

“But you’re not going to.”

“You know I’m not.” He prowled past her across the room to a low table in front of the divan. It held an ice bucket, a bottle of bonded bourbon, a small bowl with a teaspoon, two tall glasses full of shaved ice, and a squatty vase holding a bouquet of mint sprigs. Green crushed mint leaves floated in the bowl on top of a syrupy mixture of sugar dissolved in a small quantity of bourbon.

She moved over and sat down in front of the table. “This is the headache remedy I mentioned.” She poured half the syrupy mixture into each glass of shaved ice, tilted the whisky bottle and filled both glasses to the brim with straight whisky. She looked up with a smile as she caught a look of mild amazement on Shayne’s angular face. “That’s the secret of a true mint julep. Don’t spare the horses when you pour the whisky.”

“No aphrodisiacs,” muttered Shayne.

She frowned slightly, decorating each glass with a sprig of mint. “I don’t understand.”

“Just a little private joke between my secretary and me.”

“She’s a charming girl,” Matie Meredith told him, offering him a glass with a direct look. “I’m sure you and she must have many private jokes. I’m afraid she doesn’t approve of me,” she added placidly.

Shayne buried his nose in the mint and took a long, slow swallow of the liquid. He moved back to a deep chair and sank into it, stretching his long legs out comfortably. “This is the only civilized way to drink whisky. You are an excellent prescriber for headaches, Mrs. Meredith.”

She said, “Thank you,” simply, as though accepting his statement not as flattery but as praise to which she was entitled. “Have you any idea who gave you the headache?”

“Does that mean you decided to believe my story?”

“I certainly don’t believe you knocked yourself out in Joel Cross’s room. Whether you searched the room or someone else did the job seems immaterial to me. I’m quite sure neither of you found the diary there.”

“Why are you sure?”

“Joel told me so, for one thing. But I was already certain by the way he acted when he first came in. He wasn’t worried about the diary at all.”

“Did he tell you where it is?”

“No.” She leaned back against the cushion and crossed her nice legs, taking a long drink and regarding him soberly over the rim of the glass.

“Or what was in it?” Shayne persisted.

“He refused to discuss the diary with me. I found Mr. Cross an insufferable young man.”

“Did you explain your interest in the diary? Tell him why the exact date of Albert Hawley’s death is important to you?”

“Certainly not. The fewer people who know that, the better.”

“Did you get any impression that he may guess or know the importance of the diary to you?”

“It’s difficult to get any sort of impression from him,” she parried coolly. “Do you think he knows?”

“Probably not. Assuming that the terms of Ezra Hawley’s will are not general knowledge. And even then,” added Shayne thoughtfully, “I don’t suppose many people know that you are still Albert Hawley’s heir even though you divorced the guy just before he went into the army.”

“Probably not,” Matie Meredith agreed indifferently.

“It certainly isn’t normal procedure,” mused Shayne. “In fact it’s one of the angles that’s bothered hell out of me from the beginning of this screwed-up affair. It just didn’t make sense… now it’s beginning to.”