Brett Halliday - Date with a Dead Man

“She’s the one who invited Jasper Groat out to the house to be murdered last night.”

“Did she murder him?”

“I don’t know. If she didn’t, I think she knows who did. If I can keep her sober long enough I think she will tell me. So I’d better get over there before she drinks up all my liquor and passes out.”

He turned away from the divan and started for the door. Someone rapped on it from the other side. Shayne stopped in mid-stride and turned to frown at Matie, one ragged eyebrow lifted inquiringly.

She shrugged resignedly and shook her head and mouthed the words, “I don’t know. Open it.”

Shayne went to the door and opened it. He said, “Well, well,” and stepped back when he saw Cunningham on the threshold.

The steward’s eyes glittered with surprise when he recognized Shayne. He jerked his gaze to Matie and muttered, “I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

Shayne said, “I manage to get around.” He stood aside, holding the door wide open and motioned for Cunningham to enter. “Mrs. Meredith is looking for another mint julep customer. I’m on my way out.”

Cunningham squared his shoulders self-consciously and stepped into the room. His gaze remained fixed on Matie’s face as though he waited to receive some signal from her, some hint as to what she wanted him to do.

She said smoothly, “It was nice of you to drop in, Mr. Cunningham. I would like to mix you one of my juleps since Mr. Shayne scorns them. Besides, he’s in a hurry to lay my charming ex-sister-in-law who’s waiting impatiently for him.”

Shayne said, “I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about,” starting through the door. “Just as I have with Mrs. Meany.”

Cunningham’s voice stopped him. “I’ve got some things to talk to you about. I just heard Jasper was murdered last night.”

Shayne turned with his hand on the knob. “Did it surprise you?”

“Not much.” Cunningham shook his head doggedly. “Like I told you last night, I figured something had happened to keep him from our dinner together. What about his diary?”

“You still have the diary to worry about. You and Mrs. Meredith and the Hawley clan, and Hastings and Sims… and maybe Joel Cross.” Shayne turned again to go out, but hesitated for some reason he could not fathom when he heard the telephone ring in the room behind him.

With his back turned and while holding the door slightly ajar, he heard Matie answer the phone: “Yes? Mr. Shayne? Just a moment and I’ll see…”

He went back into the room and Matie held the telephone out to him with a shrug. “I think it’s your delightful little brown-haired secretary.”

He took the instrument and said, “Yes?”

“Michael.” It was Lucy’s voice. “A woman who says her name is Beatrice Meany just telephoned. She didn’t giggle this time, but said to tell you she was waiting in your hotel room… and how soon could you get there.”

Shayne said cheerfully, “Call Mrs. Meany back, Lucy, and tell her to keep her lace panties on and the corks in my liquor bottles. Tell her I’m just leaving here but have one stop to make on my way back to the hotel. If she can stay sober for twenty minutes, I’ll be seeing her.”

He hung up before Lucy could offer any acid comments, said, “Thanks,” to Matie and strode out of the room, closing the door firmly behind him this time.

Downstairs in the lobby, he turned to the left from the desk and went down the corridor to a door marked Private. He knocked and then opened the door and went in. Kurt Davis was lounging in a chair behind a wide, clean desk, smoking a cigarette in a long holder. He didn’t look the way a hotel detective is supposed to look, but none of them in better-class hostelries do. He said, “Hi, Mike. Are you working?”

“Sort of.” Shayne pulled up a chair and sat down. “Can you get me the home address of Mrs. Meredith in twelve hundred A?”

“I can get you the address she wrote down when she registered.”

Shayne nodded. “I don’t expect an affidavit with it.”

Davis pressed a button on his desk and spoke into a metal box in front of him. He looked up at Shayne and asked, “Anything we ought to know about her?”

“I don’t think so.” Shayne hesitated. “You might keep an eye on the men she entertains in her suite. Excluding one Mike Shayne, of course.”

“Of course,” agreed Kurt Davis gravely. “A floozy?”

“Nothing like that. The worst she’s likely to do is knock some guy cold with one of her mint juleps. She’s mixed up in a case I’m working on, but I don’t know just how. I’ll let you know if anything develops.”

“Do that, Mike.” The metal box buzzed and Davis turned to it, pressed the button and said, “Yes?”

Shayne got out a memo book and pencil. He wrote down a street address in Chicago as Davis repeated it aloud. He thanked the house detective and went out of the office to a branch telegraph office in the lobby. There he wrote out a message to Mr. Theodore Meredith in Chicago, Illinois. It read:

Dangerous complications demand you here immediately. Wire me at once but not at this hotel because am watched. Send message to this address.

He completed the message by giving the name of his own hotel, signed it, Matie, and paid cash for it to go as a straight message.

It was twenty minutes later on the dot since leaving Mrs. Meredith’s suite when he swung into the lobby of his hotel. The desk clerk motioned to him urgently as he strode toward the elevators, and Shayne swerved aside to stop at the desk and ask, “What’s up, Dick?”

“Thought you’d like to know there’s a girl waiting up in your place, Mr. Shayne,” the clerk told him importantly. “You always told me it was all right to let a client go up and wait.”

“If they were female and passable,” Shayne agreed.

“This one’s that,” the clerk told him. “She put a call through to your office half an hour ago… and Miss Hamilton called her back, so I know it must be okay.”

Shayne said, “Fine.” He started away and then turned back. “Make a note of this, Dick. A telegram may be delivered here from Chicago, addressed to Mrs. Theodore Meredith… or maybe Mrs. Matie Meredith. It will actually be for me. See that it’s accepted and delivered to me.”

“You bet, Mr. Shayne.” Dick was scribbling on a sheet of paper with a conspiratorial grin. “Working on a big case?”

“Could be.” Shayne went on to a waiting elevator and got in.

As it carried him to the second floor, the operator told him, “There was a gentleman inquiring for your room number ten minutes ago, Mister Shayne. I told him I sure didn’t think you was in, but he got off at Two anyhow. I never did see him go back down.”

Shayne said, “Maybe they’re having a ball in my place.” He got out and went down the corridor, getting out his key and whistling cheerfully.

Light showed through his transom, and he knocked on the door and waited for a moment. When there was no response, he inserted the key and opened it.

The crumpled body of Beatrice Meany lay in the middle of the brightly lighted room.

Shayne reached the body in two long strides and dropped to his knees beside her though he knew she was dead before he felt for a pulse. He couldn’t detect any trace of a pulse beat but the flesh felt still normally warm to his fingers, and he knew she hadn’t been dead many minutes.

His face was deeply trenched when he stood up and stepped over her body to the telephone on the center table. He gave Will Gentry’s private number and when the chief’s gruff voice answered, said, “I’ve got a murdered woman in my room, Will. Beatrice Meany.”

Gentry wasted no time with questions over the telephone. He said, “Sit on it, Mike,” and hung up.