Brett Halliday - This Is It, Michael Shayne

“How?”

“Hell, she didn’t talk through the door with her throat cut,” Shayne flared.

“We have only the secretary’s word that she talked. Doc Cantrell says it’s quite possible Sara Morton was killed shortly before six.”

Shayne finished his cognac and thumped the glass down on a table. “Is that your only reason to suspect her-because Cantrell says she could have died before six?”

“There’s lots more.” Gentry took his time blowing a puff of cigar smoke, turned his head to study Shayne suspiciously. “You seem to have fallen hard-and fast, Mike.”

“Take off her glasses and she’s not bad,” he said tersely. “What’s the ‘lots more’?”

“The death-room door was double locked,” Gentry rumbled placidly. “Only exit for the murderer was through the adjoining room, which Miss Lally used for an office. She has the only key.”

“You don’t need a key to get out of a room,” Shayne protested with moody impatience.

“According to Miss Lally’s story, Miss Morton wouldn’t unlock the door even for her at six,” Gentry pointed out. “Said she wasn’t coming out until she received a phone call. Do you think she unlocked the door to let her murderer in?”

“Do you suppose the murderer announced his intention when he knocked on her door?” Shayne countered.

“But it was someone she knew,” the chief stated flatly. “She wasn’t afraid of whoever killed her. Just stood there with her back turned and let her pick up the shears and plunge them in the side of her throat.”

“Or him,” said Shayne.

“It looks like a woman’s job to me. A sudden outburst of rage. Those shears are the sort of thing a woman would grab up to do the job.”

“That’s damned little evidence to support suspicion of murder,” Shayne contended.

“There’s more. And I’d rather hoped you could supply me with the clincher. Why was Miss Morton so anxious to get hold of you all day? We know she phoned your office three times.”

“I was fishing all day. I went straight to my office from the boat and found a memo listing three calls from her. That was eight-thirty-when I called her room and had her paged. Tim must have told you about it. He was with Miss Lally when she took my call in the lobby.”

“Will knows about that,” Rourke said. “But you didn’t tell us you hadn’t talked to her, Mike. I had the impression you had.”

“Too bad you didn’t,” Gentry said. “I’m pretty sure she suspected Miss Lally planned to murder her. She would have told you all about it if you’d been in your office where you belonged. That’s the trouble with you damned private eyes. No system-no regular office hours.”

“What makes you so sure Morton suspected Miss Lally?” Shayne asked. “Where’s your motive?” He sat bent forward with bare forearms on his knees, and he spoke with sharp impatience.

“They had a fight around two o’clock this morning,” Gentry told him calmly. “Around two a.m. Did Lally tell you about that?”

“She had no reason to. If she had known Miss Morton was dead and she was under suspicion-What did they fight about?” he broke off abruptly.

“That’s what I want to ask Miss Lally. It must have been a pretty hot brawl. The party in the adjoining room called down and complained about the noise. He said they were quarreling about money. When the night manager went up, Miss Lally was in the connecting room, crying and packing a bag. Miss Morton had the manager move her secretary to another room. Said she didn’t want her sleeping in fourteen twenty-two any longer.”

Shayne scowled heavily and tugged at his left ear lobe. “I thought the adjoining room was just used as an office. Beatrice Lally is down the hall in fourteen-oh-eight.” He appealed to Rourke. “You stopped in with us when she got her wrap, Tim.”

“She was moved into that room a little after two this morning,” Gentry said grimly. “Up to that time she slept in the connecting bedroom as well as using it to work in. That’s something else Miss Lally didn’t think to tell you,” he ended with heavy irony.

“I didn’t have time to get her life story,” Shayne snapped, glowering at the faded dungarees. “I have a hunch she might get a little more intimate if you’d let me change and keep my date with her.”

“Where is she, Mike?” rumbled Gentry. “She hasn’t gone back to the hotel. The Tidehaven is covered, and my men have instructions to call me here the minute she turns up.”

“She didn’t go back to the hotel. I dropped her off at a friend’s to have a few drinks while I came home to clean up.”

“What friend?”

“Now wait, Will. I’ll see that you get her for questioning just as soon as you convince me there’s any real evidence tying her in with murder. Just because they had a scrap and Morton had her moved to another room-” He shook his head and turned to Rourke.

“How about it, Tim? You knew Sara Morton. Wouldn’t you guess she was difficult to get along with?”

“Like a buzz saw,” said Tim emphatically. “She was hot stuff and knew she was hot stuff. The incomparable Sara-and don’t you forget it-was her theme song.”

“There you are, Will.” Shayne spread out both hands. “It’s natural for two women like Morton and Lally to get on each other’s nerves when they’ve worked so closely together for ten years.”

“Don’t forget their argument last night was about money, Mike,” said Gentry.

“So what? You’ve got the word of the man in the next room. Maybe Miss Lally wanted a raise.” Shayne’s voice was harsh with anger.

Shayne and Gentry had worked successfully together for many years, and now, seeing Shayne’s anger and impatience rising, Gentry became calm. “I don’t think it was that, Mike. The tie-up is this: The best we can figure, the murder was committed during a quarrel over money.”

“What do you base that on?”

“This.” Gentry took a rumpled half of a five-hundred-dollar bill from his vest pocket and handed it to Shayne. “It was in the dead woman’s hand,” he said quietly. “Looks like the murderer tried to snatch it away and tore it in two, then got panicky and killed the dame and left her lying there without taking time to pry her fingers open to get out the other half of what they were fighting over.”

Shayne placed the half of the bill on the table and smoothed it with the tips of his fingers, turning it over and over, pretending to examine it carefully. “One thing more,” he said. “How’d you happen to find the body?”

“I found it,” Rourke said. “I had another drink at the bar and got worried after you went off with Bea. I was sore, too, I guess.” Rourke paused for a short, mirthless laugh, then continued: “I got to brooding over being stood up by one dame and then having another one walk out on me with a lug like you, Mike. Anyhow, I was tight enough to doubt that la Morton would walk out of the hotel without even stopping by the bar to say hello and good-by. So I hunted up the house dick and made him take me up to her room. When his passkey wouldn’t unlock the door, he tried to brush me off. Said the reason she had her door bolted on the inside was because she didn’t want to be bothered. His tone of voice intimated she particularly didn’t want to be bothered with a drunken bum like me.

“I got mad then,” the reporter went on, his slaty eyes avoiding Shayne. “I told him I knew her well, and was afraid she might have taken an overdose of sleeping-pills. I pointed out that she wouldn’t have left her room with the lights on. He could see the light through the transom, and he got scared and finally unlocked the adjoining room. We went in through the bathroom-and there she was.”

Shayne swore softly and looked surprised. He was relieved to learn that their plan had worked and the police had no suspicion they’d both seen the body previously.