Brett Halliday - This Is It, Michael Shayne

Shayne was standing very close to her. He reached his left hand around and covered the back of her hand gripping the edge of the bureau. “I have just one question, Beatrice.”

“What is it?”

“Why did you kill Ralph Morton?”

Her back was toward him, touching the front of his coat, his arm reaching around her side and his hand still covering hers. The top of her head was just under his chin. She didn’t move or breathe for a full minute.

Then she turned and lifted her face, sliding the glasses off, and looking up at him with round, sooty eyes that held only defeat.

“So-you know,” she breathed. She crumpled against him and pressed her face against his chest, sobbing like an exhausted child. “I’ve been so frightened-so alone-keeping it locked up inside me. I want to tell you, Mr. Shayne. It will be a relief. And you can tell me what to do.”

He put his arms around her and she clung to him until she stopped crying. When she drew away she asked tremulously, “Can we go-some place where it’s quiet and maybe-we could have a drink?”

“My place?” Shayne suggested.

“Oh, yes,” she breathed. “I’d like that.”

He said, “I know,” and withdrew the key from the lock.

They went in silence to the elevator and down to the car. Miss Lally sat self-consciously close to the door while Shayne drove slowly to a garage half a block from his hotel, left the car there, and they walked back together.

Neither of them spoke, but she put her hand in his as they neared the entrance. He squeezed it gently and held it as they went through the lobby and past the desk where he nodded casually to the clerk. In the elevator he spoke just as casually to the operator, asking, “Much going on tonight?”

“Not much, Mr. Shayne.” The operator didn’t look at Miss Lally as they rose to the third floor. He opened the door and said, “Good night, Mr. Shayne,” before closing the door.

Beatrice was gripping his hand. She said shakily, “They do this sort of thing very well at your hotel, Mr. Shayne. As though you often bring women to your room.”

He stopped in front of his door and said angrily, “I’m not bringing you to my room. We’ll go in and have a drink and I’ll listen to your story. Then you can trot back to your own bedroom if you’ve convinced me I can conscientiously decide not to turn you over to the police.”

He unlocked the door and strode inside, tossed his hat on a hook near the door, ruffled his red hair, and asked, “What do you want to drink?”

She had closed the door quietly and was leaning against it. “Do you have rum?”

“A daiquiri? Sit down and make yourself at home while I mix one.”

He stopped at the wall liquor cabinet and took out a bottle of light rum and carried it to the kitchen. He used bottled lemon juice, and returned shortly with her drink and a glass of ice water.

Beatrice was sitting on the couch. Her glasses lay on the serving-table, and she had removed the short jacket of her suit and fluffed her hair. She had turned out the top light, leaving only a shaded table lamp burning on a table against the wall.

Softly lighted, she looked young, defenseless, and she leaned eagerly forward when he set her drink before her. He poured himself a drink from the bottle of cognac he had left on his desk and sat down beside her. She picked up the glass that was full to the rim with rum, lemon juice, and ice and drank half of it, quickly covering her mouth to hide a sour grimace at the strong taste of rum. “I needed that,” she said when she could speak, and turned her body slightly toward him. “Please understand this, Mr. Shayne. I’m willing to do what is right. If telling my story to the police will help them catch Miss Morton’s murderer, I’m willing-more than willing to do so. I want you to decide.”

“I will,” he said shortly. “And I’m listening.”

She puckered her eyes at him, unsure of herself before his bleak gaze and the deep trenches in his cheeks. “I was so terribly confused when I first came to in the hotel room and saw you and all those men. When I didn’t tell the truth then, I didn’t know what was best-later.” She appealed to him by timidly touching his arm with her hand. “You do believe me, don’t you? That I would have told the truth eventually if I became convinced it would help catch the murderer?”

Shayne took a long drink of cognac and chased it with ice water. “I’m not believing anything until I hear the whole story,” he said harshly.

She took her hand away. “Tell me-first-how did you guess?”

“A number of small things that added up only one way. When you speak of catching Miss Morton’s murderer-does that mean you’re convinced Ralph Morton didn’t do it?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I just don’t know. Did he?”

Shayne settled back and warmed half a tumbler of cognac between his palms. “I’d like to hear from you first.”

“It’s still like a horrible nightmare. I was so dumbfounded when I opened the door and saw Ralph Morton in that room instead of you. He was awfully drunk, Michael.” She spoke his first name tentatively and a little gasp of surprise or apology followed.

“Go back a little,” he ordered gruffly. “You went up to three-oh-nine, as you told Gentry, still thinking I had called you?”

“Of course. I had no reason to think otherwise. I knocked and a man’s voice said come in. The door wasn’t locked, and I opened it. He was sprawled out on the bed and I thought he looked surprised when he saw me. As though he expected someone else. I asked Ralph if you had got there yet and he didn’t even answer. He just leered at me. He got up and grabbed me and blew his foul whisky breath in my face and said insulting things. He was slimy and revolting, and I fought him as hard as I could. He tripped once and nearly fell. I started to run, but he caught my ankle and dragged me down to the floor and started cursing me. That’s when he struck me with his fist.” Her mouth primped up and she put her finger tips to the bandage. Tears covered her eyes, but she tightened her lips and the tears didn’t overflow.

“That’s when I was first really afraid. It was one of those things that just don’t happen to people. But it was happening to me. That’s when I saw the gun on the bedside table beside a bottle of whisky. He was puffing and out of breath and staggering, and I snatched the gun. I heard the whisky bottle fall to the floor, then everything turned sort of blurry and red.” She covered her face with her hands and shuddered. Shayne took a sip of cognac and waited. When she took her hands from her face she looked at him with imploring eyes. “I didn’t hear the gun go off. I wasn’t conscious of it, but suddenly I was standing over him and there was-a hole-in his head-and blood.” She fell against Shayne and sobbed uncontrollably.

Shayne held her until she was calm. “Finish your daiquiri,” he said gruffly, “then tell me how you came to lock yourself in the closet where you almost suffocated.”

The ice had melted, weakening the drink, and she finished it with a few swallows. “That’s too horrible to think of. And nerve-wracking. I hardly had time to realize what had happened when there was a knock on the door. I knew it was still unlocked, and that whoever it was could just turn the knob and catch me in there with him-dead.

“I was too frantic to think. I guess I acted automatically. The gun had dropped on the bed close to his hand. I grabbed it and wiped it clean and put it in his hand and curled his fingers around it. I was terrified for fear it would go off again.” She shuddered and sank weakly against the couch, her hands clenched tightly in her lap.