Бретт Холлидей - Death Has Three Lives

He paused a moment in his long-winded recital, a look of happy incredulity on his leathery face. “It was some kind of sixth sense a hackie gets, you might say. Because there was a spot of dried blood right there where the fellow’d been sitting. And I knew right then it was my duty as a law-abiding citizen to report it no matter how much trouble the cops gave me, and I did. And now I sure wish you’d tell me—”

Michael Shayne looked at his watch and drained off the last of his beer and arose hastily. “Some other time, Joe, you and I’ll get together over some drinks and have a real talk. You got a phone I can use?”

“You bet. Right here.” Joe Agnew jumped to his feet and led Shayne to a telephone stand in the hallway. The redhead dialed a number and waited, tugging at his ear lobe thoughtfully until Chief Gentry’s gruff voice answered.

“Mike Shayne, Will. Thanks for — the loan of your gun.”

“Hope you find some use for it,” rumbled Gentry.

“I think I’m going to. If you’ll do me one little favor, Will. That’s all I’m going to ask.”

“Some simple little thing like blowing up City Hall?”

“Not quite. Have you got a stake-out on the rooming-house on Eighteenth Street where the girl was strangled?”

“Man on the front door checking everybody in and out.”

“Pull him off, Will. Right away.”

“Now, look, Mike. I don’t—”

“I haven’t time to explain why. Just do it. For half an hour. Put him back on after that if you want. I’m counting on you.”

Shayne hung up and turned to the archway into the living-room where Rourke and Agnew were talking while the reporter took notes.

He said, “We’ll be back another time, Joe. I bet you’ve got plenty more stories to tell, you being a hackie and all with a sort of sixth sense about trouble. But Tim Rourke’s got to make a deadline to file his story all about how you helped solve two murders. But before we run, Joe, is that right what you said about bringing your cab home at night and always being on call if one of your customers needs you in an emergency?”

“It sure is, Mr. Shayne,” Joe Agnew assured him earnestly. “Couple times a week, maybe, I get a call like that and go out special. I never charge but the regular fare for it, but I will say most people do dish out a fat tip for the extra service.”

“I’ll keep your name and phone number in mind, Joe.” Shayne wrung his hand hard and started toward the door. “Don’t suppose you’d mind a little free advertising on that, would you? Makes a good human-interest touch, don’t you think, Tim?”

Tim Rourke, who had not uttered a word since entering the house ostensibly to interview Joe Agnew, muttered that he guessed it would, and thanked Joe for the beer, and then hurried out after Shayne who was already getting in his car.

“What a monologuist,” he groaned. “If you got anything out of that drivel—”

“I got plenty out of it.” Michael Shayne’s voice was strong and he sounded sure of himself for the first time since Rourke had encountered him earlier. The reporter looked at him in utter surprise, but Shayne was driving away fast and going on briskly.

“Doesn’t the Daily News sponsor a nightcap news broadcast at two o’clock?”

“Yes.”

“Know the man who does it?”

“Sure. Dick Farrel’s on it now.”

“Friend of yours?” Shayne snapped at him.

“He owes me plenty of drinks.”

“Good. I’ll drop you and you get hold of him. Have him kill some of the junk he’s getting ready to rehash over the air and do a story on Joe Agnew. Get in the salient things Agnew told us about Bristow. The way he acted in the cab demanding Joe’s name and number. And I wasn’t fooling about giving Joe some free advertising about his extra-curricular activities if anybody calls him at home at night to make an extra trip. Be damned sure you get that in. Such enterprise should be rewarded.”

“Are you serious, Mike? Dick Farrel won’t like my telling him what to say on the air.”

“I’m damned serious. Ram it down his throat, Tim. Get him tight and take the microphone away from him to do the broadcast yourself if you have to. But get that stuff on the air at two o’clock. That’s just eighteen minutes from now.”

Timothy Rourke didn’t argue with him. Many times in the past, nearing the end of a case, he had seen this same change come over the rangy private detective. And each time it had happened, it had spelled out headlines for him the next day.

All indecision had vanished from Shayne now. All doubts had been swept away. He was surging forward on the tide of some inner strength which grew out of an intense personal conviction that he now knew the answers to the questions that had previously bothered him.

He pulled up hard at the corner of Flagler to let Timothy Rourke out, and his voice was harsh as he said, “I’m leaving it up to you, Tim. For God’s sake, don’t let me — or Lucy — down.”

Rourke met his demanding gaze briefly and nodded. “Be seeing you.” He stepped out and slammed the door shut, stood on the curb and wonderingly watched the black sedan leap across the intersection northward.

A police car was just ahead of Michael Shayne when he swung into the block on 18th Street, slowing in to the curb in front of the house where Trixie had been strangled, and as Shayne drove past he saw a man getting out of the car and starting up the walk toward a uniformed man on guard at the front door.

Shayne went on without pausing, all the way around the block, and when he turned the corner again the police car was pulling away ahead of him.

Shayne parked two houses away from the one he wanted, got out, and went along the sidewalk briskly and up to the front door which no longer had a police guard. He opened the door and went in as though he belonged there, found himself in a small hallway lighted by a dingy bulb, with stairs leading to the two upper floors on his left.

He climbed one flight, looked for a number on the first door and found it was 21. It was dark, but light came through the transom from number 23, and the sound of a radio being played softly.

Directly across from the lighted door, Shayne stopped in front of 24 and tried the knob. It was locked, of course. But it was only a common indoor lock, and it opened easily with a skeleton key.

He stepped inside the silent room and pulled the door shut behind him, switched on a pencil flashlight to orient himself in the chamber where death had struck earlier.

It was an ordinary cheap bedroom, with neatly made double bed in one corner, veneered oak chest of drawers and chintz-covered easy chair, a straight wooden chair in another corner.

Shayne got the straight chair and carried it back to a position against the wall beside the closed door. He sat in it and looked at his watch, switched off the light and got Will Gentry’s gun from his pocket and laid it across his knees.

He would waste exactly fifteen minutes here, he decided. By that time, the Daily News broadcast would be on the air, and he couldn’t afford to wait longer than that.

He didn’t actually expect anything to happen during those fifteen minutes. The chances were about a thousand to one against it. But he had these few minutes to waste, and there was that one chance in a thousand that he would have a visitor.

There had been a policeman on duty ever since the murder until just a few minutes ago. If anyone had desired to get into the room, they would have been prevented from doing so. Now that the guard had been withdrawn from the front door, an attempt might be made.

It was stifling hot inside the dark room. In the night silence, the radio from across the hall sounded inordinately loud.