Бретт Холлидей - Murder in Haste

Shayne sauntered over to the doorway as she accepted another incoming call. “Sunset Nursing Home, good evening.” She seemed too young to be earning her own living, but girls of that age had a way of looking younger to Shayne each year. She plugged a jack into the board and looked up.

Shayne said, “Doesn’t this job get monotonous?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “You’re — Michael Shayne, aren’t you?”

Shayne admitted that was who he was.

“That detective who came with Mrs. Heminway wouldn’t talk to me at all,” she said. “Is it true” — she lowered her voice and her eyes widened — “that somebody tried to kill her?”

“I’m afraid it is,” Shayne said.

She shuddered slightly. “I couldn’t believe it.”

“Does her father get many calls?”

She cheered up. “Oh, all the time, from all over. He must have a terrific circle of friends. It keeps me real busy, not that I mind. I try to say something cheerful, but the doctor doesn’t think there’s really much chance the paralysis will wear off, after this long. I probably should not say this, but I don’t think it matters, do you, I mean to tell somebody like you? Excuse me.”

She answered another call and rang an extension.

Shayne said, “When you said he gets calls from all over you mean long-distance?”

“Yes, but I probably shouldn’t have said all the time. He does get a call every single night from his brother in Baltimore, and that’s just to mention one.”

Shayne stopped smiling abruptly. “Baltimore? Are you sure?”

“Oh, yes. It comes in around six-thirty. Ordinarily I wouldn’t know if a call was local or long distance, but one night there was a mix-up in the circuits, and I heard the Baltimore operator trying to straighten it out.”

Another light flashed on her board. As she was attending to it, Rose came up behind Shayne.

“There you are,” she said.

Shayne lighted his cigarette. “You have an uncle in Baltimore, I hear.”

“Of course I don’t. I have one uncle here in town and one on the West Coast.”

Shayne went on smoking until the operator was free. He asked her, “Are you sure this Baltimore call was one of the regular six-thirty calls from his brother?”

She smiled. “Oh, we’re on quite friendly terms by now. This was only a few days after Mr. Chadwick came here from the hospital. When I found out it was an out-of-town call, I asked him why he didn’t make it person-to-person, and then if his brother couldn’t answer the phone, the call wouldn’t be completed and it wouldn’t cost him anything. But he said he’d rather talk to somebody and find out if there’d been any change, one way or the other.”

“How did he identify himself?” Shayne said.

“The first couple of times, just that he was John Chad-wick, Mr. Chadwick’s brother. After that I recognized his voice.”

“What kind of voice is it?”

“I wouldn’t know how to describe it, Mr. Shayne. Sort of deep, no particular accent.”

Shayne looked at Rose. “Do you have an Uncle John?”

“He’s the one in California. He’s seventy-nine, and he hasn’t done any traveling in years. He’s called me at home a few times, and he knows I’ll phone him if there’s any news. He wouldn’t call here. It must be somebody using his name.”

Shayne looked at his watch, a plan taking shape in his head. “Who’s the doctor in charge, Rose? This may be just the break we’ve been waiting for.”

Six-thirty came and went. Each time the switchboard buzzed, the operator glanced nervously at Shayne before she threw the switch and took the call. Each time, after listening to the first few words, she shook her head. Rose, at the office desk across the room, was smoking one cigarette after another.

At 6:45 there was another buzz. “Sunset Nursing Home, good evening,” she said, and an instant later she looked at Shayne and nodded excitedly. Shayne picked up the office phone, which was already plugged in. He heard a man’s voice: “John Chadwick again, and good evening to you. A little late tonight, but it couldn’t be helped. Any news?”

The girl was so excited that she stammered “Y-yes, yes, there is Mr. Chadwick, there certainly is. We’re all so glad, I can’t begin to tell you.”

“Good news?” the voice said tensely. “That’s wonderful! The paralysis?”

“Even better than that. Naturally we want him to be perfectly well again, and he’s still having some trouble with his left side. But the wonderful thing is that he’s going to be able to talk!”

“I should say it is wonderful,” the voice said heartily. “Almost too good to be true.”

“That’s what we all think here. Dr. Shoifett is terribly gratified, because he’s been using an experimental treatment, which only works about ten percent of the time. I was hoping you’d call earlier so you could talk to the doctor, but he just left this minute. Mr. Chadwick said his first words about two hours ago. It was pretty fuzzy, but according to Dr. Shoifett that’s not the point. If the throat muscles function at all, eventual recovery is almost certain.”

She looked at Shayne, who gave her an encouraging nod. Rose was leaning forward, fingers laced.

The voice said, “That’s great. I’m having trouble taking it in. His mind was clear? He recognized people?”

“I’d better not try to be definite on that,” she said. “I got the impression from the nurses that — but I’d better let you talk to Dr. Shoifett in the morning. The patient’s been given a strong sedative and he’s sleeping soundly. I probably shouldn’t have said as much as I have, but it’s so nice to be able to give somebody some encouraging news, for a change. Maybe the next time you call you can talk to him yourself.”

“I’m certainly looking forward to that. Was my niece with him when he—”

The girl looked at Shayne, who shook his head.

“No, she wasn’t, Mr. Chadwick. She came over right away, but he was asleep by the time she got here.”

The man on the phone repeated that his brother’s recovery of speech seemed almost a miracle, and thanked the girl several times before he hung up. She closed the switch and blew out her breath in a long sigh.

“Did I say anything wrong?”

“You were perfect,” Shayne said.

Rose had put her clasped hands to her forehead. Her eyes were closed. Shayne touched her shoulder.

“Don’t think about it, Rose. It may still actually happen.”

She shook her head helplessly. “It’s not that. I know he’s no more or less sick than he was before. It’s just that — using him like this—”

“I wouldn’t do it if I could think of any better way,” Shayne said. “He’d agree if we could explain it to him. More than one life is at stake. He won’t be in any danger. He’ll be in another part of town.”

She looked up. “There’s danger to you.”

“That’s what I’m paid for. Now let’s work this out with Wing.”

She touched his sleeve. “Can’t I sleep in one of the third-floor rooms? With you here I’ll be as safe as I would be by myself in some hotel. I’d go out of my mind anywhere else.”

“We can decide that after Joe Wing gets here.”

He asked the switchboard girl for an outside line. He was passed along from one number to another until he reached Joe Wing at a restaurant near the jail.

“Shayne,” the redhead said. “We’ve had some developments, and if you want to take part you’d better rearrange your schedule and come in to the Sunset Nursing Home off West Avenue.”

“I know the place,” Wing said. “Be more specific, can’t you, Mike? I just sat down to dinner. I was going back to the jail to spell the sheriff. He’s asked the same questions so many times he’s getting punchdrunk.”