Brett Halliday - When Dorinda Dances

Rourke took the folder back to the files, and they went down in the elevator and out to Shayne’s car. Rourke gave him the address where the poker game was in session.

Thirty minutes later Shayne stepped into the ornate lobby of the Waldorf Towers Hotel, went directly to a row of house phones, picked up a receiver, and asked for Mrs. Elbert H. Davis.

After a slight delay the operator said, “Mrs. Davis is in four-eighteen,” and began to ring.

He waited for the tenth ring before hanging up, then went to the desk and spoke to the clerk. “I’d like to leave a message for Mrs. Davis in four-eighteen, if she’s out.”

The clerk handed him a memo pad and pen, checked the mail and key cubicles, then reported, “Her key is in the box, so she must be out.”

Shayne wrote: Very important that you phone me at once. He scribbled the telephone number at his apartment, and added: Will be out between 2:00 a.m. and 3:00 or 3:30. Please call before or after that period.

On the way to the door he dragged his hat off, and outside in the cool night air he mopped perspiration from his face. In his car, he tossed the Panama on the seat beside him and let the wind blow through his hair as he drove back to his apartment where he relaxed with a drink and a lot of questions that apparently had no answers.

His telephone hadn’t rung, and it was two o’clock.

There was a worried frown between his eyes when he went down to his car and drove slowly to La Roma. He parked half a block east of the driveway, got out, and sauntered back to the next cross street east, turned left, and circled the block to come up to the night club from the rear. He found a comfortable grassy spot against the trunk of a coconut palm where he could watch the parking-lot, lit a cigarette, and settled himself to wait.

He was tossing away the fourth cigarette butt when patrons of the final show began to stream through the front door and back to their parked cars. Shayne got up and edged forward until he stood against the rear of the building to watch the stage exit. Several men were grouped around the door, and among them he recognized the tall figure of Mr. Moran.

Members of the orchestra filed out, and Billie Love was clutching the arm of the leader. Then he saw Dorinda’s bare head in the lighted doorway. She hesitated on the threshold, flashing her eyes around, and as the others moved away, she stepped out to join Moran.

Shayne followed unobtrusively until they got in a maroon coupe parked in the driveway beside the building. In the slow-moving traffic he came up behind the coupe, memorized the license number, then cut diagonally across toward his own parked car. The maroon coupe made a left turn from the drive and passed him on the other side of the street as he slid under the wheel. He waited until it had gone a couple of blocks before wheeling in a U-turn into the thin stream of vehicles trickling away from La Roma.

The routine of tailing them was simple. He followed the coupe to a four-story stuccoed apartment house on a quiet street in Coconut Grove. Dorinda got out when Moran swung the car across the walk, and he drove on to the garage in the rear.

Shayne parked across the street and waited. Three minutes after the dancer unlocked the front door and entered the building, lights showed in the two front windows of the second-floor apartment on the right. The shades were up, and he saw her clearly when she went to the windows to pull them down.

Shayne drove back to his hotel. The switchboard operator told him there had been no calls in his absence.

He went up to his apartment frowning thoughtfully and tugging at his ear lobe. None of it made sense. If the girl was Julia Lansdowne he felt inclined to lay off completely and let her sleep in the bed she’d made. She could probably take care of herself quite well.

But the thought of her parents in Washington kept coming back as he shrugged off his coat and made himself comfortable in the swivel chair behind his battered desk. Ordinarily, even a man in Judge Lansdowne’s position would be able to weather a minor scandal such as the papers would make of Dorinda’s dancing if her identity became known. But these were not ordinary times. They were damned extraordinary times, with men of high integrity being hounded in the reactionary press by charges of subversion and the wildest sort of unprovable accusations.

Shayne shook his red head moodily, and his gray eyes brooded into space. No. Mrs. Davis had not exaggerated the effect the disclosure of the nude dancer’s real name might have on her father’s career.

Suddenly he was glaring at the silent telephone on the desk. He looked at his watch. Where the devil was Mrs. Davis? It was almost four o’clock, and no call from her. Plenty of women, he realized, stayed out much later than that in Miami, but she hadn’t seemed to be the type. Particularly when she was so worried about her friend’s daughter. Had she tried again to get in touch with Dorinda? Found out where she lived — gone there and run into Moran?

He came to his feet and stalked to the liquor cabinet, got a bottle of cognac, thumped it down on the low table in front of the couch, and went to the kitchen for ice cubes and water. Returning, he sank down on the couch and took Dorinda’s photograph from his pocket. Propping it against the lighted end-table lamp, he studied it, comparing the whirling nude dancer with the shy, sweet girl who sat at the dinner table and unaffectedly consumed a thick steak with the relish of any healthy, hungry schoolgirl.

He rubbed his angular jaw, and the lines deepened in his gaunt cheeks. How could it possibly add up? If, of course, she were Julia Lansdowne. Where did Moran fit into the picture? Without doubt, the girl was deathly afraid of the man.

Shayne took a long drink from the bottle and chased it with ice water. His mouth tightened, and his fingers instinctively closed into fists. Why hadn’t he followed his first impulse and forced a showdown with Moran at La Roma? He could have shaken Lawry off and, if necessary, made a forward pass to the opposite wall with his slimy little body if Tim—

He relaxed abruptly. Tim was right, of course. Attacking Moran at La Roma would undoubtedly have brought the publicity which had to be avoided at all costs if the girl was Judge Lansdowne’s daughter.

The telephone rang. He sprang to his feet, relieved by the expectation of hearing Mrs. Davis’s voice and finally hearing an explanation for her failure to call earlier. He reached the desk in three long strides, snatched up the receiver, and said, “Shayne speaking.”

The apologetic voice of the night clerk said, “I hope I didn’t waken you, Mr. Shayne.”

“That’s okay, Dick. What is it?”

“There’s a girl down here asking for you. She looks scared. Says her name is Dorinda.”

“Send her up. And shoot through any telephone calls that come in.” He replaced the receiver slowly, wonderingly. He heard the elevator stop at his floor, and high heels tapping down the hall. He went to the door and flung it open to admit his late visitor.

Dorinda wore the same cool dress she had changed to after her first dance. Her short blond hair was windblown and her violet eyes were terrified. Her hands were tightly clasped together and she cried out, “Please, Mr. Shayne! You’ve got to help me. I know it’s horribly late, but it was my only chance to — to get away. If you’ll only listen to me—”

“There’s nothing I’d like better,” he assured her. He caught her tight little hands and drew her into the room, stepped past her, and glanced out in the corridor with interest, asked, “Are you alone?”

“Oh, yes! You mean Ricky? Golly, yes. If he knew I was here—”