Brett Halliday - One Night with Nora

“What?”

“Pay for a drink.”

“Coming right up,” Shayne said cheerfully as the waiter arrived with reinforcements.

The girl was quite drunk, he realized, and in a dazed, half-hypnotic state. The truth might well come through if he took it very, very gently, and did nothing to shock or frighten her.

He lit a cigarette and waited until she had a few sips from the fresh highball before asking casually, “Were you this tight last night?”

“Much, much tighter. I was floating. If I don’t get to floating in the evening I never go to sleep.”

“Where were you floating?” he asked with a crooked grin.

“Round and about.” She gestured vaguely. “Here and there, hither and yon.”

“Was your father sore when you floated into the hotel suite?”

“Didn’t see him.” She giggled. “Took off my shoes in the hall and floated right into bed.”

Shayne frowned fleetingly, then asked, “How long after Nora married Ralph did you get the cute idea of writing him anonymous letters about her?”

“Took me a long time to think of it.” She took a sip of her drink, then continued. “Gave up at first, and thought I’d just let her have the poor jerk. But after she made him quit his job and he got so unhappy and all, I said to myself, ‘Damn it, Ann, where’re your guts?’ So, I did it. Christmas present,” she giggled. “First one was Christmas present.”

“You sent the first one on Christmas?”

“Umm.” Her glazed eyes suddenly beamed with delight.

“Do you happen to know,” Shayne asked carefully, “exactly how far they went in the matter of hiring a detective to check up on who wrote the letters?”

“Don’t know. Pops knew I wrote them, of course, and he gave me hell. Made me promise to stop.” She lifted her highball glass with both hands and drank deeply. Then she slowly fell forward and dropped her head on her arm, spilling the remainder of the drink on the table.

Shayne’s gaze was bleak as it rested on her blue-black hair. Her eyes were closed and she breathed evenly. He tossed off his drink and called the waiter.

“Call a taxi to take Miss Margrave to the Roney Plaza,” he said, and laid a five-dollar bill on the table. “Give the driver whatever part of this you think he deserves, but you see that she gets to the hotel.”

“Yes, sir,” the waiter replied. “I’ll take care of it right away.”

Shayne’s steps were long and rapid and springy as he hurried out to his car to drive back to Miami. He was moving now. He had something. Not much, but it was definitely something. With one answer from Bates, the correct answer, he would really be ready to move.

Will Gentry had Margrave in his office when Shayne hurried in. The manufacturer looked sweaty, harried, and angry. Margrave leaped to his feet when the redhead entered, and leveled a forefinger at him. “What sort of games do you think you’re playing?” he snorted. “Chief Gentry says it was your idea to drag me in for interrogation — to be forced into a police line-up like a criminal. Damn it! I retained you to protect my interests. You’re fired, do you understand?”

Shayne ignored the pointed finger and Margrave’s angry outburst, but turned to Gentry and asked with interest, “Anything doing?”

Gentry shook his graying head wearily. “I’m afraid it’s a bust. None of the airport employees identified him. If you’ve got nothing else to go on—”

“I’m not surprised, Will,” Shayne broke in impatiently. “I think we can drop Margrave. Where’s Bates?”

“In the next room, frothing,” Gentry rumbled. “Talking about habeas corpuses and suits for false arrest. See here, Mike—”

But Shayne was halfway across the room, headed for another door. Attorney Bates was seated at a desk in the smaller office, talking into a telephone in his dry, precise voice.

Shayne reached him in two strides and put his big hand over the mouthpiece. “I need just one answer from you,” he said curtly. “Did you write me a letter soon after Christmas about investigating the anonymous letters Ann Margrave wrote to Carrol?”

“What’s this?” sputtered Bates. “Can’t you see I’m on the telephone?”

“You’re off it now.” He took his hand from the mouthpiece, pressed his finger on the prongs, and broke the connection. “Did you go so far as to write to me at that time?”

“I think I did,” the outraged lawyer snapped. “Later when Mr. Margrave informed me that his daughter was responsible, we dropped the matter, of course.”

Shayne drew a deep breath and relaxed. “How did you get my address for that first letter?”

“I believed I addressed it simply Miami, Florida. I assumed you were well-enough known to receive it.”

“And I replied to that letter early in January,” Shayne persisted.

“You did. I should have been suspicious of your professional standing and ability at the time from the eagerness you showed for that assignment.”

“But you weren’t?” Shayne pressed him. “When this thing about finding Ralph Carrol came up later, you again wrote to me, but this time used the address on my letterhead?”

“Why, yes, I did.”

Shayne whirled and was on his way out. Re-entering Gentry’s office, he did not slacken his long strides as he passed through, but flung over his shoulder, “Let Margrave go, Will. I’m on my way to get a guy the airport people will identify as Mike Shayne.”

Lucy Hamilton was pushing aside a luncheon tray, brought in from the drugstore downstairs, when Shayne entered the office. She said in a worried voice, “There hasn’t been a thing, Michael.” Then, noting the expression on his face, she stopped abruptly. “What is it? You look like the cat that ate a cageful of canaries.”

Shayne grinned happily. “I’m beginning to feel like one. Take a look back in the records, angel,” he went on swiftly. “Bill Nash. The punk I hired to hold down the office while you were on vacation. I want his address.”

Lucy frowned and turned to a filing-cabinet beside her desk. “Why do you want him? You fired him before I got back because you caught him snitching petty cash.”

“He was a lazy, no-good s.o.b.,” Shayne agreed cheerfully. “And if you ever take another vacation, I’m going to close up shop and go with you. But I want him now.”

Lucy drew out a card and read aloud, “William C. Nash. The Dillmore Hotel.”

“Get me the Dillmore, angel.”

She consulted the directory and dialed a number. When someone answered, she said, “Just a moment, please,” and handed the receiver to Shayne.

“Mr. Nash. William Nash.”

A girl’s voice said, “I’m sorry. We have no Mr. Nash at the present.”

“Do you have a Michael Shayne registered?”

“No, sir. I’m sorry.”

“Look, honey,” said Shayne persuasively. “This is very important. Bill Nash was living there a couple of months ago, the first two weeks in January, for sure. Will you check and see when he left? And what forwarding address you have?”

“It’ll take a few minutes.”

Shayne said, “I’ll hold on.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece and explained to Lucy. “You heard enough this morning to realize that a lawyer in Wilmington claims he hired me to locate Ralph Carrol in Miami a couple of weeks ago. He didn’t, but he swears he had letters and phone calls from me. I just learned that he first wrote me early in January, while you were on vacation and Nash was in the office. Nash evidently decided to turn detective himself, and kept the letter from me, had some Michael Shayne letterheads printed, and replied to Bates on one of them. God knows how many cases he may have picked up.”