Brett Halliday - Call for Michael Shayne

“What about keys to the front door?”

“I have my key. I don’t know about any others.”

“Do you always come to work so early?”

Miss Dort lifted her head and looked directly at him. “Are you really a detective?”

“Why do you ask that?” Shayne had a chance to study her face for the first time. Her skin was too white for a girl who lived in Miami all the time, and he decided she didn’t get enough sunshine. There was a becoming flush of rouge on her cheeks, and her lips were full and highly rouged.

“The policemen in there — particularly the small one — seemed very angry when they reached here and found you knocked out. He was sure you had been ransacking the files.”

“What did you think?” Shayne got up and sauntered over to her desk, eased one hip on a corner of it.

“I didn’t know what to think,” she told him crisply.

“Have you any idea what someone might have been looking for?”

A frown came between her eyes. She lifted one hand and pushed a cluster of hair back from her damp forehead. “I don’t understand any of it,” she told him. “I heard them talking about a murderer the doctor attended last night.”

“You don’t know Arthur Devlin?”

“I don’t remember him. Is he — is Doctor Thompson in trouble of some sort?”

Shayne shrugged and emptied his brandy glass. “No more than any man, I guess, whose best friend has just committed a murder. Do you know if Devlin ever visited here — had an opportunity to get hold of a key?”

“I’ve told you I don’t remember the name at all. I am only here during the day to take care of patients,” she added primly.

Shayne grinned at her. “Does Doctor Thompson do all his own cooking and housework?”

She lowered her head and eyes and began turning pages in an account book on the desk. “He has a woman who comes in every afternoon. I believe she prepares dinner before she leaves. I know very little about his private arrangements.”

The telephone on her desk rang. She lifted the receiver, spoke briskly and professionally into the mouthpiece. She made an eleven o’clock appointment for the patient and was entering it in a book when the door opened and Doctor Thompson came in. Will Gentry stood behind him in the doorway. “Coming along with us, Mike?”

Shayne glanced at the doctor and received a faint negative shake of his head. He said blandly, “I think not, Will. There’s still some brandy, and I haven’t got Miss Dort’s telephone number yet.”

Gentry said flatly, “I’ll be waiting for you in my office. Try to stay out of Painter’s hair until he cools off.” He turned and went toward the front door.

Doctor Thompson emitted a long sigh and said, “The police are through in my study, Miss Dort. You might start sorting things out — and try to find out if anything is missing.”

“And try, particularly,” said Shayne, “to make a note of the names of any patients the intruder may have been interested in. What did the police get?” he added to Thompson as the nurse went into the small anteroom and closed the door.

“From me?” snorted the doctor. “They seem to suspect Art of luring me away on a fake call so he could get in and go through my files. It’s absolutely ridiculous.” He stood with his plump hands on his hips studying Shayne shrewdly through his glasses. “Art is my friend. I don’t know whom he is supposed to have murdered last night nor where he is now nor what sort of jam he’s in. Can I talk to you in confidence?”

Shayne said, “Sure.” He followed the doctor out into the reception room and down a hallway leading past two bedrooms connected by a bath, into the kitchen. There Thompson began efficiently brewing a large pot of coffee, talking quietly as he moved about. “I’m going to lay all my cards in front of you, Shayne. I refused to tell the police this because I don’t know what to believe. Art Devlin told me a fantastic story when I went to his apartment early this morning. If it’s the truth, I’m afraid he’s the victim of some sort of plot so fantastic that it staggers the imagination. If he lied to me—”

Thompson paused, shaking his head doubtfully. “I still want to help him in any way I can,” he resumed. “The important thing, it seems to me, is to institute a quiet investigation to determine what the truth is.”

Shayne was seated in a kitchen chair beside a white enameled table. He asked, “What was the fantastic story he told you?”

The doctor set out coffee cups and cream and sugar. “I want your word that this won’t get to the police, Shayne.”

“I can’t promise to protect a murderer.”

“I don’t expect you to do that. I want your promise to make an unofficial investigation and report the results to me before you turn anything over to the police. If you find that Art is a murderer, I’ll go with you to the police and give them any help I can.”

Shayne said, “That’s fair enough. Give it to me.”

Thompson poured two cups of strong coffee, passed one to Shayne, set the pot back on a low flame, and sat down. He started to pass the cream and sugar to Shayne, but Shayne waved a big hand, said, “I take it black.” He then put three heaping teaspoonfuls of sugar in his own cup, poured in heavy cream, stirred it thoroughly, tasted it, and said:

“You can’t imagine how shocked I was when Art called me from his apartment when I was sure he was on the boat…” He related every detail of what had passed between Devlin and him early that morning, just as Devlin himself had told it to Shayne.

“Now I understand from the police that Art left his apartment soon after I talked to him,” he ended with a troubled frown. “Perhaps he did make that telephone call to me, then slipped in here to go through my files after I had gone out. But why? That’s the question that keeps tormenting me, Shayne.”

“How did the intruder enter your house?”

“According to the police, he must have used a key. I know the back door was bolted on the inside, and the front door locked automatically when I went out and closed it.”

“Would Devlin, by any chance, have a key?”

“I didn’t tell Gentry or Painter this, Shayne, but I’m afraid he has. You see, his apartment at the Clairmount was being redone some months ago. He was going to move to a hotel until it was finished, but I persuaded him to stay over here instead. He had a key at that time, but I hadn’t even given it a thought. If it was Art, I don’t understand why he would go out the back door and leave it open.”

“Whoever was in your study might have opened it after I started ringing the front door bell,” Shayne theorized. “As an invitation for me to walk into an ambush.”

“But wouldn’t it have been simpler to leave it bolted? Then you would have gone away without knowing he was inside.”

Shayne shrugged and admitted, “Guessing about things like that won’t do us much good. Let’s get back to Devlin’s amnesia story. Do I understand that as a medical man you are unable to believe that an accident — say in Cuba — could have caused a blank in his memory dating back to the night he left Miami?”

Doctor Thompson was silently thoughtful for a moment. “The weight of medical evidence is against such a possibility. But if it wasn’t Devlin on the ship, who was it? And what’s Art been doing these past two weeks? How did he wind up in that rooming-house with the body of a murdered man?”

“If we knew that, we’d have the case sewed up. And if we knew the last name of this Janet who wrote him the letter, a radiogram to her might clear up a whole lot of things.”

A queer expression settled on Thompson’s florid face. “That’s one point that worries me. I hate to say this, but I had a distinct impression that Art was stalling when he pretended he couldn’t remember Janet’s married name.”