Brett Halliday: Call for Michael Shayne

He got in his car as he pondered, gunned the engine, and turned south toward Bert Masters’s construction office.

The office was on a side street south of Fifth, the ground floor of a large warehouse beside a depot for construction and dirt-moving equipment. There was a spacious waiting-room in front with wooden benches around the walls, the bare pine floor decorated with brass ash stands and spittoons. Half a dozen men lounged on the benches and they looked at Shayne with furtive curiosity characteristic of men waiting their turn to see a busy executive, sizing him up speculatively as a competitor after an order, or as a social acquaintance who might breeze into Masters’s presence and waste his time while those before him continued to cool their heels in the waiting-room.

There was a large oak desk in the center of the room with a straight wooden chair behind it. The desk was bare except for a telephone and a commodious ash tray. Shayne walked over and lowered one hip on a corner of it and looked impassively at the waiting ones, noting their expressions of boredom and of sullen resignation.

A young man entered briskly from a door at the right. He had a fawn-colored mustache and a slack mouth and an offensively cheerful manner. He nodded brightly to a perspiring fat man on the end of the bench nearest the door and said, “Just a few more minutes now, Mr. Getlow,” then moved on to the desk and seated himself. He looked up at Shayne with a slight frown of annoyance and inquired, “And what can I do for you, sir?”

He was one of those young men, thought Shayne morosely, who had taken courses in How to Develop a Dynamic Personality by correspondence.

“You can tell Roger Morgan I’m here.”

“I’m so sorry,” chanted the young man. “Mr. Morgan is not in his office.”

“Where is he?”

“If you’ll state your business?” said the young man firmly and with a rising inflection.

“Masters will do,” growled Shayne.

“I’m afraid he’s frightfully busy this afternoon.” He lifted his eyebrows expressively at the waiting loungers. “All these gentlemen have appointments. Perhaps there is something I can do for you.”

Shayne shook his head and said emphatically, “My business is personal and important. Masters will see me next.”

“Oh, no, sir. I’m afraid not. If you wish to state your business—”

A buzzer sounded underneath his desk. The rear door opened at the same moment and a man came out. Shayne, the young man, and the fat man at the end of the bench got to their feet simultaneously.

Shayne’s legs were the longest. He reached the door first, saying, “Sorry, Getlow. I won’t keep Masters long.” The young man caught the door and hung on to its edge, but Shayne’s arms were stronger and he pulled it shut.

The inner office was spacious and cooled with air-conditioning. There was a thick blue rug on the floor and an immense glass-topped desk centered it. Bert Masters was relaxed in an oversized leather chair behind it. A fat cigar protruded from his thick lips at an arrogant angle and his eyes narrowed as Shayne crossed the rug toward him.

The door opened before Shayne reached the desk and the young man rushed in and panted in squeaky terror, “I’m sorry, Mr. Masters. This man pushed in rudely—”

“What do you want, Shayne?” Masters bellowed.

“Not more than five minutes.”

“That’s four more than you’ll get if it’s the same thing you were harping on this morning.”

“It’s the same thing — only more so.” Shayne stopped in front of the desk and leaned forward with his palms flat on the glass top. “You’d better give me five minutes, Masters.”

Bert Masters looked past Shayne and roared at the young man, “Get your tail out of here. And get Chief Painter from police headquarters on the phone. Talk to him personally, and tell him to send some men up to pull this shamus out of here.”

“Yes, sir. This — shamus, sir?”

“Mike Shayne to you. Beat it.”

When the door closed, Shayne said, “I think you’ll send Painter’s boys away when they get here.”

“Why do you think that? I told you this morning—”

“That you didn’t want me digging into your wife’s death. Does the same thing go for the death of her sister?”

“Her sister?”

“Mrs. Janet Brice,” said Shayne patiently. “Nee Elwell. Remember?”

“She’s on a boat somewhere in—”

“Janet Brice,” Shayne interrupted him coldly, “was murdered in Miami a couple of hours ago.” He paused significantly before asking, “Where’s Morgan?”

“What has Morgan to do with any of this?”

“Has he an alibi for twelve o’clock?”

Bert Masters nervously removed the cigar from his mouth and fidgeted under Shayne’s direct gaze. “Why should Morgan need an alibi?”

“Somebody killed your sister-in-law. Someone who doesn’t want her talking about a letter your wife wrote her a short time before she committed suicide. Doesn’t Morgan fit?”

Fear showed briefly on Masters’s grossly fat face. “How do you figure Morgan fits that?”

Shayne reached his foot out and hooked his toe under the rung of a heavy golden oak chair and pulled it close to the desk. “Let’s take our hair down,” he said quietly. “This whole thing is out of Painter’s hands now because both these murders — Skid Munroe’s and Janet Brice’s — were committed in Will Gentry’s territory. You can talk to me — or to the Miami homicide boys.”

The door opened again and the clerk stopped just inside and said, “Pardon, Mr. Masters, but Chief Painter is not available. I talked to Lieutenant Perkins and he said—”

“Get out,” Masters shouted. “Cancel that call. Now then, Shayne. What’s really on your mind?”

“I think,” said Shayne slowly, “that what’s really on my mind is the contents of the suicide note your wife left — which was either destroyed or withheld from the police by your confidential secretary.”

Masters choked and sputtered over a puff of smoke. He laid his cigar in a polished ash tray and glared at the detective. “Did Morgan tell you—?”

“He told me nothing — not yet. Hell, Masters,” Shayne went on persuasively, “any child could deduce that much. The whole thing is going to come out, so let’s have it in time to prevent any more murders.”

Masters picked his cigar up and turned it slowly between blunt fingers. “That damned letter,” he said. “I swear I didn’t know anything about it at first or I would have turned it over to the police no matter what it said. But Morgan thought he was being smart. Protecting me — and Lily. Later, when he admitted what he had done, the case was closed. Why reopen it and cause a stink?”

Shayne leaned back and lit a cigarette. His gray eyes were very bright. “What was in the suicide note?”

“I don’t know — exactly. Morgan didn’t — he just said it was stuff that would cause a scandal if it were made public. I’d known for years that Lily wasn’t faithful to me,” the big man went on drearily, “but what the hell? A man doesn’t enjoy wearing horns in public.”

“Was Arthur Devlin ever your wife’s lover?” Shayne demanded abruptly.

Masters dropped his cigar and his mouth opened in a big O. “Devlin?” He shoved his chair back and came to his feet. “Arthur Devlin? Hell, no. That is — no! Of course not. They scarcely knew each other. The idea’s absurd.”

“Who was the man? You must have had a pretty good idea.”

“I didn’t. I didn’t care much as long they kept it quiet and didn’t throw it in my face.”