Brett Halliday - Michael Shayne's Long Chance

He said, “I might have known you’d be mixed up in this.”

Shayne shrugged and said, “I always like to get in on the ground floor.”

“Why did you bop her?” snarled Denton. “That the only way you can handle a dame in the Quarter?”

Shayne said, “That lacks a hell of a lot of being funny.”

“All right. Give.” Denton crossed the room and set himself solidly before the redhead and chewed his unlit cigar across his mouth.

“I had a date with Miss Macon. I was detained by a couple of your boys.” Shayne touched his bruised face tenderly with the tips of his fingers. “Before I could get back here to keep my date, somebody else had got to the girl.”

“Macon, eh? That her name?”

“Margo Macon.”

“Friend of yours?”

“Sort of. Daughter of a friend. He asked me to look her up when I hit town.”

“And your story is gonna be that you just walked in by chance and found her like this? Hell, you’d better think up a better one fast.”

Shayne nodded toward the Frenchwoman. “She’ll verify my story. I punched her bell by mistake when I was trying to rouse the girl. She came in with me.”

Denton took the cigar from his mouth and frowned at it. He turned from Shayne to face Madame Legrand and barked, “Well, what about it? What are you doing here?”

Madame Legrand’s black eyes flashed angrily. She shook a trembling finger at Shayne and burst into a wild babble of French. She stamped her foot and her eyes glittered with fear.

Denton yelled, “Hold it! Wait a minute. Don’t tell me you can’t speak English. I heard you a while ago.”

Shayne said, “Madame Legrand always has hysterics in French. She can go faster that way. If you wouldn’t scare the living daylights out of her you might find out something.”

“Shut up,” Denton barked. “I’m running this show.” He turned to the woman again. “Let’s have your story.”

“He made me stay,” she screamed. “He made me come in. I live in the next apartment and I know nothing about this. Only what I have told him.”

“Tell me everything you told him,” Denton ordered. She lowered herself into a chair and began a tight-lipped recital. When she told him of seeing the man leap from the balcony of 303 to the hotel balcony opposite, Denton pounced.

“Get out on the balcony and take a look, Parks,” he ordered. Then to the woman: “Describe the man you saw. What time was it?”

“There was not much light. Not enough to see him well. It was, perhaps, an hour ago. I was in bed and did not look at the time.”

Parks came back from the balcony. “Looks like a good bet. Not more’n two feet from this balcony to a dinky one in the next building.”

“Get the number of that room. Look it over. Find out who’s in it — all about it.”

The sergeant hurried out. Denton turned and scowled at the dead girl. “Been dead about an hour. That checks.” He said to Shayne, “Where were you an hour ago?”

“Do I need an alibi?”

“You’re likely to.”

“I’ll dig one up when I need it,” Shayne promised, and demanded in disgust, “Why in hell doesn’t Homicide get on the job so we can have an intelligent investigation? I have a personal interest in this case.”

Denton clamped his teeth hard on his cigar. He turned to Madame Legrand and asked, “What time did this man come up? How did you get into this apartment?”

“It was a little after eleven. I asked him why he disturbed decent people at so late an hour and he was most anxious that Miss Macon should reply to him. He pounded on the door and turned the knob and it came open.”

“Unlocked, eh?” Denton transferred his suspicious gaze to Shayne.

The detective nodded blandly. “I didn’t jimmy it if that’s what you’re getting at.”

Light suddenly flashed through the French doors and windows of Shayne’s hotel room across the way. As Denton whirled in that direction, Sergeant Parks’s excited voice came from the opposite balcony: “I don’t think you’re going to need Homicide to hang this case up to dry, Captain. Didn’t you say that redhead’s name is Mike Shayne?”

Denton stepped onto the balcony. He nodded to Parks. “That’s it. How does it tie up?”

“In a tight knot.” The sergeant’s voice was exultant. “This is Shayne’s room — rented this afternoon. And get this, Captain. He acted plenty suspicious when he rented it. Asked the clerk about Apartment three-oh-three in the Peloine and wanted the room adjoining it. He slipped the clerk a ten-spot to fix it for him to have this special room. How do you like that?”

“I like it fine,” Denton told him. He went back into the room to face Shayne. “Got an answer to that?”

Shayne said, “Sure. But I’m not wasting my answers on you. You’re nothing but a goddamned precinct bull. When the dicks come I’ll do my talking.”

Denton’s face reddened. He thrust his head forward, glaring at Shayne. He started to close the gap between them when the sound of tramping feet on the stairs and in the hallway stopped him.

A slender, middle-aged man sauntered through the doorway with his hands in the pockets of a blue serge suit. A cigarette drooped laxly from one corner of his mouth. He nodded curtly and said, “All right, Denton, I’ll take over.” Men tramped in behind him — photographers, fingerprint men, and Doctor Matteson, the medical examiner. They shunted Denton and his harnessmen aside as they began a methodical investigation of the body and the death scene.

“Sure, Inspector. Sure,” Denton said to the slender man in plain clothes. “This is your baby, all right. But there’s not much left for your smart boys to find out. If you’re looking for a killer, there you are.” He gestured toward Shayne, his black eyes triumphant.

The inspector lifted grayish brows at Shayne. Cold blue eyes surveyed him with ironic detachment. “Nice of you to hang around for the pinch,” he commented quietly.

“I’ve got him dead to rights,” Denton blustered. “Name’s Shayne. Been in trouble here before. A two-bit private op who got run out of town years ago and just got up the guts to sneak back. Thought he could pull a fast one and get out before we heard about him being here.”

The inspector said, “Shayne?” He studied the redhead an instant longer, lifted one shoulder slightly and turned away. “Fair enough, Denton. You’ll get credit if it’s coming to you. What have you got on him?”

Denton went into details with great gusto. When he finished relating the incriminating evidence against Shayne the captain whirled on Madame Legrand and demanded, “This is the man you saw sneak out of here and leap across the balcony, isn’t it? Look at him? Isn’t he the one?”

“I cannot say, Monsieur. I cannot say yes and I cannot say no. It was not light, you understand.” She spread out her hands in a gesture of futility.

Parks came across from the hotel balcony and entered the room. He drew Denton aside and conferred excitedly for a moment. The captain nodded and chewed happily on his cigar, turned to the inspector and said, “My man has some more important dope. Mind if I ask Shayne a couple of questions?”

“Go ahead,” the inspector answered.

Denton pivoted until his blunt jaw was within six inches of Shayne’s gaunt face. He asked, “Where have you been all evening?”

Shayne said, “For the inspector’s benefit, I’ll tell you. A couple of your tough boys jumped me a little after dark — after you’d told them I wasn’t welcome in your precinct. They bounced me around and jugged me on a false d.-and-d. While I was in jail, this girl was deprived of my protection — and murdered.”

“That’s just too damned bad,” purred Denton. “Do you happen to know what time you were released?”