Brett Halliday - What Really Happened

“I am going to send him a carbon of this letter by special messenger so he’ll know I’ve told you about it, and maybe he will decide not to when he realizes you will suspect him.

“I will telephone you first thing in the morning for an appointment if I am still alive. Very truly yours. Wanda Weatherby.”

Lucy asked, “Any postscript?” when she finished typing. Shayne shook his head, and she rolled the sheet from the portable.

“Now address an envelope to me at the office. Put her address in the usual place, but make a couple of mistakes in it and in my address. Ex out the errors so you’ll he able to recognize this envelope from the one she mailed when they both arrive at the office tomorrow morning.”

Lucy put the envelope in the pot table and followed instructions. When she rolled it out and handed it to him, she said, “This really throws Mr. Gurley at Chief Gentry, Michael. And you don’t even know that she wrote a letter like this about him.”

“It’s a fair assumption, angel. The two recipients I do know about have alibis for the time of her death. That is, Sheila Martin claims she has — and they’re both fairly nice people who appear to have been victimized by Wanda.

“Gurley, on the other hand, is distinctly not a nice person, and he gets this special attention for trying to put the pressure on me instead of coming to me decently, like the others, and putting his cards on the table.”

Lucy set the portable on the coffee table, closed the box of notepaper, curled her feet under her robe again, and said, “Suppose Chief Gentry insists on looking through the mail himself and finds both letters? How many years in jail can we get for doing this, Michael?”

“God knows. Be sure to wipe your fingerprints off both notes before you seal them. And take your portable down to a repair shop on your way to the office and leave it to have the type changed. Not the shop we generally use, and give a false name. Just a precaution,” he added with a wide grin. “It’ll be up to you to see that nothing goes wrong. Take a taxi, but get off a few blocks from where you’re going.”

Lucy took a sip of her thin drink. “I’ve learned how to be cautious in a little thing like that,” she said. “I’m worried about Chief Gentry and the morning mail.”

“Don’t, angel. After all, it is my office and my mail, and Gentry has no right to see anything except one letter from Wanda Weatherby. I’ll insist that you take the mail from the postman right in front of Will, and I’ll tell you to sort it out and give me the one from Wanda. He’ll be watching, so shuffle through them fast until you come to the one you addressed tonight. Don’t, for God’s sake, make a mistake and hand me her letter instead. It will be addressed in the same elite type and in an envelope just about this size, and may or may not have a return address. Watch out for that.”

Lucy picked up the envelope, carefully noted the two letters she had exed out, and said. “I’ll watch out, all right. I hate messy typing.” She plucked a cocktail napkin from a decorative holder on the table and began rubbing it over the portions of the notes where she had handled it. She asked. “Is this all right for eliminating fingerprints?”

“Sure. But rub hard where you touched it, and on both sides. The envelope, too.”

Lucy worked silently. She was disturbed, but she knew that any argument would be futile. She used the paper napkin when she folded them to place them in the envelope. She was tucking the notepaper inside when she turned to Shayne and said, “If I seal it now, how are we going to get the thousand dollars Wanda Weatherby says is inside?”

“I almost forgot that.” he admitted. “You got a check-book handy?”

“Yes — but what good will that do? I haven’t got a thousand—”

“Get it. And don’t worry.”

Lucy’s eyes were deeply puzzled, but she went into her bedroom and returned with a small checkbook on the First National Bank of Miami.

“Write a check for a grand, payable to me,” Shayne directed. “Date it as of yesterday.”

“That’s about seven hundred dollars more than I have in my checking-account,” Lucy protested.

“You’re going to sign Wanda Weatherby’s name to it, angel,” he told her with a wide grin.

“How do you know she banks at the First National?” she protested. “And don’t forget that Chief Gentry saw her bank stubs and will recognize the signature as a forgery as soon as he sees it.”

“Those are chances we have to take,” he said blithely.

“Chances I have to take. I don’t see you forging anything.”

“It’s not much of a chance,” he comforted her. “I’ll try to hang on to the check. It is my property, and Gentry already expects a check to be enclosed, so there’s no reason for him to insist upon examining it.”

“All right, but darn it, Michael, I don’t like it. I’ll never understand why you get yourself into a spot where you have to pull a stunt like this.” She unfolded the checkbook, got a fountain pen from the desk drawer, and deliberately filled in the blanks with a broad backhand that was exactly the opposite of her fine Spencerian handwriting.

Shayne said, “It’s guys like Gentry who force me to take measures like this, and I don’t like it. But a private detective has to protect his clients.” He stood up and stretched his long body.

“You’ll need a stamp on the envelope,” Lucy reminded him, and again disappeared into her bedroom, taking the envelope with her. She moistened the stamp on a wet washrag, pasted it on, and carefully sealed it with a piece of tissue. She carried it into the living-room, holding the envelope in the tissue. She said, “Please be careful, Michael,” holding the letter out to him.

He took it and put it in his pocket. “I’m always careful. Don’t worry.”

“But Jack Gurley is going to be awfully angry if he ever finds out you suppressed the letters accusing other people and you gave only his name to the police.”

“I’ve had guys like Gurley sore at me before. You get some sleep so you’ll be sure to reach the office ahead of the postman.” He kissed her lightly on the forehead, patted her shoulder, and strode out.

SHAYNE STOPPED at the main post office and dropped the letter in the slot for local mail, then drove toward his apartment. He felt weary, both physically and mentally, from traveling in too many concentric circles. And there was still Donald Henderson waiting to see him.

Henderson was a type of man he detested, though he had never met him personally. A self-professed humanitarian and loudmouthed proclaimer of the inalienable rights of the humblest citizen to life, liberty, and happiness, yet he was owner of the largest and scurviest slum section in the city, and therefore a bitter and articulate foe of any plan for public housing or slum clearance. His tenants, he was wont to proclaim stridently at civic meetings, had the same rights as any other citizen to hang onto their snug little nests in his crummy tenements and to resist every effort of a totalitarian government bureau to regiment them into more pleasant and comfortable living-quarters at rents no higher than they paid to him for the squalid surroundings in which they now existed.

It would have been more fun and probably a greater public service, Shayne told himself, to have put Henderson’s name in the letter he intended to foist onto Gentry, instead of sending the police after Jack Gurley. He didn’t know, of course, that Henderson had actually received one of Wanda’s carbon copies, but from what the man had said over the telephone, he suspected that to be the case.

It was too late for that now. Perhaps there would be a story in it that Timothy Rourke could use in his paper later.