Brett Halliday - What Really Happened

Gentry shook his graying head soberly. “There weren’t any chocolates around, if that’s what you mean.”

“What did the stomach analysis show?”

“Between a quarter and half grain. Probably swallowed very shortly before a heavy dinner which retarded the poison’s action considerably. Around nine o’clock is the doc’s best guess.”

“At least an hour before Wanda was shot,” Shayne muttered. “That would seem to do away with the possibility of murder and suicide on Helen’s part. Have you traced her movements during the evening?”

“We haven’t had much luck. Apparently she was in her room getting ready to go out — according to the Devon girl’s story. We know she had an audition at eight o’clock, and is supposed to have left there about eight-twenty in high spirits. After that, it’s a blank until her roommate returned around midnight and found her too far gone to be saved.”

“What sort of audition, Will?” Timothy Rourke asked.

“For a radio show. The producer called us this morning as soon as he read about her death, and volunteered the information. He says she seemed perfectly well and in good spirits when she left his place, and he had no idea where she went.”

“What’s the producer’s name?” Rourke asked in a worried voice.

“It’s a good Irish name Uh — Flannagan, I think. Pal of yours, Tim?”

“If it’s Ralph Flannagan,” said Rourke, “it just happens that he is.” He compressed his lips and his cavernous eyes sought Shayne’s imploringly, but the redhead was busy sipping cognac from the paper cup and refused to meet his gaze.

“Seemed to tell a straight enough story,” rumbled Gentry abstractedly, looking at his watch again. He stood up and his florid face was grim. “It’s now nine twenty-five, Mike. I checked with a couple of other offices here in the building before coming here. They say the mail is never later than nine-fifteen. How do you account for that?”

“Why should I account for it?”

“Because, by God, I think you’ve planned some hocus-pocus to keep that letter from being delivered while I’m here,” fumed Gentry. “You gave it away when you suggested a while ago that something might happen to the mail. If you’ve pulled a fast one on the United States mail, I’ll make it my job to see that they put you under Fort Leavenworth.”

At that moment the telephone rang, and Lucy Hamilton answered it. Gentry paused, breathing heavily, to listen.

She said, “One moment,” and held the instrument out to Shayne. “It’s for you, Michael. Henry Black.”

“I’ll take it inside,” he told her, stalking toward the door of his private office. He added over his shoulder, “You listen on that phone, Will. I think you may be interested in what Hank has to say.”

Hurrying to his desk, Shayne dropped one hip to the desk, picked up the receiver, and said, “That you, Hank?”

“Right. I thought you’d want to know how your hunch paid off, Mike. Just a block down Flagler. Two hoods waiting in a car to blast the postman. They had him spotted, all right, and if Matty and I hadn’t been right there and heeled, it would have been curtains.”

“What happened?” demanded Shayne, hearing a quick intake of breath from Will Gentry listening on the outer phone.

“The postman got one slug in his shoulder. They’re sending a substitute along with the mail. Nicky Calloni was one of the boys. Matty got him square in the heart. I don’t know his pal, but he’ll live, and the cops are talking to him now.”

Shayne said, “Fine, Hank. Send me a bill.” Then he said harshly to Will Gentry, “Still going to put me in Leavenworth, Will, for interfering with the mail?”

SHAYNE CRADLED THE RECEIVER and turned to face the police chief who came stamping in and exploded, “What did Hank Black mean? Why did he phone you?”

“You heard him,” Shayne snapped. “Nick Calloni and another man tried to hold the postman up on Flagler. If Black and Mathews hadn’t been on the spot, they would have succeeded.”

Gentry’s beefy face was a study in conflicting emotions. He said slowly, “Calloni is Jack Gurley’s right-hand man.”

“So I’ve heard,” Shayne told him dryly. “But he isn’t any more, according to Black.”

“Are you saying that Gurley arranged the holdup? Just to prevent Weatherby’s letter from being delivered?”

Shayne shrugged. “Why don’t you try thinking for once? In the meantime, you might apologize for suspecting me of fixing something to prevent your seeing the letter. Unless you think I hired Calloni and his pal to make the snatch — and then put Black on it to prevent it.”

“Damn it, Mike, if you suspected Gurley might do something like that, why didn’t you warn me? I would have put guards on the postman. That’s what we’ve got cops for. You didn’t have to call in private ops for a job like that. It isn’t going to look good.”

“Because your men would have scared Calloni off,” the detective told him evenly. “He’d never have tried it if they had been around.”

“And he’d still be alive.” rumbled Gentry.

“Exactly.”

“Damn it, you mean you sucked him into making the try hoping there’d be a shooting?”

Shayne lit a cigarette and explained dispassionately, “I couldn’t swear to it, but I’m morally certain Calloni was one of the thugs who tried to blast me last night. I’m also morally certain that Gurley sent him to do the job. By sending Black and Mathews to guard the postman instead of a couple of cops — or going myself, I pulled Calloni out in the open where you can see him. And you can cut the moral indignation about his death. If I’d done it your way, you might have a couple of dead cops. You’d do better to pin a medal on me.” he added dryly, “and you know it.”

“Some day,” Gentry said gruffly. “you’re going to guess wrong.”

“That’s better than never guessing at all.” said Shayne blithely.

Gentry walked stolidly around him and picked up the phone. He said, “Get me police headquarters. Lucy,” and waited.

Timothy Rourke lounged in the open doorway, listening with feverish interest. While Gentry waited for his call, the reporter said to Shayne, “Have I got all this straight? You had Henry Black and one of his ops guarding the postman, and they killed Nicky Calloni and shot another hood when they tried a holdup on Flagler?”

“Not for publication,” Shayne told him flatly. “Not my part of it. Let it come out that Black and Matty were on the scene accidentally and were just lucky enough to prevent the snatch.” He stopped to listen as Gentry spoke into the telephone.

“Chief Gentry. Get me Lieutenant Barnes.” He waited a moment, chewing on his soggy cigar stub, then said, “Barnes?… Take some men and pick up The Lantern. Jack Gurley. That’s right. Find him wherever he is and bring him in. Don’t book him for anything. Hold him.” He hung up and turned away from the desk.

The three men heard the front door of the office open and a voice drawl, “Mawnin’, ma’am. Sorry the mail’s late, but there was a little trouble.”

Gentry went out hurriedly, with Shayne on his heels. A wiry young man with a bulging mailbag was in the act of handing a sheaf of letters across the railing to Lucy Hamilton.

“I’ll take that mail,” Gentry said sternly, his pudgy hand outstretched.

The substitute postman turned and looked at him in openmouthed surprise. His mouth gaped wider as Shayne shouldered the police chief aside and said angrily, “Not that way, Will, This is still my office, damn it. Is that mail for Michael Shayne?” he demanded of the postman.