Brett Halliday - Michael Shayne’s Triple Mystery

Denton grunted and released his arm. “By God if you start anything I’ll let you have it,” he thundered.

Shayne ignored him and went over to Inspector Quinlan.

He said curtly, “I didn’t know you were in on this, Inspector.”

Quinlan smiled frostily and cleared his throat. “I just got here. Denton said he had sent for you to make an identification.” Quinlan was a slim, trim man of medium height with a shock of iron gray hair and a stoic expression. His eyes were a cold blue, and Shayne knew him to be hard as flint, but innately just.

Denton surged up beside Shayne, breathing hard. “One of these days you’ll pull a trick like that at the wrong time,” he growled.

Shayne didn’t look at him. He asked Quinlan, “What makes Denton think I can identify the corpse?”

“Never mind about that,” Denton barked. “Take a look and tell me who this stiff is.”

The two ambulance attendants rose and stepped away when Shayne went over and looked down at the corpse. Under the glare of the spotlight, the murdered man’s features were clearly outlined.

He was about forty, with the smooth, rounded features of a man who had lived well and carefully. He was well dressed, wearing a soft white shirt and black bow tie, a pin-striped, double-breasted blue suit. The coat was unbuttoned and pulled back, his shirt and undershirt pulled up to show a round hole in his chest.

Shayne stepped back and said to Inspector Quinlan, “I don’t know him. Why am I supposed to?”

Quinlan looked at Denton. The Captain shoved his burly frame forward. “Don’t pull that stuff,” he said. “You won’t get away with it.”

Shayne exhaled audibly and said in a dangerously soft voice, “Call me a liar, Denton, and so help me I’ll give you an excuse for locking me up on a charge of assaulting an officer.”

Denton scowled darkly and licked at his sensuously thick lips. “Do you deny that you know the dead man?”

“I do.”

“I suppose you’ve got so many clients you can’t remember all of ’em,” Denton snarled.

“My clients are my business,” Shayne told him. He turned his back on the Captain and addressed Inspector Quinlan. “I am not going to stick around here all night listening to Denton. If there’s any reason why I should know the dead man, tell me.”

Denton had his hand out as though to catch Shayne’s arm and whirl him around, but dropped it to his side and moved around to face him. “Who’ve you got an appointment with at nine o’clock this morning?”

“Nobody.”

“So you deny that you’ve arranged to see this man at nine o’clock?” Denton said in a churlish tone.

Inspector Quinlan said, “You’re not getting anywhere, Denton. Tell us what you know about the corpse. What’s this hocus-pocus about him being a client of Shayne’s?”

The Captain set his heavy jaw and muttered, “I was trying to trip Shayne up. If I tell him all I know—”

“You’d better give it to me,” Quinlan said with authority.

“There’s no identification on him. Not a damned thing in any of his pockets except one. Moran heard the shot from two blocks away, and by the time he found the body the killer had searched him and got away.”

“What was in one of his pockets?”

“This!” said Denton triumphantly. He drew out a thick black book about three by five inches in size, opened it, and displayed calendared pages for each day in the year, with a vertical row of hours from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

From between the pages he took a folded newspaper clipping and held it in the glare of the spotlight. It was from a month-old issue of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and was captioned Local Investigator Scores in El Paso. It carried a picture of Shayne, and a somewhat embellished account of the detective’s latest case in El Paso, which had resulted in the arrest of both that city’s mayoralty candidates.

Shayne looked at the clipping and grinned. “So I’ve got a public. Can I help it if I’m the pin-up type?”

“All right, wise guy,” Denton snarled. “Laugh this off.” He flipped the book open to the current date of June 6.

Written in a precise hand on the first line of the page opposite 9:00 a.m. was the notation, M. Shayne. The only other entry on that page was two lines below at 11:0 °Catch train.

“What do you make of those two entries?” Denton asked the Inspector.

“Looks as though he had an appointment with you at nine this morning, Shayne.”

“That proves he didn’t know me, or he wouldn’t have expected to catch me in my office at that ungodly hour,” Shayne said.

“But he planned to catch a train at eleven,” Denton persisted in a surly voice. “That indicates a definite appointment with you.”

Shayne said irritably, “I told you I never saw the man before.”

“Maybe not,” Quinlan said. “But we can still use his name — and what his business was with you. That may have some bearing on his murder.”

“Hell, yes.” Denton exploded. “That’s what I figured right away. He was gunned to prevent him from keeping his appointment with you. When you tell us what he was seeing you about we’ll know where to look for his killer.”

Shayne shrugged. “Maybe. And maybe he’d been stepping out with the wrong guy’s doll. Looks like a straight burglary to me.”

“Those are possibilities we’ll investigate,” Quinlan agreed. “But we need to cover your angle, too.”

“I haven’t any angle,” Shayne snapped. “I don’t know who he is nor why he wanted to see me.”

Quinlan said, “If you get anything, Shayne, don’t hold out on us. This is murder.” He called to Sergeant Frank and ordered, “Drive Mr. Shayne home.”

“Wait a minute,” said Shayne. “If he was bumped off because he was a prospective client of mine, maybe I’ve got an interest in this thing. That appointment book might have some dope if we’d go through it carefully. Let’s have a look—”

“You’re staying out of this, shamus,” Denton growled. “You don’t know the stiff and he didn’t have an appointment with you. That lets you out.” Turning to the Sergeant, who had joined them, he said with heavy sarcasm, “Take him home and tuck him in bed, Frank.”

“All right — if that’s the way you want it.” Shayne swung around and followed Sergeant Frank to the waiting police car.

Back in his walk-up apartment, Shayne gulped down a stiff drink of brandy, then went to the phone and called the number of Lucy Hamilton, his secretary.

When she answered, he asked, “Were you asleep, Lucy?” and sent a chuckle over the wire.

There was a brief pause, then she asked, “What do you suppose I’d be doing at three-thirty?”

He teased her for a while, then asked seriously, “When did you start making nine o’clock appointments for me?”

“What’s the gag, Michael? You’ve never gotten to the office by nine.”

“You didn’t make an engagement for me this morning?”

“Of course not. What on earth’s the matter?”

“Do we have any new clients I haven’t met?”

“We don’t have any clients, period,” she told him. “You’re sort of drunk, aren’t you?”

He said, “Sort of.” He hung up, took off his clothes, and went to bed.

It was shortly before nine o’clock when he awoke. He didn’t loiter over his breakfast as was his custom, and by nine-twenty he was putting on his hat to leave for the office when the telephone rang.

Lucy Hamilton’s voice was apologetic. “I hate to disturb you, Mr. Shayne, but there’s a policeman here in the office. He was outside the door when I arrived at nine, and insisted on following me in. He’s watching every move I make, and a moment ago, when I started into your private office, he stopped me.”