Brett Halliday - Michael Shayne’s Triple Mystery

Shayne said, “Thanks very much,” and went out.

He took a cab and went directly to his office. His car was still parked in front of the building and he didn’t see anyone around who appeared to be watching it.

Lucy Hamilton looked at him with searching interest when he walked into the reception hall and stalked through to his private office. After about five minutes he summoned her to his desk.

Lucy sat down opposite him, her smooth brow rumpled, her brown eyes wide and questioning. She said, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Michael.”

He looked at her, surprised. “Getting jumpy?”

“It’s that Captain Denton,” she said angrily. “He frightens me. You know very well he’s had it in for you ever since the Margo Macon case when you made him look like an idiot.”

“Which he is. And don’t forget he framed you on a disorderly conduct rap,” Shayne reminded her teasingly. “I wonder if he’s still got a print of that picture of us. I kept my print. I look at it sometimes and think how lucky I was. I got a perfect secretary out of that case — besides a sizable fee.”

“Michael!” she cried, “Don’t joke about it. He hates you.”

Shayne grinned and said, “Here’s what I want you to do. Call the Park Plaza and ask for Mr. Sidney G. Jones. Tell him you’re Mrs. Carson from Cheepwee, and that you’re worried about your husband. Listen carefully to what he says, and use your woman’s intuition of what he doesn’t say.”

“Tell him I’m Mrs. — ” Lucy began.

“Then call the girl who’ll be on duty at the switchboard at the Park Plaza and find out where Miss Etta Hobson is employed as a saleslady.”

Shayne got up and reached for his hat, jammed it down over his unruly red hair, and started out.

“Where are you going now?” Lucy asked with deep concern.

“To see Inspector Quinlan,” he said. “Start making those telephone calls right away.”

Inspector Quinlan was sitting behind his desk slowly rolling a pencil between his palms when Shayne walked in.

“How are you and Denton hitting it off, Shayne?” he queried.

“Not too well.” Shayne pulled up a chair and sat down. “He searched my office this morning.”

“I advised him against it, but Denton is stubborn,” Quinlan told him in his crisp, quiet voice. “He thinks you’re holding out on him and he’s hell-bent on proving it.”

Shayne scowled. “What have you got on the dead man thus far?”

“All I know is what I hear rumored around the corridors.”

Shayne looked at him with incredulity and asked, “Aren’t you handling it?”

“It’s Denton’s baby.”

“Hell! You’re still head of Homicide, aren’t you?”

“Theoretically. But Denton got a special dispensation from the Police Commissioner to take over last night’s job. It was in his precinct.”

“And he’s looking for a chance to throw the hooks into me,” Shayne growled.

“That’s right. He wants revenge for the time you made a fool out of him on the Macon case. Better watch your step. He’s carefully laying the groundwork for a malpractice charge.”

“He didn’t find anything in my office this morning. Can you give me anything at all?”

Quinlan studied him musingly for a moment, then said, “Determined to stick your neck out?”

“You wouldn’t mind having the case tied up in a bundle and handed to you while he’s running around in circles.”

“No — I wouldn’t mind that at all,” Quinlan agreed quietly. “But don’t do it, Shayne. If you told the truth last night and don’t know the man, his murder doesn’t mean anything to you.”

“He was a prospective client,” Shayne said, “and somebody beat me out of a possible fee when he was gunned. I can’t sit back and let people kill off my clients before they can get to me.”

“You’ll sit back on this one if you’re smart.”

“I’m not smart.”

“You’re as stubborn as Denton.”

“He asked for this,” Shayne said angrily. “Dragging me out of bed last night with the idiotic idea of tricking me into some sort of admission, then pulling a search warrant on me this morning.”

“Pushing you out on a limb,” Quinlan agreed placidly.

“All right. So I’m out on a limb. What killed the man?”

“A slug from a thirty-two. One of those short-barreled S and W’s.”

“A Banker’s Special,” Shayne mused. “Very appropriate. Sure it wasn’t suicide?”

“What do you mean by appropriate?” Quinlan looked at him sharply with his cold blue eyes. “What suggests suicide to you?”

“Just shooting off my mouth,” Shayne assured him hastily. “Go ahead. So it wasn’t suicide?”

“Hardly. The direct course of the bullet into his heart from close up precludes that. Patrolman Moran heard the shot at one-twenty while on his beat. It took him about four minutes to get to the scene. A car pulled away fast as he came up on St. Louis. The man had died instantly and the body had been searched — evidently in great haste — since the appointment book wasn’t taken.”

“How about laundry marks or tailor’s labels?”

“Not much good yet. The laundry marks aren’t local. Denton is checking other cities, particularly Baton Rouge where the suit was tailored. There’s no record of his fingerprints here, and Denton is checking with Washington.”

“What does ballistics say about the slug?”

“They guess it was fired from a Bulldog S and W. It’s plenty good for comparison if they get another one to match it with.”

Shayne nodded and got up. His gaunt face was sober, his brows drawn in a straight line when he went out.

Lucy Hamilton was hanging up the receiver when he returned to his office. She made a wry face at him and said, “I just finished talking to that guy Jones.”

“Mr. Sidney Jones?” Shayne grinned widely. “What did you find out?”

“That Mr. Sidney Jones is a louse. He wanted me to call him Sid, and when I told him I was Mrs. Carson and was worried about my husband, he said he didn’t know why a babe with a voice like mine wasted time worrying about a husband. He wanted me to come to his apartment to tell him all about it.”

Shayne chuckled and reached over to pinch her pointed chin. “Did he say he’d show you his artifacts — or etchings — if you’d come over?”

Lucy pushed his hand away and became very prim. “You can do your own telephoning hereafter, Michael Shayne, when you want to know what Mr. Jones has to say.”

“What about Miss Etta Hobson?”

“The girl at the switchboard tried to find out why I wanted to know where Miss Hobson worked before she’d tell me. She sounded awfully curious and excited. She finally told me that Miss Hobson worked at the Vogue Dress Shop.”

Shayne said, “I’ll check on them later. Right now, I’m going to take a trip to Cheepwee. I’ll wire you if anything comes up.” He went out of the building and down to his car.

Shayne arrived in the little town of Cheepwee at 12:30. It lay some miles off the Airline Highway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, a sleepy little village of about two thousand population. He drove slowly along Main Street, past a square brick bank building on one corner, and up to a two-story wooden structure with a mottled sign in front proclaiming it to be the Traveler’s Hotel.

He parked, got his suitcase out, and went into the dark, empty lobby. A handbell on the desk had a card propped against it inviting guests to Ring for Management. He set his suitcase down and rang the bell.

After a time a door behind the desk opened and a fat man waddled through, accompanied by the strong odor of boiled cabbage. “Afternoon, stranger. I was back gettin’ a bite to eat.” He swung an old, dirty ledger around, dipped a rusty pen in an inkwell, and handed the pen to Shayne with a flourish.