Date with a Dead Man Read online

  “Maybe you were afraid she was getting ready to tell me everything she knew about Jasper Groat’s murder. I’m just beginning to realize you fit like a glove for that one, too. You’re the only person who had read the diary at eight o’clock last night and knew its value as an instrument of blackmail. A value that vanished as soon as Groat reached the Hawleys and told his story. Sure, you fit, Cross.” Shayne’s eyes were beginning to glow hotly. “Will Gentry is already checking your alibi for last night. If it isn’t any tighter than the one for this afternoon, you’re a swell candidate for a hangman’s noose.”

  “He must be crazy,” Cross appealed to Rourke. “He can’t be serious.”

  Timothy Rourke was studying Shayne’s face quizzically. “I think he’s damned serious,” he confided to his fellow reporter.

  “Here’s something you don’t know, Cross. I can place you right here on the spot at the time of the murder. You fit the description of the murderer given by the elevator operator perfectly, and he’s all set to make an identification if I give the word. On the other hand, he trusts me enough so if I say the man wasn’t you, he’ll swear it wasn’t.”

  “Are you threatening to frame me for murder?” asked Cross incredulously.

  “I’m not sure it would be a frame. Personally, I like you for the job more and more. Without an alibi you’ll have a hard time going against an eye-witness identification.”

  “Damn you, shamus!” cried Cross stridently. “You can’t get away with anything like that. I still don’t know what all this interest in the diary is about.”

  “You admit you read it yesterday.”

  “Sure, I read it. But I still don’t know why people are being killed on account of it.”

  “You’d have one hell of a time convincing a jury of that,” snarled Shayne. “It’s written down right there in black and white, isn’t it? In Jasper Groat’s handwriting.”

  “What’s written down in black and white?”

  “The story of Leon Wallace’s disappearance.”

  “I don’t recall any such name in the diary.” Joel Cross was becoming stiff and aggressive again.

  Shayne said, “I don’t believe you. Prove it by letting me read the diary.”

  “Certainly not. Why should I care whether you believe me or not? Why should I bother proving anything to you?”

  “To keep your neck out of a noose,” said Shayne grimly. “For the last time… before I call the operator to identify you… do I read the diary?”

  “For the last time… no,” Cross spat out.

  Shayne sighed. He said to Rourke, “Bring Matthew in, Tim. I want you to get him so you’ll be able to swear I didn’t coach him in any way to make the identification.”

  Timothy Rourke got to his feet with alacrity and hurried out the door.

  Joel Cross started to get to his feet, protesting loudly, but Shayne shoved him back hard. “Want to change your mind and let me see the diary? I can still stall Matthew off from making a positive identification.”

  “Damn you, no,” raged Cross. “I’ve never been in this hotel before and you can’t prove I have. I refuse to be intimidated by you, Shayne.”

  Shayne said, “Okay. You’re asking for it.”

  He went to the door as footsteps came down the hall, pulled the door open to admit Rourke, but moved in front of Matthew to prevent him from seeing Cross as he said, “Mr. Rourke has probably told you, Matthew, that we’ve got the murderer of that girl in this room right now. If you can identify him it’ll be the last girl he ever does murder.”

  “Stop him,” shouted Cross wrathfully to Rourke. “He’s telling him to identify me.”

  In the meantime, Matthew’s eyes had been gravely fixed on the redhead’s face. He had known Shayne closely and followed his cases intimately for many years, and had a very real admiration for the detective. Nothing Mr. Shayne did, he was convinced, could possibly be wrong, and at this moment he was convinced that for reasons of his own Shayne wanted him to identify Joel Cross.

  Consequently, when Shayne stepped back with a wave of his hand, and asked, “Is that the man who asked for my room an hour ago, Matthew?” he studied the reporter carefully for a moment and then nodded unequivocally, “I sure reckon that’s him, Mr. Shayne. You sure do catch murderers fast.”

  “Wait a minute, now. This is an outrage…” Cross began, but Shayne stepped close and cut him off with a low warning.

  “Give me the diary, Cross. If you don’t I swear to God I’ll let the identification stick.”

  “Not till hell freezes over,” Cross told him passionately. “I’m telling you, Shayne…”

  The abrupt entrance of Will Gentry interrupted his outburst. He saw the elevator operator first, and said, “I was looking for you, Matthew. Want you to come down to headquarters and look at a murder suspect. We picked Gerald Meany up dead drunk in a bar near here,” he went on to Shayne and Rourke, his gaze passing incuriously over Cross. “Looks like he’s our man, all right. The Hawleys say his wife drove away from home without any explanation about three o’clock, and half an hour later her husband came down from her room, waving a penciled notation he’d found beside her telephone with the name of this hotel and the initials M.S. When none of them could tell him what it meant, he drove away after her like a bat out of hell. Looks like an open and shut case of jealous rage. Hey! What’s the matter with all of you?” he demanded in astonishment, his eyes sliding from one face to another.

  Rourke said, “It looks like we’ve got two murderers, Chief. Matthew has just got through identifying my confrère, Mr. Joel Cross of the Fourth Estate, as the man he brought up in his elevator to Mike’s room at the right time for the job.”

  “That’s an absolute lie,” shouted Cross. “It was not a proper identification. It’s a frame-up. Shayne put that man up to saying he saw me here this afternoon. I wasn’t here at all. I don’t know one damned thing about Mrs. Meany’s murder.”

  Shayne hesitated, tugging at his ear lobe in perplexity. If he didn’t speak up now—if he let Gentry go on believing…

  Matthew solved the problem for him. He straightened up with dignity and said, “Mr. Shayne is a fine gentleman. I tell you, Mr. Chief of Police, if Mr. Shayne say this man is the murderer, he sure enough is. And I stand square behind what I say the first time. I sure reckon that’s the man.”

  15

  “That sounds pretty convincing,” Gentry said to Shayne. “What else have you got on him besides Matthew’s identification? What’s for a motive?”

  “I tell you it’s not a real identification,” raged Cross almost tearfully. “Shayne put him up to it…”

  Gentry and Shayne both ignored him, and Shayne told the chief: “Remember I told you the Groat diary had to be at the bottom of all this. And don’t forget that Cross is the only man who’s read the diary. That gives him a motive for knocking off Groat last night before he could talk to the Hawleys. And I’ve felt right along that Beatrice was killed by Groat’s murderer to prevent her talking to me. Add to that the fact that Cross was the only one who knew she was coming here… and why she was coming here…”

  “But I didn’t know why,” Cross burst in. “When she telephoned to ask me to meet her here, she didn’t say…”

  “So she asked you to meet her here?” Gentry transferred his attention to Cross. “When was this?”

  “About three o’clock,” he muttered. “But she didn’t tell me…”

  “Three o’clock?” Gentry ostentatiously looked at his watch. “You weren’t in any hurry to keep the date.”

  “I got tied up with some work,” Cross said defensively. “Look here, for God’s sake,” he went on strongly. “If I had come here earlier and murdered her, do you think I would have returned brazenly and admitted I had an earlier appointment with her?”

  “I think that’s exactly what he would have done under those circumstances,” Shayne told Gentry blandly. “To give the appearance of innocence in case someone else knew about the appointm
ent—me, for instance—and began wondering why he didn’t keep it.”

  “Where were you at eight o’clock last night?” demanded Gentry.

  “How do I know? I haven’t thought about it. God, I’m all mixed up. You can’t take these outrageous accusations seriously.”

  Gentry studied the reporter’s flushed face for a long moment from heavy-lidded eyes. Then he told Shayne in a troubled voice, “I’m not too crazy about this, Mike. What about the woman’s husband? If this is some kind of a frame you’ve engineered with Matthew, and Gerald Meany is actually guilty, we’ll never in God’s world hang it on him now after Matthew has identified Cross.”

  Shayne shrugged. He said, “Frankly, Will, I like Cross a lot better for both killings than Meany.”

  “Yeh,” said Gentry thoughtfully. “He’s more the type. I get an impression Meany is pretty much of a weakling. And another good thing about Cross is that there won’t be any damned unwritten law to mess up a case against him.”

  “Stop it!” cried Joel Cross with a note of terror breaking his voice. “Stop discussing me as impersonally as though you were deciding which horse to back in the fifth at Hialeah.”

  Gentry didn’t look at him. He told Shayne gruffly, “God help you, Mike, if you’re pulling one of your fast ones this time.”

  Shayne started to protest, but Gentry waved it aside wearily. “I’ve seen you at work before, don’t forget. Cross may be our man,” he went on judicially. “I hope he is. But if he isn’t, Mike, you’ve handed Meany his freedom on a silver platter by working a phony identification through Matthew here. God help you if you’ve done that.”

  “Even if he isn’t the killer, he’ll be safer in jail tonight,” argued Shayne. “If not Cross… the killer is still after the diary known to be in Cross’s possession.”

  Gentry said, “Yeh,” noncommittally. He straightened his heavy shoulders and said, “Come along with me, Cross.”

  “Where to?” the reporter asked thinly.

  “To jail.”

  “But you can’t do that. You’ve no evidence…”

  “I can’t do anything else,” Gentry told him gruffly. “You’ve been identified by a reputable eye-witness. Come along.” He took Cross firmly by the arm and led him out.

  There was silence in the room. Rourke took a sip from his highball and yawned widely, carefully avoiding looking at either Shayne or Matthew.

  The elderly man stood erect near the open door looking at Shayne beseechingly. He started, “Before heaven, Mr. Shayne…” But Shayne shut him off with a decisive shake of his head and a warning glance at Rourke. “You did nobly, Matthew. You trust me, don’t you?”

  “I sure do, Mr. Shayne. I thank God I do.”

  Shayne got up and put his hand on Matthew’s shoulder and said kindly, “Go on back to your elevator and keep on trusting me.”

  He closed the door and stood looking somberly at Timothy Rourke after Matthew went out. Rourke sighed and took a deep swallow from his glass. He leaned his head back and stretched thin legs far out in front of him and his cynical eyes studied the ceiling. “Congratulations, Michael, for one of the fastest and neatest frames I ever saw pulled.”

  “Look, Tim. You heard Matthew…”

  “I heard and saw a lot of things,” said Rourke wearily. “When Matthew was first asked whether he would be able to identify the killer and he hesitated, I saw you give him the nod and heard him respond. He would have identified me if you’d given him the go ahead. Why? Because the simple soul trusts you. That’s why. Because he trusts Mike Shayne, by God!”

  Shayne sank into a chair and said bitterly, “I was just trying to pressure the fool into giving me a look at the diary. I had him going, too. If Gentry hadn’t walked in just when he did and spoiled it, Cross would have come through.”

  “But Gentry did walk in. And now you’re stuck with a phony identification.”

  “Hell, Tim. The chances are Cross is the murderer.”

  “If he isn’t?”

  “That diary is the answer, Tim. If I could get hold of that, I’d know.”

  “Joel doesn’t seem disposed to let it out of his hands,” said Rourke dryly.

  “Why, Tim? Unless it will prove him guilty. Is that why he’s hanging onto it like a leech?”

  “Could be.”

  “For God’s sake, you talk to him and make him understand how important the diary is. Now that he’s actually arrested and has a chance to realize the kind of spot he’s in, he may not be so stubborn. If he’s innocent the diary will prove it. And don’t forget, the killer knows that, too. So he’ll be more anxious than ever to get hold of it and destroy it… or at least prevent its being published. Explain all that to Cross, Tim, and induce him to give the thing to you for safekeeping.”

  “So I can take it straight to my good friend Michael Shayne and give him a chance to cash in for a million or so? By God, Mike, that’s why you let the poor devil go on to jail, isn’t it? Hoping it will jar him loose from the diary.”

  “Not entirely. But if he’s innocent all he has to do is produce the diary to prove it. You explain that to him, Tim, and…”

  “Nuh-uh.” Rourke shook his head emphatically. “In the first place he hates my guts and figures I’m in cahoots with you and wouldn’t listen to a word from me. In the second place, I won’t play patsy for you, Mike. Not this time. The frame you just hung on Joel Cross stinks in my nostrils like a five-day-dead skunk. Count me out of any devious schemes for getting hold of the diary.”

  “You’ve got me wrong, Tim.” Shayne’s voice was sorrowful and pained. “I’m thinking about Cross… if he is innocent. Hasn’t the News got a lawyer who can reason with him?”

  His telephone rang. Timothy Rourke lit a cigarette while he answered it. It was the desk clerk. “Gee, Mr. Shayne, that sure was too bad about the girl. Right in your room, huh? And I thought she was real nice, too. They say you already got the murderer, huh? Fast work, I’d say.”

  Shayne asked, “Did you call just to congratulate me, Dick?”

  “Not really. Uh…” Dick lowered his voice conspiratorily. “Western Union just telephoned a message addressed to Mrs. Theodore Meredith here. I took it like you said, Mr. Shayne. This is it: You know utterly impossible me to come. Call me tonight. Extremely anxious. Theodore. You got that, Mr. Shayne?”

  “Thanks a lot, Dick.” Shayne hung up, his brow deeply furrowed. He turned about, rubbing his angular jaw in deep thought, as though he had completely forgotten Rourke’s presence.

  He opened the center drawer of the table after a long moment, searched among a litter of papers for a time and withdrew an aged and dog-eared address book. He thumbed through it meditatively, then lifted the telephone and told the switchboard operator, “Person-to-person to Chicago, honey. I want to talk to Benjamin Ames. I have an old number for him that you might try first.” He read off the number from the book and she said, “Thank you, Mr. Shayne,” and he waited with the receiver to his ear.

  There were some buzzes and indistinguishable bits of conversation from various operators throughout the country, and then he heard a telephone ringing in Chicago. It stopped on the third ring and a nasal voice said, “Hello?”

  “Is that Ben Ames?”

  “Right. Who’s calling?”

  “Mike Shayne, Ben.” Shayne waited, a slow grin breaking over his face as Ames exclaimed, “Shayne? Is it really you, Mike? Where in hell are you? In Chi?”

  “No, I’m in Miami, Ben. Still running that cheap agency of yours?”

  “It ain’t so cheap any more,” Ames told him happily. “Got three ops on the payroll steady.”

  “Congratulations. Then maybe you can do a fast job for me.”

  “Sure thing, Mike.” Ames’s voice became businesslike.

  “Got a pencil handy?”

  “Shoot.”

  Shayne had the memo he had written in Kurt Davis’s office, and he read from it slowly: “Theodore Meredith.” He gave the street address and had Ames re
ad it back, and went on: “I need a picture of Meredith fast. I don’t think he’ll give you one, Ben, so you’ll probably have to steal it. Take a photog out, and grab a front view. Get a print made fast and get it on a plane to me tonight. Let’s see, Ben.” He scrabbled among some papers in the open drawer and lifted out an airline schedule. “There’s a Mid-American plane leaving Chicago for Miami at two-fifteen tomorrow morning. Get a print of Meredith on it, Ben. To save time, hand it to the stewardess addressed to me, huh? With a ten-spot. I’ll meet the plane in Miami and pick it up from her. Got that?”

  “I got it,” Ben Ames said, “and I’ll handle it myself. Any angle for approaching this Meredith?”

  “He’s in the headlines here,” said Shayne, “as the current husband of the ex Mrs. Albert Hawley, recently lost at sea in an airplane accident. Albert, that is, who was lost. Mrs. Meredith is down here trying to claim Hawley’s estate, which may run into millions. That gives you a reason for interviewing him and grabbing a pic… whether he likes it or not.”

  “Sure, Mike. Will do.”

  “Call me at this number before two A.M. if you don’t make the grade. If I don’t hear to the contrary I’ll meet that plane in the morning.”

  Ames said, “Right,” and Shayne hung up.

  “Now what in hell is all that about?” asked Rourke. “Why a picture of Mrs. Hawley’s current husband?”

  “Just to verify a hunch I’ve got.” Shayne went back to his chair and picked up his glass and the conversation where it had broken off.

  “This is really the paper’s business, Tim. Don’t help me out, damn it, but think about the spot the News is in with their fair-haired boy under suspicion of murder. Who’s your paper’s lawyer?”

  “Alfred Drake is on annual retainer to bail out any of the boys who get out of line.”

  “Get on to him,” urged Shayne. “Or onto the publisher and tell them the facts of life. Explain how important that diary is in proving Joel Cross’s innocence, and for God’s sake have it picked up from wherever Cross has it stashed and put in a safe place. Damn it, Tim, I’m really worried about Cross. I admit I pulled a fast one on him trying to force him to give me the diary… and now it’s backfired. How do you think I’m going to feel if the diary vanishes with proof of his innocence with it?”