The Corpse That Never Was Page 3

  “Gentry showed them to me. Written by whom? Signed by whom, Shayne? Not by my daughter. You will observe that she left no notes behind her.”

  “Not in that apartment,” Shayne agreed. “Possibly she left one at home for her husband.”

  “He says not.”

  “In cases like this,” Shayne argued, “a husband often denies the existence of such a note. It’s a defensive reaction… a refusal to wash dirty linen in public.”

  “If there were such a note from Elsa, Mr. Shayne, I assure you that Paul Nathan would be the first to offer it as evidence. Don’t make the mistake of looking upon him as a grieving and bitter husband. I tell you, Sir, he is laughing at all of us behind our backs this morning. He has committed the perfect crime. He has rid himself of an unwanted wife and become heir to a multi-million-dollar estate in one stroke.”

  The vehemence of his assertion shook Shayne a trifle, but he countered doggedly, “I’m afraid you are attributing superhuman powers to Paul Nathan. I don’t know anything about his relationship with his wife or how much he may have desired her death, but the fact remains that I have never in my life seen a more positively cut-and-dried double suicide set-up than the one I crashed into last night.”

  “That is it exactly.” The ramrod-stiff old man leaped on Shayne’s statement avidly. “That is precisely the point I made to Will Gentry. Positively cut-and-dried. No possible question about it. A two and a two as plain as the nose on your face which must add up to four. So there is no real investigation. Naturally. What is there to investigate? Play it down and hush it up to save old Eli Armbruster’s feelings. Now tell me, Mr. Shayne. I understand you were there on the scene? How much painstaking and real investigation was there? What sort of search was made for clues that might possibly… just possibly… prove it to be something different from the cut-and-dried appearance of double suicide on the surface?

  “Come now,” he demanded urgently as Shayne hesitated, marshalling his thoughts. “You’ve been in the middle of plenty of homicide investigations in the past. Just let your imagination have a little bit of freedom. Allow yourself to assume… just for instance… that there hadn’t been those two suicide notes in evidence. Then it wouldn’t have been cut-and-dried. There would have been certain questions for which the police would have sought the answers. I know Gentry has an efficient police laboratory. Were those technicians called in to subject that apartment to the sort of painstaking analysis it would have received under less cut-and-dried circumstances?”

  Shayne had to say thoughtfully, “No. Under the circumstances that sort of procedure didn’t seem called for.”

  “Exactly. Under the circumstances. Now… who is this man who signed his name Robert Lambert?”

  “I don’t know what success the police have had in tracing him.”

  “None,” said Armbruster triumphantly, pointing a lean forefinger at Shayne. “Up to this point they have not discovered one single clue leading to his identity. Why not? I’ll tell you why not. Because they don’t really care. What difference does it make after all? The case is closed. A man named Robert Lambert is dead and my daughter is dead. Do they know it was Lambert himself who wrote those notes? Suppose they were clever forgeries? Do they know my daughter had been meeting him there frequently? Perhaps she was just lured there last night.”

  “And induced to drink a cyanide cocktail against her will?” Shayne tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice because he liked the old man and admired the indomitable spirit which refused to accept the obvious, but he didn’t quite succeed because Armbruster flushed slightly and his penetrating blue eyes glittered with anger.

  “I expected better of you, Shayne. You’ve gotten a lot of publicity in Miami and there’s been a public image built up of you as a man of imagination and of unorthodox methods which have produced results in the past and solved crimes which the police considered insoluble. I believe there is even a fiction writer who has made a small fortune writing up your cases in book form and selling millions of copies of them. Yes, goddamn it, Mr. Shayne. It is not inconceivable to me that Elsa was lured to that apartment last night and induced to drink a cocktail containing cyanide against her will. Without her knowledge, at least. My daughter had a peculiar taste in drinks. Her favorite potion was equal parts of heavy, dark rum and crème de menthe. Have you ever tasted that particular mixture?”

  Shayne couldn’t repress a faint shudder as he confessed, “Not that I recall.”

  “I suggest you try it so you’ll know what I’m talking about. I think you will then agree with me that a lethal dose of cyanide or any other poison could be introduced into that concoction without the drinker’s knowledge. Now, do you begin to see what I’m getting at, Shayne? If you can throw away all your preconceptions, do you see how each physical fact in that seemingly cut-and-dried suicide set-up might be interpreted differently?”

  Shayne took a long pull on his cigarette and tried to readjust his thinking to fit Eli Armbruster’s ideas. It was very difficult. He had seen it, damn it. Armbruster hadn’t. He said slowly:

  “I’m sorry, but as you probably already know, I was just downstairs one flight when it happened. I heard the blast of the shotgun, Mr. Armbruster. I ran upstairs and broke in the locked and chained door.”

  “I know you did. That’s one of the reasons I have come to you. Stop just a moment and think, Shayne. How much time elapsed between the time you heard the gun go off and the moment you burst into the room?”

  Shayne considered his reply carefully. “Probably three or four minutes. Not more than five, certainly.”

  “Ah.” Eli Armbruster grunted his satisfaction. “So, by your own admission, from three to five minutes went by between the time the shotgun was fired and anyone entered that apartment?”

  “The door was locked and chained on the inside,” Shayne reminded him.

  “Mr. Shayne. Does that building have fire escapes as required by the building code?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can they be reached through each separate apartment?”

  “Yes. Through the bedroom windows mostly.”

  “Were the bedroom windows of that particular apartment locked on the inside last night?”

  Michael Shayne hesitated, scowling heavily. He recalled standing there with his back to the door looking down at the two bodies, and the acrid smell of discharged gunpowder in the room. And he distinctly recalled the light breeze blowing in from the bedroom which dissipated the odor.

  He said, “As a matter of fact, Mr. Armbruster, I’m quite certain that the bedroom window was open at the time.”

  “Aha! But no one… including you, Shayne… thought that significant?”

  “Frankly, no. We had no reason to suspect…”

  “Exactly what I have been trying to point out to you,” crowed Eli Armbruster triumphantly. “It was all so cut-and-dried. Thinking back over it now, you can’t be positive there wasn’t a third person in that apartment when the shotgun went off, can you? A third person who went out the bedroom window onto the fire escape while you were running up the stairs and breaking down the locked door?”

  Shayne shook his red head and confessed, “No. I can’t be positive. On the other hand…”

  “Wait a minute,” ordered Armbruster peremptorily. “Stop right there, Shayne. This is all I asked in the beginning. That you allow a tiny iota of doubt to enter your mind. No more than that. Only that two and two do not have to always equal four. Will you take the case?”

  “I still don’t admit there is a case, Armbruster. I think you’ll be wasting your money…”

  “Whose money is it?” bristled the erect old man. “I’ve got millions to waste if I see fit, Shayne. All I want from you is your promise to suspend judgment and make a thorough investigation of this affair, putting aside any preconceived ideas of what may or may not have happened before you broke the door into that apartment. I want to know who Robert Lambert was, how he met my daughter, and what he meant to her. I don’t
expect you to whitewash Elsa, Shayne. I want the truth… so far as you can ascertain what the truth is. For this, I will pay you a retainer of ten thousand dollars. This is not contingent on anything… except that you will take the case and investigate it to the best of your ability.”

  Shayne said, “I’m afraid you’ll be wasting your money, Mr. Armbruster.”

  “Will you allow me to be the judge of that?”

  Michael Shayne hesitated, and then shrugged his wide shoulders. “It’s difficult to turn down a fee like that,” he conceded. “You’ve hired yourself a private detective, Mr. Armbruster.”

  “Splendid. But that is only one part of my proposition, Shayne.” The old man leaned forward and his voice became deadly serious. “I will pay… happily… an additional fifty thousand dollars for evidence that will convict Paul Nathan of my daughter’s murder.”

  Shayne blinked at this. He shook his red head slightly, as though to reassure himself that he had heard correctly. “You’re not trying to tempt me, are you?”

  “Tempt you, Sir?”

  “To manufacture evidence,” Shayne said evenly.

  “Certainly not,” snapped Armbruster. “I’m convinced in my own mind that Paul Nathan engineered my daughter’s death somehow.”

  “In the name of God, how?”

  “You’re the detective, Shayne. That is for you to discover. I know the man is a wastrel and a scoundrel. A thoroughly evil man, Shayne. I am convinced that he married my daughter only because she was a wealthy woman, and when he discovered that she was also a strong-willed woman who had no intention of turning her fortune over to him, I am certain in my own mind that he plotted her death.”

  Shayne said, “That is a strong accusation.”

  “I mean it to be. I would gladly make it publicly if that would accomplish anything. I warned Elsa. I begged her months ago to give the man a divorce and a cash settlement that would take him out of her life forever. She refused. Elsa was a peculiar woman, Shayne. There was a lot of Armbruster in her. She had a feeling for property. What she bought, she held onto. In her own mind, I am convinced that she realized full well that she had bought a husband when she married Paul Nathan. She was perfectly willing to pay the price but she had no intention of relinquishing her purchase.”

  “Did she love him?”

  “Love?” Eli Armbruster’s voice sneered at the word. “I’m not at all sure that Elsa was capable of love. You see, as I told you at the beginning of this interview, I knew my own daughter, Shayne. For years, I have had no illusions about Elsa. Love? I simply don’t know. She wanted Paul Nathan as a husband. She bought him. She was prepared to pay a high price for keeping him. This is one of the reasons why it is so difficult for me to accept the premise that she had fallen head over heels with some stranger named Robert Lambert… was visiting him in that dingy apartment on the sly… and had got in so deep that she was prepared to take her own life for the sake of… love? No. There is some other answer. One of the things you should know, for instance, is that Nathan asked her for a divorce some months ago, having the effrontery to demand a cash settlement of a quarter of a million dollars to remove himself from her life. Being Elsa, she refused… although I advised her to rid herself of the fellow even on those terms.

  “Thus, she was fully aware that if she ever gave him grounds for divorce, he would sue immediately. There are many cases in which Florida courts have awarded alimony or substantial cash settlements to impecunious husbands who have proved adultery against their wives in a divorce court. If for no other reason in the world, Elsa would never have laid herself open to such charges which could be proved.”

  Shayne said, “People do all sorts of irrational things when driven by love… or sex… whichever you prefer to call it.”

  “People, yes,” agreed Armbruster. “But not Elsa. I tell you, Shayne…”

  “I know,” said Shayne, holding up a big hand to cut the man off. “You’ve made your point. Don’t try to over-sell it. At this point, I have an open mind about your daughter. I’ll want differing viewpoints from yours to round out my picture of her.”

  Armbruster said stiffly, “Of course. You know your business best and I’m sure you have your own methods. Bear in mind, however, that my offer stands. A retainer of ten thousand for you to handle the case. An additional fifty thousand the day Paul Nathan is convicted of my daughter’s murder.”

  “I shan’t forget,” Shayne told him easily. “I’ll have my secretary draw up a brief memorandum on that basis, and will mail it to you for your signature.”

  “Do that, Shayne.” Eli Armbruster arose to his feet with the agility of a middle-aged athlete. “In the meantime, I will leave my check at her desk on my way out.”

  “There’s no need for that,” Shayne protested arising behind his desk. “You can pay me when…”

  “I wish to make the initial payment now, if you don’t mind. I want you to be thoroughly convinced that it is in no way contingent upon what you discover. I am buying only an honest and thorough investigation. Please report to me as soon as you have learned anything of interest.” With that, he turned his back and marched out of Michael Shayne’s office.

  The detective sank back into his swivel chair and lit a cigarette, scowling morosely. He liked the old man, and he didn’t like the case one little bit. For that kind of money, he didn’t have to like the case, he reminded himself. He wondered what sort of woman Elsa Armbruster had been in life, what kind of unpleasant truths concerning his daughter Armbruster was destined to hear before Shayne had earned his fee.

  He was puffing on his cigarette and still scowling when Lucy tripped in lightly through the open door, her face beaming while she waved a slip of green paper in the air.

  “Shame on you, Michael,” she exclaimed in a voice that completely belied her words. “What did you tell the old boy to hypnotize him into this? Ten thousand whole dollars! He didn’t even say what it was for. Just got a blank check out of his wallet and wrote it out… then tossed it over to me as though he were buying a couple of movie tickets, and walked out.”

  Shayne said, “That’s a down payment on my integrity, Angel.”

  She looked at him blankly and said, “Oh?”

  “That’s right. There’s fifty grand more if I can conjure up evidence to convict his son-in-law of murder.”

  “You mean… last night? But you said that was suicide, Michael.”

  “It is… officially.” Shayne shrugged and said, “Sit down and take a letter of agreement. If Paul Nathan is the louse Armbruster thinks he is, maybe I will hang a murder rap on him.”

  “Whether he’s guilty or not?” Lucy asked matter-of-factly as she sat down across the desk from him and opened her shorthand pad.

  “Hell,” said Shayne harshly, “we know he isn’t guilty. Start it out: Mr. Eli Armbruster, and get his address on the Beach. Dear Sir: Confirming our conversation of this morning…”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When Michael Shayne entered Will Gentry’s private office at police headquarters a short time later, the Miami Chief of Police was seated behind his desk with the well-chewed stub of a black cigar in his mouth, studying some typed reports in front of him. He was a burly, red-faced man, and he lifted a beefy hand to welcome the redhead, muttering absently, “Just a minute, Mike, while I finish this.”

  He continued to scowl down at the sheet in front of him, working his lips to move the soggy cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.

  Shayne pulled a straight chair a little closer to his desk and eased his rangy body down into it. He got out a cigarette and lit it in silence, leaned back comfortably to let thin, grayish smoke roil slowly out of both nostrils.

  Will Gentry grunted and pushed the paper aside. “I see you were Johnny-On-The-Spot again last night, Mike. How the hell do you manage it?”

  “I know the right people. Go visiting them at the right time.”

  “Yeh,” snorted Gentry. “That apartment house of Lucy’s! What’s she got th
at attracts violence?”

  Shayne grinned and said, “Don’t blame her. She doesn’t even know the guy.”

  “Neither does anyone else it seems.” Gentry slammed the flat of a big hand down on the papers in front of him. “A name, that’s all we’ve got.”

  Shayne looked at him alertly. “You haven’t been able to trace Robert Lambert at all?”

  “Nary a trace. No wallet. No identification. No papers. Every stitch of clothes in the apartment is practically new, without a laundry mark or dry cleaner’s tag.”

  “Fingerprints?”

  “Nothing on file here. We’ve sent them to Washington… should have a preliminary report this afternoon. No Robert Lambert listed in the directories here and none in Jacksonville where he gave a phony street address when he rented the apartment.”

  “And no bereaved wife turned up to claim the body?”

  “That’s what we’re waiting for… if Lambert is his name. You interested, Mike?” Gentry asked the question casually, removing the cigar from his mouth and studying it intently as though he didn’t know how it had got there.

  Shayne said, “I’m interested. To the extent of a whopping retainer.”

  “Old Eli, huh? He threw his weight around here and threatened, by God, if the police force couldn’t do anything he’d go to the one man in Miami who could.” Gentry permitted himself a sour smile. “So it’s your headache, Mike.”

  “The old man is dead-set on making out a case against his son-in-law.”

  “He’s dead-set on hanging a frame around the poor guy’s neck,” Gentry retorted angrily. “You going to do his dirty work?”

  Shayne leaned back and stretched his long legs out in front of him, tugging thoughtfully at his earlobe. “I’m in business for hire, Will. Right now I’ve been retained by Eli Armbruster to make a thorough, complete and unbiased investigation of the circumstances in which his daughter met her death last night. Any objection to that?” His voice was slightly edged, challenging.

  “Hell, no. Go to it. The only thing that old Eli couldn’t get through his thick head is that this department has other things to occupy its time and attention. I’m treating it exactly as though Mrs. John Smith had died last night, and that Eli didn’t like one little bit.”