The blonde cried murder Read online

  "Of course I'm sure. I'd checked the number as soon as I found the door closed. So I ran inside and looked in the bathroom and the only closet and I even peeked under the bed. I felt as though I'd gone through the looking glass. Like Alice, you know. And I ran out into the hall and he jumped at me." She stopped, her mouth open and breathing hard as she relived the horror of the moment.

  "Some man I didn't recognize," she went on more slowly. "I'm sure I never saw him before. The light in the hallway was dim, but I got one look at his face as he jumped at me. A horrible, scarred face. I whirled around and ran in the opposite direction toward a red signal light showing the stairway and he shouted something I couldn't understand and ran after me.

  "I never looked back once. I knew he must have murdered my brother and I'd be next. I tore through the door and down three flights of stairs and there was an open door at the back leading out to a narrow pitch-dark alley. I ran as fast as I could toward the lighted street with him behind me shouting for me to stop. And just as I got to the street a taxicab came along and I jumped in front of it and made the driver stop. Then I tumbled in and shouted for him to drive away fast and he did. And then— and then I didn't know what to do and the driver was awfully nice and when I told him sort of—a little bit of what had happened—he mentioned you and said you could help me if anyone in Miami could and he brought me here."

  "Nice of him to recommend me," grunted Shayne. "But why not the police? They're the ones you're supposed to report dead bodies to."

  "I was afraid to go to them." She shuddered violently and reached for her sherry glass. "I've always heard they're inefficient and corrupt, and I knew they'd laugh at me and say I was crazy. Besides, I knew the hotel would have reported my call to them, and after they'd gone up and then not found any body there after all, they certainly wouldn't listen to me."

  Shayne shrugged. He got up, saying, "Take another sip of that sherry while I check."

  He crossed to the center table, gave a number, and a moment later, said, "Sergeant Jenkins, please. Hi, Sarge. Mike Shayne. You had any report of trouble at the Hibiscus Hotel? Any sort of trouble. Murders or any little thing like that?" He listened a moment, then said slowly, "I see. No, I guess not. Not just yet. If anything does pop, I'll let you know."

  He hung up, looking across at the back of the girl's blonde head gleaming in the overhead light, massaging his ear-lobe gently. She turned to look at him with a hopeful

  expression which died away when he shook his head. He thumbed through the directory for the Hibiscus, called it and asked to be connected with Mr. Patton.

  Then he said, "Ollie? Mike Shayne. Any excitement at your place around nine-thirty?"

  He listened for quite a time while the girl continued to sit twisted in her chair so she could watch his face. Finally he said, "Thanks, Ollie. Any time I can give you a hand—" He hung up and returned to his chair with a scowl.

  "The house detective at the Hibiscus gives it about the way you tell it. The first part, that is. They don't know anything about you being chased out of the hotel. They had the call you say you made from three-sixty about a murdered man and went there first because the switchboard girl thought you must mean that room instead of three-sixteen which she first thought you said. But they checked both rooms carefully and found no body nor any trace of murder. So they didn't report it to the police, naturally. Thinking it was a hoax—or the work of some nutty female." He studied the girl's face carefully as he spoke, and she noted his expression and cried out despairingly:

  "You think so too, don't you? That I'm crazy? That I'm just making it all up?"

  He shrugged noncommittally. "Not necessarily. The man chasing you through the alley sounds real enough. Did the taxi driver happen to see him too?" he added casually.

  "Yes, he did. And also the lady who was in the cab when I hailed it. You can ask them both."

  "Get the number of the cab or the driver's name?"

  "N-no."

  "Or the name of the other passenger?"

  "No. Oh, you're just as bad as I knew the police would be," she flared out, getting to her feet abruptly and swaying a little. "How can I prove it? But I know my brother's

  been murdered. I saw him. It wasn't any hallucination."

  "Sit back down," Shayne said soothingly. "I'm sure you saw something to make you believe that. I'm not denying anything. Let's see if we can figure it out. Is your brother any sort of practical joker?"

  "No." She reseated herself stiffly.

  "Because," Shayne said, "there is an old gag that's been pulled off with a bottle of ketchup."

  "After the victim's throat has been cut?" she demanded angrily. "Mr. Shayne, I saw the gaping hole. And his eyes. Staring and—dead."

  Shayne got up and began to stride back and forth across the room. "You didn't go in the first time. Didn't make even a cursory search?"

  "No. My only thought was to get to a telephone."

  "So the murderer could have been in there—in the bathroom or closet?"

  "I suppose so. I didn't look."

  "And how long would you say you were gone to find another phone?"

  "Not more than two minutes, I think. Three or four at the very most. I didn't waste any time going or coming."

  Shayne shrugged and said doubtfully, "If it weren't for the man chasing you, I'd have to think you had some sort of hallucination about seeing your brother. As it is— I still don't see what I can do, but I will go over to the Hibiscus with you and get hold of the house detective and check the whole thing a little more thoroughly than they probably did the first time."

  The idea of returning to the Hibiscus appeared to frighten her all over again, and she asked despairingly, "Do I have to? Go there with you? Can't I just be your client, and you do the checking?" Her hands eagerly opened the black suede bag in her lap. "I've got money here. Plenty of cash. I can pay you a retainer."

  Shayne shook his head, studying her harassed features

  very carefully. "Right now I'm not at all sure there's any case for me to take a retainer on." He didn't tell her the truth—that he didn't like crazy clients and that he was beginning to suspect she was as nutty as a fruit-cake.

  But the look of utter desperation that settled over her at his words moved him to go on hastily, "Suppose I nose around and see what I can find out. If anything has happened to your brother, it'll be time enough to talk about a retainer." He stood up briskly. "I suppose I can reach you at the Roney? What's your name and room number?"

  "Do I have to go back there?" She shuddered and her eyes were liquidly appealing. "Whoever did that to my brother must know where we're staying. I keep seeing that awful, scarred face in my mind. I—I—couldn't I just stay here while you go and see?"

  Shayne hesitated, his angular face tightening. God only knew what sort of tensions were working on her. Without pretending to be any sort of psychologist, here was a persecution complex, if he'd ever encountered one. First, she had been afraid to go to the police with her story. Now, she was afraid to go back to the safety of her own hotel room. Definitely, he didn't want her hanging around his place alone, prey to all sorts of unreasoning fears.

  Not unkindly, he said, "I don't think that would be such a good idea, but I've got a much better one." He crossed to the center table and opened a drawer to take out a sheet of his office paper. With a pen he wrote Lucy Hamilton's name and address on it, and added a brief note:

  Angel:

  Be just that and take care of the bearer. Put your chain on the door and don't let anyone in to her until you hear from me. She may be in great danger.

  He signed the note "Mike," and handed it to her to read. "My secretary," he explained. "We'll go down and

  I'll put you in a taxi for her place. No one can possibly find you there, and I'll know exactly where you are when I need you."

  Her eyes shone mistily with gratitude as she read it. Her voice quavered. "You're—just wonderful. I could kiss that taxi driver for bringing me to you."
>
  Shayne turned away from her before her gratitude spilled over into kissing him instead, because that was what her look portended. And he liked to be fairly certain the women he kissed were sane.

  At that moment there was the sound of loud footsteps in the hall outside. They stopped at his door and there was an authoritative knock.

  She shuddered and cringed away from the door, staring at it with round, mesmerized eyes, as though she expected it to come crashing inward momentarily.

  "It must be he! I knew he'd follow me here. Don't let him in. Please don't let him in."

  Shayne said, "For God's sake," impatiently and started toward the door. She grabbed him and tried to hold him back as there was another knock and a harsh voice demanding, "Open up, Shayne."

  "Please," she cried piteously, clinging to him. "I'll die if you let him in. Isn't there any place I can go?"

  Shayne looked down at her curiously. Her face had gone all to pieces with terror. She clung to him limply as a rag doll.

  He said harshly, "Snap out of it. No one's going to bother you while I'm here."

  He could just as well have slapped her. She cringed away from the impact of his voice like a cur that has just been kicked resoundingly. Her mouth worked soundlessly and there were bubbles of spittle on her lips.

  Shayne put his hands on her shoulders and turned her about. "Go in the kitchen. There's a latch on the inside. Lock it and stay there until I call for you to come out." He gave her a gentle shove, stood there and watched her scurry back to the kitchen and close the door.

  The knocking and demands for entrance continued at the front door, and he turned and stalked to it grimly, jerked it open to confront a tall young man with a scarred face who stood on the threshold.

  SEVEN: 10:20 P.M.

  The scarred face, almost level with Shayne's, was red and contorted with anger or some other emotion, but it was not fearsome or hideous as the girl's description had led Shayrie to expect. Indeed, discounting the scar on one cheek and the evidence of undue emotion, Shayne perceived it would have been a pleasant, almost handsomCj face of a well set-up man in his early thirties.

  The scar ran diagonally from the left comer of his mouth upward to the point of a rather high cheek-bone, and Shayne guessed that normally it would not draw too much attention. But now it was a white weal against th( suffused flesh and stood out clearly.

  Shayne stood flat-footed and immobile in the doorway, glowering at his visitor who moved to push forward, d( manding furiously, "Where is she? What's happened t< Nellie?"

  Shayne put a big hand against the younger man's chest and pushed him backward. He growled. "You haven't been invited in. What the hell do you mean by this ruckus?"

  "You're Shayne, aren't you?" The young man glared back at him defiantly and his hands balled into fists. "I'm coming in whether I'm invited or not, and no two-bit private dick is going to keep me out."

  Shayne studied him speculatively, his gray eyes bleak and trenches deepening in his cheeks. He said, "Whenever you're ready to try your luck, bud."

  For a long moment their eyes locked and held. The younger man's blood-shot and humid, Shayne's coldly

  challenging. Then with a supreme effort of will, his visitor forced his body to relax. He unbailed his fists and blinked a couple of times, wet dry lips with his tongue. He said hoarsely, "I'm sorry I tried to barge in. I'm Bert Paulson and I'm so goddamned worried about Nellie I'm just about off my rocker."

  "So, that makes two of you," Shayne thought to himself. Aloud, he said, "That's better. Keep it that way and maybe we'll get along." He swung abruptly on his heel to let Paulson enter, walked back to the tray holding his cognac glass still half-full. He made no attempt to conceal the bottle of sherry and the glass the girl had used. He took a sip of cognac and turned to see Paulson striding belligerently in, looking suspiciously all about the room and at the three closed doors leading to bathroom, bedroom and kitchen.

  "So her name is Nellie?" said Shayne pleasantly. "Funny, but I just now realized she didn't tell me."

  "Where is she? What's happened to her, Shayne? What in the name of God made her act that way when she saw me?"

  "What way? Have a drink, Paulson?" Shayne waved his hand toward the open liquor cabinet.

  "No, thanks. Didn't she tell you? What kind of crazy story did she cook up to explain why she came here?"

  "She told me several things." Shayne dropped into a chair with his glass. "I assure you she's perfectly okay and I will produce her whenever you convince me it's safe to do so."

  "Safe?" snorted Paulson angrily. "Why in the name of God is she afraid of me?"

  "Suppose you sit down and tell me."

  With another lingering look at the three closed doors leading off the sitting room, Paulson sat stiffly on the edge of the chair in front of the redhead.

  "I don't know. Unless she's really slipped a cog this time." Paulson's eyes burned into Shayne's. "How did she act? Is she completely insane?" His voice was strained and hoarse and he thudded his right fist into his palm. "Damn it, man! Don't you see—"

  "I don't see very much right now," Shayne interrupted him. "So far as I could tell she made at least as much sense as you do right now. Calm down and try to give me a coherent story."

  "Did she tell you about screaming and running from me in the hotel the moment she saw my face?"

  Shayne nodded, taking a sip of cognac. "And about you chasing her down the back stairs and through the alley, and how she escaped from you by the skin of her teeth by hailing a cab. How'd you manage to trace her here, by the way?"

  "I got the license number of the cab and found the driver and asked him. But why is she afraid of me, Shayne? She knows I'd never do anything to harm her." Bert Paulson looked younger than his thirty years at that moment. Young and hurt and completely bewildered.

  "That's not the way she gave it to me," Shayne told him dryly. "She claims she doesn't know who you are. That she never saw you before in her life. She suspects that you murdered her brother, and—"

  "Her brother?" Paulson's look of astonishment was ludicrous. "I'm her brother. Didn't she tell you that?"

  Michael Shayne sat very still holding his cognac glass inches from his lips, staring into it as though he had never seen the amber stuff before and was fascinated by it.

  "No," he said, slowly. "She didn't tell me that, Paulson. In fact she assured me she had seen the body of her murdered brother in room three-sixteen at the Hibiscus Hotel no less than ten minutes before you jumped at her in the corridor as she came out of the room."

  Paulson's body went slack in his chair. He closed his eyes tightly and put his left hand over them as though he had

  to shut out the glaring overhead light. In a strangled voice, he muttered, "I guess I could use a drink after all."

  Shayne poured cognac into the sherry glass on the tray. He pushed it into Paulson's hand, asking matter-of-factly, "Is it all right straight?"

  Paulson sloshed a little as he got it up to his lips. He emptied the glass without taking it away, shuddered and blew out a long breath.

  "I'm Nellie's brother," he told Shayne slowly. "I'm not dead, as you can well see. Now do you realize the condition she's in? Why I'm so worried? Why I have to find her and take care of her?"

  Shayne said, "I can see that all right. If you are her brother and are telling the truth. But you see, I got a completely different story from her. She came here and hired me to protect her from )'ow—describing you perfectly, including the scar. And she also wants me to find out who cut her brother's throat tonight and how they got rid of the body. So you can see," he ended reasonably, "it puts me in a dilemma. Until I find out which one of you is telling the truth—"

  "But I can prove it," said Paulson vehemently. He reached in his hip pocket for a wallet, opened it and began pulling out cards. "I've got identification. I can prove I'm Bert Paulson. You look. I don't see too well without my glasses."

  Shayne didn't glancis at the cards. "And I can easily
prove I'm Mike Shayne. But if I told you I had a sister named Nellie who had suddenly gone crazy and thought I was going to kill her, that wouldn't prove I was her brother. Pour another drink if you like, and let's htfar your end of this gobbledegook."

  "No, thanks. One is enough right now." Paulson put his empty glass back on the tray. "Nellie and I live in Jacksonville. That is, we did live there until I got pulled into the

  Korean war. Mother died while I was overseas, and when I came back I found Nellie living alone and apparently liking it. She had a good job in Jax and seemed to be enjoying being on her own."

  He paused and looked down at his hands for a moment, resuming with apparent effort. "Maybe I was wrong, but I thought maybe it was just what she needed. Mother was always—sort of over-possessive, I guess you'd call it. Even with me. And Nellie never had been able to call her soul her own. She had a nervous breakdown when she was sixteen," he went on fiercely, "and spent several months in a sanitarium. I always felt it was entirely mother's fault. So when I came back and thought I'd settle down in Jax and Nellie could sort of keep house for me, I saw she resented it. In fact," he went on slowly, nibbling his lower lip in concentration, "she blew up all over the place when I suggested it, and accused me of being as bad as mother about wanting to hold her down.

  "Well, she was twenty and earning her own living." He spread out his hands and looked at Shayne helplessly. "I didn't know. I loved her and wanted to protect her, but— I just didn't know. I decided maybe it was best to let her J go it alone. So I got a job in Detroit, and from her letters I -thought everything was fine.

  "That was up to two weeks ago when I got a wire saying she was in trouble."

  "What sort of trouble?"

  "She didn't say. It was a funny wire. Wild and—well, sort of incoherent. So I wired her to hold the fort and drove down—straight through in twenty-six hours. And when I got to Jax she'd vanished. No one knew where she had gone. So I hired this private detective in Jacksonville, and this afternoon he reported to me he'd located her in Miami—at the Hibiscus Hotel. Room three-sixteen. And I knew something was awfully funny, because always before when we came to Miami we stayed at the Tropical