The Careless Corpse Read online

  “That would be the opinion of experts,” Shayne agreed, cautiously.

  The older man drew in a deep puff of smoke and put his cigar down. He turned to the detective with both hands flat on his knees. “What do you advise me to do… about the letter you read?”

  Shayne shook his red head slowly. “I’m hardly in a position to advise you yet. I need to know more… about the bracelet and the various people involved. How many know the combination of the safe the bracelet was normally kept in?”

  “Presumably, only my wife and I. I impressed the need for secrecy on Mrs. Peralta in the beginning. Not because I didn’t trust others in the household,” he went on hastily, “but because a secret shared is no longer a secret.”

  “You said presumably.”

  “That is correct. My wife is notoriously careless about such things. I shouldn’t be at all surprised to learn, for instance, that Miss Briggs, the twins’ governess, knows the combination. And probably Freed, also.” He spread out his hands. “Perhaps even the children, too. They do have a surprising way of nosing into things. And my wife’s former maid, Felice, whom I discharged immediately after the theft.”

  Shayne nodded. “I understand it was one of her duties to make sure your wife’s jewels were locked up every night.”

  “Which she neglected to do that evening.”

  Shayne counted the names off on his fingers and frowned. “That gives us a total of seven people who might have had access to the safe in the past and been able to take the bracelet out for a substitute to be made.”

  “That is true.” Peralta regarded him steadily. “But there is also the point you made about it being so very difficult to fool the owner with an imitation.”

  “There is that point.”

  Julio Peralta drew in a deep breath. “So what course of action do you advise me to take?”

  Shayne hesitated. “Let’s face it on the assumption that your wife either pulled the switch or connived with someone who did.”

  “Haven’t you made it clear that is almost a necessary assumption?”

  “Almost,” Shayne agreed, tugging at the lobe of his left ear. “If it was an imitation that was stolen and your wife knows it, she must be on pins and needles waiting to see if it is recovered. How has she been acting?”

  “Quite nonchalant about the whole matter. But my wife is an excellent actress, Mr. Shayne.”

  “What does Chief Painter actually tell you about the progress of his investigation?” demanded Shayne.

  “He was quite noncommittal until very recently. Yesterday, he volunteered the information that he was on a hot lead, as he called it, and today he insisted that we had nothing to worry about… that the bracelet would be recovered very soon.”

  “Which is exactly what would worry your wife, if she knows the thing is an imitation. Do you know if she has had any private conferences with Painter?”

  “I couldn’t say,” said Peralta, stiffly.

  “Your man wants fifty-five grand in his letter,” Shayne pointed out. “As much as he could possibly get from a fence for the genuine bracelet, and twice what he could hope to pick up by making a deal with the insurance company.”

  “And if I don’t pay his demand, he will brand me publicly as a crook trying to collect insurance on a worthless imitation. What am I to do?”

  “You can’t pay him,” said Shayne, angrily. “Good God, man, that would just be tossing fifty-five grand down the sewer. You have no assurance he’ll return the bracelet after you pay him. Just his word for that. Naturally, he’d hold onto it and blackmail you further.”

  “So what am I to do? If I don’t pay him, he will turn it over to a scandal-loving newspaper reporter and the whole unsavory story will come out.”

  “How far will you go to protect your wife,” asked Shayne, harshly, “if she was in on the substitution?”

  “I don’t know. She can’t have been. What madness it is to suspect Laura of that! There was no need,” Peralta cried out despairingly. “I am a wealthy man. She has all the money she could possibly need. Charge accounts in every store on Lincoln Road and in the best shops in New York. I never protest the size of the household accounts. It’s inconceivable that she should have ever wanted more money.”

  It wasn’t inconceivable to Michael Shayne. Not as he recalled her tone when she mentioned the five hundred dollars she was allowed each evening for gambling. To the wife of a man worth many millions, that must seem like peanuts. But Peralta would never be able to understand that. He probably, Shayne thought pityingly, felt he was being wonderfully generous to provide that sum for her to squander at Miami’s gaming tables each night.

  “Inconceivable or not,” Shayne said, wearily, “you’ve got to face facts. I’ll repeat my question: how far will you go to protect her in case the worst is true?”

  “I suppose,” Julio Peralta said quietly, “I would do anything within reason. So long as it is honest and hurts no innocent person.”

  “The man who wrote you that letter deserves no consideration. He is a blackmailer and almost surely a thief. Fix up an envelope for him as he directs and mail it to him tomorrow. Let’s see,” mused Shayne, “fifty bills to the thousand, times fifty-five.” He did the sum in his head. “Twenty-seven hundred and fifty bills in all. In a large manila envelope, they would fit in four packets. About seven hundred to each packet. Have them cut out of old newspapers to size,” he went on briskly, “so it looks and feels right. I’ll arrange to have the receiver of the envelope tailed when he calls for it at General Delivery.”

  “But he warns me specifically,” reminded Peralta, “that the imitation bracelet will go to this man Rourke on the newspaper if we do anything like that.”

  “We’ll try to prevent his carrying out that threat. If we fail, I think I can guarantee Rourke’s silence until we know exactly where we stand. In the meantime,” he added, recalling Rourke’s description of the governess, “I’d like to have a talk with Miss Briggs, if I may. And I’ll want the address of the maid, who was here the night of the theft.”

  “Yes. Miss Briggs can give you that, I am sure. But I’m afraid she isn’t here just now. She mentioned at the dinner table that she was going out for the evening immediately after dinner.”

  Shayne said with real regret, “That’s too bad. I look forward to interviewing Miss Briggs. I’ll be here to see her first thing in the morning.”

  He got up and held out his hand to the millionaire. “Try not to worry too much about all this. And I advise you to tell no one about the letter. No even your alter ego, Freed.”

  “I agree,” said Peralta, hastily. “Ah… about a retainer, Mr. Shayne?”

  “We can discuss that in the morning… after I’ve a better idea what I may be able to do for you.” Shayne turned away, in a hurry to get back to Miami and to the Green Jungle before Laura Peralta lost all her money and got tired of waiting for him to show up.

  The little maid popped up in the hallway as he strode from the library, and scurried ahead of him to open the front door. He thanked her and went out.

  The cream convertible was gone from the driveway, but the dark limousine was still parked in front of Rourke’s old coupe.

  Shayne went down the flagged walk and circled the limousine to open the left-hand door of the coupe. Cigarette smoke came out into the night air, and mingled with it was the delicate scent of a good perfume.

  Shayne could see only a blurred outline of the occupant of the coupe as he slid under the wheel. She was far over on the right side of the seat, and when he slammed his door shut, she told him calmly, “I’ve been waiting long enough. Let’s get away from here before someone comes out and sees me.”

  SIX

  Shayne started his motor and backed a little so he could circle around the limousine and out the drive. The voice sounded young and cultured and calm. Looking straight ahead as he turned onto Alton Road, Shayne asked, “Why are you afraid someone will see you?”

  “I prefer they don’t
know I’m having this private talk with you, Mr. Shayne. You are Mr. Shayne, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. And you’re Miss Briggs?”

  “Marsha Briggs.” The governess sitting on the far side of the seat rolled down the window and spun her cigarette out. “Tell me one thing honestly.” There was a faint tremor in her nice voice. “Has Mr. Peralta retained you to recover the bracelet?”

  “More or less. I’m looking into it before I decide to take the case or not.”

  “Could we stop for a drink? I won’t detain you long, and will take a taxi back to the house.”

  Shayne said, “Of course. A drink is exactly what I need.”

  He slowed Timothy Rourke’s coupe as they approached the neon lights of a cocktail lounge, pulled into a parking spot and turned off the motor and lights. Only then did he turn to look at his passenger.

  Marsha Briggs looked back at him searchingly. She wore a blue silk scarf over her head, tied tightly with a bow-knot beneath her firm chin. It framed a piquant, heart-shaped face with nice coloring and delicate bone structure. Her eyes were blue and probing. Her lips were lightly touched with red and slightly parted. She looked about twenty-five, and Shayne surmised she might be in her mid-thirties. His first impression was of a strong and self-reliant young woman who had been carefully reared but had learned to cope with life on its own terms.

  She said, “I know. I don’t look like a governess. I’m much too pretty and too young and too sexy to spend the rest of my life cooped up in the Peralta house with a couple of brats. I should be eagerly grasping at life and love with both hands while there is yet time.”

  Shayne chuckled happily and opened his car door. “You’ve been talking to a newspaper reporter named Timothy Rourke.”

  “Do you know Mr. Rourke?”

  “Very well.” Shayne went around to open her door. “This is his car I’m driving. Would you be interested to know how he described you to me this afternoon?”

  “I don’t… think so.” She stepped out and stood close beside him and he saw she was wearing a severely tailored suit of raw white silk which was molded to her slenderly lithe body in a way that vividly brought back Rourke’s parting words in the City Room that afternoon. The top of her blue-scarfed head came just above his left shoulder, and the scent of her perfume was heady in the warm stillness of the tropical air.

  Shayne put his hand lightly under her elbow and they went into the dimly lighted lounge and found a vacant booth near the door. She settled herself across from him and he lifted his ragged, red brows inquiringly when a white-jacketed waiter soft-footed up to the booth.

  She said, “A daiquiri please. A little on the dry side.”

  And Shayne said, “And a sidecar, also light on the cointreau.”

  Marsha opened a soft, white leather handbag and got out a pack of flip-top cigarettes. Shayne put one of his own in his mouth, struck a match and held it to hers and then to his. She inhaled deeply and let thin smoke trail from her nostrils and asked quietly, “Does Mr. Peralta want you to find the bracelet… or is he hiring you to get in the way of the police to prevent them from recovering it?” She put a very slight emphasis on the word “find,” and Shayne wrinkled his brow thoughtfully at the question.

  “Why do you ask a thing like that?”

  “A conversation I overheard between Julio and Nat this afternoon. Nathaniel Freed,” she added with a faint lift of her upper lip.

  “And it gave you the impression that Peralta isn’t anxious to have the bracelet found?”

  “That seemed to be Nat’s impression. I can’t imagine why. But it appears that Chief Painter is positive he’ll crack the case in a day or so and looks on you as a hindrance rather than a help.”

  The waiter brought their cocktails. Shayne sipped his thoughtfully and found it good. He said, “Painter is always overly optimistic about his own ability, and resents a private detective being called in. Can you or Freed think of any reason in the world why Peralta wouldn’t want the bracelet back?”

  “I don’t know what Nat Freed thinks, and certainly haven’t discussed it with him,” she replied somewhat acidly. “The only reason I can think of is that he wants to teach Laura a lesson. Punish her for her negligence by having the bracelet stay lost.”

  “A rather expensive lesson,” suggested Shayne.

  Marsha Briggs shrugged. “It was insured. And you have no idea how her carelessness with money and jewelry irks him.”

  “Does she complain about not having enough actual cash to spend?”

  “Not specifically. Just in a general way.”

  “Has there been any occasion during the past few years when she might have needed a large sum in cash? Some crisis that she didn’t want to go to her husband about?”

  “I’ve been with them only two months.” Marsha finished her cocktail and set the empty glass down decisively. “Aren’t you interested to know why I slipped out of the house and waylaid you tonight?”

  Shayne grinned cheerfully and said, “I hoped it was on account of my sex appeal.”

  She looked at him with candid, appraising eyes and said, “There is that… after being cooped up in the same house with Nat Freed for a couple of months. But I didn’t know it at the time. I just caught the merest glimpse of you as you passed the dining room.”

  Shayne sighed and finished his drink. He glanced at her empty glass and raised his eyebrows. She said, “One more, thanks. Then I must get back to the twins.”

  Shayne signaled the waiter with two fingers, then asked, “So, why did you waylay me?”

  “Because I’m frightened, Mr. Shayne. Terribly frightened.” Her voice was pinched and thin, and she vainly tried to repress a shudder.

  “Something to do with the theft?”

  “It has everything to do with it. I received a threatening letter in the mail this morning.”

  “From James Morgan?”

  Her blue eyes widened and her lashes fluttered. “I don’t know any James Morgan. It was unsigned.”

  She kept her wide eyes steadily on his face while she groped inside her handbag. “Perhaps I’m a fool to show this to anyone. But… private detectives are like lawyers, aren’t they? About respecting the privacy of a client? So if I could be your client…?” Her voice shook with entreaty as she withdrew a cheap white envelope from her bag—the sort that can be bought in any drugstore in packs of half a dozen. She held it in her hand indecisively and went on: “Should I pay you a retainer first… to make it official that I am your client?”

  The waiter brought their second round of drinks, and Shayne gestured toward the check on a silver plate. “You pay the bar-bill as a retainer. That will make it official.”

  She nodded and smiled wanly, extending the letter to him. “I just have to talk to someone. I’ve read about you in the papers, and it seemed like an Act of God when you came to the house tonight.”

  Shayne took the envelope and looked at it. There was a typewritten address: “Miss Marsha Briggs” at the Peralta street address, with an underlined “Personal” beside it. It was postmarked in Miami the previous day. There was no return address.

  Shayne took out a single sheet of plain typewriter paper. It was undated. The letter was neatly typed, without a single erasure or error:

  “Dear Marsha Elitzen:

  “It is unfortunate, is it not, that another similar jewel theft should occur in the Peralta household on the heels of that most unfortunate affair on Long Island last year?

  “If you are very lucky and the local police are as stupid as I believe them to be, the case will be solved before they get around to checking the fingerprints and records of the members of the household.

  “However, I think they would be most interested in a clipping I have in my possession from the New York Mirror of last August

  “I do not want money from you, dear Marsha Elitzen. I desire only your fair, white, young body to hold warmly in my arms for one night.

  “This, I think you will agree, is a smal
l price to pay for my silence.

  “If you do agree, whole-heartedly and without reservations, call this telephone number at exactly midnight, Wednesday the 13th. (A Miami Beach telephone number followed.)

  “Say to whomever answers the telephone: ‘This is Marsha Elitzen. Yes.’ Then hang up. I will contact you later giving the time and place for our one-night assignation.

  “Believe me, dear Marsha, you will not regret acceding to this simple request… and if you are foolish enough to refuse I sincerely fear you will exceedingly regret that decision.

  “An ardent admirer.”

  Michael Shayne read the entire letter without raising his gaze from the typewritten page. Then he slowly shifted his eyes upward to the salutation, and read it aloud in a questioning tone: “Marsha Elitzen?”

  He looked up from the sheet of paper in his hands and across the table to the Peralta governess who was leaning forward, fiercely gripping the slender stem of her cocktail glass with both hands.

  She nodded slowly, holding his eyes with hers. “That is truly my name.”

  Shayne said, “Do you want to tell me what this means?”

  “Yes. I want very much to tell you.” She lowered the lids over her round blue eyes and made an obvious effort to relax, unclenching her tense fingers from about the stem of her glass, and slumping her shoulders a little.

  She lifted her lids again, and the blue of her eyes was startlingly clear and deep.

  “I had a position as a child’s nurse with a wealthy family in East Hampton. I fell foolishly in love like a young girl with a man who swept me off my feet. For the first time in my life, Mr. Shayne, I loved and believed I was loved. I met him frequently at night, and for week-ends, when I was free. I gave myself to this man, and I trusted him the way a woman in love does trust a man, and I talked freely of my position and my employer and the household… and one night it happened.

  “There was a jewel robbery at the house. It was the man I thought I loved,” she went on listlessly. “It became obvious that he had carefully planned it that way. He had selected me as a source of information, and made love to me only to accomplish the theft. The police soon discovered our intimacy and traced him to Chicago where he was arrested with the jewels in his possession.