Tickets for Death Page 9

  Shayne nodded, as though he believed her. He got up. “I won’t wait any longer, since your husband has been detained. But I wish you’d have him call me at the Tropical Hotel as soon as he gets in.”

  “Of course, Mr. Shayne. I’m sure Ben will be glad to talk with you.”

  She went to the door with him, her hand going nervously to her throat while he said “Good night, Mrs. Edwards,” and went out.

  She was still standing in the doorway when he turned to latch the wire gate behind him, a stout, short figure back-lighted by the rectangle of light, with something pathetic yet essentially courageous in her posture of patient waiting.

  Shayne drove swiftly back to the hotel. He strode into the lobby and noted that Melvin and Hymie were no longer seated near the elevators. He went to the desk and described the pair, mentioned where they had been sitting.

  The clerk said he had noticed them sitting there. “They were two of Mr. Samuelson’s party.”

  “Did you see them go out?”

  “I believe so. Almost immediately after you, sir.”

  Shayne grunted his disappointment. That meant that Gentry would scarcely have had time to arrange a tail for them. “Is Samuelson in now?” he asked.

  “No, sir. He hasn’t gone up to his room since registering. He asked for Mr. Hardeman as soon as he arrived—then went out, presumably to see him at the race track when I said that was where Mr. Hardeman could be found.”

  Shayne nodded and wheeled around. He crossed the lobby in a few long strides and flung himself into his roadster. He paused with his fingers on the ignition switch. The full-bodied scream of a siren sounded from south of town. It expired into a faint moan, then silence.

  Shayne turned the switch and pressed the starter. He backed away from the curb, made an illegal U turn and sped southward.

  Headlights were converging on a spot in the street a few blocks south of the business district. He pulled past a row of parked cars, nosing beyond the authoritative hand of a distracted policeman who tried to stop him, on to the edge of a circle of onlookers pressed about a crumpled body lying by the side of the road.

  An ambulance stood just beyond, and two white-coated men were bending over the body. One of them shook his head and said something to the other. They both straightened up and spoke to Chief Boyle, who stood inside the circle.

  Shayne pressed through, glancing down at the dead man. Sightless eyes peered up at him and he recognized the stoop-shouldered man he had seen in the office of the Cocopalm Voice.

  “I couldn’t avoid it,” Albert Payson was saying over and over in a flat monotone. “I didn’t see him at all. He must have been crouching in the shadow of that clump of oleanders waiting for a car to come by so he could jump out under the wheels. There’s no other way to account for it. I tell you I didn’t see him. I felt my wheels bump something. My first thought was that I had struck a dog. I came to a stop immediately and rushed back. I was appalled when I saw a man lying there.”

  “Sure, Mr. Payson,” Chief Boyle interrupted sympathetically, putting his hand on the local financier’s trembling arm. “Sure, we understand, sir. I don’t reckon you’re to blame. We all knew Ben Edwards was sort of nutty. Must have slipped an extra cog all of a sudden and chose this way to kill himself.”

  Shayne turned his back on Boyle and Payson. He stepped back to the body of Ben Edwards lying just beyond a dark patch of shadows cast on the pavement by the moon shining through the oleander. He knelt down beside the body, oblivious of the stares and the murmuring of those who pressed close, made a quick examination of the corpse.

  He got up and went back to Boyle, who was still assuring Albert Payson that he mustn’t take the accident too much to heart, that it was clearly unavoidable.

  Shayne laughed grimly. The chief swung around to gape at him. Shayne said, “Accident, hell! If you weren’t so damned occupied with soothing this bird’s fright, you’d know Ben Edwards had been murdered.”

  “Murdered?” Chief Boyle gulped the word out.

  Shayne nodded angrily. “Of course. Don’t let anyone touch the body until the coroner gets here.”

  Chapter Eleven: GOING TO THE DOGS

  “YOU GOT NO RIGHT TO HORN IN telling me what to do,” Chief Boyle snapped vehemently. “I know not to have a body moved until the coroner inspects it.”

  “I’m surprised at that,” Shayne growled.

  Then Shayne felt wiry fingers gripping his arm and heard a panting voice close to his ear, “What’s up, Shayne? My God, that’s Ben lying there.”

  Shayne turned to scrutinize Gil Matrix’s thin, agitated face. “Ben Edwards worked for you, didn’t he?”

  “Hell, yes. He was my right-hand man. Been with me ever since I started. Who did this? Some drunken road-hog, I suppose.”

  “There he is,” Shayne said, stepping back and nonchalantly indicating the ashen Mr. Payson. “Boyle thinks he should arrest Edwards for getting in Payson’s way,” he ended sardonically.

  Gil Matrix shouldered past Shayne, tossing his bushy hair dramatically. He shook a long, lean finger in Albert Payson’s face. “This is one thing you’ll pay for, Payson. You’ve been running roughshod over people in this town long enough. Strutting around with your potbelly behind the wheel of that limousine. You’re a menace to society, and—”

  “Shut your mouth, Gil.” Chief Boyle pushed him back with a big blunt hand, blowing out a worried sigh. “Mr. Payson wasn’t speeding. You can tell by the tracks he wasn’t going more’n twenty miles an hour.”

  Gil Matrix snorted angrily. “How can you tell? You wouldn’t know where to feed yourself if your mouth didn’t blather so.”

  “That don’t matter anyhow,” the chief asserted stoutly. “Shayne here says it’s murder. Says Mr. Payson didn’t kill him.”

  Matrix whirled on the redheaded detective. “Did you make that statement, Shayne?”

  “Not exactly. I said that any fool could see he wasn’t killed by being struck by a car. The side of his head is crushed where the car didn’t touch him. I didn’t say Payson didn’t kill him. I don’t know.”

  “You just said it again,” Boyle averred indignantly. “We all heard you with our own ears. If Ben Edwards was already dead before Mr. Payson’s car ran over him, then Mr. Payson can’t be held accountable. That’s just plain sense.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Shayne explained patiently. “How do we know Payson didn’t crack his skull first, then lay him out in front of the car and run over him to make it look like an accident?”

  Albert Payson’s eyes bulged from their sockets. He made smothered sounds of indignant protest.

  “You got no right to accuse Mr. Payson of a thing like that,” Boyle burst out. “Why would he want to kill Ben Edwards?”

  Shayne said quietly, “I’m not accusing anyone. I’m pointing out what could have happened. One thing’s sure—you’re not going to learn the truth by standing here arguing.”

  “What was he going so slow for if that’s not the way it happened?” Matrix yelled vindictively. “He’s always breaking the speed limits while you’re looking the other way, Boyle. It looks mighty funny to me.”

  “But this is an outrage.” Color was coming into Payson’s face and he had stopped shaking. “Completely and utterly fantastic. Why, I scarcely knew Edwards. What motive do you think I could have for such a ghastly crime?”

  “You might have been running after his wife. That sort of thing is right up your—”

  “Cut it out, Matrix,” Shayne said. “That kind of talk isn’t going to do any good.” He took the little editor by the arm and drew him back, muttering, “Let’s get out of here. Edwards’s murder can’t be solved this way. We’ve got to run down a motive.”

  Matrix let himself be drawn away to the outskirts of the crowd, which was growing larger every minute. Shayne led him to his parked roadster, jerked the door open and shoved him in. The editor leaned back and wearily rubbed his eyes as Shayne went around to the other side and got
in beside him. He said, “Things are happening too fast even for me. First, those two fellows at the hotel—now, Ben Edwards. Where is it going to stop?”

  Shayne said, “Don’t forget Mayme Martin.”

  Matrix turned his head very slowly, as though he feared it might snap off if he made a sudden movement. His eyes bored into Shayne’s as he repeated in a tone of choked disbelief, “Mayme Martin?”

  Shayne’s voice hardened. “Are you sure it’s news to you?”

  Matrix continued to stare into his face. Beneath the surface of shocked surprise was a faint stirring of relief, as though some realization was slowly seeping through behind the first quick reaction. “Do you mean she—Mayme is dead?”

  “Murdered,” Shayne amended brutally. “In a way to make it look like suicide. Not so different from the way Ben Edwards just cashed in—indicating a killer with a one-track mind.”

  “You think she and Ben were both killed by the same person?” Gil Matrix was beginning to tremble. His voice shook with an emotion which Shayne could not quite analyze.

  The big detective made a sudden gesture. “Let’s get down to cases. It appears that Mayme was killed to prevent her from telling what she knew about the counterfeiting. She offered to crack the case for me, but was murdered before I took her up on it.

  “Now, Ben Edwards gets bumped—before I can talk to him. You were close to both Mayme and Ben. You were in Miami this afternoon. You knew I was waiting at Ben’s house to see him. You weren’t far from this spot when Ben got slugged. You printed a headline story this afternoon that set up a slugging for me that didn’t come off just right.”

  Matrix chuckled maliciously. “Trying to hang something on me?”

  Shayne hesitated. “I don’t know—yet. You’re in the middle of it. Too many things revolve around you to laugh them off. Hell, it was even your sweetie who tried to trip me up on my visit to the Rendezvous tonight—after you had sent Edwards scooting out there to contact her.”

  “Midge Taylor?”

  “None other. After her brother and Pug Leroy missed, she took a crack at stopping me.”

  Matrix mumbled, “I was afraid—” He stopped, jerking his head toward Shayne. “What happened—to Midge, I mean?”

  Shayne put his hand up to three long scratches on his cheek. “This is what happened to me—while she was pulling the hoary old decoy stuff for the benefit of Jake’s camera.”

  Matrix’s breath grew jerky. He reached for the door-latch. Shayne put his hand over his wrist and jerked it back. “You’re going to sit here and talk.”

  The editor’s eyes glinted crazily in the beams of headlights pointing toward the roadster. He snarled, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know any of the inside stuff. I do. By God—”

  “That’s the reason you’re going to talk. I’ve gone at this thing blind long enough.” Shayne held the little man’s wrist, forcing him back against the cushion. He growled, “Right now I’m more interested in Ben Edwards’s invention than anything else.”

  Matrix sucked in his breath sharply. He said, “Yeh,” in a wondering tone. “I wonder—”

  “What about it?” Shayne demanded.

  Matrix shrugged his too-big shoulders. “Ask anyone in town and they’ll tell you Ben was just a harmless half-wit.”

  “I’m not asking anyone in town. I’m asking you.”

  “Ben was a genius,” Matrix, apparently satisfied to settle back and talk, said dreamily. “The most brilliant man I’ve ever met. He could talk fourth dimension while he was completely sober.”

  “What was his invention?” Shayne pounded at him.

  “A camera,” Matrix said readily. He paused and a sly expression of triumph came to his face. “This changes things—Ben’s death. I’ve got to see how it fits in.”

  There was movement all around Shayne’s roadster. People surging back and forth excitedly, talking loudly and asking questions which were not answered.

  A man leaned across the door on Shayne’s left. Shayne turned his head and looked into Hymie’s eyes, not six inches from his own. Melvin stood a foot behind his companion. Both the lad’s hands were bunched in his coat pockets. His eyes were sultry and venomous.

  Hymie said, “The boss wants to see you. Come on.” He spoke the words so softly that Matrix did not hear them.

  The detective looked past Hymie at Melvin. He laughed. “So you’re on the junk again? You’re pretty young to go for that stuff.”

  Melvin’s breath hissed out and he said three words which brought Shayne out of the car with his gray eyes blazing and his big fists doubled.

  Hymie said, “Shut up, Melvin,” and caught Shayne’s arm with one hand while the other jammed a gun in his ribs. “Melvin gets like that,” he continued mildly. “Let’s go, Shayne.”

  Melvin circled Shayne and came up behind him. His hands were still clenched on the guns in his coat pockets. Hymie led Shayne toward a bright blue sedan parked on the east side of the road south of the death scene. The round end of a cigar glowed from the rear seat.

  Shayne waited until Hymie leaned forward to open the door. He took a quick backward step, swinging his right arm high in the air and backward while his left arm circled Hymie’s neck.

  His right arm settled around Melvin’s neck and he swung the two heads together. They made a loud thud, and Melvin wilted to the ground. Hymie ducked and backed away, but Shayne’s right fist caught the point of his retreating chin. Hymie collapsed against the side of the sedan.

  Shayne dropped to his knees as Hymie fell. He unclasped Melvin’s fingers from two heavy-caliber guns with barrels sawed off close to the cylinders, stood up and hurled them over the blue sedan into the thick growth of palmettos beyond the roadside.

  He then thrust his head inside the rear door of the car and growled to Max Samuelson, “Next time you want to see me, come yourself,” slamming the door shut as he finished speaking.

  When Shayne stalked up to his roadster, Matrix was sitting where he had left him. The editor greeted his return with a surprised smile. “I hadn’t quite made up my mind what I should do. Those fellows appeared quite determined.”

  Shayne growled an unintelligible reply as he got into the car and started the motor. He pressed the horn down and held it while he jockeyed right and left through the crowd and passed beyond the scene of the accident.

  Hymie was sitting up by the blue sedan rubbing his jaw, but Melvin lay still on the ground when they passed.

  Shayne smiled grimly and pressed his big foot on the accelerator, and Matrix asked, “Where are we going now?”

  Shayne answered morosely, “To the dogs.”

  Matrix subsided against the cushion and didn’t ask any more questions.

  Chapter Twelve: A JUMBLE OF SIGNPOSTS

  AT THE GREYHOUND TRACK Shayne swung into a floodlighted parking-lot where rows and rows of sleek automobiles were parked in precise ranks. He disregarded the importunate gestures of a uniformed attendant who waved him toward a vacant spot far in the rear of the lot. Instead, he made a circle and parked his roadster near an exit, blocking it so that he couldn’t be blocked from getting out through the gate.

  The attendant hurried toward him, exclaiming in a shocked tone, “You can’t park there, sir. It’s against the rules.”

  Shayne laughed, took the keys from the ignition and went with Gil Matrix toward the revolving entrance. The girl at the ticket window called Matrix by name, smiled, and waved them in without tickets.

  A blast of sound welled up from the high-walled enclosure. It was the interval between the third and fourth races, and a ten-piece band was valiantly striving to make itself heard above the voices of the thousands of spectators who had won or lost on the third race.

  The orchestra ceased for a brief interval while bugles sounded sharply, then resumed a swing march as tall young men caparisoned like Mexican generals began parading the entrants for the fourth race past the grandstands.

  Shayne shouldered his way t
hrough the milling crowds about the jinny pit, his eyes darting over the throng, muttering to his companion, “My wife is supposed to be here somewhere.”

  “Is that why you dragged me out here?” Matrix protested. “I thought you were on the trail of counterfeits.”

  Shayne gestured impatiently toward the long lines of lucky bettors edging up to the pay-off windows. “A man would have one hell of a time picking a counterfeit ticket out of that mob. No,” he went on briskly, “I brought you along to stay out here and watch for my wife while I see Hardeman. After I see him I’ll have some more questions for you.”

  “Go ahead,” Matrix agreed willingly. “I’ll nab on to your wife if she shows up. H-m-m, let me think, now. She was wearing a white sports dress with a flamingo scarf—unless she changed.”

  “And a white fur jacket.” He nodded and left Matrix standing on tiptoe searching the sea of faces around him.

  He shouldered through the lines at the pay-off windows and past lines already beginning to form at the selling-windows. A hectic and jovial informality characterized the night crowd as distinguished from the air of hauteur which pervades the scene at the horse races, for greyhound racing is truly a sport for the masses.

  An arrow said Offices and pointed underneath the grandstand. Shayne followed the arrow and opened a door onto a narrow hall with offices on each side. He stuck his head into the first office and asked, “Where is the manager?”

  A blond young man stopped rattling a calculating machine long enough to say, “Third door on your left.”

  Shayne went to the third door on his left and knocked, then turned the knob and walked in. John Hardeman swung about in a swivel chair and looked at Shayne across a littered flat-topped desk. The track manager had been typing with one rubber-covered forefinger at a typewriter stand behind him. He slowly peeled the rubber tip from his finger and said, “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Shayne,” in a tone of fretful annoyance.

  Shayne pulled a straight chair close to the desk. It was comparatively quiet in Hardeman’s office, though a dull and unceasing rumble of sound rolled in through an open window behind the desk.