Shayne drew on his cigarette, blew out a puff of smoke and said, “You must have got something from Jimmy before you went up to see Mrs. Roche.”
Seth Gerald said wearily, “He muttered something about being tired of Charles arguing with him about what ought to be done about the strike, and left him there waiting for Brand to come home.”
Shayne was thoughtfully silent for a moment, then said flatly, “It still looks like you or Jimmy. Depending on whether Roche was dead before you got there.”
“That’s pure supposition,” Gerald snapped. “Suppose Brand showed up after Jimmy left and before I reached the house? We can presume he lured Roche up the street and murdered him.”
“So you’re going to claim he was dead before you got there,” Shayne said sharply.
“I’m not claiming anything of the sort. I simply don’t know. I’m theorizing to fit the known facts.” Gerald was beginning to perspire profusely. He searched in his robe pockets for a handkerchief but didn’t find one.
“Let’s look at facts the way a jury will,” Shayne suggested. “You’re going to have one hell of a time making anyone believe that Brand was fool enough to kill the man who offered him a signed agreement for settling the strike on Brand’s terms.”
“Charles didn’t… I don’t believe…”
“Charles did and I can prove it,” Shayne interrupted. “When that agreement is produced in court, every vestige of the case against Brand will go up in thin smoke.” He waited tensely to see how Gerald reacted. If he wasn’t worried… if he scoffed at that possibility… it would be strong evidence that he wasn’t afraid the agreement would be produced in court. That he had good reason for knowing it no longer existed.
But Seth Gerald was worried, or else he was thinking as fast as Shayne and putting on a good show to indicate he was. “That would be horrible,” he said. “If you know where such a document is, let me remind you it’s worth a cool five thousand to you to make sure it doesn’t appear in court.”
“There are other considerations besides money.”
“What?” scoffed Gerald. “Don’t tell me that your heart bleeds for the cause of justice. I know something about your reputation.”
“We’ll skip that until a little later. Right now I’m trying to make you understand the seriousness of your situation. If you don’t intend to admit that Roche was dead when you reached him, you’re practically dangling from the end of a rope right now.”
“I don’t see why.” It was apparent that Gerald had thought all this out carefully. “Don’t forget that Jimmy called me in Charles’ presence. Charles knew I was on my way to intervene, so when Brand showed up he probably suggested they go some place else to have their talk. I imagine they disagreed on some of the terms and Brand lost his temper and killed him.”
“You’re disregarding two elements,” said Shayne. “The signed agreement and the fact that you hurried to Mrs. Roche to fix up what amounted to an alibi for Jimmy. A jury will suspect you wouldn’t have done that without damned good reason to think he was going to need an alibi.” He leaned forward to grind out his cigarette.
“No one in this town is going to pay much attention to what Elsa Roche says,” said Gerald contemptuously, “after she’s been flagrantly running around with George Brand.”
Shayne hesitated, his thoughts racing ahead. The most delicate sort of timing was required for what he had in mind. The most carefully wrought intimation to bring the admission he hoped to wring from his host.
He felt his way cautiously. “That may have a certain bearing on the whole case. On the other hand, it isn’t going to be too good for you if it gets around that you and Mrs. Roche weren’t… shall we say… exactly disinterested in each other.”
“That’s a nasty lie,” Gerald snapped.
“Is it?” Shayne grinned widely and relaxed, stretching his long legs out.
Shayne’s grin evidently infuriated Gerald. “What do you mean by such an absurd insinuation?” he burst out. “Where did you pick up a thing like that?”
Shayne looked surprised. “Can’t you guess?”
“I cannot,” said Gerald angrily. He sat stiffly forward, his nostrils flaring with each stertorous breath. “There hasn’t been a breath of scandal about us. Not one breath.”
“I suppose you thought you were being discreet,” Shayne said. “And you relied on the old truism that the husband is always the last to find out about a thing like that. Too bad for you that it didn’t turn out that way in this case. It’s going to look damned bad in court for you when it’s proved that Charles knew what was going on between you and his wife.”
“That can’t be proved because it isn’t true,” said Gerald. “I don’t know what absurd basis you have for your statement, but someone has evidently been feeding you a pack of lies.”
“You forget,” said Shayne blandly, “the anonymous letters Charles Roche has been receiving. The ones he sent me,” he amplified, “not the one he showed his wife and the police.”
“That’s a lie!” Gerald was on his feet swiftly, his face darkly-red, his fists clenched. “There was nothing like that in those letters.”
“You forget that they’re in my possession. I’m prepared to produce them to prove…”
“You’ve made up some forgeries,” Gerald accused. “I don’t know what your object is, but those letters didn’t contain one word about…” He stopped abruptly, a look of shocked horror in his whole expression as he stared at Shayne’s grinning face. He backed away one step, then another.
Shayne said, “Thanks. That’s exactly what I wanted to hear you say, Gerald. I had a hunch you’d written those threatening letters, but I was afraid it would be difficult to prove.”
“I didn’t say…”
“You made it very plain that you know what’s in those letters,” Shayne interrupted swiftly, before Gerald could get his thoughts in order. “The only person who knows that is the man who wrote them. Roche didn’t show them to anyone else.”
Gerald sank into his chair again and mopped his wet face with his palms. “All right,” he said hoarsely, “if you do have those letters you know there’s not one word about Mrs. Roche and me in them.”
“Naturally.” Shayne’s tone gently chided him. “I just wanted to force you to say you wrote them. I felt pretty sure you did,” he added.
“I suppose it was a silly thing to do,” Seth Gerald groaned. “But I was at my wit’s end with the strike, and with Charles full of noble sentiments about the rights of the workers to share in the profits. I thought something like that might bring him to his senses. Good God!” he exclaimed suddenly. “You don’t think for a moment I meant those letters seriously. You can see that I just hoped to frighten some common sense into him.”
“You don’t have to worry about what I think,” Shayne pointed out. “I won’t be a member of the jury that will have to decide whether you meant your threats or not.”
Gerald wet his lips and made two efforts to speak before he succeeded in blurting out, “No one else has seen those letters. No one else suspects what was in them. He vaguely mentioned them as threats against his life. Nothing more than that.”
“That’s right,” Shayne assented. “If he hadn’t mailed them to me before he was murdered you’d be safe right now. I doubt,” he went on generously, “whether any jury would convict you of his murder without the evidence of those letters.”
“You’re bluffing,” blustered Gerald. “I see it all now. You think you can hold me up… blackmail me… with a threat like that. I warn you I’m not easily frightened. Those letters aren’t real evidence against me. Everyone who knows the circumstances will understand my real motive in writing them.”
“Let’s look at it objectively,” said Shayne. “First, we have Charles’ impending birthday when he will assume control of the mines and possibly fire you out of a soft job. Then we have a strike which he is willing to settle at terms which you consider detrimental. Third, we have a series of letters, anonymous, but admittedly written by you, threatening his life if he does not agree to hold out against the strikers. Next, there is his signed agreement with Brand which would have become effective on his birthday. You were on the spot at the approximate time of his death… you hurried from there to his widow and fixed up a lie for her to tell to explain your presence there. Hell!” he exploded, “that’s enough evidence to hang ten men. Just the letters and the fact that he’s dead would be enough. Juries have a funny way of linking two facts like that together.”