“Murdered?” Morrison’s jaw went slack and the cigar dropped from his mouth, spilling ashes down the front of his sweater.
“And these notes are a vital clue,” Shayne said somberly.
“You can’t prove it.” Morrison reached for his cigar with shaking fingers. “You can’t possibly prove it.”
“I think I can.”
Morrison was sitting erect, gripping the arms of his chair. “I’m a wealthy man, Mr. Shayne. I admit nothing, you understand, but it seems fairly obvious that you’re determined to drag my name into a nasty scandal. Name your price.”
“I’m not even in a position to return the originals,” Shayne said bluntly. “I want the truth.”
“Nonsense. Every man has his price. Take time to think it over carefully.”
“There are four other people involved,” Shayne pointed out. “The four who initialed the letters. Let me give you a bit of advice, Morrison. Once you start paying out money to hush up a thing like this you’ll never be done. Even your millions won’t be enough. In the end you’ll be ruined, and the threat of exposure will still hang over your head. Let me have the whole story now. If your hands are clean you have nothing to fear.”
“But I insist there is no story,” said the financier stubbornly. “What more can I say or do? It’s a devilishly contrived frame-up and I realize how it can be made to look. Though I find a hundred experts to swear the letters are forgeries, you can counter with another hundred who will testify the opposite. I fully understand the position I’m in. You have nothing whatever to gain by forcing me out in the open. If you and your confederates will agree on any sort of reasonable terms I assure you I won’t be niggardly.”
“I have no confederates,” Shayne said angrily. “My only interest is clearing up a murder and preventing a girl’s marriage from being wrecked. I have to know how those notes came into Christine Hudson’s possession. The whole case hinges on that. I’m convinced you wrote them to her. Who else knew you had written them to her? Was she actually your sweetheart in New York, and is she lying when she denies receiving the notes from you? Or is she telling the truth and are these part of a deliberate plot to wreck her marriage and force her to accept you?” Shayne tapped the envelope containing the letters.
Morrison was chewing steadily on his cigar while Shayne spoke. “Are you telling me that Christine Hudson gave you those notes?”
“They were in her possession, as I told you. The four witnesses can swear to that. If Christine isn’t lying, then they were planted there. By whom?”
Morrison shook his head slowly. “I’m sure I don’t know who would do a thing like that, Mr. Shayne. But I swear I had no part in it. I would be a fool to-”
“You’re the only one with a possible motive,” Shayne interrupted. “If you used the maid who was murdered over there last night, I think I know why she was murdered. And I’ll soon know by whom. All I need is a few truthful answers from you. I’ll do my best to keep it private,” he urged. “Better tell me now than the police later. They’re still poking around in the dark, but it won’t be long before they hit on the right trail. Then all your money won’t keep the story out of the newspapers.”
Morrison continued to shake his bald head stubbornly. “I’ll have to discuss this with my attorney, Mr. Shayne. You understand, I’m admitting nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’ll have to have legal advice. I’ll be glad to contact you later, but I have nothing to say at the moment.”
“Better make it within the next couple of hours,” said Shayne disgustedly. He gave Morrison his address and stood up.
Mr. Morrison arose. He said, “I’ll get in touch with you at the earliest possible moment.”
Shayne said, “All right, but I can’t sit on this lid very long without getting scalded,” and stalked away to his car.
Chapter Ten: SHAYNE UNCOVERS A PLOT
From the Morrison residence Shayne went directly to Angus Browne’s office. He rode up in the elevator with two chattering girls to the fourth floor of the Metropolitan Building on Flagler Street and went down an unlighted corridor to Number 416. Angus Browne: Investigating was printed on the frosted glass. He knocked, and when there was no answer or sound of movement inside, he turned the knob. The door was locked.
The corridor was deserted and the doors of all nearby offices were closed. He got out his key ring and went to work on the lock. It yielded after several tries, and he walked into a dark and musty anteroom. There were half a dozen chairs lined up against the wall, and nothing else. A door marked Private led off the small room.
The door was unlocked and Shayne entered. Here, also, the room was dusty and musty from disuse. The shades were drawn. He ran two of them up, and looked around at a bare desk and a swivel chair in the center of the room. Two cane-bottomed chairs were in front of the desk. Cigarette butts littered the floor around a wire trash basket, and an empty pint whisky bottle lay in one corner where it had apparently been carelessly tossed. A steel filing cabinet stood in another corner near one of the windows.
The drawers of the upright cabinet had cardboard tabs marked alphabetically. Shayne pulled out the second drawer, marked H-M. His eyes glinted when he found a thin folder marked Morrison.
He took the folder out and carried it over to the dusty desk, seated himself and opened it. The first entry was a brief note dated October 2, 1945, on the letterhead of Pursley, Adams amp; Peck, Attorneys-at-law, Miami, Florida. It was addressed to Angus Browne, and read:
We have a client desirous of arranging an investigation of an exceedingly confidential nature and you have been recommended to us as a discreet and efficient private investigator.
If you are in a position to undertake such an assignment at this time, please call for an appointment at your earliest convenience.
A penciled notation on the bottom of the letter read: 10/3, 2:00 p.m.
The next exhibit was a one-page typewritten memorandum with a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo which set forth that one Angus Browne was hereby and hereinafter retained by Victor Morrison for the purpose of obtaining satisfactory legal evidence against Mrs. Estelle Morrison to permit her husband to obtain an uncontested divorce from her. For his services Browne was to be paid a flat rate of $50 per day, with a bonus of $500, contingent upon a satisfactory conclusion of the case. This document was dated October 3.
There followed a thin sheaf of carbon copies of daily reports filed by Browne with the attorneys, setting forth in detail Mrs. Morrison’s movements during each 24-hour period.
The first two reports were innocuous enough, but on October 6, Mr. Morrison’s suspicions appeared to be justified. On that day, Estelle Morrison had left home at 2:00 p.m. alone in her coupe and driven directly to the Flamingo Inn on West 79th Street. Here she had been observed by Browne having several drinks at the bar before retiring to a dimly lit booth in the company of a young man with whom she had struck up an acquaintanceship in the course of a few rounds of drinks.
They had remained together in the booth until slightly after four o’clock. Then they left the Flamingo in her coupe and drove to a spot on Miami Beach for more drinks, and then had dinner.
At seven o’clock Browne followed them in his car to a cheap hotel on the Beach, watched them embrace fervidly in the car before the young man got out and went inside. Discreet inquiries revealed the man to be Lance Hastings. He was about 28 years old, with no known means of support.
The couple had met the two following days for further drinks and more embraces, culminating on the evening of the third day by a visit made by Estelle Morrison to Hastings’s room at eight o’clock in the evening, where she remained until almost midnight. Attached to this report was a photostatic copy of an affidavit by a bellboy in the hotel who had seen her enter Hastings’s room, and who had later delivered cracked ice and seen both parties in a state of intimate undress. He had witnessed her departure just before twelve o’clock.