Stallings’s physique unbent to the point of straining forward from the waist and tossing his silvery hair back. He declared, “This is clearly a frame-up to defeat me at the polls tomorrow. Though Shayne knows he hasn’t a shred of evidence to bolster his insane accusations, he realizes that by making them public he will so becloud the issue in the minds of the voters that his candidate will have a chance to win. But I warn you, young man, any newspaper that prints this story will lay itself wide open for a libel suit — which I shan’t hesitate to bring.” He shook an admonishing finger at Timothy Rourke.
“That’s right, Mike,” Rourke muttered. “This is swell stuff, but — I got to have something to back it up.”
“That’s easy,” Shayne assured him. “Proving the girl isn’t Helen Stallings will be enough. Don’t you agree that will prove my story?” he asked, turning to Painter.
Painter hesitated, looking slowly from Shayne to Stallings. “If she isn’t Helen Stallings, it ought to prove something,” he muttered at last.
“How does he plan to prove this absurd contention?”
Stallings asked sharply. “Is she supposed to have a strawberry birthmark or has he got a set of her fingerprints from the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”
“I’ll produce a witness to identify her,” Shayne told Painter confidently. “One whose identification you’ll have to accept without doubt.”
“It’s another trick of his,” Stallings argued. “He has planned this in advance. He’s got someone planted who will pretend to have been acquainted with Helen in school. I tell you the whole thing is an absurd tissue of lies, and any person who states that the body of the strangled girl isn’t my stepdaughter is a malicious liar. All he’s after is to get this trumped-up story in the newspapers to defeat me at the election.”
“It’ll have to be an absolutely positive identification before I’ll accept it,” Painter warned Shayne. “Someone like — well, the girl’s mother.”
“She’s too ill,” Stallings protested hastily. “The doctor’s orders are very strict that she must have no excitement whatever.”
“All right,” Shayne agreed. “I’m not so sure about the nature of her illness. I’ve got a strong hunch Doctor Patterson has kept her shot full of dope this past month so she wouldn’t recognize the girl as an impostor and spoil your game. But let that pass. I’ve got someone who will do as well as her mother. A husband should recognize his own wife.”
“A husband?” Stallings choked over the word, shaking his head frantically. “She has no husband,” he told Painter, regaining his calm immediately and effectually. “This is just the sort of trick I expected him to attempt. Helen wasn’t married. She was practically engaged to Arch Bugler.”
“I wondered,” Shayne murmured, “whether you knew about her husband. You knew Whit Marlow was coming to visit her, didn’t you? But he was too cagey to mention the marriage in a letter addressed even to his wife. You see,” he went on to Painter, “that’s what started all the fireworks yesterday. This Marlow was due in town and they realized he’d know the girl wasn’t Helen the instant he saw her. They had to get her out of the way in a hurry. I don’t know whether he and Bugler planned to murder her or not, but it was certainly the perfect solution, as she must have realized. She got panicky and tried to get to me with her story. Then they had to put her out of the way. And the supreme irony of it was that if they’d known the truth none of their murderous scheme was necessary. Helen was already married, and the estate would have reverted to Mrs. Stallings as a natural consequence according to the will. She married a man named Whit Marlow last April.”
“That’s an outright lie,” Stallings sputtered. “It’s impossible.” His dignity was shattered.
Shayne smiled thinly. He reached in his inner breast pocket and drew out the marriage certificate he had taken from Whit Marlow’s bag. “Look it over for yourself.” Painter unfolded it while Stallings leaned far forward to read it with him.
“Marlow is in the Miami jail right now.” Shayne’s voice crackled authoritatively. “Call Gentry and have him sent over to identify the body Stallings claims to be that of his stepdaughter.”
“By God, I’ll do that.” Painter shoved the certificate aside and seized the telephone. He got Miami police headquarters and spoke to Chief Gentry. After talking a few minutes he covered the mouthpiece and asked Stallings, “What mortuary has the body?”
“Gleason’s, here on the Beach. But I certainly don’t approve—”
Painter turned his attention to the telephone again. In a moment he hung up and announced, “Gentry is sending Marlow over at once. We’ll meet him at the mortuary and straighten this thing out once and for all. But don’t think that means I believe a word you’ve said,” he added to Shayne. “If that young man identifies the corpse as his wife you’re going to jail and stand trial for her murder.”
Shayne said, “That suits me,” and got up. He winked broadly at Rourke.
Stallings rode in the official car with Painter to the mortuary. Shayne and Rourke rode with two Miami Beach detectives in a patrol car.
“How sure are you about all this?” Rourke asked anxiously as they were driven northward. “God knows, every word of it was a complete surprise to me.”
“I’m as sure as any man can be without actual proof. God damn it, Tim, that’s the way it has to be. It’s the only thing that hangs together — the only theory that fits all the facts.”
“Theory,” Rourke growled. “I don’t like it, Mike. Stallings acted too damned cocky all through the interview. If you’re wrong—”
“If I’m wrong,” Shayne interposed cheerfully, “I’ll have lots of spare time to work out some more theories in Petey Painter’s jail. But I can’t be wrong. Too many queer facts dovetail perfectly.”
“When the hell did it come to you? Have you guessed all along that the girl wasn’t Helen Stallings?”
“No. I didn’t have the faintest idea. It just began unscrambling itself this morning the more I tried to make two and two equal five. It wouldn’t. No matter how hard I tried, it came out four every time. The thing that’s been nagging at me subconsciously all along,” Shayne went on in a musing tone, “was the inexplicable change that appeared to come over Helen Stallings all at once. First, she changed her mind and withdrew the suit against her stepfather; then she started running around with Bugler and his crowd. It looked as if she must have got a crack on the head — or they were two different girls.”
“Might have been duress,” Rourke argued weakly. “If Bugler had a stake in Stallings keeping control of the money he might have got hold of Helen and put the pressure on. Arch Bugler is capable of anything.”
“That’s the only other possibility that passes muster,” Shayne agreed. “But it doesn’t explain all the other strange happenings. That Doctor Patterson — I’m willing to bet he’s a phony. And he’s got some tie-up with Bugler. To hell with all this guesswork,” the detective ended philosophically as the patrol car drew up behind Painter’s automobile in front of the Gleason Mortuary. “We’ll know soon enough whether I’m out on a limb or not.”
A detective got on each side of Shayne and walked him up the steps behind Painter and Stallings. Rourke trailed along behind them, an uneasy expression in his slaty eyes.