“That’s what Chief Gentry wants to find out.”
“Can you describe the man?” asked Gentry.
“Sort of… I guess. I didn’t pay too much mind, you understand. He was young, seems like. Twenty-five, maybe. Heavy built.” He hesitated. “I see them going up and coming down all day long. You know how it is.”
“Just concentrate and do your best,” Gentry encouraged him. “Notice what he wore?”
“Just a plain suit, I guess. Sort of gray-like. You know… there wasn’t nothing special I noticed.”
“Wearing a hat, Matthew?” Shayne interposed.
“I think he was… now you mention it, Mr. Shayne.”
“Reason I asked that,” Shayne told Gentry before he could comment, “is because Mr. Meany is quite bald in front for so young a man, and it’s something likely to be noticeable without a hat. Gerald Meany is also a well-cushioned young man,” he went on thoughtfully.
“The girl’s husband?” snapped Gentry. “You think he was sore about her coming here to see you, and strangled her. Jealous type, huh?”
“I’d hardly say that,” Shayne grinned wryly at recollection of the scene that morning in Beatrice’s bedroom. “However, she did make a very obvious pass at me in front of him, and he may have got the idea she was coming here for an assignation.” He shrugged. “You never know how a husband will react.”
Gentry nodded and turned to the detectives who had completed their work and were waiting for instructions. “Anything from the prints?”
“Nothing good, Chief. The place has been thoroughly cleaned today and we got Shayne’s and another set, probably the maid’s in places you’d expect. Those of the girl on the refrigerator handle and sink, and the bottle and glass in here.”
“Pick up Gerald Meany and bring him in,” Gentry directed them. “Find out where he’s been this afternoon. Get all the information you can at the Hawley residence about his and his wife’s movements this afternoon. Whether there was any quarrel… all that.” He waved the three men away, turned back to the elevator operator. “I hope you’ll be able to identify the man who asked for this room if we show him to you, Matthew.”
“Well, sir, now…” The operator paused and wet his lips, a frown of intense concentration on his face. He glanced appealingly at Shayne, and, following his glance, Rourke saw the detective nod his red head in an emphatic affirmative.
Matthew swallowed hard and said firmly, “I do believe I can. Yes, sir. I can’t rightly just describe him good, but it comes to me I’ll surely know him if I see his face again.”
“That’s exactly what we need. You stay around on tap, and I hope we’ll call on you for an identification.” He nodded a dismissal, and told the patrolman, “Go down with him and tell the boys to bring up the basket. You got anything further for me, Mike?” he asked as the others left.
“Not right now, Will. God knows,” he added strongly, “I want the guy who messed up my living room as badly as you do.” He turned his angry eyes on the body again. “I drank with that gal this morning… halfway smooched with her. If she’d only stayed sober and come clean with me then…”
Gentry clapped him on the shoulder and said gruffly, “There’s other gals for drinking and smooching. Coming, Tim?”
“I think I’ll hang around and get a little more background from Mike,” the reporter told him. “What’s that stuff in your glass, Mike?”
“This?” Shayne looked at the cognac as though he had forgotten he held it, and then tossed it off. “I’ve got a bottle of rye for you, Tim.”
Gentry went out, and as they turned back to the kitchen together, two white-coated young men appeared in the doorway carrying a long wicker basket. They looked at the body and one of them asked cheerfully, “This the place?”
“That’s a silly damned question,” Shayne said bitterly over his shoulder. “Of course this isn’t the place. I don’t feel that my living room looks lived in without at least one corpse cluttering up the floor. Grab a bottle of rye, Tim, and come on out.”
14
When the two men returned to the living room, with their drinks a few minutes later, all traces of Beatrice Meany had been removed, the detectives having taken her hat and handbag with them.
Rourke and Shayne settled down comfortably, and the reporter took a long drink of his highball before asking irritably, “In the name of God, Mike, when are you going to start filling me in on this case?”
“You know just about as much as I do,” said Shayne cautiously.
“Just hints and oblique references,” said Rourke. “About, for instance, different people who don’t want Groat’s diary published… and how much cash Cross might accept for quashing it. Why, Mike?”
“There may be two reasons.” Shayne told him first about Ezra Hawley’s will and how a fortune depended on whether Albert Hawley had predeceased his uncle or had not died until his fifth day on the life raft.
“That’s one angle,” he explained, “with the Hawley clan on one side and Mrs. Meredith on the other. Neither side knows what the diary says as yet, and so neither side actually knows whether they want it suppressed or publicized.”
“Of course, there’s still Cunningham who should be able to testify as to the exact date of Hawley’s death.”
“True enough. But Cunningham, I think, is waiting to see which way the cat jumps. Without the diary to either back him up or refute him, he would be in the enviable position of inviting the highest bid from either side to testify the way they want him to. But he’s afraid to commit himself either way so long as the diary is around.
“And there’s still another angle that bears thinking about,” Shayne went on. “The mysterious disappearance of a gardener named Leon Wallace from the Hawley employ about a year ago… just when Albert’s wife was getting her divorce… and just before Albert was inducted into the army. Jasper Groat telephoned Mrs. Wallace last evening and promised her information about her missing husband, and was murdered before he could give her that information.”
He went on to sketch in the details of his talk with Mrs. Wallace that morning while Timothy Rourke listened with intense concentration and made notes on his copy paper.
When Shayne completed his account, Rourke said thoughtfully, “Then if the Hawleys did connive, somehow, to get rid of Wallace… for some unknown reason… and paid Mrs. Wallace ten grand to keep her from making an investigation… they had a further motive for murdering Groat before he passed the dope on to Mrs. Wallace.”
“That’s about it,” Shayne agreed gloomily. “And that may explain Beatrice’s murder. She was unstable as hell, and liable to spill her guts any time to any man who condescended to stroke her hand gently while she was tight.”
“Which one Mike Shayne did condescend to do only this morning,” guessed Rourke with a grin.
“In a manner of speaking. Did you talk to Mrs. Groat?” Shayne changed the subject abruptly.
“Yeh. Running errands for you,” growled Rourke. “The situation regarding sale of the diary seems to be this: Jasper Groat made a verbal deal with Cross to accept two thousand dollars for publication rights… but nothing was actually signed between them. There seems no doubt that Cross has physical possession of the diary, and Mrs. Groat feels morally bound to go through with the deal her husband made… besides not being averse to seeing the thing printed and also picking up an easy two grand.”
“Two thousand dollars,” ejaculated Shayne. “With a fortune of a couple of million riding in the balance. She could probably get twenty times that much for suppressing it from whichever of the two parties that stands to lose when the truth is known.”
“She doesn’t know that,” Rourke reminded him. “And, like her late husband, I gather that she has a strict code of ethics. I don’t believe a hundred times two thousand would tempt her to do anything dishonest.”
“Which is exactly why Groat was murdered,” sighed Shayne. He sat very still for a moment, sunk into morose thought. “My hands are absolutely tied until I find out what the diary says about the date of Hawley’s death and Leon Wallace. Damn it, Tim, we’ve got to persuade Joel Cross to give us a look at it.”