She stopped abruptly and Shayne narrowed his eyes and exhaled twin streams of smoke from his nostrils. “The Hawleys? The same family…?”
She nodded briefly. “The same family that is written about in the paper in the story about the airplane wreck. I remember Leon mentioning a son named Albert in one of his first letters. I don’t think he liked Albert much, but it was a good job and paid well. He had been there about two months when I got a letter from him, Mr. Shayne.” She reached for her handbag and unclasped it with shaking fingers and lifted out a long envelope which she pushed toward him. “You’d better read it yourself. You’re the first one… well, you can see why I never showed it to anyone else.”
It was a pre-stamped envelope with an extra stamp pasted beside the printed one. It was addressed to Mrs. Leon Wallace, Littleboro, Florida in firmly inked letters, and there was a return address in the upper left corner: Leon Wallace, c/o Hawley, 316 Bayside Drive, Miami, Florida. The envelope was worn and somewhat gray with much handling. It was postmarked in Miami slightly less than a year previously.
As Shayne opened the flap and took out a single sheet of plain, white bond paper, folded three times, Mrs. Wallace said, “There were ten one-thousand-dollar bills folded inside his letter, Mr. Shayne.”
He paused to study her face. “Ten one-thousand-dollar bills?”
She nodded. “Read it and see what you think.”
He finished opening it and glanced at the salutation. “I’ll read it aloud, if I may, so Miss Hamilton can take it down.”
She nodded again. “Of course.” She leaned back stiffly and closed her eyes, compressing her lips as Shayne read aloud the words which he knew must be indelibly engraved in her memory:
“Darling:
“Don’t be frightened by all this money. I haven’t robbed a bank or done anything really wrong. And it isn’t ‘hot.’ Better go to Ft. Pierce and deposit it in the bank there where they won’t ask embarrassing questions, and draw it out as you need it.
“I have to go away, Myra, and I can’t tell you where. This will take care of you and pay for a new crop and the hospital bills for the baby. I can’t write you any more, and you’ll have to trust me.
“Try not to worry, and don’t go to the police or anyone. Don’t ask any questions or try to find out anything. If you do exactly as I say, I will send you another thousand dollars every three months, but I will be in bad trouble and there will be no more money if you upset the apple-cart.
“Believe me, darling, I have thought it all out and this is best for you and me, and for the baby. This is more money than I could earn in a year.
“You can tell people I’ve re-enlisted in the army or something. Or that I’ve gone out West to another job.
“Just don’t worry! And don’t try to find out any more than I’ve told you. I love you and I always will. You will understand when it is all over.
“Kiss the baby for me when he comes… and please try to trust me to know what’s best. Your loving husband. LEON”
There was silence in the office when Shayne finished reading the letter. It was broken by the crackle of brittle paper as he carefully refolded the sheet into its original creases. Mrs. Wallace opened her eyes wide and swallowed. “Well? What should I have done, Mr. Shayne?” She turned to look at Lucy intensely. “You’re a woman, Miss Hamilton. What would you have done under those circumstances?”
Lucy shook her head slowly, her brown eyes warm with understanding. “If I loved my husband… and trusted him… I guess I would have done the same as you. But what does it mean, Michael?” she went on swiftly. “Ten thousand dollars! And another thousand every three months.”
He shook his red head at Lucy, asked Myra Wallace, “Did you hear anything further?”
“Only an envelope every three months, mailed from Miami and with another thousand-dollar bill inside.” Her voice trembled slightly. “It was addressed in his handwriting and had the same return address, but there wasn’t a scrap of writing inside. Just one bill. I’ve had three of them now. The last one about a month ago.”
Shayne replaced the letter in its envelope. “And last night Jasper Groat telephoned to say he had information about your husband… just before he disappeared?”
“That’s right. But he didn’t tell me what sort of information. Whether Leon was alive or dead.”
Shayne said, “I think it’s time you did some checking with the Hawleys.”
“I did! I telephoned out there this morning from Mrs. Groat’s apartment and asked for their gardener, Mr. Leon Wallace. Some servant answered. A Negro, I’m sure. And he said they hadn’t had any gardener for at least a year… and he didn’t know anything about my husband. That’s when I decided… I should come to you, Mr. Shayne. I’ve heard about you, of course,” she went on breathlessly. “Everybody in Florida has, I guess. I can pay you. I’ve saved most of the money Leon sent me. Just find him for me. I don’t care what he’s done. The farm’s doing fine now. We can pay all the money back.”
Shayne said, “I already have one client in this case, Mrs. Wallace. It seems to me that the disappearance of your husband and Jasper Groat are tied together somehow.” He hesitated, tugging at his left ear lobe and furrowing his forehead. “Have you kept those other envelopes the quarterly payments arrived in?”
“Yes. I have them at home. But they’re just like this one, Mr. Shayne. Addressed in ink in Leon’s handwriting. So I know he was alive and here in Miami just a month ago.”
Shayne said, “I’d like to have the envelopes, Mrs. Wallace. And a picture of your husband.”
“I have one at home I can send you.”
“Do that as soon as you get back. In the meantime, describe him to me.”
“He’s twenty-four. Just my age. He was a little late graduating because he elected to do his selective service between high school and college. He’s about five-ten, and slender and dark-haired. He…”
She broke down suddenly, bowed her face into her hands and her sobbing was loud in the silent office.
Shayne got up. He lifted one shoulder expressively at Lucy, jerking his head toward Myra Wallace, and, as she closed her notebook and hurried around to the young wife, he said, “Get her address and phone number, Lucy. And be sure she understands she’s to send us those other envelopes and a picture of her husband as soon as she gets home. You see she gets off all right. I think she said something about leaving a pair of twins at home in the care of a neighbor.”
“Of course, Michael. Where will you be?”
“Right now,” said Shayne grimly, “I have several questions to put to the Hawley family.” He walked out of the office angrily, wondering again, as he had so often wondered in the past, how any man could be so utterly obtuse as to suppose that a woman like Myra Wallace would prefer for one moment all the money in Fort Knox to her own husband and the father of her child.
Her children, damn it! Twins. And for a few thousand lousy bucks some goddam fool male human being calmly advised his wife to stop worrying about him and enjoy spending the money.
4
Shayne’s first stop was police headquarters and the Missing Persons Bureau presided over by Sergeant Piper who had been in charge for twenty years and carried more information in his head than was contained in the filing cases behind him.
Piper was bald-headed and red-faced, and he shook his head when Shayne stopped in front of his chest-high desk. “Nothing on that Jasper Groat you called in about last night, Mike. You ready for us to go to work on it?”
“Not until I do a little more checking and talk to his wife again. But I do want to know if you ever had a Leon Wallace in your files.”