However, thanks to the hole in the middle of his forehead, Harlan “the Duke” Ferrell was no longer relishing his lush surroundings.
Shayne looked down at the corpse and thought, irrelevantly, of the little girl of the nursery rhyme who “had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead” — only this wasn’t a nursery rhyme, it wasn’t a little girl, and it wasn’t a curl. This was reality, it was a dark, handsome, very dead man, and the “curl” was a hole, made by a bullet.
Outside of corpse and redhead, there were four others in the room. Three of them were cops — the uniformed patrolman who had been first on the scene when the alarm went out, Len Sturgis, the hulking, immensely tall ace of Chief of Police Will Gentry’s Homicide Bureau, and Garrity, Sturgis’ partner and chauffeur. The other person present was a small, rather twitchy little man with double-bags under his eyes and an immense, corvine nose. He called himself Seton and said he was Mr. Ferrell’s manservant. It was he who had found the body and reported it to the police.
At the moment, however, while awaiting the arrival of the Medical Examiner’s crew and the fingerprint and photographic teams, Len Sturgis appeared more interested in Shayne and the reason for his presence so quickly on the scene, rather than in the witness. He asked, sharply, “Mike, how come you’re on this so fast?”
“I don’t even know that I am on it,” the redhead replied, lighting a cigarette. “How does it look to you, Len?”
“Too quick to tell,” was the equivocal reply. Then, “Who tipped you off, Mike? Seton, here, only reported finding the body twenty minutes ago.”
“For all I know,” said Shayne blandly, “it might have been the murderer.” Then, suppressing a grin, “Don’t get yourself all lathered up, Len — it’s not worth it. If it was the murderer, I promise you’ll be the very first to know — after me, of course.”
Sturgis growled and took two steps forward, his fists clenched so tightly against his sides that his knuckles showed custard yellow. He said, between his teeth, “Shayne, I ought to knock some sense into you — and some of the non-co-operation out! This is a murder, Mike, and I’m not standing for any of your monkey-shines.”
“Thank you, Len,” said the red-head with the sweetest smile he could muster on his craggy, deeply furrowed face. “Simmer down, man. At least, you had the kindness to tell me it’s not a suicide — which is what I really came over here to find out.” Shayne turned on his heel and began to march out of the room, to be halted briefly by Sturgis’ bellow. “Where in hell do you think you’re going, Shayne?” the Homicide sleuth roared.
“Oh!” the detective replied lightly. “I’m on my way to find out if my client is a murderer.”
“Your hat, sir,” said Seton, moving forward obsequiously.
Shayne was smiling to himself as he passed the fingerprint boys on their way to work. Sliding under the wheel of his sedan and putting it under way, he concentrated on the problem that lay ahead of him at Lois Craig Malcolm’s.
She received him at the door of a rambling, expensive-looking, pseudo-Italian villa. She wore a bright flowered print that italicised. the bright blue of her eyes and the softly glowing bronze tones of her skin. She was of medium height, and the years seemed, if anything, to have added to, rather than detracted from, the magnetic elements of a trim, yet wholly feminine, figure. Her face was alert with intelligence, and she looked hardly a day over twenty-five. Her comely features were framed by dark-blonde hair, cut in an artfully artless short-Italian style. Shayne would have recognised her anywhere as Lois Craig.
She said, extending a hand, “Hello, Mike — thank goodness you’re here!” Then she motioned him into the house.
She led the way to a large and comfortable living room and poured them both brandy from a portable bar. Handing him his glass, she said, “You see? I remembered.” Then, “I hope I did the right thing in calling you instead of the police, Mike Shayne.”
He put down his glass, half-empty, and said, “Amen to that, Mrs. Malcolm. You are Mrs. Donald Malcolm, aren’t you?”
“I am,” she told him. “I wish you’d call me Lois. The other sounds so formal.”
“Thank you,” he said, “but I wasn’t thinking of our relationship, Lois — I was wondering how your possible involvement in the murder of Harlan Ferrell might affect your husband’s chances in this proxy battle he has coming up.”
Lois Malcolm ran well-manicured fingers through her short hair. She said, “Mike, I just don’t dare think about that.” She paused, then lifted her head with a spark of defiant pride and added, “I know I’ve been a plain, idiotic, damned fool, and I’ve got no right to ask for help out of a situation I created for myself. If only I’d had sense enough to stay away from Duke Ferrell! I knew what he was, well enough.”
She got hold of herself and went on, her voice low, “At the very worst, though, I’ve been an idiot, not a criminal. It’s for Donald’s sake that I’m hoping against hope my name — and his — can be kept out of the newspapers. He’ll be crucified, if it gets out.”
Shayne studied her. It was difficult for him to envisage this suntanned, competent, obviously intelligent woman playing the fool with a character like Duke Ferrell. For his memory of Lois Craig, such a vision was sickening. He said, evading the issue for the moment, “One thing, before we go any further — if the answer is yes, it never will go any further. Did you shoot Duke Ferrell?”
“I did not,” she said firmly. “As I told you over the ’phone, somebody had already killed poor Duke when I got there this morning.”
“Any idea who might have done it?” he asked her.
Lois Malcolm shook her head. “A better question would be, do I have any idea who might not have done it?” she countered, a faint smile relieving the savage cynicism of her remark. “I know this sounds impossible, but I have a perfectly marvellous husband, even if he is in New York, and I’m here — and Duke Ferrell was undoubtedly the biggest heel I have ever met. Mind you, Mike, I’ve met some beauts. He was a man without honour, without principle, without a single thought or ambition or desire beyond the gratification of his own senses, and the filling of his own pocketbook.”
“Sounds like a real charm-boy,” said the redhead, putting down his glass, empty. “Just what was his attraction for a woman like you?”
“It’s hard to explain,” she said. “It was what he wasn’t, rather than what he was, I suppose. Now that Duke’s dead, I can’t even seem to explain it to myself. But a woman can grow awfully tired of nobility, Mike, especially when she has no children, and her husband’s business keeps him away from her a lot of the time. It can become quite a burden.”
“I suppose so,” said Shayne, not trying to mask his disappointment. He got to his feet, tugged his jacket into place, said, “What do you want me to do?”
“Mike,” she said, coming close to him and looking up at him appealingly, “try not to hate me, won’t you? I want you to do your best to keep my name out of the papers until Duke Ferrell’s murderer is found.” She moved toward a secretary, on which a tan leather handbag rested. “If I give you a thousand now...” she began, reaching for it.
“Not yet,” Shayne told her. “I don’t really know enough about this business to accept it as a case.”