“What did it say?”
“In brief, Mr. Shayne, it threatened me. It said the writer was my sister and that she was ill and poor. She wanted a lot of money. It was her right and she would get it whether I liked the idea or not.”
“What came next?” Mike Shayne asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all, Mr. Shayne. Rod and I couldn’t understand it. I showed him the letter of course. We had no secrets from each other. We waited, but there was no other letter. No call. No contact at all.”
“I don’t get it,” Tim Rourke said.
“Neither do I.” Mike Shayne was interested now. “She should have followed up. A contact like that and then nothing at all doesn’t make sense.”
“I know. We couldn’t understand either.”
“Was she afraid of you?”
“She shouldn’t have been.” Ellen Barker showed genuine distress now. “We would have given her anything she wanted in reason. Rod took ads in the Chicago papers saying there was a home for her with us, begging her to make contact. She never did again. Not a word.”
“Why should she be trying to kill you now?” Shayne asked. “All that was five years ago when you were married. I’d think she would have called you then. Can you explain what she has to gain by killing you that she couldn’t have gained by coming to you then.”
“Oh yes,” she said. “I’m not a fool, Mr. Shayne. She has a motive. I inherited millions from Rod — and my sister is my sole heir.”
IV
An hour later Mike Shayne was in the offices of the prestigious Miami law firm which handled the affairs of the Barker Estate. The offices were in the DuPont building on Flagler Street and only a block from Shayne’s own office.
It had been agreed that he would move over to the Barker home at least temporarily in order to give Mrs. Barker maximum protection.
Shayne’s lovely secretary and good right arm, Lucy Hamilton, would have a bag packed and ready for him at the office when he left the attorneys, so that he could drive right back across the causeway to Miami Beach.
The senior law partner who handled the Barker estate was out of town on business on this particular morning, so Shayne had been turned over to the senior’s junior assistant, a blond young man named Nicholas Patterson.
Patterson sat across the heavy mahogany table in the legal conference room and leafed through a thick file of papers.
“I think this is what you’re looking for,” he said finally and produced a paper from one of the legal folders.
The letter had been enclosed in an outer sheet of heavy plastic to protect it against handling. Shayne could see traces that told him it had once been carefully dusted for fingerprints. It was written on one side of a single sheet of cheap notepaper.
Shayne read:
Dear Sis, dear sister, Dear loving (?) or unloving sister. I seen you in the papers, you and that rich man you married. Why don’t you think of me. I think of you. Remember the orphan home St. Mary’s. Remember we are sisters. Now you are rich and I am not. I am poor and sick. I want some from all that money you have. I want what is my share or else you will get hurt. Or else you will be sorry. I want my share you think about it. You think real good about it. When I am ready I’ll call you. Don’t call me — I’ll call.
That was all there was to it. The grammar and punctuation were poor, but the meaning was clear.
Patterson tendered the envelope in another sheet of plastic. It too was typed and postmarked from the central Chicago postal exchange. There was no return address.
“I understand they tried to trace it and got no place,” young Patterson said. “I wasn’t with the firm then.”
“You are familiar with the Barker estate now though?”
“Oh quite, sir.” Patterson looked almost smug. “I suppose you realize that the senior partner in a firm like this one usually delegates most of the routine details of his practice. In a manner of speaking you could say that I handle the estate at this point.”
“I’d like to see Mr. and Mrs. Barker’s last wills then.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Shayne, but I really don’t have the authority to let you look at those papers.”
“Well, at least maybe you can answer one thing,” Mike Shayne said. “Mrs. Ellen Barker told me that by the provisions of those wills Mrs. Barker’s sister Alice is sole beneficiary of the estate on her death. Is that true?”
“If Mrs. Barker told you, Mr. Shayne, I wouldn’t think of contradicting her.”
“Oh, come on,” Shayne said. “That’s the legal eagle singing, man. I don’t doubt Ellen Barker. What I want to know is, is that legally binding? Would those wills stick legally if Mrs. Barker were to die?”
Young Patterson leaned back in his chair, holding a sheaf of papers in his left hand and pinching his chin with his right. He appeared to be thinking, and in that moment Shayne was curiously impressed with the young man’s eyes. They were a lot older and more mature than his face.
“I can assure you unequivocally that the will would hold up in court,” he said finally to Mike Shayne. “It’s a curious situation. There are no other heirs on either Mr. or Mrs. Barker’s side. The sister you referred to is named and inherits everything outside of a few charitable and personal bequests of no great importance. The wills were drawn by this firm, and they will hold.”
Shayne thought that over. One big hand reached up and the thumb and forefinger pulled at his ear lobe.
“I understand that the sister hasn’t been located,” he said finally. “What happens if she can’t be found at the time Ellen Barker dies?”
“That’s been provided for,” Patterson said firmly. “The estate will be held in trust until the sister or her heirs come forward or are located.”
“Thank you,” Shayne said. “That’s all I wanted to know for now.”
When he left the lawyer’s office Mike Shayne walked up Flagler Street to his own second floor office. Lucy Hamilton was waiting for him there. She had gone to Shayne’s apartment down near the mouth of the Miami River and had packed a bag with the things he’d need for a short stay on the beach.
Tim Rourke was with her, keeping a relatively silent vigil over by the window with a bottle of Mike Shayne’s best brandy and a glass.
“I’m going with you, maestro,” he told Shayne. “I think whoever wants to do in Ellen will likely make another try, and I want to be in on the story. I can help you look after her.”
“Neither of you can actually guard her when she’s going to need it the most,” Lucy Hamilton said suddenly. “At least I hope neither of you can.”
Mike Shayne got the point. “You mean when she is asleep.”
“That’s it exactly. At least one try was made by somebody who got into the bedroom without her hearing him. I think you should take me along. I can stay right in the room with her. I agree with Tim that there may be another try soon.”
“Sure,” Rourke agreed. “The fact that both attempts at killing Ellen were made right at her home shows that the killer can come and go there at will. At least he or she knows all about what goes on there. If she knows you’re in the case — that is assuming it’s the missing sister like Ellen thinks — the logical thing will be to strike fast before you have time to uncover anything. Right, maestro?”
“You could be right,” Mike Shayne admitted. “On the other hand I don’t want Lucy in any danger.”
“I won’t be, Michael,” she told him. “You know this killing has to look like an accident. If it is the sister, she can’t sneak in the room and shoot both of us. In this State the law won’t let you inherit from somebody you murder. It has to seem an accident so she can inherit without any trouble. With two people in the room a plausible accident would be terribly hard to rig.”