Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 5, No. 2, July 1959
Murder Plays Charade
by Brett Halliday
(ghost written by unknown)
Magicians who perform startling feats do not as a rule wind up murdered. But Mike had some grave and dangerous misgivings on that score.
I
Her voice was cold, hollow, disembodied, like an echo in a mausoleum. “I have come to warn you, Michael Shayne,” she said. “If you ignore what I have to say you will be guilty of murder,”
Had Miami’s lanky, broad-shouldered, redheaded private investigator not been blessed with an immunity to hangovers, he would doubtless have jumped to the ceiling. He distinctly remembered having closed the office door earlier in the morning before seating himself at his desk.
The door, leading into the small outer office of his absent secretary, Lucy Hamilton, was still closed, and he was so alert and sensitive to its familiar click that it could rouse him out of the deepest slumber.
“Who are you and how did you get in here?” yelled Shayne at the apparition.
Only her lips moved when she spoke. They were crimson lips, moist, voluptuous looking, and the redhead’s experienced eye noted that, oddly enough, they were not made up. The words did not seem to come from her. An automaton, ghastly beautiful, a soiled wax figure from Madam Tousseau’s, yet with piercing dark eyes that were the opposite of wax-like.
“I am Kara,” she said. “A Gypsy. Also, I am a clairvoyant.”
Shayne fumbled through his pockets for his cigarettes.
“You won’t find any there,” said the Gypsy absently. “Look in the upper right drawer of your desk, behind the gun.”
Shayne did so, without thinking. He drew forth a fresh pack, still almost automatically, but with slowly dawning amazement. He glared at it for a moment, then banged it on the desk. He swiveled back in his chair almost at right angles, tugged his left earlobe, and probed the Gypsy girl with hard gray eyes.
Girl, hell. She could be any age — twenty, thirty, forty. Her pale, copper-hued face gave no clue at all as to her age. Her hair, black and much too greasy, was cut short and chunkily. She wore enormous brass earrings, and her wrists and forearms were heavily festooned with bracelets. A faded red silk shawl hung loosely over her bare shoulders, and her cheap black cotton dress was cut so low in front that the redhead winced — not from embarrassment, but from a kind of vague, hard-to-define disapproval.
He reached for his wallet, extracted a crisp, fresh dollar bill, crumpled it with one hand, and tossed it to her. She caught it deftly, yet with scarcely a perceptible movement of her body.
“Thanks for the fortune,” he said, lazily swinging back to an upright position. “And I promise not to murder anybody. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve work to do.”
Kara’s eyes were daggers. Her body was actually becoming alive. Her face, too, became less mask-like and a faint pink flush crept into her cheeks and dispelled the ghastly pallor. Her hand rose to her forehead, and she said tensely, “I see him now... lying there... his face covered with blood.”
“Anyone we know?”
“Voltane.”
“Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”
“My husband. The greatest magician, the greatest human being who ever lived!”
She leaned over the desk, letting the crumpled bill drop from her fingers. “You have beautiful hands. Michael Shayne” she whispered. “So strong, so powerful. They are the hands of a good man, a kind man. It would be sad to see them become the hands of a murderer.”
Shayne said, “If you have any sane reason to believe that your husband will be murdered, why don’t you go to the police?”
“Police?” She laughed scornfully. “I despise them.”
Shayne banged his fist down on the desk. “What do you expect me to do?”
She was again the wax figure. “Be at the main gate of the Biscayne Arena tonight at nine. Voltane is the star attraction. You will be met by a man in Voodoo witch-doctor’s costume. Follow him.”
The redhead pulled his sprawling bulk together, arose, strode around the desk and faced her. “Sorry, Kara,” he said solemnly. “If you have any more murder tips give me a ring. Only, please make sure they’ve already been committed.”
He was leading her out gently, but she saved him the trouble. Miraculously, with neither rush nor sound, she arrived at the door, hand on knob. He listened for the familiar click. When it came he was annoyed with himself because it somehow grated on him.
With a final, mocking look, she eased backward out of the office, closing the door silently after her.
Shayne turned back to his chair and tore open the pack of cigarettes on the desk. He lit one, inhaled gratefully, then hauled out a bottle of cognac from the lower desk drawer. Uncorking it, he drank heartily.
But, dammit, he never kept cigarettes in that drawer!
Then he noticed the dollar bill he had given Kara lying crumpled on the desk. He put down the bottle, picked up the bill. As he smoothed it out for its return to his wallet, a written message stared up at him from its surface. It was a single line in capital letters, crudely scrawled in red crayon: YOU HAVE NO CHOICE
It was a switch on the Gypsy switch, all right! But then... suppose he had given her an old worn dollar bill? Or a five, or a ten? This was a single buck, and though crumpled, was as fresh and crisp as if it had come straight from the mint.
Kara... ham or devil? Ham, undoubtedly.
But what a ham!
II
Things had promised to be slow in the office this morning, and Michael Shayne had drifted in only to check the mail. Besides, it was Lucy’s birthday, and he had vowed to himself that for once nothing was going to interfere with their being together. It was agreed that she was to make all the plans herself, surprise him, and that he would bow to her craziest whim, cheerfully and without question. The whole idea was a little wacky and might wear him down, but the prospect was at least novel enough to make him feel like a schoolboy embarking on his first date, so what harm could it do?
It was shortly before lunch time when Lucy burst into the office, looking very mysterious, very trim, and very pretty. Her soft brown eyes opened wide at the sight of her employer. “Why Michael, what on earth is so funny? If we start off with a secret you won’t share with me, the whole day will be spoiled.”
Shayne swallowed a final chuckle. “I’ll explain later, Angel. Meanwhile, when do we sail forth under sealed orders?”
“As of this very moment. Anchors away! I’m starved”
“So am I, Commander,” he said, rising with an exaggerated salute. She returned it snappily. “I suppose,” he grinned, “I’d be put in irons if I dared ask what destination?”
Lucy smiled indulgently. “Destination — a rosy-tinted childhood. First, a picnic in Biscayne Park. Wait until you see the lunch I’ve packed — it’s in your car now. Then you’re going to take me rowing. And dinner?” She was giggling like a little girl. “Hot dogs, hamburgers, popcorn, ice cream cones, absolutely lousy coffee—”
“Acute indigestion. Do we have to take all of this quite so seriously?”
“Of course we do. Won’t it be fun, Michael darling? Look—” She produced a printed envelope from her handbag and waved it at him. “Ten-fifty each, but I got them!”
“Got what?”
“The tickets, Michael darling.”