“How about Ted Granger?”
Ann’s eyes had grown dull and her tone was apathetic when she said, “I don’t know why she would have told him. Unless maybe just to stop him from mooning around her.”
“What sort of man is Bates?”
“He’s all right. Just a lawyer.”
“Do you think Bates believes Carrol discovered the plastic after leaving Vulcan?” Shayne pressed her.
“Who knows what a lawyer believes?” she said with disinterest.
Shayne looked at his watch, caught the waiter’s eye, and beckoned to him, then asked, “Can I take you back to the Roney?”
“What for?” she demanded. “This is just as good a place to get tight as any.”
Shayne cautioned, “Don’t get too tight. I may need some more help from you later on.”
The waiter came with the check. Shayne laid a bill on the tray and said, “After I go and the young lady has drunk that up, throw her out or make her buy her own.”
The waiter looked at the bill, smiled, and said, “Yes, sir,” and went away.
Shayne said, “There’s one more question right now, Ann. Do you know anyone named Ludlow?” He stood up abruptly.
She thought for a moment and shook her black head slowly. “I’ve never heard the name. And if you must go, send that waiter back here with a double shot of the same — without coffee.”
Shayne nodded and gave her a crooked grin. “You’ve been a big help, Ann. Call me if you think of anything else that might be relevant. Leave a message with my secretary if I’m not in.”
He pressed his knuckles against her white cheek, said, “So long,” and hurried out.
Chapter eleven
Back in his office, Shayne settled down at his desk and hoped to get some answers to the dozens of questions chasing each other around in his mind. One of the most perplexing was exactly what Margrave had expected to gain by making his vehement and somewhat absurd accusation against the Vulcan Chemical Corporation.
He realized that large, long-established and supposedly solid organizations sometimes engaged goon squads or hatchet men to gain certain objectives, mainly in the realm of labor relations. And he had not the slightest doubt that murders had been discreetly arranged in the past, and would be in the future.
But the idea of the Vulcan Corporation stooping to murder in order to win a lawsuit against an individual seemed incredible, especially when the method employed by the killer was a knife, actually a letter opener, evidently owned by Carrol himself. Hired killers were apt to use less personal weapons, such as a blast of machine gun bullets after the victim had been lured to a certain position at a specified time.
Yet, Margrave — the man who had willingly advanced a thousand-dollar fee, and who insisted that no expense be spared — was positive that Vulcan had engineered Carrol’s murder, and he expected Michael Shayne to prove this fact.
Against Margrave’s sober and businesslike accusations there were those of his unsober and romantic daughter, Ann, plainly bitter and frustrated, whose long crimson nails were eager to claw Nora Carrol’s eyes out, but who would settle for a verdict of guilty for Nora Carrol as her husband’s murderer.
The wound in Shayne’s head throbbed dully, distracting his thoughts. He poured cognac into the glass on his desk and drank it, swiveled back in his chair, and closed his eyes.
The drink relaxed his body and eased the pain, and his mind became more alert. Ann Margrave had indicated that Vulcan not only had a good chance of winning the suit without resorting to murder, but that Carrol was determined to throw in the sponge, as soon as his wife’s influence was completely removed by divorce, and admit he had connived with Margrave to withhold from them a discovery which, under his contract, was their property.
If Ann could be believed.
That was an important point — a crucial point, maybe. It was quite possible that Ann was blinded by her hatred of Nora. At the moment, Shayne was willing to bet a large sum that Ann was the author of the anonymous notes Carrol had received about his wife.
Why Margrave had called him in on the murder investigation was still an enigma. There was the matter of public relations, of course. Quite naturally, the police had refused to consider the Vulcan Corporation a serious suspect. Perhaps Margrave merely sought headlines and sensational news stories by hiring Shayne to investigate the corporation. It was an exciting theory, and one that would be eagerly picked up by the press throughout the country, if a man with Michael Shayne’s reputation were to make such a statement. No matter how guiltless the corporation, or what the outcome of the investigation, some of the stigma would linger. It might well affect the judgment of a jury when the suit against Carrol’s estate came to trial.
Another disquieting question, at the moment, was whether or not Margrave had been aware of Nora’s plan to quash the divorce, and did he know that Nora believed Michael Shayne to be the man who had arranged it for her? If so, he had certainly given no indication of that knowledge or belief during their interview. Still, it was quite possible, and he considered the ramifications of the idea thoroughly.
Had Nora communicated with Margrave since Carrol’s death to tell him how the plan had miscarried?
There were so many things he didn’t know, he reminded himself irritably. He made a mental list.
The identity of Ludlow.
The identity and motive of the man who tried to kill him.
The identity of the man who attacked Lucy in Nora’s hotel room.
The identity of the man who had represented himself as Michael Shayne to Bates, and the method by which he had carried out the impersonation.
Had Nora Carrol been furnished a key to his room by mistake, or for some definite reason?
Shayne swore angrily under his breath when he reached this point in reviewing the unknown quantities.
Everything pointed to some sort of prearrangement. With Ann Margrave’s information of the actual relationship between husband and wife, which was somewhat at variance with Nora’s version, this began to make sense. Ann was positive that Ralph Carrol had ceased to love his wife and that a reconciliation was impossible. If this were true, Nora must have suspected that her husband would refuse to let her stay through the night, and thus the attempt was doomed to failure.
Taking that as a reasonable hypothesis, another way of putting Carrol on the spot must have suggested itself. The exact reverse of the usual divorce setup where a husband is lured into the other woman’s room where he can be discovered by detectives who will testify in court.
If Nora had been desperately determined to hold Carrol as her husband, the redhead reasoned, she might well have arranged such a frame-up with the detective who called himself Shayne. Ludlow, then, might well be the witness who had planned to catch husband and wife together in the bedroom and whose testimony would serve to throw the divorce action out of court.
At this, point in his thinking, Shayne took the classified telephone directory from a desk drawer, opened it at the P’s and found the heading: Photographers: Commercial.
Running his forefinger down the list his eyes glinted with interest when he came to the name Ludlow, John P. in small type. The address was on North Miami Avenue. He pressed a button for an outside line, and dialed the number. A woman’s voice answered, repeating the number. Shayne said, “Mr. Ludlow, please.”
“I’m sorry,” the voice replied, “but Mr. Ludlow is not in.”
“When do you expect him back?”
“I’m not sure.” There was a brief pause, then: “Can I help you?”
“I don’t know.” Shayne managed to sound a trifle uncertain and embarrassed when he added, “It’s — ah — a rather delicate assignment. I was given Mr. Ludlow’s name.”