The door opened after a brief interval, and Belle Jackson faced him across the threshold. She wore her white nurse’s uniform this morning, and it bulged in the right places. Her hair was neatly coiled up in braids again at the back of her head, and though her eyes were red-rimmed, her face was carefully made up and she seemed placidly in control of herself.
Her baby-blue eyes widened and she blinked at him, and then she said, “It’s Mr. Shayne, isn’t it?” She hesitated only momentarily, sucking in a full underlip between her teeth, and then stepped backward, saying formally, “Won’t you come in, Mr. Shayne?”
He entered the dim coolness of a large, disordered room. A double bed, which could obviously be folded into the wall in daytime, occupied the left side of the room. It was unmade, with rumpled covers, and an open suitcase lay on the end of it, half-packed. Across the room, bureau drawers stood open, and a couple of dresses lay on the bed beside the suitcase. On the right, an archway opened onto a very small and very compact kitchenette, and there was a closed door on the left which Shayne assumed led into the bathroom.
It was just about the layout he had expected to find in this building, and he knew it must rent for about $75.00 per month.
There was one overstuffed chair and two straight chairs and a cardtable against the wall. A coffee-cup and a jar of instant coffee stood on the cardtable. Two pairs of stockings and a brassiere were draped over the back of the big chair. Belle Jackson picked them up and dropped them on the bed and said, “Won’t you sit down? I was just having a cup of coffee.” She waved toward the table. “There’s hot water on the stove and I can get another cup…”
Shayne grimaced at the thought of instant coffee and said, “No, thanks. I’ve had my coffee this morning.” He sat down and smiled at her. “You go right ahead. I just came from the office where I thought I’d find you this morning.”
She sat in a straight chair in front of the coffee cup with her profile to him. “There’s no need for my being there. Doctor’s dead.”
She spoke the two words thoughtfully, as though she needed to keep on saying them aloud, and listening to the sound of them, to make the fact real to her.
Shayne said, “There must be the telephone to answer… appointments to cancel.”
“The answering service will transfer all calls to Dr. Transom, who always covers for Doctor.” She lifted the coffee cup and drank from it as though she enjoyed the stuff.
Shayne glanced at the half-packed suitcase on the bed, and asked, “Are you going on a trip?”
“No. Just out to Doctor’s house for a few days. I telephoned Mrs. Ambrose this morning and insisted that I would stay with her for a little. My salary is paid through the week,” she went on placidly, “and I thought that was the least I could do for Doctor.” She put down her empty coffee cup and turned a tortured face toward him. “Have they found anything about who did it? That policeman seemed awfully stupid last night, but Mr. Rourke told me you’d be handling the case, and that you never failed to get your man. Have you got him yet?”
“Not quite yet. I hoped you might help me.”
“How?”
“You’ve been with him many years,” Shayne said gently. “You probably know more about him than anyone else… including his wife.”
“Celia?” she said simply. “She’s a child.”
Shayne lit a cigarette and leaned forward. “What enemies did he have, Belle? Who wanted him dead?”
“Doctor?” she said wonderingly. “Enemies?”
Shayne said, “Someone shot him last night.”
“It was those gamblers who were forever after him for money.” She sighed and placed the palms of her hands flat on the table in front of her, turning her profile to Shayne again. “It was his only weakness. He did think he could beat the races. He was always on the verge of making a big killing… and never did.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“For years. Ever since I’ve been with him. But it hasn’t got real bad until these last few months. They’re the ones that did it. They’ve been threatening him, and he’s been so worried.”
Shayne asked, “Did you know he was being blackmailed, Belle?”
“Blackmailed? Doctor?” She swung her head to look at him with absolute incredulity on her face. Then she began to laugh. Softly at first, gurgling and chuckling from deep inside, and the laughter grew until it took possession of her, shaking her heavy body and coming out gaspingly which slowly grew to the proportion of hysterics.
Shayne got up and stood behind her and put both his hands on her shoulders and shook her ungently. “What’s so funny about it, Belle? Tell me what’s funny and maybe I’ll laugh, too.”
“Doctor? Blackmailed?” She lolled her head from side to side and tried to stifle her laughter. “What on earth for? If you only knew…”
Shayne said, “I know. He was kind and gentle and ethical and everything in the book that a doctor should be. But he was paying blackmail, Belle. Why?”
“I don’t believe it,” she said flatly. She had stopped laughing and had control of herself now.
“Nevertheless, he was.” Shayne took his hands away from her shoulders and went back to his chair. “They were sucking him dry, and last night was the big pay-off. He admitted to me last night that he had explained the drain on his income to his wife by pretending to her that he had been losing heavily on the horses. He evidently told you that, too.”
“Yes. Yes, he did.” Belle nodded emphatically. “I never dreamed…” She paused and became silent, then arose from her chair and turned briskly toward her suitcase. “Goodness! Celia will be wondering what on earth has happened to me. If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Shayne…”
He got up and said, “Sure. I’ll step outside while you finish packing your bag. Then I’ll drive you out to the doctor’s house, if you like. I’d like to talk to Mrs. Ambrose for a moment… while she’s still sober,” he added, tossing out the bait and waiting expectantly in the doorway.
Belle ignored it. She said placidly, “That will be nice. I’ll be ready in just a few minutes.”
He walked slowly out to the sidewalk and waited for her, wondering again about her choice of living quarters, mentally comparing the one-room layout with Lucy Hamilton’s pleasant three-room apartment in Miami. Yet the two girls earned about the same salary. Well, he told himself, some people liked to spend their money on one thing, and others on another, and reminded himself again that he had no idea what sort of private drains Belle Jackson might have on her income.
He watched with pleasure as she came toward him from her room, erect and statuesque, swinging the suitcase along in her right hand as though it were filled with feathers. She had a free-swinging stride and a lightness of step that minimized her bulk and weight and betokened an inner vitality that was good to see.
He opened the back door of his car and took the suitcase from her, and opened the front door while he put it inside.
As he drove away, he said, “One thing I wanted to ask you. About the doctor’s pistol. Did he take it with him last night?”
She didn’t answer for a moment and he glanced aside at her curiously. She was looking straight ahead and appeared to be frowning.
She said, “His pistol? I didn’t know he had one.”
“Mrs. Ambrose said last night that he had owned one for a long time. She also said he usually kept it at the office or in the glove compartment of his car.”
“I don’t know anything about it. He certainly never kept one at the office. Wait a minute, though. I do believe he said something once, a long time ago, sort of jokingly, I guess, about having some sort of gun at home, and he hoped his wife wouldn’t get jealous of him making late calls on some of his women patients and decide to use it on him.
“I know he was just joking about that,” she went on quickly. “I remember now that we both had a good laugh about Celia either being jealous or being able to shoot a pistol, if she were.”