She paused and then asked, in a queerly strained tone, “Was that what they used to do it with? Doctor’s own pistol?”
“I haven’t got the official report yet. A thirty-two automatic was found lying beside his body with one shot fired. I don’t even know if it was his own gun.”
They drove on a short distance further in silence, and then Belle Jackson asked hesitantly, “Where was Celia when it happened?”
“In the house. Passed out cold in the bedroom, I guess. With about a quart of straight vodka inside her, according to the police doctor. Do you know if that was habitual with her?”
“I don’t know much about her personal habits. Doctor wasn’t one to gossip about his home-life. Sometimes he did say little things that… that indicated he… was worried about her.”
“Was he popular with his women patients?”
“He was popular with all his patients.” She made this statement with a note of finality which seemed to rule out further discussion of the doctor’s private life and personal habits, and Shayne found himself wondering again about the past relationship between Dr. Ambrose and his full-bodied nurse.
Given a wife like Celia, sipping on her vodka bottle at home, and thrown into close, day-by-day intimacy with a woman like the one who sat beside him, you couldn’t rule out the possibility of an adulterous triangle.
Could that have been the basis for blackmail? If it were true, how far would the good doctor have gone to conceal the knowledge from his wife? What incriminating proof could have been contained in the white envelope for which he had been willing to pay twenty thousand dollars?
This was a question that Shayne kept coming back to in his own mind. Since the very beginning, last evening, he had wondered why the doctor had been so certain he was buying back complete immunity from further blackmail. Any document can easily be duplicated… as he had tried to point out to the doctor.
He turned onto the quiet side street and slowed to a stop in front of the modest house where Dr. Ambrose had met his death.
He turned off the ignition and said, “I’ll carry your bag inside. If Mrs. Ambrose is up to it, there are a few questions I would like to ask.”
Actually, what he wanted more than anything else was to witness this meeting between the two women on the morning after the doctor’s death. On the surface, everything appeared placid and proper, with the widow requesting the doctor’s nurse to come and stay with her for a few days, but, inwardly, Shayne wasn’t so sure.
He carried Belle’s suitcase in his left hand and took long strides to stay abreast of Belle up the walk, and he stood close to her when she rang the doorbell.
The door opened immediately, and Shayne was completely unprepared for the appearance of the widow this morning.
Her platinum curls were carefully arranged as though she had just come from a hairdresser, and the flesh of her rounded cheeks was as smooth and firm as a young girl’s, and her mouth was like a rosebud. She was effectively attired in a black, silk skirt that clung caressingly to her hips and thighs, and a short-sleeved blouse of dull bronze which reflected a metallic sheen in the sunlight. She was wearing tiny, bronze pumps with very high heels which gave her a look of poised youthfulness utterly at variance with the spectacle she had presented the previous night.
She put out both her hands to the nurse and said too sweetly, “Oh, Belle, honey. I know you loved him, too.”
Belle took Celia’s small hands in her big ones and said throatily, “I just can’t make myself believe it yet. I couldn’t go near the office anyhow… with it being empty and all.”
Celia Ambrose looked past her at the redhead, and a small, puzzled frown marred the smoothness of her forehead. Her blue eyes rounded inquiringly, and Shayne was positive she didn’t remember him at all from the night before.
He said, “I’m Michael Shayne, Mrs. Ambrose. A private detective whom the doctor consulted last evening.”
“A private detective? But how absurd! Why should Philip consult a private detective?”
“Because he was being blackmailed, Mrs. Ambrose. Don’t you remember being told last night…”
“I remember some sort of vicious innuendo being made,” she told him calmly. “I think you had better go away now. Do come in, Belle.” She drew the larger woman inside composedly.
“Mr. Shayne is working on the case, and wants to help find Doctor’s murderer,” the nurse told her. “He’d like to ask you a couple of questions.”
“Oh, very well.” Celia appeared completely indifferent. She nodded to Shayne. “You may bring her bag in, if you wish.”
She turned away from the open door, holding Belle’s arm lightly, and led her across the room, saying, “You’ll have the blue room at the back. I’ve closed up Philip’s room, of course, and, later on, I hope you’ll help me go through his things.”
The two women disappeared down a hallway to the left without a backward glance from either of them toward Shayne, and he carried Belle’s bag into the living room and closed the front door.
He stood there, flat-footed, looking about the basically feminine room and reinforcing the first impression he had received last night.
It was not a room designed for a man to relax in comfortably after a hard day at the office. He tried to imagine Dr. Ambrose and Celia inhabiting it happily together over the years past, and the picture refused to focus clearly.
He heard the light clack of high heels returning from the rear, and he moved forward to one of the overstuffed chairs, noting that there wasn’t an ashtray in sight, and putting aside his desire for a cigarette.
The doorbell rang behind him as Celia reentered the carpeted room, and she made a little moue at the sound and went past him to open the door.
He sat down on the edge of the chair, and his body stiffened as he heard a familiar voice say brightly,
“Good morning, Madam. I represent the Women’s Civic Betterment Association, and I would appreciate just a few minutes of your valuable time to get some statistical information for a survey we’re making that is of vital importance to every homeowner in Miami Beach.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
With her back toward him, Celia Ambrose blocked his view of the speaker, and he listened with absorbed interest as the widow replied, “Not this morning, I’m afraid. I’m very busy and…”
“But it will take just a moment and it’s vitally important that I contact every person in the block. Just one or two questions, Madam.”
Shayne rose slowly to his feet as Mrs. Ambrose backed away reluctantly from the doorway. Lucy Hamilton pushed forward vivaciously with a notebook and a pencil in her hand, and she stopped suddenly when she saw her employer standing in the middle of the room, looking at her with amused tolerance.
She said, “Oh…” and then managed a gay little laugh. “I didn’t know the man of the house was in. That’s just dandy. It’s so seldom I do find the husband at home…”
“My husband is dead,” said Mrs. Ambrose woodenly. “This is a private detective.”
“A detective?” Lucy sobered at once and pursed her lips. “He doesn’t look like one,” she told Celia. “Are you sure…?”
“I’m just going,” Shayne said hastily. “Good day, Mrs. Ambrose. Perhaps I can see you this afternoon.” He strode forward and past his brown-haired secretary, giving her a simulated glare in passing. Behind him, he heard Celia Ambrose say composedly, “I don’t like that man’s manners at all. Now, what was it you wanted?”
He went down the walk toward his car parked in front, and wondered how the devil Lucy had failed to recognize it and realize that he must be inside. He wasn’t at all sure she hadn’t. It would be just like her to put on an act like that in full knowledge that he was listening to her inside the room.