“Nothing,” Pearce told him.
Shayne came back with two steaming cups and set them on the table, added brandy to his. Behind his back, Pearce burst out nervously, “There’s something I’ve got to tell you, Mr. Shayne. I don’t know whether it means anything or not, and I wouldn’t breathe a word of it to another soul, but I know I can trust you to keep it confidential.”
Shayne sat down and lit a cigarette. He looked at the younger man steadily through a cloud of blue smoke.
He said, “Don’t make any mistakes, Bob. Nothing is confidential in a murder case. I’ll make my own decision about anything you tell me that has any bearing on Wallace’s murder.”
“I guess I didn’t mean that exactly.” Pearce sat down unhappily and stared across the room past Shayne. “I’ve got to tell you, and I know you’ll keep it quiet, if you can. It probably doesn’t mean anything,” he went on rapidly. “But I keep thinking it may have some bearing on what happened last night.” He lifted his coffee cup in a shaking hand, set it down hastily as the black liquid burned his lips.
“I just don’t understand it about Jim. He was just about like a father to me, Mr. Shayne. I admired him tremendously. I always thought he and Mother Wallace had one of the finest marriages I’ve ever known. I still think so,” he added defiantly. “No matter how anything looks. And I would never say a word if you hadn’t played ball with Mother last night and kept still about the airplane tickets.”
Shayne silently sipped his coffee, partially cooled by the addition of cognac, and waited for the young man to unburden himself.
“It was about a week ago,” Pearce said unhappily. “I dropped in to the brokerage office at twelve-thirty, hoping I’d find Jim free to have lunch with me. I had a favor to ask him… as a matter of fact, I needed a little loan to tide us over. He’s always urged me to let him know if we ever needed financial help, and so, I… well, I just thought I’d take him up on it.
“But he’d already left for lunch when I got there. I’d counted on seeing him, because I was in a sort of jam for cash and I asked his secretary if she knew where he was. She had heard him making a date over the telephone to meet someone for a drink at Callahan’s Bar on First Street at twelve-thirty, but she told me she’d heard him expressly say it would just be a quick drink and that was all. She was sure he wasn’t having lunch with whomever he was meeting. So I went down to Callahan’s, thinking I might find him alone and could ask him for a loan.”
He lifted his cup again and sipped from it this time. “I swear I wasn’t trying to meddle or anything. I didn’t have any idea… as I told you, Jim has been like a father to me and he’s the last man in the world I’d ever suspect of doing anything… you know…” The youth put down his cup and made a helpless gesture, and his guileless blue eyes pleaded with Shayne to believe him. “I never would have walked in on him, if I’d known… but his secretary did tell me where he was, and so…”
“I went in to Callahan’s and it was pretty crowded at the bar, but there were some empty tables in the back and I walked down the row of booths… and suddenly I saw Jim.”
Bob Pearce paused to gnaw at the tight knuckles of his right hand, closed into a fist.
“He was sitting in a booth, with his back to me, across from a woman I’d never seen before. She was young and, well, she was beautiful, I guess. I don’t know how to describe it. She looked up at me in a casual way as I started to pause and there was something about her that churned up my insides. You know how some women are? It was pure, unadulterated sex appeal. You look at a woman like that and you know the kind of woman she is. Not a whore. It goes way beyond that. Just a completely sexy woman with a roving eye for any male in the neighborhood. She was something!
“Well, it was a hell of a shock to see her sitting there with Jim Wallace and I realized I’d walked into a situation I should’ve steered clear of. Jim was leaning across the table talking to her and they both had drinks in front of them and he didn’t look up at me, so I kept right on going and the next booth was vacant and I slid into it, to get out of sight, because I didn’t want to embarrass Jim by having him see me.”
He paused, frowning, as though trying to recollect his thoughts. “I didn’t know what to think. It just hit me like a sledge-hammer. If it had been anybody but Jim! But there was just something clandestine and unhealthy about it and I wished to God I wasn’t there and had never seen her. And all I could think was to hope Jim would never know I had been there and seen him.”
“Weren’t you taking a lot for granted with very little to go on?” asked Shayne harshly. “How do you know she wasn’t a client?”
“You didn’t see her, Mr. Shayne. You don’t know… well, wait until I tell you the rest of it. I felt like a stinking eavesdropper and hated myself when I could hear some of what they were saying from the other booth, but I was afraid if I got up that Jim would see me, and by that time I would have died if he had. Because from what I could overhear he was telling her off, Mr. Shayne. Warning her to stay away from him, and I think he was offering her money to get out of town, and she laughed at him and said she’d do what she damned well pleased.”
Pearce miserably gulped down the last of his coffee. “You can imagine how I felt. I heard him tell her goodbye and he hoped it was the last time he’d see her, and then he went out. Jim Wallace! Mr. Shayne. Can you see how it hit me? My own father-in-law, whom I’ve always admired and respected. Playing around with a floosie like that! I couldn’t believe it. It just knocked the props from under me. And then a waiter came to take my order, and I told him I’d changed my mind and guessed I wouldn’t have lunch after all… and I got up to go out.”
Bob Pearce paused and lowered his eyes. “I meant to get out of there. I swear I did. But she was still sitting in the booth with her drink in front of her and she looked up at me and said, ‘Hi, you,’ and it suddenly came to me that maybe I owed it to Jim to find out more about her and what it was all about. I swear that’s what I thought when I sat down. At least, I think it is. I don’t think it was anything else. I didn’t then, anyhow. But now, I don’t know. Maybe I did have some other idea when I sat down across from her in the seat Jim had just left.
“Anyhow,” he went on bitterly, “I sat down and ordered a drink and tried to pump her about Jim. Pretending I was worried that he might come back and be jealous to find me sitting there with her. And she laughed and said he wouldn’t be back, and that he was an old fuddy-duddy who didn’t interest her anyhow, because she liked younger men and why didn’t we talk about different things? Which to her meant sex, of course. Mr. Shayne,” said Bob Pearce hoarsely, “you must have known women like that. I never had much experience with them and she frightened me, but, I kept thinking, if I could get her to drink enough, she’d tell me the truth about Jim and, if he was in some kind of jam with her, maybe I could help him out. Because the longer I stayed there with her, the more I understood how Jim might be in a jam with her, even if he was past fifty and Helen’s father and one of the swellest guys I ever knew.”
Bob Pearce hesitated and drew in a deep unhappy breath, and then met Shayne’s gaze squarely. “When I came up here I swore I was going to tell you everything and not make any excuses. We had a lot of drinks and things got fuzzy. I forgot all about Jim and I admit it. She said let’s go to her room and I… went. We took a taxi to her apartment out on Flagler and I was half passed-out and spent the rest of the afternoon. And that’s the last time I saw her and I hope I never see her again, but I had to tell you, no matter how disgusting it is, because, after last night, I got to thinking it might be important.”