Shayne shrugged and leaned back to cross one bony knee over the other. He got out a pack of cigarettes and lit one, blew a cloud of smoke toward Tompkins and said flatly, “I don’t have clients who have any reservation about my discretion. Don’t tell me another word unless you’re in complete agreement that I’m to be trusted.”
Lowered lids veiled the glitter in Tompkins’ black eyes. He gnawed indecisively for a moment on the knuckles of his right hand, and looked steadily at Shayne and said, “I do apologize. Martin is absolutely right. We have to trust you. We can’t just sit on this, and we can’t tell the police at this juncture. But I do implore you to be circumspect.”
Shayne’s lips twitched in the semblance of a grin.
“I’m willing to listen. But I’ve already been retained by Mrs. Wallace to find her husband’s murderer and, if this information helps, I’ll have to use it as I see fit.”
Martin rubbed his perspiring face again. “We understand that. God knows, we want Jim’s murderer found as much as anyone.” He paused and his voice sank to an awed, almost reverent tone: “A million dollars is missing from our safe this morning, Mr. Shayne. A cool million in cash and negotiable securities. It was in the safe when we closed the office last evening. It has vanished without a trace this morning.”
“A million bucks? I thought this was a brokerage firm, not a bank.”
“It’s quite unusual to have such a large sum on hand, of course. Unprecedented, in fact. But we had arranged a merger, which was to be consummated at a meeting of the principals here this morning promptly at nine-thirty… before the banks would be open. Consequently the cash and securities were withdrawn yesterday afternoon and placed in our own vault for safekeeping overnight. We have a fine modern safe that is as burglar-proof as any bank, and the risk seemed negligible.”
“But it was burglarized last night?”
“Tompkins and I arrived promptly at nine this morning and opened the safe together. The attaché case was missing.”
“And Wallace had the combination?”
Martin nodded miserably. “We three were the only persons in the world who could open the safe. That money must be found, Mr. Shayne. It was being held in trust by us, and one hint to the principals that it is missing will ruin us financially.”
“I assume you called off the projected meeting,” said Shayne, glancing at his watch.
Martin shuddered and groaned, “What else could we do? We used Jim’s death as an excuse to postpone the signing of the papers until tomorrow. He had done most of the paperwork on the merger, and the postponement was not questioned.”
“You suspect that Wallace came back after the office was closed and removed the securities from the safe?”
“What else can we suspect?” put in Tompkins thinly. He sat stiffly upright in his chair, with long fingers laced together in his lap, and his entire body trembled with emotion that was close to hysteria. “Martin tells me you said last night there was evidence that Jim was packing for a trip when he was killed. Don’t you see how it adds up? It’s impossible and absurd and unbelievable, but there it is. And I would have trusted Jim Wallace with my life,” he ended on a croaking note of utter tragedy.
“So now you see, Shayne, why it’s more important to us to catch the murderer than any mere matter of moral principle,” put in Martin. “We’ve got to recover those securities.”
“And you think the murderer has them?” mused Shayne.
“If they’re not in Wallace’s apartment, where else can they be? We were frantic when we opened the safe and found the case missing, and hurried to Jim’s place. There was a police officer on guard and he let us in grudgingly when we explained we were his partners and needed some important papers, but he refused to let us make a real search of the premises. He told us we’d have to get permission, and we realized we couldn’t do that without telling Chief Gentry the whole truth. Yet it may even be there, tucked away in a closet, with no one realizing the significance of it.”
“Martin seems to think you can get permission to make a thorough search without telling the police what you’re looking for,” Tompkins interposed. “Frankly, I doubted that you carried that much weight with the authorities, but if a quiet search could be arranged, it would settle that one point at least.”
Shayne shrugged and said, “If there’s a million dollars cached in the apartment, I assure you Gentry’s men would have found it. On the other hand, there might be some other indications they overlooked because they didn’t know about the missing money.”
“That’s right,” said Martin eagerly. “Remember, Tommy, I mentioned that. Something like a baggage check or the key to a locker, where Jim might have left the case. If we only knew where he had planned to go… what route he planned to take…”
Shayne was uncomfortably aware of the airplane tickets in his pocket as he observed the understandable suffering on the faces of the two remaining partners of the brokerage firm.
He said briskly, “There’s that possibility, of course, and I can check into it. But you’ve got to realize the most logical assumption is that Wallace was murdered for the million dollars… most likely by someone who knew his plans and knew he had it. So you’d better stop covering up for a dead man,” he went on harshly, “and start telling the truth about Jim Wallace. If he planned to take some woman with him, she’d be the first step.”
“A woman?” Martin looked properly shocked and shook his head firmly. “Not Jim. I don’t believe he’s looked at another woman since he married Myra.”
Shayne said, “Nuts. Every man looks at other women. Look,” he went on flatly, “I’ve already had it from two sources that Jim Wallace wasn’t the tin God you try to pretend he was. Hell! If you want that money back, start coming clean. Both of you. Do you think for one minute a guy in Wallace’s position just calmly steals a million dollars unless there’s some woman mixed up in his life?”
Tompkins shrugged and said acidly, “He kept it mighty quiet, if there was. He was the last man I’d suspect.”
“Of course he kept it quiet,” said Shayne witheringly. “But you two must have been close enough to him to have guessed something.”
Martin shook his head and said ponderously, “I can’t help thinking you’re off on the wrong foot, Shayne. Now, if it were Tommy here, I’d said cherchez la femme first crack out of the box.”
“I’m inclined to agree with Shayne,” said Tompkins thoughtfully. “I’m a bachelor and have little reason to conceal my interest in women. But Jim had to put up a front.” He nodded with increasing vehemence. “If Jim went off his rocker and stole that money, you can bet he had some dame on the string. As Shayne says, what other reason in God’s world would he have for doing a thing like that?”
He sprang up and began pacing excitedly, back and forth, on the deep carpet, pounding one clenched fist lightly into the other palm. “But I haven’t the ghost of an idea who it might be. You knew him lots better than I,” he appealed to his partner.
But Martin continued to shake his head stubbornly, and Shayne wondered why he made his denials so strong. Kitty had been explicit enough in declaring that Martin was fully aware of Wallace’s amorous proclivities. Could it be that Martin suspected his own wife actually was involved, somehow, in the theft and murder? Reluctantly, the detective decided this was not the best time to confront Martin with Kitty’s information.