Michael Shayne took a long drink of his diluted cognac and set the glass down firmly. “It’s all over now. You have nothing to be afraid of, and you’ll be home with your own father soon. You believe that, don’t you? You trust me?”
She said, “Yes,” gladly and without hesitation. “Back in the restaurant when you said you were my brother, I had the strangest feeling of peace and happiness. I just didn’t know how you could be, but it came to me that maybe that was why I’d picked you out last night in the bar. And I wish you were my brother,” she added impulsively.
Shayne acknowledged the undoubtedly sincere compliment with a grin. “Your name is Jean Henderson,” he told her slowly. “You live in Orlando with your father, Professor Henderson. You’re a student at Rollins College where he teaches. Does that bring anything back to you?”
She knit her brow fiercely and put her fingers up to her eyes. He watched while her lips moved inaudibly, and he knew she was repeating the name to herself over and over again. When she looked up at him and shook her head, her face was blank, her eyes frantic with disappointment and fear again. “It just won’t come back. Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“It will,” Shayne told her cheerfully. “Stop trying so hard. Think about other things. It’s all there. Locked away in your subconscious mind. There’s just a physical block caused by your head injury between conscious memory and your unconscious. Let’s go back now to what you do remember. What is your first conscious memory?”
“It was night and dark and I was alone stumbling down a strange road,” she said in a low monotone as though she had repeated it often before and the lines were memorized. “I had a dreadful headache and I was bruised all over and I didn’t know who I was or where I was or how I’d gotten there. I just didn’t… know. I kept walking and after a time a car came up behind me and it stopped when I waved and a man jumped out and asked me what was the matter? And I tried to explain to him how it was. And he was nice and didn’t ask many questions and helped me into the back seat and said I needed a doctor. And he drove on in the dark for what seemed a long time, and there were the lights of a town ahead and he said it was Brockton and he’d take me to the hospital and drop me off at the door, and he asked me to promise to let him drive away without being seen and not to tell anybody what he looked like or anything about him. And I promised, but I asked him why, and he said it would just ruin everything for him if his wife found out he was out in that direction that night because she thought he was somewhere else. And he sounded sad and frightened and I felt sorry for him and promised. Because he had been kind and stopped on the road to pick me up, and he stopped in front of the hospital and I got out and he drove off fast, and I waited until he was out of sight before I went in.”
Shayne sat silent for a moment, considering her story. It sounded to him like the truth. But how did it tie up with the other bits of information he had gleaned? Her sister’s death in an auto accident in the same vicinity a month ago. Randolph Harris’ fatal accident the same night she had been hurt. The coincidence of her sister having been taken to the Brockton Sanitarium after her injury, and a man answering Harris’ description having asked directions to the Sanitarium a short time before he died.
He emptied his glass and said quietly, “Lean back and relax, Jean. Shut your eyes and try to make your mind a complete blank. I’m going to mention some names. Don’t tussle with them. Don’t try to remember. Tell me if any of them evoke anything.”
She nodded and wet her lips and settled back in the deep chair. She drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes, folded her hands in her lap.
“First there’s your own name. Jean Henderson. That didn’t get us anywhere. Let’s try Jeanette. Jeanette Henderson. A sister, perhaps. A younger sister. Don’t bother to answer me unless something comes through. Randolph Harris.” He spoke the name distinctly and waited a moment. “A young lawyer, Jean. From your home-town of Orlando. Assistant to the State’s Attorney there.”
He waited again but there was no flicker of response on the girl’s face.
“The Larches who live in Apalachicola and have a sailboat. Mr. and Mrs. Roy Larch. They have a daughter about your age, Jean. I don’t know her name but you are assumed to be on a cruise on the Gulf with the Larch family now. Lois Dongan,” he went on slowly when there was still no response from Jean. “Your younger sister’s best friend. Also a student at Rollins. Will Lomax. Another friend of your sister’s. The Brockton Sanitarium, Jean. Not the hospital you were taken to. The Sanitarium.”
Her eyelids flew open and she sat up, her face showing excitement and hope. “It was there! I almost had it. I know it was there. Something dreadful, it seemed. Something so dreadful my mind just closed down and refused to admit it. The Brockton Sanitarium! What is it? What should I know about it?”
Shayne studied her tortured young face gravely, reminding himself that he knew nothing whatever about psychiatry, and this fooling around with a human mind might be dangerous as hell. But there was a fierce urgency within him to get on with it. Hardly more than an hour before, he had seen another girl gunned down in broad daylight in front of his eyes because she had been with him and was wearing Jean Henderson’s distinctive dress.
He set his teeth together hard and said, “For one thing, Jean, the Brockton Sanitarium is where your younger sister, Jeanette, died last month after an automobile accident.”
Her face went white and she shrank back in the chair from the impact of his words. “My… sister… died there?” she said weakly: “Oh, God! If I only could remember. If I could only remember something. I think I’ll die if I don’t. I can’t go on living this way! Don’t you see that I can’t?” Little bubbles of spittle showed on her lips as her voice rose in hysterical shrillness. Her eyes were round and glazed and she beat her clenched fists impotently on the upholstered arms of her chair.
Shayne was on his knees beside her instantly, cursing himself for a blundering fool while he caught both her hands in a grip tight enough to cause physical pain.
“Stop it, Jean!” His voice was harsh and commanding. “Stop it and listen to me. I’m not going back any more. Not yet. Not until you’re ready. We’re going to talk about the last few days. About Gene and Bill and the room where you were kept prisoner.”
She quieted gradually, and the glazed look went away from her eyes. “I’m sorry. But I wish you’d tell me who you are and how you know all these things.” Shayne released her hands and stood up to look down on her broodingly. “I should have told you sooner. I’m a private detective from Miami. My name is Michael Shayne, and many years ago I was married to a girl whom you remind me of very much. I got pulled into this situation by sheer accident last night when you selected me in the bar as a recipient for Gene’s attentions rather than the man you were supposed to betray. I’m not sore about that,” he added quietly. “It was an honest impulse on your part to protect a man who had been kind to you, and I’m glad you picked me for the scapegoat even if it was pure accident.
“Not knowing why I was attacked last night, I’ve been digging into things all day, and I soon learned that you weren’t Amy Buttrell at all. I’m convinced now that the man who called himself Mr. Buttrell and pretended to identify you was just a tool used by Gene to get you away from the hospital before your own father came to take you home. I talked to Professor Henderson this afternoon, Jean. He’s a hell of a nice guy, and you’re a lucky girl to have him for a father. As soon as this mess is cleared up and you’re in your own home in familiar surroundings, your memory will return all right. Stop worrying about it. This is a perfectly normal course for an amnesia case such as yours to take.” He wondered if this were true as he spoke, and hoped to God it was. At least, he was rewarded by a tinge of color in her pallid cheeks and an expression of trust in her eyes.