“Then you keep track of each apartment,” Shayne said to the girl.
“On the outgoing calls, yes. It’s twenty cents for each call. I simply make a notation on each card.”
“And don’t keep a record of the numbers,” Shayne guessed.
“Not on local calls. On long distance, of course.” She turned to her desk and a circular index file. She flipped it expertly to the letter L, and Shayne leaned over her shoulder to look at the card headed, LAMBERT, Robert.
The first date on the card was that same Friday, three weeks before, on which Lambert had rented the apartment. He had made a call to Miami Beach at 9:20 p.m. and the number was written down. Beneath that in a lightly penciled scrawl was jotted down a local telephone number.
Shayne put his finger beneath it, saying, “I thought you didn’t list local numbers.”
“We don’t normally. That number was probably busy, and Nina wrote it down and told the party she would keep trying.”
On the following Friday evening at 9:15 Lambert had called the same Miami Beach telephone number as before, and last night he had again called that same Beach number at 9:25.
Shayne picked up a scratch pad and pencil from her desk and made a note of the only two numbers that had been called from the Lambert apartment. He asked, “Is there any chance that you overheard anything that was said on these calls? You or the other operator?”
She shook her head strongly. “We don’t eavesdrop.”
“Mightn’t you just hold on long enough to hear the answer… enough to know whether it was a man or woman he called?”
She hesitated, giving the appearance of trying to give an honest answer. “Sometimes, I suppose… I just might. If I weren’t too busy. But I don’t remember any of his calls.”
“Not even last night?” persisted Shayne. “Stop and think. You can’t be very busy at nine-thirty in the evening. You were on last night, weren’t you?”
“Happens I was. Nina… that’s the girl usually takes the switchboard at five to midnight… had a heavy date and I took over for her. Last night?”
She puckered her brow and thought deeply. “I think… maybe… a woman answered. And he said, ‘Darling’ or something like that. And then I cut out. Because I don’t ever try to eavesdrop,” she ended strongly with a glance at Mr. Barstow.
Shayne thanked them both for their cooperation and promised to keep them informed of developments. He then went out to the elevator and up to the third floor.
CHAPTER SIX
The police had put a new hasp and a padlock on the outside of the door that Shayne had crashed in the preceding night, and as he stopped in front of it to fit the key Lieutenant Hawkins had given him into the lock, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that the door directly opposite stood slightly ajar. The muted sound of a TV set or a radio came from inside the room, and he hesitated a moment as the padlock came open, wondering whether to try to talk to Mrs. Conrad now or wait until later.
She solved the problem for him by opening the door wider and poking her head out and saying happily, “Well there, now. It’s Mr. Michael Shayne, isn’t it. I recognize you from last night, you know. My! The way you did slam yourself against that door when all the rest of us were just standing around wondering how to get in. I said right then that you were just about the strongest man I ever did see, and after seeing you in action I know how you go about solving your cases all right. I said that very thing to Mr. Carmichael down the hall last night, and he sneered and said, ‘More brute force than brains,’ and I said, ‘Well, he’s got to have brains too, you bet your sweet life,’ to have achieved the national reputation you’ve achieved, and that shut him up all right.”
Shayne turned with a smile and said, “You’re Mrs. Conrad, aren’t you? The only one who was able to give the police any worthwhile information about your neighbor. It’s lucky you’re so observant.”
“I keep my eyes open and my wits about me.” She tossed her head importantly. She was a tall, thin-faced woman, with a long, sharp nose and beady eyes. “Not that I ever thought I’d be giving information to the police, you understand. Not about something like what happened in there, last night. But you never can tell these days. Goodness! Such goings-on in a respectable apartment building like this. From the very first time I saw that woman come traipsing up to the room late at night, I said to myself, I said: ‘Oh-oh. Monkey business, I bet.’ You could tell right off. There was something sneaky about her.”
Shayne glanced at his watch and said, “I wonder if you’d mind telling me all about it again, Mrs. Conrad. I’m expecting a couple of men from headquarters in about twenty minutes. If we could leave your door open so I’ll know when they come…?”
“You come right in and wait,” she invited him happily. “’Course we’ll leave the door open a little. I always do, you know. To make the air-conditioner work better. It says right on it that a window or door should be left open across the room for most efficient operation. And a good thing too, if you ask me. No one else around here sees very much that goes on.”
Shayne followed her into a starched, polished and hygienic sitting room, the same size and shape as Lucy’s on the floor below, but managing to look completely unlived-in. There were no books, magazines or newspapers visible. There were stiffly starched white doilies on every table, and immaculate white antimacassars on the back of the sofa and the two upholstered chairs, A large TV set dominated one end of the room with a picture flickering across it and the sound turned low, vying with the hum of an air-conditioner opposite the front door.
Shayne sat down gingerly in one of the chairs, with the feeling that she would probably leap at it with a vacuum cleaner as soon as he got up. She seated herself in the other chair and leaned forward to tell him:
“I tried to catch that nice Miss Hamilton downstairs early this morning to tell her how wonderful you were to take charge in such a masterful way last night, but she had left before I got down to her room. Such a dear, sweet girl. I’ve often told her how lucky she is to have such an exciting job working as your secretary and right in the middle of important crimes all the time.” Shayne repressed a grin, remembering what Lucy had told him about Mrs. Conrad last night, and said, “No one seems to know anything about the man across the hall, Mrs. Conrad. Except you. I’ve just been talking to the manager and his secretary downstairs. It seems the manager only saw him the one time when he rented the apartment, and the girl not at all. Did you ever speak to him?”
“I tried to. The first day he moved in. In the friendliest way possible. To welcome him as a new neighbor, you know. That was about a month ago. Less than a month, I guess.” She pursed up her thin lips and nodded. “Yes. It was a Friday, I know. Three weeks ago, it’d be. Because I saw him again that next Friday, and then last night. Just three times in all since he’s been here. And entertaining that same woman every one of those Friday nights until heaven knows what hour in the morning. You can take my word for it he was using that room for nothing but a love nest. And with a rich married woman in society and all on the Beach to boot. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard on the early news this morning that she was an Armbruster. Worth millions in her own name, they say. Well! What she saw in a man like him…”
“Let’s try to take it in order,” Shayne suggested desperately. “You saw him when he first looked at the apartment and rented it?” He got out a cigarette and fumbled for matches, then hesitated and looked around uncomfortably, aware that there was not a single ashtray in sight.
“Well, no,” Mrs. Conrad admitted. “Not when Mr. Barstow first showed him the apartment. That was in the afternoon and I wasn’t in. But that evening when he brought his suitcase up. You see, I didn’t even know the apartment had been rented. It had been vacant for more than a week, and I was wondering how long it’d be before someone grabbed it. Apartments don’t stay vacant in this building very long as a rule. The rates are reasonable and it’s in a very convenient location, and very well kept up.” She appeared not to notice the cigarette Shayne was holding half-way to his mouth, and he reluctantly replaced it in his shirt pocket.