“Well?” Shayne said impatiently.
“Two years before I married Leora, her only brother killed a man in a drunken brawl in a western mining camp. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and the disgrace of it hastened his father’s death. His father had taken millions in gold from a Colorado mine. His will stipulated that his entire fortune should be inherited by his daughter for her use as she saw fit during her lifetime, but in the event of her death, one-half of her estate should be set aside as a trust for the brother in the unlikely event that he redeemed himself and made a good enough record in the penitentiary to receive a pardon. If he should he pardoned before her death, he was to receive the income from one-half of the estate until her death. Buell Renslow was pardoned from the penitentiary two months ago.”
Thrip paused to puff on the cigar which had accumulated a long gray ash. He flipped the ash off carefully, glanced at Shayne’s impassive face, and continued:
“Renslow came here to Miami immediately after being released, and contacted his sister. He demanded that she turn over to him the money that would legally become his upon her death. Leora, being of the grasping nature I have described to you, refused his request. She instructed her attorneys to pay over to him the income every month and refused to see him after that first occasion. Two weeks later, the first threatening note arrived. I am positive it was written by her ex-convict brother, but he has never been discussed between us, and neither of us mentioned our belief that he wrote the notes. I am positive, however, that she knew they could come only from Buell Renslow.”
Shayne listened with fixed attention during the last part of the recital. Not by look or gesture did he indicate that he knew of the notes from Leora Thrip’s own lips.
He nodded and muttered, “Then this Buell will actually benefit by his sister’s death?”
“Of course. To the tune of more than a million dollars. If her death had come about under any other circumstances, Mr. Shayne, I should not hesitate to suspect her brother of the crime.”
“You mean-if you hadn’t caught the killer in the act and knew it couldn’t be Renslow?”
“Yes. That’s what I mean.”
“But he wouldn’t have access to the house,” Shayne argued. “He couldn’t have got into her room.”
Thrip looked at him in astonishment “You are overly trusting for an efficient detective, Mr. Shayne, to put it mildly. A man like that, who has consorted with criminals for years, could easily get an impression of a lock and have a locksmith make a key to fit it. He might even bribe a servant to leave a window unlatched.” His eyes were bulging at Shayne. He held the detective’s gaze steadily until he turned to contemplate his cigar.
“I-see,” Shayne said. He shrugged and asked, “What about the jewel case? I didn’t see it when I was called in last night And Darnell didn’t have a thousand-dollar bill on him-according to police reports.”
There was a red glow on Thrip’s cigar. “Why, he evidently had gone to my wife’s bed before looking for the case. A man like Darnell wouldn’t be likely to think of money while contemplating such-such a crime as he committed. At any rate, the case was on the vanity with the bill inside when I called the police. Naturally, I removed it before they arrived.”
“Naturally,” Shayne muttered.
“Quite naturally,” Thrip agreed smugly.
“What about your daughter’s friend, Carl Meldrum?” Shayne shot out. “I understand he brought her home late last night.”
“Meldrum? What about him?” Thrip appeared blandly disinterested in Meldrum.
“That’s what I’m asking you. What sort of an egg is he?”
“I know nothing against him. He appears to have money, also breeding and social position.”
Shayne said, “U-m-m. One more question, Mr. Thrip.” He was tugging at the lobe of his left ear with right thumb and forefinger. “Who was the last person to see your wife alive-and at what time?”
Thrip fidgeted in his chair. His bulging eyes were cold, his manner plainly irritated. “The police definitely established that last night. Dorothy stopped and spoke to her mother on her way up to her room at one-thirty.”
Shayne nodded decisively and got to his feet. “You wouldn’t have any idea where I could reach Buell Renslow?”
“None whatever. He hasn’t put in an appearance here since that first visit after his release from prison about two months ago.”
“Do either of your children know about him?”
“Only vaguely. I’m sure neither of them knows he has been pardoned and is in Miami.”
Shayne thanked him and went out the door. He hurried down the stairs. Out in the fresh salt-tanged air he filled his lungs deeply on the way to his car.
He drove back to Miami and to police headquarters where he went directly to the private office of his old friend, Will Gentry, Miami detective chief.
Chapter Nine: A DIFFERENT ANGLE
Will Gentry was a solid, square-jawed man of fifty. He was issuing orders to two plain-clothes men when Shayne pushed the door open and walked in. He squinched grizzled eyebrows at the redhead and ended the interview with his subordinates by growling:
“Bring them both in and I don’t give a damn how you do it. Mother of God, do I have to draw you a picture for every pinch I want made?”
The officers saluted stiffly and went out. Gentry chewed on the butt of a sodden cigar and tried ineffectually to light it. After the third attempt he hurled it at a shiny spittoon in one corner. It plopped wetly inside. He hunched his big body forward and rumbled:
“Well, Mike, you seem to have sewed yourself up in a sack this time.”
Shayne nodded and with one toe dragged up a chair. He draped his angular body into it in front of the chief’s scarred desk and agreed, “It looks that way, Will.”
Gentry frowned and his blunt fingers fiddled with a fountain pen lying in front of him. “Painter was in here not more than half an hour ago. He had a book-length telegram he was sending the governor. He wanted my signature on it along with the heads of the Ministerial Alliance and the Civic Betterment League. It pointed out in no uncertain terms that your continued presence in our midst with a private dick’s license was a menace to all the laws in the statutes and to the lives of our law-abiding citizens.”
Shayne lit a cigarette and blew smoke across the scarred surface of Gentry’s desk. “Did you sign it?”
“Nope.”
Shayne said, “Thanks, Will.”
There was a short silence between them, broken by Gentry’s fist thudding down on the desk. “Damn it, Mike, I’ve known you more than ten years. You’re bullheaded and reckless and hell-on-wheels when you get mad and you’ve never given a hang for what anybody thought and you’ve got away with everything but murder in this man’s town, but this time you’re washed up if you don’t pull one out of the hat quick.”
“Am I?”
“Hell, yes. Painter’s got you over a barrel. This isn’t something local that we can hush up. When a private detective murders the client he is hired to protect-that makes headlines from Baltimore to Frisco. It’s like the old one about the man biting the dog. The governor’s going to grab your license so fast it’ll make your head spin around.”
Michael Shayne nodded wearily. “I’ve added it up to the same answer. So, I guess it’s up to me to pull one out of the hat, and I may use Painter’s Panama.”
Gentry shot him a piercing glance. He stopped fiddling with the fountain pen and pulled a blunt black cigar from his vest pocket. Worrying the end of it with his teeth, he grunted, “What’s the straight of it, Mike?”
“You knew Joe Darnell? Hasn’t he been going straight since he did that rap for housebreaking?”
“Maybe. But he was pretty hard up. The way it looks to me is that Joe was casing the joint looking for what he could pick up and the lady hears him and sets up a squawk. Joe jumps her and puts on a little too much pressure.”