On the third floor Shayne’s feet traversed the familiar route to his old bachelor apartment. The door stood ajar and Ernst Thrip jumped up nervously from a deep chair when Shayne came in on heavy heels. The boy opened and closed his mouth two or three times without making any sound.
After one uninterested glance, Shayne disregarded his visitor. He moved with the precise somnambulism of habit to a wall liquor cabinet and took down a bottle of cognac and a wineglass. He brushed past young Thrip to set them on the center table, then strode into the kitchen, where he put ice cubes in a goblet, filled it from the faucet, and came back to set it beside the bottle and smaller glass. His face wore a harsh, preoccupied expression that took no notice of the other’s presence. He poured a drink, lit a cigarette, and sat down at the table with the manner of an acolyte performing a ritual of tremendous importance.
Ernst Thrip had stopped opening and closing his mouth, but the appearance of extreme youth and unintelligence clung to him even while he kept his mouth shut. He had changed from evening clothes to a tan sack suit, and dark rings in the flesh under his eyes asserted that he had not slept for a long time. Smoke curled up past his face from a cigarette in a long ornate holder and his eyelids and lips kept twitching while he waited for Shayne to acknowledge his presence.
Shayne downed a stiff drink of cognac and a swallow of water. He took a deep drag on his cigarette and let thin smoke curl out his wide nostrils. Staring across the room past Ernst Thrip, he said, “Sit down,” in a wearied, gentle tone.
The lad’s eyes brightened. He sank down in the chair he had been occupying before Shayne entered. “You acted so peculiar,” young Thrip faltered, “I didn’t know-”
Shayne said, “I’m drunk as a skunk.” He took another long drink of cognac and didn’t look at the boy.
In a high, thin voice, Ernst said, “I came to talk to you-that is-I’ve been reading what you said in the News.” He jumped up from his chair and circled it, then sat down on the edge and leaned forward to crush out his cigarette in an ash tray. His gaze clung imploringly to the detective’s harried face.
“A lot of people have been reading that stuff and getting hot flashes over it.” Shayne emptied his cognac glass and set it down.
Ernst’s long, effeminate lashes came down over his eyes in a semblance of coy confusion. He shakily inserted a fresh cigarette in his holder and lit it.
“What did you mean by it? What-did you mean?” He jumped up from his chair again, stood as if poised to make a hasty exit.
“I didn’t stutter,” said Shayne shortly.
“What makes you think that man didn’t do it?” Ernst panted. “What clues have you got?” He sat down again and puffed on his cigarette, blowing smoke out in short, jerky whiffs.
“I’m not just thinking,” Shayne told him placidly. “I know Darnell didn’t squeeze your stepmother’s throat.” He poured another drink into his glass, held it up to let afternoon sunlight spill through the amber liquid while he viewed it with unqualified approval.
“Do you know who did?”
“I’m beginning to get a damned good idea. Ultimate evaluations are eluding me for the moment. Perhaps another drink-”
Shayne lifted his glass and sipped from it with a questing look on his face. He nodded with conviction. “Yes-another drink-or two-or three-will undoubtedly remove the final barriers, roll away the nimbus of doubt and perplexity, and my brilliant intuition and talent for deduction, unhampered by mundane considerations-”
Ernst jumped up again. Excitedly he said, “You’re drunk, all right. Drunk enough to think you’re awful damn smart. I know what you think. Why don’t you come out and say it? Why don’t-”
Shayne emptied his glass and threw it hard against the wall, paid no heed to the shattered spray of flecked glass on the floor. He glared directly at the young man for the first time since entering the room and demanded:
“What in God’s name is eating you? Quit bobbing up and down like a chaperon at a picnic and say what you’ve got to say. I’ve got some drinking to do and I do it better alone.”
Ernst Thrip dropped back into his chair and stared sullenly at Shayne. “You’ve been talking to that Carl Meldrum,” he choked out. “Don’t believe anything he tells you. He’s lying to save himself. If it wasn’t that other man, I bet it was Carl. I knew he was lying when he wouldn’t let me go right up-” The youth paused suddenly, clamping a slim hand over his mouth and shrinking away from Shayne, who had come alert.
“He wouldn’t let you go right up? You mean last night when you came home?”
“No-I–I don’t know what I mean. But it wasn’t Dorothy. It couldn’t have been Dot. She’s so gentle and good-”
Shayne lunged to his feet, leaned over Ernst with lips drawn back from his teeth. “She’s gentle and good like a rattlesnake, you poor simp. You’re jealous of Carl, aren’t you? Don’t try to deny it. And this morning she was trying to get you to lie about last night. Don’t try to lie to me. You’re not cut out for lying. Spill it, kid! Spill it quick.”
“No-no! What you’re saying about Dot isn’t true.”
Deliberately, Shayne slapped him backhanded. Ernst’s head jerked sideways and he began to cry.
Shayne swayed upright. “You’re behind the eight ball, son,” he muttered, not unkindly. “You’re a fool if you protect either Dorothy or Carl Meldrum. Hell, do you think either of them would lift a finger to help you? Tell me the truth about last night. When you came in you met Carl coming out-that it? And he stopped you from going on upstairs. And you suspect it was because he and Dorothy had framed your stepmother’s death together. Maybe they heard you coming and he hurried down to stop you while she went ahead and finished up the job.”
“No! No, damn you. Don’t say that!” Ernst dragged himself up in his chair with an effort toward dignity that was ruined by the tears running down his face. “Dot couldn’t have had anything to do with it. She’s just shielding him. I know she is. He’s got some strange power over her and she isn’t herself any more.”
Shayne grunted disgustedly. He turned away and went unsteadily to the wall cupboard where he got two glasses and brought them back to the table. Filling both, he offered Ernst one, saying gruffly, “Put that in your belly and buck up.”
“No, I–I couldn’t drink it straight.” Ernst grimaced and shuddered. There were red splotches on his yellowish cheek where Shayne had slapped him.
The big detective shrugged and set the glass down. He sipped from the other one and said irritably:
“All right, pull yourself together your own way. And stop your sniveling and your silly attempts to lie. If you didn’t think your precious sister had a hand in it you wouldn’t be here right now. You’re damn sure not trying to cover up for Carl.” He dropped heavily into a chair, got out a cigarette, and stabbed the end of it aimlessly at his mouth while his eyes stalked the cringing youth before him.
“I came to see you because-I felt Carl was trying to drag Dorothy into it. I told her she shouldn’t lie for him. I knew you’d find out he hadn’t left when she said he did.” He stopped to catch his breath and Shayne put in:
“Let me get one or two things straight for a change. Did Carl Meldrum meet you at the door when you came home last night?”
Ernst nodded sullenly. “And he wouldn’t let me go upstairs at first. He grabbed me and started saying a lot of silly things and I thought he was just trying to detain me so that-well, so I wouldn’t find out-”
“All right. I get the picture. So you wouldn’t hurry up to your sister’s room and find out she wasn’t there.”
“Yes, she was. She was, too. She was just undressing.”
“Or dressing,” Shayne put in cynically. “You’re still not quite sure which. All right. How soon afterward was the shot fired?”
“I-don’t know. Not very long, I guess. We were-talking in Dot’s room.”