“Do you know who his last client was last night?”
“Yes. The police asked me that and I checked the record. A man named Julian Summerville. He paid a nineteen dollar premium and that’s the last entry for the night.”
“You don’t know what time that was?”
“No. Mr. Fitzgilpin generally stayed until nine or ten o’clock on Fridays.”
“This Summerville,” probed Shayne. “Was he an old client? Particularly friendly? Would your employer have been likely to ask him out for a drink?”
“I don’t believe so. I know the police took his name and address, so I assume they’re checking with him.”
“All right, Mrs. Perkins. What’s your opinion of this? You were probably closer to Mr. Fitzgilpin than anyone else in the world… excluding his wife. And I know lots of secretaries who are actually much closer to their employers than their wives are. No offense intended,” he went on hastily, seeing a hurt, protesting look on her face. “Certainly you know a great deal more about his business… his daily associates. How was his business, by the way? Would you say it was thriving?” Shayne let her see him glance disparagingly about the small and shabby reception room.
“I don’t know what you mean by thriving,” she responded with more spirit than she had shown before. “His income was adequate for his needs, and the business has grown steadily every year since I’ve been here. Actually…” and her face began to glow with pride. “… just recently Mr. Fitzgilpin was honored with an award that is given annually by an insurance association in the United States for being among the top ten brokers in the country showing an increase in policies sold during the year. He was interviewed by a reporter for the Miami paper and had a real nice write-up. He didn’t want to expand too much,” she went on earnestly. “He liked having a one-man office and maintaining a direct personal contact with every one of his clients. He wanted to know them… about their personal lives and their problems. He felt strongly that every insurance policy he sold should be tailored to each individual’s particular situation and needs… that he was performing an important service to his clients rather than just sitting back and collecting money from them. He was such a good man…” She broke down at this point and began crying helplessly, rocking forward over her typewriter with her hands over her face.
Shayne lit a cigarette and smoked it thoughtfully, letting her cry herself out. She accomplished this in a couple of minutes, straightened up and blew her nose loudly with Kleenex, wiped her eyes and told him tremulously, “I wish I could be more help to you, Mr. Shayne, but I just can’t think of anyone who wanted Mr. Fitzgilpin dead or who would benefit by it.”
“Yet, someone did,” Shayne reminded her. “His wife mentioned one peculiar thing this morning,” he went on. “About an incident some weeks ago when a woman came in and wanted him to break the rules by issuing a large policy on her husband’s life without his knowledge. Do you recall that?”
“Oh, yes. Very well. It was most peculiar. It wasn’t as long ago as that. Not more than ten days. I remember she telephoned for an appointment the day after the interview appeared in the paper and I thought maybe she’d read it and got his name from that. Because she was a complete stranger and wouldn’t say who had recommended him… you know, the way most people do if they come to an insurance office. And she acted funny when she did come in the next day. He was busy with another client when she arrived, and she sat and talked to me for fifteen minutes at least. I tried to be nice to her because she had mentioned a quarter-million dollar policy when she telephoned and we never had anything near that big in this office before. But she seemed more interested in Mr. Fitzgilpin than she did in getting a policy. She sat right in that same chair you’re sitting in and asked all sorts of funny questions. Like, how long had I worked here, and did he go out of town very often, and did he enjoy going to New York and when was the last trip he’d made, and all like that. It just seemed so funny.”
“What was her name?” Shayne interposed.
“Mrs. Kelly. That’s the only name she ever gave. And not even any address or anything. Because after she did go in and talk to Mr. Fitzgilpin and told him what she wanted him to do, he gave her short shrift. I never saw him so vexed before. He was quite insulted to think anyone would come to him with a proposition like that. Like he said to me, a rich woman like that must certainly have a lot of insurance business of one sort or another, yet here she was coming to him to buy a huge policy like that. You see, she pretended to him that she didn’t know it was against the law to do that, but he was sure she did know, and that’s why she didn’t go to her regular broker.”
“Do you think she was a rich woman?” Shayne probed.
“Oh, I guess she was, all right. Great big diamonds on her fingers and a mink jacket that must have cost a fortune. Poor thing, though, I felt sorry for her before I found out what she was trying to get Mr. Fitzgilpin to do. She was pathetic with all her jewelry and mink. She was a woman who looked dowdy no matter what she wore. She was tall and awkward with big hands and feet, and a great, big nose and a thin mouth. You could just imagine her as a young debutante sitting on the sidelines and never getting asked to dance no matter how much money her family had.”
“You didn’t hear from her again?”
“I should say not,” she told him with satisfaction. “Not after Mr. Fitzgilpin got through telling her off.”
Shayne sat back for a moment, drawing on his cigarette and tugging thoughtfully at his left earlobe. Two things had occurred recently that were out of order in the even tenor of Jerome Fitzgilpin’s life. He had received a national award for salesmanship and been interviewed by the News, and a woman had come to his office a day or so later in an effort to induce him to sell her a quarter of a million dollar policy on her husband’s life without his knowledge or consent.
And now he was dead.
Were those two seemingly unrelated events tied together somehow? And if so, could they possibly constitute a motive for his murder? Mrs. Perkins’ thought that Mrs. Kelly might have come to him as a result of seeing the interview in the paper was a possibility, of course. But why would his refusal of her lead to murder?
Shayne leaned forward and mashed out his cigarette butt in a clean ashtray on Mrs. Perkins’ desk.
He glanced aside at the closed door labeled PRIVATE, and asked, “Do you mind if I go into Mr. Fitzgilpin’s office to take a look around?”
“No reason why I should mind, but I don’t know what you expect to find. The police already looked around without finding anything.”
She got up and moved around her desk to open the door for him, and Shayne asked her, “Did he keep his personal checkbook here? Any private records?”
“No. Nothing like that. Just the office accounts, and I take care of those. I can assure you everything is in perfect order.”
She switched on an overhead light and stepped back to allow the detective to enter a small, neat office with window shades tightly drawn to exclude the morning light. There was a bare desk with a swivel chair behind it, two comfortable leather chairs for clients to sit in, and three green metal filing cabinets ranged along the wall behind the desk. Shayne stood in the doorway for a moment, looking at the swivel chair and imagining the figure of the little man he had seen in the morgue sitting there. An inoffensive, friendly little man, eager to be of service to his clientele, patiently listening to their small troubles and sometimes giving them a helping hand in times of financial stress.
“You call me if you want me to explain any of the files or anything,” Mrs. Perkins said nervously from behind him. “I know right exactly where everything is.”