“No. He was right here with me. Biting his nails down to the quick and waiting for you.”
Shayne picked up the carbon copy of Wanda’s letter and tapped it against his knuckles. “I wouldn’t worry about this too much,” he told Ralph Flannagan somberly. “Someone did you a big favor by disposing of Wanda Weatherby between ten and ten-thirty tonight — during the time that Tim swears you were here with him.”
Chapter six
BOTH MEN SAT VERY STILL and stared at Shayne for a long moment. Then Ralph Flannagan said in a hoarse whisper, “Disposed of her? Do you mean—”
“With a rifle bullet through her head,” Shayne stated in a flat voice. “She called me at ten o’clock — and was dead when I arrived at her house on Seventy-Fifth Street.”
The radio producer shuddered and buried his face in his hands and moaned, “Wanda.”
Rourke dragged his thin body up and leaned toward Shayne, his cavernous, slate-gray eyes feverish with interest. “Then she had picked the wrong guy to be afraid of. Any other dope, Mike?”
“Nothing. She probably didn’t see her killer. He stood outside and fired through the wire screen.”
“To prevent her from talking to you?”
“It’s a fair inference,” Shayne told him with a shrug “It’s even possible he was standing close enough to the open window to have overheard her call. If he knew about this letter she had written me accusing Flannagan, it would have seemed a perfect time to bump her and hope that you would be the fall guy, Flannagan.”
“Which I might have been so easily,” the producer muttered, lifting his head and shaking it distraughtly. “If I didn’t have an alibi. If Tim hadn’t happened to be here at the right time.”
“Who else did you tell about the letter?” Shayne demanded.
“Why — no one,” he protested in a shocked voice. “My God! It isn’t the sort of thing a man would discuss.”
“You said some people came in for auditions,” Shayne pressed him. “Are you sure you didn’t mention it?”
“Positive,” said Flannagan.
“How many people knew about your affair with Wanda? And that you were paying her blackmail?”
Flannagan’s face suffused with anger and his heavy jaw jutted. “It wasn’t blackmail at all. I won’t let you think that about Wanda. It was I who insisted on paying her the money.”
“Nevertheless,” Shayne pointed out grimly, “it’s a hell of a good motive for murder — on the surface. Here you are, engaged to a wealthy girl, with your livelihood at stake if your affair with Wanda comes out. What I’m trying to point out is that anyone who knew the truth about you, and who had some personal reason for wanting Wanda out of the way would know you’d be the prime suspect if anything happened to her. Look at her letter,” he went on. “No matter how you felt about the affair, Wanda herself suspected you of planning to kill her. She accuses you of having made two previous attempts. How many people knew the truth?”
“No one. I swear I never told anyone. Good heavens! If a word of it had leaked out—” He broke off, shuddering at the thought.
“Do you know a man named Gurley?” Shayne asked abruptly.
Flannagan frowned, then said, “I don’t — think so.”
“Jack Pierson Gurley,” Shayne amplified, “sometimes known as Jack-The-Lantern.”
“Oh, that one? I’ve heard about him and his swanky gambling-club, but I’ve never met him personally.”
“Ever hear Wanda mention his name?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve explained that we weren’t actually intimate. That is, I honestly don’t know much about her personal life. We only met briefly those few times.”
“Think back on those few times and concentrate,” growled Shayne. “Can you remember anything at all to indicate a connection between her and Jack Gurley — or the Sportsman’s Club?”
The producer shook his head helplessly. “Not a thing, I’m afraid.”
“What’s this about Gurley?” Rourke asked eagerly.
“I don’t know. There’s some connection, all right.” Shayne hesitated, thinking back over his talk with the gambler.
Gurley was one person who knew about the letter Wanda had written accusing Flannagan of planning her death. He had known about the letter even before her death, as evidenced by the first telephone call by one of his goons earlier in the evening. But why the devil should Gurley be so anxious to have the letter destroyed unread? What was his interest in Ralph Flannagan? If Gurley had ordered her death because she had pointed the finger at Flannagan, he certainly wouldn’t want the letter destroyed.
Unless, of course, he had some personal reason for wanting to protect Flannagan from suspicion.
Shayne’s brow was furrowed when he said harshly, “Don’t lie to me, Flannagan. What about Gurley’s daughter, Janet? How well do you know her?”
“I don’t know Gurley and I didn’t know he had a daughter,” the radio producer told him. “So far as I can recall right now, I don’t know any girl named Janet.”
“What about a woman named Sheila Martin?”
Again Ralph Flannagan shook his head helplessly. “That doesn’t click, either. I’ve told you I didn’t really know Wanda. I was never in her home. I’ve never met any of her friends or talked about her personal affairs.”
“What about the party where you met her? Didn’t anyone there know her?”
“Why — I suppose someone must have invited her. But I don’t really know. I’ve explained the sort of party it was. She might have come with someone else who had been invited. You know how those parties are. I didn’t see her talking to anyone. She was sitting alone when I noticed her, and we left together shortly afterward.”
Shayne sighed and said, “All right. So we get back to the situation between the two of you and the fact that she suspected you of having tried to kill her twice and of planning another attempt. Who could have known you were responsible for her condition — and thus a logical suspect if she were killed?”
“I swear I have not told anyone. Do you mean you think perhaps Wanda didn’t actually write that letter to me?” His face lit up hopefully. “That must be it. I just can’t believe Wanda felt that way about me. But who could have found out the truth?”
“Wanda knew,” Shayne reminded him. “She might have told others. And there is the detective who took the picture of you and sold it back to her. There’s no way of knowing whether a louse like that actually did sell it back to her or not,” he went on disgustedly. “Having shaken her down for a grand, what was to prevent his going ahead and turning over a duplicate set to her husband to collect his fee?”
“Oh, no. I’m certain he didn’t do that. Wanda told me he gave her the original Photostat and the negative — and that she destroyed them immediately,”
“Photostats can be copied,” Shayne reminded him wearily. “And a duplicate negative can easily be made from a print. The police will probably check pretty closely on her husband.”
“What! You mean they’ll have to — know all about this?” Flannagan faltered. “It will ruin me, Shayne! Can’t you keep the information confidential? Work on the case yourself? If I’m your client, you don’t have to tell them, do you? Isn’t there something in the law about a private detective having the same right to refuse to divulge confidential information from a client as a lawyer?” The radio producer grew more excited as he spoke, leaning tensely toward the detective.
“There is that,” Shayne agreed. “But as soon as I receive the original of this letter in the morning’s mail with Wanda Weatherby’s retainer, she will legally become my client.”
“Can’t we both be?” pleaded Flannagan. “I’ll employ you on the same terms to do the same job. I want her murderer found, too.”