Chief Will Gentry was seated alone in a rear booth of a small restaurant a block from police headquarters when Shayne entered a short time later. He looked up from a cup of jellied beef broth and frowned as the redhead slid into the seat opposite him.
“Doc Meeker tells me you dodged out on having that head wound examined, Mike,” Gentry rumbled.
Shayne picked up the menu. “I had a hot lead that had to be followed up fast,” he answered. “I did leave my car in the lot for you.”
“What was the lead?” Gentry demanded.
“Margrave. Ralph Carrol’s business partner.”
“Oh? Trying to sick you onto the Vulcan angle, eh?” he asked with distaste and disinterest.
“Yeh,” he muttered, running his eye over the menu. He beckoned the waiter, ordered lamb stew and coffee, then continued to the chief, “Did you talk to Margrave?”
“He called me early this morning and talked a blue streak about soulless corporations who keep an army of gunmen on the payroll to wipe out small competitors. I sent Lieutenant Hanson over to see him, but it sounds like hogwash to me. You go for it?”
“He made out a fair case,” said Shayne reflectively. “I checked around afterward and got a slightly different slant.” Without mentioning Ann Margrave’s name or her statements about the personal relationships between herself, her father, and Nora Carrol, he outlined the possibility that Carrol might have been planning to drop his defense of the lawsuit and thus leave his partner out of the picture.
“If this were true and Margrave knew it,” he pointed out, “it gives him a much stronger motive for murder than Vulcan. Actually, Carrol’s death will have produced exactly the opposite result from the one Margrave tried to hand us. The suit will probably drag along for months or years, while he continues to manufacture his plastic. I’d check Margrave’s alibi carefully if I were you.”
The waiter brought a plate of cold cuts and a bottle of beer and set them before Gentry. “We’ll check, all right,” he told Shayne. “What still bothers me is the crazy hookup with you last night. The woman being given the key to your room by mistake or design, and Bates’s insistence that you were working for him. Tied with your flat denial, and the removal of Bates’s correspondence with you from his files; what in hell does it add up to, Mike?”
“I’m beginning to swing around to the belief that somehow or other Mrs. Carrol and Bates are telling the truth and that they believed they were dealing with me.”
“A while ago you were working hard to prove it would have been impossible for anyone to impersonate you.”
“Yeh,” he muttered absently. “I still don’t see how it was worked. Suppose somebody finds out that Bates is thinking of hiring a private detective in Miami for a job, and that he is inclined toward me. Suppose this man simply has a letterhead printed, gives his own address instead of mine, and writes Bates a letter saying he’s heard about the job and is willing to take it on. Bates would naturally reply to the printed address and I would never know a damned thing about it.”
“A pretty elaborate hoax just to collect a small fee,” said the chief.
“I agree. If that were the only thing that came out of the impersonation. But don’t forget that the setup actually culminated in murder.”
“You mean it was planned that way in the beginning?”
“I don’t know.” Shayne spread out his big hands. “I don’t know a damned thing more than you do. Carrol was murdered at just about the time his wife was supposed to be with him. The only reason she didn’t discover his body is that she had been sent to my room instead of to his.”
The waiter came with his order, and when he went away Gentry said, “So you think it was pure accident that she had the wrong key?”
Shayne spooned a portion of stew onto his plate, took a mouthful, and chewed it with relish. “I just don’t know what to think,” he confessed. “I certainly don’t believe it was pure coincidence that Carrol was murdered just a few minutes before she was slated to slip into his bed. Somebody evidently had the right key. I understand he was murdered in his bed. That doesn’t sound as though he got up to let his killer in.” He buttered a hard roll, took a bite, and chewed ruminatively.
“Who is in a position to pull this impersonation of you?”
Shayne shrugged. “Margrave, for one. He must have been aware that Mrs. Carrol was arranging with Bates to hire me to locate her husband. Being Carrol’s partner, he probably knew where Carrol was all the time. He may even have offered to look me up for Bates when he came down here. That would make a letter from me to Bates, on a forged letterhead, perfectly plausible. Margrave was on the ground, and it looks as though he might have had a motive.”
“Maybe you’ve got something there, Mike. But what about the man who got you on the bayfront and tried to kill you? That wasn’t Margrave. You saw him.”
“It certainly wasn’t Margrave,” Shayne agreed. “But he could have hired somebody for that while he was stealing the letter back from Mrs. Carrol’s hotel room. Then, he could have flown to Wilmington, and stolen the rest of the fake letters from Bates’s office so there’d be no way of tracing them to him.”
“Sounds complicated as hell,” Gentry growled, “but I’ll check with the airlines to see if he did make such a trip.”
“He wouldn’t have used his own name. Much more likely, just to complicate matters further, he’d have bought a ticket in my name.”
Gentry laid his knife and fork on his empty plate and said sourly, “I guess that’s out. I checked this morning with the only line flying a schedule that would fit, and they haven’t reported back yet.”
Shayne avoided the chief’s gaze when he asked casually, “What results did your boys get on my car? You willing to accept my story about being creased by a bullet and staying knocked out for five hours?”
“I’ll accept it,” said Gentry, “unless further evidence turns up to disprove it. They didn’t get any fingerprints, but everything else reads the way you told it. If you did arrange the bullet hole and the blood on the cushion, it was a pretty damned elaborate setup, and I don’t know when you had time to do it and get up to Wilmington and back.”
“Thanks,” said Shayne gravely. “Then I guess you won’t throw me in jail if I tell you that a man using my name did fly to Wilmington and back early this morning.”
He held up a hand to cut off Gentry’s grunt of surprise. “The airline called my office right after you’d left,” he explained swiftly, changing the facts a little to soften what he had done. “You’d left my number for them to call, you know, and the clerk thought it was you on the phone and gave me the report before I realized what it was. A man who said he was Michael Shayne flew to Wilmington at four-twenty and returned at nine-ten, giving him just about enough time in Wilmington to burglarize Bates’s office and get back.”
“Damn it, Mike!” Gentry exploded. “You didn’t tell me.”
“Hold it a minute, Will. The thing was dumped into my lap without my asking for it, and you know the mood you were in about then. You would have had to arrest me while you investigated further. And I had already had the call from Margrave that sounded like an important lead. But I’m giving it to you for what it’s worth now.”
“Margrave,” rumbled Gentry. “He fits like a glove. He is familiar with Bates’s office, probably knows just where his files are kept.”
“Right. Now if you can get hold of the employee who sold the plane ticket, and the hostesses who flew up and back, and if any of them can identify Margrave, we’ll have a case.”
“But there’s still one thing that doesn’t make sense,” Gentry protested. “If Margrave had been impersonating you, aren’t you the last person in the world he’d call in to work on the case? He’d stay as far away from you as possible.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a murderer called me in on a case, hoping I’d pin it on somebody else,” Shayne pointed out.
“We damn sure have some questions to ask him,” said Gentry firmly. “And right now I’d better get back to my office. Bates is due to fly in from Wilmington about now.”
“That’s one session I want to sit in on.” Shayne hastily finished his lunch, and they went out together.
At headquarters the chief stopped at Homicide to order an immediate and thorough investigation of Margrave, with particular emphasis on his movements since the preceding midnight. From there, they went back through the corridor to Gentry’s private office where they found Bates waiting for them, accompanied by Patrolman Hagen who had been detailed to meet him at the airport.
Attorney Bates was a medium-sized, middle-aged, precise sort of man. He offered a cold, limp hand to Chief Gentry, and studied the redhead with disapproving interest when Gentry said, “Michael Shayne, Mr. Bates.”
“So you are the so-called private detective,” Bates observed icily, “who now denies having had any part in this affair. Also, if I did not misunderstand Mrs. Carrol on the telephone this morning, either intentionally or through sheer stupidity, you furnished her with a key to your apartment instead of her husband’s; and you lured her there at midnight under false pretenses, at about the same time, it appears, that someone was murdering Ralph Carrol under this convenient arrangement. Do you mean to say this man isn’t under arrest?” he continued, turning to Gentry.
“You can cut that out right now,” growled Gentry, his ruddy face purplish with anger. “This is Miami, and I’ll ask the questions.”
“Very well, sir. What questions have you for me?” He sat down in a straight chair near Gentry’s desk and waited.
The chief sat down and started to speak, but Shayne broke in swiftly. “Most important is this — when and how do you claim you first contacted me to take on the job of locating Ralph Carrol in Miami?”
The lawyer frowned and said, “It was about two weeks ago when I first wrote. I do not have the precise date because my office was burglarized early this morning and all the pertinent correspondence removed.”
“We’ve only your word for it,” Shayne reminded him. “It’s the sort of lie you would tell if asked to produce proof that was nonexistent. Is there anyone else who can testify to such correspondence?”
“Is this fellow accusing me?” Bates demanded of Gentry. “I assure you that I have no intention—”
“We want facts, not speeches.” Shayne cut him off angrily. “You claim you wrote me a letter two weeks ago suggesting that I fix a frame to put Carrol’s wife into her husband’s bedroom. How was that letter addressed?”
“I protest your phrasing,” said Bates curtly. “I suggested no frame-up. I merely asked if you were capable of arranging a certain matter for my client.”
“Just who was your client?” Shayne demanded. “I understand you act as attorney for Carrol and Margrave, yet you admit conniving with Carrol’s wife to put her husband on the spot.”
“I do not feel the need of justifying myself to you,” said Bates in a voice of outraged dignity. “Perhaps you’ll explain your eagerness to have Ralph Carrol in your hotel, in the light of what happened later, and why you deliberately lured Mrs. Carrol into your bedroom.”
“Let’s skip that right now. I don’t know yet what reason anyone had for wanting Carrol in my hotel. Tell me how your first letter to me was addressed.”
“To your office, of course. You replied promptly on your own letterhead, as I am positive you are fully aware.”
Shayne shrugged and turned to Gentry. “There goes the only idea I had for the way it was worked. You want to question him about the lawsuit, Will?”
“You talked to Margrave,” Gentry said. “Go ahead with it yourself.”
“All right. What is the present status of the Vulcan suit against the partnership of Carrol and Margrave?”
“I don’t see that the question is at all relevant,” Bates told him, “and professional ethics make it impossible for me to—”
“Answer Shayne without so much legal palaver,” Gentry ordered.
“Very well. The suit is pending in the state courts,” he said evenly.
“Who will win it? What are the rights in the case?”
“I am attorney for the defense,” Bates reminded him in an icy tone. “I don’t defend cases I expect to lose.”
“Do you know that Carrol was going to give the whole thing up and admit he was in the wrong when he left the corporation?”
“Certainly not,” snapped Bates.
“Would you have known it if he had been considering such a course?” Shayne probed.
“I most certainly would. I was in his complete confidence.”
“Assuming that Carrol had such intention, though you were not aware of it, wouldn’t it have been quite a slap in the face to you and quite a financial loss to Margrave?”
“I’m not sure I thoroughly understand the question,” Bates said.
“Put it this way. If Carrol had been planning to throw in the sponge with Vulcan out of court, it would have been a legal defeat for you, and would have effectually dissolved the partnership and halted the manufacture of the plastic, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes. It would have had that effect,” the lawyer conceded. “But I don’t see—”
“But now that Carrol is dead the situation is changed,” Shayne interrupted. “By legal maneuvers, you can probably avoid a final decision for years and eventually attain some sort of compromise. In the meantime, the surviving partner can continue to market the disputed product at a nice profit. Isn’t that also true?”
“Quite possibly. I confess I haven’t given much thought to the legal situation resulting from Ralph Carrol’s death.”
“From information we have,” Shayne said, “it looks very much as though Margrave knew that Carrol was on the verge of making this discovery while he was still in the Vulcan laboratories, and put pressure on him to keep it a secret and get out so they could make a profit on it together. Would you like to comment on that?”
“No. Except to warn you that it is a libelous statement and best not repeated.”
“Do you know that Margrave and Nora Carrol were quite friendly before she married Carrol?”
“I know they were acquainted. It was common knowledge.”
“Intimately acquainted?” Shayne persisted.
“Really, sir,” the lawyer protested in a shocked tone. “This is not a matter I care to discuss further.”
“Why not?”
“I do not see that it could have any possible bearing on Ralph Carrol’s death.”
“From where I sit,” said Shayne patiently, “it looks as though it might be very important. There were anonymous letters, I believe, accusing Mrs. Carrol of having been intimate with Carrol’s partner.”
Bates clamped his lips together and did not reply.
“Who wrote those letters?” Shayne demanded.
“Authorship was not established. They were definitely scurrilous and not worthy of attention.”
“But they led, indirectly, to the divorce Carrol was contemplating when he was killed.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you mean,” Bates parried.
“Mrs. Carrol admitted it herself last night,” Shayne told him. “She said her husband became suspicious of her after receiving the letters, and began watching her. This made her angry, and drove her to drink too much on a certain week-end party when she committed an indiscretion with a certain Ted Granger, which Carrol was using as evidence to divorce her without alimony. Isn’t that true?”
“It is true that Carrol was basing his divorce action on her affair with young Granger,” said Bates cautiously. “How much the anonymous letters contributed to that affair is anyone’s question. Ted has been quite gentlemanly about the unfortunate episode, and openly admitted everything that happened was entirely his fault. He has publicly stated his desire, and his determination, to marry Nora Carrol, if and when the divorce was granted.”
“And she was just as determined to hang on to Carrol,” Shayne stated. “How many people knew of her plan to come down here and compromise her husband?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. It hardly seems a subject she would discuss with many people.” The Wilmington lawyer’s tone was sharp with disgust.
“Margrave?” the redhead demanded.
“I would think not. Not to my knowledge, at least.”
“Are you certain Margrave didn’t know you planned to retain Michael Shayne for the scheme?”
“I can’t say I’m certain. It would be a complete surprise, however, to learn that Mr. Margrave knew anything about it.”
“How about Ted Granger?” Shayne probed. “Don’t you suppose she told him what she planned?”
Attorney Bates hesitated and glared at the redhead with cold, angry eyes. “Any conjecture I might make on that score would not be evidence.”
“You’re not on the witness stand,” Shayne reminded him. “Have you reason to think she confided in Granger?”
Bates shifted his position slightly, then said, “From my slight knowledge of the — ah — alleged scandal, I would say there is a possibility she did. Granger flew down with me from Wilmington. He feels extremely bad about the whole affair, and he confided to me that he came to give Mrs. Carrol what comfort he could. He talked rather excitedly and in a roundabout way, but now that I think back over the conversation, I believe that perhaps he did mention Nora’s plan to see Ralph last night. He — ah — was most anxious to have me promise that I would not volunteer the information to the police; and was greatly upset when I related the gist of your call last night, and explained that the decision did not lie in my hands. All this serves to give the inference that he was aware of Nora’s plan,” he pointed out in his dryly legalistic manner, “but I don’t understand how that fact can have any importance.”
Shayne had been standing over the lawyer. He sat down abruptly and said, “Perhaps it doesn’t matter,” wearily. “But right now I’m going along with the theory that Carrol was killed by someone who knew exactly what Nora planned to do. The motive probably was to prevent the reconciliation taking place and, quite possibly, the timing arranged to put Nora on the spot and frame her for the murder.”
“And I suggest that such a theory is absurdly fantastic,” said Bates with tight-lipped decision.
“Can you give us a better one? From everything I’ve heard, Ted Granger was enough infatuated to give him a good motive for wanting reconciliation blocked.”
“But not to the point of committing murder.”
“No one ever knows,” Shayne told him gravely, “when that point is reached.”
“But Granger had no opportunity,” Bates objected. “He was in Wilmington.”
“When?”
“Last night. I’ve just told you he flew down with me.”
“He could easily have been in Miami last night, and he could have flown back to establish an alibi.”
Bates shook his head slowly and he almost smiled. “Not Ted. It’s not in his character. He and Ralph Carrol were cousins, and quite good friends. That is one reason he felt so bad about having allowed himself to become involved with Nora.”
“But he was involved with her,” said Shayne, “and now with Carrol dead and Nora legally a widow, he comes dashing down here to comfort her. You can’t deny that.”
“I’m not attempting to. Let me point out that your case against Granger falls to pieces because of one insurmountable contradiction. In the first place you hypothecate that he killed Nora’s husband for love of her. Yet at the same time, you suggest he chose a time and method that was bound to involve her, and quite possibly bring an accusation against her — against the woman he loves, and hopes to marry,” Bates elaborated. “You can’t have it both ways, Mr. Shayne.” Again a half-smile was on his thin lips.
“All right.” Shayne turned to Chief Gentry. “I can’t think of anything else, Will. But if I were you I’d check with Wilmington damned carefully to determine whether Granger actually spent the night there.”
“If you’re finished with your questions,” Bates said, “may I ask a few of my own?” He turned to the chief.
“Go ahead. But leave out your accusations about the corruptness of the Miami police,” Gentry warned in a deep rumble.
“Do you actually accept this man’s denial that he was retained by me to locate Ralph Carrol?” the lawyer demanded sharply. “Do you believe that he did not agree to make arrangements for Carrol’s wife to visit him last night?”
Will Gentry answered with a blunt: “Yes.”
“Do you believe me to be lying about the matter?”
Gentry hesitated, glancing doubtfully at Shayne. “I don’t go that far. I don’t believe Shayne does, either. I think you were taken in by an impostor, and that you thought you were dealing with Shayne, but that it was someone else altogether.”
“How do you explain such a hoax? I had letters from him — telephone calls.”
“We’re guessing,” Shayne interjected, “that your first letter to me was intercepted somehow. That the person who got hold of it had a letterhead printed, using his own address and telephone number instead of mine. Naturally, you would have no reason to suspect you weren’t dealing with me.”
“How could my letter have been intercepted?” Bates asked with incredulity, his pale eyes shifting from Shayne to Gentry.
“I won’t even try to answer that,” Shayne growled. “The most likely place, I should think, is before it ever reached the mail. In Wilmington. In your own office, perhaps. Could your secretary have been careless and showed it to someone?”
“Certainly not. It’s quite impossible. Miss Evans is completely trustworthy.”
“Perhaps she gave it to someone to mail for her,” Shayne suggested casually. “Think back over the routine in your office. You dictated the letter, no doubt, and she typed it. It was probably given to you to sign. There were, doubtless, clients in and out of your office while this was going on. When did Margrave come to Miami?” he threw at the lawyer abruptly.
“Why, a week or so ago. Certainly you don’t suspect—”
“Someone got hold of that letter and prevented it reaching me. Someone who was able to write you on forged stationery, a day or so later, from Miami, exactly as though I were replying. Someone,” he went on harshly, “who supplied Mrs. Carrol with a key that ostensibly would open her husband’s door. But it was a key to my apartment instead of Carrol’s, and she was sent to my room just about the time her husband was being murdered on the floor above.”
“Why?” demanded Bates in bewilderment. “What possible reason could anyone have for doing those things?”
“It must tie up with Carrol’s death,” Shayne told him. “When we know how, we’ll probably know who.”
Gentry’s telephone rang. He answered it, listened a moment, then said, “You’d better pick him up and bring him in for questioning on suspicion,” and hung up.
In answer to Shayne’s unspoken question, he said, “That was a report on your friend at the Roney. He claims he was in bed early last night, but no one can verify it. I’ll get after the airlines and see if I can get witnesses up here.”
“And check on a later flight,” said Shayne. “Anything after four-thirty that stops in Wilmington. Maybe you can put it closer.” He added to Bates, “Did Granger contact you this morning?”
“Yes. He phoned about ten, after hearing the news about Ralph. When I told him I was flying down, he invited himself to join me.”
“Any flight between four-thirty and eight, then,” he told Gentry. “I don’t suppose he used his right name, or that the stewardess will be back in Miami yet but someone in the ticket office might remember him.” Shayne stood up and started for the door.
“Where you headed, Mike?” Gentry asked.
“To have a talk with the widow and her boy friend from Wilmington. Then I’d like to see Ann Margrave again and find out where she was at two o’clock this morning.”