(thus baring the arson plot) and to rescue Gleason and Mrs. Combs alive.
The woman, however, suffered such severe burns that she was hospitalized and never recovered, dying two months later because of her weakened condition as a result of her injuries when a son, Roy, was born to her.
Gleason had been promptly sentenced to the penitentiary for his part in the crime, and a nationwide search was instituted for Ernie Combs-without avail. No trace of him had ever been discovered-until one night in Algonquin, Illinois, when his face appeared on the television screen in front of a bartender and his wife, and he was identified as Saul Henderson, wealthy widower of Miami Beach and mayoralty candidate of that city.
“Harry telephoned me that night,” Roy Combs told Shayne stonily. “He was all fired up to notify the police immediately, but I told him to wait. I drove up and talked to him one afternoon. By that time he had quieted down and was talking about threatening Henderson with exposure and making him pay all his money for our silence. We talked it all over and couldn’t agree on anything. Frankly, I wanted to see him suffer for what he had done to my mother, but I couldn’t help thinking about all that money he had inherited from the woman he’d married… and the way Beth and I live here on my salary as a garage mechanic. Much as I hate to admit it, I am his legal son, and can prove it, and I would inherit everything if he died.
“Oh, we talked it over and over and over,” he went on with a bitter twist to his young mouth. “Harry and I, and Beth and I. Beth, I think, hated him worse than I did. I guess it was a female trait… because of what he did to my mother. Anyhow, in the beginning Beth talked wild and crazy about killing him so I’d inherit his money, but I talked her out of it. And I didn’t want Harry to try to blackmail him either… not because I didn’t think he deserved to be blackmailed, you understand, but because I was afraid he’d be too smart for us and the whole thing would backfire. But I couldn’t make up my mind to denounce him to the law either,” he went on helplessly.
“He certainly deserved no better, but what good would that do us? We’d never get a penny of his money… as long as he was alive and knew he had a son who was alive.”
“So you and your wife decided on this Jane Smith deal?” said Shayne as the young man paused.
“Not exactly. That was entirely her own idea, and she didn’t confide a word of it to Harry or me. What she did do was to offer to take what money we had in the savings account and go down to Miami and nose around and find out everything she could about him. Then she promised to come back and we’d put our heads together and decide what to do next. She went up and saw Harry herself late one night, and got him to promise he wouldn’t do anything until she came back and reported. And now you say he went down anyway and Henderson shot him.”
Roy Combs jumped to his feet and clenched his fist angrily. “Damn it! That’s what I was afraid would happen. I told Harry he’d be too smart for us. Well, he won’t get away with it. I’m not going to hold back any longer. Damn all his money to hell! I’ll see he spends the rest of his life in jail.”
Shayne said dryly, “I don’t think you need to worry too much about that aspect of it. But I’m curious about you, young lady.” He turned his attention to Beth. “Where did you get the idea of masquerading as Henderson’s stepdaughter and telling the weird tale you unfolded to me in that hotel room?”
She sat bolt upright on the sofa with her hands clasped primly in front of her. “It seemed like a perfectly wonderful idea. I went down and read all the newspapers and talked to people and found out everything I could about him and his dead wife and Muriel Graham. And then I just made up that story. I tried to think of some good reason for wanting him dead and for offering to pay so much money to hire it done.”
“I told her it was the craziest thing in the world, Mr. Wayne. As soon as I found out what she had done. You see, she didn’t tell me a word about it until you had answered that advertisement and she had made her plans to meet you. Then she wrote me a letter. I hopped on a plane and went right down there to stop her, and got to Miami that evening while she was meeting you.
“When she saw me afterward and told me what you said… about being a friend of that famous detective, Mike Shayne and all, I was scared to death you would tell him, and that’s why I called you next day and pretended to be Paul Winterbottom… so you’d know she wasn’t going to go on with it and try to get anyone else to do the job.”
“But she did,” Shayne said flatly. “She found someone who planted a bomb on his boat and tried to kill him that way.”
“You didn’t, did you, Beth? You promised me…”
“I swear I didn’t, Roy. I did have the name of one other man in New York that I didn’t tell you about, and I tried to get him to do it when I stopped off there on my way home. B-b-but he was just like Mr. Wayne.” Tears streamed down her face and she wiped them away with the back of her hand defiantly.
“It seemed like it was foolproof when I made it up,” she sobbed. “Saul Henderson doesn’t deserve to keep on living. And it wouldn’t really have hurt the Graham girl any. She could easily deny knowing anything about it and refuse to pay the money I was promising in her name. And I bet she hates him too and would be glad to see him dead,” she added viciously. “Maybe he never did do to her what I dreamed up and told you, Mr. Wayne, but I bet he did plenty of other things just as bad. I’m not sorry I tried at all. I’m just sorry that I failed.”
“Yeh,” said Roy dismally. “And that Harry got impatient and went down and tried to shake him down on his own. If he’d only waited. We could have figured out something better between us. And no matter what you say,” he went on forcibly, “I don’t believe Harry ever went gunning for him. He hated his guts plenty, and figured he was due at least his share of the money Henderson ran off with, but ten years in prison was plenty for Harry and I swear I don’t believe he’d take a chance on ever getting sent back.”
Shayne looked at his watch and got up. He said, “After all this blows over, Roy, I suggest you take this wife of yours out to Hollywood. She’ll make your fortune for you.”
17
Shayne had time to make one telephone call from the Chicago airport before his jet flight took off. He made that call to Timothy Rourke in Miami, and as a result the reporter was at the airport to meet him when his plane landed at dusk.
“Everything set?” Shayne asked as they went toward the exit together.
Rourke nodded, his thin face serious and unhappy. “I came out in a taxi so we could talk in your car.” He lengthened his stride to match the detective’s as they went toward the car Shayne had parked there at noon. “Lucy has Mrs. Harry Gleason in tow and will meet us at Henderson’s house in half an hour. Will Gentry has persuaded Painter to meet him there, though Will is sore as hell because you jumped off to Chicago without telling him any more about those mysterious fingerprints you turned over to him in connection with the case. And that’s more than you told me about them,” Rourke added angrily as he got in the front seat beside his oldest friend.
Shayne started the motor and threaded his way out of the parking lot and into an eastbound stream of traffic. “What did Gentry tell you about the prints?”
“Just that Washington identifies them as belonging to a wanted man. Whose prints are they, Mike?”
“Saul Henderson’s of course. I’m willing to bet none of your newspaper contacts picked up any back trail of Henderson’s from New York. That should have tipped you off.”
“They didn’t,” Rourke admitted uncomfortably. “Is that what your sudden trip to Chicago was all about?”
Shayne said, “Yeh. Henderson is a worthless bastard, Tim. Harry Gleason took a rap for him twenty years ago and came to Miami to collect when he discovered Henderson was in the chips.”
“Instead, he collected a forty-five slug,” muttered Rourke. “With Henderson absolutely in the clear on that kill whether Gleason threatened him or not.”
Shayne said, “He still has to answer to that old charge.”
“No statute of limitations on it?”
“That’s one question I’ve been afraid to ask,” Shayne admitted irritably. “Arson and possible manslaughter. Are they subject to the statute?”
“Damned if I know. Some states, I guess. Hey! There’s something else, Mike, that bothers hell out of me. That girl. Muriel Graham. The one you said Henderson had brought in as a ringer to fool Painter.”
“What about her?”
“I’ll swear she isn’t, Mike. Isn’t a ringer, I mean. I interviewed her today after Painter put her through his personal ringer, and her fiance was right there with her. A chap named Paul Winterbottom, rather well known locally. She’s the real goods, all right. How could you have made such a mistake?”
