With Martel cognac, if you have it,” she told the hovering waiter gravely, “and just a little easy on the cointreau.”
Shayne grinned and said, “You have been reading the books. I’ll have two or three of the same,” he told the waiter. “Just keep them coming as fast as I finish one.”
“Now,” said Blanche, planting her elbows on the table and becoming suddenly serious. “What is it about Rose? I haven’t heard a single word from her.”
Shayne said, “I’m not just sure how much of it is about Rose. I hope you’ll help me there. Actually, Blanche, a man was murdered in Miami last night, and that’s what I’m working on. His name was Jerome Fitzgilpin.” He watched keenly for the girl’s reaction to the name, and saw a look of puzzled doubt spread slowly over her expressive features.
“Fitz-gilpin?” She repeated the syllables slowly. “Wait a minute. I think I know. Isn’t that the name of the nice, little man who stood up with Rose and Rutherford Rodman when they were married?”
Shayne nodded. “And took you to dinner in the Village afterward.”
“Yes. He was so nice about everything.” She clasped her hands together tightly. “A complete stranger like that. He had just met Rutherford at the hotel the night before. He bought Rose a corsage of tiny yellow rosebuds and insisted on paying for the dinner… with a bottle of champagne and everything. And you say he’s dead? Murdered? Who would murder such a friendly little man?”
“That’s what I hope to find out.” Their sidecars arrived and Shayne sipped his with pleasure. It was astringently cold, with no sugar around the rim of the glass. “Do you remember what he talked about that night? Anything important?”
“I think he was in New York attending some sort of convention. Mostly he talked about young love and marriage. He was married and had a couple of children, I think. He showed us pictures of them. He was so sweet talking about his wife. Still terribly in love with her after being married so long. I remember he said they’d never had a single quarrel in all the years they’d been married. And he was so anxious to get home to her. I didn’t realize he lived in Miami,” she added. “I don’t believe he mentioned that.”
And that was exactly the time Linda had been having her affair with George Nourse, Shayne thought grimly. Poor devil. It had been a hell of a home-coming for him. Aloud, he said, “Tell me about your friend Rose and her husband. Was it a happy marriage?”
“Oh, no. It was dreadful. Perfectly horrible for poor Rose. But it was partly her own fault. I have to admit that. I told her she was out of her mind to marry a man under false pretenses like that, but she was crazily romantic and got caught up in a lie and it kept getting bigger and bigger and she didn’t know how to tell him the truth. She thought it would be all right after they were married, and they’d laugh about it, because you see she thought he had all kinds of money and he wouldn’t mind. But it turned out he was fooling her, too, and had just married her because he thought she was rich.”
“Wait a minute,” protested Shayne. “How long had they known each other?”
“Just about a week. They met at a party and he was introduced to her as a wealthy bachelor from Chicago. So she made up a silly story about having rich parents in Philadelphia and just being in New York on a visit… and… and that’s the way it happened,” she ended helplessly, spreading out her hands. “Rose was actually a salesgirl at Bonwit’s and she spent practically every penny of her salary buying clothes there at a discount. So she did have beautiful things to wear, but not a penny in the bank. And neither did he, as it turned out. He couldn’t even pay his hotel bill at the Commodore a few days later, and he was furious when he discovered she wasn’t rich at all. He was a thoroughly nasty man,” she went on, lowering her eyelids and hesitating. “I didn’t know about this until months later, after he had left her, because she was too ashamed to tell me in the beginning, but he actually wanted her to… well… have men come up to their room at the hotel to get money to pay the bill.”
“Did she?”
“No!” Blanche shot at him. “She was a good girl. They slipped out of the hotel without paying, and she went back to her job and rented a cheap room where they lived for a time. Then he just disappeared one day and she never heard from him again. I didn’t know about any of this until a long time later because she never even called me when it was going on.”
Shayne thoughtfully finished his second cocktail and waited appreciatively while a third was set before him. Then he picked up a menu and suggested, “Shall we order dinner? I have to be back at the airport a little after eight.”
“Yes. Let’s.” She began looking at her menu also, and Shayne asked, “Can you suggest anything in particular?”
“Their pot-au-feu is wonderful, if you like it. They make it as a specialty for two. A whole chicken in one pot, with herbs and vegetables and wine.”
Shayne said, “It sounds perfect to me,” and nodded to the waiter, who was listening attentively.
“When you did see Rose again, her husband had left her?”
“Yes. Just walked out without a word. After she’d been supporting him for two or three months. It was good riddance, of course, and she never wanted to see him again.”
“Did she?”
“I don’t think so. I didn’t see her much for about a year. Then suddenly she called me up about two months ago and asked me to have dinner with her. She was happy and excited… more like the old Rose I’d known before her marriage. And she had some kind of secret scheme for getting a lot of money. Oodles of it, she told me. But she was very mysterious and wouldn’t tell me how she was going to do it. Just that she was going to Miami the next day, and when she came back she’d call me and maybe we’d take a trip around the world together, and like that.
“She was so romantic. Always imagining things and making up stories. Like pretending to be a rich debutante when she first met Rutherford. So I was skeptical when she told me this, but she insisted it was true this time. She seemed so very positive that I was halfway convinced myself. And I kept waiting to hear from her, and never did. Not a word. And I called Bonwit’s after a couple of weeks and they said she’d quit her job and they had no new address for her. And I went around to her old place and they didn’t know anything. Now it’s your turn,” Blanche told Shayne soberly. “I’ve told you everything and you haven’t told me anything.”
“At this point,” said Shayne frankly, “I’m not sure what I’ve got to tell you. Does the name of Kelly mean anything to you? Ever hear Rose mention it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Or George Nourse?”
“No. Who are they?”
“A couple of names that have come up in connection with Fitzgilpin’s murder last night. Both of them more or less leading back to his trip to New York a year and a half ago.”
Shayne paused as their chicken was placed before them in a large earthenware pot. He waited while the waiter deftly served joint portions to them, appreciatively sniffed the aromatic steam arising from his plate, and asked Blanche one final question.
“Did you ever know of Rose having a prescription for sodium amytal? It’s a high-powered sleeping drug.”
“No. Rose never took anything like that while she lived with me. Why?”
“That’s what killed Jerome Fitzgilpin last night. He was poisoned by sodium amytal.”
“Do you suspect Rose had anything to do with his death?” Blanche leaned toward him, her young face showing concern and strain. “Why? What reason can you have?”
“Right now,” growled Shayne, “I’m not being reasonable. I’m clutching at straws. You’ve been frank with me, and you deserve to know the truth. Eat your chicken while I explain what brought me to New York to talk to you.”
He started at the beginning with a recital of Fitzgilpin’s death and the homicide investigation which had followed. When he concluded the story, he spread out his hands and admitted, “That’s all I’ve got, Blanche. Admittedly, it’s damned little. If we only knew what Rose had in mind when she took off for Miami. You say she spoke of a lot of money. How much would have been a lot to a girl like Rose? Ten thousand? Fifty thousand? Half a million?”
“Fifty, I should think. Not ten. Not the way she was talking. But fifty or a hundred thousand would be really big money to her.”
