The Corpse That Never Was

She moved a step forward into the living room, rounding her eyes wonderingly, and said, “Why shouldn’t I, Michael? What’s on your mind tonight?”

“This,” he told her roughly, waving a big hand around the living room of her apartment. “Everything, Angel. That dinner you just fed me. You deserve better than this, Lucy.”

“Do I?” Her eyes rounded and widened further. “I don’t think I understand you, Michael.”

He said harshly, “You should be married, Lucy. You deserve a home… and children.”

She stood very straight and still, regarding him un-blinkingly. She said tautly, “How nice of you to say so. I wasn’t aware…”

He broke in on her, turning his head with a scowl that brought his ragged eyebrows together above his nose: “You know this isn’t worth a damn, Angel. You’re not getting any younger, goddamnit.” He hesitated, shaking his head slowly, his gray eyes clouded with pain. “You know I’ll never marry again, Lucy.”

“I know,” she told him steadily. “So…?”

“So,” he said roughly, “you’re throwing away your youth on a job.”

“I’m not so young, Michael.”

“Plenty young enough to grab a husband if you’d just go looking,” he grated.

“Perhaps I don’t want to go looking.”

Michael Shayne had no answer for that simple statement. The warmth and sincerity of her tone precluded further discussion along that line. Shayne turned back and took a sip of cognac and allowed himself to enjoy it completely. He said indolently, “At the very least I could dry the dishes for you so you could come in and relax with a drink,” but he made no move to get up, and Lucy told him lightly:

“We’ll let God dry the dishes, and I will have a nightcap with you.”

She disappeared into the kitchen and returned in a moment with a highball glass a quarter full of water. She put ice cubes in it and poured cognac from the bottle, and then settled herself on the sofa companionably beside her employer.

He lit cigarettes for both of them and they smoked silently.

Into this silence the dull, muffled sound of an explosion intruded. It sounded as though it came from inside the apartment house almost directly above them, and Lucy jerked tensely erect, spilling some of her drink and looking at Shayne with wide frightened eyes.

“What was that?”

He, too, sat erect, his face drawn, listening intently. “It sounded like some sort of small bomb.” He got to his feet and moved slowly toward the door and opened it onto the hallway.

The silence held for a moment, and then they began to hear the excited babble of voices from the next floor above. Lucy was close behind him as he strode into the hall and began climbing the stairs.

Doors stood open along the next hallway, and half a dozen people were grouped in front of a closed door halfway down the hall. The men were in their shirtsleeves and two of the women wore lounging robes. They were knocking on the door and rattling the knob and talking excitedly:

“… know it came from in there.” “Why don’t they answer?” “Know they’re both in there.” “… saw him let her in about fifteen minutes ago.” “What do you suppose it was?”

Shayne pushed into the group and asked authoritatively, “Are you sure it came from this room?”

There were nods and positive affirmatives. “The door’s locked and there’s no answer.”

Shayne dropped to one knee in front of the door and put his head down to sniff at the small crack at the bottom of the door. His gaunt features tightened as he caught the unmistakably acrid smell of gunpowder.

He got to his feet and ordered, “Stand back, all of you,” drew back against the opposite wall and lowered his right shoulder, drove his hundred and ninety pounds against the door with all the force he could get in the narrow space.

There was the protesting screech of screws being torn from wood and the door gave inward, but only a few inches where it was held by a safety chain that was fastened inside.

The acrid odor came out more strongly now, and Shayne drew himself back and hit the door a second time.

The chain gave under the impact and the door crashed open, catapulting the redhead halfway into the room where he staggered to retain his balance.

They crowded into the doorway behind him, and he backed slowly toward them, grimly taking in the death scene that confronted him.

He turned and his gaunt cheeks were deeply trenched. He said, “Stand back, all of you.” And then, “Lucy!”

“Yes, Michael?” Her voice came from the outside of the group.

“Go down to your room and call police headquarters. Report a double homicide.”

She called back, “Right away,” and her running footsteps receded down the hall.

Shayne spread both his arms out and moved toward the excited and frightened group in the doorway. “It isn’t nice to look at,” he said harshly. “Go back to your own rooms and stay there. The police will have questions to ask all of you.” He closed the door firmly in their faces, disregarding their questions and protests.

CHAPTER TWO

During the many years spent in the active practice of his profession, Michael Shayne had encountered violent death in various forms and manifestations. But never, in all those years, had his eyes encountered a more gruesome sight than the one which confronted him now as he stood with his back against the door.

The apartment was identical in design and decor with that of Lucy Hamilton’s on the floor below. The dead woman lay in the middle of the sitting room, her limbs rigid and contorted in the death spasm, her features twisted in a grimace of terrible anguish.

She appeared to be in her middle thirties, with a svelte and well-fleshed figure, dressed in an expensive- looking cocktail gown of nile-green silk, and Shayne had a feeling that she had probably been an attractive woman in life. There were diamond rings on her fingers, a choker of what looked like real pearls about her throat, her reddish brown hair was carefully done, and her fingernails were manicured to a dull sheen.

With an effort, Shayne transferred his somber gaze to what was left of the man slumped half-in and half-out of a deep upholstered chair a few feet beyond the woman’s body and close to the window.

A twelve gauge shotgun lay on the floor beside the chair. Shayne had seen enough suicides in the past to know that the muzzle of the gun must have been in the man’s mouth when the trigger was pulled. The terrific force of exploding gases from the shotgun blast had literally blown the man’s head from his shoulders. There was not enough left of his features to determine whether he was young or old, blond or brunette.

He wore yellow silk pajamas and a brocade dressing gown, and was barefooted. There was a great deal of blood and bits of skull and brains were spattered on the wall behind him.

Michael Shayne stood against the door for a long moment without moving. The bedroom door stood open and a window in that room was evidently open because a light breeze was blowing into the sitting room, slowly dissipating the acrid smell of gunpowder which had been strong when he first crashed the door in.

An overturned cocktail glass lay on the rug a couple of feet from the woman’s body. There was no damp stain on the rug beside it, indicating that the glass had been empty when she dropped it there. Another cocktail glass lay overturned just this side of the open kitchen door. A large area of wetness on the rug in front of the glass was evidence that it had been full, or nearly full, when it was dropped.

On a low table at Shayne’s left near the front door were a neatly folded pair of lady’s dark silk gloves and a wide-brimmed hat.

When every detail of the scene of double death was indelibly implanted in Michael Shayne’s memory, he moved forward slowly, skirting the woman’s body, stopping beside the low coffee table in front of the sofa and looking down at two sheets of paper lying there, both carrying scrawled messages in ink.

Shayne sat on the sofa and leaned forward to read them, careful not to touch or disturb anything.

Both were in the same cramped handwriting, but one was shorter than the other. It said:

“To whom it may concern: