The Corpse That Never Was

“Were the bedroom windows of that particular apartment locked on the inside last night?”

Michael Shayne hesitated, scowling heavily. He recalled standing there with his back to the door looking down at the two bodies, and the acrid smell of discharged gunpowder in the room. And he distinctly recalled the light breeze blowing in from the bedroom which dissipated the odor.

He said, “As a matter of fact, Mr. Armbruster, I’m quite certain that the bedroom window was open at the time.”

“Aha! But no one… including you, Shayne… thought that significant?”

“Frankly, no. We had no reason to suspect…”

“Exactly what I have been trying to point out to you,” crowed Eli Armbruster triumphantly. “It was all so cut-and-dried. Thinking back over it now, you can’t be positive there wasn’t a third person in that apartment when the shotgun went off, can you? A third person who went out the bedroom window onto the fire escape while you were running up the stairs and breaking down the locked door?”

Shayne shook his red head and confessed, “No. I can’t be positive. On the other hand…”

“Wait a minute,” ordered Armbruster peremptorily. “Stop right there, Shayne. This is all I asked in the beginning. That you allow a tiny iota of doubt to enter your mind. No more than that. Only that two and two do not have to always equal four. Will you take the case?”

“I still don’t admit there is a case, Armbruster. I think you’ll be wasting your money…”

“Whose money is it?” bristled the erect old man. “I’ve got millions to waste if I see fit, Shayne. All I want from you is your promise to suspend judgment and make a thorough investigation of this affair, putting aside any preconceived ideas of what may or may not have happened before you broke the door into that apartment. I want to know who Robert Lambert was, how he met my daughter, and what he meant to her. I don’t expect you to whitewash Elsa, Shayne. I want the truth… so far as you can ascertain what the truth is. For this, I will pay you a retainer of ten thousand dollars. This is not contingent on anything… except that you will take the case and investigate it to the best of your ability.”

Shayne said, “I’m afraid you’ll be wasting your money, Mr. Armbruster.”

“Will you allow me to be the judge of that?”

Michael Shayne hesitated, and then shrugged his wide shoulders. “It’s difficult to turn down a fee like that,” he conceded. “You’ve hired yourself a private detective, Mr. Armbruster.”

“Splendid. But that is only one part of my proposition, Shayne.” The old man leaned forward and his voice became deadly serious. “I will pay… happily… an additional fifty thousand dollars for evidence that will convict Paul Nathan of my daughter’s murder.”

Shayne blinked at this. He shook his red head slightly, as though to reassure himself that he had heard correctly. “You’re not trying to tempt me, are you?”

“Tempt you, Sir?”

“To manufacture evidence,” Shayne said evenly.

“Certainly not,” snapped Armbruster. “I’m convinced in my own mind that Paul Nathan engineered my daughter’s death somehow.”

“In the name of God, how?”

“You’re the detective, Shayne. That is for you to discover. I know the man is a wastrel and a scoundrel. A thoroughly evil man, Shayne. I am convinced that he married my daughter only because she was a wealthy woman, and when he discovered that she was also a strong-willed woman who had no intention of turning her fortune over to him, I am certain in my own mind that he plotted her death.”

Shayne said, “That is a strong accusation.”

“I mean it to be. I would gladly make it publicly if that would accomplish anything. I warned Elsa. I begged her months ago to give the man a divorce and a cash settlement that would take him out of her life forever. She refused. Elsa was a peculiar woman, Shayne. There was a lot of Armbruster in her. She had a feeling for property. What she bought, she held onto. In her own mind, I am convinced that she realized full well that she had bought a husband when she married Paul Nathan. She was perfectly willing to pay the price but she had no intention of relinquishing her purchase.”

“Did she love him?”

“Love?” Eli Armbruster’s voice sneered at the word. “I’m not at all sure that Elsa was capable of love. You see, as I told you at the beginning of this interview, I knew my own daughter, Shayne. For years, I have had no illusions about Elsa. Love? I simply don’t know. She wanted Paul Nathan as a husband. She bought him. She was prepared to pay a high price for keeping him. This is one of the reasons why it is so difficult for me to accept the premise that she had fallen head over heels with some stranger named Robert Lambert… was visiting him in that dingy apartment on the sly… and had got in so deep that she was prepared to take her own life for the sake of… love? No. There is some other answer. One of the things you should know, for instance, is that Nathan asked her for a divorce some months ago, having the effrontery to demand a cash settlement of a quarter of a million dollars to remove himself from her life. Being Elsa, she refused… although I advised her to rid herself of the fellow even on those terms.

“Thus, she was fully aware that if she ever gave him grounds for divorce, he would sue immediately. There are many cases in which Florida courts have awarded alimony or substantial cash settlements to impecunious husbands who have proved adultery against their wives in a divorce court. If for no other reason in the world, Elsa would never have laid herself open to such charges which could be proved.”

Shayne said, “People do all sorts of irrational things when driven by love… or sex… whichever you prefer to call it.”

“People, yes,” agreed Armbruster. “But not Elsa. I tell you, Shayne…”

“I know,” said Shayne, holding up a big hand to cut the man off. “You’ve made your point. Don’t try to over- sell it. At this point, I have an open mind about your daughter. I’ll want differing viewpoints from yours to round out my picture of her.”

Armbruster said stiffly, “Of course. You know your business best and I’m sure you have your own methods. Bear in mind, however, that my offer stands. A retainer of ten thousand for you to handle the case. An additional fifty thousand the day Paul Nathan is convicted of my daughter’s murder.”

“I shan’t forget,” Shayne told him easily. “I’ll have my secretary draw up a brief memorandum on that basis, and will mail it to you for your signature.”

“Do that, Shayne.” Eli Armbruster arose to his feet with the agility of a middle-aged athlete. “In the meantime, I will leave my check at her desk on my way out.”

“There’s no need for that,” Shayne protested arising behind his desk. “You can pay me when…”

“I wish to make the initial payment now, if you don’t mind. I want you to be thoroughly convinced that it is in no way contingent upon what you discover. I am buying only an honest and thorough investigation. Please report to me as soon as you have learned anything of interest.” With that, he turned his back and marched out of Michael Shayne’s office.

The detective sank back into his swivel chair and lit a cigarette, scowling morosely. He liked the old man, and he didn’t like the case one little bit. For that kind of money, he didn’t have to like the case, he reminded himself. He wondered what sort of woman Elsa Armbruster had been in life, what kind of unpleasant truths concerning his daughter Armbruster was destined to hear before Shayne had earned his fee.

He was puffing on his cigarette and still scowling when Lucy tripped in lightly through the open door, her face beaming while she waved a slip of green paper in the air.

“Shame on you, Michael,” she exclaimed in a voice that completely belied her words. “What did you tell the old boy to hypnotize him into this? Ten thousand whole dollars! He didn’t even say what it was for. Just got a blank check out of his wallet and wrote it out… then tossed it over to me as though he were buying a couple of movie tickets, and walked out.”

Shayne said, “That’s a down payment on my integrity, Angel.”

She looked at him blankly and said, “Oh?”

“That’s right. There’s fifty grand more if I can conjure up evidence to convict his son-in-law of murder.”

“You mean… last night? But you said that was suicide, Michael.”

“It is… officially.” Shayne shrugged and said, “Sit down and take a letter of agreement. If Paul Nathan is the louse Armbruster thinks he is, maybe I will hang a murder rap on him.”

“Whether he’s guilty or not?” Lucy asked matter-of-factly as she sat down across the desk from him and