The Corpse That Never Was

to include Miami so he needed a headquarters while in town. The inference being that he would only be occupying the apartment occasionally. And that seems to be just what he did. From what my men picked up, it was a weekend hangout… more-or-less.”

Shayne nodded. “A convenient place for Mrs. Nathan to visit him every Friday night.”

“That’s what it sounds like. There’s a Mrs. Conrad across the hall…”

Shayne grimaced. “I heard her on the subject last night. She just happened to have her door cracked open every Friday evening… but, hell, Lucy knows her and says the old biddy can be trusted to know what goes on in the building. So…?” He leaned back and spread out both hands expressively. “That’s all we’ve got. You read those notes, Will. Did they sound authentic to you? The sort of thing a man would write under those circumstances?”

“How in hell would I know? I’m not a psychiatrist. And we don’t know what kind of man Lambert was.”

Shayne scowled and leaned forward to rub out his cigarette in a big ashtray. “That’s right. We don’t. Where was Paul Nathan last night?”

“On the town. His regular Friday night out… so he says. Drifting around here and on the Beach donating his wife’s money to the gambling tables. He made out a list of the joints he’d been to in the course of the night, with approximate times at each place. It looks pretty good for an alibi from eight o’clock on. Want to see it?”

Chief Gentry selected a sheet and slid it over to Shayne. The redhead glanced down at the list of nightspots, and asked, “Did you check this itinerary out?”

“For God’s sake, Mike! On Saturday morning?” Will Gentry gritted his teeth together so hard that they bit through the chewed end of the cigar and a portion of it fell to the desk in front of him. He glared down at it, picked it up with stubby fingers and threw it toward a spittoon in the corner, spitting the fragment from his mouth after it. Then he rested both elbows on the desk and nestled his blunt chin against his palms.

“No,” he grated. “We didn’t check Paul Nathan’s alibi for the time of his wife’s suicide. Eli Armbruster didn’t pay us for that particular little chore.”

Shayne nodded imperturbably, folding the sheet of paper. “Mind if I keep this?”

“Hell, no. You’re welcome to it. Anything else you want?”

“I’d like to take one of the suicide notes, Will. Preferably the first one.”

“How about this one to go along with them?” Will Gentry scrabbled among the papers in front of him, pulled out a square sheet of heavy white notepaper folded into four thicknesses. The creases were deep and it showed signs of much handling. Shayne unfolded it slowly and saw that the handwriting looked similar to that of the suicide notes he had read last night. The letter was dated a month previously, and the salutation was: “Elsa, My own sweet.”

He sucked in a deep breath and three vertical creases formed above his nose as he settled back to read it.

“I cannot endure to continue existing as we are at present. My body cries out for your body, and my need for you is not fulfilled during the fleeting and fragmentary moments we are able to steal together.

“I am going to make different arrangements, darling, so we will have hours instead of moments lying in each other’s arms. I will find a private place known only to us where we can meet freely and happily.

“I will telephone you next Friday at the regular time.

“I love you more blissfully each passing day and can scarcely wait to hold you in my arms again.

“Your own

“Bobbie-Boy”

Shayne put the letter down and demanded, “Where the devil did you get this?”

“In a zippered side compartment inside Mrs. Nathan’s purse, along with a couple of credit cards. And here are the two suicide notes.”

“Did you show this letter to Eli Armbruster this morning?”

“No,” Gentry admitted sourly. “I hated to hit him with that, too. He’s so damned certain that his daughter couldn’t have been carrying on that sort of affair. This clinches it, seems to me.”

Shayne shrugged. “I’ve still been paid to do a job. He’ll never be happy until he has absolute proof that Paul Nathan couldn’t have had anything to do with it. That’s why I’m going to go over his alibi with a finetoothed comb.”

Gentry exhaled a long breath and nodded slowly, rubbing his chin with the back of his left hand. “Guys like Armbruster rub me the wrong way,” he rumbled. “Just because it’s his daughter. An Armbruster, by God. Like I said before… if it was Mrs. John Smith…”

“The basic difference is,” Shayne told him cheerfully, “that Mrs. John Smith’s daddy couldn’t afford to write a check the size Armbruster wrote this morning.” He got to his feet slowly, folding the papers in his big hands. “Can I get into the apartment?”

“No reason why you can’t. See Lieutenant Hawkins down the hall. He’s got the keys and all the dope. Keep me up-to-date, huh?”

Shayne said, “Sure,” and went out with a wave of his big hand, and down the hall to the office of Homicide Lieutenant Hawkins where he was given the key to the apartment above Lucy Hamilton’s. He also ascertained that Sergeant Deitch, the department fingerprint expert, who had answered the call the night before, was off duty until four o’clock that afternoon, and got his telephone number at home. Garroway, the lab technician, who had accompanied the Homicide Squad, was on duty in the police laboratory at the end of the hall, and Shayne found him alone and idle when he walked in a few minutes later.

Garroway was young and alert and serious and college-trained. He knew the redheaded private detective by sight, and got to his feet quickly. “It’s Michael Shayne, isn’t it? I saw you at that apartment last night.” He studied Shayne with frank curiosity from behind thick-lensed, horn-rimmed glasses.

Shayne nodded casually. “When do you go off duty?”

“At noon.”

“Want to do a little job for me? Over-time rates,” Shayne added with a grin.

“Sure. What is it?”

“A follow-up on that suicide last night. I know you gave it a superficial once-over last night, but I want the works.”

A faint flush crept into the young man’s cheeks and he answered guardedly, “I think we checked it out pretty well. It was perfectly obvious…”

“Let’s forget the obvious. Did you analyze, for instance, that wet spot on the carpet near the kitchen door beside the empty cocktail glass?”

“No. But the glass contained traces of the same poison mixture as the other glass beside the woman. Potassium ferricyanide. The second suicide note explained clearly…”

Shayne shook his head with a grin that was intended to take the sting out of his words. “That’s the sort of thing I mean. I know the lieutenant pushed you through last night, but this time I want everything. Could you meet me there with your equipment about twelve-thirty? I’ll have Deitch, too. A hundred bucks for an hour’s work.”

“Well… sure. But you don’t need to pay me. That is… if you think I overlooked anything…”

Shayne said, “My client can afford to pay you. Fine. Twelve-thirty.”

He left police headquarters by a side door, glancing at his watch as he went to his parked car at the curb. Not quite eleven o’clock. The News was an afternoon paper and Timothy Rourke might be at his desk in the City Room.

And he hadn’t yet telephoned Deitch at home to enlist the fingerprint expert for the job that had to be done. He’d call him from Rourke’s office. And then he had to get hold of Robert Lambert’s signature from the apartment house manager…

CHAPTER FIVE

The elongated reporter was slouched at his desk with a cigarette dangling from a corner of his mouth, languidly tapping out copy with one nicotine-stained forefinger when Shayne pulled up a chair beside him. He stopped his typing and leaned back with a wide yawn.

“Just the man I want to see. I’m finishing off the Armbruster story. You got anything new from last