“Cut it out,” Shayne said wearily. “You know it’s all down in the police records. You told them you drove Elsie home from the party and left her at her door. You also told them that you went on from there to Estelle’s place and visited with her for a few hours, drinking and making a little innocent love to her while Elbert Green was getting himself killed in the Beloit Hotel… and that was your alibi.”
“It was true, too,” flared Estelle. “If he’d needed an alibi. Which he didn’t. Why should Lew have killed anybody?”
“I don’t know,” Shayne confessed. “The police never did establish a motive for Green’s death. But they also were never able to establish the identity of the woman who registered at the hotel with Green that night. I think I can.”
“And who do you think it was, master-mind?” Recker had recovered his sneering poise now.
“Elsie, of course. As you very well know. As you knew very well at the time. You perjured yourself, and that happens to be a felony in New York.”
“Perjured myself? When and how?” His voice was airy.
“When you gave the police your story of the evening.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I certainly did not perjure myself. I believe I can prove I answered every question truthfully.”
“That’s quibbling. Let’s say, then, that you withheld important evidence. You may have told your story accurately up to the point where Elsie turned up at Estelle’s apartment and broke up the thing you were having. But you left that part out. And so did you, Estelle, when the police questioned you.”
“Lew and I agreed to say nothing about it,” she faltered. “We both liked Elsie and knew she could have had nothing to do with that man’s death. Wouldn’t you do as much for a friend you knew was innocent?”
“How could you know she was innocent?”
“Anyone who knew Elsie would know.” Estelle spread out her hands nervously. “Lew and I felt sorry for her and knew it would sound awfully suspicious to the police if they learned she didn’t know what she had been doing or where she’d been during those four hours. They never would have believed she hadn’t gone to the hotel with Mr. Green.”
“I agree with you there,” said Shayne. “Are you going to claim now that you didn’t know she was the woman who registered with Green as Mr. and Mrs. Pell?”
“I’m still sure she wasn’t,” said Estelle spiritedly. “Even passed out, Elsie wouldn’t do a loathsome thing like that.”
“All this is beside the point,” put in Recker. “Stop discussing it with him, darling. He has no official standing at all. If the police want to ask us any questions, we’ll answer them.”
“You’ll answer me… and fast,” Shayne told him harshly. “From what Estelle has just said, I gather you didn’t tell even her about the midnight phone call Elsie made to Green.”
“Telephone call! Telephone call! What telephone call?” demanded Recker irritably. “It’s the first I heard of it. Who says she made such a call?”
“I do.”
“Why? Where did you get such an idea?” Recker’s voice rose shrilly.
“Let’s just say I have private sources of information, I do know she called Green from the bar down the street after borrowing a dime from Jack, the bartender.”
“But he denied it,” Estelle reminded him swiftly. “I heard him myself.”
“He’ll change his story and admit the truth when the pressure goes on.” Shayne spoke directly to Recker. “No matter how much money you or Elsie paid him to remain quiet, he’ll not stay bought when the Homicide boys start pounding. So you may as well start admitting the truth right now.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Recker stubbornly.
Shayne leaned forward and slapped him hard. The force of the open-handed blow knocked him sprawling on the floor.
Estelle screamed and came at the redhead with contorted face and fingers curved into claws. All trace of patrician hauteur had departed. Invectives spewed from her lips when Shayne caught both wrists in one hand and swung her aside to hold her helpless while he glared down at Recker.
“I want one name from you two. A name and an address. Who is the man who completed Elsie’s fake alibi for that night by claiming he was in her apartment with her during the time we all know she was with Green?”
Lew Recker lay on his side on the floor, tears of mortification and rage spilling from his eyes. “I don’t know who you mean. I swear I don’t know… “
Shayne released Estelle, flinging her back and away from him so she collided with the typewriter desk before the window. He took one step forward to tower over the prone man, swinging his right foot back and grating, “You know, all right. The married man whom Elsie played up to at the party before she turned her attention to Elbert Green. You and she quarrelled about him early in the evening. Give me his name or so help me sweet Jesus I’ll kick your face into a pulp none of your women will ever recognize again.”
Recker writhed away on the floor from the menacing foot, stark panic in his eyes, “No,” he moaned. “For God’s sake, no.”
“Tell him, Lew,” sobbed Estelle from behind Shayne. “Why shouldn’t you tell him? He will kick you if you don’t. He’s capable of anything. Can’t you see he’s raving mad with some sort of obsession? He means David Jenson, of course. I don’t know why it’s important, but let him go take out his madness on Dave.”
“All right,” flared Recker despairingly, scrambling away on hands and knees. “I don’t know why Jenson is important. He’s just another one of the men Elsie liked to kiss when she was tight.”
“He’s also the man,” Shayne grated, “who backed up the lie you told for Elsie that night. David Jenson. Where does he live?”
“A long way uptown,” said Recker sullenly, getting to his feet and holding a handkerchief against his reddened cheek. “His address is in the telephone book.”
“Is he a writer, too?”
“Of sorts,” said Recker indifferently. “He does radio scripts, I think.”
“A member of your mystery writers organization?”
“I believe he is, though he doesn’t come around to meetings much.”
“Was he at the banquet last night?”
“I didn’t see him if he was. Of course, there was a frightful mob. See here,” continued Recker querulously, “what is all this about a mysterious telephone call Elsie is supposed to have made three months ago, and Dave Jenson? I simply don’t get any of it.”
“You’re lying in your teeth,” Shayne told him. “There’s nothing mysterious about the phone call, as you well know. Elsie made it and met Green that night. Both you and Jenson know that. You covered up for her at the time… and now she’s dead. Get Jenson’s telephone number,” he went on harshly. “You’re going to call him and tell him exactly what I tell you to say.”
Lew Recker shrugged with an elaborate attempt at nonchalance and went to the telephone stand. He took out the Manhattan directory and thumbed through it, wetting his lips and turning to ask, “What do you want me to tell Dave if he’s home?”
“Tell him this.” Shayne moved forward to stand beside Recker. “That he’s to come here at once. That the alibi you and he fixed up for Elsie Murray on Green’s death three months ago is blowing up in your faces since her death last night and things look bad. Insist that he come here immediately. One single word of warning from you to him about what he’s walking into will get you the goddamnedest beating you ever wrote about in any of your lousy books.”
Lew Recker fearfully wet his lips again as he glanced back at the telephone book. Shayne leaned over his shoulder to check the number, and watched carefully while Recker dialed it. He stood ominously close with right fist doubled while Recker waited for an answer, and then said:
“Is that you, Lucy? Lew Recker. Is Dave there?” He turned his head to nod at Shayne, waited another few moments and then drew in a deep breath to say rapidly:
“Lew Recker, Dave. I suppose you know about Elsie Murray last night?”
He listened for a long moment, then broke in impatiently: “Let’s not discuss it over the phone. Come down to my place at once, Dave. It’s damned important. We’ve got to decide what to do. The police have been here and they’re digging into the old Green affair. Remember?”
