The Homicidal Virgin (5 page)

“What sort of man is he personally?”

“I met him once at some civic dinner. Bland, easygoing type. Pleasing personality.”

Shayne said harshly, “I’d like the opportunity to size him up for myself.”

“Easiest thing in the world. He’s been tossing some parties since his wife’s death. I’ll get you and Lucy an invite.”

“Why Lucy?” Despite himself, Shayne was unable to keep a note of venom out of his voice.

If Rourke detected it he gave no indication. “I’d say Saul Henderson has got a roving eye for a pretty gal. Lucy’s more likely to make time with him than you are.”

Shayne said, “All right. Maybe I can concentrate on the stepdaughter. Don’t forget it—the sooner the better.”

Rourke said, “I’ll ask around in the right places tomorrow.” He half turned back to the door, hesitated, and asked, “You still determined to clam up on Jane Smith?”

“I have to, Tim.”

The telephone rang and Shayne grabbed for it. Rourke paused to listen, halfway out the door.

The desk clerk’s voice said conspiratorially, “There’s a doll here to see you, Mr. Shayne. A real doll.”

He said, “Send her on up, Pete.”

“Sure. I would’ve, but I thought maybe you’d like a chance to get rid of that reporter first… for one like this here.”

Shayne said, “Tim Rourke is on his way out.” He hung up and stood up, moved toward the door telling Rourke pleasantly, “You are, you know. Down the stairs, Tim.”

He took his arm firmly and led him past the elevator. “You don’t need to give me the bum’s rush,” Rourke protested. “Is it Jane Smith?”

“I don’t know, but I’m hoping. Down the stairs with you, pal, and no peeking when I meet the elevator.” He heard it stopping behind him and gave the reporter a little shove down the stairs, then turned and strode back along the corridor as the elevator door opened.

A woman got out and paused uncertainly. She wore a low-necked ruby-red dress with a short-sleeved Angora jacket, and Harlequin glasses that were tinted a light blue.

She turned toward him as she heard his approaching footsteps, and smiled tentatively when she recognized him. Shayne stopped beside her and took her arm. She was taller than he had realized in the Crystal Room, the top of her head just level with his eyes. She said, “I am pleased to see you again, Mr. Shayne. I am in great trouble.”

Shayne said, “It’s an unexpected pleasure.” He turned her toward his open door and she walked beside him with a lithe, free-swinging stride, matching her steps exactly with his. Inside his sitting room, he closed the door while she moved across to the sofa against the wall and sat down. “I took the chance of coming directly to you without telephoning because I did not know what I could say over the telephone. How was I to explain that I… tried to pick you up in a bar earlier tonight and had you taken away from me by a prettier and younger girl?”

“Younger, certainly. I can probably whip up a better stinger than they gave you in the bar.”

“That would be nice.” She spoke with gravity and the same faint trace of a foreign accent which he had discerned in her voice earlier.

He picked up the cognac bottle from the center table, paused beyond the end of the sofa to reach for a squat bottle of white crème de menthe from a wall cabinet. In the small kitchen he half filled a quart measuring pitcher with ice cubes, poured in a brimming cup of cognac and a careful three ounces of the sweet liqueur. Stirring it leisurely with a tablespoon, he carried the pitcher back to the table and got two cocktail glasses from the cabinet. He filled both of them and crossed to hand her one, then returned to lounge into his chair by the table. She took a sip and nodded, “Yours is better, Mr. Shayne.”

He said, “You have the advantage of me.”

“My name is Hilda Gleason. Mrs. Harry Gleason. I was sure I recognized the famous private detective even when you said your name was Wayne and the pretty girl called you that.”

Shayne asked, “Is that why you came to my table tonight?”

“Yes. I sat at the bar, distraught and frightened and so alone. And I recognized you from pictures in the papers, and the thought came to me that Michael Shayne was the one person in the whole world who might be able to help me. So I got up my nerve to approach you, and then… pouf! You were otherwise occupied.”

“What sort of help do you need, Mrs. Gleason?”

“To find my husband before… before there comes a tragedy and it is too late to prevent it. He is in Miami and I cannot find him.” She was sitting very erect, taking short compulsive sips from her cocktail glass and staring at him over the rim from behind the blue-tinted glasses.

He said, “Relax and tell me about it. And for God’s sake, can’t you take off those glasses? I’ve got a hunch you’re hiding a pair of beautiful eyes behind them and it seems a silly thing to do.”

Dutifully she removed her Harlequin glasses. Her eyes were soft brown and luminous. Without her glasses, Shayne decided she must be in her late thirties.

“Harry came to Miami a week ago from our home in Illinois near Chicago. For some reason that he refused to tell me, but I sensed it had danger for him. Something to do with getting a large sum of money. He made big promises with hints about this and that, you understand, though I begged him to do nothing foolish. But he has become a changed man in the last two months. Silent and brooding much of the time, and with wild fits of anger against the unjustness of life that we have so little when others less deserving have so much. And it angered him when I said we were comfortable with his salary and mine, and that I could be happy with so little, and this thing grew and festered in his mind while he formed some plan for getting money which I think is dangerous.”

“This is all pretty ambiguous, Mrs. Gleason. Tell me more about your husband as a person. What does he do for a living?”

“He’s a bartender. He is a fine man,” she went on in a rush of words. “We have been married ten years with great happiness.”

“And now you’re afraid he’s embarked on some criminal enterprise in the hopes of getting a big wad of money fast?”

“That is what I fear, yes.”

“But you have no idea what sort of plan he has in mind?”

“No. He does not tell me this. Only in a note, that he is leaving for Miami and when he returns in a week or two we will have much money. I must find him in this city, but I do not know where to look. So when I see you in the bar tonight I think this is Providence. Michael Shayne is the man who will know. And now you sit so far across the room from me, and so cold. It is difficult to say things.” She smiled tremulously and, Shayne thought, seductively.

He emptied his glass and crossed to the sofa to sit close beside her. “How do you think I can find your husband? Do you have any ideas? Does he have any friends here?”

“Nothing. There is no one.” Her right hand, lying on the sofa between them, lifted to grip his forearm, softly at first and then with surprising strength. “I am a woman alone, Mr. Shayne. I must find Harry soon. If I can talk to him, I know I can make him see he must not do this thing he plans. I have not much money, but… I beg you will find him for me.” She was leaning close to him and her moist red lips were parted, her eyes humidly brilliant and imploring.

He said, “I don’t know what I can do.”

“But they say this is your city, Mr. Shayne. That you know the secret places and have ways of getting information that is not known even to the police. Without your help it is hopeless.”

“Unless you can give me some sort of lead it’s still hopeless. If you had any idea what he’s up to… what sort of contacts he has here…”

“There is that girl,” she said convulsively. “I know she is evil. That she has led Harry to this.” Her brown eyes became round and more luminous, staring into his. Her fingers hurt the hard flesh of his arm.

“What girl?”

“The one who spoke to you tonight. Who called you ‘Mike Wayne’ at the table. Whom you walked out with and went up in the elevator with. What did she tell you? What did she want of you? Did she say the name of Harry Gleason?”

“Jane Smith?” ejaculated Shayne in complete surprise. “What do you know about her?”

“That she is young and beautiful. That she can twist men around her little finger to do her bidding. As she twisted Harry and, as I have no doubt, she tried to twist you tonight. For what purpose, Mr. Shayne? Why did she take you to her room? To offer her young body in exchange for what?” She was against him suddenly, the cocktail glass dropping to the floor, sobbing in terrible anguish, burying her face against his shoulder, and he felt the seeping warmth of saliva from her open mouth and the wetness of tears through his shirt.

He put his arm tightly about her shoulders and held her until the paroxysm of weeping subsided, then released her gently and pressed her back against the cushion. He stooped to pick up her glass and carried it across the table for a refill. He said cheerfully, “Drink that and then tell me about the girl. Everything you know about her.”

She took the glass from him, touching her eyes with a handkerchief. He deliberately turned his back on her while he poured another drink for himself and drank it, and then sank back into his chair and grinned across at her. “I’ll be able to listen better with a little distance between us.”

She said formally, “I am sorry that I gave way to emotion.”

“I’m not. It was damned pleasant while it lasted. Now, this Jane Smith. What do you know about her?”

“That is her name? Jane Smith?”

“That’s the name she gave me.”

“I did not know.” Hilda sipped her drink reflectively. “She came once to the town of Algonquin where we live. It was a week or two weeks after Harry first started to change and be angry about life and money. There was a long-distance call from a town near Chicago, fifty miles south from us. Denton, Illinois. It was for Harry and he listened and grunted yes and no, and I went to the kitchen, and at the end he said in a low voice, ‘I quit work at twelve at the Elite Bar. I’ll talk to you then.’ And he hung up and did not mention the conversation to me afterward.

“And a little before midnight I went to the bar where Harry worked and looked in the window. She was there on a stool. I did not know her, but I knew she was the one. I waited in the street shadow until midnight when the bar closed, and Harry came out with her. They got in a parked car and she drove away. Harry did not come home for two hours.”

Hilda emptied her glass and pursed her lips, looking down at it and continuing her recital in a monotone:

“There were no more calls and I did not see her after that. But Harry got worse. His irritation and his threatening of what he would do. I knew it was that girl. I knew she preyed on his mind and he was planning something bad, but I didn’t know what it was.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Four or five weeks ago.”

“Did Harry say anything about her to you?”

“Never a word. And I didn’t ask. I always believed a man had a right to his own secrets.”

“And he left home without telling you what he planned to do in Miami?”

“That’s right. With just a note for me when I got home from work.”

“How did you locate Jane Smith here?”

“That was purely fate. It was this afternoon on the street. I saw her getting on a Miami Beach bus and I knew her at once. So I suspected Harry had come here to meet her, and I got on the same bus and got off when she did and followed her to that expensive hotel. I stayed around the lobby a long time thinking maybe I’d see Harry, and went back this evening to wait some more. And when you came in the bar I recognized you right away and decided I’d ask you to help me. Then
she
came in and walked over and took you away from me. Who is she and what has she got to do with Harry?”

Shayne said, “I don’t know,” with real perplexity. “I met her for the first time tonight. In fact when you came over and sat at my table I thought you were Jane Smith.”

“Is it a detective case you’re working on?”

“Sort of.”

“Make her tell you where Harry is, Mr. Shayne. All I want is to see him and talk to him before he does something dreadful. I know I can persuade him to come back home with me. I don’t care what he’s done with her. I love him and I want him back.”

“I don’t even know that I’ll see Jane Smith again,” he told her cautiously.

“How else will I ever find him?”

Shayne shook his head slowly, tugging at his earlobe. What on earth had a girl from Miami Beach been doing out in a small town in Illinois a month ago meeting a married bartender after working hours? Had she already been started on her quest for a man to murder her stepfather? Had a certain Harry Gleason of Algonquin, Illinois, been suggested to her by someone as a likely prospect for the job? If she had made such an offer and he accepted, why had she sent that ad to the newspaper?

He said slowly, “One thing I think I can reassure you about, Mrs. Gleason. From things the girl told me this evening, I don’t believe your husband is having an affair with her.”

“Do you think I care about that?” she cried out scornfully. “He can have all the other women he wants if he just comes home to me afterward.”

“He’s a lucky man to be married to you. Describe him to me.”

“He’s tall and has blue eyes. Going a little bald in front, but not bad for a man of forty-six. Thin-faced, I think you would say. He’s been a good husband to me for ten years and I would do anything to get things back the way they were before.”

“Did you ask at the Palms Terrace Hotel if he is registered there?”

“At a high-class place like that?” she asked incredulously. “He wouldn’t be. He didn’t have more than a hundred dollars in cash when he left home. Even if he took a bus as I did he would not have money to afford a hotel like that.”

Shayne said, “It never pays to take anything for granted. Maybe he’s got hold of some extra money.” He reached for the telephone and gave Pete the number of the Beach hotel which he had called previously. He asked the girl if they had a Mr. Gleason registered, and shook his head at Hilda when he hung up. “Not there.” He sat back and drummed his fingertips on the table; “I wish you’d think back very carefully and try to remember any hints Harry dropped that might indicate
how
he hoped to get a lot of money in Miami. By a holdup, perhaps? Blackmail?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Shayne. I’ve thought and thought, and there was never anything I could put my finger on. I just know it was something crooked and dangerous. Else why wouldn’t he tell me? You must help me find him.”

Shayne said, “I’ll try, Mrs. Gleason. There’s another stinger, but I’m afraid it’ll be pretty weak.”

“No, I thank you. I don’t really drink very much. Bartenders and their wives don’t, you know. And it is terribly late to be here like this.”

“Where can I reach you?”

She gave him a street address in the downtown Northeast section of the city. “It’s room number five, up one flight. It isn’t fancy, but I don’t want to waste my money. And that reminds me, Mr. Shayne. What about paying you a retainer to look for Harry?”

Shayne said, “Let that go until I find him.” He stood up as she did, and again was pleased with her long free stride as they went out of the door and down the corridor together.

He took both her hands in his and faced her as they waited for the car to come up. “Keep on hoping, and I’ll do my level best to find your husband for you.”

She squeezed his fingers and told him, “I feel better right this minute than I have for a long time.” She hadn’t put her glasses back on and she looked up into his eyes with a look of honest gratitude that told him he could kiss her good night if he wished.

He decided he didn’t. He smiled down at her and continued to hold her hands until the elevator door opened behind her. Then he said gently, “Good night, Hilda,” and stepped back while the door shut. He frowned wryly as he walked back to his sitting room. This had certainly been an evening to try a man’s credulity. First, Jane Smith with her harrowing tale of sexual depravity, and then Mrs. Gleason with her even more difficult-to-believe story of a missing husband.