The Private Practice of Michael Shayne (12 page)

Helen nodded, confused.

“I hope I can do it.”

“What I want is for him to take you out to his yacht without anyone recognizing you. Keep your face down when you go aboard so none of the crew will see your face. And when you leave the yacht, try to slip away so unobtrusively that no one will be able to swear you haven’t spent the night. Have you got all that?”

“Y-e-s,” Helen mumbled, “but I don’t understand why—”

“I don’t either,” Shayne grunted sourly. “I’m playing a couple of long shots. While you’re with Thomas, use everything God gave you to find out anything he knows about Larry. Pretend you hate my guts and hope I’m on the spot for the Grange killing. Thomas’ll be drunk or at least half drunk. Pretend to drink with him. Dash his champagne under a table if you have to, but pretend. Find out things. We’ve got to find Larry to keep him from popping up and confessing while I’m trying to keep him out of it. You know about how long his conscience will bear the torture.”

Helen Kincaid nodded soberly.

“I’m getting the idea, Michael. I’ll make myself do everything you say.”

“That’s swell.”

He saw the glint of uncertainty in her big, dark eyes and laid a rough hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t forget. When you come out of the bedroom you’re peeved at me, make a scene and accuse me of neglecting you. I’ll guarantee Thomas will console you, and you have to make the most of it. Cuddle up to him. He’ll console you all right.” He repressed a chuckle.

Helen smiled wanly.

“Be sure to slam the bathroom door hard so I won’t miss the cue.”

“I will. And I’ll stay in long enough for you to get in your dirty work.”

The elevator clanged to a stop on that floor, and they both tensed, listening to solid footsteps coming down the hall. Shayne pulled her up from the chair and shoved her to the bedroom door.

He smiled and said, “Don’t worry—and don’t fail me.”

He closed the door when she entered the bedroom and hurried to admit Elliot Thomas when he rapped on the front door.

In spite of his size, the millionaire sportsman was dapper in creamy trousers and a double-breasted coat of blue serge. He came in, saying fretfully, “I don’t understand the urgency of this call, Mr. Shayne. This is hardly the hour for a business discussion.”

Shayne closed the door and gestured toward the chairs and table.

“Have a seat—and a drink. You ought to know why it’s urgent. That affidavit you made to the police today is likely to put me behind the bars any minute.”

Elliot Thomas sat down in a soft chair and met Shayne’s lowering gaze with cool indifference.

“I did my duty as a citizen by throwing what light I could on the murder of Harry Grange.”

Shayne sighed. “I don’t blame any man for doing his duty as he sees it. Drink?”

“Scotch—if you have it.”

“I’ve got some stuff here that’s labeled Scotch.” Shayne went to the liquor cabinet, adding over his shoulder, “No soda, though, I’m afraid.”

“It will do very nicely straight,” the yachtsman assured him.

Shayne came back with a squatty bottle and a six-ounce glass. Uncorking the bottle, he let amber liquid gurgle into the glass, handed Thomas the heavy potion, and sat down in a chair conveniently near the cognac.

“Did Larry Kincaid tell you I had agreed to handle Grange for him?” Shayne asked.

Thomas was sniffing the uncertain bouquet of Shayne’s cheap Scotch with no show of pleasure. He took a sip and looked up with some surprise, but Shayne couldn’t tell whether it was directed at his question or at the Scotch, which was, undoubtedly, a new brand to the millionaire.

“Why, no,” he said. “I made no such statement in my affidavit to the police. I merely gave a resume of the scene in Kincaid’s office, with his final statement as I left, to the effect that he would bring you around all right.”

Shayne waved his hand.

“I’m not worrying about what you told the police. I want to know what Larry told you
—after
that scene in the office?”

He struck a match and lit a cigarette, pretending that the question wasn’t of vital importance.

“I didn’t see him later. When the news story concerning your presence at the scene of Grange’s death came out, I realized that Kincaid must have persuaded you to take over—and that you had handled the affair very injudiciously. You were lucky, of course, to get rid of the incriminating gun before the police arrived.”

He frowned distastefully at his glass, then lifted it and poured half the contents down his throat with a do-or-die look on his face.

“How did you know about the gun?” Shayne bent toward him grimly.

“There must have been a gun. The man was shot through the head.”

Shayne tipped back, lacing his fingers around his knee. Very quietly he said, “You’re a self-righteous bastard, aren’t you, Thomas? Because you’ve got all the money in the world you think you can hire saps to pull your chestnuts out of the fire, and if they get burned, you figure it’s their hard luck. You don’t pull that stuff on me. I’m warning you—”

“Save your breath, Shayne.” Thomas spoke coldly. His usually pleasant ruddy face was set in stony lines of disapproval. “When I hire men to do a job for me, I don’t accept the responsibility if they bungle it. I didn’t order you to murder Grange. I wash my hands of any complicity in the affair.”

He polished off his drink and got up.

Shayne said, “Sit down, Thomas. I’m not through.”

“I am. I didn’t come here to discuss your difficulties with you.”

Shayne stayed in his chair. He didn’t even look up. He said, “You’re still on the spot with the racing commission.”

Elliot Thomas was halfway to the door. He stopped and turned slowly.

“What do you know about that?”

Shayne looked up in surprise.

“Everything, of course. How Jake Kilgore and a tout named Evans planned it. About Grange getting sore because they didn’t cut him in—and how he got the dope from Chuck, and then held out for a price—letting you bid for it.”

Thomas appeared to count his steps coming back.

“I have nothing to conceal. The more light shed on the affair, the better I like it. You can’t blackmail
me,
Shayne. I advise you not to try it.”

Shayne’s mind plopped back to his conversation with John Marco. He pushed the Scotch toward Thomas and said grumpily, “Take another drink and cool off.”

The millionaire shuddered at the suggestion.

“No, thanks. Your liquor is as bad as your manners.”

“Do you mean to say,” Shayne asked incredulously, “that you’re not willing to make the payoff alter all?”

“My arrangements were made with Mr. Kincaid,” Thomas reminded him. “I will be glad to deal with him when he comes to me.”

He started out of the room again.

Shayne was desperately trying to think of some reason for further detaining him when a light rap sounded on his door.

Elliot Thomas stopped two paces from it and swung about, questioning Shayne with suspicious eyes.

The knob turned in the unlocked door as the detective got up, and Phyllis Brighton stepped inside. She started a lilting, “Hel—lo…” then saw Elliot Thomas and her eyes widened.

“Why, Elliot,” she exclaimed, “fancy meeting you here!”

THOMAS BOWED stiffly, not bothering to hide his amazement at seeing Phyllis Brighton standing in the doorway of the detective’s apartment and evidently on intimate terms with him.

Even more nonplused than Elliot Thomas by Phyllis’s unexpected appearance, Shayne made the best of the awkward situation by stepping close to her and exclaiming, “If it isn’t Miss Brighton! On a slumming tour, Miss Brighton?”

His voice was lightly mocking but his eyes desperately tried to signal her to watch her step.

She didn’t notice his eyes because she was just getting a good look at his bandaged face.

She gasped, “What—what happened to you?”

Thomas was standing undecidedly in front of the open door. Shayne got in front of him, answering Phyllis, “This is just routine in the sleuthing trade.”

He put his hands on her shoulders, digging his fingers in, closing one eye in a slow wink.

Phyllis got things fast, he told himself with satisfaction. She grew tense, waiting for a further cue, which he tossed her by saying hastily, “Mr. Thomas was insisting on leaving when you came, Phyllis. Perhaps your charms will have more effect than mine. I hate to have my hospitality flouted the way he was about to do.”

Gathering that Shayne had an important reason for wishing to detain the millionaire, the girl went past the detective and held out both her hands to Thomas.

“I’m still all knocked in a heap by the unexpectedness of seeing you again—and
here,”
she told him gaily. “I had no idea you and Mike were acquainted.”

“A matter of business,” Thomas said. He reached for her hands gingerly. “As Mr. Shayne explained, I was on the point of leaving.”

“Oh, but you mustn’t run away just because I’ve come.” Phyllis linked an arm in his and led him toward the table. “I’m just dying for a drink and Mike has the
best
drinks.”

Thomas grunted, “Indeed?” permitting himself to be drawn from the door. He made it quite evident that as a connoisseur of liquor Phyllis had dropped several degrees in his estimation.

Shayne followed them, grinning at Phyllis to encourage her to continue her tactics. He explained genially to Thomas, “You
would
have Scotch, you know. I never drink the stuff myself so I economize by buying the cheapest I can get. But I’ve got some cognac here that’ll take the bad taste out of your mouth.”

Phyllis was still clinging tightly to Thomas’s arm, and he couldn’t graciously refuse the glass of cognac which Shayne pressed on him.

Fully conscious of the restraint between them, but not understanding it, she sipped her drink, eyes speculatively fixed on Shayne’s face, not quite sure whether he wanted her to stay or go away.

Shayne tossed his glassful of cognac off swiftly, contriving a plan to get her out of the room for a moment to speak to her privately. He thumped his glass down and said in an elaborately casual tone, “I suppose you dropped in to pick up that recipe for champagne punch I was telling you about the other night? It’s in the kitchen somewhere. Come on out and help me hunt it—if you’ll excuse us for a moment, Thomas,” he added politely.

Phyllis said, “Oh, yes, I’m dying to try that punch at a party I’m having tomorrow,” unlinked her arm from Thomas’s with a little pat, and followed the detective toward the kitchen.

Inside the door, Shayne grabbed her arm and talked low and emphatically, “Make this an excuse to beat it, Angel. And don’t let him go out with you. I’ve got to keep him here a few minutes. It’s damned important.”

“You’re cooking up something,” she whispered tensely. “Can’t I stay?”

“You cannot. Some other time when—when I don’t have so much company.” He smiled down on her, then raised his voice to add, “Oh, here’s the recipe. Stick it in your purse.”

He took her arm and led her back to the living-room. The bathroom door was just closing behind Elliot Thomas with a little slam.

Shayne’s fingers tightened on Phyllis’s arm as he took in the situation and started rushing her toward the front door.

“Here’s your chance to beat it without having him insist on going with you,” he panted. “I’ll tell him you had to rush off to keep an engagement.”

“Well,” she objected with a grin, “even so, you don’t have to throw me out bodily, do you?”

She stopped suddenly, turned to stare at the bedroom door, which had opened to frame Helen Kincaid on the threshold. Phyllis and Helen looked from Shayne to each other, and back to Shayne, bewildered.

Shayne stepped back, mopping sweat from his brow. He said, “Look, Angel. Don’t get any silly ideas. This isn’t what you think. Be sweet and get the hell out.” Phyllis laughed thinly, an angry flush crawling into her cheeks, disdainful eyes taking in the alluring figure of Helen Kincaid.

“So, that’s why you were giving me the bum’s rush!” she exclaimed. “I might have guessed. Oh, I hate you, Michael Shayne.”

He groaned.

“Not so loud, damn it. This is business.”

“Yes. I know. Monkey business. The sort you’re so good at. I suppose you’re going to tell me that isn’t a bedroom and that woman isn’t—”

Shayne lunged forward and pressed a hard palm over her mouth.

“Don’t be a fool,” he grated. “I’ll explain later.”

Helen had advanced a few steps into the room hesitantly. She was staring with round eyes at the scene in the doorway, too bewildered to say anything.

It was inevitable for Elliot Thomas to choose that precise moment to step out of the bathroom. His expression of complacent self-approval changed into one of consternation when he saw Shayne holding the squirming figure of Phyllis with one hand on her shoulder and the other pressed tightly on her mouth.

Shayne laughed hollowly and released Phyllis with a little push.

“Go on,” he said savagely. “Start screaming. I don’t care.”

He gave a shrug of resignation and walked to the table to pour himself a badly needed drink.

Thomas stepped forward, frowning, stopped short when he caught sight of Helen Kincaid. His jaw dropped laxly and he goggled at her.

“Don’t be surprised at anything that happens here,” Phyllis advised him acidly. “Mr. Shayne has his own peculiar detecting methods. He uses his bedroom for third degrees. I think you and I had better go, Elliot. Mr. Shayne does his best work in privacy.”

Helen Kincaid had not yet uttered a word. She stood quietly looking from one to another of the trio, trying desperately to get the hang of what was going on. She darted a sharp look at Thomas when Phyllis called him by his first name, realizing that he was the man Shayne wanted her to vamp. Without the slightest idea who Phyllis was or what she was doing in Shayne’s apartment, she took almost instant advantage of her presence to rail out at Shayne, “So, that’s why you pushed me off into the bedroom.—Because this—this hussy was coming.”

With her coral wrap over one arm she advanced toward the detective with her lips curling. “I suppose our little party is all off?” She swayed her hips when passing Thomas, holding her chin lifted to give her neck and throat a smooth and alluring line.