The Private Practice of Michael Shayne (16 page)

Rourke turned resignedly to his typewriter again. “All right, miracle man. For centuries the Rourkes have been noted for their lack of brains. I’m a sucker for your fairy tales.”

Despite his attempt at nonchalant composure, the veteran newspaperman was shaking with a nervous ague when his trained forefinger finished tapping out the story Shayne gave him for an extra.

“If this hits, we’ll make newspaper history in a town that’s made it before.”

“It’s in the bag, Tim.” Shayne stood up, grinding a cigarette butt beneath his toe. “Meet me on the dock where Thomas’s yacht is tied up, at twelve-thirty. Bring along a candid camera that won’t attract too much notice. Keep all this under your hat until you get back with the pics to stick under the disbelieving nose of your editor. It’s up to you to make them print the story. It’s going to be worth—maybe some money to me, and for a cinch getting out from under a first-degree murder charge.”

“I’ll be there at twelve-thirty. I hope you realize just how goddam’ hot this is. The paper could get burned to a crisp on a libel suit if—”

“If me no ifs. I know what I’m doing—now.” Shayne went out briskly, and Rourke muttered after him:

“I hope to God you do, Mike. I hope—you—do.”

SHAYNE STOPPED outside his hotel and rummaged in the side pocket of his car and got out the light silk jacket and felt toque he had gotten from Marsha Marco’s room. He slid them into his coat pocket and went inside.

The clerk motioned to him as he passed through the lobby.

“Mr. Gentry has been calling. He says it’s important.” Shayne said, “Get him on the line. I’ll take it in my apartment.”

He went up the elevator and to his room. The phone rang as he closed the door.

“That you, Mike?” Gentry sounded plenty worried. “Painter called not long ago to ask me to have my expert go over your pistol. It seems that the beach ballistics man was suddenly taken sick this morning and can’t officiate.”

“Did you stall him?”

“The best I could. I told him my man was out to lunch. He’ll be here about one with that damned gun.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Shayne said absently, “Let your man make the test. Win, lose or draw, I’ll be under the wire and the finding on the gun won’t change anything either way.”

“What have you got up your sleeve?”

“Nothing you won’t be better off without knowing. Sit tight for the blow-off.”

Shayne hung up and went to the table where he cleared away the litter of glasses, bottles, coffee cup and pot, then laid Marsha’s hat and jacket out on the table.

From an inner pocket he drew out the folded note Marsha had left behind her, and spread it out in front of him.

It had been dashed off with a soft lead pencil on a sheet of plain white notepaper.

He found a soft pencil and took out several sheets of plain white notepaper. Sitting in a straight chair, he propped Marsha’s farewell note up in front of him and sat there a long time studying the words she had written:

“I can’t stand this. I’d rather be dead. I’m going where you’ll never see me again.

“MARSHA.”

Carefully, he copied the message on one of the sheets of clean paper.

It was an extremely poor forgery. Scowling, he tried again and again. He was dissatisfied with the result when the entire sheet was covered with repetitions of the message, but was encouraged by what seemed a slight improvement on the last one.

He glanced at the clock, got up and poured a drink, sat down with it and a clean sheet of paper. Forgery wasn’t his forte. He was convinced of that by the time he had scrawled the message all over a second sheet of paper. It seemed that he was getting lousier all the time.

He shoved the sheet aside irritably, took another drink to steady his nerves, and began again.

Gradually, he began to get the hang of it. Complete relaxation and absolute concentration on the girl’s handwriting was the answer. As long as he watched what his own fingers were doing, they refused to follow the pattern.

Finally, keeping his eyes on the words in front of him and writing with swift ease, a blotter beneath his hand to avoid leaving fingerprints, he finished a copy that was almost good enough to pass for the original.

He folded it gingerly and laid it inside Marsha’s toque, folded the felt hat down over it, and rolled the whole thing up in her jacket, putting it in his coat pocket.

His clock showed it was a quarter of twelve when he got up and poured a last drink. He stopped long enough to crumple up the practice sheets of incriminating paper and thrust them into the other coat pocket, then hurried out.

On Flagler Street, he parked in front of one of the arcades and went into a small office with a sign over the door promising: BUSINESS CARDS PRINTED WHILE YOU WAIT.

He left his order with a promise to be back for it immediately, then hurried up the street to a ten-cent store and fitted himself with a pair of hornrimmed glasses with plain lenses.

A printed business card was ready for him when he returned to the arcade.

It was a few minutes after twelve when he drove into Biscayne Boulevard and started across the County causeway.

It was twelve-twenty-eight when he parked his car inconspicuously in the background in a parking lot abutting on a Miami Beach yacht basin, put on his new glasses and walked briskly toward the dock where Eliot Thomas’s
Sea Queen
was moored.

Loitering under a palm near the dock, Timothy Rourke’s face brightened when he saw Shayne approaching. He went to meet him, muttering, “I was getting the heebie-jeebies. What’s the program now?”

“We’re going aboard the ‘Sea Queen.’ Got the camera?”

“Sure.” Rourke patted his hip pocket.

“Follow me and keep your trap shut.” Shayne strode toward the varnished gangplank leading from the
Sea Queen’s
deck to the pier.

Brass handrails glistened in the bright sunlight, and the clean white side of the yacht looked as though it had been swabbed off that morning.

A brawny sailor lounged on the deck at the top of the gangplank, and he stepped in front of them to bar their way as they walked up the incline.

He said, “No visitors allowed,” but Shayne didn’t slacken his pace, forcing the guard to give way until both he and Timothy Rourke stood on the holy-stoned deck of the trim craft.

“We don’t happen to be visitors,” Shayne told the sailor pleasantly. “We represent the Great Mutual Marine Underwriters.”

He brought out his billfold and extracted a freshly printed card which he passed over.

“Just a routine inspection,” he explained, “to see that everything’s shipshape according to the marine law.”

The sailor fingered the card, read it with puckered brow.

“I guess it’s all right, Mr. Haines. I’ll call a steward to show you around.”

“Nothing doing on that stuff,” Shayne said curtly. “We’ll make our own investigation without being led around to see what you want us to see. I’ve had that dodge worked on me before.”

The sailor shrugged and spat over the side onto the dock.

“Go ahead and try to find something wrong,” he challenged.

“That’s just what we’re going to do.” Shayne turned to Rourke. “Suppose you take the engine room, Tim. Give the boilers a quick once-over and meet me back on deck. I’ll take the cabins and saloon first, checking fire equipment and life preservers.”

Rourke nodded and went to the aft companionway leading below into the engine room.

Shayne moved slowly across the deck toward the fore-cabins and wheelhouse, frowning through his glasses at fire buckets and extinguishers, turning into a passageway between cabins and into the main dining saloon, nodding curtly to whitecoated stewards who were dusting and polishing.

Explaining his supposed business aboard the craft, Shayne ordered them to unlock all the cabin doors, and he made a quick tour of inspection through them, then rejoined Rourke on the open deck a short time later.

“Engine room seems to be okay,” Rourke reported for the benefit of a group of three sailors, an engineer officer and the third mate, who stood at the top of the gangplank watching them with veiled curiosity.

Shayne nodded. “We’ll have a look at the lifeboats.”

They turned from the nattily uniformed group, strolled back to the fantail on the side away from the dock where one of the yacht’s four gleaming white lifeboats was snugly lashed down with a canvas cover close to the side where a section of bulwark and rail had been left out to provide an opening for easy shipping of the boat.

Making a pretense of inspecting the davits and falls, with his back toward the deck, Shayne muttered:

“This is the spot, Tim. Are they watching?”

Rourke glanced back casually and said, “Nope. They seem to be pretty well satisfied we’re not going to find anything wrong.”

“Ease your camera out and get set,” Shayne told him. He walked to the rail and looked down at the placid waters of the bay lapping against the water line not far below, then eased his body forward into the triangular space between the bow of the life boat and the side. Hidden from observation, he pulled Marsha’s jacket and hat from his pocket, unrolled the jacket and let it drop to the deck, then stooped and spread out the forged message on top of it, weighted one end of it down with the toque so sunlight lay brightly upon the penciled words.

Stepping back out of the way, he nodded to Rourke who was squatting down to focus a small candid camera on the little pile of clothing and the farewell message.

“That’s goddamned near perfect,” he exulted. “You can get the name of the lifeboat in it, too. Make it snappy, before someone comes.”

He moved over in front of Rourke to shield him from any vagrant glances, and the reporter quickly shot half a dozen pictures with the powerful little camera.

Then they strolled on to glance at the other lifeboats, and were met at the bow by a burly, grizzled old sea dog wearing master’s stripes.

“I understand you men represent our insurance agents,” he rumbled. “If you’d sent for me at once—”

“Quite all right, Captain,” Shayne interrupted. “Let me congratulate you on as shipshape a craft as it’s ever been my pleasure to inspect. The ‘Sea Queen’ gets an A-one rating in our report.”

The captain looked visibly relieved. “That’s splendid. If you’d care for a drink—”

“Sorry. We’ve a couple more inspections to make and some of the others may not be as easy as this one. Thanks just the same, Captain.”

Shayne shook hands with the captain, then he and Rourke went briskly to the gangplank and back to the dock.

“Suppose they don’t find that stuff,” Rourke muttered nervously as Shayne went with him toward his parked coupe. “It might stay there for days without being seen.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Shayne promised. “The suicide evidence will be discovered not later than two o’clock. Get the hell back to your office and get those pictures developed, and make over your front page. And print that extra if you want a real scoop. Have the extras loaded in trucks and waiting at strategic points all over the city for a flash to distribute. And you meet me in Painter’s office at three for that flash. Get going.”

He gave Timothy a good-natured shove into his coupe, stood there with his hands in his pockets and watched the reporter start back toward Miami at high speed.

Alone, Shayne moved down the shore line to a spot where he could see the aft lifeboat in its davits on the
Sea Queen’s
deck.

He settled on the grass with his back against the shaggy bole of a coco palm and took up his vigil. He lit one cigarette from another, never for long taking his gaze from the prow of the lifeboat where he had deposited the evidence of Marsha’s suicide.

He stayed there an hour without moving, and nothing out of the ordinary happened on board the yacht.

Shayne yawned and got up to stretch wearily, then walked swiftly to a near-by beer and sandwich parlor where he went into the telephone booth and called the Miami Beach police office.

To the first voice that answered, he said in a low, whining tone, “Is this here a policeman?”

“Yeh. What is it?”

“I’m a fisherman, see? I don’ want to git mixed up in no trouble and I been tryin’ all day to git up enough nerve to tell some cop about what I saw happen las’ night.”

“Well, what is it? You won’t get in any trouble if you tell the truth.”

“I saw what looked like a woman get throwed in the bay las’ night, mister. Early this mornin’. Off that there ‘Sea Queen’ yacht tied up at the dock. She yelled once and then splashed.”

“Wait a minute!” yelled the excited desk sergeant at the other end. “Who’s calling? Where are you?”

“Never mind. I’m tellin’ the truth so he’p me.”

Shayne hung up, held the receiver down a moment, then called Marco’s Casino. Using the same tone, he whined, “Lemme speak to Mr. Marco, please. I got somethin’ important and private to tell ’im.”

When Marco’s heavy voice growled, “What is it?” Shayne replied swiftly, “This is a friend that saw a man push your girl off Elliot Thomas’s yacht into the bay last night. The police are on the way to the boat now.”

He calmly hung up on Marco’s bellowed exclamations, sauntered across to the counter and ordered a glass of beer.

Sitting on a stool with the glass in his hand, he looked over at the pier and at the
Sea Queen
riding idly against the pull of her hawsers.

His beer wasn’t half finished before two police cars screamed up to the pier and a squad of detectives tumbled out, led by the dapper figure of Peter Painter.

Shayne took a deep sip of his beer and watched them mount the gangplank, push the guard out of the way and spread out over the boat, questioning the crew and officers who turned out to see what the alarm was all about.

A few moments later John Marco’s limousine rolled up beside the police cars, and the Miami Beach councilman got out and hurried up the gangplank.

Shayne finished off his beer and flipped a dime to the counter, strolled out unconcernedly, taking off his hornrimmed glasses as he stepped into the sunlight.