She Woke to Darkness (15 page)

Completely won over by Michael Shayne’s blarney, Officer Grady said proudly, “That’s what we’re on beat for, of course. To take action in any emergency as seems fitting. It’s in the rule-book. I’ll tell the sergeant when I phone in next. What would you suspect Baldy of being up to?”

“Tipping someone off that I’ve caught him in his lie and they’d better do something about it. If you’re back there quickly, you might earn a detective rating for this. Stick with him, and report direct to Hogan if he does anything suspicious.”

“Right you are.” Grady swung a beefy hand In a half-salute, swung on his heel and hurried back toward the barroom. Shayne moved up his pace somewhat to close the gap between Estelle and himself to half a block.

She was walking fast along the uncrowded avenue, not looking back at all, evidently certain in her own mind that Shayne was still being detained by Grady.

As Shayne had anticipated, Estelle continued northward about ten blocks before turning into Lew Recker’s hotel. He slowed his pace and sauntered on, allowing her plenty of time to pass through the lobby before turning in himself. There was an older woman at the desk this time, and she glanced at him incuriously as he went directly to the elevators at the rear. One came down a moment later, and the detective was taken up to the 5th floor. He turned to his left and went to Recker’s door. He listened for a moment, but could hear nothing from within. He tried the knob and found it locked, then knocked lightly.

After a few moments, Lew Recker’s voice came suspiciously from the other side of the locked door. “Yes? Who is it?”

Shayne said, “Special Delivery letter,” hoping it wasn’t the custom of this hotel to telephone up first before making a delivery. Evidently it wasn’t, because the knob turned and the door opened a narrow crack.

Shayne moved against it with his shoulder, shoving Recker back as he stepped inside.

Estelle Stevens faced him across the room in front of the typewriter desk. Her face was pale and frightened as she gasped out: “That’s the man, Lew. The one I was telling you about.”

“I thought I recognized your description,” said Recker angrily, confronting Shayne with glittering eyes. “I know all about him, Estelle. He’s an impostor who forced his way in here earlier to question me about Elsie, pretending he was a cop. There’s probably a warrant out for his arrest right now. So you’d better beat it while you can,” he flung at Shayne venomously.

The redhead grinned happily and heeled the door shut, moving back to stand with his back to it. “On the contrary, bud. We three are going to have a nice cozy talk about Elsie Murray… and about another friend of yours who was murdered three months ago. Elbert Green.”

Estelle stiffened and her upper lip drew back from her teeth when she heard the name. Lew Recker merely grunted angrily and moved back toward the telephone stand. “I’ll tell the police anything they want to know.”

He leaned down to reach for the phone, but Shayne moved swiftly and flung him backward across the room toward Estelle. “You’re talking to me. And now. One more yap from you will get your face spoiled.

“Listen to me carefully, you two,” he went on fast and rough. “This isn’t a game you’re playing. Two people are dead already, and maybe a third. I know things the police don’t know, and you know things I’ve got to know.

“Don’t be a childish fool,” he went on harshly to Recker who had sunk into a chair and was nervously rubbing his face with a handkerchief. “If you talked to Detective Peters after I left this morning, you know I’m perfectly legitimate even if I am private from Florida. He may have told you I have no official standing in New York and no authority to ask questions, but this is my authority right now.” He doubled a big fist and shoved it menacingly under Recker’s nose. “Start talking.”

“I don’t know…” Recker stopped and swallowed hard. He looked up plaintively at Estelle and asked her, “Do you know what the man wants, dear? You were just telling me how you met him in some cocktail lounge…?”

“The one Elsie Murray used to go to when she lived down the avenue,” Shayne cut in fast. “The one she went into for the last time around twelve o’clock the night Elbert Green was murdered… after she had passed out at a party she attended with you two. Does that jog your memory?”

Lew Recker’s face presented a curiously contrasting interplay of emotions. There was comprehension, and fear, and honest puzzlement.

He wet his lips and said, “Elbert Green? I do remember that name vaguely.” He looked at Estelle appealingly. “Wasn’t he the fellow the police questioned Elsie about the next day after he was found dead in some hotel?”

Her face was cold and restrained now. She said, “I guess so, Lew. They came around to see me, too. But I didn’t know anything except she had smooched with him when she was tight.”

“But what’s his death got to do with Elsie now?” protested Recker to Shayne. “She was completely exonerated at the time. As I recall it she had a perfect alibi which satisfied the police.”

Shayne nodded grimly. “An alibi I’m going to bust wide open with a little help from you two and maybe some others who were involved at the time. There’s a small matter of a telephone call she made to Green that night which the police never heard about. Why did the bartender lie to me about that?” He swung on Estelle with the question.

“I have no idea,” she said thinly. “If he did lie to you. I heard you accuse him of doing that, but I’m sure I know nothing about it.”

“I’m not so sure,” Shayne told her grimly. “Can you prove you didn’t go there this morning after you heard about Elsie’s death to bribe him to lie about it?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you realized that her death would inevitably open up the old investigation again and the police might eventually get around to asking Jack the same question I asked him. Isn’t that why you sent her there?” he flung at Lew Recker.

“I didn’t send her there. First thing I knew of all this was a few minutes ago when she came in frightened to say she’d been insulted by a redheaded drunk. Isn’t that the truth, Estelle?”

She nodded, tight-lipped. “I just happened to drop in for a cocktail before lunch. I’d read about Elsie and so had the bartenders who used to know her. We talked about how awful it was, that’s all. Then you insisted on sitting at my table, and accusing Jack of lying about some telephone call. And that’s all I know about any of it.”

Shayne paused a moment. He was at a distinct disadvantage in not knowing how to connect these two up with the persons Elsie had described in her script. He didn’t know positively, of course, that either of them was the original for any of her characters. But he had a strong hunch that at least one of the couple before him would turn out to be either Ralph or Dirk or Doris or Ina or Bart. If he could guess the true identity of either and throw his knowledge of their involvement in Green’s murder at them, they might possibly break down and start giving him the information he needed.

Elsie had, of course, described Green’s roommate almost exactly as Lew Recker. Yet she had told Halliday she had changed the physical descriptions of all her characters, and also, from Radin’s newspaper clippings he knew the roommate’s name was actually Alfred Hayes.

Dirk, Ralph, or Bart?

“You’re not married, I take it?” he asked Recker abruptly.

“Hell, no. What’s that got to do…?”

“What kind of a car do you drive?”

“I’ve got a Chrysler right now, if that helps solve your case.” Lew Recker was over his first fright now. He was reverting to the suavely sardonic man-of-the-world pose he had adopted with Shayne earlier.

“I think maybe it does,” Shayne said thoughtfully. “Is it the same car you drove Elsie home in the night Green was murdered?”

Recker’s mouth gaped open in utter consternation and fear. His eyes goggled at Shayne and he stammered weakly, “I… I don’t know…”

“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.”