Michael Shayne hesitated a moment, seeking to gauge the sergeant’s temper and to decide how to handle the situation.
He said, “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find it, Sarge.”
“What couldn’t you find?”
It came to Shayne then, in a sudden flash of intuition. The thing that had bothered him about the locked death room to make the picture complete.
“His paper-knife,” he told Griggs. “Whatever it was that he used for slitting open his envelopes so neatly.” He gestured toward the stack of empty envelopes between the two mail baskets on the desk, each one of which had been carefully slit open the long way.
“Do you remember what Ralph Larson said about his earlier visit to Ames? He said something like: ‘… he sat there in his chair slitting open his goddamned letters and he laughed at me.’ What was he slitting them open with? I can’t find any letter-opener here, and I’ve looked in all the drawers. I got to thinking about it and it bothered me so I came out to check my recollection.”
There was a curious baffled look of mingled exasperation and pleasure on Griggs’ face as he listened to Shayne’s bland explanation.
He said, “You’re sure about that, huh? No paper-knife.”
“Not unless he had a special hiding place for it that I haven’t found.”
Griggs nodded and turned to call through the open door behind him, “Powers. Get that secretary up here.”
Powers said, “Yes, sir,” and they heard him going toward the head of the stairs.
“It’s a funny thing you thought about that,” Griggs said heavily. “What would a missing paper-knife have to do with Larson shooting the guy?”
Shayne replied honestly, “I haven’t figured that out either. That’s why it didn’t impinge in the beginning, I guess. Because it didn’t seem to matter. But when I started wondering about Mrs. Larson and thought about Ames just sitting there and making no effort to defend himself when Larson broke in…” He stopped in mid-sentence and shrugged as Victor Conroy came in and said, “You wanted me, Sergeant?”
“Yeh. We’re wondering what sort of implement Ames used for opening his mail.” Griggs pointed a blunt finger at the stack of empty envelopes. “Those are all cut open.”
“Yes. He always used a paper-knife. It should be right there on his desk. It always was.” Conroy moved past the sergeant, frowning at the bare top of the desk. “It was a fancy one of brass or copper. Sort of a Florentine dagger thing. An antique, I guess. It had a long thin pointed blade that was honed to razor sharpness on both edges. That’s funny.” Victor Conroy shook his head and frowned. “It was always right here in plain sight. Maybe one of the drawers?”
Griggs shook his bald head. “We’ve looked in the drawers. Do you remember the last time you saw it?”
Conroy shrugged and shook his head. “It’s not the sort of thing one notices. You know, it’s always lying there day after day. It looks as though he used it to open his mail this evening.”
Griggs agreed flatly, “Yeh. It does look that way. All right, Conroy. I want to talk to all of you a little later. No one is to leave the house.”
The man hesitated as though about to protest the order, but checked himself and went out of the room.
Griggs moved about restively for a moment, clasping his hands behind his back and disregarding Shayne. Suddenly he swung on him and demanded bitterly, “Why don’t you ask me what the P. M. turned up?”
Shayne asked obediently, “What did the P. M. turn up?”
“Wesley Ames was dead before the bullet went into his heart. He had been stabbed in the heart with a knife that had a long thin pointed blade sharp as a razor on both edges.”
“Something like an antique Florentine dagger,” Shayne said interestedly.
“Damn it, you don’t act surprised. What sort of prior knowledge did you have? If you’ve been holding out information on me, Shayne…”
“I haven’t been holding out anything,” the detective assured him earnestly. “It just all falls into place suddenly. We can even see how we were all mistaken, thinking Larson’s bullet killed him. It must have gone through his vest about the same place as the stab wound. It wouldn’t bleed a great deal, and the blood would be soaked up inside the vest. No one opened it up to notice that the blood was already congealed until the M. E. got here twenty minutes later, and by that time he couldn’t tell without making extensive tests. My God!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Larson didn’t commit murder after all. All he did was fire a bullet into the body of a corpse. What irony.”
“Shooting with intent to kill,” muttered Griggs. “We can hold him on that.”
“What a terrific stroke of luck for the real murderer. The wildest sort of coincidence. He couldn’t possibly have planned it that way even if he had known Larson was coming back here with a gun to kill Ames. It was one chance in a million that Larson would actually fire without realizing Ames was dead, and that the bullet would go in the same wound and destroy evidence of the stabbing.”
“Yeh. Whoever did it must be shaking hands with himself right now and figuring he’s in the clear with Larson ready-made to take the rap for him.”
“One of the four people downstairs,” Shayne pointed out to him thoughtfully. “We know he was alive when Larson stormed out the back way. Ames bolted the door behind him. They all say no one else came up the drive and in the back way after Larson. It has to be one of those four, Sergeant.”
“Wait a minute. We don’t know that Ames was still alive when Larson went out. Suppose he did it then? Picked up the knife and stabbed him.”
“And then came back half an hour later to do the job openly with a gun?” scoffed Shayne.
“Well, he might have figured that would give him an alibi for the real killing,” argued Griggs stubbornly. “He wouldn’t expect his bullet to go in the same hole, and would expect the stab wound to be discovered immediately. By God, that would be smart,” Griggs went on, warming up to the idea. “If he did work it like that, he must be sitting in his jail cell right now sweating blood and waiting for us to discover the truth. The poor bastard can’t tell us to have an autopsy and look for a stab wound. Talk about your ironic situations. By God, Mike,” the sergeant went on wonderingly. “It could be that way. If it hadn’t been for his wife being missing and you getting suspicious and wanting a P. M., he could have gone to the chair for shooting a dead man. And maybe it would be justice because maybe he stabbed him in the first place.”
“But Dorothy Larson is missing,” Shayne reminded him. “I hardly see how that ties in with your theory. And don’t forget that back door bolted on the inside. Ames couldn’t have done that with a knife wound in his heart.”
“How’s this? Maybe Ames didn’t bolt the door. Maybe one of the others in the house came in here after Larson left and found him stabbed. So they bolted the door and just walked out the other one without saying anything.”
“If one of the people in this house found him dead and the door unbolted, they’d know Larson was the killer. By bolting the door behind him they would immediately take all suspicion off Larson and make each one of them suspects. It’s the last thing in the world any of them would do.”
“I guess you’re right.” Griggs looked unhappy and chewed on the knuckle of his left thumb. “That gives us those four… counting the houseboy… and that New York lawyer, too. The way I remember their statements, any one of the five could have had an opportunity to slip in here between the time Larson left and when he came back. Sutter was up here, supposed to be in his room alone with the door shut. Mrs. Ames was up here doing something unspecified. Conroy came up to his room for a time before deciding to go out. Mark Ames claims he was downstairs all the time, but he was alone in the living room after Mrs. Ames and Conroy went out, and he could have slipped up here. So far as we know, Alfred didn’t come upstairs, but I suppose there’s a servant stairway up the back, so he’s not out. Damn it, the thing is wide open, Mike. And I don’t know whether you caught any of that by-play between Mark Ames and the widow or not, but neither one of them is doing much grieving. You remember what Tim Rourke said about the two of them, and rumors around town they were having an affair.”
Shayne nodded, tugging at his ear lobe. “If I were you, Sergeant, I think I’d try to find out why Mark Ames had come out tonight for the first time in months to talk to his brother.”
“Yeh, and I also want a line on Mr. Sutter, the attorney from New York, and why he was here to see Ames. It didn’t matter before when I thought it was a cut-and-dried shooting, but now it does matter. Now I’ll have to hold him in town… Goddamn it, Mike!” Griggs broke out explosively. “Why did you have to get so smart? You and your damned post mortem! I never will get any sleep tonight.”
Shayne grinned and said, “You’re a cop. You get paid by the city for not sleeping. Me, I don’t.” He pretended to yawn widely. “It’s all yours, Sarge.”
“Goddamn it, Mike! You tear this thing wide open with your lousy post mortem… are you just going to walk away and leave it that way?”
“I’m leaving it in your very efficient hands, Sergeant Griggs. I’m headed for some well-earned shut-eye. Hell, you’ve got it narrowed down to five suspects and about half an hour of time,” he said indulgently. “What more do you want in a murder case?”
“Yeh,” said Griggs unhappily. “Five suspects that hated the dead man, and not a clean-cut alibi for a single one of them. Okay. Get out of my hair,” he said with finality. “Go get your shut-eye or whatever private dicks do on their nights off while honest cops are working for a living. Just don’t come back messing up this case with any more of your smart ideas. If you get any more like that, keep ’em to yourself, hear?”
Shayne drew himself to attention and saluted smartly. “Very well, Sergeant. I shall away.” He turned and strode stiffly out of the room and down the stairs where Mark Ames and Helena were still huddled together rather intimately on the sofa, and where Victor Conroy intercepted him on his way to the door with a worried look on his face.
“Why is that policeman so interested in Wesley’s paperknife, Mr. Shayne? He was shot to death, wasn’t he? Suppose the knife is missing? There might be a dozen reasonable explanations for that?”
Shayne shrugged and countered, “You never can tell what sort of crazy tangent a homicide dick will go off on. It’s an occupational disease.”
“But what did he mean by ordering that no one should leave the house?” demanded Conroy, following Shayne to the door. “Does he have a right to issue orders like that?”
Shayne told him, “A cop in charge of a murder investigation has pretty much blanket authority. I wouldn’t argue with Griggs if I were you. He’s only doing his job.” He went out into the flood-lighted area and down to his car with the sergeant’s official car parked closely behind it. The uniformed driver got out from under the wheel as Shayne opened his door, and he hurried forward to ask anxiously, “Do you know if I’m supposed to wait out here, Mr. Shayne, or does the sergeant need me inside?”
Shayne said, “I think he’s going to be taking some more statements and will be wanting your shorthand pad. Wish him luck from me,” he added with a wide grin, backing up against the front bumper of the police car and cramping his wheels to make a left turn back down the driveway.
When he reached his hotel this time, Shayne put his car into its assigned slot in the hotel garage, and walked around to the front entrance to the lobby.
The desk clerk watched him with interest as he crossed the lobby toward the elevator, and called out, “There’s a phone message for you, Mr. Shayne.” Shayne broke his stride to go to the desk, and the clerk got a slip of paper from a cubbyhole and handed it to him. Shayne unfolded it and read: “Call me at once.” There was a telephone number and a room extension, and it was signed “Sutter.” Shayne went on to the elevator and up one floor and to his suite where there was still ice water and a bottle of cognac waiting for him on the center table. He poured a drink and sipped from the glass contemplatively, spreading the telephone message out on the table and scowling at it. It had been received almost an hour previously, very shortly after Sutter had walked out of this room.
He sat down and lit a cigarette and called the number Sutter had given, and when a happy female voice answered, “Hotel Costain. May I help you?” he gave her the extension, and the attorney’s voice came over the wire. “Yes?”
“Mike Shayne. Is that Sutter?”
“Yes. Thank goodness you called, Mr. Shayne. I’ve been worried…”
“I just got back from the Ames’ house,” Shayne cut him off. “I told you I’d be in touch as soon as I had anything to report.”
“I know you did. What have you to report, Mr. Shayne?”
“Nothing good,” the detective told him bluntly. “I went through the man’s private files without finding anything on your client. Yet, I’m sure I had the real dirt… the stuff he had no intention of printing.”
“I’m not surprised,” Sutter told him. “You see, I received a call in my room immediately after I got back from talking to you. A man who refused to identify himself told me that he had the information in his possession… the documents concerning my client which I had come down here to buy. He quoted a paragraph from one of them which convinced me he was telling the truth, Mr. Shayne.”
“And?”
“He is willing to turn them over to me for payment of twenty thousand dollars. He is apparently aware that Ames’ price was twenty-five, but as an inducement for me to deal with him at once… he stressed it must be tonight… he will accept twenty… intimating that I could pocket the extra five and no one would be the wiser.”
Shayne asked, “Why are you calling me?”
“Because I don’t trust the man whoever he is. I am not accustomed to dealing with violence, Mr. Shayne. He set up a midnight rendezvous to which I agreed reluctantly. What assurance have I that he will not meet me and forcibly take my payment without delivering the documents?”
Shayne said, “It has been done. How is the pay-off set up?”
“He gave me definite instructions. At midnight exactly I am to walk out the front entrance of my hotel and hail a cab… the first one waiting in line at the cab-stand or the first one that cruises by if none is waiting. He warned me that I would be under observation from the moment I stepped out the door and got into the taxi, and that if it were followed by another car the deal would be off. He gave rather elaborate instructions to prevent the possibility of my being followed unknown to him, and I confess I cannot see how you can circumvent them. But I suppose private detectives have a great deal of experience in such matters and I hope you may arrange to be on hand when I turn the money over to him.”
Shayne said, “Go on. What were his instructions?”
“To proceed north from my hotel at a moderate speed to Sixty-seventh Street. Left on Sixty-seventh for five blocks, and I am to instruct the driver to slow down in the middle of the fifth block and pull into the curb on the right and stop there for at least a full minute. I am then to tell the driver I have changed my mind about getting out there, and for him to drive on to the next corner where he is to turn south and drive slowly in that direction until we are hailed by a car and directed to pull over and stop. He will be in that car with the documents.”
Shayne had been jotting these directions down as the New York attorney gave them to him. Now he said, “I’ve got all that, Sutter. If you want to take that dope back to Murchinson in New York I advise you to do exactly as he says.”
“And you?” asked Sutter anxiously.
“Don’t worry about me. This is my town and this sort of thing is my business. Don’t look for me out of the cab. Don’t expect to see me following you. Remember that if you are able to see me, your man will too. Just have your driver do exactly what he told you lo. I’ll be in on the payoff, don’t worry about that, and you’ll be fully protected all the way.”
“Very well. I confess I don’t see how… but that is your business, isn’t it? Shall I take the full sum with me, or only twenty thousand?”
“All of it,” Shayne directed him. “In two envelopes will be best. You’re going to owe me the five if all goes well and you turn the twenty over to him.”
“Yes, I… I was afraid you’d drive that sort of bargain,” said Sutter sadly. “But I don’t care. If I can just conclude this unsavory business successfully and get back to New York I shall be most happy.”
“One more thing,” Shayne said sharply. “Have you been contacted by Sergeant Griggs?”
“The policeman who came to the Ames house? Not since I came to the hotel. I understand that he had no further interest in me.”
“That situation has changed,” Shayne told him. “He’s going to be looking for you to ask some more questions.” He looked at his watch and went on, “If you want to be certain to be free to leave your hotel at midnight, I suggest you get out of your room right away and stay out of it. There’s a cocktail lounge downstairs in the Costain. Go down there and settle yourself in a booth with a drink until twelve o’clock, and don’t pay any attention if you’re paged. Later on, if Griggs does contact you, you needn’t tell him I warned you to keep out of his way.”
“Of course not, Mr. Shayne. But why on earth…?”
“We’d better not waste time discussing it now. The sooner you get out of your room the better. Griggs is likely to be sending a man around for you at any moment.” Shayne hung up and sat back comfortably to finish his drink and to wonder who it was that had the Murchinson papers in his possession, and how he had come by them.