Michael Shayne was almost exactly four hours late for his appointment with Julio Peralta when he turned Timothy Rourke’s shabby coupe between imposing stone gateposts off Alton Road.
The macadam drive curved gently upward between a double row of feathery Australian pines to the large three-story house dominating several acres of carefully landscaped lawn and tropical shrubbery. There was a cream-colored Cadillac convertible and a long, dark blue limousine parked in front of the house, and Shayne pulled in behind them.
Twin porch lights illuminated a flagstone path leading to wide double front doors beyond a row of white pillars rising two full stories, and the front windows of all three stories showed light behind them.
There was the scent of hibiscus and bougainvillea in the soft evening air as Shayne went up the flagged walk to press the doorbell, and, as he stood there, he could hear the barbaric strains of a Stravinsky symphony coming from a second-floor window.
A maid opened the door for him. She wore a plain, dark uniform with a little, frilly white apron, and she tilted her head slightly to look up at the detective and ask, “Yes, sir?”
“I’d like to see Mr. Peralta.” Over the maid’s head, Shayne could see a wide empty hallway leading back to a magnificent curving stairway. Draperies were drawn back from a wide archway on the right of the hall, and soft light came through it together with the subdued clink of glasses and silverware.
The maid pursed her lips doubtfully and shook her neat dark head. “I’m afraid he couldn’t be disturbed just now. If you’ll give me your name, I’ll see…”
“Michael Shayne. If he’s at dinner, I’ll wait.”
“I’ll see,” she said again doubtfully, and started to close the door as she turned away. Shayne grinned down at her wearily and moved forward over the threshold, suggesting, “You might bring me a drink while I’m waiting.” He moved past her along the hall to a point where he looked through the archway at a long dining table lighted only with a dozen or more candles. Half a dozen people were seated at the table. Only one of them raised her eyes to notice the detective.
She sat at the opposite end of the long table, wearing a low, square-cut frock showing creamy, smooth shoulders and a considerable swell of breasts in the soft light. She had plump, even features, and a lot of dark brown hair piled in tight ringlets on her head. At that distance and in that light, her eyes appeared vacant and unseeing. Not a ripple of interest crossed her face as she looked at him.
The visual encounter with the woman whom Shayne recognized from newspaper photographs was very brief because the maid was almost instantly at his elbow, looking properly horrified and a little frightened by his intrusion, urging him past the archway with a hand on his arm and whispering, “Please! This way, please.”
Shayne allowed himself to be led down the hall and into a large square library on the left. He smiled at the agitated maid and assured her, “It’ll be perfectly all right with Mr. Peralta. I’m late for an important business appointment is all. You might let him know I’m here and that you’ve made me comfortable with a brandy.”
“Yes, sir. Perhaps I could give your card to Mr. Freed.”
“I haven’t any card,” he told her cheerfully, dropping his hat into one chair and sitting down in another. “My business is with Peralta, not with someone named Freed. Martell, if you have it,” he went on calmly, “though I won’t quibble over Courvoisier or Napoleon. With some ice-water on the side,” he added, taking out a pack of cigarettes and lighting one.
The maid hesitated momentarily, then went away. Shayne relaxed in the deep, leather-covered chair and looked about the library with approval. It had very much a lived-in look. The half dozen comfortable chairs were pulled around under reading lamps or in front of windows, an open book lay on the seat of one, and the low table beside another was strewn with three books and the current issue of the Saturday Review. The bookshelves lining two walls were filled with volumes that had not been selected for uniformity of binding and which mostly showed signs of handling.
Shayne was not aware that he was no longer alone until a voice spoke at his elbow:
“Annette tells me you forced your way in and refuse to leave.” It was a tenor voice with a note of grievance in it that sounded habitual. Shayne turned his red head slowly to squint upward through cigarette smoke at the man who had entered noiselessly on thick crepe soles of cream-colored loafers. He wore dark trousers which bulged tightly at plump hips, a white shirt with a neat blue and white polka dot bow-tie and a fawn-colored lounging jacket. He had a plump face and a petulant, rose-bud mouth which stayed slightly open to show the white tips of two protruding upper teeth. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties, though he was quite bald with only a fringe of hair at the sides of a darkly sunburned scalp covered with tiny fuzz.
Shayne knocked ashes from his cigarette and said, “I’m waiting for a drink to keep me company until Peralta is free to see me. Don’t tell me there’s no cognac in a layout like this.”
“I’m Mr. Peralta’s secretary. Nathaniel Freed.” The secretary fluttered plump, white hands at Shayne with an expression on his face of shooing off a caterpillar. “I know you did have an appointment with Mr. Peralta this afternoon… made against my advice, to be quite frank… but after you failed to keep it, he made other arrangements. Mr. Peralta is not a man,” Freed went on severely, “to be kept waiting for hours without an explanation.” He did not add, “by a punk like you,” but the idea was implicit in his tone.
Shayne said, “I’ll let your boss do his own talking, if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind. Most definitely.” Freed’s upper lip quivered under Shayne’s amused gaze. “I am following his instructions in ordering you to leave.”
Shayne said, “I think you’re lying, Bud. I don’t believe he knows I’m here.” He came to his feet easily and Freed took a hasty backward step just as there was the sound of excited footsteps behind him in the hall and two youngsters trotted into the library.
These must be the Brats, Shayne realized, looking at them with a grin and wondering which was Edwin and which Edwina.
They were dressed exactly alike in slacks and short-sleeved seersucker sport shirts, and they looked exactly identical at first glance with fair hair cut boyishly short and eager faces studying him with unabashed curiosity. They were about ten, he guessed, and whichever of the two was Edwina hadn’t yet developed sufficient feminine traits to distinguish her from her brother.
“Hey,” one of them said to Freed. “Eddie says she heard Annette whisper to you that Mike Shayne was here. Is that right? Is this him?”
“Are you Mike Shayne?” Eddie, who was evidently the sister, looked at the detective in some disappointment. “Where’s your gat, if you’re a detective?”
“Aw, he doesn’t carry it out in sight, you nut,” said her brother in disgust. “But you don’t look so tough, either,” he added to Shayne. “All those newspaper stories are the bunk, I bet.”
“Ed,” said Freed fretfully, “you and Eddie should be back at the table. I’m certain your father wouldn’t approve…”
“Why not? Hey, Dad!” Ed turned and raised his voice in a shrill shout. “That detective’s in here. You gonna hire him to get back the bracelet?”
Freed clamped his pouting lips together disapprovingly and turned away hurriedly to go back along the hallway, his plump hips wiggling behind him.
Shayne sank back into his chair and grinned at the Brats. “Now you’ve upset him.”
“Oh, him,” said Eddie airily. “He’s always upset. He’s just a nance.”
“Hey,” exclaimed Ed, “why aren’t you guzzling cognac?”
“For the simple reason,” said Shayne, “that no one has brought me any. Most inhospitable house I ever visited.”
“Call yourself a detective?” giggled Eddie. She trotted around in front of Shayne, knelt before the smoking stand in front of his chair and pressed a button at the bottom. The front of the stand swung open showing a shelf holding a cut-glass decanter filled with amber liquid and six large snifters in a neat row. “Right under your nose all the time and you didn’t even know it.”
Shayne grinned appreciatively as he reached a long arm for one of the snifters and held it for Eddie to splash cognac in the bottom. He was holding it to his nose, warming it with the palms of both hands, when they were interrupted by footsteps in the hall and an angry voice saying, “… told you a thousand times you’re not paid to do my thinking for me. I don’t care what the chief of detectives told you…”
The footsteps stopped in the doorway and the voice softened somewhat: “You two youngsters run along now. Daddy has important business to discuss with Mr. Shayne.”
“Aw, heck,” they moaned in unison. “Can’t we stay, Dad? Can’t we watch him detect?”
Shayne took another deep inhalation of the fumes of ancient brandy and lowered the snifter to look at his millionaire host.
Julio Peralta was very tall and very thin. He appeared to be about fifty, and had a gaunt face and black eyes beneath beetling brows. He glanced at Shayne with a brief nod as the detective rose, but spoke to the twins again, “Not this time. I’m sure Mr. Shayne will be glad to explain his methods to you later, but you’re to go in to Mother now.”
They said, “Aw, heck,” again, and started to edge away unwillingly, their round eyes fixed on Shayne. “Aren’t you gonna drink it?” demanded Eddie sotto voce, and Shayne nodded solemnly and tipped up the snifter to empty the contents down his throat.
“You go along with the children,” said Peralta to his secretary, who stood two paces behind him. “I won’t need your help with what I have to say to Shayne.”
He stood just inside the door, waiting until the trio vanished, then sighed heavily and closed the door. He passed in front of the detective with a springy step for his years and said impatiently, “Sit down. Help yourself to the brandy, if you wish. And then explain why the devil you didn’t show up this afternoon.”
Shayne said, “I was shanghaied.” He sat down and poured more brandy, asking with interest, “Why is Chief Painter so determined I shan’t see you?”
“Painter? Is he really? I had no idea… Shanghaied, eh? Exactly what do you mean by that?”
Shayne shrugged. “Your secretary tried to get rid of me by saying you made other arrangements after I failed to show up.”
“Nathaniel sometimes takes too much on himself.” Peralta sank into a deep chair near Shayne and produced a leather cigar-pouch. He started to extend it to the detective, noticed the lighted cigarette between his fingers, and selected a cigar for himself. “I was irritated when you didn’t turn up. Naturally. I spoke of the possibility of getting another detective, and, without instructions, my secretary telephoned Chief Painter for a recommendation.”
“Painter already knew you had called me in, I presume,” said Shayne easily.
“What’s that? Why, yes. He came here around three o’clock to ask if I had some idea of hiring you, and was most offensive in warning me against doing so. It appears he doesn’t think highly of your abilities or trustworthiness.”
Shayne grinned and took a long sip of warm cognac. “Why does he care if you call in outside help?”
“There was a lot of talk,” said Peralta indifferently, “about your connections among the criminal elements and your reputation for arranging deals in cases like this where the thief is offered immunity and a certain sum of money for the return of stolen goods. Chief Painter is too ethical to countenance any such arrangements and threatens to arrest you as accessory if you make any such attempt.
“But all this is beside the point, Mr. Shayne,” Peralta went on impatiently. “The bracelet was completely insured and I am not particularly interested in whether it is recovered or not. I pointed out to Painter that certainly I had no interest in paying out money for its recovery. That is entirely up to the insurance people.”
“Naturally,” agreed Shayne drily. “So, why did you want to see me?”
“Because of a letter I received this morning.” Peralta took an envelope from his inner breast pocket, studied it for a moment, then leaned forward to hand it to Shayne. “Luckily Nathaniel was otherwise occupied this morning when the mail came, and I opened this first. No one else has seen it, Mr. Shayne.”
It was a plain, stamped envelope with no return address. Julio Peralta’s name and address were neatly printed in ink on the front. It was postmarked Miami, Florida, 4:30 the preceding afternoon. Shayne set his brandy down and took a single sheet of plain letter-size paper from the envelope.
There was no heading or date at the top. It was neatly printed, like the envelope:
“Dear Mr. Peralta:
“I’ve got your so-called ‘emerald’ bracelet. I mean the one stolen from your wife recently, which they say is insured for $110,000.
“You can have it back and no one the wiser on payment of one-half the insurance. As a business man, I think you’ll agree this is a bargain.
“Put $55,000 in old, twenty-dollar bills in a plain 9x12 manila envelope, securely sealed and address to James Morgan, General Delivery, Miami, Florida, and mail to me at the main post office in Miami before 12:00 noon on Thursday, the 14th.
“If you do this and don’t try to trace the receiver of the money, your bracelet will be returned to you by registered mail within a few days. Then you can keep the imitation and go ahead and collect the insurance money.
“If you are too greedy to share equally with me, or if anything at all goes wrong, the imitation emerald bracelet will be sent to Mr. Timothy Rourke, feature writer for the Miami News, with a full explanation of your attempt to collect $110,000 insurance on an imitation worth a few hundred dollars. I know Mr. Rourke will enjoy printing the story and exposing you for the crook I, alone, now know you to be.
“This is my first and final offer. You have until noon Thursday.”
There was no signature to the letter. Shayne read it thoughtfully and in silence. When he finished and refolded it, he looked up to see the Cuban millionaire leaning forward watching him anxiously, chewing unhappily on his unlit cigar.
Shayne shrugged and shook his head. “You’ve let yourself get into a damned compromising position by letting three weeks pass before you announce the stolen bracelet was actually just a cheap imitation. Even if you do come out with a statement now, if a reporter like Rourke ever gets hold of the fact that it took a threatening letter like this to force your hand, you still won’t be in a good position. By slick maneuvering, you might avoid actual prosecution for attempted fraud, but there wouldn’t be much doubt in anyone’s mind that you did attempt it.
“Why, in the name of God,” Shayne burst out angrily, “did you show this letter to me? Far better if you’d kept your mouth shut and paid the man off. You can’t do that now that I’ve seen the letter. I’m only private and I cut corners sometimes, but I can’t go along with an insurance fraud.”
Julio Peralta’s face had slowly turned a sickly white as Shayne spoke. “But it’s not true,” he exclaimed in a horrified voice. “Good Lord, man, don’t you think I know the value of the bracelet? It was purchased at Tiffany’s in New York four years ago. Don’t you realize it was appraised by the insurance company?”
“I’m sure you bought it at Tiffany’s and it was carefully appraised,” said Shayne, wearily. “But none of that proves anything, if the one actually stolen is proved to be an imitation. Lots of rich people do a thing like that,” he went on, angrily. “Have imitations made for their wives to display in public. It’s common practice and nothing to be ashamed of. But, if the imitation is stolen, it isn’t ethical to pretend it was the original and try to collect insurance on it.”
“You’re insulting, Mr. Shayne. Some men may allow their wives to wear cheap imitations, but I consider it a tawdry thing to do.”
“All right. So it was the real thing. How do you explain this letter?”
“I don’t. I hoped you might.”
Shayne shrugged again and picked up his brandy. “If it’s a bluff and you know it’s a bluff… call it, of course. Simply tear it up and forget it. Or, better yet, fix up a decoy envelope and mail it. I’ll see that James Morgan is arrested when he calls for it at General Delivery.”
The financier from Cuba was silent for a long moment, fidgeting with the unlighted cigar in his hands and studying it as though he had never seen one before. Without raising his eyes to the detective, he asked in a low voice:
“Suppose the man has such an imitation? No matter how he got hold of it. What then?”
“Let’s understand each other,” said Shayne, slowly. “Do you suspect the bracelet may have been copied without your knowledge? And that you weren’t told of the substitution after it was stolen?”
“No. That’s impossible,” cried out Peralta. “Who could possibly have done that?”
As though in answer to his question, the door was pushed open without warning and Laura Peralta entered the library.