Blood on the Stars (13 page)

“I remember that one,” said
Rourke
eagerly. “Sure, I interviewed
Voorland
and gave it a local twist because the ruby was bought here. I tied it in with the King case. Man’s name was Kendrick.”
Rourke
was digging into the files again.

Shayne gave his attention to the feature story on the King robbery. There was a blurred picture of King and his wife, the man tall and thin, stooped and worried-looking, just as Earl Randolph had described him. His wife was a few years younger and had a pleasantly placid expression, though she appeared a little dazed in the picture.

Taking out his notebook, he ran his eyes swiftly down the printed column, copying the relevant material on King’s background in Massillon, Ohio.

Rourke
was standing by with the story he had written on the Kendrick murder-robbery when Shayne finished. He laid the first story aside and concentrated on the New Orleans case, gleaned from the facts
Rourke
had learned from Walter
Voorland
. There were no pictures, and the background material was somewhat sketchy, but he found enough for his purpose, and quickly jotted it down.

He waited impatiently for
Rourke
to replace the files,
then
suggested, “Let’s go in your office and charge a couple of telegrams to the
Daily News.”

“What are you onto, Mike? What’s the tie-up?”

“I’m not sure. There may not be one.” Shayne sat down at
Rourke’s
desk with his notebook before him. He said, “Massillon, Ohio, should be big enough to have a Worldwide Agency.” He lifted the telephone and called Western Union, then dictated the following message:

MANAGER,

WORLDWIDE DETECTIVE AGENCY

MASSILLON, OHIO.

MUST HAVE PRESENT WHEREABOUTS JAMES T. KING FORMERLY ONE THREE EIGHT BIRCH STREET MASSILLON.
INHERITED FORTUNE IN NINETEEN FORTY THREE AND SOLD HOME THERE.
SPARE NO EXPENSE AND WIRE ME IMMEDIATELY CARE MIAMI DAILY NEWS.

TIMOTHY
 
ROURKE

After the message was read back to him, he said, “Here’s another one.” He dictated a similar message to the New York manager of Worldwide, substituting the name of Roland Kendrick for that of King, and an address in Bedford.

He hung up, sat back, and grinned at
Rourke
. “Don’t look so worried. Your paper can afford the price of a couple of telegrams for the story you’re going to get—if my hunch is right.”

“Why do you want to locate those two guys?”
Rourke
demanded.

“To ask them if they ever heard of the Rajah of
Hindupoor
, and certain circumstances regarding the purchase and insurance on the rubies they lost.”

“What the hell has the Rajah of thing-a-ma-jig got to do with it?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

A shirt-sleeved man wearing a green eyeshade came to the open door and said, “Saw your light in here, Tim. Since you’re around you might as well cover an assignment over on the Beach.”

“I might, huh? What do you think I am?
A damned slave?
I’m headed for the hay right now.”

“Okay, okay,” said the man soothingly. “I’ve known the time you’d jump out of bed to cover a sweet one like this.” He turned to go away.

“Wait a minute,”
Rourke
called. “What’s sweet about it?”

“Just a little murder—maybe with a sex angle, and a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of rubies for a side dish.”

Shayne was on his feet. “What are you trying to tell us?”

“They just found Mrs. Mark Dustin’s body at the foot of the bathing-pier at the
Sunlux
. If you don’t want to cover it, Tim—”

Both men were on their way out before he could finish the sentence.

LOOKING FOR MORE TROUBLE

AS THEY PULLED AWAY FROM THE CURB in Shayne’s car,
Rourke
settled back in the seat beside the detective and said, “What’s this Mrs. Dustin like? What’s been going on, Mike? Those wires you sent back to the office—and the Rajah of something or other.”

Shayne said, “Celia Dustin was a beautiful gal. I’d better fill in some background, since it’ll all have to come into the open now.”

He guided the car around the traffic circle at 13th Street and headed across the Causeway to Miami Beach. “It won’t make me sore if you forget what I tell you about my secretary. Right after you left my apartment I went in the bedroom and found Lucy in there. She was on my bed dressed in a nightgown and robe, and she was unconscious.
Dangerous brain concussion.
She was unconscious—blood oozing from her scalp. I called Doc Price. He came and dressed the wound—”

Shayne hesitated a moment and
Rourke
said, “Go on. If you and your secretary want to play rough, it’s none of my affair.”

Shayne swiftly gave his friend a résumé of what Lucy had been able to tell them during her brief period of consciousness, then added, “I called Mrs. Dustin at the
Sunlux
and her phone didn’t answer. Harry Jessup is the house dick there. He went up to check the suite for me. Found her missing and Dustin knocked cold with an overdose of sleeping-tablets. I got over there fast.”

He told
Rourke
what he had learned upon his arrival, and the story Dustin told after the doctor succeeded in arousing him.

Rourke
said, “So Painter thinks she arranged the holdup.”

“I don’t know what Painter thinks by this time. Maybe her murder changes that—maybe not.”

“It could still add up the same way,”
Rourke
suggested. “If Mr. X was her accomplice and he got the idea she was calling you to double-cross him, she was practically inviting him to murder her.”

“Same way if he wasn’t her accomplice and guessed from what she said over the phone that she had a line on his identity,” Shayne argued.

“You’re sold on Mrs. Dustin?”

“I liked her.” Shayne hesitated,
then
went on slowly, “Remember telling me in my apartment that you’d been trying to reach both Randolph and
Voorland
without success?”

“Sure. I wanted some inside dope on the fabulous bracelet.”

“Earl Randolph claims he has been in all evening,” said Shayne quietly.

“I tried his phone half a dozen times. There was never any answer,”
Rourke
complained.

“Maybe it’s out of order. I found him in about an hour ago—going over old records and digging up the King and Kendrick thefts.”

“What connection is there?”

“From where I sit the only connection between the three men is Walter
Voorland
. He made all three star ruby deals.”

“And—?”

“And I think the Rajah of
Hindupoor
called him from the Miami Waldorf tonight and
Voorland
hurried out to see him using the name of Smith.”

They had reached the east end of the Causeway. Fifth Street was bare of traffic at this early hour before dawn, and Shayne sped on toward the ocean.

“All this Rajah stuff and the dope from Randolph
is
strictly under the hat,” he warned the reporter. “I’m playing it right down the line with you, as I always have.”

“
Yeh
, just as you always have,” said
Rourke
suspiciously. “What are you holding out this time?”

“Not a damned thing, Tim.” He swung left on Collins Avenue and sped northward past
Lummus
Park.

“Those boys who gave you the brass
knucks
—the ones called Blackie and the Kid. Didn’t you say Blackie was heavy-set and had a mustache? What kind of suit and hat did you say he was wearing?”

“I don’t think I said.” Shayne’s voice was deceptively mild.

“Maybe not.
You seemed pretty sure they were in on the robbery.”

“Did I?”

“This Blackie, now.
If he changed his mind and came around to apologize for slugging you—”
Rourke
left the sentence dangling.

Shayne said, “It seems practically certain that Mr. X was on the inside of the robbery, if that’s what you’re trying to say. Here we are.” He slowed as they approached the
Sunlux
Hotel, pulled off the pavement, and parked behind a police car at the south end of the building.

There were several police cars parked on both sides of the street, and all the floodlights were on at the ocean side, brightly illuminating the bathing-beach and pier.

A policeman guarded the street end of the concrete walk leading back, but he stepped aside to let them pass when he recognized the detective and reporter.

A group of men were gathered on the beach where the wooden pier jutted out into the water. They didn’t see Painter at once. Shayne accosted a homicide man who stood back on the fringe of the group.
“What’s going on, Dirk?”

“It’s a dame named Mrs. Mark Dustin. She’s been missing since—”

“I know about that. Who found her body?”

“
Petrillo
and Johnny Miles.
They were stationed here and just wandering around when suddenly they saw a foot sticking out from under the end of the pier. A dozen
guys’d
been all over every inch of it before and didn’t see anything.”

“What’s the story?”
Rourke
had a wad of copy paper out and was making notes.

“She’s dead.
Busted on the back of the head, left side, with a baseball bat or bottle.
Doc figures between twelve and twelve-thirty. Some fancy medical stuff gives him the idea she fell on the dry beach at the edge of the water and lay there ten or fifteen minutes before the tide came in and floated her down under the end of the pier where she lodged. That’s why nobody saw her at first.”

The group of detectives and policemen at the foot of the pier parted to let two ambulance attendants pass through bearing a stretcher with a sheet-covered body on it. Peter Painter followed the corpse, but stopped when he saw Shayne and
Rourke
.

“How do you explain this?” he asked Shayne aggressively.

“How about a statement from you?”
Rourke
asked eagerly.

“You can say I’m not at all satisfied with Shayne’s absurd story of somebody impersonating him over the telephone in his apartment and luring Mrs. Dustin down here to her death. I suspect him of prior knowledge of the murder and of giving out that yarn as a smoke-screen to cover
himself
when her body was discovered.”

“In other words,” said Shayne, “you’re publicly accusing me of murder as well as stealing the bracelet.”

“I’m accusing you of nothing—yet,” snapped the detective chief. “But I’m also not swallowing your hog-wash.” He turned and strutted through the sand toward the concrete walk.

A faint glow of dawn lighted the eastern horizon above the gray ocean.
Rourke
asked, as they followed Painter toward the hotel, “Want to come up with me and have a talk with Dustin?”

“Do your own
ghouling
,” said Shayne. “I’ve heard everything he has to say. I’ll be pushing along.”

Rourke
gave him a quick, suspicious glance and asked, “Where to? If you’ve got some other angles—”

“Sleep appeals to me right now,” he said casually. “There’ll be plenty to keep us busy tomorrow morning.”

“You’re nuts. It’s tomorrow already.” Suspicion edged his voice. “Don’t run out on me, Mike. I’ve got a feeling things are going to break fast.”

“Go on and intrude on Mark Dustin’s private grief,” Shayne told him good-naturedly. “There’s nothing much we can do until we get answers to those telegrams.”

Shayne went on to his car and drove northward. He took it slow, making very certain that Painter had not put a tail on him, turning off Collins after a few blocks and winding around the palm-lined streets until he reached Sunset Drive. There was enough daylight now for him to see the house numbers, and he loitered along until he found the address the telephone operator had given him in Ben Corey’s office.

He drove past the house on the silent, deserted street, turned the corner and parked halfway down the block, got out and walked back. There was no sign of life in any of the dwellings on either side of the street, and the only sound to break the silence of dawn was a milk truck coming down the street, stopping in front of most of the houses while the driver hurried up the walk to deposit his full bottles on front porches and pick up the empties.

Shayne stopped in the deep shadows on the sidewalk opposite the big house he sought. He lit a cigarette and watched the driver stop across the street, get out and run up the walk.

Moving out of the shadows, he crossed the street to intercept the
whitecoated
deliveryman as he returned to the truck. His sudden and unexpected appearance startled the driver.

“What
yuh
wanta
scare a guy like that for?” he demanded truculently. “If this is a stick-up—”

“
It’s
police business,” Shayne told him. “I’m interested in the house you just delivered to.”

“Police business? You don’t look like
no
cop to me.
You tight?”

Shayne took a badge from his pocket and showed it to him. “Who lives there?”

“This house right here?”
The driver scratched his head. “Bankhead.
Feller by the name of Bankhead.
That’s it. J. Donald Bankhead.
I been
deliverin
’ here most a year now. What’s wrong? What you want—”

“Know anything about Bankhead?” Shayne interrupted. “What’s his business?
How big a family?”

“Tell you the truth, I
dunno
much. You know how it is. These days a man hardly gets to know even his steady customers. I collect
onct
a week. Good pay. There’s a housekeeper pays off. I
dunno
’bout any family.
Six quarts a day regular an’ cream
twict
a week.
Look—I got to cover my route and if I don’t get
goin
’ there’ll be complaints.”