Pay-Off in Blood (13 page)

“Yes. Cecil persists in that childish haircut. Who did the doctor tell you he was meeting last night?”

“He insisted to me that he didn’t know. That the man had kept his identity a secret.”

“And you fell for that line?” she cackled incredulously.

Shayne said, “I saw no good reason to doubt him.”

“How well were you acquainted with Dr. Ambrose?” she demanded imperiously.

“I met him last night for the first time.”

“Yet you went along to protect him?” she marveled.
“A great, big man like you to protect him from my Cecil?
Shame on you!”

Shayne started to explain to her about his old friend, Tim
Rourke
, who owed the doctor a debt of gratitude, but decided the hell with it. He said, “All right, Mrs. Montgomery. So your son stuck his neck out last night. Did he kill Dr. Ambrose?”

“Cecil? Why ever would he? You witnessed the entire transaction, from what Cecil told me. You know he got what he went after… all fair and square. Why would
he
want to kill the doctor?”

Shayne said, “I came here hoping you were going to tell me that.”

“Hoping I was going to tell you my son is a murderer? Really, Mr. Shayne…!”

“What do you want to tell me?”

“Very frankly, I’m worried. The doctor’s murder upset everything. Naturally, I want my son’s connection with the affair kept out of it entirely. If… if I were able to give you a lead to the identity of the real murderer, would that suffice?” She leaned forward eagerly in her wheelchair.

“You mean in return for my promise to keep Cecil in the clear?”

“Yes. Is that too much to ask? He did nothing wrong… really.”

“You’re the one,” he reminded her sharply, “who recently asked me to agree that a blackmailer is the most loathsome human being on earth. Yet, you’re now asking me to protect an admitted participant in blackmail.”

“Mr. Shayne.” Her voice was tremulous suddenly, and old. “Cecil is all I have left in life. I have protected him for years, from the results of his own folly. No mother can be blamed for doing that. Whatever mistakes he has made in the past… can they not be forgiven now? I assure you he had nothing to do with murder last night. Except… possibly… as an indirect result of his own folly. That is why I asked you to come here today. To listen to a mother plead for her only son. He acted in a misguided and foolish manner last night. In a sense, I have myself to blame for having protected him in the past. But… he is my son, Mr. Shayne.”

Shayne said, “If I’m convinced Cecil is in the clear on the killing, I’ll make a deal with you, Mrs. Montgomery. Give me the name of the man Cecil was working for when he collected that twenty thousand dollars from Dr. Ambrose… and give me the name of the man who killed the doctor… and, if humanly possible, I’ll keep your son out of it.”

She worked her lips in and out slowly, and her eyes showed complete perplexity.

“When he
collected
twenty thousand dollars?” she repeated slowly and emphatically. “Are you out of your mind, Mr. Shayne? Cecil
paid
him twenty thousand dollars of my money… and you saw him do it.”

Michael Shayne sat very still for a long sixty seconds while he absorbed the impact of Mrs. Montgomery’s statement.

“Are you going to sit there and try to make me believe you thought it was the other way around?” she demanded, tartly, before he could get his thoughts in order.

He sighed deeply and got out a cigarette. He very carefully struck a match and put flame to it, drew in a deep puff of smoke and found a clean ash-tray at his elbow into which he dropped the matchstick.

“Mrs. Montgomery,” he said earnestly. “Do you
know
what was in that white envelope your son passed over to Dr. Ambrose at the
Seacliff
?”

“Most certainly, I know. There were ten one-thousand-dollar bills, and one hundred one-hundred-dollar bills. They were delivered to me by the bank yesterday afternoon, and I placed them inside the envelope myself, and sealed it in Cecil’s presence.”

“Then what was in the doctor’s envelope?” Shayne protested weakly.

“Exactly what he had promised in return for the money.
Certain documentary proofs of a page out of Cecil’s youth which I have no desire to discuss with a stranger. They are destroyed now, and the subject is closed.”

Shayne drew sharply on his cigarette and leaned back in his chair with his eyes half-closed, tugging at his earlobe while the scene with Dr. Ambrose in his apartment came clearly into focus.

The doctor’s appeal for sympathy… for help in meeting a blackmail demand! The thick envelope he had produced from his inner pocket with the statement that it contained $20,000!

If Mrs. Montgomery was to be believed, he and Tim
Rourke
had both been beautifully bamboozled by Dr. Ambrose. Neither one of them would have touched the
collection
of blackmail with a ten-foot pole. Realizing that, the wily doctor had simply switched the situation around to meet his own needs.

To carry out his plan he was forced to insist that
photostats
of the “documents” incriminating him would be harmless. That part of his ingenious lie was true, because the “documents” were non-existent and you could not
photostat
the non-existent.

Shayne opened his eyes and said, “Can you prove what you’re just told me, Mrs. Montgomery? That Cecil paid out money instead of receiving payment from the doctor?”

“If necessary.
My bank will verify delivery to me of that sum in cash yesterday. Why is proof necessary, Mr. Shayne? Dr. Ambrose was a
scoundrelly
blackmailer, and he met his deserved end last night. I thought you knew all that. You stood by and helped him receive the money. By my standards, you are as guilty of extortion as he is.”

Shayne said, “Mrs. Montgomery, if we are to work together at all on this matter, you will have to believe this one fact. Dr. Ambrose came to me last night and told me
he
was being blackmailed. He showed me a sealed envelope which he claimed contained twenty thousand dollars… every penny he was able to scrape together… and he persuaded me to accompany him to the
Seacliff
for his protection in dealing with a blackmailer. Until five minutes ago, I had no reason whatsoever for doubting the truth of his story. This puts his murder in an entirely different perspective. If he had twenty grand in his pocket when he was shot…” He paused, striving to readjust his thinking.

“Then you know who did it, Mr. Shayne?” The fat, old lady leaned forward eagerly in her wheelchair.

“No. I still have no idea. I simply see a motive now, which didn’t seem to exist previously. You brought me here to give me a lead,” he reminded her. “I was hesitant about protecting your son, when I thought he was the blackmailer. If he was the victim instead, I have no hesitancy at all in covering up for him. You said he acted in a foolish and misguided manner last night… which may have resulted in murder. You had better tell me all about it.”

“Yes. I think it is time someone in a position to act knew the facts. I realize now that my son’s action was partially my fault. You see, when I sent him to pay the money, he did not know whom he was going to pay it to. I pretended that the doctor’s identity was unknown to me. Don’t ask me why, Mr. Shayne. It goes far back into the past which I did not wish to discuss with Cecil. I thought it would all end with the simple exchange of envelopes.
This nightmare of fear that has enveloped me for years.”

“For years?” asked Shayne gently.

“Yes. I’ve been paying him tribute for many years. I was his patient once, Mr. Shayne. As so many foolish women do with their doctors, I quite adored him. He was a little, tin god, who took the place of a priest and I confided in him as one would in the Confessional. Then he gently… oh, so gently… began tightening the screws. It was very simple and his method made it almost painless and practically impossible to prove that I was being blackmailed. He merely increased my bill for medical services by a hundred dollars each month. They don’t send itemized bills, you know, and there was nothing to indicate I hadn’t received the services I was billed for.

“I ceased going to him as a medical man, of course, but the monthly bills continued to arrive… in varying odd amounts of a little more or a little less than a hundred dollars each month… and I continued to pay them.

“Until recently, when he called me to say that he was in desperate need of cash and that the monthly driblets were no longer sufficient and he was willing to liquidate the affair for a flat payment of twenty thousand dollars. I agreed.”

“He had some tangible evidence against your son?”

“Yes,” she told him stonily. “Somehow, using the information I had given him in confidence, he had acquired certain documents which I did not wish made public. They are now destroyed, thank God, and no one need ever know the facts.”

“I shan’t press you for them,” Shayne assured her. “What happened last night that you fear has a bearing on his death?”

“I knew nothing about it until Cecil confessed last night, after we learned from television that Dr. Ambrose had been shot. As I told you, Cecil did not know the name of the man who was blackmailing me on his account. I didn’t want him to know because I feared he might try to take matters into his own hands… recover the documents by force. He didn’t do that, but he did do something that I fear may have been equally foolish. He confided in a friend of his that he was making a blackmail pay-off at the
Seacliff
last night, and asked this friend to make arrangements to have a picture made of the meeting… with some idea of holding this picture over the blackmailer’s head in the future, if he ever renewed his demands on me.”

“So it was your son who had that picture taken! I supposed all the time it was Ambrose’s cute idea.”

“Why on earth would he want a picture of himself committing blackmail?”

“You’re got to remember that I’ve been going on the assumption all the time that Dr. Ambrose was the victim. What happened to the picture, Mrs. Montgomery?”

“That’s what worries me. Cecil had arranged with this friend to meet him afterward and get the picture. He went to the rendezvous and waited for more than an hour, but the fellow did not turn up. Cecil wasn’t unduly worried at the time, but after he returned home and we learned that Dr. Ambrose had been murdered, he did begin to wonder whether this so-called friend might have been tempted by the thought of the twenty thousand dollars in the doctor’s possession… followed him over to the Beach and killed him for it. You see the implications, Mr. Shayne. Only this man and my son knew what that envelope contained.”

“So you think one of them killed him?”

“Not my son, Mr. Shayne. But I am afraid his friend may have been tempted.”

“Where is Cecil now?” demanded Shayne.

“He is in New York,” she told him calmly. “After he told me last night what had happened, I insisted that he take an early plane north. I am not going to have him questioned and badgered by the police.”

Shayne said quietly, “If he has information about a homicide, he can be brought back to testify, Mrs. Montgomery.”

“That is what I expect you to avoid. You gave me your word to keep Cecil’s name out of it.”

Shayne said, “I told you I would, if we can solve the murder without bringing him into it. Who is the man Cecil suspects?”

“His name is Fritz Harlan. That’s just about all I can tell you, Mr. Shayne. It is practically all that Cecil told me. I don’t know the man personally. From things Cecil has said, I gather that he is a person who is known to the police and has a variety of unsavory contacts in the city. It shouldn’t be difficult for an experienced man like you to get on his trail.”

Shayne said, “We’ll see.” He paused, marshalling his thoughts. “This Fritz Harlan knew Cecil was turning twenty thousand dollars over to Ambrose last night? At your son’s suggestion and request, he arranged to have a photographer present to make a record of the pay-off? He had arranged with Cecil to meet him afterward and deliver the picture? He didn’t show up as had been arranged? Then, when Cecil learned that Ambrose had been murdered… presumably to obtain possession of the envelope containing your twenty thousand dollars… Cecil jumped to the conclusion that Fritz had committed the murder to get his hands on the money? Is that the essence of your thinking… what you are trying to tell me?”

“It all sounds logical, doesn’t it?”

“Sure,” agreed Shayne morosely. “On the other hand, Dr. Ambrose sounded pretty damned logical last night himself. How do I know your story is any straighter than his was?”

“You don’t,” she agreed promptly. “But, if you find Fritz Harlan, I don’t think you’ll have to look any further for your murderer.”

“If we do find him and arrest him, isn’t he likely to tell the whole story of your being blackmailed on Cecil’s account? It’s pretty difficult, Mrs. Montgomery, to keep all one’s dirty linen from being washed in public when there’s a homicide investigation involved. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m promising anything that I can’t deliver.”

“I think I’m going to trust you, Michael Shayne,” she told him abruptly. “Frankly, I don’t know what else to do under the circumstances. I want you to understand one thing, however: I would and will be perfectly happy if Dr. Ambrose’s murderer goes scot-free. I have a feeling that a lot of people were relieved and happy to hear about his death last night.”

“You think he was blackmailing others at the same time he was collecting money from you?” Shayne asked her bluntly.

“I have only my intuition to go on, but I do believe that… yes. From certain small hints he let drop… I think he made a practice of it over the years.” She paused, collecting her thoughts. “From my own experience, I suggest that women patients of a doctor are likely to confide very intimate details of their personal life to him. In nine cases out of ten, probably, there would be nothing in such confidential revelations that would provide material for blackmail. But in each tenth case…”