Chapter Thirteen

TWO TELEGRAMS AND A CORPSE

Benjamin Corey, one of the assistant managers of the Miami Waldorf Hotel in Coral Gables, greeted Shayne cordially and took him into a private office. After the exchange of brief social formalities, Shayne asked, “How’s the traffic in visiting royalty these days?”

“We’ve got a Rajah right now.”

“Of Hindupoor?”

“That’s right.” Corey was a thin, immaculate young man with very bright blue eyes. They rested on the detective with alert interest.

“Nice guy?”

“He spends plenty of money.”

“Is he in now?”

“I can find out.” Corey reached for the telephone on his desk, but Shayne stopped him.

“Find out some other things while you’re about it, Ben. Whether he has been in all evening—any visitors—phone calls in and out. The works.”

Ben Corey hesitated. “Care to tell me why you’re interested, Mike?”

“I’d rather not.”

Corey nodded and got up. “This will take a little time.” He went out and Shayne leaned back to mentally check over a raft of hazy ideas he had accumulated while with Earl Randolph. They were all extremely hazy. That was the hell of it. Haziest of all was the motivation that had induced Mrs. Dustin to drug her husband at midnight and then call his apartment to arrange a secret meeting with Mr. X who impersonated him. That didn’t tie in at all with any of the other ideas he was beginning to formulate. It was the added unknown that made the equation unsolvable.

He had finished two cigarettes and reached no definite conclusion when Corey re-entered the office. He carried a slip of paper in his hand, and he glanced at the penciled notation when he sat down.

“The Rajah had dinner served in his suite and hasn’t been out all evening,” he reported. “The operator believes there were two or three incoming calls earlier in the evening. Only two calls went out. Both to Miami Beach. At eleven o’clock and eleven-thirty.” He read off the telephone numbers.

As Shayne jotted them down, he recognized the second number. He had looked it up in Dustin’s suite at the Sunlux under Voorland’s name. The first number meant nothing to him.

“Two visitors were announced and went up,” Corey continued, consulting his slip of paper. “At ten o’clock a man giving the name of Hays, and a little after twelve, a Mr. Smith.”

“Any descriptions of them?”

“Only vague. Hays was tall, carried a briefcase, and looked like a lawyer. Smith was a big, solid man, with a broad face, and he spoke with a very faint accent. German, maybe.”

“How long did they stay?”

“No one happened to notice Hays leave. He may even be up there yet. Smith stayed about half an hour—and looked quite perturbed when he went down in the elevator.”

Shayne said, “Thanks, Ben.” He picked up the telephone and asked for the first Miami Beach number Corey had given him. He let it ring for a long time without getting an answer, then got the Beach operator and asked for the address of the number.

It was a residence on Sunset Drive. He wrote the address down and sat tugging at his earlobe, staring across the room moodily.

Corey said, “The Rajah is checking out tomorrow. Okay?”

“When did he decide to do that?”

“A couple of days ago. That is, it was a tentative arrangement. Confirmed a little after ten o’clock by phone from his suite.”

Shayne said, “I’ll let you know if there’s any reason why he shouldn’t. Will you put a check on his line, Ben? Get me everything you can.”

“I’d like to know what I’m getting into,” Corey protested. “He’s a rather important guest.”

“Would you rather have me swear out a warrant for his arrest as accessory in a jewel theft?”

“Good Lord, no! Is he?”

“I think so. But I doubt if I can prove it and I’d rather not be forced to try.”

“You’ll get your tap,” Corey assured him.

Shayne thanked him and said he would keep in touch. He started out of the office, then turned back to use the telephone again. He called his own apartment. A man’s voice said, “Patrolman Edmund speaking.”

“This is Mike Shayne. Everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine except this nurse is too good at gin rummy for me. There was a phone call about one o’clock. Some cluck wanted to know if there was a reward offered for the ruby bracelet lifted on the Beach tonight and said he’d call you back tomorrow morning. Traced the call to a phone booth in the lobby of the Sunlux Hotel and tipped the Beach cops off on it.”

Shayne said dryly, “That’s what I call a real pal,” and hung up. He stood with his hand on the phone, undecided for a moment, then quirked a rugged red brow at Corey as though in apology, lifted the handset again and called Timothy Rourke’s number.

When the reporter’s sleepy voice finally came over the wire, he said incisively, “Tim, get some clothes on and meet me at the News Tower right away.”

“Whassat?” muttered Rourke. “Who the devil is this?”

“Mike Shayne. Did you hear me?”

“I heard you but it didn’t take,” he protested. “What the hell time is it, anyway?”

“About three o’clock.”

“When I left your apartment I thought you were set for the night, Mike.” The reporter sounded wide awake now, and worried. “I thought—”

“You always get mixed up when you think,” Shayne snapped. “Meet me at the News Tower in twenty minutes.” He dropped the phone on the hook and grinned at Corey. “Send me a bill for these calls, Ben.” With an airy wave of his hand he went out, crossed the lobby to the outside where his car was parked in the driveway.

Twenty minutes later he parked on the Boulevard opposite the News Tower on Sixth Street. The elevator boy on duty said, “Mister Rourke just went up. Didn’t act like he was in too good a humor.”

Shayne grinned and said, “Tim’s getting old and needs his sleep.”

Rourke was lounging just inside the door of the city room when Shayne entered. He stifled a yawn and began querulously, “What the devil’s the matter with you, waking a guy up—?”

Shayne took one of his thin arms and led him down the corridor toward the newspaper morgue. “Things are beginning to break. You know these files better than anyone else, and I need some fast action.”

Rourke opened the door and switched on the lights as he went in. “What’s happened?”

“That jewel robbery is breaking fast. I want you to dig out the dope on a couple of other big ruby thefts. First, a man named King. James T. King. October of forty-three. An eighty thousand dollar star ruby ring. Remember it?”

“Sure.” Rourke’s nostrils twitched and his eyes were suddenly very bright in their cavernous sockets as he went confidently toward the files. “At the Tropical Towers Hotel. Bell-boy got sapped.” He ran a thin index finger down a file of bound copies of newspapers, selected one and pulled it out. “What do you want on it?”

“The man’s background. Did you cover the story?”

“Yeh. Interviewed him that night. Didn’t like the guy much, but his wife was nice. All that stuff will be in my first story,” he went on as he turned the pages swiftly. “Here’s my story—first page of the second section. Pix and everything.” He spread it open for Shayne to read.

“Good,” said Shayne. “I’ll get what I want here while you dig up one a little more difficult. This was a robbery in New Orleans a couple of years later. Probably October of forty-five. Will there be anything on it here?”

“Was it big?”

“A star ruby pendant. I think the insurance was a hundred grand—maybe a hundred and ten. The wife got killed.”

“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.