Bodies Are Where You Find Them (12 page)

He turned away and sat down on one of the padded seats. The utter absence of sound inside the building was peculiarly forbidding. He caught himself straining his ears for the welcome sound of a car in the street outside—for any one of the multitude of unnoticed sounds which impinge upon our hearing every moment of the day and come to one’s attention only when completely absent.

Then he realized that the outer walls of the building must be soundproofed, and he stopped straining to hear.

He lighted a cigarette and the sound of a dull, muffled thumping came from the rear as he expelled smoke from his lungs. He glanced around but could see only the empty hall. The thumping continued, muffled and monotonous.

The palms of his hands were sweaty, and he was angered by a dryness in his mouth and throat. The unexplained thumping was more eerie than the silence it had supplanted.

A woman screamed somewhere inside the building. A ululating howl of inhuman ferocity knifing thinly through the air, rising to a shrill crescendo and descending jerkily to a minor key.

The thumping stopped, started again. Shayne looked down at his big hands and saw them bunched tightly into fists. He unclenched them, one finger at a time, forcing a rueful grin to his lips. He wondered why normal human beings react so strongly to abnormal mental conditions. It is silly as hell, of course.

He heard a slithering sound beside him and jerked his head around to see a gnomelike little fellow sliding up on the leather-covered bench beside him. He wore the shapeless white garment of a patient and held a fleshless finger pressed warningly against sunken lips to indicate silence. His features were wrinkled, and fleshless skin hung over the wrinkles in tiny folds. His eyes were very bright, gleaming with ferrety inquisitiveness.

Shayne fought back a desire to slide away and avoid contact with the strange creature. He took a deep drag on his cigarette and said, “Hello.”

The wizened features contracted still more into a frown. He shook his head and whispered, “Not so loud. They’ll hear you. I sneaked in to talk to you.”

Shayne didn’t say anything. The thumping sound had ceased.

“I know you,” his companion whispered. “I’ve seen your picture in the paper. You’re a detective—of minor fame.”

Shayne nodded agreement, still without answering. The man sounded sensible enough.

The little old man put his lips close to Shayne’s ear and whispered hoarsely, “I guess you don’t recognize me. No one does any more. I’m Sherlock Holmes.”

Shayne felt an odd desire to chuckle at his first conclusion. He said, “Is that so?” unintentionally lowering his voice to the same key as his companion’s. “Is Doctor Watson with you?”

“No. He remained behind in Baker Street to attend as best he could to any small matters. I’m in America on a secret and dangerous mission. I’m watched every minute, and if I’m caught talking with you it will be the end.”

An orderly entered the hall from a side door and tramped past them. He was a stocky young man with an unintelligent face. He glanced at the little man and winked at Shayne, then passed on.

Shayne’s companion seemed not to see the orderly. “Yes, indeed,” he insisted. “Our lives would not be worth a farthing if we were seen together.”

“Let’s just pretend we’re invisible,” Shayne suggested.

“It would do no good. They’re devils here. The Gestapo, you know.”

“Yes?” Shayne queried politely.

“I must confide in you. As a fellow member of the profession I have no course but to trust you. They murdered the Duchess last night.”

“So?” Shayne turned sharp gray eyes upon the little man. “You must be mistaken.”

“Am I not Sherlock Holmes? Have you ever known him to be mistaken?”

“Well, no.”

“Stop interrupting then, my good fellow. What I have to say is important. There’s a plot to overthrow the government of the Isles—”

“Did you witness the murder?”

“Yes, I spied on them, helpless to halt the terrible crime. They fixed it up to look like suicide by hanging, but that was a mere ruse to foil you easily fooled Americans.
I
saw them spirit her body away in the dead of night in a black sedan, and
you,
sir, must bear these tragic tidings to the Duke at once.”

“I’ll do my best,” Shayne promised, “but I’m afraid they’ll only laugh at my story.” He relaxed his jaw, suddenly conscious that his teeth were grinding together.

A door opened down the hall.

“There they come,” the little man whispered stridently. “The Gestapo. But I’ll outwit them yet.” He jumped up and scurried to the front door.

An orderly laughed indulgently as he approached Shayne. “Has Sherlock been plotting with you against the Gestapo?”

Shayne grinned and nodded. “He’s lost without Watson.”

“What was it this time? Last week he was working on a plan to save the President from assassination.”

“He appears to have succeeded.”

The orderly passed on, and the nurse came to the side door and beckoned Shayne. “Doctor Patterson will see you now.”

She led him through a small, neat office to a comfortable inner room with overstuffed furniture and smoking-stands.

A tall, bronzed man in a light-gray business suit met Shayne at the door. “Come right in, sir. I’m sorry you were forced to wait.”

Dr. Patterson was a youngish forty with strong, regular features and piercing blue eyes. He motioned Shayne to a comfortable chair and offered him a cigar. Shayne declined it and lit a cigarette, explaining with a grin, “I haven’t been bored in the interim, doctor. One of your patients entertained me.”

The doctor laughed genially. He exuded an air of good-fellowship and man-to-man camaraderie, but his blue eyes followed Shayne’s slightest movement, dissecting and analyzing the man before him with the cold impersonality and precision of a trained scientist.

“Now what can I do for you, Mr. Shayne?” His voice was rich and warm. “We’re entirely private here. Don’t hesitate to speak your mind freely.”

Shayne nodded. “I’d like to discuss a hypothetical case, doctor. A friend of mine.”

“Yes, of course. A hypothetical case.” Dr. Patterson leaned back and carefully placed the tips of his fingers together, frowning down at them. He made it quite evident that he suspected his caller of stalling. “So many who come to me wish to discuss hypothetical cases,” he added pleasantly.

“I’m a detective, doctor. A private detective. Michael Shayne is the full name.”

Dr. Patterson stiffened slightly and bent forward at the waist, his eyes full upon Shayne. “Ah, yes. I’m sure you’ll find it pleasant here. We have another guest with whom you’ll have a great deal in common.”

Shayne said, “I met Sherlock Holmes outside. I’m not applying for admittance, doc. I’ve come to discuss the case of a client.”

“I see.” The doctor’s manner changed abruptly. His gaze lost its probing impersonality, became shrewd and searching. He warned stiffly, “If you’ve been retained to effect the discharge of a patient you’re wasting your time and mine. This is strictly a private institution and no legal technicalities are involved. I prefer not to deal with intermediaries, Mr. Shayne.”

Shayne said, “If you’d let me speak my piece we’d get along faster. I want to talk to you about Mrs. Burt Stallings. You’re her personal physician, I believe.”

“Mrs. Stallings? Yes.” Patterson hesitated. “What information do you want concerning Mrs. Stallings?”

“What’s the matter with her?” Shayne asked bluntly. “You’re not a general practitioner. Why were you called in?”

“What is your authority for these questions?” Patterson parried bluntly. “I don’t make a practice of discussing my patients with an outsider.”

“I’m making an investigation for Stallings. He sent me to you. Call him if you want to verify it.”

Shayne’s voice and manner were so assured that the doctor did not call his bluff. He said reproachfully, “I don’t understand why Mr. Stallings didn’t come directly to me. But that’s neither here nor there. Mrs. Stallings had a mental and physical breakdown and I’ve been treating her for that. Though she might have recovered faster here at the sanitarium, her progress has been very satisfactory and I expect another few days to see a complete recovery.”

“This breakdown,” Shayne asked, “it came right after her daughter’s return home—after the daughter clashed with her stepfather and filed suit against him for mishandling her father’s estate? Was that the cause of Mrs. Stallings’s breakdown?”

“It was a contributing factor.”

“But the girl withdrew her suit almost immediately.”

“After
her mother had broken under the strain,” Dr. Patterson pointed out. “Too late to undo the consequences of her act.”

“But she’s going to be all right, is she?”

“Indeed, yes. She has responded to my treatment in a splendid way.”

“One more question, doctor.” Shayne leaned forward and his voice roughened. “Has your treatment included the use of drugs—hypodermics?”

“Certainly not.” Dr. Patterson started up indignantly. “What put that thought in your mind?”

Shayne stood up. He said casually, “Maybe Briggs is the dopehead over there,” then strolled out of the inner office.

There was no one in the anteroom. He hesitated there a moment, heard Dr. Patterson dialing a number in the other office. He stepped to a desk where there was an extension and lifted it cautiously to prevent its clicking.

A voice said, “Hello,” and Dr. Patterson said, “Let me speak to Mr. Bugler.”

The thin-lipped nurse came hurrying in. She glanced suspiciously at Shayne with the telephone to his ear. He grimaced at the instrument and cradled it gently, remarking, “No answer.”

He strode out into the empty hallway humming a careless tune. Bright sunlight on the grass and trees and the faint street noises beyond the wall were a welcome relief after the drear silence inside.

To the right of him and close by, he heard a “Pssst,” and turning his head toward the sound saw a skinny arm with a crooked forefinger at the edge of a latticework thickly covered with leaves and purple bougainvillaea.

Sauntering toward the latticework, he lit a cigarette and flipped the match away. The sepulchral voice of the gnomelike little man who had accosted him inside came from behind the screening vine.

“Pretend you are interested in the flowers while I deliver my final instructions.”

A grin quirked Shayne’s wide mouth. He obeyed instructions by leaning forward and sniffing a flamboyant, odorless blossom.

“The Duke must be notified at once, of course, but inform Scotland Yard that they must attempt no action. My life is in constant danger while I remain here.”

“Then why don’t you leave? Your work is finished, isn’t it?”

“Don’t you understand that I can’t leave?” the little man demanded with asperity. “I gained entry by feigning insanity and I’ve played the role so perfectly they think I am insane.”

“That,” Shayne agreed, “makes it tough.”

“And I couldn’t desert my post while the scoundrels are still plotting against the Kingdom,” the withered shade of Sherlock Holmes insisted. “I don’t know what new devilish stratagem is afoot, but I believe I have discovered why the Duchess was executed last night. They have substituted another female in the dungeon disguised as the Duchess. Soon I hope to have a clue. I’ll communicate with you by Code X 4 9 B X. The password is
Audentes fortuna juvat.
You may go now.”

Shayne said, “Thanks.” He turned away and went down the path. An orderly, smiling knowingly, came forward to unlock the heavy wooden gate.

“Sherlock is really on the job today,” the man said.

Shayne grinned and nodded, passed through the gate, and got into the rented car and cruised slowly south toward Arch Bugler’s roadhouse.

He passed a lad running along the street and shouting an extra. He stopped and bought a
News,
spread it out on the steering-wheel to study a blurred photograph of Helen Stallings’s crumpled body lying on the lawn as he had left it last night.

His left eyebrow twitched with satisfaction while his eyes raced over Rourke’s story. It was a relief to know that the body had been discovered on schedule, bringing the case out into the open and giving him something tangible to fight against. It also meant that he had no time to waste if he was to crack the case before Peter Painter locked him up on a kidnap-murder charge.

He hastily crumpled the newspaper onto the seat beside him and drove on at a faster speed.

There were no cars parked in front of Bugle Inn at this early hour of the morning, but the bronze entrance gates stood open and there was no uniformed doorman on guard.

Pulling up in front of the open gates, Shayne frowned at the sight of Donk’s bulky body placidly seated in a rocking chair in front of the main door.

He felt in his coat pocket and lovingly drew out a small lump of molded lead which fitted snugly into his cupped palm with four grooves for fingers to fit into it when he made a fist. It weighed several pounds and, innocently clenched in a man’s hand, converted a fist into a bludgeon capable of delivering a terrific blow with little effort.

He fitted it into his right palm and slid his doubled hand into his coat pocket, got out leisurely, and strolled up the walk toward Donk, who rocked forward to stare at him and then grinned with unconcealed pleasure.

“WELL, WELL, SO YOU CAME BACK for more, huh?” the big man greeted him happily. He got up, dusting ashes from the front of his vest.

Shayne stopped in front of Donk, keeping his bunched hand in his coat pocket, warning, “I still owe you for what you handed me last night.”

“You’ll be owin’ me more’n that pretty quick,” Donk promised. He flexed his biceps and blew on the big knuckles of his right fist.

“I’ve got other things on my mind besides taking you apart,” Shayne told him. “I want to see that bald-headed bartender who was working last night.”

“Baldy? He ain’t here. Don’t open till after noon.”

“Where does he live?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Donk’s heavy arms swung loosely at his sides. His eyes leered steadily at Shayne.