Read Online Michael Shayne's Long Chance by Brett Halliday - Free Book Online

If you wouldn’t scare the living daylights out of her you might find out something.”
    “Shut up,” Denton barked. “I’m running this show.” He turned to the woman again. “Let’s have your story.”
    “He made me stay,” she screamed. “He made me come in. I live in the next apartment and I know nothing about this. Only what I have told him.”
    “Tell me everything you told him,” Denton ordered. She lowered herself into a chair and began a tight-lipped recital. When she told him of seeing the man leap from the balcony of 303 to the hotel balcony opposite, Denton pounced.
    “Get out on the balcony and take a look, Parks,” he ordered. Then to the woman: “Describe the man you saw. What time was it?”
    “There was not much light. Not enough to see him well. It was, perhaps, an hour ago. I was in bed and did not look at the time.”
    Parks came back from the balcony. “Looks like a good bet. Not more’n two feet from this balcony to a dinky one in the next building.”
    “Get the number of that room. Look it over. Find out who’s in it—all about it.”
    The sergeant hurried out. Denton turned and scowled at the dead girl. “Been dead about an hour. That checks.” He said to Shayne, “Where were you an hour ago?”
    “Do I need an alibi?”
    “You’re likely to.”
    “I’ll dig one up when I need it,” Shayne promised, and demanded in disgust, “Why in hell doesn’t Homicide get on the job so we can have an intelligent investigation? I have a personal interest in this case.”
    Denton clamped his teeth hard on his cigar. He turned to Madame Legrand and asked, “What time did this man come up? How did you get into this apartment?”
    “It was a little after eleven. I asked him why he disturbed decent people at so late an hour and he was most anxious that Miss Macon should reply to him. He pounded on the door and turned the knob and it came open.”
    “Unlocked, eh?” Denton transferred his suspicious gaze to Shayne.
    The detective nodded blandly. “I didn’t jimmy it if that’s what you’re getting at.”
    Light suddenly flashed through the French doors and windows of Shayne’s hotel room across the way. As Denton whirled in that direction, Sergeant Parks’s excited voice came from the opposite balcony: “I don’t think you’re going to need Homicide to hang this case up to dry, Captain. Didn’t you say that redhead’s name is Mike Shayne?”
    Denton stepped onto the balcony. He nodded to Parks. “That’s it. How does it tie up?”
    “In a tight knot.” The sergeant’s voice was exultant. “This is Shayne’s room—rented this afternoon. And get this, Captain. He acted plenty suspicious when he rented it. Asked the clerk about Apartment three-oh-three in the Peloine and wanted the room adjoining it. He slipped the clerk a ten-spot to fix it for him to have this special room. How do you like that?”
    “I like it fine,” Denton told him. He went back into the room to face Shayne. “Got an answer to that?”
    Shayne said, “Sure. But I’m not wasting my answers on you. You’re nothing but a goddamned precinct bull. When the dicks come I’ll do my talking.”
    Denton’s face reddened. He thrust his head forward, glaring at Shayne. He started to close the gap between them when the sound of tramping feet on the stairs and in the hallway stopped him.
    A slender, middle-aged man sauntered through the doorway with his hands in the pockets of a blue serge suit. A cigarette drooped laxly from one corner of his mouth. He nodded curtly and said, “All right, Denton, I’ll take over.” Men tramped in behind him—photographers, fingerprint men, and Doctor Matteson, the medical examiner. They shunted Denton and his harnessmen aside as they began a methodical investigation of the body and the death scene.
    “Sure, Inspector. Sure,” Denton said to the slender man in plain clothes. “This is your baby, all right. But there’s not much left for your smart boys to find