Read Online The Corpse That Never Was by Brett Halliday - Free Book Online

your secretary and right in the middle of important crimes all the time.” Shayne repressed a grin, remembering what Lucy had told him about Mrs. Conrad last night, and said, “No one seems to know anything about the man across the hall, Mrs. Conrad. Except you. I’ve just been talking to the manager and his secretary downstairs. It seems the manager only saw him the one time when he rented the apartment, and the girl not at all. Did you ever speak to him?”
    “I tried to. The first day he moved in. In the friendliest way possible. To welcome him as a new neighbor, you know. That was about a month ago. Less than a month, I guess.” She pursed up her thin lips and nodded. “Yes. It was a Friday, I know. Three weeks ago, it’d be. Because I saw him again that next Friday, and then last night. Just three times in all since he’s been here. And entertaining that same woman every one of those Friday nights until heaven knows what hour in the morning. You can take my word for it he was using that room for nothing but a love nest. And with a rich married woman in society and all on the Beach to boot. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard on the early news this morning that she was an Armbruster. Worth millions in her own name, they say. Well! What she saw in a man like him…”
    “Let’s try to take it in order,” Shayne suggested desperately. “You saw him when he first looked at the apartment and rented it?” He got out a cigarette and fumbled for matches, then hesitated and looked around uncomfortably, aware that there was not a single ashtray in sight.
    “Well, no,” Mrs. Conrad admitted. “Not when Mr. Barstow first showed him the apartment. That was in the afternoon and I wasn’t in. But that evening when he brought his suitcase up. You see, I didn’t even know the apartment had been rented. It had been vacant for more than a week, and I was wondering how long it’d be before someone grabbed it. Apartments don’t stay vacant in this building very long as a rule. The rates are reasonable and it’s in a very convenient location, and very well kept up.” She appeared not to notice the cigarette Shayne was holding half-way to his mouth, and he reluctantly replaced it in his shirt pocket.
    He said, “That was the first Friday evening. What time, Mrs. Conrad?”
    “Between eight and nine, I’d say. My door was open a crack like always and I just happened to notice this man set a suitcase down in front of the door there and fumble with a key in the lock, so I just peeked my head out to say a good evening and welcome to him, to make him feel at home, you know, and he just glanced sideways at me across the hall in a most unfriendly way, and then he muttered something and got the door open and picked up the suitcase and went in, and I won’t say he exactly slammed the door shut, but I will say he closed it very firmly right in my face.”
    “What was your impression of him?”
    “Well! That he wasn’t such-a-much, if you know what I mean. With those funny blue glasses and a little mustache. Nothing about him to make you look twice if you met him on the street. I couldn’t see what he had to be so high-and-mighty about, practically insulting me when I offered him a pleasant good evening, but that was before I saw her slipping up to his door, and then I said to myself, ‘Ah-ha. So that’s your game, is it?’ Because I realized right away why he was so standoffish. He didn’t want anybody being friendly and paying any attention to what he did. Having that woman up to visit him all hours.”
    “How did you know it wasn’t his wife?” asked Shayne.
    “You could just tell she wasn’t any wife. Not his wife, at any rate. Call it a woman’s intuition, if you like. Something sneaky and mysterious about her. I just knew it right off when I saw her that first night. Sidling up the hallway in high heels and trying not to clack in them. With that floppy black hat pulled down so you could