Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 6, May 1961

Shayne came to his feet. “That’s all I wanted. Think I’ll give Dr. Bacon a ring.” Moving to the door, he paused and said in seemingly idle interest, “What are your plans, Cole, now that your wife’s death ends Breakfast with the Coles?”

Cole said, “I really haven’t thought about it yet. It’s a little soon to think about anything but funeral arrangements.”

Lydia Mason said, “Norbert used to work the night club circuit. He’s really a very fine stand-up comedian.”

“With the right material,” Cole modestly admitted. “The trouble was getting good writers. If you pay what they’re worth, you work for nothing yourself. If you buy gags from second-raters, you die before the audience. It’s a rough racket.”

“I suppose,” Shayne said. “Well, thanks for the name of that doctor.”

With a nod of goodbye, he continued on out of the office and retraced his way down the hall toward the receptionist. Spotting a door lettered station manager, he hesitated, then, on sudden impulse, opened it and went in.

When a middle-aged secretary looked up at him inquiringly, he said, “Tell your boss I’d like to see him. The name is Michael Shayne.”

The secretary’s face registered surprised interest “The private detective? Just a moment, Mr. Shayne.”

Rising from her desk, she disappeared through a door marked: Private. A moment later she reopened it and said, “Mr. Carlson will see you now, Mr. Shayne.”

It was after two P.M. when Mike Shayne left the television station. Returning to his office, he made a phone call to Dr. Clyde Bacon. When he hung up, there was a look of satisfaction on his face.

Lifting his desk phone, he said to Lucy, “Phone Will Gentry, will you, angel? Ask him to call me here as soon as he gets a report back from the autopsy surgeon on Barry Trimble.”

“All right, Michael,” Lucy said.

The phone call from Chief Gentry came at four P.M. When Shayne answered, the chief sounded upset.

“You sure managed to louse up our whole case,” Gentry complained. “It’s wide open again.”

“I thought it might be,” Shayne said. “What did the autopsy surgeon say?”

“Trimble died between ten thirty and eleven P.M. A half hour to an hour before Marie Cole was murdered.”

Shayne emitted a pleased grunt. “That’s the clinching bit of evidence we needed, Will. Would you like to know who the real killer is now?”

“We’d prefer not to list both murders as unsolved homicides,” the chief said sarcastically.

“I’ll meet you at the Cole house in twenty minutes,” Shayne said, and hung up.

Chief Gentry was already parked in front of the stucco house when Shayne arrived. As the redhead pulled in behind him, Gentry got out of his car and scowled in his direction.

Climbing from his car, Shayne said, “Why the sour expression, Will?”

“You hung up on me,” Gentry said accusingly. “I phoned right back, but Lucy said you’d already left. You could have told me what this is all about.”

“You’ll find out inside,” Shayne said. “Let’s go.”

Norbert Cole came to the door. He looked surprised to see Gentry, but he invited both men in politely enough. Lydia Mason was seated in the front room and Harlan Wright was in his wheelchair.

Shayne said, “I’m glad you’re here, Miss Mason. It saves us the trouble of sending for you.”

The brunette raised her eyebrows and Cole said, “What’s this all about, Shayne?”

“A couple of murders,” Shayne said. “The autopsy surgeon has been able to fix the exact time of Trimble’s death. He died a half hour to an hour before Marie did.”

Lydia Mason looked confused. “How could that be?” she inquired.

“His killer banked on the police accepting the obvious,” Shayne said. “Maybe he knew that under ordinary circumstances it’s difficult to fix time of death closer than within a couple of hours, even with an autopsy. Or maybe he figured they wouldn’t bother having an autopsy when the situation was so obvious. At any rate, he set the scene at the rooming house first He had to. He knew Marie’s murder would only take minutes, but Trimble’s demanded a lot of advance preparation. There wasn’t time to begin working on Trimble after Marie was dead.”

Norbert Cole asked, “What kind of advance preparation?”

“First he had to get him drunk. My guess is that he walked in on Trimble with a gun in his hand and forced him to drink at gunpoint. Probably he made him down the stuff as fast as he could take it, and forced him to keep drinking until he passed out. Then he strung him up, came home and made the phone call to Marie.”

“Came home?” Wright said.

“The phone call was made from right here,” Shayne said. He pointed to the extension by the stairs. “Probably from that extension. He dialed the service number which makes your own phone ring, hung up, and as soon as the ringing stopped, indicating that Marie had answered upstairs, picked it up again and went into his act. It had to be that way because of the timing. He had to know that Marie had called me and he had to know what she said, because if she suspected it wasn’t really Barry Trimble who phoned her, everything was off.