Read The Corpse That Never Was for Free Online Page B

Gentry. “Let’s not get off on that tangent again. What else did the manager remember about Lambert?”
    “Not much. It was a month ago. Something about him being a salesman with his territory recently enlarged to include Miami so he needed a headquarters while in town. The inference being that he would only be occupying the apartment occasionally. And that seems to be just what he did. From what my men picked up, it was a weekend hangout… more-or-less.”
    Shayne nodded. “A convenient place for Mrs. Nathan to visit him every Friday night.”
    “That’s what it sounds like. There’s a Mrs. Conrad across the hall…”
    Shayne grimaced. “I heard her on the subject last night. She just happened to have her door cracked open every Friday evening… but, hell, Lucy knows her and says the old biddy can be trusted to know what goes on in the building. So…?” He leaned back and spread out both hands expressively. “That’s all we’ve got. You read those notes, Will. Did they sound authentic to you? The sort of thing a man would write under those circumstances?”
    “How in hell would I know? I’m not a psychiatrist. And we don’t know what kind of man Lambert was.”
    Shayne scowled and leaned forward to rub out his cigarette in a big ashtray. “That’s right. We don’t. Where was Paul Nathan last night?”
    “On the town. His regular Friday night out… so he says. Drifting around here and on the Beach donating his wife’s money to the gambling tables. He made out a list of the joints he’d been to in the course of the night, with approximate times at each place. It looks pretty good for an alibi from eight o’clock on. Want to see it?”
    Chief Gentry selected a sheet and slid it over to Shayne. The redhead glanced down at the list of nightspots, and asked, “Did you check this itinerary out?”
    “For God’s sake, Mike! On Saturday morning?” Will Gentry gritted his teeth together so hard that they bit through the chewed end of the cigar and a portion of it fell to the desk in front of him. He glared down at it, picked it up with stubby fingers and threw it toward a spittoon in the corner, spitting the fragment from his mouth after it. Then he rested both elbows on the desk and nestled his blunt chin against his palms.
    “No,” he grated. “We didn’t check Paul Nathan’s alibi for the time of his wife’s suicide. Eli Armbruster didn’t pay us for that particular little chore.”
    Shayne nodded imperturbably, folding the sheet of paper. “Mind if I keep this?”
    “Hell, no. You’re welcome to it. Anything else you want?”
    “I’d like to take one of the suicide notes, Will. Preferably the first one.”
    “How about this one to go along with them?” Will Gentry scrabbled among the papers in front of him, pulled out a square sheet of heavy white notepaper folded into four thicknesses. The creases were deep and it showed signs of much handling. Shayne unfolded it slowly and saw that the handwriting looked similar to that of the suicide notes he had read last night. The letter was dated a month previously, and the salutation was: “Elsa, My own sweet.”
    He sucked in a deep breath and three vertical creases formed above his nose as he settled back to read it.
     
    “I cannot endure to continue existing as we are at present. My body cries out for your body, and my need for you is not fulfilled during the fleeting and fragmentary moments we are able to steal together.
    “I am going to make different arrangements, darling, so we will have hours instead of moments lying in each other’s arms. I will find a private place known only to us where we can meet freely and happily.
    “I will telephone you next Friday at the regular time.
    “I love you more blissfully each passing day and can scarcely wait to hold you in my arms again.
    “Your own
    “Bobbie-Boy”
     
    Shayne put the letter down and demanded, “Where the devil did you get this?”
    “In a zippered side compartment inside