Free The Uncomplaining Corpses by Brett Halliday Page B

hour in the morning.”
    Thrip tucked his cigar into the pouch of his thick lips, took a deep puff before replying. “I’ve explained to the police and they’re satisfied. You sent him in response to my request for a guard because of the threatening notes my wife had been receiving lately.”
    Shayne simulated amazement. “Is that the story you cooked up? I wondered how you were going to get around the truth.”
    “You will make matters very difficult for yourself if you contradict my story. You have no proof to the contrary and the police have the threatening notes.” Thrip leaned back in the low chair. A long breath wheezed through his nostrils.
    “You mean there actually were some notes?” Shayne leaned forward attentively.
    “Of course. As I am prepared to take oath, I explained to you yesterday afternoon.”
    Their eyes met briefly. Thrip’s were calmly triumphant.
    Shayne’s bushy red brows came down over half-closed gray eyes. He wondered whether Thrip knew of his wife’s visit to his apartment yesterday.
    “I begin to see your game,” Shayne said slowly. “I suppose not even your wife knew the true reason for Darnell’s presence here last night?”
    “Naturally not.” Thrip spoke with irritation. “A matter like that cannot be conducted without the utmost secrecy. Do you suppose my wife would have agreed to converting her jewels into cash? Not Leora . It made no difference to her that I needed a large sum of money desperately to swing a big deal.”
    Shayne leaned back comfortably and changed the position of his legs. “I’m just beginning to realize what a scoundrel you are, Thrip . You not only planned to defraud the insurance company, but also to steal your wife’s jewels and make her think the robbery genuine. By God, I’m beginning to think you did have a perfect crime planned. Too bad an accident had to upset it.”
    “My wife,” said Thrip coldly, “was mean and tyrannical. Since our marriage she has derived the most intense pleasure from being in a position to force me and my children to go to her for any sum of money beyond the inadequate allowances she grudgingly doled out. Not only was I refused the appointment as administrator of her deceased father’s estate, but she humiliated me by keeping control of every dollar of the income in her own hands.”
    “It was her money,” Shayne snapped.
    Thrip sat back in his chair looking straight ahead.
    Shayne studied his pudgy face. He could clearly imagine the obsession the man had built up through the years into a persecution complex. Thrip honestly felt he had grounds for righteous indignation at being refused control of his wife’s property. To such a man, Shayne cogitated, and with such a grievance, a plan to defraud both his wife and an insurance company would appear both reasonable and just.
    Shayne lit another cigarette and nodded as if in response to his deductions. “All right,” he said, “I get the picture. I don’t know that I blame you for taking steps. And I don’t blame you for keeping the truth concealed when things turned out as they did. As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t help my position any if it came out that I was conniving with you to pull a fake robbery of your wife’s jewels. Don’t worry about me talking out of turn. But what about those threatening notes you mention? Where are they?”
    “I turned them over to Mr. Painter this morning. There were three of them, threatening bodily harm to Leora unless she agreed to pay a hundred thousand dollars to the writer.”
    “Anonymous?” Shayne asked casually.
    “They were unsigned. She was directed to indicate her willingness to pay the sum demanded by placing an advertisement in the personal column of a newspaper.”
    “And she didn’t do this?”
    “She refused. As I have explained, my wife was not one to part with money easily. She pretended to dismiss the notes as the work of a harmless crank at first. Later she admitted she was worried and suggested