“You the manager of this place?” Lieutenant Mosby asked.
“Yes, and this is the second time I’ve been routed out of bed,” the man complained. “What is it this time?”
“What’s your name?”
“Henry Fellinger.”
“How come you don’t have a pass key to all the rooms, Mr. Fellinger?”
Fellinger said in an aggrieved tone, “Like I told this other officer here, I had one, but I lost it last week. You’ll just have to wait until Mr. Trimble comes home if you want to get in there.”
“I don’t think so,” Mosby informed him. He turned to his two uniformed companions. “Break it in.”
“Hey!” the manager protested. “You can’t do that!”
“Watch us,” Mosby said. “Go ahead, boys.”
George Gannon examined the door, which was held by a spring lock. Then he backed across the hall, charged forward and threw a beefy shoulder against it. The door shuddered but the lock held.
Rubbing his shoulder, Gannon stepped aside as his partner Joe hurled himself against the door. There was the rending sound of screws being torn from wood and the door crashed inward against the inside wall.
Lieutenant Mosby entered the room, followed by Shayne. The center light was off, but a small light burned over the corner washbowl. There was a strong odor of whisky in the room. An empty pint bottle stood on the dresser. A second, also empty, lay on the floor. A wet stain on the rug around it explained the odor. Apparently it had been at least half full when it spilled.
A straight-backed chair lay on its side near the room’s center. A section of doubled clothesline was securely tied to the overhead light fixture and hung downward.
Hanging limply from the end of the rope was the body of Barry Trimble.
The men in the hall had now all crowded in behind Mike Shayne. Everyone stared at the dead man.
Henry Fellinger squeaked, “He’s dead! He hung himself!”
Swinging toward the rooming-house manager, Lieutenant Mosby snapped, “We won’t need you any more, Mr. Fellinger. Go on back to bed.”
The man continued to stare open-mouthed at the dead man. George Gannon took his arm and gently steered him from the room. He stood watching from the doorway until he was sure the manager had gone back downstairs, then re-entered the room.
Lieutenant Mosby moodily circled the dangling corpse. “Well, I guess that’s that” he said. “Murder and suicide.” He glanced at his watch and his expression turned from a moody look to one of satisfaction. “Both neatly tied up in less than two hours.”
Shayne went close to examine the body. Trimble’s face was as congested as Marie Cole’s had been, his tongue was equally swollen and his eyes were distended. The knot of the noose was expertly placed to the side and slightly to the rear of the man’s neck, in the traditional spot that hangmen place it, but it hadn’t succeeded in breaking the neck. Trimble had strangled to death, by all appearances.
Mosby said, “He stood on the chair, tied the rope around his neck, then kicked the chair from under him.”
Shayne went over to examine the broken door lock. It was a simple spring lock, with no extra bolt which could be thrown from the inside.
The lieutenant asked, “What are you looking at, Shayne?”
“It’s too pat,” the redhead growled. “It looks rigged.”
“Rigged?” Mosby repeated with a frown. “He was locked in.”
“It’s a spring lock, Lieutenant All you have to do is pull the door closed from outside.”
Mosby’s frown deepened. “The guy phoned Mrs. Cole that he was coming over to kill her. You said so yourself. He carried out his threat, then came back here and hanged himself. Why do you want to complicate a simple picture? It all fits.”
Shayne irritably tugged at his left earlobe. “Somebody phoned her and said he was Trimble. According to Marie, his voice was so thick she could hardly understand him. Thick with drink, she said. But it could merely have been a disguised voice.”
“She used to be married to the guy,” Mosby said impatiently. “She’d recognize his voice. She’d be certain to.”
“She hadn’t heard it for five years. And for all we know, she’d never before heard it over the phone when he was drunk. Would you recognize your wife’s voice over the phone if she called you, said she was someone else and talked so thickly you could barely make out the words?”
After staring at the redhead for a moment, the lieutenant made a dismissing gesture. “Why would anybody rig a thing like this, Shayne? What would be the motive?”
“I don’t know,” Shayne admitted. “I just don’t like the smell of it.”
“Why?”
“I talked to Trimble right here in this room less than fourteen hours ago. He said he was permanently on the wagon. He sounded like he meant it. If a couple of months had passed, or even a couple of weeks, I might swallow it. But it’s hard to believe he didn’t even have enough will power to hold off one night.”
“He’d been in stir five years. In that time you can build an awful thirst.”
“If he was that thirsty, he’d have gotten drunk as soon as he got out. Why would he wait over twenty-four hours?”
Mosby shrugged. “It’ll be easy enough to settle. I’ll ask the autopsy surgeon to check his alcohol content. That’ll show whether he was drunk or sober.”
He turned to George Gannon. “Phone Al Buck at the Cole residence and see if that lab man is still there, Gannon. If he is, have him sent over here. Then phone headquarters and tell them to drag Doc away from his poker game again. I want this guy looked at before he’s cut down.”
Shayne waited around until the lab man and the medic arrived. The latter got there a moment before the lab man, so the lab technician quietly waited to one side until the doctor was finished. The medic seemed in an even more irascible mood at being called from his game a second time than he had at the Cole home.
After examining the body, he said peevishly, “Strangulation. At least an hour ago, maybe two or three. Say between ten thirty and one thirty.”
Shayne asked, “Can’t you cut it any finer?”
“On the autopsy table tomorrow, maybe. If you can tell me what and when he last ate. By figuring the rate of digestion, we can pinpoint it within maybe fifteen or twenty minutes. But if you can’t get me the dope on what he ate, don’t expect a much better answer than I just gave you.”
Lieutenant Mosby said, “We know he was alive at eleven thirty, because he was murdering his wife then. Even if he drove like a bat out of hell, he couldn’t have gotten back here before about ten of twelve, or a quarter to at the earliest. The stakeout arrived about a quarter after and didn’t hear any sound in the room. So he must have done it about midnight.”
The medic’s face slowly turned red. “You mean you called me out for a second time in one night when you already knew the answer!” he blared.
Mosby said pacifically, “Shayne here thinks it might have been rigged. I want to know if he was really drunk.”
The doctor continued to glare at the lieutenant. “I can’t tell that on the scene, genius. You expect me to dissect him right here? Get him down to the morgue and I’ll tell you everything you want to know in the morning.”
He stalked out of the room.
Mosby looked at Shayne. “Touchy, isn’t he?”
“Maybe he was winning,” Shayne said. “You need me any more, Lieutenant?”
“Not tonight,” Mosby said. “You’ll have to come down tomorrow and dictate a statement to sign. But I guess we’re set for tonight.”
Shayne went home and went to bed.