“Off-hand, I’d say yes, Mike. You want more than that?”
“I need a positive yes or no. And my client can afford to pay for it.”
“Nice to have clients like that these days,” Brandt told him with a twinkle in his eye. “Okay. I’ll give it the works. You just want an opinion… not blow-ups to go into court with?”
“I don’t think it’ll reach court, Harry. Certainly not if your answer is in the affirmative. Can I call you?”
“Around four.”
Shayne thanked him and went out to his car. He had memorized the Miami Beach address from the telephone book in Lambert’s apartment, and it was a pleasant thirty-minute drive to a modest, two-story, ocean-front house set in the middle of beautifully landscaped grounds.
The glistening white driveway of crushed coral rock led past the house to a triple garage at the rear, and also curved past the colonnaded front under a porte-cochere to a circular turn-around.
There were no other cars in view when Shayne got out and left his car under the porte-cochere. He went up stone steps and rang the doorbell, and the door was opened by a trim, colored maid in a dark blue uniform. She had nice, clean-cut features and intelligent eyes, and she shook her head gravely when Shayne asked, “Is Mr. Nathan at home?”
“Not right this minute, he isn’t. I expect him back any time.” She had a soft, melodic voice and she formed her words carefully without too much of a southern slur.
Shayne said, “Perhaps you could answer a few questions. I’m a detective and I have to check on a few things.”
“Yes, sir. I reckon I can try. Mr. Nathan, he said the police might come around and I was to tell them whatever they asked. He went to the burial parlor and I expect he stopped out to have lunch. Won’t you come in, sir?”
Shayne followed her down a wide central hall to double doors that opened onto a square library. She stood aside for him to enter, and followed him inside hesitantly. He sat in a leather chair and smiled at her and said, “Why don’t you sit down, too? Tell me your name first.”
“Thank you, sir.” She sat warily on the extreme edge of a chair across from him. “Alyce Brown, sir.”
“Were you surprised by what happened last night, Alyce?”
“Yes sir. Real shocked. I just can’t believe it’s true. Not even yet, I can’t.”
“Didn’t you suspect that Mrs. Nathan was… having an affair with another man?”
“No, sir. She was always a real lady.”
“You never heard anything peculiar. Like… well, phone calls from a strange man?”
“No, sir.”
“How long have you worked here, Alyce?”
“Most a year now. Ever since they were married and moved in this house.”
“What other staff is there?”
“Just the cook. She’s my aunt. The two of us do everything needed.”
“How did Mr. and Mrs. Nathan get along?”
“Like most married folks, I guess.”
“No quarrels or fights?”
“No, sir. No more than most married folks, I guess.”
“Did you ever hear them discuss a divorce… anything like that?”
“No, sir. They wouldn’t… not in front of a servant.”
“Do you and your aunt sleep in?”
“Yes, sir. Except on Friday nights. That’s our day off. Friday noon to Saturday noon. Of course, we both came early this morning when we heard about the terrible thing that happened last night.”
“But you’re both always off on Friday nights?”
“Yes, sir. Mrs. Nathan wanted it that way. It was… well, like Mr. Nathan’s night off, too. He never came home for dinner on Friday nights.”
“Has this been going on ever since they were married?”
“Yes, sir. Mrs. Nathan explained how it was to us when she first set our night off on Friday. How that she thought a husband should have one night off to himself every week away from his home and his wife, just like a servant should. And that’s the way they did.”
“Then you’d say that Mrs. Nathan was generally alone in the house on Friday nights?”
“Either that, or she’d go out some place by her own self.”
Shayne settled back and got out a cigarette. Alyce arose swiftly and got a table lighter from beside her and held the flame for him. Shayne waited until she had reseated herself before reaching into the two side pockets of his coat and bringing out the slippers in their plastic container and the red nightgown set.
He handed the slippers to Alyce and shook the nightgown and peignoir out from extended fingertips.
“Do you recognize these?”
Alyce was turning the tiny slippers over and over in her hands. She looked up and Shayne caught a glint of tears in her soft brown eyes. “They… just like some Mrs. Nathan had.”
“When did you last see hers?”
“I… just couldn’t say. Hanging up in her closet… she lay them out when she wanted me to launder them.”
Shayne got to his feet. He said, “Let’s go to her room and see if hers are there.”
She nodded with downcast eyes and got up carrying the slippers. She held out her hand for the two flimsy garments as though she felt it was not quite proper for a man to be handling them, and Shayne followed her out of the library to a wide stairway leading to the second floor. It was very still inside the house as they climbed the carpeted stairway.
At the top, Alyce led the way to the front where she entered a pleasant, sunny sitting room with doors opening out on both sides of it. There was a cretonne-covered sofa and two rocking chairs near the wide window at the far end of the room; at the left of the entrance door was a gleaming rosewood desk with a matching chair in front of it.
Alyce motioned to the door on the right and said, “That is Mr. Nathan’s room.” She turned to open the door on the left and said, “I’ll go see,” closing the door behind her as though she deemed it improper for a strange man to see the interior of her dead mistress’s bedroom.
Shayne strolled across toward the window and stubbed his cigarette out in an ashtray on the small table between the two rocking chairs.
Alyce came back through the bedroom door and her features were tight and strained, her lips were trembling. She said brokenly. “It must be so then, isn’t it? I didn’t… I just couldn’t… I kept thinking… I’m sorry, sir.” She tried to draw herself up stiffly, avoiding Shayne’s gaze.
He said quietly. “Then they are hers, Alyce?”
“Yes, sir. Her slippers and that same set aren’t there. You’ll have to excuse me, sir, but… it just came to me, like…”
Shayne said, “It’s all right. We had to be sure. You’ve been very helpful.” He moved to her and touched her arm gently. “Who uses this desk, Alyce?”
“That one? Mrs. Nathan. That’s where she makes out the marketing lists, does the household accounts and writes out checks to pay bills.”
Shayne said, “She did all that? Not Mr. Nathan?”
“She always said it was the duty of a lady to take care of household things.”
Besides, Shayne couldn’t help thinking to himself, it was her money she was spending. She would be one to keep a firm grip on expenditures.
He turned to the desk and pulled out the wide center drawer. A large flat checkbook lay on top of other neatly arranged papers, the kind that has three checks to the page.
He lifted it out and opened it on the desk to the final entry she had made before her death.
It was the top check on that page, dated four days previously and the stub was neatly made out to “cash,” $100.00. The balance in the account after that check was deducted was $2,962.25. Above the line for the signature on the checks themselves was the printed name, “Elsa Armbruster.” So, she hadn’t opened a joint account with her husband after they were married. Shayne wondered if he had a personal account of his own, and if so, what his balance was.
He turned the stubs backward slowly, glancing down at the three separate notations on each sheet of stubs. Elsa had been a methodical account-keeper. Each stub was dated, the payee and amount noted clearly, and the purpose of each check meticulously entered.