The Corpse That Never Was by Brett Halliday

Author:Brett Halliday [Halliday, Brett]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: crime, detective, hard-boiled, murder, mystery, private eye, suspense
Amazon: B0012338SU
Publisher: Dell
Published: 1964-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Shayne sighed and took a sip of cognac. It was fine, mellow stuff, but somehow it didn’t taste very good in his mouth. Nathan truculently lifted his glass and drank deeply from it again.

Shayne asked quietly, “Were you aware that your wife was having this affair?”

“God, no!” Nathan’s hand jerked and he set the glass down. “I hadn’t the faintest idea. I still can’t believe…” He lifted his left hand to his face and rubbed the spread fingers across it slowly.

“I understand she was always alone on Friday nights?”

“Yes. That was her idea. I was allowed that night out.” There was an underlying note of bitterness in Nathan’s voice. “You’d have to know Elsa to understand. She was always so logical. So… so right. She had it all figured out, you see. The basis for an enduring marriage. That we should each have one night a week on our own… with no questions asked on either side.”

“But it didn’t make for a happy marriage?”

“Oh, it was happy enough. At least, I considered it so.”

“Then why did you ask her for a divorce?”

“I?” Paul Nathan jerked his head up in astonishment.

“Some months ago, according to her father. And you demanded a quarter of a million dollars cash settlement.”

Nathan shook his head disbelievingly and then settled back with a short, harsh laugh. “That old bastard! It was Elsa who asked me for a divorce, and he knows it. Sure. I told her okay if she felt like putting out two hundred and fifty thousand. What’s wrong with that?” he demanded angrily. “Why shouldn’t a woman pay off to get a divorce just the way men do? They rave about equality of the sexes. Elsa was always harping on the subject. So I said, ‘Let’s make it a two-way street.’”

“And Eli knew this?”

“Of course he knew it. He egged her on to get a divorce. In fact, she told me that he offered to make up half the amount himself.”

“Why,” demanded Shayne, “did he want his daughter to divorce you?”

“Because she was his daughter, I’d guess.” Nathan laughed nastily. “Because he couldn’t stand the thought of anybody else sleeping with her, if you ask me.”

Although the “else” was deliberately stressed, Shayne chose to disregard it.

“At that time did you think that possibly your wife had some other man in mind?”

“Elsa? Hell, no! She wasn’t what you’d call… very sexy. I thought it was the old man’s idea entirely.”

“Does the name of Robert Lambert mean anything to you?”

“I never heard it until last night.”

“Then you have no idea when or how she met him… how long it’s been going on?”

“None.”

Shayne sipped at his drink and pondered. There were a lot of contradictions here. He thought back over his interview with Eli Armbruster that morning, and he wondered. Had the old man lied to him… twisted the facts in order to put Paul Nathan into a bad light? There was no doubt that Eli hated his son-in-law. Why?

He asked Nathan that question: “Why did Eli

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