Murder & the Married Virgin Read Free

he was greeted by a bright smile from Lucy Hamilton. “So fifty dollars is your usual retainer?” she mocked.
    “I may owe the lieutenant a retainer before it’s over,” Shayne said gravely.
    He picked up his damp trench coat and folded it over his arm, then lowered one hip to the low railing and scowled at her.
    “Why does a young girl commit suicide on the eve of her marriage to a man with whom she’s very much in love?” he demanded.
    Lucy leaned back and her brown eyes widened. “Why—let me think—” A frown of contemplation creased her smooth brow. “Well, if she’s gone and—”
    “Nope.” Shayne shook his red head decisively. “I’m talking about a girl who’s a virgin in mind, soul and body.”
    Lucy’s frown deepened.
    “How old is this paragon?”
    “She was twenty. Norwegian. Maybe that explains it.”
    “Maybe,” said Lucy doubtfully. “I don’t know much about Norwegian girls. How do you know—?”
    “Her fiancé just told me so,” Shayne interposed thoughtfully, “and somehow I trust the man’s intuition in the matter. If you’d heard him—that is, I believed him when he said his Katrin wasn’t the kind to two-time him.” He paused, rubbed his angular jawbone with his palm, then resumed, “But here’s something else, Lucy. Suppose she’d had an affair before she met her lieutenant? Does a thing like that leave a scar on a girl’s mind any more? I thought the idea of pre-nuptial chastity went out with hoopskirts.”
    “Perhaps the Norwegians have preserved that quaint old custom,” Lucy offered solemnly.
    “I’ll have to look into that angle,” Shayne said. “If Katrin Moe had a secret past she might have been ashamed to marry a man she truly loved—” and after a moment’s thought added—“but that would ruin another perfectly good theory.”
    He mashed his soggy hat down over his bristling red hair and went out to the elevator.

 
CHAPTER TWO
     
    “IT SEEMS TO ME,” fretted Mr. Teton as he signed the memorandum agreement retaining Shayne in the Lomax necklace case, “that ten per cent is an exorbitant fee, but Mr. Marguilies in New York—”
    “Knows which side his company’s bread is buttered on,” Shayne finished for him dryly. He blotted Mr. Teton’s signature and folded the paper carefully and slid it into his inside coat pocket.
    They were seated in a long, pleasant office ten stories above Melpomene Street just off St. Charles. Mr. Teton was a fussy little man with pale, far-sighted eyes. He wore his nose-glasses on a black ribbon appended to the lapel of a gray tweed suit, and continually placed them astride his nose to scan the documents, and took them off to argue with Shayne.
    “Paying me twelve and a half grand to save a hundred and twenty-five isn’t a bad deal,” Shayne stated flatly. He leaned back in the comfortable chair and lit a cigarette. “Now that the mundane details are settled, give me the dope.”
    “Of course.” Mr. Teton hooked his glasses on his lapel and clasped his hands on the desk. “The necklace was stolen night before last.”
    “Wait a minute,” Shayne interrupted. “First, what about the necklace itself.”
    Mr. Teton sighed and put his glasses on again to study the data spread out before him. “It was purchased about five years ago from Levric and Corbin, jewel manufacturers here in the city. It was made up on special order by Lomax for a gift to his wife. The necklace was an unusually fine one, built around the twenty-five carat Ghorshki emerald as a centerpiece. Our appraisal upon insuring it was a hundred and fifty-five thousand—twenty per cent over the face of the policy.”
    Shayne whistled shrilly. “A hundred and fifty grand for a necklace isn’t peanuts. Lomax must have had plenty of stuff to toss around.”
    “He was retired at that time, and converted bonds into what he considered a good investment. And quite correctly, too. In the present gem market the necklace would easily bring two