THE TWENTY FRIENDS OF WILLIAM SHAW
by Raymond E. Banks

Printed in Mike Shane Mystery Magazine
Copyright © 1960, by Raymond E. Banks

eBook scanned & proofed by Binwiped 11-27-02 [v1.0]

It isn't often that a butler calls at my house. Even less often is he carrying a lunch basket. But I admitted Higgins because he worked for William Shaw, and William Shaw once—well, he had done me a great favor.
Higgins was affably formal, and conveyed his employer's respects. I brought out a bottle of my best wine, still remembering my indebtedness—because William Shaw was an old and true friend.
"Bring me up to date," I said. "I haven't seen Mr. Shaw for a long time. Well, since he was—"
"Since his marriage," said Higgins quietly. I had always admired Higgins' firm jaw and precise manner of speech. He was the kind of butler who could competently direct the affairs of the moment by just the right kind of smile or frown. Now his face was absolutely set in stone—a man committed to a purpose. "Since his marriage," he repeated.
"Grace Shaw was rather—I mean, after the marriage her presence put a kind of damper on the old crowd," I said.
"Mr. Shaw had very few weaknesses," said Higgins. "His wife was one of them. An older man—a younger woman. His later years have been difficult."
Higgins moved his lunch basket delicately with the pointed toe of his conservative black shoe. "Because of Mr. Shaw's desire to help people he found himself in a bad position," said Higgins. "There is little left of what was once a large estate. Divorce was out of the question, since Mrs. Shaw would certainly have settled for no less than most of it."
I recalled the last time I'd been to the Shaws'—the stunning sparkle of the necklace Grace Shaw had worn and the way she had caressed it against her white throat.
"Most certainly out of the question," I said, unconsciously imitating a little Higgins' extremely precise English. It was hard not to imitate that dry forceful voice.
"Deserting one's wife and going into hiding leaves much to be desired," Higgins went on. "Principally, it cuts a man off from his friends—and Mr. Shaw always lived for his friends."
"We had some great times," I said. "Before."
"Furthermore, accidents are hard to explain," Higgins went on.
I found myself staring now at the basket with a growing interest and distaste.
I shuddered, but it may have been the wine. It sparkled blood-red in Higgins' pale fingers as he lifted his glass to the sunlight. My picture window was open, and a strong earth smell, a smell of spring and flowers lingered in the room—a time of hope and reawakening.
"You have a fine home here," said Higgins, looking around. "You've done well. Mr. Shaw will be delighted to know that you have done so well."
"I was once at the point of killing myself," I said. There was something about him that invited confidence. "I was a pretty dismal failure. I was broke, without friends or family. I was also seriously ill, and I didn't even have enough money to buy drugs to ease my pain. I went up into the Hollywood Hills. To that big sign up there that spells out H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D across the face of the hills. People used to jump off that sign, you know."
"But then you met Mr. Shaw," Higgins said, smiling a little.
"Turning point," I said. "He was a stranger—he owed me nothing. But he spent a great deal of time and money in getting me back on my feet. I shall never forget it."
"Of course you shan't," said Higgins. "Mr. Shaw has at least twenty friends like you. People who were in desperate circumstances when he found them."
Higgins edged the basket further from himself, and closer to me. His smile increased in warmth and understanding.
"I always hoped—I could repay him in some way," I said.
"Mr. Shaw never expects repayment when he helps people," said Higgins. "Still, there is a little matter in which you might be able to help him."
"Well, if there's anything—" I let the words hang, because the smile was no longer in evidence. He looked suddenly almost forbidding.
"Unfortunately the man who has been always the soul of kindness may well die at the hands of the state," said Higgins, his eyes clouded. "However, it is probable that Grace Shaw's disappearance will cause no great comment. She has disappeared before—once with a sailor for a two-week affair in San Diego. Another time, I believe, with a truck driver."
"I had heard she had her faults," I said.
Higgins' perfectly tailored shoulders shrugged. "This time—who knows? Butcher, baker, candlestick maker. She is gone and Mr. Shaw looks and acts twenty years younger —as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Of course, there is her pesky brother trying to make trouble. But Mr. Shaw won't have him around, now that Grace has gone."
He finished his wine and rose. "Mr. Shaw's best and closest friends are all helping him. Perhaps twenty or so— the ones who owed him the most. I trust we can count on you."
"I—I..."
But Higgins bowed, and moved to the door. "I wouldn't delay if I were you," he said. "The weather is warm and the dry ice won't last long. Good day, Mr. Benson. But not goodbye. Mr. Shaw will soon have one of his old-time get-togethers. A sort of celebration, and you and your wife are most cordially invited."
I walked him to the door. I accompanied him across the small porch, down the walk and to the door of the Rolls. "I haven't had much experience in these matters," I protested.
"Mr. Goodlace went fishing on a deep-sea boat," said Higgins. "Mr. Al Drayton was putting in a brick patio. Eileen Wilson found her garden needed new rose bushes— the deep-rooted kind. One's mind can conceive of many possibilities." Higgins grasped my hand and smiled. "Take care of yourself, Mr. Benson. You look pale. I suggest you lie down and rest for a few moments. Mr. Shaw always considered you one of his staunchest—"
The Rolls was gone.
I have never been one to do much work in the yard. But the family was away, and it was a sunny afternoon, so I went out into the garden with the shovel, leaving the basket in the garage. The first patch of ground resisted any considerable digging, but I found another softer spot by a patch of hyacinths.
Soon I became aware of another presence at my side.
"What are you doing?" said the small child—a boy. He was watching me with serious eyes.
I thought of a possible range of replies but settled for a simple one. "Digging," I said.
"Digging what?" the neighbor's child asked. It was Danny, the curious one, already launched on a lifetime of gossip.
"A hole," I said, beginning to sweat even though I was barely more than six inches down.
This went on until he learned I was planting a rose bush.
"My mom doesn't plant rose bushes that deep," he said, hard and suspicious. Normally, he had an attractive young face full of intelligence. Today his eyes looked close-set, his mouth sneering.
"You may be right," I said abandoning the project. With thirty-five children loose in the neighborhood, it didn't seem precisely the right way to proceed. There wasn't much time left as my wife would be back at five, and my son Timmy at six.
Many persons do not know the virtues of the modern-day city dump. The old-fashioned dump with its shacks and its islands of rubble, some burning, surrounded by railroad tracks and inhabited by derelicts is a thing of the past.
The dump near my home is run by the JHK Construction Company. It's a tract of low land that is being slowly filled, and will eventually become the construction site for a long row of forty-thousand-dollar homes. It is surrounded by a high wire fence, and has a polite attendant who checks in the customers at the entrance. Beyond the gate are several winding roads, and a fresh she for the dumping activities of the day. As the trucks drive up, a bulldozer snorts, scrambles, whines and keens, mashing and crushing the discarded goods into the rich, black earth.
Beneath its blade, mixed into a permanent cocktail with the earth are old bedsprings, clippings from the gardeners' trucks, papers, bottles, clothes and furniture. After the bulldozer passes over there is nothing left but churned up ground with a leavening of mashed paper or wood or green branches. Tomorrow another layer will cover this layer, then another, and eventually still another. Archeologists of the future will have to take the twentieth century bulldozer into account.
Once inside the gate you join a procession of trucks, with a few plain cars with trailers moving to the dumping spot of the day. You back in a few feet from where the bulldozer works and deposit your stuff. There are always some coming in and dumping in the shadow of the bulldozer and as it eternally groans away, the dumping spot changes.
I had filled the car with the accumulation of the garage, which I had been promising to do for months anyway. Things that the weekly pickup service wouldn't touch. Higgins' basket looked innocent enough in the symphony of crud I carried.
I was about to back into a dumping spot when I took note of a car only one truck ahead of me. It looked disturbingly familiar. I hadn't seen Ben Jackson for a couple of years, but there was no doubt that the car was sporting one of Ben's distinctive paint jobs. And there was good old Ben himself, one of William Shaw's best friends, jockeying the vehicle into position to dump.
I parked out of the line and went over to see him. He wasn't glad to see me, and when I surveyed his trailer full of dumpings, I could understand why. Higgins had been going the rounds that Saturday.
"I thought of it first!" he cried.
"It is a large dump," I said. "A very large dump."
He was a fat, balding man with vague brown eyes. He waved at the three dump attendants who were busily engaged in picking over the materials left by the trucks.
"One could get by. Two—that would look suspicious," he said.
"I can't help it," I said. "There are only so many places."
That was when the accident happened. I don't know whether I slipped, or whether Ben stumbled against me. But there was a truck hurrying in alongside of him; it caught me and knocked me flat on the ground.
Things went whirly-whirly for a while. I heard voices and the large, kind face of William Shaw came down out of the sky and smiled and thanked me for the kind of assistance I was giving him. I tried to protest that I really couldn't help my bungling when I felt the strong fingers of the dump attendant pressing me into the seat behind the wheel of my car.
"Your friend helped you empty your stuff and left. You better go home now," said the attendant, wetting his lips nervously.
His nervousness wasn't hard to understand. I might be badly hurt. I might even require ambulance attention. Later I might sue the dump. On the whole, he thought it better if I left. So I did. The aspects of danger on my end were strong enough to get me out of there in a hurry.
Safe on the road, I looked in the back seat to be sure all the stuff had vanished. The dump stuff was gone, and that pleased me. But resting on the back seat were two baskets instead of my original one.
I tried to think but didn't get very far. I was still dazed and aching from the dump accident, although I had suffered no permanent damage. I decided to go on home and look up Ben Jackson's address and go calling on him with a crowbar.
My anger lasted all the way home, until I drove up in front of the house and saw, on my front porch, a too-familiar basket. The note attached to it was written in a flowing feminine hand:
"You'll remember," it said, "Sarah King, a good friend of William Shaw's. I haven't seen you for a long time, Mr. Benson, but I know you can help me. I am practically a shut-in these days and live in an apartment. I know you are a gentleman and will be glad to help an old lady who doesn't get around much. Would you please take care of Mr. Shaw's rose bush for me? You live closest to me of all his friends and have a nice, big yard." It was signed Sarah King.
I hurried into the house. I was panicky. True, William Shaw had saved my life, and helped start me on a useful career. But there were limits to gratitude.
The phone rang with a monotonous petulance which suggested it had been ringing for a long time. It was Charles Moriseau, Grace Shaw's brother. I recognized the defensively belligerent voice before he'd spoken three words.
"Have you seen Grace Shaw?" he asked. "No,"  I said,  trying to  make my voice sound natural though fear kept tightening my throat. I had not seen her. 1 had seen only some white packages, securely wrapped and tied, in three baskets. So at least I wasn't lying.
"My illustrious brother-in-law claims she's disappeared," said Moriseau. "I suspect foul play by some of his crude friends."
I had a mental picture of Moriseau as I'd last seen him. The too-cultured voice, the moist hands, the balding head, the fish-pale blue eyes that peered suspiciously on all the human race. I remembered Shaw's gracious good humour and fun. I began to get a little angry.
"Your sister hasn't a very conspicuous reputation as a stay-at-home," I said.
"I think there's something odd going on," he said. "I may be coming to see you and some of his so-called friends—with the police."
"Any day, old man, any day," I said and hung up. That settled it. I wasn't going to be Moriseau's tool for destroying my good friend, William Shaw.
A week went by. I was ready for the expected visit of Moriseau and a heavy-footed policeman. I was completely ready, and even had an alibi for that particular Saturday afternoon. No one came; there was nothing in the papers. Once I drove by the Shaw place in Bel Air, one of the largest mansions. I saw only a uniformed Pinkerton man patrolling the grounds. I tried to call Higgins but the phone was answered by a professional guard who said nobody was home.
The tension lasted, but nothing disturbing happened. However, my wife complained about my peevishness and one night I threw an old shoe at my son.
Relief finally came. I received a note addressed by Higgins which read: "Mr. Shaw is taking a trip to Europe, after a trying winter. He will see all his old friends when he returns in the fall."
So that ended it. William Shaw was going to be all right, and I and the rest of us had nothing to worry about.
"Why do you swerve whenever you see a police car?" my wife asked. "Have you been cheating on your income tax again?"
Why, indeed, I wondered. To hell with waiting until fall! I wanted to be doubly sure that no policeman would come knocking at my door.
I bought a bottle of champagne and forced my way into the Shaw mansion. Again I met the imperturbable Higgins and told him about the call from Moriseau.
Higgins smiled his quiet smile. "We have nothing to fear, Mr. Benson. In fact, the trip to Europe was deliberately planned to put an end to Moriseau's staying here, now that his sister has—ah—run off with another disreputable man. There were just the four of us—Mr. and Mrs. Shaw, Mr. Moriseau and myself. Mrs. Shaw is gone. Now we can close the house and he will have to leave. But there'll be good times for all of us again in the fall!"
I pointed to some luggage lined up in the hall—two large trunks, and several women's suitcases. "It looks as if I barely made it," I said. "Maybe I'd better give this champagne to William and be on my way,"
Higgins shook his head. "That wouldn't be wise, Mr. Benson. We have convinced Moriseau that his sister has run off. It wouldn't look right if he saw familiar faces— faces of the old crowd—appearing so soon."
"I see your logic," I said, setting the bottle on the luggage. "Give my regards to William."
I stood at the dock in Los Angeles Harbor watching the departure of the big liner for Hawaii. It had been all too easy to discover the booking in the name of "Mr. and Mrs. Higgins." I saw them briefly at the rail, but took great care to make sure they wouldn't see me.
Charles Moriseau was there, grinning and waving up at his sister and his new brother-in-law. With William dead and buried by his twenty best friends, they had it made. Grace could support both Higgins and Charles in good style, because none of them spent with the generosity that poor William had displayed all of his life. Her necklace sparkled from her smooth throat, Higgins' teeth glistened in the sun as he hugged her and laughed a happy, unbutler-like laugh.
I left and sent my telegrams to the harbor police, telling them anonymously what they'd find in the three baskets in the Higgins' stateroom. Baskets that I'd kept on ice in a friendly butcher shop while wracking my poor, unimaginative brain in an unnecessary effort to get myself off the well-known hook.
Higgins had planned the murder well, and executed the removal of the body neatly—the practical butler to the end. Higgins had made only one slip—a slip he couldn't help. There were three men and one woman living in that mansion. The woman was supposed to be dead—yet in the luggage he'd prepared for the trip to Europe (and wasn't it obvious that they'd take reservations in the opposite direction?) Higgins had a set of women's luggage.
Now no proper butler of Higgins' ability would send two males, his master and himself, off to Europe with a lady's luggage!

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