ONE

MICHAEL SHAYNE BREATHED a low-toned “Shayne talking” into the telephone. He snuggled the receiver closer to his ear and listened without further comment. A scowl creased his forehead. His angular features became tight and hard. His gray eyes gazed anxiously through the open bedroom door, and the scowl maneuvered itself into a grin when he saw Phyllis watching him.

Placing his mouth close to the instrument he interrupted the flow of words coming over the wires. “Hold it. I’ll go down to my office and get the rest. Tell the operator to switch you downstairs.” He wiped beads of sweat from his corrugated brow as he gently cradled the telephone, then hesitated for the briefest instant before turning on his heel and striding through the bedroom door.

Phyllis Shayne stood in the midst of an array of packed luggage in the living-room. Her own dressing-case and hatbox were closed, but Shayne’s Gladstones gaped open, waiting for the force of his weight to close them.

Phyllis was flushed and panting from her exertions and from the hot, humid breeze blowing through the east windows at the end of a long sunny August day in the semitropics. She wore a gray tailored traveling-outfit, and moist ringlets of black hair framed her expectant young face. The dancing happiness in her dark eyes changed to an expression of wary speculation when her husband entered the room meditatively massaging the lobe of his left ear between right thumb and forefinger.

“Who was it, Michael? Not anything that will interfere?”

Shayne shook his head with a grin that was intended to be reassuring. “I have to go down to my office for a minute. There’s nothing to get upset about, angel.”

“Then why are you tugging at your ear?” She moved swiftly to stand between Shayne and the door. “Don’t you dare get mixed up in anything. You promised me—”

“Sure, I promised you.” He put both his big hands on her shoulders, and the grin stayed on his lips, but his eyes were bleak, and they looked past her. “It’ll only take a minute, Phyl. You get everything ready and be all set for the take-off.”

“Michael! I’ll die if anything happens now to spoil our trip.” Her lips trembled, and her eyes were frightened.

“What can happen?” Shayne asked cheerily. His hands tightened on her shoulders and he bent his head swiftly to brush his lips across her damp forehead. He released her with a little shove and made for the door in long, swinging strides.

“The train leaves in fifty minutes.” The words came with a rush from behind him. “No matter who or what it is, Michael, you say no.”

“Sure, Phyl.” He closed the door without looking back and went hurriedly down the hall past the elevators to a rear stairway and down one flight. Halfway up the hall below he stopped and unlocked the door to the suite which had served him as bachelor quarters before his marriage to Phyllis Brighton. He maintained the small apartment now for conducting official business.

There was a preoccupied expression on the detective’s face as he went directly through the living-room to a tiny kitchenette where he put ice cubes in a tall glass, filled it from the faucet. He came back and set the glass near the telephone which was insistently ringing. He let it ring while he went to a wall cabinet and took down a bottle of cognac and a wineglass.

He filled the glass as he stood in front of the desk, emptied it slowly and pleasurably. Refilling it, he sat down and lifted the telephone.

He said, “Hello. Yeh… I’m in my office now. I couldn’t talk freely upstairs. Now, what the hell are you trying to tell me, Marsh?”

His right hand reached out to encircle the slender glass as he again listened. He took a sip of cognac, washed it down with ice water, then said harshly, “Damn it, Marsh, you’ll have to pull your own chestnuts out of the fire. My train leaves for New York in forty minutes, and I’m going to be on it.”

He listened further, then exploded. “What the hell? Are you going into hysterics over a rumor? Sure, Stallings is liable to pull a fast one. You knew what you were up against when you went into this election.”

He emptied the cognac glass while the voice went on, then interrupted angrily. “Of course I want you to win the election. Not that I think you’re any better than Stallings, but because I’d hate to see Peter Painter go in as police chief on the Beach. God knows he causes me enough trouble as chief of detectives, but I don’t see what I can do by staying here.”

Shayne paused, scowling at the wall before him. “No. I’ve been promising my wife this trip for months. We’ve made reservations—”

He let himself be interrupted again while Jim Marsh’s voice droned on persuasively.

“I’d stay over a day if there was anything you could put your finger on,” Shayne said with finality. “I don’t run away from trouble. Hell, Jim, there’s nothing I can do now. The chips are down and the voters go to the polls day after tomorrow. This mysterious information of yours doesn’t mean a damn thing. I’ll hear the results in New York.”

Shayne listened again, then barked, “What? She’s already on her way over here? That’s just too bad, because I won’t be here to listen to her story.”

He pressed the instrument down, cutting off Marsh’s final words. The telephone rang immediately. Shayne scowled, hesitated, then lifted the receiver to his ear.

The perturbed voice of the clerk downstairs said, “There’s a girl on her way up to see you, Mr. Shayne. She’s — well, she acted very queer. Drunk, I guess. Thought I’d better warn you.”

Shayne said, “Thanks,” and dropped the phone. He strode to the door and out just as the elevator door clanged shut. He darted a glance in that direction as he started to turn toward the stairway. He stopped in mid-stride and stared at the wavering figure of the girl who had got off the elevator.

She was young and slim and expensively gowned, but wore no hat over a wealth of honey-colored hair that was mussed and fell forward, obscuring her features as she bent forward. Her knees appeared to be rubbery, and she swayed against the wall for support, putting out both hands and groping, as though she had suddenly gone blind.

She staggered and went to her knees while Shayne watched in deep perplexity. She lifted herself with great effort and managed three more uncertain steps which brought her close to Shayne’s door.

Shayne reached out a long arm to catch her when she started to fall again. She clung to his forearm with both hands and steadied herself, lifted her head slowly so that the disheveled hair parted and fell back to reveal an imploring face which should have been beautiful but was not.

Her complexion was grayish except for ghastly blobs of carmine rouge. Her forehead was tightly wrinkled into a questioning grimace and her lower jaw sagged open. Her eyes were greenish, dull and unfocused, and she blinked wrinkled lids up and down slowly, as though she marshaled all her waning strength and intelligence to force vision to her vacant orbs.

Watching her futile efforts, Shayne gave first aid by slapping her hard on the cheek. Her head jerked sideways, then turned slowly back. The pasty flesh of her cheek held the colorless outline of his fingers.

A spark of life came into the greenish eyes. The girl closed her mouth awkwardly, then mumbled, “’Re you — Mist’ Shayne?”

Shayne said, “Yeh.” He jerked his arm from her lax fingers and caught her by both shoulders and shook her violently when she would have fallen.

Her head bobbed back and forth lifelessly. When he stopped shaking her she cringed away from him, ducking her head to avoid another blow.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he told her harshly. “I’m Shayne. What do you want?”

She mumbled, “Got to — shee Mist’ Shayne. Got to — tell ’im — tell ’im—” Her chin sagged open, and her mumbling wavered into silence.

A door opened down the hall and a group of laughing people stepped out and came toward them. Shayne kicked his door open, thrust the girl inside his office, and slammed it shut. He was breathing heavily and sweat stood on his corrugated brow. Still holding the girl on her feet by a firm grip on her shoulder, he groped with his free hand for the half-filled glass of ice water, dashed it into her face.

The shock brought a momentary gleam of perception to her greenish eyes. She put a wondering hand to her slapped cheek where the marks were faintly tinged with pink.

“It’s—’bout — Burt Stallings,” she whispered. “He’s — I got something that — knock — props — out—” Gray lids closed involuntarily over eyes which had gone vacant and lifeless again. Her jaw worked convulsively and sagged open. She fell face forward on the carpet without putting out her hands to break the force of her fall.

Shayne swore and hurriedly kneeled beside her. He turned her over and pulled an eyelid back. She had gone out like a candle in a tropical hurricane.

Picking her up, he carried her into the small bedroom, dumped her onto the unused bed, and stood back for a moment staring down at her face. A Mickey Finn, he guessed. Perhaps a couple of them. There was no use hoping for an explanation until she slept it off.

He was turning away when he heard a hesitant rap on the outer door and Phyllis’s clear young voice calling, “Mike, may I come in?”

He reached the bedroom door in three long strides, went through, and closed it softly behind him. “Sure, Phyl,” he called cheerfully. “I was just coming.”

Phyllis entered and glanced around the office, then lifted dark, surprised eyes to his when she saw him alone. “Oh, there’s no one here. I thought perhaps—”

“My client just left.” Shayne grinned reassuringly. He saw her looking at the water glass and the wet splotch on the carpet near the desk. “The guy was drunk,” he explained hastily. “Knocked over my chaser as he was leaving.”

“Oh.” Anxiety gathered in her eyes as she watched him pick up the glass and remnants of ice cubes from the rug. “You took so long,” she said, “and the train leaves in twenty minutes.”

Shayne took the bottle of cognac from the desk and carried it to the wall cabinet. With his back turned toward her, he took a long time adjusting the bottle in the proper niche, then turned slowly, went to her, and put both hands on her shoulders. Looking into her upturned face he said, “As a matter of fact, angel, I can’t go with you. You’ll have to catch the train alone. Something has come up—” His gray eyes were bleak and there were deep hollows in his gaunt cheeks.

“Oh, no!” Tears covered her eyes and choked her voice. She clung to him, crying passionately, “I knew it would be like this. Why does our trip have to be spoiled?”

“God knows, I’m sorry, Phyl.” He held her tight against him, pressed his cheek against her smooth black hair while he spoke rapidly and persuasively. “It’ll only be for a couple of days. You go on. I should have known I couldn’t get away before election. Marsh is up against something that means defeat if I don’t pull him out.”

“Does the election matter so much?” Phyllis sobbed. “Suppose Marsh is defeated?”

Shayne made a wry face over her head. “If he’s defeated it means I’m through in Miami, Phyl. I’ve backed him publicly. Everybody realizes it’s a fight between Painter and me. If I let Marsh go under, it’ll be the end of a lot of things.”

Phyllis stiffened in his arms and lifted a tear-wet face to him. “Then I’ll stay, too. You can cancel the reservations.”

Shayne shook his head. “You’ll help more by going on. It’s going to be dirty below-the-belt fighting for the next two days. You’d only be in the way.”

She studied his face for a long moment, saw the grim look of determination she knew so well. She sighed and relaxed against him, knowing that this was something apart from their lives together, something she could never share with him, a part of Michael Shayne which he would not relinquish to marriage. She had secretly known it would be like this when she stubbornly pursued him and forced herself into his life.

Her eyes cleared and she stood on tiptoe to kiss him. She said, “We’d better get started. We haven’t much time.”

“You’re a nice person, angel,” he said gravely.

Phyllis laughed. That was the compliment she liked best from her husband. She checked the time on her tiny wrist watch and exclaimed, “Gracious! I’ve got to hurry. I came down here to get my gray hat, Mike. I can’t find it anywhere upstairs and thought I might have left it here.” She started for the bedroom.

Shayne’s nostrils flared with a sharp intake of breath. He was stricken with panic as she moved toward the bedroom door.

“Wait — Phyl!”

She half turned, poised to go on. “What?”

“That gray traveling-hat? You mean the dinky one with a bow on the side? The one that makes you look like a demure imp about to sprout wings?”

“That’s the one. It must be down here.”

“I know right where it is,” he lied hastily. “It’s way back on the shelf in the big closet upstairs.”

Phyllis’s eyes clouded with concentration. “I felt on that shelf and couldn’t find it. I’ll just take a peek in the bedroom to be sure.”

“Good Lord, Phyl, you’ll miss the train.” Sweat streamed from his face. He caught her when she was two feet from the bedroom door and urged her toward the outer door. “Come on — I’ll get that hat for you. I can see on that shelf.”

Phyllis’s reluctant feet stopped suddenly and she pulled back. “Why didn’t you want me to go in that room?”

He lifted her through the door and slammed it shut. Outside, he said, “If you must know, I had to put my client to bed. He passed out completely and I’m holding him until he comes to and spills his information. It’s important.”

“In that case, I might as well have looked for my hat,” she argued as his arm lifted her up the stairs. “It’s the one I wear with this suit.”

“You’ve six minutes to catch the train,” he reminded her when they entered the living-room. Shayne strode to the bedroom closet and returned triumphantly bearing the gray hat. Tossing it to her with a command to put it on in a hurry, he swept up the bags and preceded her to the waiting car.

Taking a back-street route to the station, Shayne sat moodily beside her. Presently he said, “This is the first time for us to be separated, angel.” He frowned, recalling many hilarious jokes about husbands getting rid of their wives and wondered if the time would come when he would feel that way.

“You’re to take the first train to New York when the election is over,” she said flatly. “If you don’t, I’ll take the first one out of New York.”

Shayne grinned widely and stepped on the accelerator. The train was ready to pull out when he rushed her up the steps and kissed her good-by. Stepping back on the cinder path he watched the long train roll slowly northward while a strange admixture of relief and desolation roiled through him.

He stood there for several minutes, until the train vanished from sight and the whistle sounded for a distant crossing. Unconsciously, the problem of the drugged girl in his office bedroom was a depressing one, while consciously he meditated on the ease with which a man succumbs to pleasant habits. A little more than a year ago he had not known that Phyllis existed, and now he was wholly dejected without her. The way he had rushed her off, one would think he was glad to be rid of her.

During his bachelor years he had taken his women in his stride. They had been a part of the bold, rough life he led. Was it possible that he was the victim of a subconscious urge which he wouldn’t even admit to himself, in spite of a year of marriage to a girl like Phyllis? He didn’t honestly think so. Yet, what man ever really knows his inward motivations?

He became conscious of the movement and commotion around him, the rattling of express carts on gravel, the puffing of engines and clanging of bells, the milling throng of people. He shrugged off a baffled sense of irritation and went to his car.

The sun was setting in a gray-blue mist as he stepped on the starter. He remembered suddenly that he had not locked the door of his office in his frantic haste to get Phyllis away from the scene. He slipped the car into gear and pressed the accelerator to the floor board, driving the six blocks to his apartment in four minutes. He parked at a side entrance just in front of a drawbridge over the Miami River.

He went through the private entrance and up the service stairs with a queer feeling of elation which shamed him. He had done this often in the past — before Phyllis — when every feminine face was a challenge, every meeting in his bachelor apartment holding the promise of an assignation.

He whistled a gay off-key melody as he approached the door. He ran water over a glass of ice cubes in the kitchen, poured a glass of cognac from a bottle in the wall cabinet, then went into the bedroom with a glass in each hand.

Twilight darkened the room, but not enough to hide the grotesquely twisted posture of the girl on the bed. He bent over her, spilling cognac on the floor.

Sightless eyes stared up at him. One of the girl’s stockings was tightly knotted about her throat.

Shayne stepped back and emptied the glass of cognac down his dry throat. He hesitated only an instant before going to the telephone. He picked it up and said, “Police Headquarters,” but the clerk’s excited voice broke in on the line.

“Mr. Shayne! I thought you’d left town. I just told Chief Gentry you had. He and another man are on their way up there. They’re waiting for an elevator now.”

Shayne cut off the connection.

TWO

SHAYNE WHIRLED ABOUT and ran to the death room. With swift precision of movement he stripped the sheet and bedspread from under the girl, drew them up to cover her clothed body. Leaning close, he pressed her head sideways so that her cheek was on the pillow and turned away from him. He crooked her right arm upward, spreading the flaccid fingers out to coyly cover her upturned cheek, then tucked the spread down tightly about her neck to hide the knotted stocking that had throttled her.

Stepping back he surveyed the bed and body searchingly, nodding with grim satisfaction as he unbuttoned his coat and vest, stripped them off, and dropped them to the floor beside the bed. He loosened his soft collar and jerked his tie awry, then ran for a bottle of cognac. He splashed liquor from the bottle on the spread near the girl’s face.

Heady, pungent fumes roiled up from the liquor. He put the bottle to his lips and drank as an authoritative knock sounded on the outer door.

He didn’t hurry to answer. He made his grim features go lax and practiced staggering to the bedroom doorway. He lolled against the threshold in view of the outer door, holding the bottle by the neck, calling thickly, “Yeh? Who th’ hell izh it?”

The outer door opened, and Will Gentry advanced solidly into the room, followed by a tall, lean man with deep-set cynical eyes.

The chief of the Miami detective bureau was a burly man with heavy features and a slow impassive manner. He had been a close friend of Michael Shayne’s for many years, and the two had worked together with congenial expediency.

Gentry frowned and raised grizzled eyebrows at Shayne. “I thought you and Phyllis had left town on the five-forty.”

Shayne grinned idiotically and defensively. He waggled a long forefinger at Chief Gentry. “Phyl caught the train. I shtayed here. Rizhness — y’know — ol’ shaying — bizhness ’fore pleasure.” He drew himself erect slowly, putting his left hand against the wall for aid. He narrowed his eyes at the two men, fought for a moment to attain a dignified posture, then advanced stiffly, with the exaggerated tread of a man who is very drunk and conscious of his condition.

Behind Gentry, Timothy Rourke laughed shortly. “Drunk as a coot,” Rourke marveled. “Damned if I ever thought I’d see the day you couldn’t hold your liquor, Mike.” Rourke was another old and trusted friend, reporter on the Miami Daily News and recipient of many exclusive headlines from the redheaded detective.

“I’m holding it now,” Shayne announced belligerently. He swayed a little, holding out the bottle to Gentry. “Have a shnort with me.”

Will Gentry shook his head, folded his arms across his barrel-like chest. “Not this time, Mike.” There was a sharp edge of contempt in his rumbling voice.

Shayne grinned loosely and tilted the bottle toward Rourke. He pleaded, “Take one with me, Tim. Y’know — moral shupport.”

Some of the amber fluid spilled from the tilted bottle. Rourke grabbed it and swore as he set it down on the desk. There was genuine concern in his eyes. “What the hell are you pulling off, Mike? I never saw you go to pieces this way before.”

Shayne giggled. Curiously, his drunken mirth had an obscene sound before the hostile glares of his two friends. “M’wife’s gone to the country, hooray, hooray,” he burst forth tunelessly. He rounded his eyes into an owlish stare, swayed, and put out a hand to Gentry’s shoulder for support.

Gentry elbowed him aside. Shayne stumbled and collapsed into a chair, frowning. “You both ac’ like — like shompin’ wash wrong,” he complained.

Gentry thrust both hands in his coat pockets and stared at him. “Where’s the body?”

“Body?” Shayne blinked his eyelids down and peered at Gentry through narrow slits. “Whatcha mean — body?”

“Just what I said.” Gentry pounded the words at him in an effort to penetrate the alcoholic stupor of the detective’s brain. “We just had an anonymous tip that a murder was being committed in this apartment.”

Shayne laughed thickly. He shifted his narrow gaze to Rourke, then let it wander around the empty office. “I don’ shee a body. You shee a body?” He fixed his wavering eyes on Rourke again.

Chief Gentry stood on widespread legs in front of Shayne and shook his head at Rourke. “Damned if I would have believed this if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Thank God, Phyllis isn’t here to see him.”

“She must have cramped his style more than any of us guessed,” Rourke commented sagely. “Looks like he sent her out of town just so he could go on a binge.”

Shayne reached for the cognac bottle and missed it. Rourke handed it to him with a disgusted snort. “Go ahead and pass yourself out.” He turned to Gentry. “Looks like that phone call was phony, chief.”

Both men spoke without regard for Shayne, as though he had ceased to count as an animate human being.

Shayne showed no objection to being openly discussed. He sat slumped in the swivel chair behind the desk with his eyes closed, holding the bottle rigidly with both hands.

“There must have been some basis for that phone call we received,” Gentry contended. “Maybe he had a fight with his wife before she left. Someone might have heard them battling in here and thought it was murder.”

“Sounds reasonable. God knows, he couldn’t have got this way in the short time since the train left. He must’ve been working up to this for several hours.”

“And he’s the man who always claimed he worked best with a couple of pints in him.”

Rourke’s keen eyes bored into Shayne’s slumped body. “Funny thing is,” he said slowly, “he always has.” A note of speculation sounded in the newshound’s voice. “If he was going on a bat I’d have thought he’d wait until the election returns were in. He’s got a heavy stake in Marsh’s winning.”

“As far as I’m concerned, I don’t give a damn,” Gentry put in sourly. He started toward the kitchen with a heavy tread. “I’ll take a look around before I go.”

Shayne’s head came up with a violent jerk. “Hey! Whatcha want in there? I’ll fix a drink if thass what you want.” He came to his feet waveringly, steadying himself with one hand on the table.

“Save the drinks for yourself,” Gentry growled, continuing into the kitchen. “I just want to make sure you haven’t slapped Phyllis down. When a guy like you gets drunk there’s no telling what he’ll do.”

A cunning leer spread over Shayne’s rugged, unhandsome features. He mumbled, “Wheresh your shearch warrant? You can’t shearch a man’s housh ’thout shearch warrant. ’Shnot legal. Man’s housh hish cashtle.”

Gentry deigned no reply as he emerged from the kitchen. He glanced into the bathroom on his way to the bedroom door.

Shayne staggered forward and got in his way before he reached the door. He put a bony hand on Gentry’s chest with his weight behind it. “’Shnot legal,” he reiterated. “Man’s private affairs hish own bishness.”

“Get out of my way,” Gentry roared. Thoroughly angered, the chief knocked Shayne’s restraining hand aside. He opened the door of the bedroom and looked in, then drew back with a black scowl on his heavy face. He turned a look of loathing on the redhead and muttered, “So, that’s what the score is.”

Shayne grinned and waggled his head from side to side. “Tol’ you not to — not to look in.”

Rourke’s long legs brought him to the door hastily. “What is the score, Will?” He stopped in the doorway and whistled shrilly, sniffing the cognac-laden air and grimacing. “You certainly didn’t lose any time after getting rid of Phyl.”

“Shesh nish gal,” Shayne protested. “’Shnot what you think.”

“By God, this breaks it,” Gentry roared angrily. “I’ve stood up for you in a lot of tough places, Mike, but it was because I thought you had a streak of decency in you. I thought marrying a girl like Phyllis would bring it out. Damn it, I even encouraged her to marry you.” He thumped a big fist into his beefy palm and turned away. “And you can’t wait for her to get on the train before you have another woman in your bed.”

“Don’ be shore at me,” Shayne pleaded, his voice catching in his throat. “You know I love Phyl better’n anything. What she don’ know won’t hurt ’er”

Gentry stopped in the outer doorway and turned, planting both hands on his hips.

“Get this straight, Mike,” he rumbled. “If you’re not too drunk for it to sink in. I hate the guts of a man who two-times a swell wife like Phyllis. Your morals aren’t my affair, but from now on don’t look for any favors from me. I won’t tell her, if that’s what you’re afraid of, but I’ll never be able to look that girl in the eye again. God damn it, you lug, that girl loves you. The next time you meet a skunk get down on your belly and shake hands. You both smell the same to me.”

He went out, slamming the door behind him with a bang.

Shayne stood very still, staring at the closed door. He took one step forward to follow Gentry, but checked himself. His back was turned to Rourke and the reporter couldn’t see his face. In a stifled voice, Shayne said, “I suppose you feel the same way, Tim?”

“Sort of,” Rourke admitted wearily. “I don’t know your wife as well as Gentry does, but hell! You know what all the boys think about her. Nobody thought anything about it when you had a different floosie in your bed every night before you married Phyl, but this is different. It stinks.” Rourke lit a cigarette, and Shayne dropped heavily into the chair at the desk.

“It just goes to show,” Rourke went on, “what damn fools we all are when we pretend to be so tough. You and Phyllis were a symbol of some Goddamned thing or other around this man’s town. While you stayed straight it proved to all of us that the love of a decent girl meant something — and that was good for us. Every man needs to believe that down inside.” Rourke was talking to himself now, arguing aloud a premise which his cynicism rejected.

“That’s what distinguishes a man from a beast. It’s what we all cling to. There’s the inward conviction that it isn’t quite real — that it doesn’t mean anything — that we’re marking time until the real thing comes along — like Phyllis came along for you. And when that illusion is shattered before your very eyes — like with you today — it’s ugly, Mike. It’s a shock. It doesn’t laugh off easily.”

Shayne sat slumped with his chin resting on his chest. Rourke did not look at him to see the laugh crinkles deepening at the corners of his eyes or the way he clamped his big mouth shut. When Shayne said nothing, Rourke burst out, “Hell! I ought to rent a pulpit. Well, sorry to have interrupted your merry twosome.” He ground out his cigarette and started for the door.

Shayne’s sudden laughter filled the room. He jumped up from his chair and caught Rourke’s arm. His laughter went as abruptly as it had come. He said solemnly, “You’re not running out on me, Tim. I’m in one hell of a spot.” Rourke whirled to face him. “You’ve sobered up in a hurry,” he said wonderingly.

“Hell, I haven’t been drunk, Tim. I was never soberer in my life.”

“By God, I believe you.” He hesitated, then said slowly, “I get it. You were putting on an act for Gentry. You knew he’d find that girl in your bed and you hoped he wouldn’t blame you so much if he thought you were cockeyed.”

“Yeh,” Shayne said tonelessly. “I knew he’d find that girl in my bed. What was the tip-off that brought you and Gentry here?”

“One of the neighbors heard a struggle and a scream. He said he tried the door and it was locked, then he called in. We came right up because we both thought you’d left for New York with Phyllis and maybe somebody had taken advantage of your absence to do a murder here. With the election day after tomorrow it would be swell publicity to defeat Marsh.”

“That,” said Shayne, “is what I’m thinking, too.” He gestured toward the bedroom. “Take a good look at the girl. Don’t be afraid of waking her up. She won’t.”

Rourke stared at him for half a minute, then swung on his heel and went to the bedroom. He lowered the window shades and snapped on the bright ceiling lights. When he reappeared in a few minutes, Shayne did not look at him, but sat with hunched shoulders and closed eyes.

Rourke went to the liquor cabinet and took down a bottle of Scotch and a glass. He brought them to the desk and poured four fingers in the glass. He drank it off, set the glass down, and shivered.

“Why in Christ’s name didn’t you tell Gentry? You let him go out of here hating your guts. You know he’s almost like a father to Phyllis.”

“Gentry’s a cop,” Shayne reminded the reporter patiently. “A cop is required to go through a certain routine when he discovers a murder.”

“But he’d listen to you. He’d give you a break.” Rourke flung his lean body into a chair and ran nervous fingers through his black hair.

“Sure. He’d listen to my story. He’d probably even believe it. But that wouldn’t change the routine, Tim. Gentry is still a cop. And the election is day after tomorrow.”

“Who is she? What’s it all about?”

“You guess awhile,” he answered wearily. “I found her like that when I got back from putting Phyl on the train.” In a few words he gave Rourke the facts in his possession.

“I threw her on the bed after she passed out,” he concluded grimly. “I figured she’d have important information when she woke up — something about Burt Stallings.”

“And somebody else figured the same thing,” Rourke guessed, his nostrils flaring with the scent of headlines, his slate-colored eyes gleaming oddly. “Somebody who didn’t want that information to get out.”

“Looks that way. Murdering her in my office was a nice stunt any way you look at it. The scandal would defeat Marsh at the polls.”

Rourke poured himself more Scotch. “What are you going to do with her?”

“I don’t know yet.” He straightened in the swivel chair and swung around to face Rourke squarely. His eyes were pin points of gray steel. “You’re not a cop, Tim,” he said.

“What do you mean by that?” Rourke leaned forward.

“We’ve been good friends a long time,” Shayne said softly.

Rourke said steadily, ““You know where I stand.” His eyes were alert, suspicious.

Shayne exhaled a deep breath. “Yeh. You won’t lose anything, Tim. You’ll get the real story instead of this phony.”

Rourke filled his glass again. “I’ve never lost anything playing ball with you, Mike.” They touched glasses and drank.

Shayne stretched out his long legs and lit a cigarette. He shifted his position, swinging the chair slightly off center with Rourke’s probing eyes. “All we know about the girl is that she was close enough to Stallings to get wind of something that stunk — something Marsh could use against him. That’s not much to go on.”

“We’re one up on them this way,” Rourke pointed out. “They must know the murder was overheard and reported. They’ll be sitting on the edge of their chairs waiting for the story to break. When it doesn’t they’ll be worried.”

Rourke’s enthusiasm brought involuntary relaxation to Shayne’s edgy nerves. “In the meantime,” he grunted, “we’ve got to get her out of my apartment. As soon as the killer finds out this tip went awry he’ll see that Gentry gets another tip — one that can’t be ignored.”

“What,” asked Rourke lightly, “is the maximum penalty for carting dead bodies around?”

Shayne grinned. “I don’t know. We’ll look it up after some disposition is made of her. What we need most is fingerprints, a complete description. If we can identify her we’ll have a start.”

Rourke reached for the whisky bottle as Shayne got up. “That’s your job,” Rourke said happily. “I’ll have a small one while you do your ghouling. Cadavers give me the creeps.”

“There’s another angle we’re overlooking.” Shayne hesitated, frowning. “She was drugged when she came here this afternoon. Too nearly passed out to talk. No one else can know that. Can’t know, that is, how much talking she did before she went to bed. That’s another trump we hold, Tim. Someone’s going to do a lot of worrying before this is over.”

The telephone rang. Shayne reached a long arm past Rourke to pick it up. He said, “Shayne talking.”

The clerk in the lobby said, “There’s a Mr. Stallings here to see you. That Miami Beach detective is with him — Mr. Painter.”

Shayne repeated, “Stallings?” aloud and grinned at Rourke. “Stallings and Painter, eh? Well, I’m receiving this afternoon. Send them up. Wait! Jack, did you mention the girl who visited me earlier?”

“Not a word. You know I never—”

“Sure, Jack. That’s swell. Forget you saw her and send the gentlemen up — but stall them off a couple of minutes.” He dropped the phone and grabbed Rourke’s shoulder, hauled him to his feet. “Stallings and Painter! Something’s up.” He propelled the reporter backward. “They’d better not see you here. Leave the bedroom door open a crack so you can hear what they say.”

“In there? With her?” Rourke struggled against Shayne’s powerful strength, his face a mask of horror. “Not in there, Mike! The kitchen — or the bathroom.”

“The bedroom is the only safe place. There’s no door to the kitchen and you never can tell—” Shayne dragged him inexorably toward the bedroom door and shoved him in. “She won’t mind,” he said, and closed the door lightly, leaving a half-inch opening.

“I’m not worrying about her feelings,” Rourke panted through the crack, “but I tell you I get the galloping creeps—”

“Shut up. They’ll be here in a minute. You’re sitting on top of the biggest story in your career. Don’t muff it.”

Shayne whirled, went to the wall cabinet, and took out two fresh glasses and set them on the desk beside the bottles of Scotch and cognac. The chair on which Rourke had been sitting he shoved against the wall and drew up two others. Then he shoved the desk forward to cover the wet splotches on the rug and by the time he had paced the length of the office and back again he answered the knock on the outer door.

Gravely he said, “Come in, gentlemen; this is an unexpected honor,” in a voice which brought a suspicious gleam to the small black eyes of Peter Painter.

THREE

BURT STALLINGS WAS a tall, commanding figure. Middle-aged, he wore his silvery-white shock of hair long, in the manner attributed to Southern senators. It framed a handsome, leonine face with arresting distinction, giving him an air of romantic grace attractive to women of all ages. Coupled with his good looks, the man possessed a magnetic personality which made him a favorite with men, too. A forceful orator and a successful, hardheaded businessman, this mayoralty campaign was his first foray into politics. The campaign had proved him as well adapted to vote-getting as to money-making.

Stallings entered the detective’s office with a firm, assured stride. He nodded to Shayne, but neither spoke nor offered his hand.

Behind him, Peter Painter entered aggressively. He always carried himself with an assertive air to compensate his lack of physical stature. He was a slender, small-boned man, meticulously groomed. He slanted glittering black eyes upward at Shayne as he passed into the office.

Shayne closed the door and said, “This is a surprise. Sit down and I’ll pour a libation.”

Both men remained standing. Stallings arched thick iron-gray brows at the detective and said dryly, “I imagine you expected us — or me, at least.”

“Not exactly.” Shayne moved to a corner of his desk and lowered one hip to it, swinging his foot casually.

“Why else would you put off your proposed trip?” Painter snapped. He caressed a threadlike black mustache with the tip of his forefinger. “You can’t get away with this, you know. Mr. Stallings is not a man to be intimidated by threats.”

Shayne queried, “No?” His gray eyes glinted mockingly. No flicker of expression indicated that he had not the faintest idea what Painter was talking about.

“No,” said Stallings forcefully. He moved backward and seated himself precisely erect in a chair. Painter remained standing. Always conscious of his slight stature, he was more at ease in that position while others were sitting.

“I have conducted a clean, hard-hitting campaign,” Burt Stallings began resonantly. “My slogan from the first has been ‘Let the best man win.’ I am prepared to abide by a free expression of the voters at the polls, but I demand that they shall be allowed that right. It is an inherent attribute of our democratic processes.”

Shayne held up a big knobby hand and grinned. “Save your stump speech. I don’t even vote in Miami Beach.”

Pin points of anger shone in Painter’s eyes. “That’s exactly the point. You’ve backed Jim Marsh because of personal animus toward me. You’re afraid to have me assume the post of police chief in Miami Beach, Shayne. You know I’ll use the added authority to see that you discontinue the practice of your so-called profession my side of Biscayne Bay.”

Shayne shrugged and leaned forward to pour a small drink. He muttered, “Sorry you won’t join me. All right, Painter. I’m perfectly willing to grant that I want to see Stallings defeated because you’re slated for the job of police chief if he wins. So what?”

“Just this, Mr. Shayne.” Stallings took up the discussion before Painter could form a suitable reply. “We’re not interested in your motives. We are interested in your methods. I’ll admit that Painter has warned me to expect dirty tactics from you when your cause appears hopeless. But I didn’t expect this, Mr. Shayne. This outrageous flouting of every law and decency. I have been prepared for a criminal attack on my person, but I did not feel it necessary to safeguard my family against you.”

Shayne laughed shortly and sipped from his glass. There wasn’t much he could say until he knew what the devil they were talking about.

“I’m not surprised,” Painter exploded. “You’ve pulled this sort of thing time and again in the past without paying the piper. But this time we’ve got you cold.” He hammered a small fist into a smooth palm. “You’ve gone out of bounds this time and you won’t wriggle out of it.”

Shayne wrinkled his nose at the detective chief from across the bay. “You’ve played that record before.”

“This time you’re really out on a limb, Shamus. Kidnaping is a federal offense. It’s not something you can cover up locally. You picked the wrong man to intimidate when you picked Burt Stallings.”

“Painter is absolutely right,” Stallings told him in a measured tone which carried more weight than Painter’s vindictive snarl. “I refuse to be intimidated. I owe a certain duty to my constituents and, no matter what my own feelings in this matter, the issue is larger than any mere personal consideration.”

“So?” Shayne mused. He gravely sipped from his glass, keeping his face impassively blank. “All right,” he said sharply, “you refuse to be intimidated. Where does that leave us?”

“It leaves you smack behind the eight ball,” Peter Painter exulted. “You took a long chance and failed.”

“I haven’t failed yet.”

“Oh, yes, you have. You’re through, Shayne. Washed up.” Painter’s words were clipped and exultant.

“If you’d shut up this little twerp’s yapping,” Shayne said to Stallings, “you and I might come to an understanding.”

Painter trembled with rage. He drew his lips back for a retort, thought better of it, and laughed coldly.

Stallings shook his silvery head. “We’re not here to sue for peace. I won’t even discuss terms with you until my daughter is safely returned.”

Shayne exclaimed, “Your daughter?” in a tone of complete surprise, caught himself up hastily, and scowled. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

“My stepdaughter,” Stallings amended smoothly.

Shayne stalled for time. “I haven’t got your stepdaughter.”

Stallings smiled persuasively. “We hardly expected you to have her in personal custody. However, we’re quite sure a word from you will effect her release.”

Shayne parried, “What makes you so sure of that?”

“Quit beating around the bush,” Painter snapped. “You’re the only one in Marsh’s camp with the guts to engineer a snatch. As soon as Stallings came to me about it I told him you were the one to see.”

“It’s self-evident, Shayne,” Stallings interposed. “Jim Marsh has been a hard campaigner, but a gentleman through it all. I can’t believe Marsh would even condone such an act.”

Shayne emptied his glass and set it down. He lit a cigarette. “From all this talk I get the impression that your stepdaughter is missing; that you suspect she’s been kidnaped.” He addressed Stallings directly. “Do you want to retain me to get her back? It’s quite natural you should come to me for help when a nincompoop like Painter is running the Miami Beach detective force.”

Painter choked over a reply, but Burt Stallings did not allow his equanimity to be disturbed. “I expect you to arrange for her return, but there is certainly no thought of retaining you for the job. The terms set forth in your note are preposterous and I have no intention of meeting them.”

“My note?” Shayne echoed. He shook his head and looked vaguely amused. “I haven’t written you any notes.”

“Denying it won’t help, Mr. Shayne. Who else but you would demand that I withdraw from the mayoralty campaign as the price of my daughter’s life?”

“Who else, indeed?” Shayne murmured. A murky light of anger was slowly kindling in his gray eyes. “Is that what I’m accused of this time?”

Stallings spread out his strong, well-kept hands and smiled patiently. “We’re not wasting our time with accusations. We’re giving you to understand that your plot has failed. I have no intention of withdrawing from the campaign. Unless Helen is safe at home by noon tomorrow, this entire story will be given to the newspapers. I’m sure the voters will rise indignantly against such foul tactics and by their ballots effectively answer the threat you have made.”

Shayne frowned, lowering his eyelids to veil the blaze of violent anger in his eyes. “You seem positive that I’ve kidnaped your stepdaughter. What proof have you?”

“Isn’t your guilt self-evident?”

Shayne hesitated, choosing his words with care. “There is such a thing as a frame-up. Since I am so clearly indicated, don’t you see it’s possible someone else has taken advantage of that situation to throw the blame on me?”

Painter threw back his sleek head with a taunting laugh. “By God, it would be poetic justice if you were hooked in a frame-up — after engineering so many of your own in the past.”

“If you don’t shut up,” said Shayne savagely, “I’ll attend to it for you.”

“Let’s remain calm,” Stallings pleaded. “Helen’s safety must be our first consideration.” He took out a handkerchief and mopped his high forehead, tossed back his mane of silvery hair. “Poor child. Think of the agony she must be suffering.”

Shayne’s laugh was cynical. “I’m beginning to remember now. Helen Stallings was the girl who brought suit against you last month for mishandling her mother’s estate.”

“An unfortunate error,” Stallings told him with a pained expression. “She has since regretted her action.”

“When was she kidnaped? And how?” Shayne demanded. “You’re putting it up to me to get her back by noon tomorrow. I can’t do much without the facts.”

“As if you didn’t know more about it than we do,” Peter Painter scoffed.

Stallings silenced him with a gesture. “It’s possible we’ve wronged Mr. Shayne in our assumption. I’m unwilling to withhold any information that may lead to Helen’s return. She disappeared shortly after lunch today. She was in a temper and drove away in her car without telling anyone her destination. The note demanding that I withdraw from the election was delivered at six o’clock.”

“What was she mad about?” Shayne demanded.

“That’s neither here nor there. She’s a flighty child, given to moods and tantrums, though her mother and I have always tried to be patient with her.”

“Then you haven’t any evidence against me at all,” Shayne told him coldly. “Yet you’ve got the guts to come here and openly accuse me of kidnaping a girl I’ve never seen. By God, I ought to throw both of you out on your necks.” He slid off the desk and stood up, big hands knotted into fists.

Painter took an involuntary backward step and assumed a pugnacious stance, but Burt Stallings remained calmly seated.

“I have reason to believe that Helen came directly to you after lunch. In her hysterical state she was obsessed with a desire to do me harm and she had misinterpreted a conversation she had overheard into something she believed could be used as a political weapon against me in the election. The facts are very plain — she contacted someone in the enemy’s camp.”

“So you think she came to me with the information — and instead of accepting it and using it against you, I kidnaped her.” Shayne was leaning slightly forward from the hips, his angry gaze riveted on Stallings’s handsome face. “You’re a Goddamned fool, Stallings.”

Stallings smiled evenly. “I believe you had perspicacity enough to recognize her so-called information for what it was, and that you seized the opportunity to hide her away for use as a lever against me. Not only do I believe that, Mr. Shayne, but I believe any jury will agree with me that the premise is sound.”

Shayne did not take his eyes from Stallings’s bland face. “And I suppose it never occurred to you, Mr. Stallings, that you could pull a dirty trick like this, have it headlined in the papers that Marsh and I had conspired to kidnap your daughter, and turn the tide in your favor at the polls.” His big fist crushed against his palm in a resounding blow. “Get out.”

“Very well.” Burt Stallings got up. He smiled, revealing a row of even and glistening white teeth.

Peter Painter came forward like a fighting cock with spurs and wings strutted. “I told Stallings he was wasting his time coming here. I’ve given him my word to wait until noon tomorrow to file a criminal information against you, but that’s the deadline.”

Shayne turned away from them and shakily refilled his glass with cognac. He kept his back turned until the door closed behind them. Then he strode to the bedroom door and kicked it open.

It struck Timothy Rourke on the side of the head as he crouched behind it with his ear to the crack. He rocked back on his heels and cursed Shayne, then groggily picked up his bottle of Scotch from the floor and followed the detective into the living-room, his lean face wreathed in a mocking smile.

“This,” he exulted, “gets better and better. How do you manage to wiggle yourself into spots like this?”

Shayne slumped into a chair and glared at the exuberant reporter. “Do you know Helen Stallings?”

“Hell, no. How’d I know a dame like that?”

“Your rag has run enough pictures of her on the society page,” Shayne growled. “Would you recognize her?”

“My deah young man—” Rourke grimaced and made a circle with left thumb and forefinger, holding it up to his eye like a lorgnette “—I nevah read the society page. Nevah! With so many of the nouveaux riches cluttering up the pages—”

Shayne said, “Go to hell,” and threw his empty glass at the grinning Irishman. “You’re going to start now,” he directed. “Go in there and take a good look at the corpse. Then beat it up to the News morgue and see if she’s Helen Stallings.”

“I don’t see why that’s necessary. It seems plain enough to me.”

“We’ve got to know.” Shayne was firm. “Then we can start figuring—”

“I don’t see what good it’ll do you,” Rourke interrupted cheerily. “If that is her — and I’m willing to lay a hundred to one it is — it’s a cinch you can’t deliver her home safe and sound by tomorrow noon. S-a-a-y, did you by any chance send that note to Stallings, taking advantage of a situation that dropped into your lap?”

“Get the hell out of here before I throw you out,” Shayne fumed. “I’ve got enough on my mind without thinking up answers to your pseudo wisecracks.” His eyes wandered to the bedroom door and stared thoughtfully. He held up his hand, detaining Rourke as he started for the door. “Wait — hold it. Before you go we’ve got to figure a way to get rid of the body.”

“We?” Rourke gasped. “Sweet grandmother! You don’t expect me—”

Shayne nodded, holding him with a shrewd, level gaze.

“To hell with that. You do your own figuring. There are certain limits I’ll go for a pal, but I draw the line—”

“Shut up and let me think,” Shayne demanded impatiently. He whirled about and strode up and down the room, muttering.

“The killer must be getting pretty nervous right now. He doesn’t know where the hell she is. He figured he had me sewed up tight when he sent you and Gentry up here — and he must have sent that note to Stallings at about the same time to clinch the kidnaping and murder on me. Now he doesn’t know what to think. He must know that both Gentry and Stallings have been here and gone away without finding the body. His natural thought will be that I found her before you and Gentry came, carried her upstairs to our living apartment, or hid her here in the building some place. He can’t tip his hand by forcing a further search until he knows where she is. He’ll be watching for me to make a break with the body.”

Shayne stopped suddenly before Rourke. Rourke backed away from the burning heat of his eyes.

“Tim, you’ve got to get her out of here,” he said slowly.

“Me? Nothing doing.” He took another backward step, holding up his hand as though to fend the detective off. “I’m not running any dead wagon.”

“You’re in this up to your neck already,” Shayne reminded him grimly. “Gentry knows you stayed behind when he left. If it comes out there was a body here and you connived with me to keep the fact covered up—”

Rourke shuddered and groaned dismally. “You do have the sweetest way of putting things. All right, I might as well be hung for one thing as another. How’ll we work it? What the hell will we do with her? Dump her in the bay?”

“Nothing like that.” Shayne resumed his pacing, rumpling his coarse red hair. “We want to keep her in storage where we can produce her as evidence later.”

Rourke brightened perceptibly. “That’s an idea, Mike. You got any close butcher friends?”

Shayne ignored him. “How about that fishing-place of yours below Coconut Grove?”

“Now look here, Mike, if you think I’m going to have her found on my—”

“That’s just the place,” Shayne interrupted. “No one ever goes there. Better not use your car, though,” he decided. “After you collect the pix from the News, rent a U-Drive-It and come back here.”

Rourke started for the door, saying, “Well, so long, Mike. It was nice to’ve known you.”

Shayne reached out two long arms and caught his shoulders. Whirling him around, he continued. “I’ll leave the back door unlocked, and you can come up the fire escape. I’ll decoy any watcher away — and give him the slip — meet you out along the Tamiami Trail, say at the Wildcat.”

Timothy Rourke sighed lugubriously. “If I get a headline out of this I’ll earn it. Maybe I’ll have a chance to write up some firsthand prison stuff. I’ve always had a hankering for that.” He went to the door with a sickly smile that tried to be jaunty, waved his hand, and went out.

Shayne went to the bedroom and switched on the light. He bent over the girl’s body and gently drew her hand down from her face, studying the contorted features and impressing them on his memory.

He went out and got a clean glass from the kitchen, came back, and pressed the tips of her fingers against the glass, hesitated, then pulled down the sheet and spread to get at the other hand which was edged under her body.

He sucked in his breath swiftly and audibly when he saw the tiny beaded bag clenched between her fingers. It was very small and dainty, such as one might carry to a formal evening affair. He closed his eyes and visualized the scene that afternoon when she had come stumbling up the corridor to him. She did not have such a bag in her hand then.

He got a handkerchief from his pocket and dropped it over her hand and the bag, bent each finger back until he could lift it away.

In the living-room he opened it and examined the meager contents. A jeweled compact bearing the initials H. S. Lipstick and some small change, and a tiny mirror with an identification card on the reverse side. The identification card stated that the owner was Helen Stallings.

He called the Miami News office and got the morgue. Rourke came to the phone, and Shayne said, “You needn’t bother with the pix. It’s the Stallings girl, all right.”

“Hell,” Rourke exploded, “I’ve already collected a dozen back issues. How did you—”

“Bring them along anyway. I’m leaving right now. See you at the Wildcat in half an hour.”

“Mike,” Rourke yelled into the phone, “I’ve been doing some heavy thinking and—”

Shayne pronged the receiver with a bang. He went to the kitchen and found the door leading out to the fire escape already unlocked. He stared at it for a moment, shook his head, and turned away. After turning out all the lights, he took his hat and went out.

He stopped at the desk in the lobby to chat with the clerk, draping one elbow on the counter and letting his gaze roam around the interior while he talked.

“You’ve got me in the palm of your hand, Jack,” he said with a broad grin. “That girl who visited my office this afternoon — do you remember much about her?”

“What girl, Mr. Shayne?” the young man asked gravely, winking one eye at the detective. He was a well-groomed young man with sandy hair and freckles, a thin, intelligent face. An employee of the apartment hotel for five years, he had banked important largess from Shayne in the past, rewards for his inability to recall details which Shayne wished forgotten.

There were few people in the lobby. A couple of old ladies knitting, a giggling young couple partially hidden behind a potted palm, and a man who sat near the doorway reading the evening News.

Shayne said, “Swell,” out of the side of his mouth. “The girl is probably just an idle rumor.” He watched the man reading the newspaper by the door. The fellow was obtrusively uninterested in Shayne. He looked anemic. He was long of nose and short of chin. “Even if the girl’s body popped up in my room you wouldn’t have the faintest idea how she got there?” Shayne’s tone was extremely casual and low.

The clerk swallowed hard, displaying his Adam’s apple prominently. “N-No, sir. I — have such a beautiful forgettery.”

Shayne grinned and said, “Swell,” again. He turned his full attention to the clerk. “This is off the record. Did anyone ask for me while I was seeing my wife to the train?”

“No, sir.” The clerk was positive. “Mr. Gentry and that reporter were the first to come.”

“And you didn’t see any strangers going in or out who looked as though they might have lethal intentions?”

The young man’s eyes were wide and frightened now. He shook his head emphatically. “No, sir.”

Shayne nodded. “If you hear anything after a while — someone going up and down the fire escape to my office — don’t pay any attention and you’ll save the hotel some notoriety.” He lit a cigarette, then swung toward the door in a loose-limbed stride.

He passed within two feet of the man who was deeply interested in his newspaper. Glancing down, Shayne saw that the paper was folded back at the editorial page. The man impressed him as one who lacked the intellect to cope with a newspaper editorial page.

Going out the door without slackening his pace, Shayne glanced over his shoulder as he passed wide windows looking into the lobby. The anemic man was folding his paper and getting up.

Shayne continued to Second Avenue and swung around the corner where his car was parked. A small coupé was parked a discreet half block behind his shabby convertible. A man sat in the driver’s seat.

Shayne walked briskly on to his car, opened the door, and folded his long body in under the wheel. He adjusted the rearview mirror and watched with interest while the editorial reader hurried around the corner toward the coupé and got in beside the driver.

Waiting patiently, Shayne sucked on his cigarette, expelling great clouds of smoke through flaring nostrils. The coupé did not move away from the curb.

There was little traffic on Second Avenue. A lopsided moon and millions of brilliant stars shed silvery light upon the Magic City. A faint cooling breeze blew in from Biscayne Bay, salt-tanged and permeated with the perfume of flowers from Bayfront Park, bringing relief from the long sun-drenched August day.

Shayne threw his cigarette away and started his motor. He swung about in a U turn and drove slowly to Southeast Second Street. He smiled grimly when the coupé twisted away from the curb and made a U turn behind him.

He stopped wasting time watching the little car and angled over to Biscayne Boulevard. He drove north at a moderate speed, dragging in deep breaths of the cool, tangy air.

The coupé was a block behind him when he approached the traffic light at Seventy-Ninth Street. A line of traffic was piling up behind the little car trailing him.

Shayne gauged his speed carefully, reached the corner as the traffic signal changed from red to green, then pulled into a filling-station on the southeast corner of the busy intersection.

The driver of the coupé hesitated, slowed behind him. A furious medley of honking broke out as the drivers behind the coupé saw themselves about to be held up while the light changed.

Reluctantly, the coupé drove into the intersection, hesitated about turning right or left, drove on across and pulled to the curb half a block ahead.

A courteous attendant was standing smartly at attention beside the detective’s car. Shayne grinned at him and said, “Sorry, bud, I just remembered an important appointment. Guess I’ve got enough gas to make it. Back later.”

He slammed in the gears and drove on through the station into Seventy-Ninth Street, joining a stream of traffic flying across the northern causeway to the peninsula. He smiled happily when he saw, through the rearview mirror, that the coupé was taking a desperate chance to make a U turn on the boulevard and speeding back to the intersection to follow him.

Turning off Seventy-Ninth Street to the right, Shayne drove south one block, then west across the boulevard to Little River where he took Miami Avenue back to the downtown district of the Magic City. He felt quite certain that the two men in the coupé were vainly looking for him in the stream of traffic across the northern causeway.

When he turned into the Tamiami Trail, he slowed to a leisurely speed. The Wildcat was a well-known dance hall and open market place in the country beyond Coral Gables; a large rustic structure with a thatched roof, one of the last trading-posts before the trail dived headlong into the remote vastness and silence of the Everglades.

Shayne parked between two other cars in front of the Wildcat and got out. Snuggled-up youngsters and roughly dressed oldsters were dancing in a dimly lit pavilion, and the beer bar was getting a good play. The breeze sweeping over the open spaces bordering the redlands was soft and humid.

Shayne joined the unwashed, open-shirted crowd at the bar and was dawdling over his second beer when he saw Timothy Rourke’s lean body and tousled head in the doorway. A wild, stricken expression replaced the keen, searching look in the newshound’s slaty eyes.

Rourke leaped forward and grabbed Shayne’s arm and led him outside. “What the hell are you pulling on me, Mike?” he ejaculated nervously. “Maybe you think it was a gag, but I lost ten years off the other end of my life creeping up that damned fire escape and into your office.”

Shayne grinned. “You made it all right. What’s ten years off the other end?”

“By God, I’m through.” Rourke faced the tall detective angrily. “From now on you can handle your own bodies. I’m through.”

Shayne grabbed the reporter’s shoulder and shook him roughly. “You can’t let me down now just because we’ve got the girl out. Hell, Tim, this is just the beginning. I’d be sunk without your help. And don’t forget that the boys on the Herald would jump at the chance of one of my headlines.”

Rourke eeled away from his grip. “I didn’t mind helping,” he fumed, “but playing hide-and-seek with a corpse is definitely not my idea of fun.”

“We’ve got to get rid of her now,” Shayne warned hastily. “Every minute she stays in your car is dangerous.”

“She’s not going to be in my car. You brought her this far — you can keep her.”

“I brought her!” Shayne stopped short, staring at the ironical smile twitching Rourke’s thin lips. “Who’s gagging now?”

“By God, I’m not,” Rourke told him with passionate sincerity. “You might’ve told me you’d changed your mind and were taking her away yourself. But, no, you have to be funny.”

Shayne’s hands caught Rourke’s shoulders again and clamped down hard. In a strangled voice he demanded, “What are you getting at, Tim? For God’s sake—”

“You ought to know. She wasn’t there.”

Slowly Shayne’s fingers relaxed. “Do you mean — she wasn’t there when you went back?” he asked hollowly.

“You’re beginning to get it,” Rourke responded. “Didn’t you sneak her out?”

Shayne shook his head dismally. “I was busy decoying a couple of birds who tailed me from the hotel.”

The two men stood and stared at each other for a long moment, then Shayne went into action. He grabbed Rourke’s arm and steered him toward the barroom.

“I’m either drunk or desperately in need of a drink,” he said solemnly. “I’ve got to find out.”

FOUR

THE BOOTHS in the barroom were vacant at this early hour. Shayne led the way to one at the farthest end of the low-ceilinged room, stopping at the bar to order a bottle of cognac and two glasses.

They sat in complete silence for several minutes, sipping the amber fluid and glowering dejectedly at the crude walls and thatched roof. The inexplicable disappearance of Helen Stallings’s corpse disjointed everything. It didn’t make sense. It injected a sinister note of mystery into the affair which had, heretofore, appeared to be nothing more than a frame-up to throw the onus of a kidnap-killing onto Shayne and thus ensure Jim Marsh’s defeat at the Miami Beach polls two days hence.

“Who the hell could have wanted her out of there except you?” Rourke’s voice was a low groan.

Shayne stared, a black frown on his gaunt face. “Someone giving us a friendly lift,” he suggested with heavy irony. “Somebody took the job off our hands. Why should we kick?” He emptied his glass and poured another drink.

“You’re whistling in the dark,” Rourke charged. “As long as we knew where she was we had control — in a nebulous way. Now we don’t know what to expect — what to guard against.”

Shayne sighed and settled both elbows on the table, cupped his lean jaw in rough palms, and cocked one red eyebrow sardonically.

“It does begin to look interesting. For a while I was ready to believe Stallings strangled her himself to shut her mouth and to tie her murder around my neck. But he wouldn’t have taken her away after planting her in my apartment.”

“Who would?”

Shayne shrugged and said mildly, “My theory about a good Samaritan or a helpful elf is as good as any until we have more facts to go on.”

“Yeah — facts.” Rourke downed his third drink and squinted slaty eyes at the detective. “What did you mean when you called me at the paper and said you didn’t need the pictures to identify the girl?”

Shayne told him about the beaded bag gripped in the dead girl’s hand. “I’m positive she didn’t have it with her when she came to my apartment. The murderer might have brought it with him and left it in her hand so she would be quickly identified.” He paused, his frown deepening. “Maybe that’s a lead. Let’s have a look at those back copies you brought along.”

“She’s Helen Stallings, all right,” Rourke said. “Some of these pix are mighty clear for newspaper cuts.” He pulled a batch of newspaper sheets from his coat pocket and began sorting them out on the table. Turning them at a convenient angle for both of them to study, he said, “Here’s the first one I found. Little over a month ago. Snapped at the airport on her arrival from New York. There wasn’t any use looking farther back because this is her first visit to Miami. I suppose you know Stallings met the girl’s mother in New York. They were married there a few months ago, left the girl in college to finish the school term when they came down here, and Stallings built a mansion for his bride.”

Shayne studied a blurred halftone of a girl stepping from an air liner. “This is not too clear of her face,” he complained. “Looks like her, all right, but—”

“There aren’t any buts about this one.” Rourke selected another photograph, a front-page posed shot. “This was taken about a week later, the day after she filed suit against Stallings for alleged misappropriation of estate funds.”

Shayne nodded, disappointment clouding his face. The second picture was very clear in facial detail, unmistakably a picture of the girl who had staggered to his office and was later strangled in his bed.

“And here’s another one that’s just as clear,” Rourke went on. “Our regulars do a better job than the society photogs. This is a few days later, after she withdrew the suit against Stallings. Her mother had had a stroke in the meantime, presumably brought on by the girl’s action against Stallings, and was seriously ill. They had just moved from an apartment to that swanky new home on Swordfish Island.”

Shayne stared somberly at the two pictures. There was not the shadow of doubt as to the identity of the murdered girl. He shook his head slowly and admitted, “I thought for a moment there was a possibility that the handbag was planted for a false clue — so that the body would be identified as Helen Stallings. That’s the way with most neat theories,” he ended with deep disgust.

“Here’s some more.” Tim Rourke continued to spread out sheets of newspaper and pass them over for Shayne’s inspection. “She seems to have jumped into what the cliché boys would call a mad sporting and social whirl after deciding not to sue her stepfather. Surf-riding and golfing, cocktailing and dancing.”

Shayne glanced casually at each succeeding photograph offered for his inspection. “Who’s this lug hanging around her in all these? His face looks familiar, but I can’t quite place him.”

“That’s Arch Bugler. He cuts quite a dashing figure, don’t you think?”

“Arch Bugler?” Shayne snorted. “Hell, I didn’t know he’d stepped into society.”

“And how! He’s out of the slot-machine racket, you know. Ostensibly, at least. He opened a place on the Beach a few months ago. Made quite a flurry with it at first, but the cops clamped down on the back-room gambling, and he’s had to concentrate on selling food and drinks.”

“Sure. I know about his place on the Beach,” Shayne murmured, “but I didn’t know that qualified him for a place in society. Hell, Tim, everybody knows he’s a mobster — and one of the toughest ever to invade Miami and the Beach.”

“Mobsters are the latest social craze.” Rourke pointed out with a wry grin. “The blasé debs have found a new thrill. They get a perverted kick out of stepping with a known killer.”

“I wouldn’t know about that.” Shayne leaned back and drank deeply from his glass. “Still, I’d think Stallings would put his foot down. Didn’t he and Bugler have a run-in a couple of years ago on a labor-racketeering angle?”

“Yeh, but that’s all patched up now. They’ve been as thick as thieves since then, and Stallings was one of the biggest plungers when there was gambling at Bugler’s new joint.”

“I ought to take you into partnership,” Shayne growled. “I’d do less guessing if I had your sources of information.”

“It’s a reporter’s job to get around,” Rourke admitted modestly. He emptied his glass and reached for the bottle.

“Lay off. We’ve got things to do.” Shayne came out of a brown study. A look of grim alertness supplanted the bemused expression which had clouded his face since Rourke announced the disappearance of Helen Stallings’s body from his office.

“Such as what?” Rourke asked.

“A look-in at Arch Bugler’s place.”

“Not me,” Rourke stated flatly. “You don’t drag me into anything else. Not tonight.”

“We’ve got to learn all we can about Helen Stallings.”

“You’ve got to. I’m having another drink.” Rourke wrapped long, thin fingers around the bottle.

Shayne made no move to interfere, but he talked fast. “Don’t you see we’ve got to pick up a lead somehow? You don’t want it known that you left a dead girl unreported, do you? We’ve got to find out where she went when she left home at noon. Someone doped her to keep her from talking. Whoever killed her knew she was doped and unable to talk to me — else why would she have been killed? There wouldn’t have been any need to throttle her if she had already talked.”

“Your logic is perfect,” Rourke agreed. “I’ll bet you my grandmother’s wig you catch the guy, Mike. Give me a ring when the lead is ready.”

Shayne snorted angrily. “This case hasn’t even got hot.” He took the bottle from Rourke’s lax fingers and dropped it into his coat pocket, then wadded up the newspaper sheets and rammed them into the other, got up and grabbed his hat from a hook.

Rourke smiled sweetly and waved to him as he stalked from the booth.

Shayne had never visited Arch Bugler’s Miami Beach establishment. He knew the approximate location, and he saw the red neon sign half a block away: Bugle Inn.

Cars lined the curb in front. Expensive, sporty models that proved Arch Bugler wasn’t playing to a piker clientele.

Shayne nosed his battered convertible between a Rolls-Royce and a Packard. A high wall of pink coral rock surrounded three sides of the sprawling structure, running down to the beach at the rear. Bronze latticework gates were set in the wall, opening inward to a flagged path under an arched canopy leading to the front entrance. A uniformed doorman stood stiffly in front of the high bronze gates.

Sauntering toward the doorman, Shayne lit a cigarette.

A hot glint came into his eyes when the man stared at him suspiciously, then swung the gates shut and stood solidly in front of them.

Shayne stopped a foot from the doorman. His chin was level with the man’s eyes. He stared at him for a moment and then said, “Well?”

“I’m sorry, sir. White ties are required, sir.”

“I’m not wearing one.”

“I have strict orders, sir, to admit no gentlemen except those in formal attire.”

“I’m here on business — to see Arch Bugler.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I have strict orders.”

Shayne said, “Nuts.” He caught the man’s braided tunic and jerked him aside. The man whistled shrilly as Shayne shouldered the gates open.

Two men appeared from the other side of the wall and got in front of him. One of them exclaimed, “Jeez, it’s the dick from Miami,” and stepped backward. He had a big nose and a chin that fell away to nothing — the man who had trailed Shayne from his apartment hotel earlier in the evening.

The other bouncer was taller than Shayne, his shoulders inches broader. He had a flat face and a square head fastened onto his torso with no neck between. He scowled darkly and growled, “Outside.”

Shayne drove his fist into the middle of the man’s flat face. The force of the blow rocked him back on his heels, smashing a rubbery nose and thick lips that had been smashed before.

The smaller man sucked in his breath sharply and hit Shayne with a blackjack, saying softly, “Grab him, Donk.” Shayne staggered sideways, and the big man stepped in, caught his elbows, and pinioned them behind him.

“Outside,” the chinless man panted, “and keep it quiet, Donk. This is the bozo the boss said not to let in.”

Shayne’s head lolled limply as he was given the bum’s rush through the bronze gates. The blackjack had been swung expertly and should have knocked him out, but the redhead was tough. His legs were not functioning very well and a black cloud obscured a bright moon, but he clamped his teeth hard, doggedly hanging on to consciousness.

“Down to the corner of the wall, Donk,” the smaller man directed in a vicious undertone. “There’s a cab pulling up — They’ll think he’s just a drunk being bounced.” With Donk propelling him from behind, Shayne was rushed along the sidewalk to the north wall of the Bugle Inn property. Half a dozen unoccupied water-front lots separated the wall from the next building. The vacant space was thick with a growth of scrub palmetto.

Donk paused when he reached the end of the wall, and his companion ordered, “Drag him out in the middle of the clearing and we’ll work him over. He dodged me once tonight, but this time he won’t do no dodgin’.”

Strength was flowing into Shayne’s legs and awareness to his brain, but he let his feet drag in the sand until the chinless man ordered, “This is far enough. Nobody’ll notice us from the street. Is he out?”

“Acts like it.” Donk let go of Shayne’s elbows. The detective sprawled forward limply into a matted growth of pin-edged palmettos. “Yep,” Donk said with a faint note of regret, “he’s out cold. You shouldn’t orta hit ’im so hard, Johnny.”

“He’s supposed to be tough. Wouldn’t surprise me none if he was possumin’.” Johnny kicked Shayne in the ribs. Shayne gave no sign that he felt it.

“Turn ’im over,” Johnny ordered, “and I’ll stomp him in the face good. Arch said for us to work on ’im if he tried to crash the gate tonight.”

Donk bent down and got a hold on Shayne’s shoulder to turn him over. Shayne came half erect and drove his head into Donk’s belly with the force of a battering ram.

Donk grunted and stumbled back over a clump of sharp palmettos.

Shayne whirled and lunged at Johnny, ducking a vicious downswing of the blackjack. He drove his forearm against Johnny’s Adam’s apple, which protruded at a point where his chin should have been, and the smaller man went to his knees clawing at his throat.

Shayne grabbed the blackjack from his lax fingers and whirled to meet Donk’s lunge.

The larger man parried a blow with his forearm and laughed happily. He smashed a left to Shayne’s stomach and straightened the detective up with a looping right to the chin when he jackknifed forward. Shayne swayed backward with his feet seemingly rooted in the sand, his angular face turned up to the moon and the stars.

Donk planted himself and put two hundred and forty pounds behind a piledriver right to the detective’s unprotected jaw.

Shayne’s senses swam lazily into a mist of nothingness. The moon and the stars were again blotted out.

Johnny came to his feet still gasping and sputtering. “By God,” he chattered huskily, “it takes you to cool off the toughies, Donk.”

“He wasn’t so tough,” Donk disclaimed modestly. “When I give ’em the ol’ one-two they mostly stay down.”

Johnny picked up his blackjack and shoved it in his pocket. “We’ll leave him lay there,” he decided. “When he comes up for air he’ll be all outta the notion of seein’ the boss.”

The two men strolled off leaving Shayne quiescent, face downward in the soft sand.

For a long time Shayne lay still. Presently he stirred to get his face out of the sand. His breathing became stertorous, mingling with the swishing sound of waves flowing gently on the shore. He made two efforts to sit erect before achieving results, then linked his arms around his knees and shuddered with nausea.

His upper lip was cut, and there was the taste of blood in his mouth, gritty sand between his teeth. Nausea convulsed his body, and he retched on the sand. The spasm passed, and his head cleared.

With an effort he lifted himself to a standing position, then made his way unsteadily to the edge of the lapping waves. Bogging in the wet sand, he scooped up handfuls of water and dashed it over his face, poured another handful into his mouth to rinse out the sand.

Stumbling back to the walk, he stepped across it into the sand and passed behind the rows of cars to reach his convertible. Reaching through the window, he secured the bottle of cognac with trembling fingers and collapsed. For a few minutes he sat with his head lolling on his chestbone, then lifted the bottle and drank deeply. A warming glow began in his midribs and spread strengtheningly through his body. He emptied the bottle and stood up.

He still hadn’t seen Arch Bugler.

Stepping onto the sidewalk, he walked at a shambling gait toward the entrance to the Bugle Inn. The doorman watched his approach with narrowed, speculative eyes.

Shayne felt strong, but he feigned weakness. He bumped against the wall, righted himself as he neared the gates.

The doorman said, “Beat it, mister. You know all I got to do is whistle.”

Shayne hit him in the mouth before he could purse his lips to make the signal that would bring Donk and Johnny to his aid, dropping the man to the walk with his threat unfinished.

Pushing the gates open, he strode forward under the brightly striped canopy, looking neither to right nor to left. Three stone steps led into a thickly carpeted entrance hall. A tall man wearing a white mess jacket with a napkin over his arm hurried forward from an archway which led into a large, brilliantly lighted dining-room.

Shayne shook his head at the mess jacket and went to the left where the clink of glasses and boisterous laughter indicated a bar. Men and women in formal attire stopped drinking and laughing to stare at his disheveled wet hair and puffed lips when he entered the cocktail lounge, their eyes traveling down over his rumpled, bloodstained clothes.

Striding up to the bar, Shayne announced, “Just been in accident and need a drink.”

The patrons, their curiosity satisfied at the statement, turned back to the serious business of liquor and sex. A bald-headed bartender jovially inquired after his needs.

“A bottle of Martell cognac and an empty glass.”

“Yes, sir,” the man answered.

Shayne poured liquor into the glass and hunched his shoulders forward, resting both elbows on the bar, caressing the glass between his big hands to warm it. He sipped slowly, his nostrils expanding and twitching as the clean, pungent aroma drifted upward.

There were three bartenders on duty behind the long chromium bar. When the bald-headed man became momentarily disengaged, Shayne said casually, “You do a rushing business here.”

“Pretty good this time of the evening. It’ll slack off about midnight, and we don’t do much until after dark.”

“Open in the afternoons?”

“From one o’clock on. Not enough to keep one man busy, though.”

“Did you work a shift this afternoon?”

“Yep. We alternate. I go off at twelve.” Some of his wholesome joviality went. He looked at Shayne with a sudden suspicious leer, then glanced up at a clock on the wall.

Shayne saw his quick change of expression and laughed. “Lucky I had my accident convenient to a bar. This must be the place my girl friend told me about. She was here this afternoon. Maybe you remember her — pretty, with a lot of blond hair.”

The bartender shook his head. “Lot’s of those young dames drop in for cocktails. I don’t notice ’em much.” He turned to move away.

Shayne stopped him, his voice peremptory and hard. “You’d remember this girl. She left with a friend of yours — Michael Finn.”

The man turned slowly to stand in front of Shayne. His gaze was veiled and afraid. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think,” said Shayne, “you do.” He finished his drink and frowned into the glass, paying no further attention to the bartender, who remained standing uneasily in front of him.

When Shayne pushed the empty glass and bottle away and stood up, the man reminded him uneasily, “You haven’t paid for your drinks, sir.”

“Tell Arch to mark it up to profit and loss.” He strolled along the bar toward a rear door that said Gentlemen. It opened onto a corridor leading to the back of the building. The first door on the right was also chastely lettered Gentlemen. He went into a lavatory and washed his face and hands with soap, dried them meticulously, and combed his unruly red hair with his fingers. There was an ugly bruise on his left cheek, and both lips were badly swollen, but the cut on his upper lip had stopped bleeding.

A waiter passed him as he stepped into the hallway. He carried a tray with two highballs on it. Shayne watched him stop at a door near the end of the hall. The man knocked, then entered, leaving the door slightly ajar.

Shayne followed him, treading noiselessly on the rich hall runner. The door was marked Private. He heard Arch Bugler’s peculiarly sinister and purring voice, a soft sibilance acquired by the mobster to conceal the naturally harsh and guttural quality of his tone.

“Forget it, Marlow. I should be sore at you for barging in like this, but I don’t blame you for being upset. You can’t trust a skirt nowadays. Too bad you had to make a trip down here to find out how you stand. Put it down the hatch. It’s out of my private stock.”

A thin, shaky voice answered him. “I’m not going to believe it until Helen tells me so herself. There’s something screwy going on.”

Shayne stepped forward quickly as the door started to open inward. He strode nonchalantly down the hall without looking back, turned to the right at the end. An intersecting corridor led to a wide archway opening into a big square room which was deserted except for a couple of workmen busily polishing roulette tables and crap layouts. White cloth covers still were in place over other tables in the rear.

Stopping in the doorway, Shayne scratched a match noisily and put flame to a cigarette. One of the workmen glanced up without interest. Shayne grinned at him and asked, “Getting ready for the grand opening, eh?”

“Yep. That’s about it,” the man replied, and his companion added, winking broadly, “If the election turns out right.”

Shayne nodded and turned away. A deep crease furrowed his brow as he went back to the door marked Private. He turned the knob and went in without knocking.

Arch Bugler stared at him across a wide, flat-topped desk of shining mahogany. He was a squat man with tremendous shoulders and torso. His eyes were almost colorless and appeared opaque, slightly protuberant and unblinking, like the lidless eyes of a reptile. He had swart, heavy features and coarse black hair, and was about thirty years of age. He said, “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Shayne.”

Bugler appeared to be alone in the office, but as Shayne stepped forward he saw a pair of brown Oxfords protruding past the corner of the desk. He moved aside and looked down at the limp body of a young man who lay beside a straight, armless chair. Long fingers were clasped about an empty highball glass.

Bugler watched the detective from lidless eyes without speaking.

Shayne nodded toward the recumbent figure and slid one hip onto the desk. “You must have told the bartender to mix the next one stronger after the girl walked out of here under her own power this afternoon.”

Bugler purred, “You’re going to get your nose dirty, Shamus.”

Shayne nodded, his eyes bleak. “It’s one of my failings. Helen Stallings told me just enough before she passed out this afternoon to get me interested.”

Not a flicker of expression changed the stony coldness of Bugler’s swarthy features. He pressed a button on his desk with a blunt forefinger. “You’ve stayed out of my way a long time, Shayne. Better if you kept on being smart.”

Shayne’s gray eyes glowed hotly. “I’ve never stayed out of any man’s way. I’ve been waiting for you to stick your neck out.”

“And you think I have?”

“I know you have.” Shayne touched the bruise on his cheek and his cut lip. “It was a mistake for you to sick your gorillas on me.”

Bugler’s thick lips parted in an amused smile. “You ran into Donk, huh?”

A rear door came open, and Johnny stepped in, followed by Donk. Johnny stopped short and stared at Shayne, muttering in an awed tone, “Jesus God! There he is again,” and Donk blinked happily, moving forward with big fists swinging at the end of long arms. “If it ain’t my sparring partner. You must love to get bounced around and, God, how I love to bounce you!” His wide, flat face wreathed itself in a grin of sadistic anticipation as he moved closer.

FIVE

SHAYNE DIDN’T LOOK AT DONK. He warned Arch Bugler with passionate intensity, “You’d better keep this apple off me. I already owe you for one beating and that’ll cost you plenty.”

Donk stopped beside him, his doltish gaze questioning Bugler.

Bugler studied Shayne a moment, then raised a broad hand toward Donk, motioning him back. “Hold it a minute. You and Johnny have messed things up enough by letting him in here.”

“Jeez, boss,” Johnny exploded, “I don’t know how he done it. Donk hit ’im solid, and I never saw a man get up from that before. Honest to Christ, I thought his jaw was busted.”

“You’re not paid to think,” Bugler purred. “I told you to keep him out.”

Shayne laughed shortly. “They tried,” he told Bugler without rancor. He transferred his gaze to the lax body of the young man on the floor. “Looks like you’re receiving an influx of undesirable visitors tonight.”

“Just a punk who couldn’t hold his liquor. Take him out and dump him, Johnny. You stick around, Donk.”

Shayne watched with a saturnine smile twitching his swollen lips while Johnny got hold of the young man and dragged him out the rear door. He dropped his cigarette on the floor and mashed it out with his toe, lit another one. “You knew I’d be dropping around tonight,” he mused. “What were you afraid I’d find if I nosed around?”

Bugler said, “I don’t like my place stunk up with private dicks.”

“It’ll smell worse,” Shayne told him softly, “if you keep any bodies lying around.”

Bugler stiffened. His opaque, lidless eyes bored across the desk at Shayne. He didn’t say anything for thirty seconds. He finally spoke with no perceptible movement of his lips.

“You’d better get out, Shamus.”

Shayne shrugged. He took a slow drag on his cigarette, held the smoke in his lungs for a long time, then let it out of his nostrils. He nodded and got up, went to the door and out without looking back.

Donk was twenty feet behind him when he went into the cocktail bar. He waved to the bald-headed bartender and kept going. Donk followed him to the entrance gates where he stopped and stared after the detective wishfully.

Shayne winced with pain as he got into his car and backed away from the curb. Passing by the entrance gates he leaned out and waved a long arm to Donk, who was still standing there looking unhappy.

He drove south along the ocean drive until he reached a drugstore with a public-telephone sign. He called Timothy Rourke’s home address and, after a long wait, got the reporter on the line. Rourke swore softly when he heard Shayne’s fuzzy enunciation. “You sound like the cat got your tongue.”

“I ran into a fist at Arch Bugler’s,” Shayne explained thickly. “And I picked up a chore for you.”

Rourke’s sigh sounded in Shayne’s ear. “Start checking the hotels for a man named Marlow,” Shayne instructed. “He arrived this afternoon, I imagine, from New York or thereabouts. Call me at my hotel in an hour with the dope.”

“Have you got a line on the corpse?” Rourke asked. “I can’t help wondering where she’ll turn up next.”

“Bodies are where you find them,” said Shayne cheerfully. He hung up and went back to his car, circled east on the peninsula to a private bridge over the inland waterway leading to Burt Stallings’s island estate.

The island was small, containing perhaps an acre of ground, protected by a sea wall of coral rock to prevent the ebbing tides from eating away the edges. The entire area was carefully landscaped to give the careless effect of natural luxuriant growth, and the Stallings mansion was situated in the center, screened from view by lush shrubbery and feathery-fronded palms. A narrow, twisting road led up to an impressive stone frontage with two wings guarding a rear patio.

There were no other automobiles in evidence, but lights glowed through the front window. Shayne parked near the steps on the double concrete driveway which circled around to the narrow road. He went up the steps and tried an ornamental bronze knocker without effect. He then searched for and found an electric button. There was a long interval of silence after he pressed the button.

Leaning against the stone casement, he waited patiently. There was an atmosphere of lassitude in the remoteness of the island, a sense of lethargic detachment which communicated itself to one as soon as the bridge was crossed and the mainland left behind. Moonlight silvered the fronds of graceful coco palms and the stately gray trunks of royal palms towering toward the sky. Fish pools set in the lush green lawn reflected the stars in their still waters, and marble benches gleamed ghostly white.

So this was what money could buy, Shayne reflected idly as he waited. He had thought Stallings a fool to sink so much money in a home. Now he wasn’t so sure, even if this island estate, as was rumored, had swallowed up a sizable portion of the fortune the man had acquired in his career as a building contractor. The rumored cost was probably very much exaggerated, he mused. It stood to reason that a contractor could build his own home at far less cost than he built for others.

The door opened to interrupt his vagrant thoughts. A big-bosomed, militant female challenged him with a coldly suspicious gaze. She wore a plain black silk dress buttoned snugly at the neck, like a uniform. Her upper lip fuzzed with black hair, and a cluster of black bristles surrounded a mole on her chin. She said, “Well?” in a harsh, forbidding voice.

Shayne tried to work up his most disarming smile, but his swollen lips were painful, and his heart was not in the effort. She didn’t look like the type to be impressed by any sort of smile. He stopped trying and said, “I want to see Mr. Burt Stallings.”

“Mr. Stallings is out.” She started to close the door, but Shayne interposed, “Mrs. Stallings, then.”

“Mrs. Stallings is too ill to see anyone.” She was closing the door. Shayne lounged forward and put his shoulder against it. “Miss Helen Stallings, then.”

“Miss Stallings isn’t in.” The woman was beginning to put pressure on the other side of the door. In his weakened condition, Shayne wasn’t at all sure he could hold out against her weight and strength. He resisted the pressure with his weight. “I’ll talk to you, then,” he said. “About Miss Stallings.”

The female guardian of the portal compressed her lips in a straight line. “I don’t know who you are, but this isn’t any time—”

“It’s no time for playing hide-and-seek,” Shayne told her swiftly. “I’m a detective — hired by Stallings to find his daughter. I don’t think he’d like it if you withheld any information from me.”

“A detective?” She considered him with doubtful eyes, then said, “All right. You can come in, but I don’t know what I can tell you.”

The front door opened into a wide, uncarpeted entrance room with chairs placed stiffly around the walls.

There was movement beyond an open door leading into an unlit hall.

The woman said, “Lucile!” sharply, and after a moment’s hesitation a girl stepped into the doorway. She wore a maid’s cap and apron, and a short skirt revealed stocky calves. She had bold, brown, wishful eyes, and they rested on Shayne’s big frame with approval. Her upper lip was short and it twitched mutinously when she said, “Yes, Mrs. Briggs. I was just—”

“You were snooping,” Mrs. Briggs snapped. “Go upstairs until you’re wanted.”

Lucile’s lower lip was heavy and pouted. She pouted it still further, hesitating in the doorway and hopefully inviting Shayne’s attention.

Shayne responded with a slow grin of approbation and protested to Mrs. Briggs, “I’d better talk to Lucile, too. I need all the information I can get. Perhaps I can see you later, Lucile.”

Mrs. Briggs surged in front of him like a battleship at full steam ahead. “Go to your room, Lucile,” she commanded sharply.

The girl’s eyes darkened resentfully. The tip of her tongue showed momentarily between her short upper lip and the pouting lower one. Then she turned and flounced away, tossing black curls that hung below her maid’s cap.

“I had a feeling that Lucy had something she wanted to tell me,” Shayne reproved Mrs. Briggs.

“I’ve no doubt of that,” Mrs. Briggs snapped. “She’s man crazy, and not at all choosy.” Her gaze flickered meaningly over Shayne’s bruised face and his coarse red hair. Then she sat down in a straight chair and folded her hands in her lap, looking at him coldly over her formidable bosom. “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t say.”

“Well, what is it? How do I know you’re a detective?”

“The name is Shayne.” He patted his coat pocket. “I have my credentials if you care to see them.”

“Shayne? The detective from Miami who’s been campaigning against Mr. Stallings? Why would Mr. Stallings go to you for help?”

“Because I’m the best in the business.” Shayne sat down. “How long has Helen Stallings been missing?”

“I didn’t know she was missing. She’s usually missing around here. She wasn’t here for dinner tonight but that’s nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Can’t you give me anything that might be a clue?” Shayne persisted. “Mr. Stallings has reason to believe she’s been kidnaped.”

Mrs. Briggs said, “Humph! Kidnaped?” and shook her head. “I’m just the housekeeper here. I’m afraid you’re wasting your time.”

Shayne inwardly agreed with her. He nodded impassively and stood up. Mrs. Briggs let him go to the door alone. As he went out he glanced back at her and surprised a look of dismay and fear on her dour features.

He closed the door and went slowly toward his car, puckering his lips to produce a tuneless whistle. The whistle echoed back from out of the enveloping island silence.

Turning his head, he saw a lighted upstairs window that had been dark when he approached the house. Lucile was leaning out, her head supporting the unlatched screen as she looked down at him in the moonlight. Her lips were softly echoing his whistle.

Shayne halted on the edge of the grass and lifted one hand in a mock gesture of farewell.

Lucile shook her head and gesticulated frantically, pointing toward the north side of the house. Shayne hesitated only an instant, then nodded and threaded his way between clumps of blooming hibiscus in the direction indicated.

Lucile withdrew from the window, and her light went out. A concrete driveway led along the north side to a separate garage in the rear. Near the front of the house an iron-railed outside stairway led up to a hanging balcony of Spanish design.

Shayne stopped at the foot of the stairway and waited. A door opened outward onto the balcony, and Lucile stepped out. She glanced down at Shayne, then hurried silently down the stairs.

She stopped on the bottom step, her head thrown back, a smile parting her lips.

“Good work, babe,” Shayne said, and held out his arms to her. She slid into them, pressing her body close, laughing up into his face while her fingers went up to tangle in his hair.

“Honest to gosh,” she sighed, “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I oughtn’t to be here. Mrs. Briggs’ll raise Old Ned if she catches me.” Her big brown eyes were avid, and her lips brazenly invited his kiss.

Shayne bent his head and touched his sore lips lightly to hers, tightening his arms about her. “I’m not in very good shape for kissing,” he warned her, “but otherwise I’m as good as any man.”

“And better than ninety per cent, I’ll bet.” She pulled his head lower and pressed her moist lips against his bruised cheek, cooing, “Was some bad mans mean to you?”

“Sort of.” Shayne turned toward the hibiscus hedge, keeping his arm around her waist. “Wouldn’t we be safer to get away from here?”

“Not too far.” She went across the driveway with him, giggling excitedly. “Old Briggs’d have a conniption fit if she knew I’d slipped out. I’ll have to run if she starts calling for me.”

There were informal flower beds beyond the hedge with garden seats scattered about beneath low, spreading coco palms. Shayne led the girl to a seat in the heavy shadows.

She leaned against him when they sat down. “You’re a detective, aren’t you? I bet you’re just pretending to like me to find out things.”

“Don’t be silly. You know you could make any man forget business.” Shayne pressed his cheek lightly against her hair. “You been working here long?”

“Ever since they moved in. We all have.”

“And I suppose you’re pretty much isolated here on the island,” Shayne said sympathetically. “But you get a day off now and then, don’t you?”

“I’ll say we don’t. Old Briggs is a slave driver. She’s so ugly herself she’s jealous of any of the rest of us having a good time. All we get around here is work from morning till night. That’s the reason I went sort of all loose inside when you looked at me in there and I knew you liked a good time, too.” She turned against him and raised her face hungrily.

Shayne touched his swollen lips to hers again. She caught his face between her palms and held it, gently touching the tip of her tongue to his bruised mouth. She drew away, laughing shakily. “Does that hurt?”

“Soft as an angel’s wings,” Shayne told her throatily. “Couldn’t you slip away tonight — after they’ve all gone to bed?”

“I might get away with it. Would you meet me, redhead?”

“On the other side of the bridge — at midnight?”

“Better make it later. Two o’clock. Briggs is always up till midnight. She gives Mrs. Stallings her medicine then.”

“Is Mrs. Stallings really very ill?”

“I guess she is, all right. She never comes out of her room. Mrs. Briggs is a trained nurse and she does everything for her. You know what I think? I think she’s a hop-head.”

“Mrs. Briggs?”

“No; Mrs. Stallings. I’ve seen Briggs sterilizing a hypodermic two or three times.”

“Lots of nurses give their patients shots.”

“But there’s something funny about it,” Lucile insisted. “Briggs tries to keep it a secret from the rest of us. Sometimes I think maybe it’s the girl uses it. She acts dopey enough, if you ask me.”

“Helen?”

“Yes. There’s something funny about her, all right. Boy, the things I could tell you if I was to cut loose.”

“Go ahead,” Shayne encouraged her.

“Damn you, you’re just working me for information. I ought to have known.” She jerked herself away from him.

Shayne drew her back gently. “You’re crazy,” he said in a soft, indulgent voice. “You know the reason I’m not loving you to death. That’ll have to wait until later. We can keep our minds off of what we’re missing by talking about something else. Helen, for instance. She’s dopey, huh?”

“Sort of nuts,” she answered, snuggling against him. “I don’t get her at all. And the way I’ve seen the old man looking at her— well!”

“Stallings?”

“The old goat.” Lucile pursed her lips resentfully. “If he gave me the eye like that—”

“You’d give it right back to him, I’ll bet,” Shayne told her cheerfully. “You can’t blame Stallings so much. Helen’s only his stepdaughter.”

“Sure. But you’d think with his wife sick and all—”

“I wonder if she is a hophead,” Shayne muttered. “That might be an angle.”

“There you go,” the girl complained. “I knew you were just after information. You don’t care a thing about me.”

“Give me a chance to show you. At two o’clock. You don’t think there’s actually anything going on between Helen and her stepfather, do you?’

“I wouldn’t know,” Lucile answered resentfully. “Their rooms are right next to each other. And it’s a cinch she doesn’t care much about the old lady. I haven’t caught her going in to see her mother once since they moved in. But let’s talk about you and me.”

The lights of an automobile crossing the bridge cut a white swath across the garden. Lucile jumped up with a startled cry. “I’ve got to get in before they find out. Two o’clock — across the bridge.”

She sped across the garden and through the hedge. Shayne followed more slowly. A limousine was pulling up behind his car. A chauffeur jumped out and ran around to open the door for the commanding figure of Burt Stallings. He got back in the limousine, backed up, and drove in the driveway while Stallings went up the walk.

Shayne waited behind the hedge until the car passed, then sprinted out to his car and got in. He started the motor while Stallings was opening the front door, roared around the circular drive and across the bridge.

SIX

SHAYNE STOPPED in front of a new and expensive apartment building on Miami Beach. He sat slouched behind the wheel for a time, morosely staring at nothing. His head throbbed with a dull, harassing ache that befuddled his brain. He was going around in circles without getting anywhere. The hell of it was that he had no idea where he should go. All he had succeeded in getting, thus far, was a beating and a few odd bits of information that added up to zero.

“Losing my punch,” he muttered savagely when he realized that much of his depression was due to the two-o’clock date with the amorous Lucile. He suddenly laughed aloud with the conviction that a pouty-lipped girl was the cause of the first fear he had ever experienced. He wondered, moodily, whether the Stallings maid possessed any worth-while information, and toyed with the idea of calling the whole thing off. There was a midnight train north. He could catch it and reach New York a few hours after Phyllis arrived. The thought of his young wife brought an acute sense of loneliness upon him. He needed her buoyant faith tonight, the cool, caressing touch of her hands, the pressure of her smooth cheek against his, the influx of strength from her passionate belief in him.

He was, he admitted, becoming increasingly dependent upon Phyllis. He, who had never been dependent upon any person or thing. The hard-boiled dick who had fought his way savagely to the top with a ruthless disregard for everything that stood in his path.

He laughed again, a mirthless laugh of mockery. He was slipping, all right, letting himself get pushed around. What the devil had he been doing all evening?

It wasn’t his case. As far as he could see, there wasn’t a dollar in it for him. There was the election, of course, but he had no real stake in it. He had no depth of personal feeling for Jim Marsh. He had, perversely, taken up the cudgels for Marsh after Peter Painter publicly backed Stallings. An instinctive and subconscious impulse had forced him to take a hand. He was more than ever convinced that there was something rotten behind Stallings’s candidacy, but hell! When had an election ever been pure and forthright?

He had been a fool to get into it, but he had to see Marsh elected. He sighed and shrugged his wide shoulders, unlatched the car door, and got out.

The apartment building was ultramodern, with faint light illumining an opaque glass front. Inside, a mirrored foyer led to a self-service elevator. He stepped into the cage and pushed the button opposite 3. The elevator clicked, purred, and rose smoothly to stop at the third floor. He went down the hall to 342 and pressed the button.

Jim Marsh opened the door. He appeared surprised and not too pleased to see Shayne. The mayoralty candidate was a slender, wiry man with a hawklike face and uneasy eyes.

He said, “Oh, hello, Mike. I had an idea you were halfway to New York by now. Decided to stay over, eh? That’s fine. Did you talk to that girl?”

Shayne said, “Briefly.” He glanced inside the room, drew back when he saw there was a visitor. He stepped backward and jerked his head at Marsh. The candidate hesitated, then moved out, closing the visitor from sight.

“Do you know who the girl was?” Shayne demanded.

“No. She wouldn’t tell me her name over the phone. She sounded drunk.”

“She phoned you?”

“That’s right. She insisted that she could help us win. I thought you’d know better how to handle her.” Jim Marsh spread out his small hands expressively.

“But you knew I was leaving town.”

“You’re still here. How about it? Did she have something important?”

“I don’t know. She’s dead.”

“Dead?” Marsh retreated a step. “Good Lord, Mike!”

“The girl,” said Shayne tonelessly, “was Helen Stallings. Her body disappeared from my room and I don’t know where it is. It’s going to be tough on me if you’ve told anybody you sent her to me.”

“I haven’t told a soul. But — dead?” Jim Marsh shuddered. “Let’s drop it, Mike. Everything. The election. I’m beaten anyway. I haven’t a chance.”

Shayne shook his head angrily. “To hell with that. We’re not whipped yet.” He stepped past Marsh and pushed the door open and nodded curtly to a large, hook-nosed man who sat across the room. He asked, “How are things shaping up, Naylor?”

Jim Marsh’s campaign manager shifted a cigar to the other side of his mouth and assured him with false heartiness, “Fine. Swell. It’s in the bag, Shayne.”

A curious silence followed his words. Naylor glanced past Shayne at Marsh, arching oddly bushed brows which crowded his eyelids. He then lifted a highball glass and drank from it, studiously avoiding Shayne’s gaze.

Jim Marsh closed the door and asked, “What happened to your face, Mike?”

“Campaign argument.” Shayne stalked to an overstuffed sofa and carefully lowered his lanky body. “I could do with a drink.”

“Sure. I’ll get it.” Marsh spoke quickly and effusively. “No cognac, though.”

“Rye will do. Lots of rye and not much soda.”

“Coming right up,” Marsh said and went through a swinging door into the kitchen.

The instant he was out of the room Naylor leaned forward and asked in a low voice, “What’s got into the chief? Has something come up that I don’t know about?”

Shayne said mildly, “You’re his campaign manager.”

“That’s just it,” Naylor responded, drawing his odd brows together to form a single matted line. “I’ve worked my head off and got the votes lined up — and now he talks about taking a runout powder — giving up before the votes are counted.”

Shayne frowned his disbelief. “First I knew about it.”

“He has been worried for weeks about the way things are going,” Naylor confided. “He’s new in politics, see? He doesn’t know the inside. He’s been cutting down on expense money, and you can’t win an election that way. I didn’t know we were backing a quitter.”

“Neither did I,” said Shayne slowly.

Naylor settled back with his cigar and highball as Marsh re-entered the living-room. “Here you are, Mike.” He handed a brimming glass to Shayne. “Lots of rye and not much soda.”

Shayne nodded and reached for the glass. “Naylor tells me you’re putting your tail between your legs, Marsh.”

Marsh shot his campaign manager a disapproving glance. He set his thin lips in a tight line and went back to a deep chair where his drink and pipe awaited him. “It looks utterly hopeless to me,” he said with finality. “I’ve been getting discouraging reports for weeks, and if the trend continues I’ll be a laughingstock when the votes are counted.”

“You’re crazy,” Naylor fumed. “Hell, I’m in close touch with every precinct worker. We’ll roll up a two-to-one majority day after tomorrow.”

“I’m afraid you’re fooling yourself. I believe in looking facts in the face. As I see it, I have two choices. I can go on and take a terrific beating and lose all my prestige, or I can make the manly gesture of withdrawing tomorrow and conceding the election to Stallings.”

“Manly gesture?” snorted Naylor. “What about all of us who have worked so hard for you, and all the poor devils who have bet heavy odds in your favor?”

“All my campaign workers have been well paid,” Marsh retorted sharply. “I’ve done nothing but hand out money since the campaign started. As for the men who have bet on me — they stand to lose in any event.”

“You talk about losing prestige,” Naylor argued. “You flatter yourself if you think the public will remember for very long that you were defeated. But if you back down — take your name off the ticket because you’re afraid of defeat — well, they’ll never forget that.” Naylor turned to Shayne and pleaded, “Can’t you do something with him, Shayne?”

The detective was sitting laxly, staring into his glass. He lifted it and drank deeply, then moved his head slowly from side to side. “Why should I bother? A yellow-bellied mayor won’t do Miami Beach much good.”

“That’s not a fair attitude,” Marsh protested. “You can’t censure me — neither of you — for using my own best judgment and acting accordingly.”

Shayne’s laugh was short and ugly. He touched his bruised cheek and lips lightly with his finger tips. “And I took this for you. Talk about someone being laughed out of town! Where will I be if you withdraw?”

“We’ve tried hard,” Marsh insisted, avoiding the eyes of his visitors. “There’s no shame in fighting the good fight and losing.”

“That’s what I pointed out,” Naylor interposed hastily. “Lose if you must — but quit?”

Shayne finished his drink. He hurled the glass across the room and shattered it against the wall. He said bitterly,

“Thank God I haven’t got any prestige to lose. You’re not running out on me, Marsh. Not by a damn sight. You’re going to stay in this election and win whether you like it or not.”

Marsh set his lips stubbornly. “Further discussion is useless. My mind is made up.”

“Then you’re going to unmake it.” Shayne got to his feet. He strode forward and stopped in front of Marsh on widespread legs. “No man is going to pull a fade-out on me. I always finish what I start.”

“It can’t matter particularly to you,” Marsh protested. “You have no money invested in my campaign. I’m the loser.”

Shayne studied him out of bleak gray eyes. Marsh’s wiry energy appeared completely dissipated. Except for the grim set of his thin jaw and the sullen determination of his elongated eyes, he was a picture of defeatism.

“I’ve got something invested in this election that means the same thing as money,” Shayne said harshly. “My reputation for knowing my way around. Do you think I’ll let a weak-livered punk take that away from me?”

“I refuse to be intimidated. It’s my decision and nothing can change it.”

“I’ll see about that.” Shayne turned on his heel and went to the telephone, dialed a number.

He said, “Hello, Joe? Mike Shayne talking. Are you making book on the local election? Fine! I’ve got a little two-to-one money on Marsh.”

Out of the corner of his eye Shayne saw Jim Marsh’s face go ashen. The man jumped to his feet, ejaculating in a choked voice, “You mustn’t do that, Shayne. I warn you not to.”

Disregarding him, Shayne said, “Is that so, Joe? You’ve got so much Stallings money that the odds have dropped to even money? So much the better. Mark me down for a couple of grand.”

Marsh made a gesture of resignation and sank back into his chair.

Shayne listened a moment, frowning, then said, “No, Joe. I hadn’t heard that rumor. Sure. My bet stands on that basis. Two grand. And you’ll get a certified check in the morning.” He cradled the phone and turned casually to Naylor.

“You’d better grab some of that even money, too. Looks like a good thing to me.”

Turning his attention to Marsh, Shayne said, “There’s the pay-off. Now I have got money invested. The Stallings crowd is insisting that all bets will have to be paid even if you decide to withdraw for any reason. So I’m out on a limb on you for two grand. Saw it off if you’ve got the guts.”

He stalked out of the apartment. Naylor was behind him when he opened the elevator door. A triumphant smile wreathed his dark face, and he mopped sweat from it with a shaking hand.

“That was fast work, Shayne. By God, that was wonderful.”

Shayne shrugged off the compliment. He growled, “I still think he’s got better than an even chance to win. He must have let it slip that he was thinking of backing out and that’s brought a rush of Stallings money to knock the odds down.”

Shayne pushed a button, and they descended. “I don’t know what’s come over him,” Naylor complained. “I knew he was getting jittery about losing, but I’ve tried all along to tell him it’s in the bag.”

“He acts,” Shayne mused, “like a man that’s scared half out of his wits,” as the elevator reached the ground floor and they stepped into the foyer.

“That’s it. That’s exactly the impression I got,” Naylor agreed excitedly. He stretched his legs to keep pace with Shayne’s strides. “Do you suppose he has had some threat — something he hasn’t told us about?”

“I don’t know. Anyhow, I’ve bet two grand he’ll stay in line. Now it’s up to you to do your stuff.”

“You can depend on me,” Naylor assured him when they stood for a moment outside the apartment house. “I’ll have it tied up in a knot tomorrow night.”

Shayne nodded and crossed the sidewalk to his car. He got in and headed back across the County Causeway over Biscayne Bay, scowling angrily at the bright paths of moonlight on the rippling gray waters, cursing himself for letting anger get the best of him in Marsh’s apartment.

Making that bet had been a damn-fool trick. Why hadn’t he washed his hands of Marsh and let him quit? That would have fixed everything. He could have caught that midnight train for New York — and Phyllis.

No. He had to be a stubborn ass and stick his neck out and bray into a telephone. There couldn’t be any backing out now. Not with two thousand dollars on the line.

Even as he cursed himself, Shayne was conscious of a faint inward glow of satisfaction. The pressure was on, and that’s the way he worked best. A girl had been murdered in his apartment and a kidnap note sent implicating him. Painter and Stallings had promised him until noon tomorrow to see that Helen Stallings was returned. He had that much time in which to clear up the murder and the mystery surrounding it. And he didn’t even know where the body was.

He pressed down the accelerator and stuck his head out the window to let the cool bay breeze blow the muggles from his mind. His thoughts revolved around Arch Bugler, around the hot-lipped maid at the Stallings residence, around the young man whose name was Marlow, and the mysteriously missing body of a strangled young girl.

A few vagrant pieces of the larger puzzle — and none of them appeared to fit together. He had only a few hours in which to find enough more pieces to form some design. He forgot the discomfort of his swollen lips and puckered them to whistle a carefree tune. Inside him was a driving eagerness to begin the search for some of those missing pieces.

Arriving at his hotel, the clerk beckoned to him when he entered the lobby. “Telephone message, Mr. Shayne. A Mr. Rourke called from the Parkview Hotel. He’s waiting for you there and wants you to join him at once.” The clerk stopped abruptly, his eyes fixed on Shayne’s face. “Gosh,” he breathed, “what does the other fellow look like?”

“Better than I do,” Shayne admitted ruefully. “But I’m going to try out a pair of knucks next time I meet him. No other messages — or visitors?”

“Nothing else. Gee, I’ll bet it was a whale of a fight.”

“Practically a butchering.” Shayne grinned. “The Parkview?”

“Yes, sir.”

Shayne returned to his car and drove north through the center of town. Rourke, he mused, had worked fast and with luck to locate Marlow’s hotel so soon. Shayne wasn’t at all sure that it would be any help, but it was a good omen. If his Irish luck started working, things were bound to begin straightening out.

He passed the Thirteenth Street entrance to the causeway and continued north along the boulevard. There was little traffic. A heavy car which had loitered behind him for several blocks suddenly darted ahead with a full-throated roar of sixteen cylinders.

Subconsciously he stiffened when the big car whirled into a U turn at a street intersection a few blocks ahead and roared back at high speed. Shayne couldn’t remember whether the Parkview Hotel was in that block or the next, and turned his eyes to search for a sign. When he looked back at the street the heavy, speeding car swerved as it came abreast of him. Then it was a lunging projectile of steel that smashed his aged car as though it was made of papier-mâché, lifting and twisting it in the air, driving it sideways against a lamppost that crackled at the base under the terrific impact.

Shayne was thrown free. He crashed into a low Australian-pine hedge on the other side of the sidewalk.

The big car careened over the curb on screaming tires, bounced back into the street, miraculously retaining an upright position. It shuddered to a standstill and a figure leaped out, ran to Shayne’s smashed car carrying a burden in his arms. The figure darted back to the waiting car and it sped away as Shayne shook himself and got groggily to his feet.

Staggering to the wreckage of his car, he stopped to stare stupidly down at the pallid face of a girl who lay crumpled against the curb as though she, too, had been thrown from his car.

Shaken and unnerved, he dropped to his knees beside her. Her flesh was cold to his touch, and in the illusive moonlight he saw that it was the body of Helen Stallings.

An approaching car was slowing, edging in cautiously toward the wreck.

He was going to have a hell of a time making anyone believe that the cold corpse had not been a passenger in his car when it was wrecked.

SEVEN

THE CAR WAS A BLOCK AWAY. Shayne’s emergency reflexes were swift and adequate. Before the headlights were upon him he gathered the stiff corpse in his arms, holding it vertically against his body, and darted across the sidewalk to the thick hedge against which he had been thrown. Lifting the corpse over the hedge, he held on to the dress until the legs touched the ground, then let it fall to the grass with a soft thud.

He scuttled crabwise to the curb beside his wrecked car and staggered to his feet as the first car arrived and an excited young couple jumped out.

Other cars began converging upon the scene and curious householders hurried out of near-by homes, attracted by the crash.

Shayne didn’t have to do much talking. Everyone else was doing it for him. He kept insisting that he was all right, and when a police car arrived he gave a terse report of the wreck, grimly insisting that it had not been an accidental crash.

“I was loafing along when this car swerved and rammed me.” He did not mention the significant fact that the limousine had been trailing him along the boulevard before it darted ahead and doubled back to get a good run at him.

“A black limousine, I think.” He gave the best description possible. “Looked as big as a fire truck and must have been just about as heavy to do this job to my car and get away under its own power.

“Hell, no. I didn’t get the license number,” he snapped in answer to the uniformed man who was taking notes. “I was busy getting my door open and trying to make a leap for it. It was all over before I knew it was happening. You’ll have to look for a black limousine with a smashed left fender and radiator grill.” He edged away from the officers and curious onlookers crowding the sidewalk, managing a disinterested glance at the hedge to see that the girl’s body was not in evidence.

He breathed a deep sigh of relief that the hedge was thick and matted, the fine soft needles of the pines forming a solid mass from the ground up to the level, clipped top.

Pushing through the throng, Shayne ambled up the street mopping his face with a handkerchief. The accident had been contrived with fiendish and perfect timing. If he had been injured or knocked unconscious for half a minute, no one would ever have believed his fantastic story — even with Rourke to back him up. Against them there would be Chief Gentry’s positive evidence that the girl was alive in his apartment at six o’clock. It would tie in with the kidnaping note, a perfect chain of circumstantial evidence with a noose dangling at the end of it.

He had seen other innocent men writhing ineffectually in the coils of circumstantial evidence, had helped some of them beat the rap. There was no one to help him. If he didn’t get the answer quickly — or if Helen Stallings’s corpse was discovered—

Perspiration streamed from his face. His handkerchief was soggy with sweat as he went over the setup. The Parkview Hotel was a block and a half beyond where his car had been wrecked, but Shayne felt that he had walked miles from the scene before reaching it.

He swung into the lobby and saw Timothy Rourke seated comfortably in a corner talking with the house detective. Rourke’s eyes brightened as he took in Shayne’s appearance. House Detective Cassidy removed the frayed butt of a cigar from his mouth and rumbled, “Looks like you’ve been in a rough game of tag, young fella.”

Shayne stopped in front of them and glared at their complacent faces. “I could die a block away and neither of you’d stir off your rumps to say a prayer for me,” he complained.

Rourke sighed. “Praying for you would wear out a rosary a week. I might’ve known it was you when we heard the crash down the street. I’ve been waiting for you to wreck that jalopy ever since you took out junk insurance on it.”

Shayne sank down in a leather chair. He growled, “Phyllis will be happy about it. She’s been after me to buy a new one ever since we were married.”

“What’d you hit, a milk truck?” Rourke asked. “Sounded like two milk trucks.”

“It was a black sedan and it wasn’t an accident. They had something they wanted to unload on me, and it wasn’t milk.”

Rourke’s lean body twitched with apprehension. The grin faded from his face. “You don’t mean—”

“Yep.” Shayne forestalled further revelations in the presence of Cassidy. “I managed to ditch it for the time being,” he added cryptically. “We’ll have to attend to it later. How about Marlow? Did you locate him here?”

Rourke nodded. He looked wholly unhappy but he didn’t pursue the subject. “Whit Marlow,” he amplified. “Checked in from New York shortly after noon.”

“What have you got on Marlow?” Cassidy interposed. “Anything I ought to know, Mike?”

“I don’t know yet. Is he in his room?” Shayne looked at his watch. How long would it take the police to finish a report on the wreck and leave the scene?

Cassidy said, “Marlow went out right after he checked in and hasn’t showed again.”

“How about checking his room?”

“All right, if you say so. I’ll tell the clerk so he can ring us if Marlow pops up while we’re working.” Cassidy got up and lumbered to the desk.

Rourke leaned toward Shayne and whispered tensely, “What happened up the street? Do you mean we got her back?”

“I hope so.” Shayne groaned audibly. “This car smashed me and dumped her to make it look like she was riding with me. Come on, let’s check this lead and see what turns up.”

Cassidy was waiting for them at the elevator. As they got in, he warned the elevator boy, “We’re going into two-fourteen. Fellow named Marlow. If the clerk gives you the high sign, stall on bringing Marlow up till we can get clear.”

The operator nodded. Cassidy led the way to 214 and opened the door with a master key. They entered a bedroom which showed little sign of occupancy — an opened Gladstone on the bed, a closed leather grip in one corner.

Shayne went to the bed and began going through the Gladstone, laying articles of clothing out in a neat pile. The bag contained only the normal articles which a man might pack for a trip. Replacing the contents neatly, he went to the closed grip and unbuckled leather straps.

The grip, which was unlocked, was fitted with medium-priced toilet articles. There were shoes, a wad of soiled clothing and, among other things, a small flat scrapbook which Shayne seized upon eagerly. He rocked back on his heels and flipped the pages open, studied press clippings relating to the engagements of one Beany Baxter’s Band at various dance places and second-rate hotels throughout the New England states.

With Rourke and Cassidy peering over his shoulder Shayne pointed out a thin-faced boyish figure in a picture of Beany Baxter’s Swing Band. “That’s Marlow,” he said. “First saxophone.”

Disappointed, Cassidy declared, “There ain’t no law against tooting a sax that I know of. Hell, Mike, I don’t see anything wrong.”

“Neither do I,” Shayne said, and continued to turn the pages.

The last pasted entry was dated two months previous, from Northampton, Massachusetts. It was a brief item stating that the band had arrived to play a two weeks’ engagement at the Pavilion Royale in that city.

Shayne squatted on his heels and frowned at the clipping while Cassidy moved nervously around the room. Rourke read the item over Shayne’s shoulder, asking, “Is that what you’re looking for?”

Shayne shook his head. “I’m looking for something that’ll tie this sax player up with Arch Bugler.”

“Bugler?” Rourke’s interest quickened. “You haven’t told me anything,” he complained.

“You had a chance to go along with me and turned it down,” Shayne reminded him. He tugged meditatively at the lobe of his left ear, then closed the scrapbook and laid it on the pile of other articles taken from the grip. He rocked forward and explored the interior of the bag carefully, drawing the fitted toilet articles from their niches to be sure that nothing was concealed beneath them.

A sudden exclamation escaped his lips. He bent forward to examine a slit in the silk lining. The room telephone shrilled as he did so.

Cassidy leaped to answer it. “Yeh?” he barked, and then, “Okay.” He dropped the instrument into place, exclaiming, “Marlow’s on his way up!”

Shayne stubbornly remained on his knees beside the empty grip. His fingers were exploring behind the lining. With a grunt of satisfaction he drew out a folded sheet of heavy paper.

Cassidy was dancing up and down near the door in a fever of impatience, begging, “Hurry it, Mike. It’ll be worth my job if we get caught in here for no good reason.”

Shayne shoved the folded document into his pocket and dumped the contents of the grip back in a jumble. He closed the bag and buckled it swiftly, then darted for the door behind Rourke. The trio stepped out just as the elevator stopped at that floor.

The operator appeared to have trouble opening the elevator door. Cassidy had the door of 214 locked and was strolling leisurely down the hall behind Shayne and Rourke when Whit Marlow stepped out and turned toward them.

The young man’s face was a sickly white. He wavered past them toward his room without looking at the three men.

Cassidy sighed when they entered the elevator. “That was a close shave,” he said.

Shayne’s short laugh was sardonic. “That was once over light, Cassidy. I’ve had closer shaves in my own bathroom.”

“And what did you get for your trouble?” Cassidy asked anxiously when they reached the lobby.

“I don’t know. He had it stashed away as though it might be the secret plans for our bomb.” Shayne stepped to a secluded corner and took the paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and then swore with disgust. A pair of cupids frolicked together at the top of the sheet beneath a pink wedding bell. An ornate scroll proclaimed to all and sundry that the Reverend J. Hammond Fitzhugh of Endicott, Connecticut, had united in holy wedlock one Whit Marlow and Helen Devalon on the 14th day of April.

Rourke chuckled at the expression on Shayne’s face. “Maybe it’s a code,” he suggested sweetly. “Secret Agent X is pleased to report—” He ducked Shayne’s swing while Cassidy wrinkled his forehead at the document.

“Do you mean you think this Marlow is one of those fifth columnists and this is not a wedding certificate but some sort of devilish spying code?”

“I’ve quit thinking,” Shayne growled. “Damn a sentimental sax player who hides a wedding certificate as if it was something important. Come on, Tim. Let’s get out of here.” He strode to the door, and Rourke followed, still chuckling over Shayne’s discomfiture.

“Where’s your buggy parked?” Shayne demanded when they were outside.

“Right up the street.” Rourke stopped abruptly. “Wait! What are you after? What about the corpse?”

“By the grace of God I had time to get her out of sight before anyone got there. But we’ve got to move her. She’s bound to be discovered if—”

“Not me,” Rourke demurred stoutly. “Not in my car, either. Damn it, Mike, rent a hearse if you insist on ghouling around with cadavers.”

“Come on,” Shayne growled. He caught the reporter’s arm and urged him on, occasionally turning his head and straining his eyes to see whether the wreck scene was deserted. “It may be too late already.”

“That’s my one fervent hope,” said Rourke. “What’s it all about? Why should someone snatch her from your room and then stage a wreck to toss her back in your lap? It doesn’t make sense.”

Shayne didn’t reply. When they reached Rourke’s car muffled sounds were emanating from the short-wave radio which the reporter had left turned on. Shayne jerked the door open and got in, turned the dial up just in time to hear the words, “… body of unidentified young woman. That is all.”

Rourke, behind the wheel, glanced sideways at Shayne. A look of defeat settled over the detective’s gaunt features. For a moment his defenses were down and he looked old and weary.

The expression on Shayne’s face shocked Timothy Rourke out of his flippant mood. Deprived of his aura of invincibility, Michael Shayne was no different from lesser men, and Rourke averted his eyes quickly, ashamed that he had witnessed the change. He felt as low as if he had peeped through a keyhole and watched a beautiful and glamorous woman become haggard with the removal of her make-up.

With as much cheerfulness as he could muster, Rourke said, “We’re jumping to conclusions, Mike. We don’t know that it’s Helen Stallings. Might be some other unidentified body.”

“Yeh,” Shayne agreed tonelessly. “Might be. Drive down the boulevard and we’ll see what’s happened. If she has been found there — that close to my car — I’m sunk.” He put a cigarette between his puffed lips and struck two matches before getting a light.

Rourke drove forward slowly. The crowd of spectators had disappeared from the scene of the wreck. A wrecking-car had hauled away the twisted ruins of Shayne’s car, and the only evidence in sight as they rolled slowly past was the glitter of splintered glass and the broken lamppost.

“I don’t see a damned thing,” Rourke muttered. “Can you tell if she’s still there?”

“Christ! You didn’t think I’d leave her where she’d show from the street?” Shayne’s voice came to life again. “Turn left, down this side street.”

Rourke swung to the left on a shadowed residential street. Shayne directed, “Pull in to the curb. I’ve got to go back and see what’s up.”

“You’re liable to walk into a trap,” Rourke warned. “The tail end of that call we heard — it must have been directing a patrol car to the spot. Probably some passer-by saw her lying there and phoned in.”

Shayne conquered an upheaval under his ribs and said, “I’ve got to find out,” and jumped from the light sedan. “Maybe I can get to her before the cops get here. If anything happens,” he went on harshly, “get the hell out in a hurry.” He ran swiftly across the street and dodged into the shadow cast by trees on the corner. He found an opening in the hedge where the alley ran through. Bending down to hide his upper body, he crept along the hedge toward the front.

There was no sound except the beating of his own heart and the night wind soughing through the palm fronds. He could see nothing in the black shadow behind the hedge, now that the street light was gone.

He began to think that the body had been removed — that this was not the right house — or the right hedge, when a black shadow moved in the darkness ahead. There was a faint rustling of the grass, an intangible something that caused him to freeze in his tracks. An automobile cruised lazily past. That would be the patrol car checking on the call. No, it was cruising on without slackening speed.

He could discern the dark shape on the grass now, not more than fifteen feet ahead, and suddenly there was the horrible glint of yellow eyes in the darkness just beyond the still body.

As Shayne lunged forward, a lean gray cat leaped aside with a defiant mew, sped away across the lawn lashing her tail angrily.

Bending over the rigid body of the girl, he lifted her up. There was no challenge from the darkness, no outraged outcry from a near-by householder.

As he reached the opening into the alley and started toward the street, another car was stopping. Shayne dropped back into the shadow of the hedge as the lights on the car went out. Then he heard footsteps coming toward him and Rourke’s loud whisper, “Mike, where are you? I brought the car over to this side.”

“Here.” Shayne leaped forward, and Rourke jerked the rear door open, Shayne awkwardly crammed the body inside, and Rourke looked on, shaking his head in disapproval. He muttered, “She looks like country come to town for fair. First time I ever realized how indecent a gal could look without make-up. Hair stringing down around her face and no nail polish—” He shuddered and averted his face.

“Don’t forget she’s been hitting a fast pace since she was murdered,” Shayne growled. “You can’t expect her to be in the best of trim.” He slammed the door shut, swore when her dress caught in the hinge and wouldn’t let it latch. He leaned in to throw the hem back out of the way, and Rourke whistled shrilly.

“Lookit! That dress is all she’s got on. Not even any pants.”

“This,” said Shayne, “is a hell of a time to get technical about a thing like that.” He slammed the door shut again and shoved Rourke under the wheel, ran around to jump in beside him. “Get moving,” he panted. “As far as the bay, then south.”

The short-wave radio came to life again as the car surged forward. Both men bent their heads to listen.

“Calling car sixty-three. Car sixty-three. Go back to your position. Disregard previous instructions. Disregard previous instructions. Body of young woman floating in the bay has been cared for. Emergency ambulance answered call. That is all.”

Shayne sat erect and emitted an explosive sigh. Rourke laughed shakily. “God! What a coincidence. I needed a diaper while I was waiting for you back there.”

Shayne said musingly, “I wonder if Phyl will like me with gray hair. By God, I can’t—”

“Careful of your language, there,” Rourke interposed. “We have a lady with us.” Then his bravado cracked. “I can’t stand much more of this, Mike.”

“We’ll get rid of her quick,” Shayne promised. “But we don’t want to leave her too close to where my car was wrecked. Why don’t you cut back across the boulevard and drive out into the residential section? We’ll find a nice quiet lawn where corpses are a novelty and deposit her there.”

Rourke turned east across the boulevard, forcing himself to hold the car to a speed within traffic restrictions.

After he had driven some twenty blocks Shayne suggested, “This looks like a respectable neighborhood where people have sense enough to go to bed early. There’s not a single light showing and not a car in sight.”

“Sure,” Rourke grunted sourly. “These people lead drab lives. Everybody is entitled to some excitement.” He slowed in the middle of the next block at a point where the corner street lamps did not interfere, edged to the curb, and stopped in front of a row of small stucco houses.

Shayne leaped out and took the mortal remains of Helen Stallings from the rear seat and deposited her gently on a damp green lawn.

When he returned to the car Timothy Rourke had moved out of the driver’s seat. “You take over, Mike. I’ll come unhinged if I try to drive another foot.”

“We could both use a drink and some quiet meditation,” Shayne decided. “Home is just the place for that, and we’ll hope no more bodies have popped up during our absence.”

EIGHT

“WHY,” ASKED TIMOTHY ROURKE for the fifth time, “did the killer first snatch the body out of your possession and then stage a public wreck to give it back to you?”

“When we know the answer to that we’ll have something.” Mike sat relaxed in a deep chair in the luxurious corner apartment which he had taken after his marriage to Phyllis. Rourke was sprawled out on the lounge across from him. A low coffee table was between them, bearing up under an array of ash trays, a cognac bottle, a heavily depleted quart of Scotch, a siphon bottle, and a large bowl of ice cubes. They had been sitting thus for more than an hour, and Rourke had put a lot of Scotch inside of him. Shayne, tormented by his two-o’clock appointment with Lucile, had been more sparing with the cognac.

“It doesn’t add up to anything,” Rourke insisted. “He had you where the hair was short with the girl’s body in your room. Yet he conveniently carries the body away, then changes his mind and gives the gal back to you. It’s crazy, Mike.”

“Sure it is.” Shayne picked up his cognac glass and looked longingly at its contents, set it down, and took a long drink of ice water instead. “Trouble is, we’ve got a wrong slant somewhere. We can’t see any motive behind any of it. Our unknown factor is why. We’ve got a string of seemingly senseless events that won’t add up until we know the value of X. A simple algebraic equation.”

Rourke yawned and rattled the ice cubes in his tilted glass. He reached out waveringly for the bottle of Scotch and tipped it up, let the liquid gurgle into his glass.

Shayne frowned at him and warned, “You’re taking on a heavy load, Tim.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” He shuddered complacently. “I’m just beginning to feel human again after dealing corpses off the bottom of the deck.” He squinted at Shayne over the top of his glass. “Let’s solve for X since it’s a simple equation. How many people knew Helen Stallings was coming here to give you some dope against Stallings?”

“That would be guesswork. Jim Marsh for one — That is, he sent a girl to see me after talking with her on the phone. He claims he didn’t know who she was at the time—” He broke off, staring past Rourke, his features tightening.

“Then Jim Marsh is one man we can leave out. He sent her to you. If she had some low-down on Stallings that would give him the election he’d be the last man in the world to shut her mouth before she gabbed.”

Shayne said, “I wonder.” He cocked his head as if listening for a sound which eluded his big ears. He drummed finger tips on the arm of his chair.

Rourke stared at him in blank amazement. “You’re determined to complicate things,” he complained. “Seems to me Marsh is the one man we can eliminate.”

“I told you how he acted tonight.”

“Sure. He’s got the willies about the election. Every amateur politician gets that way. I’ve seen plenty of them ready to give up the day before the votes were counted.”

“It was more than that, Tim. Damn it, Marsh acted like a man who wanted to lose — who was afraid to win.” Shayne gave himself a hunch which brought his torso upright and he sat staring queerly as he continued.

“I don’t even know he sent the girl to me. He called me and said she was on her way. We don’t know but what he tried to prevent her from coming — that she insisted—” His voice trailed off. There was a faraway, questing look in his eyes.

Rourke swore angrily. “God, Mike, if you start suspecting Marsh where will you stop? Here’s something that knocks that theory into a cocked hat. The threatening note to Stallings, warning him to withdraw from the election. I suppose Marsh killed the girl so Stallings would win, then sent the note to force him to withdraw.” His voice was heavy with sarcasm.

Shayne shook his head stubbornly. “Someone else could have sent the note,” he pointed out. “Someone who knew Helen Stallings was on her way to my apartment.”

“It had to be the killer,” Rourke argued. “The note was sent to Stallings to hang a frame on you — by someone who knew the gal was dead and couldn’t testify that you hadn’t kidnaped her.”

“That’s right, too.” Shayne mopped his seamed forehead, then meditatively emptied his cognac glass. “Here’s what happened. Someone followed her here and waited until I started to the station with Phyllis, then came in and choked her with her own stocking. There was a struggle and she made an outcry, overheard by someone who pounded on the door and then called Gentry. I had left the door unlocked, and the murderer locked it. He was trapped in here, with the door locked on the inside. He had to unlock it in order to throw full suspicion on me. He escaped by the fire escape and hung around watching. He knew the body was undiscovered when I came back. Afterward, one of Bugler’s men followed me away, and as soon as the coast is clear the body is snatched before you can get back and take it away. Oh, hell! It’s not a simple equation. It’s got a dozen unknowns.” He poured another glass of cognac.

“And Arch Bugler is one of them,” Rourke reminded him. “He keeps popping up. He’s had enough practice in murder.”

“But he wouldn’t have killed a society girl who was pulling him up out of the gutter,” Shayne protested. “According to those newspaper accounts you gave me, he and Helen Stallings were practically engaged. And she’s due to come into a wad of money soon, isn’t she?”

“On her twenty-first birthday, I think. A couple of weeks from now. I think the whole story was printed in the paper when she started the suit against her stepfather and then dropped it.”

Shayne reached in his pocket for the sheets of newsprint he had wadded together at the Wildcat earlier in the evening. He looked at them curiously. It seemed very strange that he had seen them for the first time only a few hours ago.

Spreading them out, he found the one he wanted and began reading the story. He nodded thoughtfully and said, “The bulk of the estate was left to the girl in trust until her twenty-first birthday, in the event she didn’t marry sooner. If she married or died before then, it reverted to her mother. After Stallings married the mother, he adopted the girl legally, thus gaining control of the trust fund.” Shayne sucked in his breath sharply. “Do you recall her name before it was changed to Stallings?”

“Nope.” Rourke’s eyes were bleary and he had difficulty focusing them on Shayne.

“Get this. It was Devalon. Helen Devalon.” The note of suppressed excitement in his voice brought Rourke up straight on the couch. He blinked and shook his head roughly from side to side.

“That ought to mean something — Damned if I know.”

“Another drink and you won’t know anything,” Shayne said sharply. “Lay off. Where’s Smith College located?” he jerked out.

“N’Ham’shire ’r some place.” Rourke stifled a yawn. “One of those swanky girls’ schools in New England.”

Shayne got up and went across the room to a bookcase, dropped to his knees, and pulled out a volume of an encyclopedic set and thumbed the pages. He came back grinning. “Smith College is in Northampton, Massachusetts. That, my befogged comrade, is the whistle stop played by Beany Baxter’s Band a couple of months ago.”

“Beany Baxter’s Band? That sax player! The wedding certificate!” Rourke’s legs moved feebly. He put his palms down on the couch as if to thrust himself to a standing position, then fell back into soft comfort.

“There’s the Whit Marlow tie-up,” Shayne said cheerfully. “He and Helen Devalon were married in April. No wonder he went barging around to ask Arch Bugler what-the-hell. Can’t blame a bridegroom for getting sore about the way she and Arch have been playing around.”

“But she was on the spot when she came down here,” Rourke said. “She had to keep the marriage a secret until she was twenty-one or lose her father’s estate. To avert suspicion, she acted unmarried.”

“In a big way,” Shayne agreed with a grimace.

There was a thoughtful silence between them; then Shayne said, “I ought to have taken that train for New York.”

Rourke chuckled evilly. “Give your wife a chance to kick up her heels — away from a lug like you. Serves you right.” With his head resting on the upholstered arm of the couch, he looked down his long lean body at his shoes. He wriggled one foot feebly.

Watching him, Shayne chuckled. “Let Phyl have her fling. She’ll appreciate me more when she comes back.”

“Oh, yeh?” Rourke grinned disarmingly. His mind appeared clear.

“She and Marlow probably planned a public wedding later,” Shayne resumed, “without mentioning the one in April under her real name of Devalon.”

“So that’s why Marlow had the document hidden so carefully. But what does it get us, Mike? He wouldn’t have killed her.”

“Husbands have killed their wives for less than that.”

“But he couldn’t blame her so much. She had to pretend she wasn’t married as much for his sake as hers.”

“But not quite so wholeheartedly,” Shayne pointed out. “She could have announced her engagement to him without forfeiting a fortune. No, we can’t count Marlow out. Sex jealousy and greed motivate ninety-nine per cent of our murders. He had plenty of reason to be jealous.”

“He didn’t look like a killer to me — the glimpse I had of him in the hotel tonight.”

“He was a little off par,” Shayne explained. “No man puts his best foot forward when he’s wearing off a Mickey Finn. Bugler fed him a doped drink when he called on him this evening and began laying Bugler out for the way he’s been running around with her.”

Rourke’s head came up and his eyes wavered toward Shayne. “You get around, don’t you? Suppose Arch knew Helen was married to Marlow?”

Shayne tugged at his ear lobe. “I wasn’t in on much of the conference. From what I saw and heard, Marlow was getting nasty and Bugler eased him off with private stock before he could make a scene at the inn.”

Rourke tested his strength once more with his palms flat on the couch, came shakily to a sitting position. He reached for the Scotch bottle and Shayne warned, “You’re hitting the bottle pretty heavy, Tim.”

Rourke nodded cheerfully. “Why not? You’re not one to deliver a temperance lecture.” He took a sight on the cognac bottle and saw that it was more than half full. “You’re not up to par tonight, Mike.”

“I have things to do.”

“Tonight?” Rourke attempted to register astonishment.

“Certain things,” Shayne explained, “are best accomplished under the cloak of darkness.”

Rourke squinted at him suspiciously. “I can think of only one sort of thing.”

“You’ve got a dirty mind,” Shayne accused.

“Need it to cope with you. Blond or brunette?”

“I don’t know. Ask me about her legs. They’re stumpy.”

“Damn it, Mike, it’s after midnight. You’re not going out frailing at this hour?”

“The date,” said Shayne, “is for two o’clock sharp. She has to slip out after the rest of them go to sleep.”

Rourke shook his head sadly. He tilted his glass, and a tear ran down his lean cheek into the Scotch. “It’s not right to kid about something like that, Mike. You had me hating your guts once tonight. Don’t pull another stunt like that.”

Shayne laughed shortly. “This gal’s the kind that has nine lives,” he said lightly. “Throttling wouldn’t kill her.” He got up and paced back and forth, ruffling his coarse red hair. “Thank God my morals are elastic enough to meet an emergency. How is a man to get information out of a frenetic maiden except—”

“Don’t do it, Mike,” Rourke pleaded. He slopped some whisky over his tie as he emptied his glass. “Let me go in your place. I’m not married. Nobody cares what I do.”

“You’re drunk,” Shayne said gravely. “You wouldn’t do either of us any good.”

“Going home,” Rourke said. “Not going to stay and abet adultery.” He swayed to his feet, tested his skinny legs carefully. He started forward and stumbled.

Shayne caught his arm and held on when Rourke tried drunkenly to fight him off. He guided the reporter’s shambling footsteps into the bedroom and pushed him down into a chair. He knelt down to untie his shoelaces, saying, “You’re not going anywhere tonight. Maybe I’ll bring my date back here and let you chaperon us. But you’ll have to sleep off your jag first.”

He got Rourke’s shoes off, then pulled off his trousers. He left him lolling in the chair while he went to the bed and turned down the covers, then hauled him up and shoved him down on the mattress.

Rourke waggled his head from side to side in disapproval, then closed his eyes and breathed heavily in sleep. Shayne drew only the sheet up over him, for the night was warm, and turned away. Rourke was snoring when he went back to the living-room.

Shayne glanced at his watch. It was one-thirty. He took a hat and a belted trench coat from the closet, left a shaded light burning in the living-room, and went out, snapping the night latch to lock the door behind him.

He took his time driving across the causeway in Rourke’s sedan. A lot of things bothered him, turning his normally rational thought processes into a kaleidoscopic blur. It was the screwiest case he had ever tried to unravel. Every time he thought he had a lead it branched out into a lot of unanswered questions. He refrained from thinking about what was going to happen when Helen Stallings’s body was found and identified the next morning. That was going to move the deadline forward a few hours. As soon as she was discovered, Stallings would have no reason for further deferring publication of the threatening note which he and Painter accepted as Shayne’s handiwork.

Shayne knew a lot of other people who were going to accept the same premise if he didn’t have the case solved before Stallings published the note. That was the danger of the sort of reputation he had deliberately allowed to grow up about him. Not only allowed — the popular idea that he would stop at nothing to gain his ends had been encouraged. A legend like that was good for business. It brought him the tough cases that paid big fees. And it was always hanging over his head, like a sword held by a hair, to destroy him if he dared to make a misstep.

Someone had taken that into account, he reasoned, when the kidnap note was sent to Stallings. He didn’t actually fear the final legal consequences. The election was the thing right now. There was no use kidding himself. An aroused citizenry would revolt and vote Stallings into office if the kidnap-murder charge was brought against him in the headlines.

There was that creepy feeling of revulsion under his ribs when he thought of how much depended on the impending interview with the Stallings maid, Lucile. Thus far she was the only person even remotely connected with the case who showed a tendency to talk freely. He was not sure what he hoped to learn from her, but he had an uneasy feeling that the answer to the entire riddle was, somehow, tied up with the Stallings household.

His earlier hunch had been strengthened by the discovery that Helen Stallings was secretly married and that her young husband had just arrived in Miami. What had at first appeared to be a purely political setup with a city election dependent upon the outcome was now revealed to have broader ramifications and far different potentialities — a personal complex — more the sort of thing with which he was prepared to cope.

Nine-tenths of Shayne’s cases had money at the bottom of them; he had come to regard such a will as Helen’s father had left as nothing more than an instrument of murder. Long ago he had learned not to look beyond his nose for a motive when a large sum of money was involved. No wonder he had grown cynical regarding the combination of murder and money. They were inseparable companions.

He didn’t quite see how it worked out this time, but he had a strong hunch that the motive for Helen Stallings’s murder would lie in the human relationship revolving around her rather than in the political struggle between Jim Marsh and Burt Stallings.

The political angle, he reasoned, was more of an effect than a cause, an accidental by-product of murder rather than the primary purpose.

Mrs. Stallings and thus, indirectly, Stallings himself would benefit by Helen’s death before her twenty-first birthday, Shayne mused. Still the ironical fact remained that she had already legally forfeited her inheritance by secretly marrying Whit Marlow in defiance of her father’s will. Anyone cognizant of the marriage would have known that the girl’s death was not necessary to cause her fortune to revert to her mother. That was one of the questions which desperately needed an answer. Did Stallings know about the marriage prior to her death?

Another big question was Arch Bugler’s connection with the situation. His open intimacy with Helen Stallings stunk. Bugler was a known gangster. Did the girl know? They could not have met by mere chance. To Shayne it was inconceivable that a well-bred girl would deliberately choose the mobster for a companion.

The illusive sheen of a dying moon on Biscayne Bay was like a drug. The air pouring in the open windows was cool and moist. A nostalgic mood crept over him and caught him unawares, sweeping him back to his own youth — to the time when he played a cornet in the college orchestra. For a welcome moment his mind moved in a maze of memories, forgetful of the case at hand, but he could not long escape the mental picture which was haunting him — the dazed eyes and pallid, contorted features of Helen Stallings as he first saw her.

What was she like normally? She was young and possessed, no doubt, of all the illusions of youth. A saxophone player in uniform could easily represent a knight in armor with the added attraction of sensual, melodic strains from that wailing instrument. A saxophone could express a player’s sentiments without words. Shayne had known college boys who used that method. Had Helen regretted her marriage to a slight, anemic youth and taken refuge in the arms of a mature, strong-armed man years her senior? He recalled that Rourke had said that consorting with mobsters was a fad with youngsters.

A cloud sailed over the moon and a mist from the sea swam before Shayne’s headlights, snapping him back to reality and a consciousness of his destination. He picked up his thoughts where he had left off.

Suppose Stallings and Bugler had worked out a plan together to ensnare the girl? The terms of her father’s will made Helen’s marriage before her majority worth a great deal of money to Stallings. Did he arrange with Bugler to rush her off her feet into a hasty marriage for that purpose?

Still, why would he choose a man like Bugler for that purpose? There were thousands of men more eligible and more prepossessing in Miami.

He gave the problem up with a baffled shrug and hoped that Lucile’s information would supply at least a key to the puzzle.

He was approaching the bridge leading to the Stallings estate. His headlights showed the girl wasn’t there as he cut the motor and slid up to the bridge approach. He glanced at his watch and saw that it lacked five minutes of the appointed time. He lit a cigarette and settled back to wait.

Lucile was not there when he lit his second cigarette. Complete silence enveloped the remote section of the peninsula. Darkness covered the car as he waited for the maid to keep her appointment, for the moon was lost to sight. The heavy cloud on the western horizon obscured it.

Was he going to be stood up by the girl? It was beginning to look like it. His watch indicated fifteen minutes after two when he threw away his second cigarette and yawned. He had been stood up before but never by a girl who seemed as eager for a date as Lucile.

He got out of the sedan and stretched, then walked slowly up on the arched bridge, stopped at the top of the span where he could see the upper story of the Stallings mansion.

Everything was in utter darkness. Beyond was the placid glistening expanse of Biscayne Bay, and far beyond that a few vagrant lights on the mainland.

An odd sense of unease possessed him. He wasn’t kidding himself when he knew Lucile wanted to come to him when she made the appointment.

It was two twenty-three. He watched and listened intently, holding his racing thoughts in abeyance. The only sound was the plashing of ripples against the bridge piers beneath him.

The wry grin went away from his mouth, and his features hardened into a mask of anger. All at once he realized how much he had been counting on the information he hoped to get from the girl. Perhaps she had been caught when she slipped back into the house after leaving him earlier in the evening. Stallings must have seen his car parked there, might have recognized it. The housekeeper would have told him who the visitor was.

If the girl had been forcibly prevented from meeting him it would be an indication that someone was afraid of what she might divulge.

It was exactly two-thirty when he crossed the bridge and walked cautiously toward the unlighted house on the island.

NINE

SHAYNE STRODE STEADILY along the winding road in the shadow of interlaced fronds. He came to an abrupt stop at a turn in the road that brought the estate into clear view. Every window was dark, and the island stillness was queerly magnified when the sound of his footsteps ceased. The moonlight and shadows played odd tricks on his alert perceptions as he hesitated.

An eerie atmosphere of desertion enveloped the silent mansion. The night air was humid and heavy with the scent of garden flowers. At the corner of the house he could see the spidery outline of the wrought-iron railing of the outside stairway down which Lucile had come to meet him earlier. The small balcony above was deserted, the French doors leading into the house were closed.

Shayne grinned at his indecision while he stood there. This was a hell of a time for him to start getting jumpy, just because the entire household was asleep at two-thirty in the morning, and because a girl had failed to keep her date.

He shrugged off his hesitation and went across the concrete drive to the corner stairway, climbed the stairway firmly, perversely pleased with the faint clang of iron beneath his feet.

He tried the French doors and found them locked from within. He hesitated once more, scowling at himself for the skulking method he was employing. This was not his way of doing things, but he had to find out what had happened to the maid. A man didn’t have to be a complacent ass to be positive that she would have met him at the bridge unless forces wholly beyond her control had prevented it.

He turned and went down the stairway, walked around to the front door and leaned on the electric button. He could hear the faint ringing of the bell inside. He kept his finger on the button for more than a minute, and his scowl deepened to one of anger. Stepping back a few feet he shouted, “Hello! What does it take to wake you up?”

After a brief wait lights glowed behind curtained windows upstairs. The curtains parted, and Burt Stallings’s resonant voice answered, “Who’s down there?”

“Mike Shayne.”

“Shayne? What are you doing here at this time of night?”

“Come down and open the door.”

“I have no intention of doing that,” Stallings retorted sharply. Then, with less assurance, “What is it? Have you news of Helen?”

“I’ve got a lead. But I’m not going to stand here and shout it up to you.”

“Very well. If it’s so important I suppose I can’t refuse.” Stallings withdrew his head from the window, and the curtains fell back into place. Shayne moved forward and leaned against the threshold.

The door opened after several minutes. Stallings wore a silk dressing-gown, and his bare feet were encased in leather slippers. His silvery hair was awry and he demanded in an outraged tone, “What is it that won’t wait until morning?”

“Just this.” Shayne brushed past him into the small anteroom where he had interviewed the housekeeper. He swung about to face Stallings and in clipped accents explained, “I’ve got a hot tip that your stepdaughter Helen is right here in this house.”

“That’s preposterous.”

“I’m not so sure of that. Your story of her disappearance could be a phony.”

“But that’s fantastic. She hasn’t been near the house since noon yesterday.”

“That’s what you say. Your story and that kidnap note put me on the spot. It could be a gag to put Marsh out of the running and swing votes to you.”

“But Mr. Painter was with me. He verified my story. Surely you don’t suspect him.”

“Painter was taking your word for everything. I’m not. I’m going to see for myself.”

“You’re at liberty to verify my daughter’s absence,” Stallings told him stiffly. He moved past Shayne. “I’ll take you up to her suite.”

Shayne followed him into a wide hall and up a winding stairway, then to the left along another hall to a door which he opened and gestured for Shayne to enter.

The detective lounged inside and made a pretense of investigating a luxurious suite consisting of a parlor, master bedroom, bath, and powder room. Stallings stayed back by the outer doorway, his features set in lines of grim disapproval.

When Shayne returned from his tour of inspection he asked icily, “Are you completely satisfied now?”

Shayne said, “No. I’ve only started. There are more rooms in this dump.”

He strode out the door, and Stallings followed him, fuming. “I certainly have no intention of conducting you on a tour of the whole house. This is the most outrageous demand—”

Shayne cut him short. “You don’t have to conduct the tour. I’ll find my way around. This must be the west wing.” He started along a wide hall.

Stallings stepped in front of him. He was breathing heavily. “I forbid it, Mr. Shayne. My wife has occupied this wing since her illness. She must not be disturbed.”

Shayne stared at him levelly. “Make it easy on yourself, Stallings. I can be back here in half an hour with a search warrant and I’ll turn the place inside out.”

“You wouldn’t dare go so far.”

Shayne said, “If you think I won’t, go ahead and stop me now.”

For a long moment their eyes interlocked. Stallings’s gaze dropped first. In a choked voice he said, “Very well. I have nothing to conceal. I must warn you, though, that Mrs. Stallings has not been told of Helen’s disappearance, on orders from her physician. She is critically ill, and a shock of that nature might be fatal.”

“It won’t be necessary to tell her why I’m snooping around,” Shayne told him. He followed Stallings down the hall to another upstairs living-room. The light revealed a studio lounge made into a bed with a woman asleep on it. Mrs. Briggs raised her head from the pillow and stared at them sleepily as they entered. Anger flickered in her eyes when she recognized Shayne.

Mr. Stallings cleared his throat. “Excuse us, Mrs. Briggs. Mr. Shayne insists on convincing himself that Miss Helen is not here tonight.” He explained to Shayne, “Mrs. Briggs sleeps here to attend Mrs. Stallings’s wants during the night. She has had nurse’s training and is devoted to her mistress.”

Shayne nodded casually to Mrs. Briggs. “I believe we’ve met before.” He went toward a closed door. “Is this the sickroom?”

Stallings said, “Yes; but I assure you—”

“No harm in being thorough.” Shayne opened the door of a large bedroom. He wrinkled his nose at the strong odor of disinfectants and medicine as he stepped inside. Moonlight filtered through lace curtains, faintly outlining a still form lying on a bed in the center of the room.

He hesitated just inside the doorway and felt along the wall for a light switch. Behind him, Stallings warned in a sharp undertone, “I’ll hold you responsible if she is awakened. She has a difficult time—”

Shayne found the light switch and pushed it. A ceiling fixture lighted the face of the woman. She breathed easily and did not move when light flooded the room. She had finely chiseled features, much the same as the features of the girl who had died in his office that afternoon. The woman had a look of bloodless fragility which often accompanies a long and serious illness.

She had not blinked her eyes or moved when Shayne switched off the light.

Stallings fumed. “Did you have to turn on the lights?”

Leaving the room, Shayne growled, “I’m not missing any bets. That might have been the girl in bed and I’d never have known if I hadn’t turned on the light.”

He went out of the suite followed by Stallings and by Mrs. Briggses accusing eyes.

“There’s no one else in this wing,” Stallings told him stiffly. “We’ve kept it as quiet as we could so that Mrs. Stallings would not be disturbed.”

A questioning gleam lighted Shayne’s gray eyes for a moment. He nodded and said, “All right. I’ll take a look in on the servants now.”

“They’re in the east wing. But surely you don’t think it necessary to look for Helen there?”

With restrained ferocity, Shayne said, “God damn it, Stallings, I’m not playing hide-and-seek for fun. I’m going to satisfy myself on one point before I leave here.” Stallings walked along behind him to the east wing without further remonstrance. He stopped at the first door of the servants’ quarters and said grimly, “The two maids sleep here, I believe.”

Shayne opened the door and switched on the light. A girl jumped up with an “E-e-k,” from one of the twin beds. She snatched the covers up about her throat and stared at him with frightened eyes. She had sharp features and straggly brown hair. The other bed was unoccupied.

Shayne turned out the light and shut the door. He said to Stallings, “I thought you had two maids.”

“I did. I forgot to mention that Mrs. Briggs discharged the girl called Lucile this evening.”

Shayne arched his eyebrows but said nothing. He nodded toward the last door in the wing. “Who’s in that room?”

“The chauffeur and his wife. She is the cook. That’s the complete staff.”

“I guess they wouldn’t have Helen in bed with them,” Shayne said, and turned away. When they reached the head of the stairs he stopped. “Lucile must be the girl I saw downstairs when I was here this afternoon. Do you know why Mrs. Briggs discharged her?”

“I didn’t inquire into the matter. Mrs. Briggs handles all such matters. I believe Lucile was very flighty and not dependable.”

Shayne rubbed his lean jaw. He muttered, “She looked like a girl who might comfort a man in his wife’s absence. I wonder if I could get her address from Mrs. Briggs?”

Stallings’s upper lip curled away from his teeth with loathing. “By heavens, Shayne, I’m beginning to believe the stories told about you. But I happen to know that Mrs. Briggs hasn’t the girl’s address — and has no idea where she may be found.”

Shayne hesitated and looked mildly disappointed. Then he said, “Okay, sorry to have been a nuisance, but that tip about Helen being here bothered me.” He descended the stairs briskly and went out.

Stalking back along the winding road to the bridge and Rourke’s car, the scowl darkened on his gaunt features. He was firmly convinced that both Mrs. Briggs and Stallings knew that Lucile had slipped out to the garden with him that evening. He wondered if they suspected why he had insisted on touring the house, or whether his story of searching for Helen had gone over. He was more than ever convinced that Lucile had important information and that she had been summarily dismissed to prevent him from seeing her again. It was damned funny about Stallings being so positive that Briggs didn’t know the girl’s address.

He stopped by the side of the sedan, struck by a sudden sinister thought. If someone had really wanted to prevent Lucile from contacting him, stronger measures than mere dismissal might have been used.

That fragment of a police broadcast which he and Rourke had caught as they left the Parkview Hotel!

“Body of unidentified young woman… body of young woman found floating in the bay.”

Stallings’s house fronted on the bay!

He jerked the door of the sedan open and slid in, gunned the motor viciously, and swung away from the bridge in a screeching turn. He sat erect and drove swiftly back to Miami, his big hands gripping the wheel in a tense grasp, his features grim and preoccupied.

Maybe this was the break. If he could identify the body as Lucile he’d have something to put the screws on with. Someone was getting panicky. That was a cinch. Murder always bred more murder. He cursed himself for not having thought about that while he talked to Lucile in the garden. He should have taken her away with him. He had been a fool not to realize the danger she would incur if they learned she had talked to him.

When he reached the mainland he drove swiftly to the Dade County morgue and parked outside. An old man with watery blue eyes was on duty in the outer office. He regretfully laid down a copy of Lurid Stories as the detective surged through the door. He complained, “Dag take it, Mike, they were just about to grab the ghoul of the lowlands that’s been killing babies and eating half their hearts — just half, mind you.”

Shayne said, “It’ll be all the more ghoulish for waiting a few minutes. Can I go down to the cold room, Tom?”

“Sure. I reckon so. We got in a peacherino tonight.” The old man shuffled along with Shayne. “Reckon she’s the one you’re visiting, huh?”

“Yeh. The one they pulled out of the bay.” Shayne led the way down a corridor and a short flight of concrete steps. The old man opened a heavy, insulated door, and a blast of chilled air rushed out from the cold-storage chamber. The dank air was musty with the fetor of human decay which had been accumulating for decades.

Tom clanged the door shut behind Shayne and went to a sheet-covered body on a porcelain slab mounted on rubber rollers. He pulled the sheet off, gesticulating proudly. “Ain’t she a beaut? Don’t see why they don’t kill off the old hags ’stead of goin’ after the young’uns.”

The body was nude except for a pair of wrinkled silk pants and a bedraggled brassiere. The head and face were brutally smashed beyond all possibility of recognition, but the straggly hair, still wet with bay water, was blond, not the black curls of Lucile. The nude body was slender and small-boned, not the stocky figure of the Stallings maid.

Shayne shook his head and turned away after one searching look.

“It’s not the one I expected to see,” he stated with finality.

The old man covered the naked body, chuckling obscenely. “I reckon you’d know, all right, even if her face is smashed up. They tell me all you got to see is a pair of legs to recognize a girl you’ve known a week.”

“Is that the reason they stripped her?” Shayne demanded. “Hoping someone would recognize her easier that way?”

“That’s jest the way they dragged her out of the bay.” Tom closed the door, and they went up the stairs. “I reckon she was in one of them what you might call orgies,” Tom continued; “stripped nekked of all but her pants. They have ’em all the time on them rich guys’ yachts anchored in the bay.”

Shayne said, “Do they?” without pausing as he passed through the office.

“I’ll say. I was readin’ just the other day in a copy of Passion Plus—” but Shayne had gone out the door and didn’t hear the mumbled details of the old man’s explorations into the realm of fictional filth.

He drove moodily back to his apartment hotel, secretly ashamed of himself for the disappointment he felt. Of course, it had been merely a wild surmise that the body would be Lucile’s, but, by God, how he’d like to hang something like that around Stallings’s stiff neck.

It left him without a lead to work on, and it was only a few hours until dawn when Helen Stallings’s body would be found on the lawn where he had left it.

After it was found, the whole thing was bound to come crashing down around him. He would be lucky if he could stay out of jail and avoid a murder charge. And the election would be lost, along with his two thousand dollars.

His jaw tightened grimly as he parked by the side entrance to his hotel apartment. He had to locate Lucile. He would rout out Tim Rourke and make the newspaperman get to work on it with him. Lucile must be listed with some employment agency. The staffing of homes in Miami was a specialty with only two or three local agencies. If he could find the one that supplied the Stallings mansion when they moved in a short time ago—

Shayne was going down the corridor to his corner apartment. He had his key out and inserted it in the lock. When the door swung open he blinked in surprise at the bright light from a ceiling chandelier. He recalled that he had left only a shaded floor lamp burning.

Then he saw Timothy Rourke lying outstretched on the carpet near the bedroom door. The lanky reporter’s head was bathed in a pool of blood, and his thin, bare shanks were drawn up to his chest in an attitude of agonized repose.

TEN

SHAYNE LEAPED FORWARD and bent over the reporter’s unconscious body. Blood was still seeping slowly from an ugly gash on the side of Rourke’s head. He was breathing feebly, and his muscles reacted with an involuntary jerk when Shayne roughly explored the gaping cut on his head.

Shayne swore an oath that was like a prayer when he found that the bone structure was intact. The scalp was ripped loose along the line of an ugly three-inch gash. He hurried to the kitchen and dumped a quantity of salt into a boiler, filled it with hot water, and grabbed up one of Phyllis’s crisp embroidered tea towels on the way out.

Sliding a folded blanket under Rourke’s head, he squatted beside him cross-legged and doused the salt water liberally on the wound.

Rourke twisted his head and moaned when the stinging solution entered the wound. His eyelids flew open and he rolled his eyeballs crazily at Shayne, recognized him, and muttered something unintelligible.

Shayne stopped his ministrations long enough to get the depleted bottle of Scotch from the table where Rourke had left it. Easing him up gently, he tilted the bottle to the wounded man’s lips.

Rourke gulped noisily, and color came into his cheeks. He made an ineffectual grab for the bottle when Shayne removed it from his lips, but the detective set it out of reach, promising cheerily, “You’ll get another swig after I paste some adhesive on your head. Lie back and take it easy.”

“It was that Marlow fellow — from the Parkview Hotel,” Rourke told him after his wound was taped up and he had downed the promised swig. He felt of his head tenderly. “Damned if I know what he hit me with. I saw him swing at me, and that’s all I saw.”

“Looks like a pair of brass knucks. Good thing he hit you in the head instead of a vulnerable spot. How’d he get in here?”

“I let him in. The buzzer kept ringing and I trotted to the door half asleep. Always the perfect host,” he ended irritably.

“And nine-tenths drunk. I told you to lay off. What did the young fool want?”

“We didn’t get that sociable. He thought I was you and started cursing me the minute I opened the door. He acted half crazy and wouldn’t listen to me. Frothing at the mouth, by God. I backed away, trying to tell him my name wasn’t Shayne, but I guess I didn’t sound convincing.”

Shayne looked around the room speculatively. The drawer of the center table was pulled out and its contents dumped on the floor. He went into the bedroom and found bureau drawers rifled, his suits pulled down from hangers and thrown to the floor.

He ruffled his red hair angrily, strode to the phone, and called the Parkview Hotel. Getting Cassidy on the wire, he talked to the house detective briefly and then went back to the living-room.

Rourke was reclining in an easy chair with the almost empty whisky bottle dangling from his fingers. Shayne retrieved it and set it aside.

“Marlow was looking for me, all right. Cassidy gave him my address. Cassidy says Marlow came barging down from his room about an hour ago shouting that he had been robbed. To keep him quiet and save his own hide, Cassidy admitted that I had gone through his stuff and taken something out of the lining of his bag.”

“I owe this to Cassidy, then.” Rourke touched his bandaged head. “If he’d kept his mouth shut—”

“Can’t blame him too much. He’s just a dumb dick with a soft job he wants to keep. He said,” Shayne ended significantly, “that Marlow hadn’t been back to the hotel. He’ll call me if and when he does.”

Rourke glanced hopefully toward the whisky bottle. Shayne shook his head decisively and set it farther away. “If you hadn’t been pie-eyed you wouldn’t have been such easy pickings for a goon like Marlow.”

“How was I to know I’d be mistaken for you?” Rourke groaned. “If you’d stayed home instead of dating a wench it wouldn’t have happened. I hope you got what you went after,” he ended in disgust.

“She stood me up.” Shayne dragged up a chair and let his long frame down into it wearily.

“Good,” Rourke murmured. “By God, I’d like to have seen that. I’ll tell Phyllis she can quit worrying about you now.”

Shayne lit a cigarette and sucked on it moodily.

After a time Rourke asked, “What’s eating on young Marlow, anyhow? Why does he set such store by that damned wedding certificate? He can always get a duplicate.”

“Hell, it’s clear enough,” Shayne growled. “It’s not the document itself he’s worried about. He’s desperately trying to keep the marriage a secret. Don’t forget the terms of his wife’s inheritance. In the event of her marriage before her twenty-first birthday the estate reverts to her mother.”

Rourke said, “I’d forgot that angle. How about another swig?”

Shayne nodded absently and passed the bottle to him. Rourke emptied it and sighed deeply.

Shayne looked at his watch. The time was three-thirty. He got up and paced back and forth the length of the room. “We’ve got to get hold of Marlow,” he burst out. “You can help me on that, Tim. Call headquarters and make a complaint. Give his name and description and get out a pickup for him.”

“I should think you’d lay off Marlow,” Rourke said. “He can come back with a burglary complaint against you.”

Shayne laughed shortly. “I’ve got worse than that to worry about. I’ve got to know what the youngster did when he arrived in town yesterday. Whom he talked to, whether he saw his wife—” He came to an abrupt stop, compressing his lips. His eyes became very bright and he tugged at the lobe of his left ear, resumed his pacing. He mused aloud. “Marlow hits town about the time Helen Stallings leaves home in a fit of temper. I’m convinced she dropped in for a cocktail at the Bugle Inn and drank a Mickey Finn. Later in the evening Marlow gets a dose of the same at the same spot. Damn it, Tim, there has to be some connection! Get on the phone and make your complaint.”

Rourke staggered to his feet with a dismal groan. “All right. But don’t forget I was with you when we broke into his hotel room. Shall I report that, too?”

“Hell, no! You’re a reporter. Tell the cops you were nosing into Marlow’s affairs in connection with a news story and he attacked you without provocation.” Shayne patted him on the shoulder and pushed him toward the telephone in the bedroom. “Lay it on thick. Dangerous character at large. Homicidal maniac. You needn’t mention the Parkview Hotel. Cassidy’ll call us if he turns up there.”

Shayne poured himself a long drink of cognac while Rourke dialed the police. He sank into a chair and listened with a pleased grin while Rourke poured it on. He demanded the immediate arrest of one Whit Marlow. Shayne’s grin widened when Rourke came back to the living-room, complaining.

“The desk sergeant wasn’t impressed. He said he’d have to check the Florida statutes to see if there was a law about attacking a nosy newspaperman. I have to go down and swear out a formal complaint if they pick him up.”

“You’re doing all right.” Shayne gestured toward a built-in wall mirror which concealed a well-stocked bar. “I think there’s a virgin bottle of Scotch. Pour a snifter, but, for God’s sake, don’t hit it too hard. I’ve got more work for you first thing in the morning.”

“Whose case is this?” Rourke complained. He swung the mirror out and found the bottle of Scotch. “All I’ve got out of it so far is a headache.”

“There’s a head line in the offing,” Shayne reminded him.

“I’ve already passed up a couple of extras. Say, Mike, that’s an idea! Why don’t I discover the body where we planted it? The News could hit the streets with a special while the Herald is still wearing pajamas.”

Shayne considered the suggestion briefly. “It couldn’t hurt anything. But you’d better not discover the body. Let that come in the normal course. You could have the story all set up, though.”

“Sure. I’ll get over and write it now.” Rourke pulled a chair up to the table and dragged a wad of copy paper from his pocket. “Maybe I can slip a lad out there at daylight and get a shot of the body without being noticed. Let’s see — Helen Stallings, nee — what the hell was that name on the wedding certificate?”

“Devalon. But that marriage stuff can’t go in.”

“Sure not. I just want my facts straight. Strangled, eh? Been dead eight or ten hours. Disappeared from home yesterday noon. How is she dressed, Mike?”

Shayne wrinkled his forehead. “Wearing a silk dress. Blue, isn’t it?”

“Yeh. Sort of greenish blue. I remember noticing it when you carried her across the road. Short sleeves with white lace.” Rourke’s pencil was speeding across his copy paper.

“Hey! For God’s sake don’t say you saw me carrying her body across the street,” Shayne shouted.

Rourke grinned. “I turned back the cover for a look at her lying in the bed back there and I’m not putting that down.” The grin went from his face. He said gravely, “I can’t use the kidnap note nor the stuff about Stallings accusing you.”

“Not yet, but you will. I’d be just as happy to let that wait until Stallings decides to give it out. Besides, you’ve got to make your story sound as if you haven’t been lugging her body around half the night helping me dispose of it.”

“Yeh,” Rourke mused. “You get a hell of a story and can’t use it without getting yourself dressed up in a new striped suit and peeking through bars.” He finished the notes, opened the bottle of Scotch, and drank lingeringly.

“You can do something else for me,” Shayne told him. “Make a note of this. A maid has disappeared from the Stallings estate. First name is Lucile. Brunette, stocky build, thick lips.”

“The one stood you up tonight?” Rourke chuckled. “Going to advertise for her, eh? That’ll make a nice human interest story. Private detective seeks soul mate. Brunette—”

“Nix,” Shayne said sharply. “First thing in the morning I want you to start calling the employment agencies that handle domestic workers. See if you can get a line on her that way. I’m worried about her.”

In terse sentences Shayne told Rourke of the brief talk he had with Lucile in the garden and of her inexplicable absence from the house later in the night. “Maybe she has been fired. Maybe it has nothing whatever to do with her talk with me, but I couldn’t help feeling there was something back of it,” he concluded. “I’d like to know just what she was going to tell me.”

“Have you thought about the body of the girl who was found in the bay?” Rourke asked. “Remember the police call we heard while we were going back to retrieve your first corpse?”

“It was a good hunch, but no soap.” He told Rourke of his hurried trip to the morgue.

Rourke got up and said, “I’ll get over to the office and write this story. I’ll check on Lucile as soon as the agencies are open and let you know.”

Shayne went to the door with him. “I may not be around when this case starts to break. The boy at the desk will take any messages.”

He watched Rourke disappear down the hall, then closed the door and went back into the room. He methodically cleared up the disorder left in the wake of Marlow’s attack on the reporter and sat down by the center table with three objects laid out before him. They constituted the only actual clues he had in the case.

The small beaded bag found gripped in Helen Stallings’s hand, her wedding certificate, the water tumbler on which he had taken an impression of her fingerprints before definitely identifying the body.

Shayne sighed and pushed the glass aside. It had no bearing now. After a moment’s hesitation he also pushed the bag back. They had been important only when he was seeking to identify the corpse.

The wedding certificate was all that was left and it told its own story. He lit a cigarette and sat staring somberly at the embossed document which spoke of youthful passion, young love impatient of the restrictions set forth in a will executed by a father who sought to rule his daughter after death. Wealthy men often made that fatal mistake — and tragedy so often followed.

Wills like that of Mr. Devalon made work for private detectives, Shayne mused while a cynical glint shone in his gray eyes. He should be the last person to condemn the practice. He was still staring at the wedding certificate when sunlight slanted into the corner apartment. He roused himself with a tired oath and went to the east window to turn back the draperies and open it wide. Beyond the palms fringing Bayfront Park the shimmering surface of Biscayne Bay lay redly gold in the morning sunlight.

Householders would be stirring throughout the city, yawning and stretching, turning off insistent alarm clocks and slipping into robes to go out and bring in the morning paper.

A man would stop on his doorstep and blink stupidly at the still form of a young girl lying on his lawn. Perhaps he would go tentatively forward for a terrified look at the body and sprint wildly back into the house to convey the news of his appalling discovery to the police.

Shayne’s belly muscles tightened.

A stone cast upon the serene surface of a new day, and from the impact ever-widening ripples would spread swiftly to rock the foundations of various human lives. There was a feeling of tensity in the clean air of the new morning, as though it held its breath expectantly, waiting for the discovery which would set inexorable forces in motion.

Shayne turned from the window and went to the telephone. He called the telegraph office and directed a message to his wife on her train speeding northward. It read simply,

Everything under control at this end but I am like a rudderless ship without you. May be detained here another day. I love you. Mike.

He then called a rental agency and ordered a car sent around.

He broke that connection and called the Burt Stallings home on Swordfish Island. Mrs. Briggs’s militant voice answered the ring. He put his lips close to the mouthpiece and in a disguised voice said, “Federal bureau for the prevention of the spread of contagious diseases calling. We are conducting a statistical survey in this area and we have information concerning an unreported case of contagion at this address. We are sending an inspector out to investigate. We expect your full co-operation.”

“There’s some mistake,” Mrs. Briggs protested. “There is no case of contagious disease here.”

“We have to check up on all reports,” Shayne told her sternly. “However, if you’ll give me the name of the attending physician we might take the matter up with him directly.”

“I’m sure Doctor Patterson will give you all the information you require.” Mrs. Briggs’s sigh of relief was transmitted over the wire. “Doctor R. Lloyd Patterson of Miami Beach has been seeing Mrs. Stallings every day and I’m quite sure—”

“Thank you. It’s possible there has been some mistake.” Shayne hung up and looked in the telephone book for Patterson, R. Lloyd. He found two Miami Beach numbers listed under the doctor’s name. One said Sanitarium and the other Res. He tried the residence number first. After the phone had rung for a long time a feminine Swedish accent answered. Shayne asked for Dr. Patterson.

“The doctor is at the sanitarium and isn’t expected in this morning.”

“He gets out mighty early,” Shayne growled.

“He sleeps at the sanitarium mostly. The number is—”

“I know,” Shayne cut in. “I’ll call him there.”

He disconnected the residence number and called the sanitarium. A crisp voice told him that Dr. Patterson was asleep and offered him an appointment at eight o’clock. Shayne thanked her and went into the bathroom, took a long time shaving around the bruised place on his face, then took a stinging cold shower.

Downstairs in the lobby he spoke to the clerk. “I’m going out on business. I imagine there’ll be some cops dropping around after a while, and I won’t be coming back. Don’t tell them that. Ask them to wait for me.”

“Sure, I get it,” the clerk answered in a conspiratorial tone.

“And take any telephone messages that come in for me,” Shayne went on. “Don’t hand out any information to the cops. I’ll call in for any messages, and keep that under your hat, too.”

“You bet I will, Mr. Shayne. Say, there’s a car waiting for you outside. A rental agency said you ordered it.”

“That’s right. I wrapped the old car around a lamppost last night.” He nodded to the clerk and strolled out.

The rented automobile was a medium-priced coupé. He got in and drove out Biscayne Boulevard to an all-night restaurant where he stopped for a hearty breakfast and glanced over the morning Herald.

The finding of a girl’s nude corpse floating in the bay made the headline. The body had been discovered by two lads in a rowboat, and there was no clue to her identity. Police thought she had been dead for a couple of hours before her body was found.

The writer of the front-page item had ingeniously made up for the lack of facts concerning the crime by the use of inflammatory conjecture coupled with a glowing and adjective-laden description of her nude body and hints that the police expected important developments momentarily.

The story of Shayne’s automobile wreck was a four-line paragraph, the last of a dozen accidents reported during the night. It contained a brief statement that the hit-and-run driver had not been apprehended as the Herald went to press but that garages were being checked for a black limousine with a dented fender and radiator grill.

Shayne laid the paper aside and finished his breakfast. It was seven-thirty when he left the restaurant and started across the causeway to Miami Beach. Rourke’s extra of the finding of Helen Stallings’s body was not yet on the streets. Either the people in that part of town were late risers or strangely unobservant.

He would not let himself consider the unpleasant alternative that the body had been moved in the meantime. Even though this would take the pressure off him for a few hours, he had a feeling that he would start talking to himself if the body disappeared again. After all, there was little enough that one could bite into on this case, and access to the girl’s body was one of them. Without this evidence of a crime actually committed, Shayne decided he might as well grab a plane to New York and let the whole mess take care of itself.

ELEVEN

THE PATTERSON SANITARIUM was a square, flat-roofed, two-story building of stuccoed concrete situated in the center of an entire city block on Miami Beach. A high, clipped hedge of intertwined Australian pines circled the block, effectually shielding the grounds from view. A heavy gate of oak timbers blocked the only entrance to the inner sanctum of a ten-foot coral wall immediately surrounding the building.

Shayne rattled the gate and found it locked. By the side of the gate was a rubber mouthpiece and an earphone above a button with the directions: Push button.

Shayne pushed the button and put the phone to his ear. He heard a metallic click, and a brusque voice said, “Hello?”

“Mr. Shayne. I’ve an appointment with Doctor Patterson.”

There was a brief wait, then the voice said, “Come in, please.”

An electric release clicked on the gate lock. Shayne turned the knob and went in, impressed and perplexed by the elaborate precautions to keep out unwanted callers. As soon as he was inside, however, he realized that the precautions must be for keeping the patients in rather than preventing the entrance of visitors. There were low board benches scattered around the enclosed lawn, and a dozen inmates of the institution sat on them and stared at him. Men and women alike wore white garments reaching to their ankles. Their dull, unfocused eyes told him that this was a mental institution rather than an ordinary private hospital as he had supposed.

One of the women patients, who was angular and heavybreasted, hummed the tune of an obscene song as he passed her. She stared at his figure with glazed eyes and suddenly stopped her humming to exclaim, “You big brute — you’re the cause of my being here.” Her voice was without inflection, a dull and meaningless monotone. The others looked on apathetically from their benches in the bright sunlight.

Shayne went up the walk into a wide white-tiled hallway. There were padded seats along the wall, no movable furniture.

A tall, thin-lipped woman looked out from a side room. She wore a nurse’s uniform, white and stiffly starched. She inquired, “Mr. Shayne?” and when he nodded, “Please have a seat. Doctor Patterson will be free to see you soon.” Her placid gaze rested on his face fleetingly before she turned away. Shayne had a feeling that she was puzzled by his presence, that her professional curiosity was aroused by her inability to diagnose the particular mental disorder which had brought him to the Patterson Sanitarium.

He turned away and sat down on one of the padded seats. The utter absence of sound inside the building was peculiarly forbidding. He caught himself straining his ears for the welcome sound of a car in the street outside — for any one of the multitude of unnoticed sounds which impinge upon our hearing every moment of the day and come to one’s attention only when completely absent.

Then he realized that the outer walls of the building must be soundproofed, and he stopped straining to hear.

He lighted a cigarette and the sound of a dull, muffled thumping came from the rear as he expelled smoke from his lungs. He glanced around but could see only the empty hall. The thumping continued, muffled and monotonous.

The palms of his hands were sweaty, and he was angered by a dryness in his mouth and throat. The unexplained thumping was more eerie than the silence it had supplanted.

A woman screamed somewhere inside the building. A ululating howl of inhuman ferocity knifing thinly through the air, rising to a shrill crescendo and descending jerkily to a minor key.

The thumping stopped, started again. Shayne looked down at his big hands and saw them bunched tightly into fists. He unclenched them, one finger at a time, forcing a rueful grin to his lips. He wondered why normal human beings react so strongly to abnormal mental conditions. It is silly as hell, of course.

He heard a slithering sound beside him and jerked his head around to see a gnomelike little fellow sliding up on the leather-covered bench beside him. He wore the shapeless white garment of a patient and held a fleshless finger pressed warningly against sunken lips to indicate silence. His features were wrinkled, and fleshless skin hung over the wrinkles in tiny folds. His eyes were very bright, gleaming with ferrety inquisitiveness.

Shayne fought back a desire to slide away and avoid contact with the strange creature. He took a deep drag on his cigarette and said, “Hello.”

The wizened features contracted still more into a frown. He shook his head and whispered, “Not so loud. They’ll hear you. I sneaked in to talk to you.”

Shayne didn’t say anything. The thumping sound had ceased.

“I know you,” his companion whispered. “I’ve seen your picture in the paper. You’re a detective — of minor fame.”

Shayne nodded agreement, still without answering. The man sounded sensible enough.

The little old man put his lips close to Shayne’s ear and whispered hoarsely, “I guess you don’t recognize me. No one does any more. I’m Sherlock Holmes.”

Shayne felt an odd desire to chuckle at his first conclusion. He said, “Is that so?” unintentionally lowering his voice to the same key as his companion’s. “Is Doctor Watson with you?”

“No. He remained behind in Baker Street to attend as best he could to any small matters. I’m in America on a secret and dangerous mission. I’m watched every minute, and if I’m caught talking with you it will be the end.”

An orderly entered the hall from a side door and tramped past them. He was a stocky young man with an unintelligent face. He glanced at the little man and winked at Shayne, then passed on.

Shayne’s companion seemed not to see the orderly. “Yes, indeed,” he insisted. “Our lives would not be worth a farthing if we were seen together.”

“Let’s just pretend we’re invisible,” Shayne suggested.

“It would do no good. They’re devils here. The Gestapo, you know.”

“Yes?” Shayne queried politely.

“I must confide in you. As a fellow member of the profession I have no course but to trust you. They murdered the Duchess last night.”

“So?” Shayne turned sharp gray eyes upon the little man. “You must be mistaken.”

“Am I not Sherlock Holmes? Have you ever known him to be mistaken?”

“Well, no.”

“Stop interrupting then, my good fellow. What I have to say is important. There’s a plot to overthrow the government of the Isles—”

“Did you witness the murder?”

“Yes, I spied on them, helpless to halt the terrible crime. They fixed it up to look like suicide by hanging, but that was a mere ruse to foil you easily fooled Americans. I saw them spirit her body away in the dead of night in a black sedan, and you, sir, must bear these tragic tidings to the Duke at once.”

“I’ll do my best,” Shayne promised, “but I’m afraid they’ll only laugh at my story.” He relaxed his jaw, suddenly conscious that his teeth were grinding together.

A door opened down the hall.

“There they come,” the little man whispered stridently. “The Gestapo. But I’ll outwit them yet.” He jumped up and scurried to the front door.

An orderly laughed indulgently as he approached Shayne. “Has Sherlock been plotting with you against the Gestapo?”

Shayne grinned and nodded. “He’s lost without Watson.”

“What was it this time? Last week he was working on a plan to save the President from assassination.”

“He appears to have succeeded.”

The orderly passed on, and the nurse came to the side door and beckoned Shayne. “Doctor Patterson will see you now.”

She led him through a small, neat office to a comfortable inner room with overstuffed furniture and smoking-stands.

A tall, bronzed man in a light-gray business suit met Shayne at the door. “Come right in, sir. I’m sorry you were forced to wait.”

Dr. Patterson was a youngish forty with strong, regular features and piercing blue eyes. He motioned Shayne to a comfortable chair and offered him a cigar. Shayne declined it and lit a cigarette, explaining with a grin, “I haven’t been bored in the interim, doctor. One of your patients entertained me.”

The doctor laughed genially. He exuded an air of good-fellowship and man-to-man camaraderie, but his blue eyes followed Shayne’s slightest movement, dissecting and analyzing the man before him with the cold impersonality and precision of a trained scientist.

“Now what can I do for you, Mr. Shayne?” His voice was rich and warm. “We’re entirely private here. Don’t hesitate to speak your mind freely.”

Shayne nodded. “I’d like to discuss a hypothetical case, doctor. A friend of mine.”

“Yes, of course. A hypothetical case.” Dr. Patterson leaned back and carefully placed the tips of his fingers together, frowning down at them. He made it quite evident that he suspected his caller of stalling. “So many who come to me wish to discuss hypothetical cases,” he added pleasantly.

“I’m a detective, doctor. A private detective. Michael Shayne is the full name.”

Dr. Patterson stiffened slightly and bent forward at the waist, his eyes full upon Shayne. “Ah, yes. I’m sure you’ll find it pleasant here. We have another guest with whom you’ll have a great deal in common.”

Shayne said, “I met Sherlock Holmes outside. I’m not applying for admittance, doc. I’ve come to discuss the case of a client.”

“I see.” The doctor’s manner changed abruptly. His gaze lost its probing impersonality, became shrewd and searching. He warned stiffly, “If you’ve been retained to effect the discharge of a patient you’re wasting your time and mine. This is strictly a private institution and no legal technicalities are involved. I prefer not to deal with intermediaries, Mr. Shayne.”

Shayne said, “If you’d let me speak my piece we’d get along faster. I want to talk to you about Mrs. Burt Stallings. You’re her personal physician, I believe.”

“Mrs. Stallings? Yes.” Patterson hesitated. “What information do you want concerning Mrs. Stallings?”

“What’s the matter with her?” Shayne asked bluntly. “You’re not a general practitioner. Why were you called in?”

“What is your authority for these questions?” Patterson parried bluntly. “I don’t make a practice of discussing my patients with an outsider.”

“I’m making an investigation for Stallings. He sent me to you. Call him if you want to verify it.”

Shayne’s voice and manner were so assured that the doctor did not call his bluff. He said reproachfully, “I don’t understand why Mr. Stallings didn’t come directly to me. But that’s neither here nor there. Mrs. Stallings had a mental and physical breakdown and I’ve been treating her for that. Though she might have recovered faster here at the sanitarium, her progress has been very satisfactory and I expect another few days to see a complete recovery.”

“This breakdown,” Shayne asked, “it came right after her daughter’s return home — after the daughter clashed with her stepfather and filed suit against him for mishandling her father’s estate? Was that the cause of Mrs. Stallings’s breakdown?”

“It was a contributing factor.”

“But the girl withdrew her suit almost immediately.”

“After her mother had broken under the strain,” Dr. Patterson pointed out. “Too late to undo the consequences of her act.”

“But she’s going to be all right, is she?”

“Indeed, yes. She has responded to my treatment in a splendid way.”

“One more question, doctor.” Shayne leaned forward and his voice roughened. “Has your treatment included the use of drugs — hypodermics?”

“Certainly not.” Dr. Patterson started up indignantly. “What put that thought in your mind?”

Shayne stood up. He said casually, “Maybe Briggs is the dopehead over there,” then strolled out of the inner office.

There was no one in the anteroom. He hesitated there a moment, heard Dr. Patterson dialing a number in the other office. He stepped to a desk where there was an extension and lifted it cautiously to prevent its clicking.

A voice said, “Hello,” and Dr. Patterson said, “Let me speak to Mr. Bugler.”

The thin-lipped nurse came hurrying in. She glanced suspiciously at Shayne with the telephone to his ear. He grimaced at the instrument and cradled it gently, remarking, “No answer.”

He strode out into the empty hallway humming a careless tune. Bright sunlight on the grass and trees and the faint street noises beyond the wall were a welcome relief after the drear silence inside.

To the right of him and close by, he heard a “Pssst,” and turning his head toward the sound saw a skinny arm with a crooked forefinger at the edge of a latticework thickly covered with leaves and purple bougainvillaea.

Sauntering toward the latticework, he lit a cigarette and flipped the match away. The sepulchral voice of the gnomelike little man who had accosted him inside came from behind the screening vine.

“Pretend you are interested in the flowers while I deliver my final instructions.”

A grin quirked Shayne’s wide mouth. He obeyed instructions by leaning forward and sniffing a flamboyant, odorless blossom.

“The Duke must be notified at once, of course, but inform Scotland Yard that they must attempt no action. My life is in constant danger while I remain here.”

“Then why don’t you leave? Your work is finished, isn’t it?”

“Don’t you understand that I can’t leave?” the little man demanded with asperity. “I gained entry by feigning insanity and I’ve played the role so perfectly they think I am insane.”

“That,” Shayne agreed, “makes it tough.”

“And I couldn’t desert my post while the scoundrels are still plotting against the Kingdom,” the withered shade of Sherlock Holmes insisted. “I don’t know what new devilish stratagem is afoot, but I believe I have discovered why the Duchess was executed last night. They have substituted another female in the dungeon disguised as the Duchess. Soon I hope to have a clue. I’ll communicate with you by Code X 4 9 B X. The password is Audentes fortuna juvat. You may go now.”

Shayne said, “Thanks.” He turned away and went down the path. An orderly, smiling knowingly, came forward to unlock the heavy wooden gate.

“Sherlock is really on the job today,” the man said.

Shayne grinned and nodded, passed through the gate, and got into the rented car and cruised slowly south toward Arch Bugler’s roadhouse.

He passed a lad running along the street and shouting an extra. He stopped and bought a News, spread it out on the steering-wheel to study a blurred photograph of Helen Stallings’s crumpled body lying on the lawn as he had left it last night.

His left eyebrow twitched with satisfaction while his eyes raced over Rourke’s story. It was a relief to know that the body had been discovered on schedule, bringing the case out into the open and giving him something tangible to fight against. It also meant that he had no time to waste if he was to crack the case before Peter Painter locked him up on a kidnap-murder charge.

He hastily crumpled the newspaper onto the seat beside him and drove on at a faster speed.

There were no cars parked in front of Bugle Inn at this early hour of the morning, but the bronze entrance gates stood open and there was no uniformed doorman on guard.

Pulling up in front of the open gates, Shayne frowned at the sight of Donk’s bulky body placidly seated in a rocking chair in front of the main door.

He felt in his coat pocket and lovingly drew out a small lump of molded lead which fitted snugly into his cupped palm with four grooves for fingers to fit into it when he made a fist. It weighed several pounds and, innocently clenched in a man’s hand, converted a fist into a bludgeon capable of delivering a terrific blow with little effort.

He fitted it into his right palm and slid his doubled hand into his coat pocket, got out leisurely, and strolled up the walk toward Donk, who rocked forward to stare at him and then grinned with unconcealed pleasure.

TWELVE

“WELL, WELL, SO YOU CAME BACK for more, huh?” the big man greeted him happily. He got up, dusting ashes from the front of his vest.

Shayne stopped in front of Donk, keeping his bunched hand in his coat pocket, warning, “I still owe you for what you handed me last night.”

“You’ll be owin’ me more’n that pretty quick,” Donk promised. He flexed his biceps and blew on the big knuckles of his right fist.

“I’ve got other things on my mind besides taking you apart,” Shayne told him. “I want to see that bald-headed bartender who was working last night.”

“Baldy? He ain’t here. Don’t open till after noon.”

“Where does he live?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Donk’s heavy arms swung loosely at his sides. His eyes leered steadily at Shayne.

“Somebody around here ought to have his address.”

“Mebbe they have, but you ain’t gettin’ it. You ain’t gettin’ in to talk to none of ’em, see?”

Shayne’s eyes glowed hotly. He licked his lips and laughed, dropping his left shoulder and sliding his left foot forward.

Donk’s piggish eyes were fixed on the right fist bulging his coat pocket. When Shayne withdrew it, Donk let out a hearty snort of relief. “So you’re gonna spar with me, huh? Thought mebbe you had a gun. Seein’ as you ain’t—” His left lashed out swiftly at Shayne’s chin.

The detective swayed back, and the left missed. Shayne twisted forward, drove his weighted fist twelve inches forward into the big man’s belly. It sank deep into the flesh. Donk shuddered and hunched forward, dropping his guard.

Shayne set himself and lifted a battering uppercut to the unprotected chin of his opponent. Reinforced by the leaden weight, the blow had bone-shattering force.

Donk stood partially erect, and a glazed look of incomprehension spread over his small eyes. He collapsed and groveled on the walk, moaning with the pain of a broken jaw.

Shayne stepped over his barrel-like torso and dropped the lead weight into his pocket.

A scrubwoman was working on the floor of the cocktail room. Shayne went past her to Bugler’s private office in the rear. The chinless man who had trailed him from his apartment was sitting on Bugler’s desk munching a mouthful of peanuts. A sharp-featured young man sat behind the desk checking figures in a heavy ledger.

Shayne stopped in the doorway and said, “Hello, Johnny.”

The chinless man stared at him in complete surprise as his jaws worked mechanically on the peanuts. “Say — how’d you get in? Didn’t Donk—”

“I paid Donk back like I promised,” Shayne said softly. “You’re next, Johnny.”

Johnny slid off the desk and backed away, tugging at the blackjack in his hip pocket. Shayne rushed him before he got it free, drove him to the floor with a left over the heart and a right to the mouth.

He whirled on the bookkeeper and said, “Better not, youngster.”

The youth gaped at him, his hand reaching into an open drawer. A pistol lay on top of some papers inside.

“I’ll take the gun before you hurt yourself,” Shayne said. He reached out a long arm for the weapon, pocketed it, and lowered himself to the desk. “All I want is the home address of Baldy, one of the bartenders here.”

“B-Baldy? Y-You mean Dave Preston?”

“If he’s the bald-headed one, yeh.”

“I–I’ve got it right here.” The frightened bookkeeper nervously scrambled through the drawer for a memorandum book.

“Write it down for me on a slip of paper,” Shayne directed. He lit a cigarette and smoked lazily while the man wrote. He pocketed the slip of paper, lifted himself from the shining mahogany desk, and said, “If this isn’t right, you’re going to wish to God it had been.”

Glancing at Johnny, who lay very still on the floor, Shayne started for the door. Turning abruptly, he went back. “There’s something else. Where does Arch keep his markers?”

“Markers? I don’t know what—”

“IOU’s,” Shayne interpreted irritably. “His record of gambling-debts of birds who couldn’t pay off.”

“Gambling? I don’t know anything about that. You’ll have to ask Mr. Bugler.”

Shayne reached out and circled the young man’s neck with his big fingers. He was breathing hard, and his hands tightened relentlessly about the bony neck. “I haven’t any time for the run-around. Start remembering — quick.”

The clerk writhed in Shayne’s grasp, choking and sputtering incoherently.

Relaxing the pressure on his windpipe, Shayne asked savagely, “Did that stir up your memory?”

“Y-Yes. I g-guess I k-know what you mean. Those old accounts. They’re locked in the safe. I h-haven’t a key.” The trembling sincerity of his voice was genuine.

Shayne took his hands from the man’s throat and stepped back. “All right, but you’ve seen them. How much has Stallings got on the cuff with Bugler?”

“St-Stallings?”

“Burt Stallings,” Shayne growled. “He did some heavy plunging when Arch had his games running in the back. How deep is he in?”

“I don’t know — exactly, that is. Ten or fifteen thousand maybe, roughly.”

“Roughly is good enough,” Shayne said on his way out.

Donk was sitting up moaning, one hand pressed against his broken jaw, the other against his stomach. The detective laughed and said, “It’ll heal in a few weeks, maybe,” and went through the bronze gates to his car.

Dave Preston’s address was one side of a small double house on an inconspicuous side street. A baby came toddling to meet Shayne when he rattled the knob and pushed the door open. An anemic woman followed the baby into the hall and caught the child up into her arms. She pushed stringy hair back from her face and demanded, “What is it?”

“I’m looking for Dave Preston.”

“He’s asleep. You’d better—”

“This is police business,” Shayne said.

Panic showed in the woman’s eyes. She compressed her lips and said, “He’s in the back bedroom. This way.”

Shayne followed her through a littered living-room to a bedroom darkened by drawn shades. The man on the bed was snoring. Before closing the door Shayne said gently, “There’s nothing for you to worry about. Your husband isn’t in any trouble — yet.” He closed the door, shutting her out.

Going to the windows, he jerked the shades up. The sleeping man rolled over and stopped snoring when sunlight flooded the room. He raised himself on one elbow and blinked at the tall redheaded figure.

Shayne sat down on the foot of the bed. “Remember me?”

“Yeah. What d’yuh want here? You’re the bird that was mussed up last night — claimed it was an accident. I heard later Donk had bounced one off you.”

“That’s right. I asked you about a girl who had been in for a drink at noon or a little after. The one you doped. Your memory had better be in better working order this morning than it was last night.”

“Look here, I don’t know nothing.”

Shayne balanced the pistol he had taken from the young bookkeeper carelessly on his knee. His gray eyes were cold and remorseless. “If you figure you’re any good alive to the lady and that cute kid outside you’d better start knowing something. You’ve found out who I am by this time. You know I don’t talk just to hear myself spout off. This game of marbles is for keeps, buddy.”

“Don’t point that at me.” The bartender’s face went ashen. “I know you’re Mike Shayne. I’ll tell you anything.”

“Start talking, then. About the girl you fed a Mickey Finn. Know who she was?”

“Sure. It was the Stallings girl. I’d seen her around lots.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere. Who told you to give her a knockout slug?”

“Nobody. I — didn’t know what to do with her. She’d drunk a lot of cocktails and then started raving out loud about her stepfather and Arch. There were a lot of other people there and I didn’t know what she might say next.”

“Was she alone?”

“Yes. I didn’t see anybody with her. She came in asking for Arch about two-thirty.”

“And he wasn’t there?”

“No. I told her he wouldn’t be in till evening but she said she’d wait. She acted funny, and after she had a few drinks she got loud and started cursing like a trooper.”

“She made a phone call, didn’t she?”

“Yeah. After she was pretty drunk. Must have been around five.”

“Who did she call?”

“I don’t know. I swear I don’t. She went in a booth. But when she came out she asked me how to get to a — a hotel in Miami.”

“What hotel?” Shayne’s voice was like the lash of a whip.

Preston told him, adding nervously, “I knew that was where you hung out. I didn’t know what she might do. I mixed her one last drink before she left — and fixed it.”

“But not strong enough,” Shayne commented dryly. “You need a supply of special drops for these tough debutante guzzlers. All right. I want it straight. Who’d you call when she left?”

“I telephoned Mr. Stallings. I thought he ought to know. I–I told him she had started for your place but I didn’t think she’d make it.”

“Is that all you know about it?”

“That’s all. I swear to God it is. I told Arch as soon as he came in — about six-thirty. I thought he might be sore because he’s been carrying the torch for her. He wasn’t, though. He said I done just right.”

Shayne slid the gun back into his pocket. Lounging to his feet, he crossed to the windows and draw the shades down again. “Go ahead with your beauty sleep. I may want you to repeat this before witnesses later. Don’t forget any of it.”

Outside the darkened room he nodded reassuringly to Mrs. Preston who was loitering in the hall with the gurgling toddler in her arms. “It’s okay, Mrs. Preston. Your husband isn’t in any trouble. But I advise you to have him lay off work a day or so and stay close to home. He’ll be safer here than at the Bugle Inn.”

Back in his rented car again, Shayne hesitated for a few minutes, then made up his mind and drove to the south end of the Beach, the Coney Island of the resort city; a section of bathhouses and hamburger joints, shooting galleries and other carnival concessions.

He went into a beer parlor and arched his brows at the bartender, got a nod that sent him to a back room where he knocked twice before going in. The room was large and airy with rows of empty cane-bottom chairs lined up facing a huge blackboard on the rear wall. The board was divided into sections, and each bore the name of a well-known race track operating in the United States. There was a large desk in one corner of the room with half a dozen telephones lined up in front of six chairs. A man was seated at the desk talking into one of the phones. He jerked a rosy head at Shayne and kept on talking with his lips close to the mouthpiece.

Shayne pulled one of the chairs away from the desk and tilted it back against the wall, sat down and lit a cigarette.

Joe finished his conversation and hung up. He mopped his face with a silk handkerchief and complained, “This business will be the death of me, Mike. Nothing but crooks and two-bit punks yapping when their ten-to-one shots don’t come home. It makes a man want to puke.”

Shayne said, “Yeh? Well, I’ve got another worry for you. I won’t have a chance to get to the bank and pick up the two grand I laid on Marsh last night. I guess you’ll have to carry me for it.”

Joe Parkis had broad, flat features with a bilious tinge. He squirmed uneasily in his chair, looking away from the redheaded detective. “Can’t get to the bank, huh? It’ll be open pretty quick now.”

“Yeh, but I’m going to be pretty busy. Expect to be tied up most of the day. I just wanted to tell you I didn’t think I could make it.”

Joe glanced at him sharply and then away again. It seemed to Shayne there was a look of relief on his face. “You know I got to run my business on cash, Mike. I’d go broke in a week if I started taking markers from every sport that wanted to lay a bet. I got a strict rule—”

“I’m not ‘every sport,’ God damn it,” Shayne interrupted harshly. “You know I’m good for two lousy grand.”

“It ain’t that, Mike,” Joe held up a placating hand. Sweat was forming on his forehead and trickling down his flat features. “Sure you’re good for it. I’m not saying you wouldn’t pay off cash on the barrelhead if Stallings wins. But if I take a marker from you and somebody else finds it out, then they think I ought to take theirs. See what I mean? Once you get started it’s hell to stop. I run on a strictly cash basis,” the bookmaker reiterated doggedly.

Shayne’s eyes narrowed unpleasantly. “All right, Joe. I’ve got ways of making things tough on you, too.”

Joe Parkis mopped his face and begged, “Don’t get sore, Mike. Hell, if you want to borrow a couple of grand—” He made a gesture of generosity.

Shayne said, “I don’t want to borrow two grand. I only want to lay it on Jim Marsh. Make it easy on yourself.” He tilted the chair forward and got up.

“Wait, Mike. For God’s sake, wait a minute. I’m trying to give you a tip-off, see? You’ve always leveled with me. I’d be a hell of a friend if I let you walk into something. I’m telling you to lay off the election.”

Shayne hesitated, dropped back into the chair. “What’s on your mind?”

“Take my word for it,” Parkis pleaded. “I see all sorts of funny things in my business. I got things I can’t talk about just like you got things on your clients you keep under your hat. But I’m telling you to lay off. I don’t want to see you drop two grand. You’d be sore if you found out afterward I knew the fix was on and didn’t tip you.”

Shayne lit another cigarette. His nostrils flared, and smoke dribbled out. Suddenly he looked happy. “So the fix is on? I get it, Joe. Maybe I can change that. I’m still willing to bet two grand I can.”

“Money on the nose ain’t no better than counterfeit if your nag don’t break away from the post,” Joe Parkis warned him sententiously.

Shayne nodded cheerfully. “I see what you’re driving at. But I’m on the inside, too, Joe. Don’t believe everything you hear. Thanks for tipping me, but my bet stands.”

“Don’t be a schlemiel,” Joe groaned. “You been around enough to know that when the owner lays heavy sugar on another horse he’s pretty sure his ain’t going to run.”

“So,” said Shayne thoughtfully, “it’s that way?”

Parkis wriggled in his chair and mopped his face. “All right, so you’ve got the picture. Now will you lay off?”

“How much has Marsh bet against himself?”

“Plenty. That’s what knocked the odds down yesterday. Damn it, Mike, I ain’t got no right to spill this.”

“It won’t go any farther.” Shayne leaned forward, his eyes boring into Joe’s. “That funny stuff last night — about no bets being off if Marsh withdrew — that was his idea, too? Eh?”

“That’s right. His jack has to be covered that way. And that gives him a cinch, Mike. I don’t like that kind of business, but hell, the suckers’ll get took anyway. Only I hate to see you ride with the suckers.”

“I never have,” Shayne said harshly. “I’ll change my bet, Joe. Make it five grand.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing.” Joe looked completely unhappy. “But I’m telling you flat Marsh stands to lose fifty thousand by winning the election. No man’s going to cut his own throat. All he has to do is withdraw.”

Shayne smiled. “I get the angle without your drawing me a picture. Marsh is going to stay in and he’s going to win. And my five grand will be that much sweeter coming from him on his double cross.” He stood up. “Want me to sign something?”

“You know that ain’t necessary.” Joe looked up at him reproachfully. “I was just trying—”

“And I appreciate it,” Shayne told him. The smile on his gaunt features grew broader. “You’ve cleaned up the last angle that had me worried. So long. Just hold my winnings for me. But — do this, Joe. Call Marsh right away and tell him I’ve increased my bet to five grand and tell him I said I’d break his neck if he withdrew and caused me to lose — and that I mean it. He still has time to cover some of his money.”

On his way out Shayne stopped at a telephone booth and called Timothy Rourke at the Miami News.

Rourke sounded worried. “I was just starting down to headquarters to sign the complaint against Marlow. They picked him up a little while ago.”

“Good. How about the Stallings maid?”

“Nothing on her, Mike. I’ve tried every agency. None of them supplied servants for the Stallings ménage. That looks like a blind alley.”

“Okay, Tim,” Shayne told him cheerfully. “The accusation against me hasn’t broken yet, eh?”

“Guess not. We’re ready with another extra as soon as Stallings and Painter make the kidnap note public.”

“Meet me at the Miami Beach police station as fast as you can make it,” Shayne suggested casually.

“What’s up?”

“Fireworks,” Shayne told him succinctly. “I’m about to give myself up.”

“What the hell? Are you kidding?”

“I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes.” Shayne hung up before Rourke could ask any more questions and strolled out of the booth. He killed ten minutes drinking two beers.

Timothy Rourke was just jumping out of his car in front of the Beach headquarters when Shayne rolled up in his rented car. The lean-faced reporter hurried to meet him, panting.

“Is this a gag, Mike?”

“Not at all. As a reputable citizen my conscience forces me to appear voluntarily.” Shayne grinned and got out. He took Rourke’s arm and led him into the outer office, where he leaned on the counter and asked the desk sergeant, “Painter in?”

“Yeh, but he’s busy right now. Mr. Stallings is in his office.”

“Okay. We’ll make it a foursome,” Shayne answered and strolled back to a private office in the rear. He pushed the door open, and the two men entered.

Painter was sitting behind his desk and Burt Stallings sat in a chair near him. A plain-clothes man was using a typewriter in the rear of the office.

Painter and Stallings came to their feet when Shayne and Rourke entered. There was an expression of loathing on Stallings’s face, a look of exuberant triumph on Painter’s.

“This is pretty nice,” the chief of detectives crowed. “Mr. Stallings is just swearing out a warrant for your arrest. Sit down until he signs it and we’ll serve it right here.”

Shayne said, “Sure,” and sat down. The typist rolled a printed form from his machine and laid it in front of the chief. Painter glanced at it, then passed it to Stallings. “Sign right here,” he directed.

Stallings shot a glance at Shayne, then affixed his signature.

Peter Painter leaned back with his black eyes snapping happily. In a formal tone, he pronounced, “You’re under arrest, Michael Shayne — charged with the murder of one Helen Stallings.”

Shayne looked at Rourke. “I want you to witness this. False arrest on a fraudulent charge made knowingly and maliciously.”

“Fraudulent charge?” Painter choked. “You’ll have a hard time making that stick. We’ve got enough evidence to hang you.”

“For the murder of Helen Stallings?” Shayne asked gently.

“Of course. You know damned well—”

Shayne turned to Tim Rourke who was sniffing in the conversation with a look of dazed incredulity on his face. “What the hell are you waiting for?” Shayne demanded. “There’s one of the headlines I’ve been promising you.”

Rourke sprang past Painter to a telephone on the rear desk. He snatched it up and gave the number of his office, got the city desk, and ordered, “Let that extra go. Michael Shayne arrested for murder of Helen Stallings on warrant sworn out by her stepfather. I just saw it happen. Shayne gave himself up in the office of Peter Painter. And keep the presses open. I’ve got a hunch there’s another story making.”

Rourke pronged the instrument and came back to stand beside Shayne. The detective grinned up into his concerned face.

“How long will that be hitting the streets?”

“Two minutes. They were printed and loaded on trucks waiting for the word.”

Shayne said, “Good. Then I don’t need to hold out any longer. I wanted to be sure people actually had a chance to read the charges against me. Defamation of character and so forth.”

“What are you kidding about?” Painter demanded. “We’ve got you dead to rights.”

“First you’ll have to prove that Helen Stallings is dead,” said Shayne. “The corpus delicti, you know.”

Stallings’s face suddenly went ashen. He sank back into his chair breathing heavily.

“You’re crazy,” Painter snapped. “The body was found this morning where you’d ditched it. We’ve got her safe enough. And if you’re figuring on pulling a fast one by snatching the body, you’d better start thinking again.”

“Why, no,” Shayne disclaimed pleasantly, “I wouldn’t snatch the body for anything. That corpse will bust your case wide open. It just happens that the body is not that of Helen Stallings at all.”

THIRTEEN

MICHAEL SHAYNE’S FLAT STATEMENT that the body of the murdered girl was not that of Helen Stallings brought a moment of stunned silence to Peter Painter’s private office.

Then Burt Stallings blustered, “The man is mad. Stark, raving insane. Of course the girl is Helen. There can’t be the slightest doubt.”

Timothy Rourke also was staring at his friend with a dazed look of incomprehension on his hard-bitten face.

Painter, however, reacted differently. His slender body shivered with wrath. He caressed his tiny black mustache with a trembling forefinger, and baffled fear spread over his features. His voice held a squeaky note of hysteria when he counseled, “Wait, Stallings. Shayne may be up to one of his hellish tricks again. He has a way of pulling elephants out of a thimble when you least expect it. If she isn’t Helen Stallings—”

“But she is. God, man! Don’t you think I can identify my own stepdaughter?”

Painter shook his head dubiously, darting a shaken look at Shayne’s placid self-assurance. He muttered, “You don’t know him like I do. This sort of stunt is right down his alley.” He paused reflectively, then pounded his desk with a small fist. “If he has managed to switch corpses—”

A look of comprehension crept over Rourke’s face. He breathed a soft, ecstatic “Oh, my sweet grandmother” and began scribbling rapidly on a batch of folded sheets drawn from his pocket.

Burt Stallings shook his head decisively. “There’s no chance of anything like that. I came directly from the mortuary here. The girl is my stepdaughter. I can’t be mistaken. She’s wearing the same clothes she had on when she disappeared from home yesterday. A bluish-green silk dress. The same garment described in the News story of her discovery this morning,” he ended triumphantly.

Rourke stopped scribbling. He cocked a worried eye at Shayne, but the redheaded detective was wholly unperturbed.

“That’s right. You described the dress when you reported the kidnap note.” Painter was beginning to breathe more easily, and his manner began to assume its normal aggressiveness. His slim padded shoulders strutted as he whirled upon Shayne. “How about it, Shamus? How are you going to get around Mr. Stallings’s positive identification of her?”

Shayne lit a cigarette before replying. He said calmly, “If you would stop trying to hang something on me you might solve a case one of these days without a blueprint from me. I still say the corpse of the murdered girl isn’t Helen Stallings. I can prove it.”

“But you’ve just heard Mr. Stallings—”

Shayne waved the interruption aside. “Mr. Stallings can prove she is the girl who left his home after lunch yesterday, angry at him and at Arch Bugler. The girl who has been masquerading for a month as Helen Stallings. I don’t deny that. I haven’t looked at the body, but from Rourke’s description in the newspaper this morning I’m assuming that’s who she is. She came to my office yesterday afternoon just before I took my wife to the train.”

Burt Stallings’s tall, handsome body was rigidly upright and tense. Only his lips moved when he said bitterly, “I repeat — the man is insane. Someone masquerading as Helen? Bah! Utter nonsense.”

Rourke’s nose quivered on the scent of headlines. His head was slightly cocked toward Stallings as his pencil again raced over the notebook on his knee.

“You admit she came to you yesterday?” Painter again pounded the desk. “Last night you denied knowing anything about her disappearance.”

“Barking up a tree again,” Shayne said. “I denied knowing anything about Helen Stallings’s disappearance. I didn’t at that time, though I’ve doped it out since. Also, I didn’t even know where the girl was. She was snatched from my office while I was at the depot.”

Painter’s delicate mustache quivered upward in a sneer. “A likely story. By God, Shayne, I don’t know what you’ve cooked up to cover yourself this time, but we’re not going to swallow any preposterous tissue of lies.”

“Ask Stallings what actually became of Helen,” Shayne said easily. “He got rid of her a month ago. He and Arch Bugler together.”

Stallings fumed. “Must we listen to this man’s absurd accusations?”

“You’re Goddamned right you’re going to listen.” Shayne swung on him angrily. “I’m not only accusing you of getting rid of your stepdaughter, but of doing away with the girl who was posing as Helen. Baldy, from the Bugle Inn, telephoned you yesterday afternoon that he had doped her and that she was headed to Miami to see me. You were desperate. Your whole house of cards was tumbling down if she talked.”

“I did not. I can prove I didn’t leave the Beach. A bartender did warn me that my daughter was making loose threats against me and was going to you with them. I told all that to Mr. Painter at once. My hands are clean.”

Painter’s black eyes were glistening. They stalked the redheaded detective relentlessly. “Are you fool enough to think you can make anyone believe another girl has been pretending to be Helen Stallings for weeks and the deception has been successful? I suppose you’re going to pull an identical twin out of your sleeve now.”

“It didn’t take an identical twin — nor a twin of any sort. All it took was a girl who looked enough like Helen for a newspaper picture of her to pass for a previously printed picture of the real Helen Stallings. Here’s what I mean.”

Shayne drew some folded sheets of newspaper from his coat pocket and spread them out on Painter’s desk. “Here’s a shot of Helen Stallings at the airport when she arrived from the north — her first visit to Miami,” he added significantly. “It isn’t particularly clear, as good as most newspaper photos, and you’ve had your mug in the papers enough, Painter, to know you can’t recognize yourself half the time.

“Now take a look at this close-up. The date is a week later. The day after Helen Stallings filed suit against her stepfather for mishandling her father’s estate. Also, the day the Stallings family moved from an apartment into their new home. This picture is very clear. No doubt about it, that’s the girl who thereafter was known around Miami as Helen Stallings. Do you begin to get a glimmering of the truth now?”

Stallings was like a mass of poured concrete except for his lips. He protested, “This is all a fantastic product of Shayne’s imagination. You certainly won’t grant for a moment, Chief Painter, that such a masquerade would be successful, would fool her mother, myself, the servants, her friends.”

Shayne answered for Painter. “It didn’t fool you. You arranged it, with Arch Bugler’s help. Her mother? She’s confined to her bed in the west wing — has been ever since you moved into the new house. A maid told me the girl hadn’t seen her mother since her illness. The servants? They were all new. They’d never seen the real Helen Stallings. Her friends? She had been in the city only a week. Whatever friends she might have made during that week were promptly dropped. She began running around with a tough crowd. Bugler and his gang. That’s one of the things that put me next. Her abrupt transition into a member of the night-club sporting crowd, escorted by Arch Bugler. Somehow that didn’t fit my preconceived idea of the character of a Smith College graduate.”

Stallings moved his shoulders jerkily, then shook his head slowly. “Really, your ability to distort facts to fit your own ends is amazing, Mr. Shayne. All I can suggest is that you read less of Oppenheim or stop hitting the pipe.”

Peter Painter’s face was a curious study of mixed emotions. Again there was that lingering expression of fright in his black eyes as he felt the solid foundations of his case against Shayne crumbling against the assaults of doubt. Blended with his fear and his anger was the inbred determination of a police officer to get at the truth, regardless of consequences.

He said to Shayne, “Granting the remote possibility of your fantastic story that such a switch in identities could have been managed under the circumstances you outline— why? Why, in God’s name, would anyone go to such extraordinary lengths?”

“The answer is right here in the newspaper.” Shayne tapped a sheet he had laid on the desk. “The girl comes to Miami and starts a suit against her stepfather for misappropriation of the estate. Suppose he’s guilty and desperate to have the action squelched? Simply killing the girl won’t halt the investigation. Besides, the filing of the suit will look like a motive for murder. So he puts her out of the way and substitutes another girl who looks enough like her to appear in court and withdraw the complaint. It is an established fact that few people are observant enough to remember exact features when meeting a person once, or even twice. A girl of approximately the same build and coloring wearing the identical dress and hat worn by Helen Stallings might easily fool a judge or a lawyer. Maybe the complaint was withdrawn by a written document.”

“I’m a wealthy man,” Stallings interrupted angrily. “My conduct as administrator of the estate is above reproach. I will welcome an investigation.”

“Sure. You’ve probably got it covered up now. You could afford to, knowing it would all come into your hands in the end. But this wealthy stuff is the bunk,” Shayne went on sharply to Painter. “That island estate cost him a fortune — and he dropped plenty gambling at Bugler’s place when it was running. That’s why Bugler helped him, probably hatched the scheme himself. Arch is holding a handful of his markers and saw himself being left out in the cold if the girl went ahead with her court action and took the estate away from Stallings. I imagine he supplied the idea and the girl, didn’t he?” Shayne turned to Stallings.

Stallings’s physique unbent to the point of straining forward from the waist and tossing his silvery hair back. He declared, “This is clearly a frame-up to defeat me at the polls tomorrow. Though Shayne knows he hasn’t a shred of evidence to bolster his insane accusations, he realizes that by making them public he will so becloud the issue in the minds of the voters that his candidate will have a chance to win. But I warn you, young man, any newspaper that prints this story will lay itself wide open for a libel suit — which I shan’t hesitate to bring.” He shook an admonishing finger at Timothy Rourke.

“That’s right, Mike,” Rourke muttered. “This is swell stuff, but — I got to have something to back it up.”

“That’s easy,” Shayne assured him. “Proving the girl isn’t Helen Stallings will be enough. Don’t you agree that will prove my story?” he asked, turning to Painter.

Painter hesitated, looking slowly from Shayne to Stallings. “If she isn’t Helen Stallings, it ought to prove something,” he muttered at last.

“How does he plan to prove this absurd contention?”

Stallings asked sharply. “Is she supposed to have a strawberry birthmark or has he got a set of her fingerprints from the Federal Bureau of Investigation?”

“I’ll produce a witness to identify her,” Shayne told Painter confidently. “One whose identification you’ll have to accept without doubt.”

“It’s another trick of his,” Stallings argued. “He has planned this in advance. He’s got someone planted who will pretend to have been acquainted with Helen in school. I tell you the whole thing is an absurd tissue of lies, and any person who states that the body of the strangled girl isn’t my stepdaughter is a malicious liar. All he’s after is to get this trumped-up story in the newspapers to defeat me at the election.”

“It’ll have to be an absolutely positive identification before I’ll accept it,” Painter warned Shayne. “Someone like — well, the girl’s mother.”

“She’s too ill,” Stallings protested hastily. “The doctor’s orders are very strict that she must have no excitement whatever.”

“All right,” Shayne agreed. “I’m not so sure about the nature of her illness. I’ve got a strong hunch Doctor Patterson has kept her shot full of dope this past month so she wouldn’t recognize the girl as an impostor and spoil your game. But let that pass. I’ve got someone who will do as well as her mother. A husband should recognize his own wife.”

“A husband?” Stallings choked over the word, shaking his head frantically. “She has no husband,” he told Painter, regaining his calm immediately and effectually. “This is just the sort of trick I expected him to attempt. Helen wasn’t married. She was practically engaged to Arch Bugler.”

“I wondered,” Shayne murmured, “whether you knew about her husband. You knew Whit Marlow was coming to visit her, didn’t you? But he was too cagey to mention the marriage in a letter addressed even to his wife. You see,” he went on to Painter, “that’s what started all the fireworks yesterday. This Marlow was due in town and they realized he’d know the girl wasn’t Helen the instant he saw her. They had to get her out of the way in a hurry. I don’t know whether he and Bugler planned to murder her or not, but it was certainly the perfect solution, as she must have realized. She got panicky and tried to get to me with her story. Then they had to put her out of the way. And the supreme irony of it was that if they’d known the truth none of their murderous scheme was necessary. Helen was already married, and the estate would have reverted to Mrs. Stallings as a natural consequence according to the will. She married a man named Whit Marlow last April.”

“That’s an outright lie,” Stallings sputtered. “It’s impossible.” His dignity was shattered.

Shayne smiled thinly. He reached in his inner breast pocket and drew out the marriage certificate he had taken from Whit Marlow’s bag. “Look it over for yourself.” Painter unfolded it while Stallings leaned far forward to read it with him.

“Marlow is in the Miami jail right now.” Shayne’s voice crackled authoritatively. “Call Gentry and have him sent over to identify the body Stallings claims to be that of his stepdaughter.”

“By God, I’ll do that.” Painter shoved the certificate aside and seized the telephone. He got Miami police headquarters and spoke to Chief Gentry. After talking a few minutes he covered the mouthpiece and asked Stallings, “What mortuary has the body?”

“Gleason’s, here on the Beach. But I certainly don’t approve—”

Painter turned his attention to the telephone again. In a moment he hung up and announced, “Gentry is sending Marlow over at once. We’ll meet him at the mortuary and straighten this thing out once and for all. But don’t think that means I believe a word you’ve said,” he added to Shayne. “If that young man identifies the corpse as his wife you’re going to jail and stand trial for her murder.”

Shayne said, “That suits me,” and got up. He winked broadly at Rourke.

Stallings rode in the official car with Painter to the mortuary. Shayne and Rourke rode with two Miami Beach detectives in a patrol car.

“How sure are you about all this?” Rourke asked anxiously as they were driven northward. “God knows, every word of it was a complete surprise to me.”

“I’m as sure as any man can be without actual proof. God damn it, Tim, that’s the way it has to be. It’s the only thing that hangs together — the only theory that fits all the facts.”

“Theory,” Rourke growled. “I don’t like it, Mike. Stallings acted too damned cocky all through the interview. If you’re wrong—”

“If I’m wrong,” Shayne interposed cheerfully, “I’ll have lots of spare time to work out some more theories in Petey Painter’s jail. But I can’t be wrong. Too many queer facts dovetail perfectly.”

“When the hell did it come to you? Have you guessed all along that the girl wasn’t Helen Stallings?”

“No. I didn’t have the faintest idea. It just began unscrambling itself this morning the more I tried to make two and two equal five. It wouldn’t. No matter how hard I tried, it came out four every time. The thing that’s been nagging at me subconsciously all along,” Shayne went on in a musing tone, “was the inexplicable change that appeared to come over Helen Stallings all at once. First, she changed her mind and withdrew the suit against her stepfather; then she started running around with Bugler and his crowd. It looked as if she must have got a crack on the head — or they were two different girls.”

“Might have been duress,” Rourke argued weakly. “If Bugler had a stake in Stallings keeping control of the money he might have got hold of Helen and put the pressure on. Arch Bugler is capable of anything.”

“That’s the only other possibility that passes muster,” Shayne agreed. “But it doesn’t explain all the other strange happenings. That Doctor Patterson — I’m willing to bet he’s a phony. And he’s got some tie-up with Bugler. To hell with all this guesswork,” the detective ended philosophically as the patrol car drew up behind Painter’s automobile in front of the Gleason Mortuary. “We’ll know soon enough whether I’m out on a limb or not.”

A detective got on each side of Shayne and walked him up the steps behind Painter and Stallings. Rourke trailed along behind them, an uneasy expression in his slaty eyes.

In a small anteroom Painter explained the official nature of their call to a man wearing a frock coat and an air of deep melancholy.

“Here comes our man from Miami,” Painter ended, after glancing out the door. “We’ll all go in together.”

“The young lady, of course, is not — ah, they’re not quite through with her back there.” He inclined his head lugubriously toward the rear.

“That’s all right,” Painter said impatiently. “Better see her natural this way, before you birds get her all prettied up past recognition.”

A member of the Miami detective force entered the anteroom leading Whit Marlow by the arm. The young saxophone player’s face was ashen, his eyes looked sick. He glanced at Shayne, Rourke, and the others without recognition. Painter faced him and asked, “Marlow?”

“Yes. What’s this all about?” Marlow jerked his head up with a show of spirit.

“Are you the legal husband of a young lady generally known as Helen Stallings? Helen Devalon before her name was changed to Stallings?”

Marlow’s ashen features twitched. He started a denial, then his shoulders drooped dispiritedly. “All right. So it isn’t a secret any longer. But we had a right to get married. Suppose she does lose the money? Where’s Helen? That’s all I want to know. Where is she?”

Painter turned and nodded to the mortician. He led them back through the chapel to a tiled workroom that stank with the heavy odor of embalming fluids. Stallings dropped behind the Miami detective and Marlow. Rourke and Shayne came next, followed by the two Miami Beach officers.

The mortuary attendant whispered something in the ear of a tall man wearing white duck pants and a surgeon’s jacket.

Whit Marlow’s breath was coming jerkily between set teeth as his befuddled senses slowly began to catch the sinister meaning of the questions which had been thrown at him and this trip to the rear of the mortuary. An agonized look came into his young eyes and he trembled violently. The husky Miami detective supported his slight figure with a heavy arm.

The mortician went to a huge porcelain cabinet with a tier of long drawers. He touched the handle of one drawer and it slid out smoothly on oiled rollers. “We haven’t got started on her yet,” he said apologetically.

Painter stood back with a wave of his hand toward Marlow. “Do you know this woman?”

The young husband swayed forward, white-faced and shaken. He peered over the edge of the porcelain drawer and drew back with a tortured sob. “Helen! Oh, God! Helen!”

Painter and Stallings both nodded sagely and turned to Shayne, but Shayne disregarded them. He stepped forward angrily, grabbing Whit Marlow’s arm.

“Don’t be a fool,” he grated. “Take a good look at that girl’s face. Don’t let your imagination run away with you. You were convinced it was Helen before you looked. Look again.”

Stallings protested. “See here, now, you’re trying to influence him. Painter—”

Marlow shuddered, then gathering strength from Shayne’s assured words he steeled himself for a long and searching look at the waxen face of the corpse.

After a full minute he turned wildly upon Shayne. “What kind of games are you playing? Of course that’s Helen. Do you think I could be mistaken? She’s my wife. Do you hear? My wife.” He staggered back, pressing his hands against his eyeballs. The Miami officer caught him as he started to fall.

Shayne stood very still. An expression of utter disbelief contorted his gaunt features. Faintly, he heard Painter saying, “Very well. That settles it as far as I’m concerned, Mr. Stallings. Sorry to have caused you this trouble, but he won’t make any more after he’s locked up.”

Shayne whirled to see Painter and Stallings in a huddle with Rourke. The Miami Beach detectives were standing close to them, listening intently to the conversation.

Turning slowly, Shayne’s big feet glided toward an open window and stepped noiselessly to the mortuary grounds.

FOURTEEN

SHAYNE HIT THE THICK GREEN TURF, swerved sharply around a corner of the building as two shots blasted through the window. He zigzagged through clumps of shrubbery to a quiet side street, heard shouts and the sound of racing motors behind him.

A department store delivery truck was parked on the street with the back doors swinging open. Shayne sprinted toward it, saw the driver with a bundle in his hand ringing the doorbell of a house.

He stuck his head and shoulders inside the back of the truck, eased the doors forward to cover a part of his body. Leaning far inside with his rear end and long legs fully visible, he pretended to grope for a bundle.

He heard one car, then another race past him. Footsteps coming down the walk betokened the return of the driver. At the same time he heard Peter Painter cursing and panting behind him as he trotted to the sidewalk.

Shayne put his palms on the floor of the truck and lifted his body inside, crouched there in the semidarkness while the driver sauntered to the back and latched the swinging doors, then got under the wheel and the truck started forward with a lurch. It careened around the next corner and went west two blocks, stopped to make another delivery.

Shayne held himself as inconspicuously as possible against the front end while the driver swung from the seat and went to the back for another package. Luckily, he was a methodical sort and had his bundles placed in order for delivery. He reached in and took one out without looking toward the front.

When he left to make the delivery, Shayne eased the rear doors shut, went to the front of the truck and slid over the back of the seat under the wheel. The motor was purring softly. He started the vehicle and drove away at high speed with the driver’s shouts echoing through the street.

He drove on recklessly toward the bay shore, though he knew it would be insanity to attempt to cross either causeway to the mainland now. Painter wouldn’t lose any time throwing barricades across the only exits from Miami Beach, and the truck driver, too, would have officers searching for the stolen vehicle.

He stopped a few blocks from the east shore of Biscayne Bay and continued on foot, reaching the bay approximately halfway between the County and Venetian causeways, an area dotted with fishing-wharves and boathouses.

Strolling along the beach past picnicking parties and the swankier docks with their trim fishing-craft for hire, he came at last to an isolated and dilapidated wharf which was deserted except for a single Negro fisherman who was preparing to embark in a small rowboat tied to the end of the pier. The Negro was gnarled and old, wearing a battered straw hat and a dirty pair of too-large overalls.

Shayne strolled out to the end of the pier and looked down at the little boat with its cane pole and tin can filled with bait.

“I reckon,” drawled Shayne, “you-all’re goin’ fishin’.”

“Yassuh. Nothin’ else but.” The Negro flashed yellowed teeth at him as he stepped down into the rocking boat.

“I betcha catch mo’ fish with that outfit than a man can get goin’ out on one of them doggone fancy fishin’ boats,” Shayne said cheerfully.

The Negro chuckled. “Yassuh, boss. I kin fo’ a fac’. White fo’ks messes up dey fishin’ wid too much fancy trappin’s.”

“I’d give fifty dollahs to be in yo’ shoes right now,” Shayne said wishfully. “Ain’t had me no decent fishin’ since I left Geo’gia wheah a man can lay on his back an’ jerk out catfish when he’s a mind to pull ’em in.”

“Lawsy, man, you could sho’ nuff be in mah shoes fo’ less’n fifty dollahs.” The old Negro’s mouth spread in a happy smile. “This yere ol’ boat an’ all mah truck ain’ wuth mo’n fo’ty.”

Shayne flexed his arms and yawned drowsily in the bright sunlight. “Wouldn’t be any fun fishin’ that way,” he complained. “Couldn’t get down an’ waller in it like if I had on overalls. An’ the sun’d get me fishin’ on the bay without no hat.”

An eager glint came into the Negro’s eyes. He rolled them at Shayne and said, “Rich mens come down heah and th’ow good money away with fancy trappin’s. This heah ol’ hat makes a moughty good shade fer sittin’ in the bay till they stahts bitin’. An’ I got me on some breeches under these overhalls. I th’ows ’em in wid de boat fer fo’ty dollahs.”

“I’ll take you up on that,” Shayne said. He reached for the hat which the Negro held out, tried it on over his bristly red hair. It was a size small, but the brim turned down to conceal his features effectively.

The Negro climbed out of his baggy overalls before the crazy white man could change his mind. Shayne counted out forty dollars and donned the overalls. He stepped into the boat, and the Negro untied the mooring line, tossed the end aboard, cackling, “Theah you is, suh. They bites mostly down neah the causeway wheah it’s deeper.”

Shayne nodded and set the oars in the locks, put his back muscles into the strokes, and sent the flat-bottomed craft skimming over the gray-green waters away from the shore line.

He settled back and took it easy when he was well out into the bay, letting the boat drift toward the causeway while he rigged out the line and dropped a baited hook overboard.

The hot sun beat down pleasantly on his bowed shoulders and he gave himself over to a drowsy mood of meditation. He had to take it slow getting across the bay. To row briskly might arouse the suspicion of police launches puffing officiously back and forth along the channel patrolling the waterway between the peninsula and the mainland. As he lazily rowed, watching complacently from beneath the wide brim of the tattered straw hat, careful to keep his line in the water, he was vastly amused to see a police barricade operating, stopping and searching every westbound car before it was allowed to proceed to Miami.

He refused to let his mind dwell on the serious position he was in. There would be time for cogitation later. A lot of thought was required now that his carefully dovetailed pieces of the puzzle must be torn apart. His mind had not yet fully recovered from the shock of Marlow’s positive identification of the girl as his wife.

He had been so sure! Now, as he rowed and drifted over the lazily rippling waters in full view of the energetic officers of the law, he cursed himself for having been so positive. Damn all theories until they were indubitably proved! More than once in the past he had disdainfully said that theories were for guys like Peter Painter.

He gritted his teeth and stopped thinking about it, concentrated on the job of fishing his way across to the mainland without arousing suspicion.

It was well after noon before he nosed the blunt prow of the rowboat into the sandy shore of the mainland a couple of blocks north of the County Causeway. There were some bait casters along the shore hopefully tossing lines far out into the deeper water. One of them hailed him with the fisherman’s call, “What luck?” and he shook his head, held up empty hands. He moored the old boat carefully, grinning to himself with the thought that it might come in handy again some day, then walked ashore and circled along back streets toward Rourke’s bachelor quarters in a shabby apartment building not far from the Daily News building.

He bought the regular noon edition of the News at a stand and glanced at the headline. There it was.

Michael Shayne Accused of Murder. Makes Daring Escape From Miami Beach Officers.

He folded the paper and thrust it in the hip pocket of his overalls and pulled the old straw hat farther down over his face.

There was no use blaming Rourke for the headlines. He had a job to hold. Grim satisfaction held his thoughts, however, as he warily approached Rourke’s apartment. With this headline on the streets Jim Marsh wouldn’t feel he had to withdraw from the election in order to ensure winning the money he had bet against himself. All Marsh had to do was sit tight and let the election go against him — as it would certainly do if the murder charge stood against Shayne, who was widely known to be his chief supporter.

A uniformed policeman was lounging against a lamppost half a block from the entrance to Rourke’s apartment building. Shayne circled the block and wandered up the alley pretending an interest in the contents of garbage cans. He ducked into the rear entrance and climbed two flights of service stairs. He held his breath when he came out on the landing, but there were no cops guarding Rourke’s door. The man in front was evidently placed there as a mere precaution, since the officials were positive the fugitive was still bottled up in Miami Beach with no possible way of getting past the police cordon.

Shayne knocked on Rourke’s door but received no reply. He took out a ring of keys. The first one he selected did the trick. He went in and closed the door.

The small living-room was littered with newspapers and magazines. Shayne looked in the bedroom to be sure he was alone, then toured the tiny bathroom and kitchenette. There was nothing to eat in the midget icebox, and the shelves were bare of canned food.

There was a full bottle of whisky on the kitchen shelf. He caught it by the neck and carried it back to the living-room, settled down on the couch with a pillow behind his head. He took a drink and propped the News up on his knees.

He had no idea when Rourke would be in. Generally, he was free in the afternoon, after the regular edition was set, but Shayne realized that there was a chance he might have been detained by the Miami Beach police after his own spectacular escape.

He was afraid to use the telephone to call anyone. The chances were ten to one it was tapped in the hope that he would try to call Rourke.

He took another drink and began reading the newspaper. Rourke must have written the story — or phoned it in. It contained a brief summary of the charges against Shayne, with the evidence against him scrupulously presented.

Shayne grinned. In writing the story Rourke remembered other cases which had been solved and tossed in his lap for scoops. All through it were vague hints that the whole truth was not yet known; that Shayne’s escape had not been the frenzied attempt of a criminal to escape justice, but rather signified the determination of an innocent man to gain a temporary respite to search for evidence that would free him. It touched lightly on Shayne’s attempt to prove the murdered girl was not Helen Stallings, skillfully avoiding any statements of a libelous nature.

He read every word of it with a twisted grin on his gaunt face. This had been a tough one for Timothy Rourke to write. He took a drink, lifting the bottle in a silent toast to his stanch friend.

The story about the unidentified body found floating in the bay was played down to a simple statement of fact, ending with a note that an autopsy would be conducted on the body to determine the exact nature of death.

On the second page of the News, Shayne’s automobile wreck of the preceding night was given prominence. That, too, he knew as he read it, had been written by Rourke. He didn’t call the wreck an accident, but flatly stated that it could only be regarded as an attack on the famous detective’s life by enemies who wanted him out of the way.

Shayne lay on his back with his eyes half closed when he finished the paper and concentrated on finishing the bottle of liquor. Dusk shrouded the room when he finally heard brisk footsteps in the hall outside and the click of a key in the lock. He lay as he was without moving, trusting to luck that Rourke would be alone.

He was. Rourke saw him stretched out on the lounge when he switched on a light. His eyes grew big and round. “Gentle Jerusalem!” he murmured. “I cart a dead body around half the night hiding it from the law and now I’m harboring a fugitive from justice.”

Shayne grinned and swung his legs to the floor. He found his voice whisky-thick when he spoke. “You might as well swing for a skunk as a weasel.”

“How the hell did you make it?” Rourke demanded. “Painter’s got the Beach tied up in a knot — stopping every car on the causeways and he’s got all the harbor police patrolling the bay.”

“Yeh. I saw ’em. They were doing a fine job, too. But Petey forgot about the subway.” He grinned crookedly at Rourke.

Rourke looked suspiciously at the whisky bottle, picked it up and held it to the light and nodded. “Pickled, by God. Drunk as a coot.”

“I’ve stayed too sober on this case. That’s what’s wrong. You know my brain cells don’t circulate without stimulation.”

“It’s time you got stimulated, then,” Rourke breathed explosively. “You’re really on a spot this time. Even if you manage to wiggle out in the end, the election is shot.”

“And I’ve got five grand on Marsh.” Shayne groaned.

Rourke sank into a chair and groaned, too. “I never saw one of your climaxes backfire like that one at the mortuary, Mike. What were you trying to pull? You had me believing all that stuff about Stallings switching girls. You even had Painter almost convinced. Did you figure you had Marlow bribed, or what?”

“Was that the way it looked to you?” Shayne sat sprawled against the back of the couch. He quirked a bushy red brow at Rourke.

“Hell, I don’t know. I never saw you stick your neck out like that before. You acted so damned certain I swear I thought you had everything fixed. Then — blooie!” Rourke made a hopeless gesture, sprang up, and paced the floor.

“What about Marlow?” Shayne asked slowly. “I left so hurriedly I didn’t have time to form an accurate opinion of his reaction. Was he honest, Tim, in saying the girl was actually Helen Stallings?”

Rourke stopped and stared at him in amazement. “So you did believe that hocus-pocus you were telling? You were stuck with it and expected Marlow to bear you out.”

“Sure I did,” Shayne growled. “Hell, every man makes mistakes. I thought I had it doped. I still think so. What I can’t understand is why Marlow fell down on the job. Do you suppose Stallings could have got to him?”

Rourke shook his head. “That girl is Helen Stallings. I talked to Marlow — had plenty of chance after you did your Houdini exit. He was all broken up. He couldn’t put that on. She’s Helen Stallings — at least she’s Whit Marlow’s wife, the Helen Devalon he married in Connecticut.”

Shayne’s gray eyes slitted. Mechanically he reached for the whisky bottle and took a swig while Rourke resumed his pacing, watching Shayne out of the corner of his eye.

Shayne set the bottle down with a thud. A fierce gleam came into his eyes. “All right, we’ll play it that way. If you’re sure, Tim. Sure that Marlow wasn’t faking his identification. And that’s just as good. Hell, it’s better.” The fierce gleam became a pin point of concentration. Shayne was talking to himself, gently massaging his lean chin.

He jumped up. “We’ve got to do it tonight. Right now. The whole story has to break before the polls open tomorrow. We’ve got a lot of things to do, Tim. That is, you’ll have to do most of them.”

Rourke backed away. He put out a hand as if to protect himself from the dynamic figure towering above him. “Not me. Wait. I’m in this thing up to my goozle already. Painter kept me over there a couple of hours trying to make me admit I knew more than I was telling. I lied my soul to hell and beyond. Don’t you know when you’re licked, for Christ’s sake, Mike?”

“No. If you turn me down I’ll have to take a crack at it myself.” His voice was flat and toneless. He lowered his head and thrust out his chin.

Rourke sighed long and audibly. He circled Shayne to pick up the whisky bottle. Pensively, he drained it. Turning slowly to the detective, he said, “All right, Mike. What do we do?”

“First thing is a trip to my apartment. There’s something there on the center table I need.”

“I’ll never make it. You know the place will be full of cops. There’s even one on duty out in front here.”

“Sure it’ll be full of cops,” Shayne agreed cheerfully. “You know most of them. Kid them along. Tell them you’re trying to find me for them, that you hate my guts and want to help hang me. And while you’re there, pick up a water tumbler standing on the center table. Drop a handkerchief over it before you pick it up. It’s got the fingerprints of the dead girl on it.”

“What do you want that for? She’s right over there in the mortuary.”

“Hell of a chance I’d have to get them off her. I need that glass, Tim. Talk about a fast one!” Shayne’s voice was gloating. “I’m going to pull the great-granddaddy of all fast ones. We’ll have them sitting up and begging, Tim. Get going! I’ll slip out the back way and meet you at the alley in twenty minutes.” He grabbed Rourke’s arm and propelled him to the door.

Rourke hesitated, then changed his mind about protesting and went out. Rourke had seen that ruthless look of driving intensity in Michael Shayne’s eyes before. It always preceded a feat of wizardry — and headlines.

Shayne was waiting by the curb when Rourke pulled up almost half an hour later. He jumped in beside the reporter. “Did you get it, Tim?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t. Alonzo Hiatt and Jim Sprague are waiting for you in your apartment. They’ve drunk all your whisky and started on the gin.”

“That’s not gin.” Shayne grinned. “It’s pure grain alcohol. Maybe they’ll get in a festive mood and invite the whole force up.”

“Where to now?” Rourke inquired.

“To the Beach.”

“The Beach? Damn you, Mike, Painter’s got the causeways blocked.”

“He’s not stopping cars going to the Beach.”

“Maybe not.” Rourke shrugged and turned the car southward. “It’s your neck.”

“I’ll hunch down in the back until you’ve passed the barricade,” Shayne said as the reporter turned onto the causeway. He climbed over the seat and folded his long body uncomfortably on the floor as Rourke sped onward, regretting that the human body was possessed of only two possible folding points.

He stayed there while Rourke slowed to a snail’s pace, then crawled back into the front seat when the reporter said, “Okay.”

Rourke chuckled happily as the police barricade was left behind them. “They had forty cars lined up waiting to be searched. I damned near exploded laughing when they waved me past. Would Petey’s face be red if he could see you blithely sneaking back into his trap!”

“Painter’s face will be red anyhow before this night is over,” Shayne asserted grimly. “Know where the Patterson Sanitarium is?”

“Sure. I was thinking about taking the cure there once. What do you want there?”

Shayne grinned. A relaxed grin of real mirth. He looked at Rourke and deliberately forced a look of cunning to his gray eyes. “Don’t tell anyone,” he said ominously. “But I have an operative planted in the sanitarium.”

“An operative?” Rourke took his eyes from the road for an instant to look wonderingly at Shayne, saw the look of sly cunning in his eyes. “By God, Mike, maybe I’m taking you where you belong.”

“S-h-h,” Shayne said. “It’s a dead secret, but I’ve got Sherlock Holmes in with me on this case.”

Rourke’s hands tensed on the wheel. “Now look here, Mike, you’ve let this thing go to your head.”

“The Duchess was murdered there last night,” Shayne went on in a low cautious tone. “I’ve got to get the details and report to the Duke. They’re going to try to pawn off a phony on the Duke.”

Rourke risked taking his eyes from the road once more to stare at the detective. He turned away with a shudder at what he saw.

Shayne chuckled crazily and sank back. He lapsed into silence until Rourke neared the sanitarium, then sat up and directed, “Pull around to the side or back. I’ve got to get in without being seen.”

Rourke’s teeth chattered when he said, “I’ve heard of breaking out of one of these dumps, but I never knew anyone who wanted to break in before. You’re still drunk, Mike.” He slowly circled around the block and stopped at the rear in the shadow of the thick hedge outside the ten-foot wall.

“Keep the kitty purring.” Shayne chuckled as he got out. “I’m liable to come back in one hell of a hurry.”

Rourke compressed his lips to hold back a protest, nodded silently, and let the motor idle.

Shayne worked his way through the intertwined limbs of the hedge with difficulty. When he was within ten feet of the wall he got a running start, leaped up, and grabbed the flat top and swung himself over.

Inside the grounds a floodlight showed some of the inmates circling about aimlessly in the cool evening air. Keeping in the shadows of palms and Australian pines, he stealthily groped his way toward the group, studying them hopefully.

It was difficult to distinguish features in the dim light, but he finally picked out the figure of a little man who looked familiar. He waited until the man wandered nearer to him, then hissed, “Audentes fortuna juvat.”

The little man came to a sudden halt and jerked his head in Shayne’s direction, then casually detached himself from the others and moved aimlessly toward the crouching detective. An orderly who was supervising them paid no particular attention to the self-dubbed Sherlock Holmes.

He stopped in front of Shayne on his short legs and shook his head disapprovingly. “You shouldn’t have come so soon. It’s very dangerous.”

“Sure, I know, but we’re too smart for the Gestapo.” Shayne rose slowly until his face was level with that of the short, wizened man. He reached out and toyed with the zipper of the shapeless garment worn by him — identical with the attire of all the other inmates.

“I’ve been wondering how you get these things on and off. Do they pull all the way down?”

Shayne snapped the zipper down as he spoke.

The little man gave a shrill yelp, but Shayne’s big hands pinioned his shoulders, stripped the garment from his body and wadded it under his arm.

The orderly sensed the struggle in the shadow near the wall and came running, shouting loudly.

Shayne sprinted away, made a leap for the wall, and threw his lean body over the top. He crashed through the hedge and darted toward the waiting car, leaped in, and panted, “Go like hell, Tim.”

Rourke roared away.

When they were a few blocks away from the sanitarium Rourke asked shakily, “What in God’s name did you do in there?”

Shayne spread the purloined garment out on his knees, folded it up tightly. The words, Patterson Sanitarium, were stamped on the back.

He said, “I was just verifying a hunch I had. Those poor devils don’t wear anything under these nighties. I left Sherlock Holmes as naked as a jaybird in shedding time and howling his head off.”

FIFTEEN

“I’LL SWEAR TO GOD, MIKE, you’re drunk or gone nuts,” Rourke said bitterly. “What do you expect to prove by disrobing a crazy man and running off with his clothes?”

Shayne sank back with a sigh. “You ought to take a memory course with some reputable school, Tim. Seems you’ve forgotten the big black headlines I’ve handed you in the past.”

Rourke relaxed and asked, “What’s next on the program?”

“Know where Swordfish Island is?”

“Stallings’s place? Yeh.”

“That’s our next stop.” Shayne lit a cigarette and settled back. When they neared the bridge approach to the island, he directed, “Pull up on this side of the bridge. I’d rather not advertise my presence.”

Rourke got out with Shayne and followed him across the bridge. “Whom do we undress here?” he asked interestedly.

“No horsing around,” Shayne warned him sternly. “If you know how to pray you might ask God to preserve the Irish. We’re liable to need a special dispensation.”

He led the way along the winding road silently, turned into the shrubbery before coming in sight of the mansion. They slipped along behind the hedge which screened them from the house, reached a double garage in the rear without being observed.

The doors stood open, and Shayne nodded with satisfaction when he saw one empty stall and the other occupied by a long black sedan. He went to the front of the car and examined the radiator grill and left fender by the light of a flickering match. He shook his head disappointedly when he found them unmarred.

Observing him, Rourke said, “If this is the boat that crashed your car last night you could hardly expect it to still show the damage. They’ve got ways of fixing fenders as good as new in a couple of hours.”

“Yeh,” Shayne agreed. “I guess it was asking too much to hope that evidence would be sitting here waiting for us.” He moved back and opened the rear door of the sedan, leaned inside for a moment, then withdrew and closed the door gently. He muttered, “Let’s get out of here,” and led the way back behind the hedge to the road and Rourke’s parked car.

“Let’s find the closest telephone. There’s a filling-station a couple of blocks east.”

Rourke drove to the filling-station without asking any questions. It was clear that the redheaded detective was fiercely concentrating on some plan, plotting each move in his mind as an expert chess player visualizes the game far in advance of his plays, and Rourke was content to follow along and see what happened.

In the filling-station Shayne called the Stallings residence. A maid answered. He asked, “Is the chauffeur there?”

“Yes. Mr. Stallings drove the light car to his campaign headquarters.”

“Sure. I know that,” Shayne lied. “I’m calling for him. He’s had car trouble and wants the chauffeur to pick him up right away in the big car.”

The maid said, “I’ll give him the message at once.” Shayne hung up and trotted back to Rourke and directed, “Back to the bridge, quick.”

Upon reaching it, he ordered again, “Drive up on the bridge and stop. Cut your wheels so you block it to keep another car from passing.”

The headlights of the limousine were backing out of the Stallings garage when they reached the top of the arched bridge. Shayne jumped out and ran lightly down the other side while Rourke cut his wheels and parked his light sedan at an angle which effectually blocked the narrow passage.

The big black car came smoothly down the winding road, slowed as it approached the bridge. The driver stuck his head out the window and yelled at Rourke, “Hey, what’s the idea up there?”

Shayne came from the side of the road where he had been waiting. The chauffeur’s head sticking from the window made a perfect target for his lead-weighted fist. He struck a light blow at the back of the head where it joined the neck. The chauffeur went limp without knowing what hit him.

Shayne dragged him out and across the road to the shadow of a palm. He hurried back to the limousine and got in, backed away a distance of twenty feet from the bridge, then rolled forward in low gear. Approaching the concrete abutment, he twirled the wheel and let the weight of the car crumple the left fender and radiator grill against the concrete.

He then backed away and maneuvered the heavy car about, drove to the concrete driveway and back into the garage. He slid out of the seat and trotted back to the bridge where Rourke patiently waited for him.

The reporter flashed him a quizzical smile as Shayne got in beside him. “Neatly engineered,” he approved. “If you can’t find the evidence you need, just manufacture it.”

“Your brain is beginning to function,” Shayne said with marked flattery. “Let’s get back to that telephone booth.”

Rourke backed off the bridge and headed for the service station. Inside the phone booth, Shayne laid out four nickels. He called the Stallings campaign headquarters first. When a voice said Mr. Stallings was there, Shayne said, “Give him this message. Doctor Patterson calling. It’s imperative that Mr. Stallings return home at once. Absolutely imperative.”

Shayne hung up and called the Patterson Sanitarium. “Mr. Burt Stallings,” he said crisply. “Have Doctor Patterson come immediately. Tell him it’s a matter of life and death.” He hung up before any questions could be asked and called the Bugle Inn.

He got Arch Bugler on the wire and said, “Mike Shayne talking.”

“Haven’t they hung you yet?” a voice purred in Shayne’s ear.

“Not yet,” Shayne told him cheerfully. “I’m out at the Stallings place having a little conference with Burt and Doctor Patterson. We’ve about decided to hang the rap on you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Arch Bugler’s voice reverted back to that of other days.

Shayne’s laugh was harsh and taunting. “As if you didn’t know. Hell, Bugler, you knew they’d crack under pressure — and you should have known I was just the boy to put the pressure on. Personally, I’m against making you the goat. I’d much rather hang it on Stallings — and win the election for Marsh. That’s why I’m calling you. We might fix something up if you’ll play ball with me.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Arch Bugler said gruffly.

Shayne called Jim Marsh’s apartment. The mayoralty candidate answered the phone. Shayne said cheerfully, “I’ve got everything fixed, Jim. Nothing to worry about now. I’m out here at Stallings’s house and he’s preparing to make a statement withdrawing from the race in your favor.”

“Good Lord, Shayne! What — But I thought — Do you mean that about Stallings?”

“Sure. It was the only way you could possibly win. After that newspaper story accusing me of murder you were sunk unless Stallings stepped out. So — I fixed it for you.”

“Wait, Shayne.” Marsh’s voice was panicky. “Wait until I can see you and talk it over.”

“I’ve got five grand invested in you,” Shayne reminded him.

“Yes, I know. That’s what I mean. I’ll take care of that so you won’t lose. Let me have a chance to talk with you privately.”

“Come on out, then, but make it snappy. We’ll hold off until you get here.”

Shayne emerged from the booth and grinned at Timothy Rourke. “It’s your turn now,” he said. “Call Painter and tell him I’ve just slipped across to Swordfish Island with murderous intent. Tell him to throw a cordon around the island so I can’t get away. And have him bring Whit Marlow along if he knows where the lad is.”

“I hope,” said Rourke, “you know what you’re doing.”

“So,” said Shayne gravely, “do I.” He gave Rourke a shove toward the phone booth. “Get in there and do your stuff. You can explain that your friendship with me stops at being an accomplice to murder.”

Rourke nodded when he came out of the booth. “He’ll have the island surrounded in ten minutes.”

“Come on. We’ve got to get over the bridge before the police get here. Wouldn’t do to disappoint Petey.”

They drove across the bridge, and Rourke parked in front of the house. They withdrew to the shelter of some shrubbery instead of entering the house at once, and watched while the procession began to arrive.

Dr. Patterson came first, with Burt Stallings right behind him. Arch Bugler was next, followed in a few minutes by Jim Marsh.

As Marsh went up the walk, Shayne nudged Rourke and grinned. “Time we were getting in on this. It ought to be good about now.”

They hurried up the walk behind Marsh, and Shayne caught the door as it swung shut behind him. He and Rourke entered in time to see Marsh following the maid out of the small anteroom. They trailed along to the library, a spacious high-ceilinged room already vibrating with loud questions tossed among the trio who had entered first. Marsh contributed to the general consternation when he entered and nervously asked for Shayne.

The detective lounged into the room behind Marsh and grinned widely at the confused expressions on the faces of the four who confronted him. He held up a big hand to halt the barrage of angry denunciations flung at him.

“Hold everything, gentlemen. I wanted to get you all together for a conference and I told each of you something that I thought would bring you in a hurry. That’s all there is to it.”

Dr. Patterson stood across the room near a window with his hands thrust in his coat pockets, glaring at Shayne. Arch Bugler was sunk deep in a chair with a sour sneer on his swart features. Jim Marsh stood near the door looking worried and uncertain. Burt Stallings took immediate command of the situation.

As soon as Shayne finished speaking, he rumbled, “I believe the police are anxious to get their hands on you, Shayne.” He strode forward toward a telephone stand behind Bugler.

Shayne laughed shortly. “You needn’t bother calling the police, Stallings. The island is already surrounded, and Painter will be here any minute to arrest the murderer.”

Stallings stopped a pace from the phone. The look of indecision went away from his face when bustling footsteps sounded in the hall and Painter appeared in the doorway behind Shayne. Whit Marlow, looking frightened and depressed, was by the detective chief’s side.

“There’s your man, Painter,” Stallings said, and pointed a long forefinger at Shayne. “I can’t imaging why he chose this melodramatic fashion of surrendering himself, but I hope you’ll manage to hold on to him this time.” His frown of disapproval rested on Painter’s immaculate features and attire.

“He won’t get away from us again.” Painter stepped back and jerked his head at two of his men in the hall. “Put the cuffs on the redhead,” he directed brusquely.

Shayne allowed his wrists to be handcuffed, though he protested. “You’re making another one of your damn-fool mistakes, Painter. Better save this hardware for the real criminal.”

“I’m satisfied to have them on you. Are you coming along, quietly?”

“I’d prefer to do a little talking while we’re all here together.”

“Go ahead,” Peter Painter crowed. “I don’t think even you can talk yourself out of this.”

Shayne shrugged his broad shoulders. “I made the mistake of talking this morning before I was sure of my facts. Like so many theories that look good, mine was faulty in that it didn’t take into account every fact in my possession. I didn’t take into consideration, for instance, the fact that nice girls generally wear pants even underneath a dress and slip.”

Blank silence followed his words. Rourke stared at him wonderingly, and grimaced when Shayne turned to him and added casually, “Remember, Tim? You were the one who noticed Helen Stallings wasn’t wearing any accessories under her dress.”

Rourke snorted loudly. “As if that proved anything. Not here in this Miami climate, Mike. Half the girls I know don’t wear any pants.”

“I said nice girls,” Shayne stressed. “But her lack of underclothing isn’t the only thing I’m hanging my present theory on. In addition to that you also made disparaging mention of the fact that she wore no make-up or nail color, and that her hair was unkempt and stringy. Remember?”

“When was all this?” Painter asked hoarsely.

Shayne shrugged his shoulders. “While Rourke was helping me dispose of her body the other night.”

“Disposing of her body, eh? So, you’ve decided to confess it?”

“Why, yes,” Shayne said. “I held out two or three things on you this morning because they looked bad for me. I lied when I told you the girl was snatched from my apartment while I was at the depot. She wasn’t snatched. She was strangled in my bed. She was lying in there dead while you and Stallings were there a short time later. Then I lost her, but not for long. Remember the crack-up I was in around midnight on Biscayne Boulevard? That was staged to toss her back in my lap. She was a passenger in the car that crashed into me.”

Painter snorted angrily. “That’s a likely story. Got any proof?”

“Rourke will verify it. He was invaluable in chauffeuring her around. Any time any of you gentlemen wish to dispose of a corpse I can recommend Tim.”

Rourke shuddered and swore explosively. Shayne silenced him with sudden gravity of words and expression. “I’ve got to tell all this, Tim. It’s an important part of my case.”

He turned back to the roomful of listening men. “Well, there you are. A girl comes to my apartment to talk, but is too full of dope to talk when she gets there. I hide her in my bedroom to keep my wife from seeing her. I rush my wife to the depot and when I return the girl has been strangled in my bed. I leave my apartment for a short time and when I return the body has been snatched. Later a wreck is staged to shove her back onto me — without pants. Do you begin to see any logic behind those reasonless acts of the killer?” Shayne paused. “This next, without the rest of the case, might not mean as much as I think it does. Maybe”—his grin was less than convincing—“maybe some of you know more than I do about what the modern gals are wearing. Want to qualify as an expert, Painter?” He didn’t wait for a reply, but went on swiftly. “According to me, anyhow, most nice girls wear pants when they go out on the street — and lipstick and rouge and nail color. Why, even the gal found floating in the bay last night with nothing else on wore pants and a brassiere. Rut if you’ll look at the police report on the discovery of Helen Stallings’s body this morning you’ll see that she wore neither, only a silk dress. But Helen was a nice girl by all accepted standards. There’s only one explanation. She had been some place where even nice girls don’t wear underthings. A hospital, maybe. A sanitarium like yours, Doctor Patterson. None of your patients wear anything under those Mother Hubbards you put on them and none of them have any facilities for prettying up.”

Dr. Patterson opened his mouth to protest.

“I’m doing the talking,” Shayne interrupted savagely. “The girl who came to my office yesterday afternoon too doped to do any talking was wearing a blue silk dress, and, I’m convinced, the conventional silk things underneath. Not that I made a personal examination, you understand. She looked like that sort of girl. Also, I don’t recall noticing particularly that she wasn’t wearing the normal amount of make-up and nail polish, which indicates she probably was. Nowadays, one notices the absence of such things, but not their presence. Later, Helen Stallings appears on the scene, choked to death but indecently nude underneath. What happened to the pants and brassiere in the meantime?

“I’ll tell you. They’re on the body of the girl found floating in the bay, the one whose head and face were battered beyond recognition to hide the damning fact that her death was actually due to strangulation. That’s the girl who was throttled in my office — the one who called herself Helen Stallings.”

A babble of incredulous protests and questions arose when Shayne paused. He turned to Painter. “Get the autopsy report on that girl and you’ll see I’m right. The head wounds were inflicted after she was strangled.”

“I still don’t see any sense to what you’re saying,” Peter Painter bubbled. “You admit the dead girl is actually Helen Stallings—”

“Sure. The body that was dumped back on me after the wreck. The murderer switched bodies in the meantime. He put the blue dress on Helen Stallings and threw the other body in the bay. After committing the first murder he had to go on with it and kill Helen, too. He went to Patterson’s Sanitarium where she has been kept in a padded inner cell ever since the switch was made a month ago and hung her by the neck so the same marks of strangulation would show and I’d think it the girl who was killed in my office. The girls were of the same type and build, of course. Then he took the body away, naked except for the single garment they wear there, dressed her in the blue dress he had stripped from his first victim, and engineered the crash with my car to get her back in my possession, hoping she would be found at the scene of the crash.

“The car that crashed into me was a black limousine,” Shayne went on swiftly. “The left fender and radiator grill were smashed in the crash. When you find that car you’ll have your double murderer, Painter. It isn’t just chance that Stallings owns a black limousine. The man who slipped into my apartment and murdered the girl is one who knew she was coming there to expose the whole rotten situation. Stallings is the only man who knew she was going to me to spill the beans. He admits that Baldy telephoned him from the Bugle Inn. I advise you to check the condition of Stallings’s limousine.”

“Good God above, Shayne.” Painter’s forefinger trembled across his tiny black mustache. “Are you actually serious?”

“I demand that you assure yourself my automobile is undamaged,” Stallings put in resonantly. “This entire fabric of lies is the most preposterous thing I ever heard of.”

“Well, I — sure. In fairness to you, Mr. Stallings, I’ll have a man look at your car.” Painter turned to one of his men and said, “Blake, go out to the garage and see that’s what.”

“And I would advise that you check the car over,” Shayne suggested. “There may be other clues in the back seat where the body-switching took place. A checkup should have been made immediately after the accident — wreck,” Shayne amended.

When Blake departed hurriedly, Shayne turned to Painter and went on.

“I’ve got all the proof you need. Give me that water tumbler, Tim.”

Rourke drew the glass from his coat pocket, carefully wrapped in a handkerchief. Shayne handed it to Painter. “There’s a full set of fingerprints on that glass. I took them from the girl’s fingers after I found her murdered. All you have to do is compare them with the prints of the body from the bay to prove I’m right.”

Blake rushed excitedly into the room while Painter was examining the tumbler. Blake was carrying a long white muslin garment unzipped down the front.

“Look at this, chief. Found it stuffed down behind the back seat. And the fender’s smashed right enough, just like Mr. Shayne said.”

“What is that thing?” Stallings demanded. “The fender can’t be smashed. I tell you it can’t.”

“You’ll hang, Stallings,” Shayne told him quietly, “just because your chauffeur neglected to get that fender fixed today.”

“By God,” said Painter softly, “this is a robe from the Patterson Sanitarium, all right. Must have been stuffed in there when he stripped it off her.”

“No — no,” Stallings argued in a choked voice. “I don’t know how that got there. It’s a frame-up. I’ve been framed, I tell you. That fender was all right an hour ago.”

“Framed, hell!” Shayne snorted. “Why, it had to be you, Stallings. You were the only one who knew the girl was going to my office. No one else could have done it.”

“That’s not true. I’m not the only one. He knew.” Stallings pointed a shaking finger at Arch Bugler. “I phoned Bugler and told him what Baldy said. He’s the one—”

“You dirty rat.” Bugler’s laboriously cultivated purr deserted him. He came out of his chair with a gun in his hand.

Whit Marlow had been sitting quiet throughout Shayne’s recital. His silence was more that of a man stunned by grief than by the revelations of the redheaded detective. He came to life like a snarling tiger and rushed Bugler with flailing fists.

“You doped her — you killed her! You killed Helen! You strangled my wife. Why didn’t you kill me, too? You had the opportunity when you doped me in your office.”

Bugler’s pistol was aimed at the young man’s heart, his finger on the trigger when two Miami Beach policemen caught his arms from behind and pinioned them to his side, disarming him with deft, strong hands. Another policeman was busy taking the handcuffs from Shayne’s wrists to shackle Bugler.

Marlow, taking advantage of Bugler’s helplessness, landed a right and left to his pudgy jaws, then fell back, sobbing. In a few minutes he went quietly from the room.

Stallings stopped his babbling to look on with grim satisfaction, then continued.

“Bugler got me into all of it. He suggested putting Helen in the asylum and substituting another girl who looked like her. He had some hold on Doctor Patterson and arranged with him to keep my wife drugged. I was crazy to agree to it, but I didn’t mean any real harm to Helen.”

Shayne interrupted harshly, “Not so fast, Doctor Patterson. You might cut yourself if you try to go through that window.”

Peter Painter echoed his words. “Not so fast, Doctor Patterson. Cover him there, you men.” With Bugler shackled, one of the officers stepped over to Patterson and shoved him back in his chair.

Stallings went on. “I meant to have Helen released after I had time to straighten out the estate. Then last night when I called Bugler he said for me not to worry, that he’d take care of everything. But, God! I didn’t know what he meant. I swear I didn’t. I thought he was just going to get hold of her and keep her quiet. I wrote that kidnap note thinking to take advantage of the situation and implicate Shayne as an election trick. But I’m not guilty of murder. I swear I’m not.” He sank into a chair, bereft of all his splendid dignity.

“I guess it was Bugler, all right.” Shayne turned to Painter. “That sanitarium Mother Hubbard could have got into his car a lot of ways. And I just happened to remember that I saw his chauffeur run into the bridge abutment this evening. He must’ve been drunk. You’ll probably find him sleeping it off now.”

Painter strutted forward and commanded, “Take Stallings and Patterson into custody along with Bugler.”

“One other thing,” Shayne said, turning to Stallings. “Your maid, Lucile. It might interest Mr. Painter to know he’ll find her in the padded cell recently vacated by the Duchess.”

Painter whirled to face Shayne. “Maid? Duchess?”

Shayne grinned widely. “I mean the padded cell occupied by Helen. Lucile had some information for me that I never got. Stallings and Bugler and Patterson saw to that.”

“Stop your clowning, Shamus, and talk straight,” Painter demanded.

“Doctor Patterson’s institution could stand an investigation by the Beach authorities,” Shayne said grimly. “You’ll find the Stallings maid, a perfectly sane girl, in a padded cell, and it wouldn’t surprise me any if he isn’t keeping some of the others nutty by feeding them dope.” Painter looked a long way up into the detective’s eyes with a glint of suspicion in his own snapping black ones. “Are you sure all this is on the level, Shamus?”

“There’s your case, all done up in tissue paper and ribbon.” Shayne chuckled.

Painter clicked his heels and whirled toward his men. “Take them out — all three of them,” he commanded.

When Rourke and Marsh and Shayne were alone, Jim Marsh sidled up to Shayne. The expression on his face was painful to behold.

“Even though Stallings isn’t the actual murderer,” he said, “this disgrace is sure to defeat him at the polls tomorrow. Do you realize what that means, Shayne?”

“Sure. It means I win five grand by backing you. Five grand of your own money, by the way.” Shayne hesitated, then demanded angrily, “What in hell got into you, anyway, Marsh? When I backed you for mayor I knew you weren’t any second Roosevelt, but I didn’t expect you to turn into a stinker who’d lose his nerve and bet money against himself — and then plan on withdrawing to make sure he won his bets. Hell, that’s the lousiest sort of thievery possible.”

Jim Marsh looked old and stricken. He avoided Shayne’s relentless, boring eyes. “I deserve everything you say. I deserve to lose that money I bet against myself. I haven’t told you this, but a week ago I received an anonymous death threat unless I withdrew from the race. I guess I just went crazy with worry. It seemed to me I’d be striking back by taking advantage of the situation to bet my money on Stallings. I realize now how dishonest it would have been. The men who’d have lost wouldn’t have been the ones who threatened me. It’s retributive justice that I should be the one to lose.” He squared his shoulders and faced Shayne with a look of new-found dignity.

“I’ll be cleaned out when I win tomorrow. I’ll start afresh, and I swear I’ll keep the slate clean.”

Shayne took his hand and pressed it hard. “I believe you will, Marsh. I knew I couldn’t be altogether wrong about you.” He turned to Tim Rourke and grunted, “You’d better start writing for the headlines. And I’ve got to catch a plane. I’m afraid Phyllis hasn’t been enjoying herself much in New York. And I could certainly stand a date with a live woman for a change.”

MICHAEL SHAYNE AS I KNOW HIM

by Brett Halliday

MANY OF MY READERS are familiar with the dramatic first meeting between myself and the man who was later to become the central figure in a series of mystery novels featuring a redheaded, fighting Irishman whom I call Michael Shayne. This first meeting occurred on the Tampico water front more than a quarter of a century ago. I was a youngster then, working as deck hand on a Pan American oil tanker, and on a stopover in Tampico a bunch of us spent the evening ashore in a tough water-front saloon.

I noticed him before the fight started, and was intrigued by him even then. A big, rangy redhead with deep lines already forming on his face. He sat at a table in the rear, surrounded by lights and music and girls. There was a bottle of tequila on the table in front of him, and two glasses. One of the glasses held ice water, and he was drinking straight Mexican liquor from the other.

I don’t remember how the fight started, but it turned into a beautiful brawl with half a dozen unarmed American sailors slugging it out on uneven terms with twice as many natives who seemed to be carrying knives or guns.

We were doing all right, as I remember, making what you might call a strategic retreat and almost out the door, when I got a crack on the head that sent me under a table.

I remember lying there and wondering dazedly, What next, little man? when I heard the crash of a rear table overturning and peered out to see the redhead sailing into the fracas.

He was a fighting man, and you could see he loved it. Three or four Mexicans went down in front of his fists before he reached me, dragged me from under the table, and tossed me out the door bodily.

That was all of that. I got back to the ship somehow; we sailed the next morning, and I didn’t know who the man was or what he was doing in that saloon or why he came to the rescue of a fool kid he’d never seen before.

I still don’t know any of those things, though I believe I now know him better than any other man alive.

It was four years before I ran into that redheaded Irishman again. A coincidence? Sure. This story is full of crazy coincidences — the sort that happen in real life but that no writer would dare put between the covers of a book.

It was in New Orleans, and I was four years older and maybe a little wiser. I was broke and jobless, and I wandered into a Rampart Street bar on a foggy night. There he was, sitting alone at a rear table with a bottle in front of him and two water glasses. One of them was half full of ice water, and he was sipping cognac from the other.

He didn’t recognize me, of course, but he did remember the fight in Tampico, and he grinned and gave me a drink of cognac when I thanked him for that time. He didn’t talk much, but he did say he was working as a private detective. He was friendly, and we were getting along fine until a girl walked in and stood at the bar, looking the place over.

I saw his big frame stiffen and the lines in his cheeks deepen into trenches as she walked toward us. His left thumb and forefinger went up to rub the lobe of his ear as she stopped beside our table and leaned forward and said, “Hello, Mike,” in a throaty voice.

That was all. He didn’t reply, and in a moment she turned away and went swiftly out the door. Two men had followed her inside, and they began to move slowly toward us — casually but purposefully.

That’s when he leaned forward and told me swiftly to get out of town fast and forget I’d seen him.

He stood up before I could ask any questions, strolled forward, and the two men closed in on each side of him. They went out in a group and disappeared in the swirling fog of Rampart Street.

That was our second meeting. I didn’t know who the girl and the two men were, or why Mike walked out with them so quietly.

I still don’t know, though I have a feeling that things happened then that had some bearing on the feud between him and Captain Denton of the New Orleans police — a feud which flared up anew during a case described in the book I titled Michael Shayne’s Long Chance.

It was years later when the next act occurred. I had begun writing books (not mystery novels) and was living in Denver, Colorado. I had never been able to put the memory of the redhead out of my mind, and there was a network radio program originating in New York which offered people a chance to broadcast an appeal for information concerning relatives or friends with whom they had lost contact.

Planning a business trip to New York to see my publishers, I wrote the manager of the program and asked to be allowed to tell my story over the air.

I did so, with an astonishing and completely unforeseen result. A few days after the broadcast I was informed from Denver that a man named Connor Michael Shawn, ex-actor, theatrical manager, and private detective, had tuned in my broadcast on his deathbed and declared to his wife that he believed himself to be the man I was describing over the air.

Connor Michael Shawn died the next day, and when I returned to Denver a few days later I immediately visited his wife and discussed the situation with her. Many of the facts of his life as she knew them checked with the dates and places of my story. The photographs she showed me were not conclusive. I felt that Shawn might have been my “Mike,” but I couldn’t be positive.

I wasn’t positive until more than a year later when I was holed up in a one-room log cabin at Desolation Bend, on the Gunnison River in Colorado, trying desperately to write three novels in thirty days (which I did, incidentally).

Mike turned up one day in a cabin near mine on the river. That was when I learned his real name (which isn’t Shayne). He gave no explanation for his presence except that he was on vacation from a lucrative private detective practice in Miami, Florida.

This meeting, I now believe, was not so much of a coincidence as it appeared at the time. From small things he has let slip since then, I believe he had heard about the radio broadcast and, being in the neighborhood, had taken the trouble to look me up out of curiosity.

At any rate, that was the beginning of an intimate friendship that has now endured for more than a decade and has furnished material for twenty books based on his cases.

We drank cognac together in his cabin and mine during the long lazy evenings that followed my stint at the typewriter, and talked about his work as a detective and my unrealized dream of writing mystery stories. There was no real compact reached between us at that time, but when he left to go back to Miami I had an invitation to visit him there whenever I wished.

I followed him South a couple of months later, and he seemed pleased when I turned up in his modest apartment on the north bank of the Miami River, overlooking Biscayne Bay.

That night over a bottle of Martell, he told me he had fallen in love for the first time in his life — with Phyllis Brighton whom he had just cleared of a charge of matricide.

Mike was a lonely and brooding man that night. He had sent Phyllis away, gently but firmly, a few days earlier, and he honestly did not hope ever to see her again. She was too young, he told me over and over again. Too young and too sweet and trusting to waste herself on a man like him.

I didn’t argue with Mike that night. Nor point out any of the obvious things. I did draw him into a discussion of the case just ended, and before the sun rose over Biscayne Bay he had agreed to turn his notes on the Brighton affair over to me for a novel which I called Dividend on Death.

Before this book was published, he had met Phyllis Brighton again (as I have related in The Private Practice of Michael Shayne), and when that case was ended Mike had capitulated.

I was best man at their wedding, and saw them installed in the larger corner apartment above Mike’s old bachelor quarters which he kept and fitted up sketchily as an office.

The next few years, I am positive, were the happiest Mike has ever known. Phyllis worried him sometimes by insisting as acting as his secretary and getting herself mixed up in some of his cases, but there was perfect companionship and understanding between them, culminating in a long-delayed honeymoon trip to Colorado — where Mike managed to get himself mixed up with murder in the old ghost town of Central City. He gave me the details of this case, and I used them in Murder Wears a Mummer’s Mask.

Back in Miami, there was one more adventure together before that black night when I sat with Mike in the hospital waiting-room, sweating it out with him while the baby which Phyllis so ardently desired was being born.

I went back to his apartment with him at dawn, and sat across the room from the big redhead in a deep chair while he wept unashamedly. Both Phyllis and the baby were gone, and the doctors didn’t know why.

He swore at that time he would never touch another case that dealt with death, and I think he might have kept that resolution had he not received a telephone call in the night that sent him out on the trail of a vicious gang of black marketeers. I wrote about that one in Blood on the Black Market.

I noted a subtle change in Mike’s inner character after Phyllis’s death. In some ways he became more ruthless and driving and demanding of himself, but the hard outer shell of assumed cynicism was cracked, and for the first time in his life he wasn’t afraid to let traces of gentleness and pity shine through.

I was glad when he closed his office and went to New Orleans (Michael Shayne’s Long Chance), and gladder still after that case was ended and he had met Lucy Hamilton and acquired a new secretary.

People ask me now if Mike and Lucy are likely to be married. I have to answer honestly that I simply do not know. I am sure they understand and respect each other, and that Mike loves her as much as his memories of Phyllis will allow him to love any woman. They are happy together in the companionship and intimacy of dangerous work and that appears to be enough for them at the moment. Moreover, they are back at Mike’s old hunting-grounds in Miami now, and that town is beginning to be known as much for Mike as for its famous climate.

About the man himself — I have written most of what I know in my accounts of his cases. I think his most important attribute is absolute personal honesty. He not only does not lie to anyone else; what is more important, he does not lie to himself.

I think the characteristic most important in his spectacular success as a private detective is his ability to drive straight forward to the heart of the matter without deviating one iota for obstacles or confusing side issues. He has an absolutely logical mind which refuses to be sidetracked.

Shayne is just an average guy, with average education, intelligence, and common sense. He has no special knowledge which puts him ahead of the reader in solving a case. His method of solving a murder is to move right into the case on a line of absolute logic (disregarding the personal risk involved). In other words, he is never led aside by plot twists which require him to avoid questioning a suspect in the middle of the book just because that suspect knows the answers and thus would end the book. In doing this, Mike naturally makes mistakes. But if you’ll study the books carefully, I think you’ll find he always does the thing that seems right at the time. It may well turn out to have been the wrong thing in the end. But it is the logical thing from the facts in his possession at the time he acts.

He acts on impulse sometimes, or on hunches; but always the impelling force is definite logic. While other detectives are wandering aimlessly about in a maze of conjecture and doubt, Mike selects a certain path and drives forward inexorably in one direction until he is proved right — or wrong. When he makes a mistake, he wastes no time in idle repining, but adjusts his sights and turns just as inexorably in another direction.

At various times readers have complained to me that in my books about him Mike seems to seek danger needlessly; that he seems to take an almost masochistic pleasure in thrusting himself into a situation which inevitably results in physical pain to himself.

To those readers I can only say that I fear they have not followed the published accounts of his cases carefully. I have never heard Mike say, “Had I but known.” Invariably, I have seen him calculate the risk involved carefully, weighing the results that may be attained by a certain course of action against the probable lack of results if he chooses to move cautiously. Once convinced that a risk is worth taking, he pushes forward and accepts the consequences as a part of his job.

It is this driving urgency and lack of personal concern more than any other thing, I think, that serves to wind up most of Mike’s most difficult cases so swiftly. In time, few of his cases have consumed more than one or two days. Readers have complained that he doesn’t seem to eat or sleep on a case. He does, of course, but only if there is nothing more important to do at the time. He drinks more cognac than any other man I have ever known, but I have never seen Mike drunk. Actually, while relaxing between cases he is a very moderate drinker.

This sums up Michael Shayne as I know him. The hardest work I do in writing my accounts of his cases is attempting to make my readers see Mike as he is, to feel what Mike feels, to know the man himself as I know him. Insofar as I succeed in this, my books are successful. Certainly no writer ever had a better subject with whom to work.