“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.”