Chapter one

MICHAEL SHAYNE said, “So this is what we’ve waited a week to see.” He stood in the doorway of the historic Teller House in Central City, and let his eyes roam pleasurably over the scene.

“I told you it would be worth coming all the way to Colorado to see.” Phyllis stood on tiptoe trying to see over the heads of the crowd swarming over walks and street.

By mid-afternoon of opening day of the annual Play Festival, Central City was beginning to look like the hell-roaring town it would become by nightfall. Since early morning tourists and natives and first-nighters from Denver had been streaming into the ancient mining village wedged between the steep walls of a gulch high in the Rockies — a town built more than sixty years before by rugged pioneers in a ravine so narrow that the creek flowing along the bottom had to be flumed over with stout boards to make space for the business district.

For a pleasant, dreamy week Michael and Phyllis had watched the old town slowly stretch itself and come to life again. Vacationing in the high country had been perfect, with July nights icy, and long, lazy, sunny days for hiking into the mountains pockmarked with tunnels and scarred with placer mines which had produced tons of gold in the Sixties.

A rising tide of excitation was rushing toward a climax of frenzied activity today. Ghost stores were refurbished and opened; small shops that barely eked out an existence eleven months of the year glistened with fresh paint, and counters were replenished with merchandise. All week, miners had been drifting in from the hills, getting their whiskers trimmed and donning new overalls for the Festival. Two deserted buildings on Main Street were transformed into gambling casinos to re-create the spirit of the Sixties and to raise money for charity.

Up and down the steep walls of Eureka Gulch the shuttered homes built by pioneers were opened by new owners who would keep open house during the three weeks of the Festival, and since early morning progressive cocktail parties were the order of the day.

Shayne nodded to his eager young wife. “I’m beginning to believe you, Phyl. Your idea for a vacation in the Rockies wasn’t bad.” He caught her arm and they moved into the gay throng drifting down Eureka Street. Crossing at the corner, they passed old structures which had once been important business buildings, but were now in ill repair and vacant.

Heavy black clouds hung above jagged western peaks, blotting out the sun, but failing to dampen the holiday spirit of the throng. Streaks of lightning forked through the lowering clouds, and the roar of thunder was added to the noise of feet tramping on boardwalks, and the hubbub of talk and laughter. A stiff breeze swept through the narrow canyon, bending the boughs of stately spruce and quaking aspens on the canyon walls.

“Oh, I hope it won’t rain and spoil everything,” Phyllis cried. She clung to her hat with one hand and to Shayne’s arm with the other.

Shayne chuckled. “It would take more than rain to spoil their fun. If it rains everybody out of the streets there’s enough room to open up in some of these old buildings.”

“But the streets would be all muddy — and slippery,” she protested. “I think it would be a shame.”

“We can’t complain, angel,” he answered. “We’ve had a good week up here. It has to rain sometimes, you know.”

“Oh, it has been fun! I was thrilled to meet some of the actors and actresses. Why, they’re just like other people. I’d always imagined they would be snooty.” She laughed gaily as the wind whipped her short skirt.

Shayne pulled his hat tighter on his red head and looked up at the darkened sky. An ominous black cloud appeared to hang lower than the gray film. It moved in the high wind, growing larger momently.

“Looks like we’re going to get it,” he said, “and quick.”

“There’s no use trying to hurry,” Phyllis laughed. “That is, unless everybody hurries.”

Raindrops suddenly spattered in the street, a forerunner of the deluge that sent the crowd scurrying for shelter. Michael and Phyllis were swept along by mass movement into a huge and well-stocked general store, the largest and only modern establishment in the town.

Pushing their way through the double doors, Phyllis shivered from the icy wetness of her suit, but her dark eyes sparkled as they flashed around the walls and occasionally glimpsed a gaily bedecked counter through an opening between the throng of shelter seekers.

“I’ve been planning to lure you in here,” she said, “ever since I saw the marvelous display of Indian blankets in the window.”

Shayne took out his wallet and handed her a sheaf of bills. “Here, go pick out a blanket and wrap it around you. You’re all wet.”

“But — I want you to help me select one, Michael,” she urged.

“Not me,” he said emphatically. “I wouldn’t tackle that mob for forty Indian blankets.”

He grinned and watched her eel her way through, murmuring apologies, then turned to stare through the plate-glass window. Rain fell in wind-driven sheets. The steep street and gutters were a rushing torrent. People were still pushing through the doors, and on the boardwalk women laughed and squealed and shivered as male escorts urged them along.

While the last of them were pressing into the store, Shayne stood on feet planted wide apart, knobby hands thrust deep into trousers pockets, his coarse red brows drawn down in a straight line over slitted gray eyes. Something within him responded to the elemental fury of the mountain storm. He felt alive and vibrant. A week in the high country had dispelled the lethargy which had slowly crept over him at sea-level Florida.

A sardonic smile twitched his wide mouth. His big hands drew up into fists in his pockets. He felt a strong urge to get back into harness — to drive himself hard, as the wind drove the sheets of rain from a cloudburst.

Even as he watched, the wind appeared to swoop low and pick up the rain-sheet to pour it back into the clouds to be dropped somewhere else. Only a misty spray was left and bright sunlight filtered through. The torrent in street and gutters slowly subsided.

As he turned from the window, his gaze brushed the face of a man standing alone in the angle of the walls. He was watching eager buyers at the counters, and there was a caustic smile on his thin lips.

Something told Shayne he should recognize that smile. The man was of medium height, solidly built. A quiet gray business suit was tailored to emphasize his height. His eyes were very blue and still, with a hard opacity. He was not more than fifty, but his hair was a clean, glistening white, cut rather long and parted in the middle. His features were finely sculptured, almost ascetic.

Shayne worried the lobe of his left ear, his gray eyes brooding across the room for a long moment. Abruptly, he strode over to the man and said, “Hello, Two-Deck. You want to be careful of this clean air. Your lungs aren’t used to it.”

Two-Deck Bryant turned his head slowly. His cold eyes studied the tall redhead without a flicker of recognition. He said, “You’re one up on me,” in a mellow, reflective voice.

Shayne grinned. “Last time we met you were dealing seconds in Harry’s Casino at Atlantic Beach.”

A frown ruffled the gambler’s smooth brow. He mused, “That would be eight years ago.”

Shayne nodded. “I was with World-Wide.”

Bryant said, negligently, “Don’t expect me to remember every two-bit dick I run across.”

The hollows in Shayne’s cheeks deepened. “What are you doing out here?”

“Lucius Beebe and me, we’re hell on drama,” Bryant replied.

“No hard feelings.” Shayne shrugged. “I’m not working.”

Bryant’s brow smoothed. “Not that I’m hot, Shamus.”

“Glad to hear it,” Shayne told him. “I was afraid my vacation was going to be spoiled.” He turned to look for Phyllis.

“Nice graft these yokels have here,” Bryant murmured confidentially. He moved a step closer to Shayne. “Three ninety-five blankets from Brooklyn marked twenty bucks and stamped genuine Navajo. Maybe you and me could take some lessons.”

Shayne’s nostrils flared. “Is this stuff junk?”

“Nothing but. I saw them unpacking it yesterday out of boxes shipped from New York.”

Shayne saw Phyllis fingering a rug with a garish Indian design. Anger burned in his eyes. He asked, “Any of those packing boxes still around?”

“Sure. In the back.”

Shayne stalked toward his wife. A large man had come up to wait on her and was pointing out the fine workmanship of the blankets. Hulking shoulders dwarfed a lean waist and thin legs. His eyes were black beneath black brows that met across the bridge of his nose. High cheek bones, a beaked nose, and blunt chin looked as though they might have been rudely chiseled with a miner’s drill and single-jack. His shirt sleeves were rolled above the elbows, revealing hairy forearms. There was a dominant air of uncouth strength about him that was out of place behind a store counter.

“Yes, ma’am,” he was assuring Phyllis. “Right off the Navajo Reservation. I make a trip through New Mexico every summer and buy direct from the Indians.” Phyllis’s face glowed with enthusiasm when she looked up at her husband. “Only eighteen dollars, Michael. It’d make a grand lap robe for the car, and I’ve always wanted a real Indian blanket.”

Shayne said, “Nix.”

The big man insisted, “That’s dirt cheap, Mister. I reckon you don’t know anything about Indian stuff.”

Shayne snorted, “An Indian named Moe Ginsberg in the Bronx?”

The man’s heavy brows came down threateningly over his eyes. “Don’t say anything like that in here.”

Phyllis was staring at her husband in hurt astonishment when, behind them, a soft western drawl inquired, “Trouble, Jasper?”

Customers were edging closer, attracted by the scene. The storekeeper spoke in a harsh tone, “This man’s a trouble-maker, Sheriff. Claiming my rugs aren’t real Indian stuff.”

Shayne turned his head and looked into a pair of steady gray eyes level with his own. The sheriff wore a broad-brimmed hat and there was a lean, tough look about him. His face was burned the color of old leather by the Colorado sun, and laugh crinkles radiated from the corners of eyes which had the far-seeing expression of one accustomed to the vast distances of the west.

He studied the detective soberly for a moment, then said, “There’s no call to make a fuss, Mr. Shayne. Mr. Windrow don’t want to sell you something you won’t be satisfied with.”

Shayne was on the verge of arguing with the sheriff when a large woman who had detached herself from the crowd walked up and said, “I’ve been waiting until you were free, Mr. Windrow. I’m determined to take several of your lovely Indian things back to New York with me. I’ll be the envy of everyone when they find out I picked them up for a song.”

Her voice was a pleasant contralto, and her figure was corseted and gowned to deceptive trimness. Turning away, Shayne glanced at her suspiciously. Although middle-aged, her smile and voice had effervescent charm.

Sheriff Fleming was urging Shayne toward the door. He said, “That was Miss Moore, one of the actresses come out from New York for the Festival.”

Phyllis clung to Shayne’s arm, her faced clouded with dismay. Shayne growled, “She acted like a shill to me.”

The sheriff stopped when they reached the door and said firmly, “Now, I want you to get this straight, Mr. Shayne. No hard feelings, but you were wrong about Jasper’s Indian stuff.”

“You mean they aren’t cheap imitations shipped from factories in the East?”

“No, sirree. I’ll take my oath on it. Jasper is tight-fisted and he drives a hard bargain, but nothing crooked.”

Shayne asked, “How about those packing cases in the back from New York?”

“Jasper made a trip back east and bought a lot of stuff to sell during the Festival, all right, but none of it was Indian stuff. He gets that off the Reservation, like he said.”

Shayne’s face was a mask of disgust at himself, and anger at Two-Deck Bryant for roping him in like that. He stepped inside the store again and looked around, but Bryant had disappeared.

He said, angrily. “So, I’m dumb enough to fall for a plant, and I can’t open my big mouth without putting my foot in it.” He started back to the blanket counter.

Phyllis caught up with him and grabbed his arm. “What are you going to do, Michael?” she asked in alarm.

Shayne laughed shortly. “Apologize to Mr. Windrow. Then I’m going to start looking for a gentleman known in all the best gutters as Two-Deck Bryant.”

Chapter two

AT 7:30 THE SUN had sunk far below the mountain ramparts westward and the soft haze of twilight cloaked the rugged contours with illusive beauty. Eureka Street was barricaded to vehicular traffic in front of the hotel and the opera house, and the area was jammed with first-nighters in full evening attire — among them celebrities from every state in the nation — and with gay spectators. There was a generous background of natives in old-fashioned garb, the clanking of spurs on heavy boots, cowboys in full regalia, and miners in clean blue jeans.

The Teller House dining-room and the bar were filled to capacity and the din of merriment rose by the moment.

Somewhat uncomfortable in his dinner jacket, Shayne mopped his brow as he worked his way to the bar with Phyllis clinging close beside him. Over the heads of other bar pressers, he caught the eye of a perspiring waiter and held up two fingers, which, after a week at the hotel, sufficed as an order for straight cognac. There was constant good-natured jostling in the barroom, famous for its legendary “Face on the Barroom Floor,” and no one minded when Shayne reached out a long arm to take a tray from the bartender.

As he turned away, a voice exploded beside him: “Mike Shayne! All dressed up like an undertaker.” Holding the tray high, Shayne ducked his head down and saw a ruddy face near his shoulder. Blue eyes twinkled up at him and a wide smile showed two gold front teeth. His snub nose was generously freckled and a straw hat was tipped back on his bullet-like head.

Shayne said, “By God, if it isn’t Pat Casey. How’d you leave Broadway?”

“Still kicking when I left but I doubt it’ll survive my absence,” Casey told him.

Carefully lowering the tray, Shayne handed Phyllis a glass of cognac and placed the second in Casey’s outstretched hand. He signaled for a third, then explained, “My wife dragged me out here for a vacation. Phyl, Pat’s an old sidekick of mine. A blooming Dutchman by the name of him.”

Casey’s round blue eyes grew rounder. He held out his hand to the slender, smiling girl with lustrous dark hair framing an oval face, who looked not a day over sixteen in her white fur jacket and flowing evening gown.

Casey dragged his gaze away from Phyllis’s loveliness and glared up into Shayne’s amused eyes. “’Tis not true,” he vowed. “By the Saints, Mike, if she can stand your ugly mug, think what’s waiting for a handsome lad like myself.”

“It’s the glamour of being a private op,” Shayne chuckled. “You still on the force in the big town?”

“I’m on special assignment.” Casey lowered his voice to a hoarse rumble though he could not have been overheard had he shouted. “An old pal of yours.” He jerked his head toward the crowded room and complained, “I need a megaphone to tell my secrets in here.”

The bartender shouted, “Hey, redhead!”

Shayne reached for his glass and said, “Let’s find a place to sit down.”

Casey let Shayne’s big frame force a path into the lobby and to a room in the rear. He took Phyllis’s arm and said, “I’m not believing it yet.”

Her eyes were level with his. She smiled into them and murmured, “Confidentially, Pat Casey, I married Michael because he has such interesting friends.” They followed Shayne into a small room with tables. The windows overlooked a patio. Few of the tables were occupied at this late hour and it was comparatively quiet. Shayne drew out a chair for Phyllis and said to Casey, “So, they’re trying to make a detective out of you. I read about New York’s crime wave. Now I know the reason.”

Phyllis intervened before Casey could think of a sufficiently scathing reply. She leaned forward and whispered, “Isn’t that Nora Carson sitting alone near the window? One of the actresses, Mike. We met her a couple of days ago.”

Shayne turned to look at a girl in an orchid evening gown with a black velvet cape partly covering her bare shoulders. She was eating an ice, glancing anxiously at her wrist-watch.

He nodded affirmatively. As he turned back, he stopped to stare at an aged, whiskered face pressed against the window pane and peering into the diningroom with intent absorption.

“Get a load of that,” he muttered. “Looks like the Spirit of ’49. They certainly go in for background at these Festivals.”

A canvas coat was buttoned tightly about the old man’s neck, and a sheepskin-lined collar was turned up to frame his head. He wore a floppy felt hat, and sharp black eyes contrasted strangely with the white stubble on his face.

“Poor old man,” Phyllis whispered. “Do you suppose he’s hungry? The way he’s staring in—”

A scream knifed through the small room. The face at the window disappeared. Nora Carson sprang to her feet. The table overturned, crashing dishes and cutlery to the floor.

She ran to the window and tried frantically to open it, crying, “Father! Don’t go away. Father — please!” The window was stuck tight. Hysterically she pounded on the pane with a small fist, but the old man did not reappear.

Shayne’s face was bleak as he strode toward the girl, but before he reached her she ran past him into the crowded lobby, holding up her long skirt and pleading, “Let me through. Please let me through.” Her slender body pressed futilely at the packed crowd.

Muttering an oath, Shayne lunged after her. He barked, “Come on,” dropped his left shoulder like a battering ram and drove forward, clearing a path to the door. Sobbing wildly, Nora Carson caught hold of his coat and was carried along.

Outside, he stopped and grasped the actress’s arm. She was trembling and sobs welled up from her smooth throat. Her eyes were glazed and vacant when he shook her.

“The man at the window — is he the one you’re trying to catch?”

“Yes — oh, yes! That was my father. Did you see him?”

“I saw him,” Shayne answered. He strode toward the side of the hotel, asking none of the questions that came to his mind. “If he wants to avoid you, he’s had plenty of time to get lost in this crowd while we were getting through the lobby.”

“He wouldn’t — oh, I don’t know!” Her voice fell despondently. They reached the west side of the hotel and looked back toward the patio outside the window, but there was no one there. “I must have sounded insane,” Nora Carson moaned. “But it was my father. I haven’t seen him for ten years, but I know. And he recognized me, too. I could tell.”

Shayne indicated the crowded street hopelessly. “There’s not much you can do right now to find him if he’s trying to avoid you.”

Her eyes were blue, wide-spaced and candid. They met his without faltering. Her chin was softly firm, but her lips trembled uncontrollably. A mass of bright blond hair had tumbled into loose curls about her face and neck.

In a low voice, she said, “I don’t know why Dad would run away from me like that. I know it was he,” she reiterated with conviction. “He has hardly changed at all in ten years.”

Shayne cupped his hand under her elbow to steady her. “Aren’t you jumping to conclusions when you say he recognized you? He might not have changed much, but you were just a little girl ten years ago.”

“But he did recognize me,” she cried. “I could see it in his eyes. And my picture was in the local paper two weeks ago,” she went on. “There was a story about him and how I’ve been looking for him everywhere. He must have seen the picture and read about me.”

“Why hasn’t he looked you up sooner — and why come peering in the window at you?”

She shook her head wonderingly. “I don’t know,” she faltered. “Any more than I can understand why he ran away when he saw me.” She drew in a deep breath and really looked at Shayne for the first time. “I remember you now. You’re Michael Shayne, a detective, aren’t you?”

Shayne nodded.

“Won’t you help me find him? He’s a miner, you see. That’s the reason I let them print that story in the paper. We used to live in Telluride. He ran away from — Mother and me in nineteen thirty-two. We never heard a word from him, and when Mother died I advertised in newspapers in all the mining towns.”

“Why did he leave home?”

“He couldn’t find work, and — well, Mother nagged at him all the time. Oh, I didn’t blame him for going off, but if I could find him now — help him—”

Shayne said, “I’ll be glad to do what I can. Suppose we get together after the play.”

For several minutes he had been conscious of a flow of movement across the street and up a steep, unused road separating the Masonic Hall from an old livery stable. A large and excited group was gathering near the top of the blind street where it ended abruptly against another building.

He saw Nora Carson staring up at the gathering, her face drained of color, and he caught a snatch of conversation from a man hurrying past, “… some old miner, they say.”

Nora Carson drew her arm from Shayne’s hand and started across the street. Shayne followed and again took her arm to help her climb the rocky slope in her dainty, high-heeled slippers.

When they reached the circle of curiously silent people at the end of the narrow passage between the buildings, Shayne stopped and stood on tiptoe to see over the heads of the crowd.

He said quietly, “You’d better go back, Miss Carson.”

Her agonized eyes studied his face. “Is it—?”

Shayne nodded. “It looks as though there has been an accident, and I’m afraid it’s the man who peered through the window.”

The young actress said steadily, “Help me to get to him.”

Shayne spoke to those in front of him and they parted. A single dim light from the street below threw faint illumination on two men kneeling beside a still body. One of the men stood up as Shayne and Nora Carson reached the inner edge of the circle.

“This is bad business,” the man muttered. “Murder.”

Nora Carson swayed to her knees beside the murdered man. Between sobs she spoke close to his battered ear. Her words were unintelligible, soft, crooning sounds, like a mother comforting an injured child.

Chapter three

TWO MEMBERS of the Colorado Courtesy Patrol reached the scene. They were young men, in neat blue uniforms with polished boots and Sam Browne belts. In the absence of local authority they assumed charge, ordering the crowd back and questioning those nearest the body.

Shayne briefly explained his and Nora’s presence. No one had seen the actual attack. One of the men who had been kneeling over the body was a dentist from Denver. He introduced himself to the young officers:

“I’m Doctor Adams. My wife and I were on our way to the opera after changing to evening clothes at a friend’s home. We were starting down those steps from above,” he pointed to a flight of wooden steps leading down from the next street level, “when we heard a loud thud and a groan down here. We saw a man running off to the right into the darkness.” He indicated the rear of the Masonic Temple. “I can’t describe him very well, but I think my wife saw him better.” He turned to a plump, middle-aged woman wearing a black lace gown.

She nodded emphatically, keeping her eyes averted from the kneeling figure of Nora Carson and the dead man. “He was roughly dressed and he looked old,” Mrs. Adams told them. “I have an indistinct impression of a black hat and whiskers, but—” she shuddered and forced herself to glance hastily at the corpse, “it might have been this poor man I saw, just the instant before he was struck. It all happened so suddenly.”

Sheriff Fleming arrived as she finished her halting statement. He slowly lifted his broad-brimmed hat, staring down at the face of the dead man. In the faint light his face was stern, touched with pity.

“It’s old Pete,” Sheriff Fleming said in his soft western drawl. “Screwloose Pete. Poor old fellow. Who do you reckon would of done this? Just when he’d made his ten-strike, too, after prospecting for years.”

Nora Carson lifted her tear-streaked face. Her blue eyes were softly luminous. “This man’s name is Peter Dalcor,” she corrected the sheriff. She lifted her chin. “He’s my father. He disappeared from Telluride ten years ago and we were never able to trace him.”

There were murmurings of pity from the onlookers when Nora revealed the identity of the murdered man. Sheriff Fleming rubbed his chin reflectively. “Yes, Ma’am. I wouldn’t know about that. He’s been hanging around Central for eight or ten years. Nobody ever knew any name for him but Pete. We called him Screwloose, begging your pardon, Ma’am, because he was sort of strange-like. Stayed out in the hills by himself and didn’t ever talk much. Never said where he hailed from, nor anything about his past.”

Nora cried, “I’m certainly not going to believe he was insane, if that’s what you’re hinting. He was always quiet. Perhaps,” she faltered, “he had an attack or amnesia and didn’t know who he was. That would explain everything.”

A bareheaded young man came charging through the circle of spectators. He dropped to his knees beside the girl and said hoarsely, “Nora! My God, Nora! What is this?”

He wore a neat blue suit, and his glossy black hair was disheveled. His dark, clean-cut features had a cameo-like beauty, but there was, oddly, nothing foppish about him.

Nora shivered when his arm went around her. She looked down at the blood-smeared old man and fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. She sobbed, “It’s Father. After all these years, Frank, I’ve found him.” She buried her face against the young man’s chest.

He glanced up angrily at the silent officer and demanded, “Why in the name of God don’t you do something? Can’t you cover him up — take him away?” His arm tightened protectively around Nora. “This is awful, darling. You mustn’t — please, dear, you can’t sit here like this. The play — good Lord! you’ve got to pull yourself together.”

Nora Carson let her husband draw her away from the dead man. One of the patrolmen turned the sheepskin collar up to hide the ghastly sight from view.

“Yes, Frank — the play,” Nora said. “I suppose I’ll have to go on.”

“Of course you must.” Frank Carson spoke with firm authority.

He lifted his wife and drew her back a few steps, his fine features strained and tight. He spoke to her in a soft, persuasive voice:

“Are you sure the man is your father, dear? Sure you haven’t let your long search and your desire to find him influence your recognition? After all, he’s not — well, it’s rather difficult to tell much about how he looks now.”

“It is Father,” Nora insisted fiercely. “You see, I saw him, Frank — before he was like this. Just a few minutes ago. Through the window at the Teller House. And he recognized me, too. But he ran away.” A convulsive tremor shook her body. “He ran away before I could reach him. Oh, why did he have to die just when I’d found him again!”

While her passionate words lingered in the air, the clangor of a bell from Eureka Street came up through the night stillness to the group gathered in the presence of death on the steep hillside. An eerie sound, echoing upward from the stone walls of buildings housing a thousand ghostly memories of the past.

Below, in the glare of street lights, a tall man dressed in somber black, with a batwing collar and stiff shirt, was moving solemnly down the center of the crowded street ringing the old bell that had announced the opening of the opera house since the days when Modjeska and Edwin Booth had trod that historic stage.

The doors were flung open as the bell clanged, and those fortunate enough to hold first-night tickets began to file inside while thousands stood outside watching the colorful spectacle. There was the glare of spotlights, the blare of the radio announcer’s voice through the loudspeaker, and laughter and gay voices from those below, unconscious of the tragedy a hundred feet away.

Slowly and silently the group around the body dissolved downward, drawn by the warning bell. As Shayne dragged his gaze and his thoughts back to the reality of the murder, he heard Frank Carson urging his wife:

“We must hurry, dear. The curtain goes up in fifteen minutes. You have to change — and make up…” He was gently drawing her away, but Nora hung back, her sorrow-haunted eyes clinging to the crumpled figure on the ground.

“We’ve got to do something,” she cried. “We just can’t leave him lying there.”

“The police will take care of everything,” Frank reminded her. “You have to think of the play — the rest of the cast. All the important Eastern critics are here.” His voice was soft and persuasive.

Nora shuddered and lifted her chin valiantly. “Of course, Frank. The play must go on.” She turned to Shayne who was standing a little aside, and said impulsively:

“You’ve been awfully kind. Will you — they’ll make an investigation, won’t they? They won’t let the murderer get away?”

Carson turned searching black eyes on the tall redhead, and Nora explained, “This is Mr. Shayne, the detective from Florida. He helped me find Father.”

Frank Carson nodded. “I remember seeing your picture in the local paper. We appreciate what you’ve done, Mr. Shayne. Now, Nora, please.” His fingers tightened on her arm. She resisted him, and said hurriedly to Shayne:

“Would you consider taking charge here? Helping the officers? I’d feel so much better if you would.” Shayne hesitated, and Frank joined Nora in the request:

“If it wouldn’t be too great an imposition. Nora has to get backstage immediately.”

Shayne nodded abruptly. “I’ll be glad to do what I can.”

“Fine — and thanks.” Carson spoke crisply. “Come, Nora darling, there’s nothing further to keep you here.”

Shayne stood solidly on wide-spread feet and watched them hurry down the slope to keep one of the oldest traditions of the theater. He sighed and turned to the sheriff and the two patrolmen. “Who assumes jurisdiction here?”

One of the young men said, “I’m Stout, of the State Courtesy Patrol, Mr. Shayne. We try to be exactly what our name implies. It’s our duty to co-operate with local authority, not usurp it. This is Sheriff Fleming’s baby.”

The sheriff cleared his throat. “This is mighty bad business. First killing in town since I’ve been sheriff. I declare I don’t know who around here would be mean enough to smash Pete’s head. Harmless old codger, and friendly as a speckled pup.”

Shayne said, “From the description given by the dentist and his wife it sounded like local talent. Another old miner. Do you know anyone who had a grudge against him?”

The sheriff considered for a moment, his face troubled. Then he shook his head. “Not right off,” he said lamely. “No one that would of done a thing like this. Of course, these old-timers have their squabbles.”

“When you’re investigating murder,” Shayne warned him, “you can’t let personalities interfere.” He dropped to his knees beside the dead man and turned the sheepskin collar down. He muttered, “Looks like a single crushing blow did the job. A brick or a large flat rock.”

Sheriff Fleming squatted beside him. “I heard what the young lady said to you, Mr. Shayne. I’d be mighty glad to have your help finding the killer.”

“I don’t mean to horn in, but I’ll do what I can,” Shayne promised. “Get the routine over with, and start checking the alibis of Pete’s cronies, particularly any who have quarreled with him. You’ll be doing innocent men a favor by checking their alibis and removing them from suspicion promptly.”

“That’s a fact.” Sheriff Fleming was relieved. “I’ll start right in.”

Shayne stood up. “I can’t do much until after the play. My wife is waiting for me.” He looked at his watch as he started down the steep slope. It was 8:22.

Chapter four

KNOWING PATRICK CASEY OF OLD, Shayne looked for him and Phyllis in the barroom. It was less crowded now, some of the crowd having drifted to other places of amusement. He found them at a small table in the rear.

“Well, if it isn’t that man again,” Phyllis murmured as he pulled up a chair and signaled for a drink. “Of course, we did have a date to see a play. Have you forgot that, along with the fact that you have a wife?” She wrinkled her nose at him.

“’Tis a betrayed lass you are,” mourned Casey. “To shackle a rounder like Mike Shayne to matrimony is like harnessing a Derby winner to a junk wagon.”

Shayne said, “Very funny.” He glowered at them. “Do we go to the opera or do we stay here and think up gags?”

Phyllis smiled prettily. “That scene you and the Carson girl put on was as good as anything we’ll see in the opera house. Did she find the old man she was running after?”

“She found her father.”

The waiter brought his drink and he drank half of it.

“I suppose you don’t care what happened a hundred yards from where you and Pat sat drinking liquor.” Shayne’s face was glum.

Phyllis’s dark eyes glowed with concern and curiosity. “What happened, Michael?”

“Murder.”

“Michael! You’re not mixed up in it?” she cried.

“I’m not a suspect this time, if that’s what you mean. But I was with Nora Carson when she found her father’s body, and I intend to find out who did it.”

“You see, darlin’,” Pat Casey said, “murderers follow Mike around so’s to keep him in practice.”

“Even on our vacation,” Phyllis said bitterly. “You’d dig up a case if we took a rocket to Mars.”

Shayne grinned at her and finished his drink. “We’ve got about two minutes before the curtain goes up.” He turned to Casey. “You’re not going to the play?”

Casey’s bullet head waggled negatively. “’Tis a tough gate to crash, I hear. And me without a monkey suit or a messy jacket.”

Shayne stood up and drew Phyllis from her chair. “Do this for me, Pat. The sheriff and a couple of boys from the State Patrol are on the job. I wish you’d wander up there and keep an eye on things. They’re all right, but none of them are homicide men.”

“I’ll do it, Mike, but I’ve got a job of my own I haven’t finished telling you about.”

“It’ll have to wait. Maybe I can help you on it.”

“Sure,” Phyllis said as Shayne hurried her through the room. “Why not? One case is hardly enough to keep you busy while we’re on a vacation. Take on a couple more so you won’t have any time for me. I can always amuse myself.”

Shayne chuckled. “You forget you married a working man, angel. When a murder case slaps me in the face I can’t run from it.”

The curtain was a few minutes late going up. The huge central chandelier which had originally held many kerosene lamps, and which had been the pride of mining pioneers, was lighted with myriads of electric bulbs, but the footlights began to glow as they found their seats, the last two vacant chairs in the building that had once been the most pretentious playhouse between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean.

In keeping with the fine traditions of the Opera Association, the French tragedy A Bras Ouverts had been chosen as the vehicle for a distinguished company of Broadway artists.

The chandelier lights dimmed as Shayne ran a finger down the names of the cast listed in the order of their appearance on stage. Playing the juvenile lead, Frank Carson was among those opening the play. He pointed the name out to Phyllis, whispering:

“He is Nora Carson’s husband. He’ll be a trouper if he makes his appearance. Not more than fifteen minutes ago he was standing over the murdered body of his father-in-law.”

The house darkened and the curtain went up. For a moment, Shayne didn’t recognize the young actor in his costume and make-up, but when he spoke his first lines, the strong timbre of his voice was unmistakable. As the first act continued, Shayne admitted that his dramatic artistry was undeniably perfect.

Nora Carson did not appear immediately, and his impatience grew as he waited for her to come on. He knew that it would be vastly more difficult for her, but Shayne had faith in his snap judgment of her character as observed under trying conditions, and he waited eagerly for her to justify that faith.

The first scene ended and she did not appear. The lights came on for a brief interval while the scenery was shifted, and Shayne studied his program again. He discovered that Nora was not due on stage until the middle of the second scene and he settled himself to wait.

The two minutes apportioned to the change of scene stretched to ten before the second curtain went up. Sweat was standing on Shayne’s forehead as the time for Nora’s first cue neared. For some obscure reason it was important to him that she appear and play her part well. It didn’t make sense. It shouldn’t matter a tinker’s damn to him, but it did matter terribly.

Something was wrong on-stage. A cue line was spoken and there was no response. The line was repeated.

A slender girl came on hurriedly and the voice Shayne heard was not Nora Carson’s. She wore a blond wig, but her eyes were dark, and her heart-shaped face and pointed chin in no way resembled Nora’s features.

A white-haired patroness of the theater sitting next to Shayne gasped, “That’s not Nora Carson. It’s Christine Forbes, Nora’s understudy. I wonder what has happened to Nora.”

Christine Forbes was adequate in her role. She gave her lines with assurance and with fire. She was graceful and poised throughout a difficult emotional scene. There was thunderous applause when the act was over; Nora’s understudy had captured the audience. They called for her again and again and she took her bows with grace and modesty.

Shayne did not applaud. He got up and made his way down the aisle with a grim look on his angular face. He strode through the foyer and outside. He lit a cigarette and went around the west side of the building toward the stage entrance, passing over the wooden flume that carried the water of Clear Creek directly under the village.

He was halted by a closed gate in a high wooden wall bearing the painted sign, NO ADMITTANCE.

Shayne rattled the gate savagely. It was locked from the inside.

From Eureka Street came the sound of shrill laughter and the wail of square-dance music, and from the flume just behind him was the rushing sound of flood waters, just now reaching town from an evening cloudburst high in the mountains.

His eyes were bleak as he stalked back to the front door and regained his seat in time for the next curtain.

He was silent and morose through the rest of the performance while Christine Forbes turned her opportunity into a personal triumph, and when the final curtain came down, he again strode out while the ancient playhouse echoed with applause.

Phyllis clung to his arm and was silent until they were on the sidewalk. Then she spoke sharply:

“I can’t see that Nora Carson was particularly missed tonight. The other girl was marvelous.”

Shayne grunted. “Yeh. That’s one of the things that tastes bad to me. The Forbes girl is so damned good that I’m willing to bet Nora Carson has lost her part altogether. First, her father whom she has just found after ten years, then an important role that she’s rehearsed for weeks — all in the space of three hours.”

“But you can’t blame yourself, Michael,” Phyllis wailed.

He looked down at her and some of the grimness went out of his face. “You’re not a cop, angel. You don’t know the feeling of being just too late to prevent murder.”

The vanguard of first-nighters was filing from the opera house. Shayne turned toward the side of the building again. He said, “I’m going to see her if I have to break that damned gate down.”

As they crossed over the flume he noticed that the tremendous rushing sound of water had receded. The wooden gate leading backstage was standing open.

They found a door leading into the shadowy region of props and sliding scenery behind the lowered curtain. The stage was a riot of confusion, with members of the cast receiving congratulations from those of the audience who were fortunate enough to find standing room.

Shayne and Phyllis wormed their way through to find Frank Carson in the midst of a bevy of bare backs and flowing skirts. The young actor saw the detective and signaled to him urgently, thrusting aside feminine admirers to make his way to Shayne.

When they met, Shayne said, “I was worried about your wife. How is she holding up?”

Carson’s face darkened under his heavy make-up. “Isn’t Nora with you? You promised to look after things.”

Shayne’s gray eyes narrowed. “Why should your wife be with me?”

“I thought she’d gone back — up there.”

“Do you mean she isn’t in the theater?”

“Hell, no, she isn’t here. Why would I be asking you? She must have gone out right after the play started. I left her in her dressing-room when I went on. She swore she’d be all right. Then she slipped out without telling anyone.”

“No one?”

“No one knew she was gone until just in time for Christine to get in costume. I thought she’d gone back to find you.” Frank Carson took a backward step. Horror and fear were accentuated by heavy mascara and greasepaint, and his fine features were distorted. He said in a low, furious voice, “You didn’t stay? You don’t know what has become of Nora? You let her go out alone — with a mad killer roaming this damned town? What sort of a detective are you?”

“Sometimes I ask myself that same question,” Shayne said grimly, “and don’t receive a very satisfactory reply.”

Chapter five

PHYLLIS SHAYNE was not one to stand idly by and hear her husband aspersed. She stepped between Shayne and Frank with dark eyes blazing. “You’re a fine one to accuse Michael of letting your wife wander off. Why didn’t you stop her?”

“I didn’t know she was going.” He arched his perfect brows in surprise and modulated his voice. “I had to rush like the devil to get ready for my cue.”

“Well, neither did Michael know she was going,” Phyllis countered angrily.

Shayne chuckled and put Phyllis gently aside. “This little hell-cat is my wife,” he explained. “She only gets belligerent when I’m attacked. If your wife went back up the hill, she’s all right. There were officers up there to take care of her. But if she went wandering off on some tangent of her own, we’d better try to find her. Are you sure she didn’t tell anybody where she was going?”

“I don’t think so,” Carson told him, “else they would have had Christine ready when Nora’s cue came. But I haven’t had time to make any inquiries. I’ll see if Celia Moore knows anything. She shares Nora’s dressing-room. She was with Nora when I saw her last.” He turned away alertly and surveyed the backstage turmoil, then began working his way toward a group near the electrician’s booth.

Shayne followed him, holding Phyllis’s arm. “Be easy on Carson, angel. He has taken a stiff jolt tonight and you can’t blame him for being edgy.”

“That doesn’t justify his ugly insinuations against you. He talked as if you’d been hired as his wife’s bodyguard.”

Shayne laughed easily. “I’ve got a tough hide.”

He saw Carson drawing a middle-aged woman aside and recognized her as the woman they had encountered in Jasper Windrow’s store that afternoon. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and drawn back smoothly in a knot at the nape of her neck. Pressing through the crowd, Shayne heard her say:

“No, Frank. Nora didn’t say a word to me.” There was a look of deep concern in her eyes and her rich voice throbbed with pity. “Poor kid. I didn’t even know anything about her father until the end of the first act.”

“Did she seem terribly upset?” Shayne asked as he reached them.

Celia Moore turned brilliant hazel eyes on him, shaking her head. “Not that I noticed. But Nora is a trouper. God knows she must have been hit hard to let Christine horn in — the way they hated each other’s guts.” Her last words were spoken absently. Her eyes had narrowed upon Shayne’s angular face. “Sa-ay, you’re the lug who almost mixed in with my boy friend this afternoon. I thought Jasper was going to take a swing at you.” She chuckled in a delightful baritone.

Shayne nodded impatiently. “The name is Shayne. Now, about Nora — didn’t she give you any intimation that she might not go on?”

“Not a single damn’ intimation. She was putting on her make-up when I left her in the dressing-room.” Celia Moore pursed her lips and glanced speculatively at Frank Carson. “I don’t know a thing about it,” she ended briskly, and laid an apologetic and slightly damp palm on Shayne’s coat sleeve. She looked at him coyly and said, “You’ll have to excuse me now. There’s a gentleman out there somewhere who’s wondering what the hell’s become of me.”

She glided away. Shayne watched her go, and saw Jasper Windrow waiting for her at the rear of the stage. Windrow wore the conventional dress suit required of first-nighters, and a white tie was tilted rakishly beneath his blunt chin.

“Well, what do you think?” Carson demanded. “Mightn’t Nora have left a note for you? Have you looked for one in her dressing-room?”

“I haven’t had time to do anything,” Carson snapped, but the suggestion appeared to relieve his anguished face, “She does, sometimes. I’ll see.”

He plunged toward the wooden stairs leading down to rows of small dressing-rooms in the basement.

Shayne plunged after him, with Phyllis clinging to his arm. It was cold and damp in the room just off the corridor from the stairs. They saw Carson searching frantically through a disarray of jars and tubes of cosmetics on a small table.

Carson shook his head, his mouth grim. “Nothing here. Looks as if she started to make up, though.”

Shayne said, “It looks as if Nora was putting up a front while Miss Moore was in the room. When she left, Nora realized she couldn’t go on. So, she probably went to the hotel to be alone.”

“It isn’t that simple.” Carson ran long, slender fingers through his black hair. “Nora would never leave us in the lurch. She would have told Christine so she could be getting ready.”

“Maybe not.” Shayne frowned. “Miss Moore spoke of them hating each other.”

Carson didn’t reply immediately. He appeared more relieved than at any time since Shayne approached him. He faced Shayne squarely and said, “That’s not the way we do things in the theatrical world. There is plenty of professional jealousy everywhere. Nora suspected Christine of plotting to supplant her, but Nora wouldn’t let that cut any ice if it came to a showdown.”

Shayne caught the lobe of his left ear and worried it between right thumb and forefinger. After a brief silence, he said:

“After seeing Nora’s understudy handle the part, I don’t blame her for feeling a trifle insecure. That means she felt a terrific compulsion to go on, no matter how distasteful it was to her. I would guess that when she left the theater she intended to return in time to catch her cue.”

“I agree,” Carson said hesitantly, “but why the devil did she go out at all? She knew there wasn’t much time.”

Shayne released his earlobe and massaged his chin. “Something came up,” he speculated. “Or, she thought of something in connection with her father’s death. She might have dashed out to find me, expecting to hurry back.”

Frank Carson threw his arms out dramatically, his fingers clenched. “I don’t know — I just don’t know,” he raved. “I’ll see you outside as soon as I get this damned grease off and get on some decent clothes.”

Outside, Shayne and Phyllis simultaneously drew in deep breaths of the clean, cold air. Phyllis looked up at the star-studded sky and breathed, “It’s hard to believe anything can be wrong on a night like this. Don’t you think you’re worrying a lot about nothing, Michael?”

Shayne said, “No.”

She lengthened her step to keep pace with his swift stride. “But, Michael, it was perfectly natural for Nora not to feel up to facing an audience after what happened, and she knew Christine Forbes was competent to take her place.”

“You don’t know much about actors, angel. They give up a part about as easily as you’d give up your life.” He led her out into the street to avoid plowing through the crowd still lingering in front of the opera house. “It had to be something damned important to keep her off the stage tonight.”

Eureka Street was again jammed with celebrants intent upon a long night of revelry, now that the play was ended. They sauntered on boardwalk and street, drifting from the square dance to the casinos, from fortune-telling booths to the tintype photograph booths where old-fashioned costumes were miraculously revived for personal adornment. They swarmed before the Teller House, trying to get through to the night club where the midnight floor show was getting under way.

Shayne hesitated on the fringe of the throng in front of the hotel and was hailed by Patrick Casey from the boardwalk which rose high above the street level. Shayne beckoned and Casey came down, using the shoulder of a convenient spectator to steady his jump, and sauntered toward Shayne with half of an unlit cigar protruding from his mouth.

Shayne asked, “Have you been up to see the body?”

“I hung around until they carted him off to the undertaker’s ten minutes ago. We turned up a big rock smeared with blood, but nothing else.”

“Did you see the girl up there?”

“Nary a girl,” he said sadly, “blast it.”

“And you went right after we left?”

“Sure. ’Twas the favor you asked of me.”

Shayne said, “I’m going into the hotel.”

He used his right shoulder to force a path to the lobby. Phyllis and Casey were engulfed behind him, reaching him as he turned away from the desk to ascend the winding mahogany stairs.

“Any luck?” Phyllis panted.

“The clerk hasn’t seen Nora go up or down since dinner. But that doesn’t mean a damned thing in this madhouse. She could have gone in and out a dozen times without being noticed. The room key is out,” he added as the trio gained the first landing.

They turned into a dark-paneled corridor, and after a quick look at room numbers, Shayne muttered, “One-twenty-three should be down this way.”

He stalked ahead of them, stopped in front of a closed door and knocked. The sound was echoed back from dead silence inside the room. No light showed around the door or through the keyhole. The muted infusion of merriment drifting up from revelers in the night club below was irritating.

Shayne frowned and knocked again, loudly. Phyllis shivered. The high corridor reeked with the musty smell of disuse during most of the year. Until now the smell had been ghostly and alluring, a part of choosing Central City for a vacation spot. But now it chilled her as ominous, portentous, when Shayne’s knock was unanswered.

Sweat formed little rivulets on Shayne’s gaunt cheeks when he fumbled for his key-ring. He dropped to his knees and went to work on the lock with a sliver of tempered steel.

Casey stood aside and chewed on his cigar butt, his eyes round and owlish. Phyllis held her breath when Shayne finally opened the door and switched on a light to reveal an enormous, high-ceilinged room with antique furnishings.

Shayne made a quick circuit of the room, looking in the closet and under the four-poster walnut bed. He came to an abrupt stop in front of a marble-topped walnut chest of drawers in the far corner. Planting his hands on his hips, he stared somberly at a note.

Phyllis hurried to him, her heart panting violently again after recovering from the expectancy of seeing Nora Carson’s body in the room. She pressed against her husband and read the note in a small, awed voice: “Frank darling, I must find the sheriff at once. I’m writing this so you won’t worry if I should have to miss tonight’s performance. Nothing matters now but Father. Lovingly, Nora.”

Brooding silence held the trio. There was stark, uncompromising bitterness in Shayne’s gray eyes.

“Mike — don’t look like that,” Phyllis cried. “Nora wasn’t looking for you. She went to find the sheriff.”

Shayne’s head nodded almost imperceptibly. He muttered, “She intended to return to the theater in time for her cue — but she didn’t.”

Chapter six

PATRICK CASEY had been pacing back and forth, his short legs taking slow, measured steps. He came back to the high chest of drawers where Shayne and Phyllis stood. He said, “I don’t get any of this. An old man looks in a window and a girl screams. You go tearing after her through the lobby. You come back and say the guy is her father. Now, you can’t find the girl. What about her?”

“You should learn the formula for how much liquor you can carry to the square inch,” Shayne told him.

Phyllis intervened hastily. “It’s this way, Pat. Nora Carson slipped away from the opera house as soon as the play started. This note indicates she had an urgent reason for contacting the sheriff. I think Mike’s afraid that — well, that maybe the person who killed her father knew she had an important clue.” She turned breathlessly to Shayne and asked, “Isn’t that it, Michael?”

Shayne nodded indulgently. “Something prevented Nora Carson from getting back to the theater,” he said, not looking at either of them. He clawed bony fingers through his coarse red hair, then broke out angrily:

“She was a walking invitation to death if she had information pointing to the killer, and if that information was even hinted to anyone she was doomed. Murder breeding murder. I’ve seen it happen so damned often. The fact that she hasn’t shown up yet—” He broke off abruptly at the sound of movement in the doorway.

Two men stood in the opening of the hotel room They were enough alike to be twins, dressed exactly alike in belted sports coats, blue slacks and tan and white shoes. They were of the same slimness and height with snap-brim fedoras tilted to the right and downward over hatchet faces indelibly stamped with the pastiness of city night life. Faces that seldom felt the sun. Their eyes were pale and furtive with an alert wariness characteristic of men who live in the shadow world of lawlessness; their stance held the distinctive swagger of defiance, an attribute of men who have successfully challenged the law for a long time.

Patrick Casey turned to look at them. His exhaled breath made a faint whistling sound through his lips. He tilted his straw hat far back on his bullet head and asked, “You boys looking for somebody?”

“For you, Casey.” The man on the left spoke in a hushed, rasping tone. His face was blank of expression, stony calm, as was that of his twin.

His companion amplified. “You was told to keep your nose clean, Casey,” in a flat monotone.

Phyllis Shayne drew closer to her husband, appealing to him with dark, frightened eyes.

Shayne’s gaze was negligently fixed on the two men. His rangy body was relaxed. He struck a light to a cigarette.

Casey smiled blandly at the two gunsels and tilted his straw hat to a cockier angle. He said, “All right, boys. You caught up with me.”

“Bryant’s got a bug to put in your ear,” the rasping voice told him, jerking his head toward the corridor.

They touched shoulders and moved into the room, separating when they reached Casey to allow him to pass out between them.

Casey said, “Maybe I got a bug to put in Bryant’s ear. A hornet, maybe.” He put his hands in his pockets and sauntered through the doorway, a gunman on either side.

Shayne said to Phyllis, “Casey knows the angles. Don’t worry about him.”

Casey’s voice boomed into the room from the hallway, hard and demanding: “Hello, Two-Deck. What have you got for me?”

Shayne heard Bryant’s voice but couldn’t distinguish the words. He stalked to the door with smoke rolling through his nostrils.