Lucile Hamilton smiled when she opened the door of her apartment to admit Shayne and saw the large paper sack in his hand. Her brown eyes danced merrily and she said, “I bet I can guess.”
Shayne cocked his head and listened to a sizzling sound from the kitchenette. He sniffed the odor of broiling beef and felt an odd gnawing in his stomach. He said, “Two minds with a single thought. God, I’m hungry! There’s steak and canned French fries and stuff for a salad in there.” He handed the sack to her.
Lucile had changed from her housecoat to a dark-red frock with a brilliant pin on the shoulder and a flattering neckline. An apron covered the dress from a point slightly below the neck to the hem of her skirt. She took the sack and said, “I could only afford hamburgers, but I’ve got yams baking and a salad already fixed. Of course, if you’d rather have steak—”
“Food that’s ready to eat is what I crave right now. We’ll save that for another time.” He shucked off his coat and tossed it on a chair.
“You mean — we’ll have another meal together, Mike?” she asked, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks very red from the heat of the tiny kitchenette.
“Why not?”
“I’ve been wondering,” she said, and hurried back to the kitchen.
Shayne looked around the living-room which had been set in perfect order and appeared to have grown larger with the studio couch made into a divan. He went to the bathroom and sloshed water on his face, scrubbed his hands, and wet his unruly mop of red hair and tried to slick it down with a comb he found in the mirrored cabinet. There were dainty guest towels arranged on a rod, but he took a damp bath towel from a rod beside the bathtub and wiped his face dry.
When he returned to the living-room, Lucile was setting the table in the dining-alcove. “Your Mr. Veigle called. He said the fingerprints were not Evalyn’s.”
“He is going to meet us at Quinlan’s office?”
“At one-thirty.” She went on arranging the silver, asking, “Did everything go all right?”
Shayne sank wearily onto the couch. “It’s still a long shot,” he said, “but I think I know what I’m doing. It’s too late to back down now. And, by the way, remind me to tell you something when it’s all over.”
“Oh — you and your secrets,” she flung at him. “What is it — tell me now.” She glanced through the arch and saw him stretched out on the couch. “What — no carpet slippers, Mr. Shayne.” She reached for the cognac bottle on the open china container and carried it in to him. “Maybe you’d better take a nip of this, since I have no slippers.”
“The perfect secretary,” Shayne sighed. “You get my messages right — and then this.” He grinned.
“You’re mean,” she chided, “taking advantage of a woman’s curiosity. Tell me what—” She sniffed suddenly and her curiosity vanished with an odor from the kitchen and she ran in to tend the dinner.
Shayne relaxed and sipped cognac from the bottle and reviewed the work he had done and that which was awaiting him. He decided there was nothing left now except to await the outcome. He had his hunch, and that was about all. He had never approached the end of a case with so little actual evidence, yet he had never approached the end of a case with such complete and satisfying certitude that it would come out right. It had to. He couldn’t be wrong. There was a certain pattern—
Lucile came through the archway carrying a small glass in her hand. She settled herself in the armchair opposite the couch and said, “I need a stimulant. I nearly had heart failure when I thought the hamburgers were burning.” She held out the glass, and Shayne reached a long arm out to pour it half full of cognac. She said, “That’s much too much, but I’ll drink it. I’ve always said that only a thoroughly disreputable wanton ever drinks before four o’clock in the afternoon.” She held her glass for a toast and said, “Here’s to the wage slaves who drudge all day in an office and sleep in loneliness all night.” Her laughter floated gaily through the room before she took a swallow of the liquor. “Everything will be ready in a few minutes,” she added sensibly. “I’ll bet you’re starved.”
“I am,” Shayne confessed, then asked, “Will you be back with the slaves tomorrow?”
“Oh, no. I’m not working any more.”
Shayne offered her a cigarette. “Did you resign?”
“By request — with two weeks’ pay. Wasn’t that nice of them? The office manager feels that there’s something essentially indecent about a girl getting herself mixed up in murder.”
“That reminds me,” Shayne said hastily. He reached in his pocket and brought out the picture Soule had given him. He handed it to her. “That’ll be on the front page of the Item tonight if things go wrong this afternoon.”
Lucile studied the photograph and unconsciously sucked in her breath sharply, but she said in a gay voice, “It’s a very good likeness, isn’t it — of both of us.”
She got up and went to the kitchenette, leaving half her drink on the end table.
Shayne got up from the couch, looked at his wrist watch, and went to the telephone. He called police headquarters and asked for Inspector Quinlan. When Quinlan answered, he said, “This is Mike Shayne. Heard anything from Joseph Little?”
“Yes. He arrived a few minutes ago by plane and telephoned me. I put him in touch with Henderson from the insurance company and they’ve gone over to identify the body. I promised to try and have you meet them here about one-thirty to sign that affidavit you promised Henderson.”
“I’ll be there,” Shayne assured him. “Say — how big is that office of yours, Quinlan?”
“What did you say?”
“I asked you how big your office is.” Shayne’s wide mouth spread in a grin close to the mouthpiece.
“Why, about twelve by fourteen, I guess. What the devil are you driving at? Drunk?”
“Sober as an Inspector,” Shayne told him. “You see, I’ve taken the liberty of inviting quite a few others for a one-thirty conference in your office, and I wanted to make sure there’d be room. There’ll be — let’s see — Soule, Henri, Denton, Drake, Little, Henderson, Lucile, Tim, Veigle — that makes nine besides us. Is there another office where we can gather?”
“Look here, Shayne,” Quinlan asked angrily, “what have you got up your sleeve?”
“Rabbits. White ones with pink eyes.”
Quinlan groaned. “If you’ve held out evidence—”
“I haven’t, Inspector,” Shayne assured him. “I’m doing a lot of wild guessing, and God help me if I’m wrong. There’s only one thing — will you arrange to have Edmund Drake there at one-thirty? He’s the only one who hasn’t been issued a personal invitation.”
“The girl’s uncle? Why, he’s to meet Little here. Little talked to him on the phone before he called me.”
“He did? So Drake was telling the truth,” Shayne said slowly. “How does Little explain the cock-and-bull story he told me in Miami?”
“I haven’t discussed it with him. I thought you’d want to do that.”
Shayne’s voice was grim when he said, “I do. One-thirty, then.”
When Shayne hung up and turned from the telephone he saw a platter of hamburgers in the center of the small table, flanked by a large wooden bowl of tossed salad and a dish containing three baked yams. Lucile came in with a bowl of gravy spiced with barbecue sauce and set it beside the platter. She apologized for baker’s bread, saying, “I’d like to have made cornbread but my oven’s so small I can cook only one thing at a time.”
Shayne said, “Don’t apologize,” and helped himself to a hamburger and ladled the sauce over it as she poured the coffee. He sniffed the sauce, then tasted it, raised his bushy brows and asked, “Garlic?”
“Just a smear. And lots of other things. It’s my own concoction. If you don’t like garlic—”
“I do,” Shayne said emphatically, and broke a hamburger easily with his fork. Juice flowed from it and he said unbelievingly as he tasted it, “Do they have a special brand of hamburger cows here?”
She laughed delightedly and sat down opposite him. “I call it poor-girl steak. It’s neck meat, the cheapest cut, and I have the butcher grind it twice with a little piece of bacon for extra flavor.”
“You’ve been wasting your talents in an office,” he told her as he speared a yam. He sighed with contentment and went to work with knife and fork.
They were relaxed over the third cup of coffee when the telephone rang. Shayne reached out a long arm and lifted the instrument and said, “Hello.”
Timothy Rourke’s voice answered him. “Just hit the airport, Mike. What’s the schedule?”
“What time is it?”
“Twenty after one.”
“The hell it is!”
“Listen, Mike,” Rourke said earnestly, “do you know of any openings for a good leg man in this town?”
“Why?”
“If your story isn’t a whingeroo there’s no use of me going back to Miami. Do you know what this trip cost the office?”
“It’ll be worth it,” Shayne told him. “Meet me at Inspector Quinlan’s office in ten minutes, Tim.” He gave specific directions and hung up.
“We’ll have to get started,” he said to Lucile.
“We?”
“Sure. Didn’t I tell you you were invited?”
“Oh, no, Mike — I’d rather not.”
Shayne said, “Sorry. We’re going to need you for a quorum.” He pushed his chair back and stalked into the living-room.
“But why?” she wailed, following him in. “You know everything—”
“Well, for one thing, there’s an insurance adjuster trying to make an issue of the identification of the body. Tim brought a picture of Barbara Little and I want you to back me up in identifying her.”
“Oh — that’s why you asked him to bring the picture. I meant to ask you.”
Shayne had his coat on and was striding to the telephone. “I’ll call a taxi. Get your hat on and your apron off.”