When Lucile called, “I’m almost ready,” he went into the living-room. She was in the bathroom rouging her lips before the lavatory mirror after changing to a green sports dress with suède shoes to match. “That is,” she admitted, “all except putting on my mask and buttoning up.”
Shayne scowled at her. “So you want me to play lady’s maid?”
“They’re simply hellish to button,” she told him, coming through the bathroom doorway and backing up to him. “There are only a few. Darn little old things — and the buttonholes aren’t big enough.”
Shayne’s big fingers fumbled with the small cloth-covered buttons. He ran out of fresh curse words as the last of the short strip of buttons at the back of the neck was fastened.
Lucile whirled to face him. Her eyes were full of laughter and she said, “If you hadn’t made me laugh so hard you’d have finished buttoning me sooner.”
Shayne took a step backward and looked at her. “You look like a kid — not like a hussy on her way to the Daphne Club.” His face suddenly became grim. “I’m afraid this isn’t going to be a lark. You’d better be prepared for anything Henri might spring on you tonight.”
The laughter went out of her eyes. “I — hadn’t thought of that,” she confessed. “Are you married, Michael?”
Shayne said, “No,” harshly. “I’m a widower, so watch your step.”
Lucile’s gay mood was gone when she went to the closet and brought out a tiny green hat. She perched it on her head without the aid of a mirror. She said, solemnly, “I keep forgetting about Margo.”
“I wish I could forget about her,” said Shayne through tight lips.
Lucile studied the bleak contours of his face for a moment. “Do you think Henri could have done it?”
“I’ll do my thinking after I meet him. Ready?”
A horn honked insistently outside. Lucile said, “You go down. I forgot about the card. Henri gave me one — that night. You’re supposed to have one to get in.” She ran to the closet and scrambled through the top drawer of a hidden highboy. Shayne was waiting when she came out. “Here it is,” she said, and handed it to him.
Shayne read Club Daphne in large letters. Supporting each end of the two words was a young, nude girl with arms outstretched and high, pointed breasts. In small letters below, For Intimate Relaxation was printed, and scrawled across the bottom of the card, in ink, was the name Henri Desmond.
Shayne pocketed the card. “Admission by card only, eh?”
“To the inner sanctum. The public room is a regular night club with a hot band and a racy floor show. It all looks perfectly harmless to any tourist who drops in, but I still have nightmares over my one experience with the ‘Intimate Relaxation.’” She essayed a flippant laugh, but it didn’t quite come off. “I guess I’m just a bourgeois at heart,” she ended with a sigh as they went down the stairs.
The cab was waiting. Shayne asked, “Know where the Club Daphne is?”
The driver grinned. “Sure thing.”
Lucile moved close to Shayne when the taxi started. Her hand found his and caught his fingers. She said, shakily, “I should be frightened, I guess.”
“Aren’t you?”
Her fingers tightened on his. “Not with you.”
“Remember, I’m the new boy friend,” Shayne cautioned. “I’m jealous as hell and refuse to let you out of my sight in that joint. He’ll want to talk to you privately, but make him stay where I can see you. And you don’t know anything about Margo’s death. You simply went home and kept a date with me after leaving Evalyn at Margo’s.”
“I understand,” she whispered tensely. “What do you think Henri wants?”
“I imagine he wants to make sure you don’t tell the police about that scene with Margo tonight. Whether he did it or not, he knows that makes him a suspect. Play him along, promise him anything and try to find out how he learned about the murder.”
“I’ll do my best.” She relaxed with her shoulder against Shayne’s, her fingers still clinging to his.
The cab slowed and turned off North Rampart onto Esplanade Avenue with its stately palm trees and live-oaks and magnolias, and with aged, shuttered homes that had once been palatial residences of the socially prominent in the French city.
Now the street was deserted and silent. The cab glided along slowly for more than two blocks, then turned under a grilled iron archway bearing a discreet neon sign, Club Daphne. A gravel drive circled between double rows of palms to the rear courtyard of one of the stately old residences which had been converted into a parking lot. More than a dozen cars were parked in the lot, though no light shone from the shuttered windows of the ancient house and no sound came through the thick walls of stone.
A single ruby light glowed at the end of a vine-covered latticework approach to the rear entrance. The driver stopped and opened the rear door. He said, “The last floor show will just about be starting,” as Shayne and Lucile got out.
Shayne gave him a dollar, took Lucile’s arm, and led her up a flagged walk under the latticework to a heavy oak door reinforced with thick strips of pounded copper.
The door swung open silently as they neared it and a young Negro boy greeted them with a white-toothed smile. “Yas suh,” he intoned, “yo’ jes in time fo’ de las’ flo’ show.”
The rhythmic beat of a boogie-woogie pulsed through a long, dark-paneled hallway leading in from the rear door. Shayne traded his hat for a check from the boy and they went along a strip of heavy carpeting to an arched doorway at the end of the hall.
A bald-headed man in a dinner jacket met them in the doorway. He lifted his brows and said, “Two?” and guided them into a large, dark room.
A raised platform in the center had an orange spotlight beating down upon two Negro girls performing mad gyrations to the beat of a concealed orchestra. The dancers were very young with sinuous yellow bodies which were nude except for loin cloths and a single red rosette for each breast.
Shayne and Lucile followed the guide between close-ranked tables which were occupied by a few indefatigable patrons. He led them to a small table in the second row from the platform and seated them just as the two quadroons finished their mad dance to a mild spattering of applause.
Concealed overhead lights glowed as the girls scampered down a runway and off the stage. The waiter was standing deferentially beside Shayne’s chair.
Shayne raised his red brows quizzically. Lucile said, “I’ll take a Tom Collins.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well — yes. I do know what a Tom Collins is,” she said, and for the first time since Shayne had met her she appeared embarrassed.
“Two Tom Collinses,” Shayne said.
The waiter nodded stiffly and turned away.
The overhead lights faded out and the yellow spot came on again as a tall, statuesque blonde glided up the runway followed by a smiling lad.
A burst of applause greeted the blonde and her youthful companion. Stringed instruments made plaintive cries as she took the boy’s hand and began crooning a song about being just a mother to Tommy.
Shayne looked at Lucile. Her head was turned from the stage and she was apparently absorbed in an intricate mosaic pattern decorating the table. She said, “I’m going to protect my stomach tonight.”
“The same act you saw before?” Shayne asked.
“With variations,” she murmured. “Last time it was an old man and a young girl.”
“Then we won’t look,” Shayne agreed.
After a long delay, the waiter came with their drinks. The orchestra hit a wailing crescendo, and Shayne turned his head to see the tall blonde running off the stage, naked except for a pair of shoes.
The waiter set tall drinks on the table. Lucile said, “I want to see Henri Desmond.”
“I’ll give him your message as soon as he can be located, Madame,” the man said.
The lights stayed on and the platform was lowered by a hidden mechanism. Another low stage rose slowly into view with a ten-piece Negro orchestra beating out a dance tune. Half a dozen scattered couples from the nearly empty dining-room got up to dance.
Four of the six couples were men past fifty, accompanied by very young girls, none of them past the age of consent. Lucile said, “Those kids are the hostesses. I wonder how they manage to do their school work after a night here.”
“What’s the rest of the layout?” Shayne tasted his drink and set it down. “It’s worse than I expected.”
“You should have ordered something else,” she murmured. “You didn’t have to—”
“Anything in this joint would have tasted the same. What else do you know about it?”
“This is the public part, of course. Over there beyond the orchestra are the restrooms. You go through those doors into halls leading to another room like this in front, only smaller.”
“And more intimate?” Shayne grinned at her.
Lucile did not smile. “The restrooms open off the halls,” she went on solemnly. “It’s fixed that way, Henri said, so the common tourists won’t notice selected customers slipping into the other room during the course of the night. They simply go to the restrooms and don’t come back.” She lifted her glass and drank half of the faintly greenish liquid, making a wry face as she set it down. “I didn’t know gin ever tasted like this stuff does,” she complained.
“You’re just used to a better grade. You don’t have to drink it, you know.”
“I held my breath to keep from tasting what I did drink,” she said.
“What’s upstairs?” Shayne asked abruptly.
“Rooms,” she told him succinctly. “For hire by the hour, or longer — if you’re interested.”
“I’m not.”
Lucile pouted and said, “I was afraid I would be perfectly safe with you.”
Shayne looked at her, his eyes twinkling. “You work awfully hard at trying to fill the role of a wild woman.”
She tossed her brown curls. “I’m not a high-school girl.”
Shayne’s grin spread. “How old are you?”
She said, “Twenty-six,” defiantly.
Shayne arched his ragged red brows. “I don’t believe you, but I’ll make a note of it.”
Lucile said, “I wonder what’s keeping Henri?”
Shayne’s finger tips drummed impatiently on the table. He muttered, “You don’t suppose Henri saw me and was scared off?”
“I shouldn’t think so.” She pushed her chair back and said, “Excuse me. You entertain Henri while I’m gone — if he comes.” Her voice was decidedly thick.
“Where are you going?” Shayne demanded.
She said, with an attempt at severity, “A gen’leman never asks a lady that ques’ion.”
He watched her cross the room and go through the door marked Ladies. He lit a cigarette and puffed on it as he moodily wondered if Lucile could be 26. She looked much younger. She was pretty swell, clear thinking and straight talking. He caught himself wishing he had met her under other circumstances.
Then his thoughts reverted to Margo. She had been pretty swell, too. He grinned, recollecting what Margo had told Lucile about him. He couldn’t repress a feeling of guilt for having approached Margo under false pretenses. Still, it hadn’t been all false — not after he met and talked with her. How would it have turned out?
He sternly swung his thoughts into another channel. Joseph Little would probably be arriving soon. It would be a lot easier to face him if he could hand over his daughter’s murderer. He went over the story Lucile had told about Evalyn and Henri. Would a man like that kill out of jealousy? Shayne didn’t think so. But Evalyn — a woman scorned was a different proposition. The brutal battering of the victim was a likely indication of furious rage. One or two blows with the death weapon in strong hands would have sufficed. In weaker hands it was different, and Barbara Little’s killer must have struck time and time again — even, perhaps, after the job was done.
Shayne came out of his meditation and looked at his wrist watch. Lucile had been gone a long time. He glanced around the room, scowling heavily. He watched the Ladies door, but it remained closed. He remembered that the door led not only to the restrooms but on to the private floor show beyond.
Had Henri seen him, recognized him as he came in with Lucile? Was Henri Barbara Little’s murderer and intent on getting rid of any evidence against him by holding Lucile — maybe murdering her, also? He clenched his fists and discovered that his palms were wet with sweat. It had been 15 minutes since Lucile left the table.
He scraped his chair back and got up, saw Lucile’s green handbag on the table, and picked it up. He circled the orchestra to the closed door leading to the ladies’ restroom.
Opening the door, he found that it led into a narrow hall about 15 feet long. A curtained doorway at his right had the word Ladies in silver letters above it. He stopped and called, “Lucile,” in a loud voice.
A Negro maid thrust her head out. She rolled her eyes and asked, “Was you callin’, Mister?”
Shayne said, “I wondered if my girl was all right. Is she sick?”
“Whut girl?”
“The one who came in here about fifteen minutes ago, wearing a green dress and green shoes to match this bag.” He held up the suède handbag.
The Negress shook her head. “Ain’ no girl in heah. Ain’ been no girl in heah wearin’ no dress lak dat.”
Shayne’s eyes glowed hotly. He swung around and started toward the end of the hall.
A burly man stepped into the hall from a side door near the end. Hulking shoulders strained the seams of a gray suit. His face was pock-marked, his jaw heavy and set, his eyes small.
He put his hands on his hips and confronted Shayne. “Whatcha doin’ here? Comin’ out the ladies’ room?”
“I’m looking for a girl. She’s wearing a green dress.”
“She ain’t here,” the man grated. “Beat it.”
The grooves in Shayne’s cheeks deepened. “Where’s Henri Desmond?”
He heard footsteps in the hall behind him as the man growled, “He ain’t here neither.”
Shayne turned to look at the man sauntering toward them. He wore a double-breasted blue suit, a black fedora, and round-toed black shoes. He might as well have worn a sign saying Plain-Clothes Dick. He looked past Shayne and asked, “Trouble, Bart?”
“This here guy,” said Bart, “claims he’s lookin’ for a dame that’s got lost.”
The dick stopped five feet from Shayne and looked him over coldly. He unbuttoned his double-breasted coat and opened it to give the redhead a flash of his city badge. “Better not start anything in here, bud.”
Shayne laughed shortly. “Did Denton send you?”
The dick jerked his thumb back over his shoulder and said, “Beat it.”
Shayne hunched his shoulders and turned back to Bart. “I’m headed this way.”
“That’s private,” Bart said. “’Less you got a special card.”
Shayne took a step forward.
The burly man stepped back and said, “Okay, buddy,” in a resigned tone.
The dick came up behind him swiftly as he reached for the doorknob. He felt the muzzle of a gun boring into his left side. The dick said, “You better not—”
Shayne whirled and knocked the gun down with his left forearm while his right fist made a short arc to the dick’s jaw. As the man went down, pain struck savagely at the base of Shayne’s right ear. His knees gave way, and the bottom fell out of the world.