Incredulous silence followed her quiet pronouncement of Michael Shayne’s name. Unaware of the bombshell she had exploded, she lowered her head to dab at her eyes.
Shayne recovered his speech first. “No, by God!” he began hotly.
“Hold it, Mike,” the chief interrupted with an angry bellow. “I don’t want a word from you. Drink your cognac and keep your mouth shut. If you say one word, and I mean it, Mike, one word, before I’m finished, I’ll have you taken in and locked up until I get to the bottom of this.”
Shayne nodded morosely. He took a long drink, lit a cigarette, and said quietly, “Go to it, Will. I’m just as curious as you are.”
The angry interchange between the two men brought Nora’s head up again. A frown creased her smooth forehead, and she appeared genuinely confused. “Isn’t Mr. Shayne a well-known detective?” she asked Gentry in a meek voice. “I understand he has a very good reputation.”
“Depends on who you ask about him,” growled Gentry. He shifted his unlit cigar across his mouth, bent forward, and planted a hand on each broad thigh. “Describe Shayne for me, Mrs. Carrol.”
“Why, I haven’t met him personally. I thought I told you that. There was a letter from him, enclosing the key, waiting for me when I checked in yesterday. Then two telephone calls — one in the afternoon to check my arrival and confirm everything, and the other one at one o’clock.”
“I see,” mused Gentry. “And what sort of voice did Mr. Shayne have?”
“Why—” She hesitated. “A rather nice voice, I thought. He was very businesslike and pleasant.”
“Would you recognize the voice again?”
“I don’t know. Possibly.”
“Did he leave a number where you could reach him?”
“No, he didn’t. I asked him for it the first time he called, but he said it wouldn’t be necessary; and besides, he would be moving around and couldn’t say where he’d be.”
“This letter from him with the key and the instructions, was it on a printed letterhead? Do you recall the address?”
She frowned again, biting her underlip, then faltered, “I think so. I’m not positive, but I seem to recall a printed letterhead. It was typewritten and signed with his name,” she ended brightly.
“Do you have it with you?”
“Oh, no. Why does all this matter, Chief Gentry?” she asked. “Isn’t Mr. Shayne the one to answer these questions?”
“I’ll get to that presently. I’ll want to see that letter of his, Mrs. Carrol. When you leave here I’ll send a man with you to your hotel to pick it up.”
“But I tore it up. I didn’t know it was important, and he asked me to destroy it. I thought it was a rather silly precaution, but I did.”
“I see.” Gentry’s tone was a gentle purr, but his big, florid face turned slightly purple. “That’s very interesting. Did he say why he wanted the letter destroyed?”
“Oh, something about his taking a big chance, and that it was illegal for him to get me a key like that; and if anything went wrong, he might lose his license.”
“But you did have letters from him while you were still in Wilmington?” the chief probed.
“No. But Mr. Bates did. Two or three, I think.”
“Do you have one of those with you?”
“No. I didn’t actually see them myself. Mr. Bates handled all that.”
“How did you first contact this Michael Shayne, Mrs. Carrol?”
“I didn’t. Mr. Bates did.”
“And this was two weeks ago?”
“Around then.”
Gentry grunted and settled back in his chair. He turned to Shayne and said, “So there you have it, Mike. What’s your explanation?”
“I think,” said the detective grimly, “you should introduce Mrs. Carrol to me. We neglected that little nicety when we met so informally about an hour ago.”
“Then she’ll probably be quite interested,” he growled. “This is Michael Shayne, Mrs. Carrol. One of the best-known private detectives in Miami, possibly in the whole country.”
Up to this point she had been listening with curiosity and interest. Now, she paled, and her dark eyes rounded in astonishment. She drew a long, audible breath, and stared at Shayne as though he had suddenly sprouted an extra head.
For a moment she seemed speechless. Then color flushed her cheeks, and her eyes flashed angrily. “You’re Michael Shayne?” she exclaimed in astonishment.
“That’s right.”
“You sent me your own key!” she raged. “You tricked me into coming here to your room!”
“I didn’t send you my key,” Shayne returned savagely. “And I didn’t trick you into coming to my room.” He jerked his head around to face Gentry. “You know me better than that, Will.”
“She’s the one who’s accusing you,” said Gentry placidly. “Not I.”
“I suppose you both think I slipped upstairs and murdered her husband,” he went on with bitter irony, “as part of my little strategem to lure her into my bed.”
“What would you think if you heard the same story?” Gentry parried angrily.
Shayne hesitated and tugged at his ear lobe. Then he said, “I honestly don’t know. But if I’d known a guy as long as you’ve known me, I wouldn’t believe a thing like this.”
“All right,” growled Gentry. “I don’t think you murdered Carrol. Does that satisfy you?”
“No.” Shayne’s voice was cold and his eyes were bleak. He stood up impatiently, shoulders hunched, his angular jaw jutting. “Somebody has lied about this whole thing,” he stated flatly. “But I give you my word of honor, Will. I never heard the name Ralph Carrol until approximately two-thirty this morning, when this dame slipped into my apartment, took off her clothes, and crawled in bed with me. If that doesn’t satisfy you, you’d better lock me up.”
Will Gentry made a slight gesture and said, “That’s good enough for me, Mike.”
“Fair enough. Why don’t you relax with a drink while we try to get to the bottom of this mess?” He strode toward the liquor cabinet, saying, “Scotch?”
“About two fingers on the rocks.” The chief turned to the girl and said, “Now Mrs. Carrol, don’t you think you’d better start telling the whole truth?”
“I have,” she vowed. “Every word is the truth. If this man is really Michael Shayne and he didn’t send me the key, and telephone me to come here last night, who did?” Shayne came in from the kitchenette with Gentry’s drink and set it on the desk within easy reach.
“You still insist this man told you his name was Michael Shayne?” Gentry asked.
“Definitely.”
The chief’s deep sigh was expelled with a sound between a grunt and a weary groan. He took a long sip of the pale drink and said, “How do you read it, Mike?” Shayne sat down and leaned forward with his arms folded on the desk, his face a mask of concentration. “Accepting her story at face value for the moment, how and why would anyone impersonate me? Let’s work on the how first.” Turning to Nora, he continued, “You say your only contact with this detective was through a lawyer in Wilmington. That is, until you arrived in Miami yesterday and took over.”
“I’ve told you over and over that Mr. Bates handled everything from there,” she said irritably.
“This Bates is your lawyer?”
“Well, he’s actually Ralph’s lawyer. But he took my side against Ralph in the divorce action.”
“And you have no knowledge of the actual mechanics of how he contacted this detective in Miami who represented himself to be me?”
“No. I really don’t know.”
Shayne considered for a brief period, then concluded, “I think we should clear up the Wilmington end first, Will. Why don’t you call Bates right now?”
“But it’s three-thirty in the morning,” Nora protested. “He won’t be in his office.”
“Then give us his home telephone number, if you have it,” Shayne cut in tersely. “He should be notified of Carrol’s death, anyway.”
She opened her purse reluctantly and took out a small address book. “It’s just terrible to wake him up like this and tell him Ralph has been murdered. Could I talk to him, please. The shock will—”
“After I’ve asked a couple of questions,” Gentry promised. “Have you found the number?”
She nodded and read it from the book through blurred eyes.
Gentry got long-distance and gave the number in Wilmington, Delaware. Shayne moodily poured himself more brandy, took a fresh handkerchief from his pocket, pressed it into Nora’s hand.
Only a few seconds elapsed before he said, “Mr. Bates? Chief Gentry calling from Miami. A man who is registered in a hotel here as Ralph Carrol of Wilmington has been murdered. I understand he was a client of yours.” He waited placidly while an excited voice crackled into the receiver and mingled with Nora’s audible sobs.
“No, we haven’t any real clue as to the killer yet. But there are a couple of questions you can answer. Is it a fact that you advised and aided Mrs. Carrol in coming to Miami yesterday to attempt a reconciliation with her husband?”
He nodded his head while listening to the lawyer’s reply, then said, “I see. Yes, she’s right here and wants to speak to you as soon as I’ve finished. It appears right now that her husband was killed before she was able to see him. The important thing I need from you right now, Mr. Bates, is the name of the private detective in Miami who located Mr. Carrol for you, and made the arrangements for Mrs. Carrol to enter her husband’s suite in the middle of the night.”
Again he listened, then sent a sardonic glance toward Shayne as he said, “Shayne, eh? Michael Shayne. Yes. I do know him personally. That confirms Mrs. Carrol’s story, vehemently denied by Shayne.”
The redhead came to his feet, reached for the phone, and demanded angrily, “Let me talk to him, Will. I’ll cram that lie down his throat.”
Gentry fended him off with a curt gesture and a stony look. “That’s right,” he continued. “Shayne is here with me, too, and denies categorically ever hearing of you or the Carrols before tonight.”
He was listening again and shaking his head at Shayne’s impatient attempt to get hold of the phone. “I agree that it doesn’t seem to make sense either way, Mr. Bates.”
“Ask him,” Shayne demanded hoarsely, “how he claims to have contacted me. How, and to what extent he is supposed to have communicated with me and me with him.”
Gentry nodded and relayed the questions to the Wilmington lawyer. After a moment he covered the mouthpiece with his palm and said to Shayne, “He wrote to you a couple of weeks ago, briefly outlining what Mrs. Carrol planned, and you replied promptly offering to do the job for five hundred in cash, if he could fix it to get Carrol registered in this particular hotel. You claimed to know the layout of the apartments and the management here, and said you wouldn’t have too much trouble getting a key. As Carrol’s lawyer, Bates was in touch with him all the time, and he suggested that Carrol come here, giving some excuse that Carrol accepted.”
“Nice ethical lawyer,” Shayne grated, “setting his own client up for the kill.”
“That’s not true,” Nora protested. “Mr. Bates is nice. He was doing it for me — for both of us, really, because he felt that Ralph would regret the divorce later.”
Gentry gave not the slightest evidence that he had heard the woman. His rumpled lids were lowered at half-mast. “Bates’s story is that Michael Shayne steered Carrol to this hotel, got his five hundred cash in advance, then telephoned Bates two days ago to say that the key was ready for Mrs. Carrol when she arrived,” he reported solemnly, ruefully. “Also, he wired Michael Shayne to expect her at the Commodore yesterday and to take over from there. He sounds factual as hell, Mike, with all the data at his finger tips.”
“Every word of it is a goddamned lie,” Shayne burst out. “Good Lord, Will! You can go through my office files. Ask Lucy. I can prove I never wrote those letters or sent any wires. Lucy will verify that. Everything goes through her, as you know.”
Gentry shook his head slowly. “I just don’t get it,” he said in a low rumble. “If you’re lying—”
A voice was rasping through the receiver, and he uncovered the mouthpiece to say, “Perhaps you’d like to speak to Mrs. Carrol now.” He held the instrument out to her.
She seized it eagerly and exclaimed, “It’s Nora, Mr. Bates. I just don’t know anything. I didn’t even see Ralph before they told me he was dead. It’s all so horrible!” She paused, listened, nodded her head, and continued. “Yes. Everything was fixed for me to go to his room. The key was at the hotel just as it was arranged, and the detective phoned me twice. Only—” Her voice faltered on a convulsive sob. “Only there was some awful mistake. It was the wrong apartment. I got into the detective’s room instead of Ralph’s. Yes,” she accented shrilly. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. He sent me the key to his own apartment here at the same hotel, and he was waiting for me — in bed. He pretended he was asleep when I slipped in, thinking it was Ralph. I don’t know, Mr. Bates. I think they’re all in it together. The Chief of Police is a crony of his, and you’d better come down here.”
The rangy redhead growled an angry expletive and snatched the instrument from Nora’s hand. “Michael Shayne speaking,” he rasped. “Mrs. Carrol is right. You’d better high-tail it down here fast. And bring all the evidence in your possession purporting to back up your story.”
“I will certainly do that, Mr. Shayne.” The lawyer’s voice was precise and icy. “If Mrs. Carrol is telling me the truth—”
“If she’s telling the truth,” Shayne broke in savagely, “then you’re lying your fool head off. I tell you—”
“I refuse to discuss the matter further over the phone with you, Shayne,” Bates cut in. “Please put your friend, the Chief of Police, on the wire again.”
Shayne snorted with disgust and handed the phone to Will Gentry who said curtly, “Gentry speaking.” He listened for a time, his face gradually turning the color of raw beef and his eyes narrowed to slits. Then he said, “That’s exactly what we want you to do, Bates. If you’re not in my office by one o’clock tomorrow — today, that is, I’ll have a warrant served on you in Wilmington.”
He slammed the receiver down and fixed his agate gaze on Shayne. “God help me if you’ve put me out on a limb this time, Mike. Mr. Bates is convinced that the Miami police force is in a dastardly plot with you to rape Mrs. Carrol and murder her husband. He’s flying down in the morning with documentary evidence and all the necessary legal writs to put us both in Raiford for life.”
Shayne managed a crooked grin. “That’s just fine, Will. There’s nothing I’d rather see right now than Lawyer Bates’s documentary evidence.”
Gentry picked up his glass and drank its watery content, grunted, and settled back in his chair. He took another cigar from his pocket, lit it, and puffed a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.
Shayne turned to Nora Carrol and said, “There’s going to be a showdown. Whatever cute plan you and your shyster lawyer had, when you came down here, is going to blow up right in your faces. You’d better get out from under while you can, baby. If you didn’t kill your husband, you’d better spill the truth, so we can find out who did.”
“I? Kill Ralph?” She had been leaning back, her head resting comfortably against the chair, her eyes partly closed. She lifted her shoulders wearily and said tearfully, “I’m so tired and so confused! Can’t I go now, please?”
Will Gentry put his big hands on his chair arms and pushed his bulky body up from the deep chair. “I guess we’ve done about all we can here. There’s still the formal identification of your husband’s body. If you’ll come upstairs with me, Mrs. Carrol, we can get it over with.”
She shuddered, buried her face in Shayne’s big handkerchief, and said in a muffled, pleading voice, “Is it necessary, Chief Gentry? You said the — the body had been identified by people here in the hotel.”
“With all the impersonations floating around,” he told her gruffly, “we can’t be certain that the man registered here as Ralph Carrol is actually your husband. You’re the only one who can make a positive identification, and it might clarify a lot of things.”
Nora Carrol removed the handkerchief from her face and sprang to her feet. Her eyes brightened, and she said hopefully, “Then you think it might not be Ralph, after all?”
“That remains to be seen,” he told her. “Come along and we’ll find out.” He took her arm in his pudgy palm and propelled her toward the door, saying, “Stick around, Mike. We’ve got things to talk about.”
“Want me to come along?”
“No. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
The telephone rang when Gentry and Nora Carrol reached the door. Gentry stopped, turned, and listened when Shayne answered it. When a man’s high-pitched and excited voice came over the wire, the redhead pressed the receiver tight against his ear, hoping to keep the sound from Gentry’s range of hearing.
The man was saying, “Shayne? Am I glad to reach you! You’ve heard about Carrol, huh?”
Shayne arched his ragged brows at Gentry, groaned, and said into the mouthpiece, “For chrissake, honey, why don’t you go to bed and sleep it off? Do you know what time it is?”
Gentry hesitated briefly, then opened the door and went out with Nora, leaving it ajar. Shayne listened for the chief’s stolid footsteps in the corridor with one ear, and heard his caller’s plaintive words with the other.
The man said, “What’s the matter? Did I wake you up? This here is Ludlow talking. Don’t you know about Carrol?”
“What about him?” Shayne demanded cautiously as the footsteps outside died away.
“He’s dead. He was dead when I got there, Shayne. Look, I don’t know what this is all about or how much I’m on the spot, but I can’t afford any trouble. If there’s any chance of me being fingered in this, I want to get my story in first. I didn’t give my name when I reported to the cops. I don’t know how you figure in it, but I know your reputation, and I know you’ll give it to me straight. Can you keep me out of it? Or should I quick call headquarters again and say I was scared the first time and didn’t know what I was doing, and then give them all the dope?”
Shayne heard a wheezy, long-drawn breath over the wire, as though Ludlow had not taken time to breathe during his long, rapid recital. He asked sharply, “How did you get my phone number?”
“From Information. I didn’t think about it at first. I knew you wouldn’t be at your office. That’s why I didn’t call you before the police. But I got to worrying about them dragging you into it, and then you telling about me, and I’d be in a spot for not coming clean right away. How do we play now?”
Shayne was thinking fast. “Who did you say this is?” he asked in a low voice.
“Ludlow. You know.” There was a gasp, then a pause. “This ain’t Shayne,” he yelped. “The cops are already—” A sharp click stung his eardrum.
Shayne cradled the receiver slowly and sat tugging at his ear lobe, trying to remember someone named Ludlow, when the telephone rang again.
He picked up the receiver and heard the substitute operator on the lobby switchboard saying, “Here’s Mr. Shayne now.”
“I’ve been trying to get you,” a husky voice complained. It was furred with sleep or with too many drinks, “I’ve just heard the shocking news about Ralph Carrol over the radio. Nora’s name wasn’t mentioned. Do you think she is involved?”
“Who’s calling?” Shayne asked.
“You wouldn’t know my name, but it’s very important that I see you at once, Mr. Shayne. If the police don’t already know, we’ve got to keep Nora out of it. I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars to forget everything you know about tonight.”
Shayne said, “Ten grand is a nice round sum. Who’s offering it?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? I have the cash. All I need is your assurance that you won’t tell the police about Nora.”
Shayne said, “I think we’d better talk this over. Where are you?”
“Not so fast,” the furry voice objected. “How do I know you’re not already in touch with the police?”
“You don’t. But if I don’t get away from here quick I will be in touch with them.” He glanced at his wrist watch. Gentry had said he’d be back in five minutes. Four of them were gone. He had a minute left. “Where can we meet?”
“I don’t trust you,” the husky voice said querulously. “I’ve heard all sorts of things about your tricks. If you’re on the level and willing to keep your mouth shut for ten thousand dollars, leave there as soon as you hang up and drive north on Biscayne Boulevard. It’s three forty-two by my watch. You should reach Seventy-Ninth Street about four o’clock. Pull into the closed gasoline station on the southeast corner and wait there for me. If you’re on the square and there are no cops, you’ll get your money.”
Shayne said, “I’ll be there at four o’clock, in a black Hudson, and alone.” He broke the connection, got up, and went to the front door which Gentry had left open. He listened for a second, and hearing no sound from above, Shayne closed the door quietly and hurried back to the telephone.
He gave Lucy Hamilton’s number, and when her sleepy voice answered he said rapidly, “Listen carefully, angel, and don’t ask questions. Get dressed fast. A light-colored suit, if you have one. Wear a yellow scarf fluffed out at your throat. Bareheaded. Call a taxi while you’re dressing. Go to the Commodore Hotel and ask at the desk for your key. You’ve forgotten your room number, having just checked in yesterday afternoon. You’re Mrs. Ralph Carrol, or Nora Carrol, from Wilmington, Delaware. If they insist you took your key with you when you went out about one o’clock, say you lost it or something; but get a key to Mrs. Ralph Carrol’s room and get inside. Look for a letter to Mrs. Carrol from Michael Shayne giving a sketch of the layout of my apartment. It should be easy to find. Then get out in a hurry, and back to bed. I’ll see you later on at the office. Got it?”
“I think so,” Lucy told him “Is anything wrong, Michael?”
“Plenty. You’ve got maybe ten minutes to get that letter and get out of there. Good luck.”
Shayne hung up, sweat streaming down his trenched cheeks. He long-legged it to the door, grabbed his hat from a hook near by, went out and down the corridor to a side stairway leading to an exit that didn’t take him through the hotel lobby.