It was almost seven o’clock when Michael Shayne returned from his trip to Moonray Beach down the coast. He drove directly to the motel where he found Rourke waiting for him in his room. The reporter was slouched on the bed with a pint bottle of bourbon open on the table beside him, and a sour expression on his face.
“Heard the big news?” he asked as Shayne came in.
“No. I just drove in.”
“They got the guy. That is, a guy at least, But he’s sure as hell going to be the guy before this night is over, whether he is or isn’t… if you get me.”
Shayne sat down with a heavy frown. “Tell me.”
“It’s a colored boy. Name of Pristine Gaylord. Runs a little still, they say, and lives all alone about twelve miles out of town. He’s cut out for the part. Considered a troublemaker and served two sentences for aggravated assault. Neighbor of his brought him in for the reward. A white man that I wouldn’t pick over the Negro myself, but he is white. He places Gaylord here in town at midnight. Claims he was driving home from up the coast and passed this colored boy hiking down the road about two miles out of town. He didn’t recognize him as he drove past, but he had a flat tire a few minutes later, and this Gaylord comes walking up and he recognized him as a near neighbor and offered him a ride home if he’d change his tire. He says Gaylord acted funny and wouldn’t give any explanation for being out there at midnight, except that his car was broken down at home, but he didn’t give it much thought until he heard about Mrs. Blake on the radio at four o’clock. That’s when the reward offer was broadcast,” Rourke interpolated sourly.
“So he drove down to Gaylord’s place and offered to bring him into town to make a moonshine delivery, and he drove him straight up to the police station and turned him in. And that’s it.” Timothy Rourke spread out his hands disgustedly. “I’ve been around town keeping my ears open, and things are building up fast. They’re not saying too much in front of an outsider, but the Rednecks are coming in from the back country, and there’s going to be a lynching in this man’s town tonight unless somebody does something pretty damned quick.”
“What’s Gaylord’s story?”
“He hasn’t got any story. He just denies everything. Claims he hasn’t been off his place for three days and that Alonzo Peters… that’s the white man who brought him in… is purely and simply lying about picking him up on the road last night. But I helped shoot that story, damn it. I told you about the eager-beaver young cop with the fingerprinting outfit. I got him and we opened up the trunk of Peter’s car and there was a flat tire all right. With the suspect’s fingerprints all over the jack and lug wrench… fresh enough to’ve probably been made last night. Which seems to prove Peters’ story, and puts the colored boy right here on the scene at the right time.”
“How does he explain his fingerprints on the jack?”
“I don’t think Jenson’s bothered to ask him that. What the hell?” Rourke went on fiercely. “It’s his word against a white man’s. Who’s going to believe a damn word a ‘nigger’ says when there’s a white woman been raped and murdered? It’s what they want, Mike. You know that. All these Freedom Riders and northern integrationists haven’t helped things any. There’s going to be a lynching here tonight and there’s not one single solitary damned thing either you or I can do to prevent it. I’ll have to stay here to cover the story, God help me, but you’d better get the hell out of town, Mike, before things start to boil. There’s nothing you can do except to get your head blown off if you try to interfere.”
“What’s Jenson doing?” demanded Shayne. “Has he asked for help? Troops or the State Police?”
“You know what Chief Ollie Jenson is doing,” scoffed Rourke. “He’s sitting in his office quaking in his shoes and pretending nothing is going to happen. Damn it! If he gets troops in here or the State Police, he knows some of his neighbors will get shot. They’re the people who pay his salary.”
Shayne got to his feet slowly, his face set in harsh lines. “It might help if we could produce a substitute suspect.” He paused, tugging violently at his left ear-lobe. “I take it you still haven’t mentioned Harry Wilsson’s fingerprints on that glass to anyone?”
Rourke shook his head. “Leroy Smith knows I’ve got a set of matching prints, but he doesn’t know where I got it or who from. It’s not good enough, Mike. Wilsson is well-known and respected here. And all we can do, anyhow, is place him having a drink with her around eight o’clock. At worst, he’ll tell the same story he told you. The mob that’s forming out there in town doesn’t want a white man, Mike. They’re getting themselves worked up to kill a ‘nigger’ tonight, and that’s what they’re going to do.”
Shayne didn’t reply for a moment, then he asked incisively, “Do you know where Blake is?”
“I haven’t seen him since the chief drove him away from the station to take him to his daughter at the Wilsson house.”
Shayne took two paces to the telephone stand and leafed through the thin directory there. He lifted the phone and gave the Wilsson telephone number.
A woman’s voice answered and he asked, “Is Marvin Blake there?”
“No, he’s not. He was here for awhile with Sissy, but then he wouldn’t stay. He’s bound and determined he’s going to take Sissy away tonight… drive her up to Jacksonville where he’s got a married sister that’ll take care of her, though land’s sake knows I told him and told him that Harry and I would love having her stay just as long as she wanted, but he’s got his mind made up and you know Marv when he sets his mind to something. So he’s over at his house packing up clothes for Sissy to take with her to Jacksonville though I tried to persuade him to let me do it for him. You know, him going back to that empty house where, well… who is this calling?”
Shayne hung up without replying. He asked Rourke, “How do I get to the Blake house from here?”
Rourke told him. “Is something up? You want me…?”
“I want you to get out and circulate around town,” Shayne told him grimly, “and keep your finger on the pulse of things. I won’t just sit around and let things happen, Tim. You and I may have to make a telephone call to the governor if things get bad.”
He went out of the motel room swiftly and followed Rourke’s directions for reaching the Blake house.
There was a gleaming, late-model Mercury sedan parked in front of the house when he got there. He pulled up behind it and got out and went up to the front door. He found it ajar, and he pushed it open and walked inside. It was very still inside the house, and a quick glance into the kitchen and sitting room indicated that the lower floor was empty.
Shayne climbed the stairs leading up from the hallway. At the top of the stairs the door on the right was closed, and so was the next door on the left. Another door, beyond that, stood open, and Shayne walked to it and stopped on the threshold.
Marvin Blake sat across from him on the edge of a child’s bed that was strewn with an array of dresses and clothing. A suitcase sat open at the foot of the bed, and it appeared to be partially packed with Sissy’s things.
Blake sat hunched forward in a miserable posture with both elbows planted on his knees and his down-bent face resting in his hands. It was obvious that he had not heard the detective coming up the stairs, and believed himself alone in the house.
Shayne stood in the doorway and said quietly, “Blake.”
Marvin did not appear startled or surprised. He lifted his head slowly and stared dully at the redhead. His face was pasty-white and there were red blotches on his cheeks where his fingers had been pressed. He said, “Oh, it’s you,” in a dead sort of voice.
Shayne said, “I have to talk to you, Blake. Let’s go downstairs.”
Marvin turned his head to look at the strewn bed and the suitcase. “I’m packing up here. Sissy’s things. I’m going to take her away, you see. I have a sister in Jacksonville.” He spoke slowly and laboriously, forming each word with care as though it were terribly important that he make himself understood.
Shayne said patiently, “I know. And I think that’s fine. But right now you and I have things to talk about.” He stepped across the room to Blake’s side and took his arm and pulled him up to his feet. Blake did not resist, but he didn’t help much either. He reacted automatically to the authority in Shayne’s voice, shuffling along beside him and explaining in a low voice that sounded apologetic, “I don’t know what to take for Sissy and what to leave behind. She’s got so many clothes. Ellie always looked after that, and now she’s not here to do it, and I’ve got to do the best I can.”
Shayne silently shepherded him down the stairs and turned into the neat sitting room where the shades were drawn and it was dim and cool. He urged him toward a chair and helped him to stiffly lower his body into it, and then stepped back and got out a cigarette and lighted it.
He said crisply, “Listen to me, Blake. Pay attention to what I’m saying. Do you know they have a man in jail charged with murdering your wife?”
“Have they?” Marvin Blake showed a spark of interest, though it wasn’t strong. “I didn’t know that. I haven’t talked to anybody. I guess I’ve been up in Sissy’s room a good while. I’d keep looking at her dresses and I couldn’t decide…”
“It’s a colored man they have in jail,” Shayne told him strongly. “They haven’t any real evidence against him, Blake. Just that he appears to have been in town last night about the right time. That’s all. But they’re getting ready to lynch him for your wife’s murder. Do you want that, Blake?” Shayne’s voice was like a whip-lash. “Do you want another murder in Sunray Beach?”
Marvin Blake looked bewildered. He shook his head slowly, blinking his eyes at the detective’s harshly accusing voice. “I don’t,” he muttered. “Of course not. I don’t believe in lynchings.”
“Then it’s up to us to do something to prevent it,” Shayne told him. “Why don’t you start out by telling the truth about last night?”
“I have told you. Down at the railroad station.”
Shayne shook his head angrily. “I just got back from Moonray Beach where I checked your story. You didn’t register at the hotel until just before two o’clock this morning. The evening train from Miami gets there a little before ten.”
“I told you I stopped at a restaurant and bar and had some drinks and something to eat.”
“And spent four hours there?” Shayne continued to shake his head. “No one saw you, Blake. No one recognized the picture I had of you. I couldn’t find a soul in Moonray Beach who saw you last night except the hotel clerk. And he says you weren’t drunk at all when you showed up at two o’clock. Also, Blake…” Shayne deliberately made his voice harsh and cold. “… there’s a train coming back from here that stops in Moonray about one-forty. I can prove you were on that train, Blake.
“I spent almost an hour on the long distance telephone checking the railroad records,” he went on deliberately. “One ticket from Miami to Sunray was taken up on last night’s Express. It was the return half of a round-trip ticket. And the train did stop here to let off a passenger. There’s a record of it and the conductor remembers it, and he’ll identify you as the passenger who got out if I bring him into court. Also, there was one cash fare paid between Sunray and Moonray on that return train last night. You did come home last night, Blake. You got off the train at ten-twenty and walked up here to your house without being seen by anyone. Tell me what you found when you got here.”
“I… I… oh, my God!” Marvin Blake buried his face in his hands and moaned like a stricken animal.
“I’ll tell you,” Shayne said in an unexpectedly gentle voice. “I’ll make it easy for you, Blake. You found Harry Wilsson here. Your best friend. He was upstairs in bed with your wife.”
“No, no,” cried Blake wildly, shaking his head, but keeping his face buried in his hands. “Not Ellie. I swear it wasn’t like that.”
“But it was like that,” Shayne told him grimly. “Wilsson admitted it to me. But he didn’t know… doesn’t know yet… that you came back unexpectedly last night and caught him here. What did you do, Blake? Hide in the bushes and watch him drive away? Why didn’t you jump him then and there? Have it out with him… man to man?”
“I couldn’t,” moaned Marvin frantically, “Don’t you see I couldn’t? How could I face Ellie if I’d done that? I thought about it,” he cried wildly, lifting his face to stare up at Shayne. “I knew I should. I knew I should have come right in the front door and got my gun from the bureau there in the hall and gone upstairs and shot him. And maybe Ellie, too. But how could I? What about Sissy? She’d have to know that her mother… don’t you see why I couldn’t do it? I thought if I’d go away and pretend I didn’t know, that it would be all right. And then I thought maybe I’d kill myself instead. That’s what I meant to do when I went up to that hotel and got a room. But I was afraid I wouldn’t have the nerve to do it and so I bought a bottle of whiskey from the clerk and I drank about half of it straight down and that knocked me out like a light. I didn’t wake up until after noon today. And then I thought I’d just get on the train and come on home and no one would ever know I was here last night at all. No one would ever have to know about… Ellie and Harry. I thought I could just pretend it never had happened.”
“What did you do after you watched Harry drive away from here last night? You came into the house, didn’t you, Blake…?”
“No, no. I couldn’t bear to face Ellie with it. I tried to plan what to do, and that’s when I thought about the train going back and how I could get on it and just ride back to Moonray and stay the night there and then catch the Miami train and come on home this afternoon like I was expected to. I swear I didn’t even come in the house. I went back down the street away from here, and I remember I got sick about half-way back to the station and I crawled in behind a hedge and was sick and I guess I sort of fainted, and when I came back to my senses fully it was time to go on and get on the train to Moonray.”
Shayne was silent for a long moment. Then he said harshly, “You’re going to have to tell this story in court, you know. Right now, there’s nothing to prove that Ellie was still alive after Harry Wilsson left this house. You and Harry will both have to testify as to what went on here last night.”
“Will we have to? What does it matter? Can’t we spare Sissy that? Does she have to go through life knowing that her mother was… that she…?”
“Don’t forget the colored man who’s in jail waiting to be lynched for a murder he didn’t commit. That’s going to happen tonight, Blake, unless we do something to stop it.
“You and I are the only two people on earth who know the truth,” he went on, lowering his tone and making his voice flat and even so that each word had equal emphasis. “We’re the only ones who know about Harry Wilsson and your wife, and about your coming home last night. If I had any proof that Harry didn’t kill Ellie… that she was still all right when he left the house… I might be willing to forget that part of it, just for Sissy’s sake.”
“Oh, she was!” Marvin grasped wildly at the straw Shayne offered him. “Harry didn’t hurt her.”
“Because she was still alive when you came back to the house and let yourself in with your key and went up to her room, wasn’t she?” Shayne asked in a conversational tone. “Was she asleep, Blake? Did she ever know it was you who strangled her?”
“No. Oh, God, no! Leave me alone. Can’t you leave me alone? I didn’t know what I was doing. It’s all a blur. And now Sissy will have to know. That her mother is a rotten whore and her father is a murderer. All I could think about today was Sissy. How I could spare her ever knowing.”
“All right,” said Shayne bleakly. “Keep right on thinking about Sissy. She’s the only one that counts now. Sissy and an innocent Negro, who’s locked up in jail and due to be lynched tonight, if you don’t save him. You owe both of them something, Blake. You’re done anyway. Sissy has a whole long life to live. Why don’t you give her the one gift that’s left for you to give your daughter? Faith in both her mother and her father. She’s lost them both anyway. There’s no way you can change that. But you can give her something to live for… something to cling to in the lonely years to come.”
“How? How can I?” begged Marvin Blake.
“Help me save that Negro from being lynched first of all. Write out a confession. Here.” Shayne found a clean pad of scratch paper beside the telephone and gave it to Blake with his fountain pen. “Make it short,” he directed. “Just say, I confess that I murdered my wife and I don’t want anyone else blamed for my act. Sign your name to it. Go on, write,” Shayne ordered sharply as Marvin hesitated. “It’s your one chance to give a decent heritage to your daughter. This will never be made public unless it’s absolutely necessary. And even then, it doesn’t mention your wife and Wilsson.”
Shayne stood over him while Blake carefully wrote out the brief confession and signed it, then took it out of his hands and folded it and put it into his pocket.
He turned away, saying, “If this could go down as an unsolved crime, Sissy would never have to know anything. Except that her father loved her mother so dearly that he could not stand to go on living after she died. You said something about a gun, didn’t you?”
“Yes… I…” Marvin Blake’s voice became choked. In a moment he was able to continue steadily. “In the right top drawer of that bureau in the hall. It’s a souvenir my father brought back from the First World War. I’ve always kept it cleaned and oiled.”
Shayne stepped into the hallway and opened the drawer and looked down somberly at the blued steel of a Colt’s. 45 automatic. He sighed and nodded, and turned away leaving the drawer open.
He said, “I’ll have to go down and see Chief Jenson about that Negro. We’ll be back in fifteen or twenty minutes.” He went out the front door, closing it carefully behind him, got in his car and drove away swiftly.