A bar of sunlight lay athwart Shayne’s face when he opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor, his lids and lashes crusted with dried blood. He turned his head slightly and was aware of soggy, matted blood on the rug beneath it. He looked at the tape recorder and saw that the stack of tapes was gone.
Pain closed his eyes involuntarily. He wasn’t sure he could get up if he tried, and began slowly flexing his muscles, beginning with his fingers and toes. When he opened his eyes again he managed to move his head out of the matted blood and away from the glaring streak of light coming through the window. The chair in which he had been sitting last night was overturned, as was the table. The entire room was in disorder, and Shayne tried hard to remember whether he had fought the intruder who had slugged him.
Pain throbbed in his head when he jerked himself to a sitting position and forced his eyes to stay open.
Then he saw Lana lying just inside the bedroom door. Her feet and legs were bare and a blue silk nightgown was twisted around her body from the knees up.
From where he sat, she looked dead.
He tried to get up but sank back when his head reeled and the room grew black. He inched himself toward the girl and felt her legs. They were warm. The nightgown partially covered her face and he pulled it away. The smell of stale liquor rose to his nostrils from her regular breathing. He muttered, “Drunk, by God, and passed out.”
Lana gave no sign of consciousness when he spoke. Shayne dragged himself to his feet and caught the foot of the bed, hung on until the dizziness passed. The room was cold. He looked around to see the rear door in the bedroom open. Staggering to the door he discovered a stairway leading down to the alley from the tiny balcony outside.
His assailant must have come in that way.
He came unsteadily back to the bed, took a blanket from it and spread it over Lana. His eyes were bleak and his mouth set in grim lines as he stood looking down at her for a moment, then he went out to find the bathroom.
He found it a few steps down the hallway, on the right. A door on the left, he realized, opened into the bedroom.
Turning on the cold water tap, he let it run a while and examined his head in the mirror. There was a big lump above his right ear. He stripped off his shirt and stuck his head in the basin of cold water, carefully fingering the hair around the lump until the dried blood was gone. He drained the water out and filled the basin again, found a washrag and scrubbed the stains from his face.
The throbbing pain subsided to a steady aching. He combed his hair as best he could, put on his shirt and went to the kitchen. There was a quart bottle of gin overturned on the sink and a fifth of brandy was uncorked. He held it up to the light and saw that it was half full, tilted it to his lips and took a long drink.
Back in the living-room Shayne stood for a moment creasing his brow in deep thought and scowling at the tape recorder.
Abruptly he strode to the bedroom and began quietly opening the drawers of a high chest. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but knew he would recognize it if he found it. In the wide bottom drawer he found several purses. The third one he searched yielded a folded telegram tucked behind a tiny mirror in its container.
The message was from Miami, Florida, dated the preceding Monday. It read: Letter received. Will see you Wednesday night. It was signed Ted.
Stuffing the telegram in his pocket he went out, got his coat and hat, and left the apartment. As the elevator took him down he remembered the guns he had taken from Trueman’s punks the night before, and knew before he felt in his pockets that they were gone.
Outside, the air was cold and bracing. He decided against putting his hat on after trying for a comfortable position. He swung away with long strides, and twenty minutes later he was climbing the stairway to his apartment on Carondelet.
A man was waiting for him at the top of the stairs; a florid man with a good-natured face and sleepy eyes.
Intercepting him, the man asked, “Are you Shayne?”
“That’s right.” Shayne put his key in the lock and opened the door.
“Sorry bud, you’re wanted at headquarters.”
Shayne turned slowly and the man flashed a city detective’s badge.
“Is this a pinch?” Shayne growled.
“Make it easy on yourself. It’ll be one if that’s the way you want it.”
“What’s up?”
“Damned if I know. My name’s Greetin. I’ve been waiting for you to come home since four o’clock. Inspector Quinlan wants you.”
Shayne considered for a moment, then nodded. “I’ll go along. I’ve had a tough night.” He tenderly touched the lump on his head.
Greetin grinned. “It must’ve been. No hard feelings, you understand.”
“Hell, no. You’ve got a job.” Shayne stepped inside and the city detective followed him.
“I’ve heard about you,” Greetin told him. “I been wondering how’s it for a private eye. Big money?”
“Better stay on a regular payroll,” Shayne advised. “How about a cup of coffee before we go?”
Greetin looked uncertain and somewhat uneasy. He said, “Well-don’t mind if I do,” and went with Shayne to the kitchen. He sat down on the only chair and studied the redhead curiously while the coffee brewed.
When it was ready to pour Shayne took down a bottle of brandy and asked, “How about a coffee royal?” He poured his mug a third full of brandy and filled it with hot coffee.
Greetin sniffed the aroma and said, “Don’t care if I do, but make it light.”
They took the mugs to the living-room and sat down. Shayne asked, “You’re sure you don’t know what’s up at headquarters?”
Greetin relaxed after a noisy swig of coffee royal. “Not a damned thing. Say, this coffee is all right. I hear you drink a lot when you’re on a case.”
Shayne grinned. “A snort of brandy puts me in touch with the cosmic forces.”
Greetin looked puzzled. “What you mean by that?” Shayne hid another grin of amusement behind the rim of his mug. “It’s this way. When things get to happening fast you have to give the subconscious time to put things it already knows together-figure them out-so you can tie it all in with what happens next.” Greetin nodded slightly, his eyes still puzzled. “I don’t get it. You’re not going to try to pull a fast one on me? I’ve heard about that, too.”
“Hell, no. We’d better get going. I want to know what’s cooking.”
“Yeh. We’d better.” Greetin finished his coffee. “Quinlan’s liable to send somebody to check on me.”
Shayne swung into his top coat, carefully arranged his hat at a cocky angle to keep pressure from the lump on his head, and they went out to his car.
Inspector Quinlan was alone in his office twiddling a fountain pen and there was impatience in his cold blue eyes. He looked up at Greetin and said, “It took you long enough,” when they walked in.
“This bird just got home,” Greetin told him. “He’ll tell you himself.”
Shayne said, “That’s right, Inspector.”
“Better beat it, then, and get some sleep, Greetin,” the inspector snapped.
Shayne sat down across the desk and lit a cigarette. “How official is this?” he asked.
“Homicide,” Quinlan said curtly. “You can talk it over with me alone, or you can have a transcript made for the record. Or you can refuse to answer questions without the advice of counsel.”
“Who’s been bumped off?” Shayne blew a smoke cloud and looked up at it.
“Dan Trueman.”
Shayne met Quinlan’s stony eyes. He reached up and eased his hat from his head and said bluntly, “I’ll talk for the record.”
“Good enough.” The inspector pressed a button on his desk and presently a gray-haired man limped into the room carrying a notebook. He sat down beside the desk and took a pencil from behind his ear.
Shayne grinned at Quinlan and droned, “Michael Shayne-thirty-nine-occupation, private detective. Now, ask me some questions, Inspector.”
“Just this. Where were you last night and what did you do?”
“From when on?”
“Take it from dinner.”
Shayne studied another spiral of smoke, then began an easy recital of picking Lana Moore up at the Laurel Club.
“I walked into something, but I don’t know what,” he ended after several minutes. “I got socked and kicked around and I passed out without seeing the guy. I woke up half an hour ago in her apartment. Lana was passed out on the floor. I left her like that and went home.”
Quinlan had watched him closely during the recital but he picked up the fountain pen again and twiddled it. Shayne could tell nothing of his thoughts when he said, “You’ll take an oath-swear that’s the truth?”
“I’ll sign it when it’s typed.”
“All the truth?” Quinlan asked warningly. “You’ve nothing to add to it.”
Shayne’s fingertips ran around his injury. “Well-there was a little trouble at the club early in the evening. It ties in with a job I’m on and I’ll have to hold it out.”
“The Lomax job?” Quinlan asked too casually.
“That’s all for the record,” Shayne said, glancing at the man with the notebook. “Let’s just say one of my cases.”
Quinlan dismissed the court reporter and leaned back.
“Would you by any chance be referring to the little matter of getting thrown out of Dan Trueman’s office?”
“I walked out.”
“And threatened to come back while two of his boys hustled you away?”
“Maybe I said something like that. I was sore.”
Inspector Quinlan consulted a sheaf of data before him, then read from it: “‘Next time I come back there’ll be trouble.’ Did you tell Trueman that?”
“I might have. I was sore.”
“What about?”
Shayne shook his red head stubbornly. “I’ll have to protect my client.”
“Witnesses heard Trueman tell you to get out and quit beefing about your losses.”
“Trueman was covering up. Hell, I’d just won over a grand with Laurel dice. I’ve got it in my pocket. If you know so damned much you ought to know that, too.”
“I do. That’s what I couldn’t figure. I’ve been wondering why you went back and beat Dan Trueman to death.”
“So that’s the lay. I beat him to death.”
“You took the guns off the two bouncers when they threw you out. They were not armed when you came back later and you didn’t have much trouble. All I need is your motive, Shayne, and I think I’ve got that.”
“You’re forgetting my alibi,” Shayne ground out his cigarette and lit another.
Quinlan flipped a switch on his desk and picked up a telephone. Into the mouthpiece he gave Lana Moore’s address and said, “Bring her in. Don’t tell her anything, and look over her apartment carefully while you’re there.”
Shayne took a deep drag on his cigarette, exhaled slowly and said, “You know I didn’t kill Trueman.”
“I’ve practically got you sewed up on it.”
“But you know I didn’t kill him,” Shayne said curtly.
Inspector Quinlan considered for a moment, then said, “I’m going to be honest with you. It looks like the kind of job you might do, Shayne. This isn’t girl-murder like the Margo Macon case. Trueman was killed in a rough-and-tumble fight. He wasn’t a coward and he fought back. Maybe it wasn’t murder. Maybe you had a hell of a good reason for going back and tangling with him. If you give it to me straight, I’ll swing you all the breaks I can. If you can turn it into self-defense-” He shrugged and took a cigar from his breast pocket.
“I didn’t go back. The girl will alibi me.”
“I’ll still have to hold you,” Quinlan told him. “Look at it yourself, Shayne. You threatened him. You took his boys’ pistols-and they were legal, by the way. They had permits for those guns. Night watchmen. After pulling their teeth you waited until the joint was closed and went back. Why?”
“Any witnesses?”
“Sure. Plenty. And you admitted it.”
“Any witnesses to the killing? Anyone say I went back there later?”
“You know damned well you took care of that. When you went in the side entrance and knocked both the boys out.”
“I didn’t know there was a side entrance,” Shayne said patiently.
Quinlan had his cigar lit. He sat back, shaking his iron-gray head and puffing meditatively.
Shayne did a lot of fast thinking. He knew Quinlan to be honest and square, but he was a cop. He’d send his best friend to the chair if he believed justice would thus be done. Everything depended on Lana. If she hadn’t passed out too soon after he’d been slugged, her alibi would make it almost impossible to hold him. Quinlan might disbelieve her story; he might believe she was lying, but he couldn’t disregard it. He’d have to let him have time to crack Lana’s story concerning Katrin Moe and Lieutenant Drinkley. And in the meantime-
Shayne drew in a deep breath. It sounded loud in the silence that had come between the two men. He had an idea that all he needed was a few hours now. Dan Trueman’s death threw a new angle on the case. He was wasting time…
He was astounded at the length of time that had passed when a trim young detective came into the office and said, “We have Miss Lana Moore outside, sir.”
Quinlan took the cigar from between his teeth and said, “Bring her in.”
Shayne jerked himself to a straight position and his head throbbed with the sudden movement. He looked at Lana and was amazed at the transformation of a girl whom he had seen only a short time ago lying sprawled in a drunken stupor on her bedroom floor. Or-was she pretending to be in a stupor?
His bushy red brows drew together as she came toward Quinlan’s desk with the young officer beside her. She wore a plain sports dress of tan and a green hat with a soft, wide brim that reflected green in her eyes and accentuated the pallor of her unrouged cheeks. A green sports coat was around her shoulders, the sleeves falling empty against her sides. She clutched a tan bag in both hands.
She appeared entirely self-possessed, but Shayne watched her eyes. When she attempted to widen them in surprise they looked out of focus, and there was a slumbrous gaze in them, as though she had taken a strong sedative.
She asked slowly and carefully, “What’s this-all about?”
Quinlan arose and the young officer brought a chair to the desk and seated her with a gallant air.
“Do you know Mr. Shayne?” Quinlan asked.
“Oh-hello, Red. Sure I know him-” Her full lips curled in disdain. “What do you want to know?”
“Just a minute,” the inspector said. He pressed a button and the court reporter dragged himself in again, sat down and took his pencil from his ear and poised it over his notebook.
“Where,” Quinlan asked, “was Michael Shayne last night?”
“What time last night?” Lana countered.
“Between two and four this morning.”
Lana Moore’s eyes widened again in badly focused surprise. She lifted her long lashes and lowered them demurely, “I don’t know what kind of a girl you think I am, Inspector,” she said in her deep, husky voice. “I had a date with him last night, sure. But it wasn’t that kind of a date. He went home before midnight.”
Inspector Quinlan’s cold blue gaze had not left her face for an instant. He said, quietly, “Will you swear to that, Miss Moore?”
“On a stack of Bibles,” she answered promptly.
She didn’t look at Shayne.