SHAYNE SAT DOWN in a straight chair at the table and pushed coffeepot and cups back to clear a space in front of him. He opened a drawer and got out a sheet of blank paper and a pencil, lit a cigarette and started writing:
1. Who telephoned last night? Could it have been Grange disguising his voice?
2. Did Larry Kincaid do the job and leave my pistol to frame me?
3. Whose handkerchief? Left intentionally or by oversight or planted?
4. Did the mugs want the handkerchief-or something else that was taken from Grange by the murderer before I got there?
5. Who called Painter to the murder scene?
6. Why were the mugs waiting for me here when I was supposed to be locked up? (Phyllis, too.)
7. When and how did Chuck Evans suddenly get in the money?
8. Did Grange know Chuck?
9. Did Chuck know Thomas?
10. Was Marsha the girl Phyllis saw in Grange’s car? (Marsha’s handkerchief?)
He stopped and stared down at the list of questions, frowning and tugging at the lobe of his left ear. Then he wrote:
11. What the hell’s in it for me?
He poured a short drink of cognac and sat there alternately sipping it and puffing on a cigarette. Then he checked questions six and eleven, folded the sheet of paper and put it in his shirt pocket. He went to the telephone and called a number.
When a man replied, he said, “Hello, Tony. This is Mike Shayne.”
“Hi, boss. Your neck, she ain’t stretched yet, huh?”
“Not yet. Do you know where Chuck Evans hangs out?”
“Lemme see, Mike. I think mebbe so. Him and Belle have been holed up at Mamma Julie’s all winter. But wait, boss. Somebody said last week Chuck made a killin’ out at Hialeah. I dunno whether he’s still there or not.”
“Mamma Julie’s? That’s down on Fifth, isn’t it? Okay. And listen, Tony.”
“Yeh, boss.”
“Stick around close. I may have a job for you.”
“You betcha. I’ll be on tap.”
Shayne hung up and waited a minute, then called another number.
When a woman’s voice answered, he said, “Helen? Mike Shayne speaking. Let me speak to Larry.”
“Larry hasn’t come back.” Helen Kincaid sounded worried. “He’s in Jacksonville on business.”
“Jacksonville?”
“Yes. I didn’t know anything about it. I thought maybe you did. He left home last night saying he was going to see you at your apartment.”
Shayne asked sharply, “How do you know he’s in Jacksonville?”
“I had a telegram from him early this morning. Said he’d been called away unexpectedly and didn’t know how long he’d be gone.”
She hesitated, then asked in a taut tone of repressed fear, “What-did you and Larry quarrel about, Mike?”
“He told you about that, did he?”
“Y-Yes. Not very much though.”
“I’ll be out to see you later,” Shayne said abruptly. “If the police or anyone question you, don’t tell them about the telegram from Larry. Don’t tell them a damned thing.”
“Is Larry-in trouble?”
“It’s your fault if he is,” Shayne told her brutally.
He hung up and went to the bedroom where he put on a tie and slid his wide shoulders into a light sport jacket. Stopping at the table on the way out, he pocketed the handkerchief and strode out to the elevator where he pressed the DOWN button.
In a pleasant, sun-filled lobby downstairs, he sauntered to the desk and glanced at his empty mailbox. The clerk on duty greeted him respectfully.
“Good morning, Mr. Shayne! That was a pretty close call last night.”
“What?”
Shayne’s ragged red brows came down in a straight line.
“Over at the beach,” the clerk amplified hastily. “Walking into that dead man like you did.”
Shayne said, “Oh-that? Yeh.”
He turned and went out into the hallway leading to the side entrance, got into his car parked at the curb and made a U-turn, drove to S. E. First Street where he turned west into one-way traffic and followed it to the F. E. C. railroad tracks, where he made a right turn and parked at the curb that said: NO PARKING, POLICE.
He nodded pleasantly to a couple of loitering patrolmen and went into the Miami police station, down a hall to the private office of the chief of detectives. Pushing the door open, he found Will Gentry sitting back at ease with his feet on a scarred oak desk reading the latest edition of the Miami Herald.
Gentry lowered the paper and glanced placidly at his visitor with a twinkle in his blue eyes.
“’Lo, Michael. Why can’t you learn to stay out of Painter’s pretty hair?”
Shayne grinned and slid into a chair in front of the desk.
“To hell with Painter. Let him stay out of my hair. I heard you had a mysterious telephone conversation early this morning. Anything in it?”
Will Gentry was a big man, stolid and lacking in imagination. He said:
“Some bastard ruined my beauty sleep to report an automobile accident out on the Trail.”
“So-?”
“It was the goods, all right. The bodies have been brought in, and a wrecker is getting the car up now. One funny thing about the accident, Mike. The driver was alone in the front seat, and there was one man in the back. He drowned cuddling a typewriter.”
Shayne lit a cigarette and spun the match across the room toward a cuspidor.
“That is funny,” he conceded. “Mostly when two men are riding in a car, they’re both in the front seat.”
“Yeh. I’ve got a hunch about it. Looks to me like-”
“Skip it. I don’t suppose you’ve got any dope on the men or guns yet?”
“Not yet. I think they must be new in Miami. The car had New York plates.”
Shayne nodded casually. “Let me know if you get anything.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out the frilly square of linen, tossed it across to Gentry. “Can you see any good reason why that might be worth murder?”
The detective chief picked it up and turned it over and over.
“Looks like some dame’s handkerchief.”
Shayne leaned forward tensely.
“I wish you’d have your bright boys put it through every known test for secret writing or stuff like that, Will. It’s probably a crazy idea-” He leaned back and tugged at the lobe of his ear. “-But I’ve got to know.”
“Sure. Anything else on your mind, Mike?”
Shayne got up, but Gentry detained him by asking, “What’s it all about?”
“I wish to God I knew, Will. I don’t. I’m trying to play sixteen different hunches.”
Gentry cleared his throat and rustled the newspaper in his hands.
“It says here that you positively identified the voice that called you over the phone to come to the beach.”
Shayne nodded absently.
“That’s bait. We’ll see what comes after it. I wish you’d leave any messages at my hotel, Will.”
Gentry said he would do that, and Shayne went out.
In his car, he drove to Fifth Street where he turned to the right for a few blocks, into the oldest residential section of the Magic City and parked in front of a two-story, gabled frame house set back in the center of a large lawn shaded with magnificent old trees. A neat sign on the lawn said: HOUSEKEEPING APARTMENTS TO LET.
Shayne went up the walk to a sagging front porch that needed paint, and pressed the button. A dumpy woman with stringy black hair and a fat, dark face came to the door.
Shayne tipped his hat back and said, “Hello, mamma. Is Chuck Evans in?”
“It’s you, Mr. Shayne.” Mamma Julie shook her head. “Chuck hit it lucky at the track a few days ago. You know how those heels are. My place wasn’t good enough as soon as he got in the money. He pulled out to one of the fancy hotels. Him and that cheap little bitch that’s been keeping him all winter.”
“Do you know which hotel?”
“I’m not sure. Seems like I heard him talking about the Everglades. That Belle, she don’t know how quick she’ll get thrown out of a swell joint like that when she starts shaking her butt around the lobby.”
Shayne repressed a chuckle of genuine amusement, thanked the woman, and drove around to Biscayne Boulevard to the magnificent hostelry overlooking the bay.
Inside the ornate lobby he went directly to a little cubbyhole office and opened a plain wooden door. He said, “Hi, sweetheart,” to the fat, vacuous-faced, bald man who sat at a desk puffing on a cigar.
Carl Bolton made a half-hearted movement toward getting up, and extended a pudgy hand.
“Hello, Mike. You do get yourself in the goddamnedest messes.”
Shayne said, “Yeh,” morosely, and lowered one hip on a corner of the house detective’s desk. “Do you know a mug named Chuck Evans?”
“Should I?”
“He’s a cheap tout that’s been hanging around the race tracks all winter. It seems he knocked off a winner a few days ago, and I heard he’d moved in here to get rid of the dough fast. See if you’ve got him, Carl.”
Carl Bolton said, “Half a mo’,” and went out.
Shayne sat on the desk swinging one long leg back and forth until the house dick came back with a slip of paper in his hands.
“We’ve got an Evans, J. C. and wife. They checked in day before yesterday. Number three-sixty-two.”
Shayne said, “Let’s go up? Got a pass-key?”
Bolton nodded and they went out into the lobby together, across a thick rug to the elevators and up to the third floor.
Bolton knocked on the door of 362. He waited for a response and when none came he knocked again, loudly.
Shayne stood by with knobby hands in his pockets while Bolton fitted the pass-key into the lock and opened the door.
The fat man took a step inside and yelled, “Holy hell! Would you look at that?”
Shayne stepped past him into a hotel bedroom that looked as if a miniature hurricane had romped in from the Gulf Stream and had its way, then romped out again.
Bureau drawers were open and clothes strewn over the floor. Bedclothes were draped on chairs and the thick innerspring mattress had been pulled half off the double bed, the ticking slashed and the padding pulled out in gobs.
Shayne walked over to a low vanity dresser where new and obviously expensive lingerie had been dumped on the floor in piles, and began pawing through the stuff. Behind him, Bolton demanded peevishly, “What the hell’s the meaning of this, Mike? You don’t seem none surprised.”
“I’m not.”
He went on poking into half-emptied drawers, a deep frown creasing his forehead.
“Who done it?” Bolton demanded belligerently. “And who’s goin’ to pay for the damage?”
“Maybe you can collect from your guests,” Shayne suggested, “if they ever show up again.”
“What are you lookin’ for?”
“I wish to God I knew. A handkerchief, maybe.” Shayne turned away in disgust. “To hell with it. Let’s go down to the office and try to check and see when this was pulled.”
They locked the door and went down to the office where Carl Bolton went into a huddle with the management and Shayne withdrew into a deep chair where he was on the verge of dropping off to sleep when Bolton came to report.
“It looks like maybe the Evanses haven’t been back since going out early last night. The night clerk and none of the elevator operators noticed them come in or out. They must’ve carried their room key off with them. Nobody saw or heard anything,” he ended defeatedly. Shayne shook himself awake and sighed.
“Somebody probably borrowed Chuck’s key. Here’s a lead that might get you somewhere.”
He described Passo and Marv, mentioning particularly Marv’s silky-smooth voice.
“The clerk or some of the bellhops might have seen those two come in. It would have been somewhere around midnight-not later than two.” He got up and stretched, rubbed his eyes. “If Chuck Evans does show up, I’d hold him, Carl. And give me a ring, will you?”
Bolton said, “Sure, Mike,” and trotted after Shayne when he started for the outer door. “Don’t be so damned tight with your info, Mike. You know more about this than you’re giving out.”
“That’s the hell of it,” said Shayne irritably. “I don’t. You know I’ve never held out on you, Carl. If I turn anything up that’ll help you on this mess, I’ll let you know.” He went out into Miami’s bright mid-morning sunlight and got in his car. He thought suddenly of the money he had collected from Marco last night. He took out his wallet and examined the bills. They were still damp. He wiped each bill carefully with a linen handkerchief, laying them separately on the seat to dry. Then he drove slowly to the First National Bank where he deposited them.
Back in his car, he headed it toward the beach, using the County causeway.
He stopped at a drugstore on Fifth Street and looked up an address in the telephone directory, then drove straight to an ugly, two-story stucco house on a palm-lined street two blocks from the ocean.
He went up the walk briskly and rang the bell. After a short interval the door was opened by a thin-featured middle-aged woman wearing a white apron over a black silk dress. She looked at Shayne suspiciously and asked, “What do you want?”
Shayne lifted his hat politely and did his very best with a smile.
“Is Mr. Marco in?”
“No.” Her voice was vinegary.
She started to close the door. Shayne got his foot in the way.
“That’s all right. I really came to see Miss Marco.”
“You can’t see her,” the woman told him sharply. “She’s sick abed.”
“Of course,” Shayne said. “That’s why I’m here. I’m Doctor Shayne.”
“But Doctor Holcomb’s already-”
“I know,” Shayne told her with asperity. “As a matter of fact it was Doctor Holcomb who asked me to drop in and see his patient. He’s a little worried about certain phases of her case, and called me in consultation.”
The woman looked at him doubtfully, her eyes lingering on his sport jacket, and Shayne realized he must look completely undoctorish. Still, in Miami a member of the profession was likely to call on patients in plus fours or fishing clothes, so he pushed forward impatiently, saying, “I haven’t a great deal of time. Going for a cruise today, but I promised Doctor Holcomb I’d see his patient first.”
The housekeeper said, “Well-” and gave way before him with reluctance.
He followed her through a wide hallway to the foot of the stairs where she stopped and pointed up.
“There’s one of the maids in the hall upstairs. She’ll show you Miss Marsha’s room.”
Shayne climbed the stairs and found a young woman rocking back and forth in a chair at the end of the upper hall. She had a broad, heavy-boned, Slavic face, and she was chewing gum rhythmically. She didn’t get up when he stopped in front of her. A thick braid of blonde hair was coiled above her forehead, and heavy breasts bulged the front of her starched uniform.
“I’m Doctor Shayne,” the detective told her brusquely. “Which is Miss Marco’s room?”
The maid stopped chewing. Her jaw sagged a trifle as she regarded him with dull bovine eyes.
“This here’s her room.” She indicated a closed door behind her. “But Mr. Marco said-”
“Mr. Marco would fire you like that if you kept the doctor away from his daughter.”
Shayne snapped his fingers to indicate the speed with which she would be discharged. He moved quickly to the door, but the maid got to her feet to intercept him. A key hung from a piece of white tape around her neck, and she held it up in front of Shayne, saying placidly, “Wait, and I’ll unlock the door.”
Shayne stood back to let her unlock the door, then pushed past her into the darkened bedroom, closing the door behind him, saying, “I don’t want to be disturbed while I’m diagnosing the case.”
He looked at the bed, saw the covers were thrown back. It was empty. He swiftly crossed the room to a closed door and rapped on it, then turned the knob and opened it.
It was a bathroom, also empty.
A clothes closet offered the only other place of concealment. He pulled the door open, calling Marsha’s name, then pressed the dresses and coats back on their hangers to assure himself the girl wasn’t hiding against the wall.
Emerging from the closet, he started toward the door. His eyes were wary, anxious. He stopped with his hand inches from the knob, wheeled and went swiftly to the shaded windows near the head of the bed.
The end of a twisted bedsheet was knotted to the caster and led out the center window. He lifted the shade and found the screen swinging loose on hinges. He thrust his head out and looked down at two twisted sheets tied together and almost touching the ground.
He lowered the shade, turned to look around the room uncertainly, then started talking in a low persuasive voice, “Now, Miss Marco, you mustn’t adopt that attitude. I can’t diagnose your case unless you’re entirely frank with me,” all the while crossing to a littered vanity where a note lay beneath a comb. He picked it up and read:
“I can’t stand this. I’d rather be dead. I’m going where you’ll never see me again.
“MARSHA.”
He folded the note, slipped it into the side pocket of his jacket. Then he explored the drawers of the vanity, lifting his voice a trifle so it would carry across the empty room to the hallway outside.
“I understand, Miss Marco. I’m inclined to feel that your case isn’t quite as serious as Doctor Holcomb intimated. I’ll have to ask you a few more questions.”
He continued a rambling, low-toned conversation, interspersed with frequent pauses, while he carefully rummaged through the room, wondering irritably where the devil a girl like Marsha Marco would keep her handkerchiefs hidden.
He passed over a pink satin folder in the long center drawer at first, but making a second round, he lifted the top and found layers of folded handkerchiefs neatly arrayed, with a couple of tiny sachet bags nestled among them.
He studied each one dubiously, and finally picked up a frilly square of sheer linen that looked an exact duplicate of the one he had taken from Grange’s lifeless fingers. Closing his eyes, he sniffed the delicate fragrance, trying to remember the scent of the other handkerchief, realizing with deep disgust that he was probably the poorest connoisseur of perfume in the world.
He had a hunch that it was the same perfume, but it was no more than a hunch.
A hard lump beneath the handkerchief folder attracted his attention. Lifting the holder, he stared down at a. 32 automatic. He took it up and smelled the muzzle, getting only an odor of oil which indicated the pistol had been cleaned since last being fired.
He slid the automatic and handkerchief into his jacket pocket, closed the folder and replaced it, moved to the center of the room where he stood in scowling indecision for a moment, then stepped noiselessly to the clothes closet where he looked through the hangers until he found a light silk jacket. On a shelf was a small felt toque to match.
He unbuttoned his shirt and slid those two articles of Marsha’s wearing apparel down in the front, distributing them so they would not bulge, then went toward the door, saying aloud, “I understand perfectly, Miss Marco. I’ll have a consultation with Doctor Holcomb, and I’m sure you’ll begin to respond to treatment at once.”
He opened the door as he finished the sentence, turned to block the entrance with his body and said, “Good day, Miss Marco,” and closed the door firmly behind him.
The maid was standing close to the door, twiddling the key, a curious look of uncertainty on her broad, stupid face.
“Is she-she’s awake, huh?”
“Partially.” Shayne watched her alertly from beneath drooping eyelids. “She’s not quite herself, I’d say. Don’t disturb her until she calls.”
“Yessir.” The maid was obviously relieved.
As Shayne turned away, he heard the click of a key in the lock behind him.
He had to restrain himself to keep from taking the stairs two at a time, holding his body erect and dignified as be imagined a physician would do. He drew a deep sigh of relief when he reached the front door without encountering the housekeeper again.