Beatrice Lally’s face looked freshly scrubbed and powdered; her lips were rouged, and her blond hair was fluffed around her face to hide more than half of the small bandage in front of her ear. Her round, sooty eyes held an expression of wonderment as she sat across the desk from Chief Will Gentry at police headquarters. She puckered them and squinted at Shayne, who sat on her right, as though to make certain he was still there. Timothy Rourke sat on her left, his slaty eyes feverish with anticipation.
Chief Gentry consulted a sheet of paper containing penciled notes. “I think you can give us information on a lot of important points, Miss Lally. First, there’s Edwin Paisly. We haven’t been able to locate him yet. Do you know where we can find him?”
She turned to Shayne. “Have you told Chief Gentry about us meeting him at the Golden Cock, waiting for Miss Morton to keep a dinner date?”
“I’ve told the chief everything I know,” he said gravely, “and I advise you to do the same.”
“Of course,” she said quietly. “I think I know where you can find Edwin Paisly. I’ve been having him followed by a private detective for the past week. There’s a woman in Coral Gables whom he visited a great deal when he wasn’t with Miss Morton.”
She gave him the woman’s name and address. Gentry wrote it down, pressed a button, and an officer entered immediately.
“Pick up Edwin Paisly if he’s at this address,” Gentry said, passing him the slip of paper. “And bring in whoever is with him. Keep them separated and try to find out how long Paisly has been there tonight, and specifically whether he was there before seven o’clock.”
“Right away, Chief,” the officer said, and went out.
“Now then, Miss Lally,” he resumed, “you say you’ve had a private detective watching Paisly. Was that Miss Morton’s idea?”
“Oh, no. It was entirely my own idea. She was hypnotized by that man,” she said vehemently, “and refused to listen to a word against him.”
“You disliked him?”
“I saw him for what he was.” She tried to suppress her anger, but hatred for Paisly was more convincing in her low, tight tones than in an angry shout. “Marriage to him would ruin her career. He would wring her dry of money-to spend on other women.”
“And you would lose your job?” Gentry probed.
“Probably. He was afraid of me because I had her complete confidence. I was prepared to give up my position if she married him.”
Gentry was rumbling, “We’ll go into that further after we’ve talked to Paisly. Now, Miss Lally, I want you to tell us about the quarrel you had with your employer early yesterday morning.”
She turned to Shayne again and asked in a low, tight-lipped voice, “You mentioned Mr. Harsh to me over the phone. Do I have to-tell Chief Gentry all about-that?”
“He already knows about that old story Sara Morton dug up about him and the letter he received from her demanding twenty-five thousand for suppressing it,” he told her. “Tell us about his visit to her hotel room night before last.”
“One thing at a time,” Gentry growled, with a hard glance at Shayne.
“It’s all right,” said Miss Lally. “They’re sort of mixed up together, anyway.” Color had washed into her face and neck. She folded her hands in her lap and turned back to the chief.
Gentry picked up a pencil and began doodling on the bottom of his notation sheet.
“I had hoped-I still hope,” she resumed, drawing a deep breath and puckering her eyes at Gentry, “that her character needn’t be publicly smirched. Of course, if Mr. Harsh killed her I suppose there’s no way it can be kept quiet. But I-it’s still so difficult for me to believe. I’ve been so close to her for years and never suspected she would do a thing like that.” She paused and nervously touched the small bandage before her ear.
“Get on to your quarrel,” Gentry said.
“It’s-after this,” she faltered in a hurt voice. “It was after midnight when Mr. Harsh came. I was asleep in fourteen-twenty, and wakened gradually at the sound of angry voices through the bathroom. My door was closed, but hers was open, so I didn’t hear much. Just enough to realize the horrible accusation he was making. Then she knocked on my bathroom door and called me. I got up, but by the time I put on my robe and got in there he had gone.”
“Did you hear him make an actual threat against her life?” Shayne asked.
“No. Not in so many words. But she told me he had. I was so confused-so horrified and ashamed for her that I’m afraid I spoke out very strongly. I couldn’t understand it. She had told me a couple of days previously that she had decided not to use the story because it would blacken a man’s character unnecessarily and possibly bring financial ruin to him and his associates. I had been proud of her for making that decision. Then to learn that she was still holding the threat of publication over his head to extort money from him-” Miss Lally’s mouth primped up like a hurt child’s and her voice broke, and tears ran down her cheeks.
“Would Carl Garvin have known of her decision to kill the story-at the time she told you about it?” Shayne asked.
She looked at him with wet and wondering eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Did Miss Morton clear her stories through his office?”
“Not-actually. She generally liked to have a local man check her stuff for accuracy.”
“Then it’s possible she had informed Garvin of her decision?” Shayne asked.
“I suppose it’s possible,” Miss Lally agreed. “But hardly likely since she still hoped to extract money from Mr. Harsh. She knew Mr. Garvin was engaged to Viola Harsh, and that he’d naturally tell the good news to Mr. Harsh as soon as he learned it.”
“She’s right, Mike,” said Gentry impatiently, laying his pencil aside and folding his arms across the desk. “To tell Garvin would be the same as telling Harsh. Is that what you quarreled with Sara Morton about?” he asked Miss Lally.
“Yes. I forgot myself-and I guess I stormed at her for doing such a despicable thing. She laughed at me in that hard, cynical way she had. She got terribly angry at me, and I guess we made a disturbance, because the manager phoned up about it. That made her furious. She blamed it all on me and had the manager prepare another room for me-and made me move out at two o’clock in the morning.”
She wasn’t crying now, but a tear stood in each eye and her straight black lashes were wet. She pressed a moist, balled-up handkerchief against them, and resumed wearily:
“Neither of us mentioned it the next morning. We both tried to pretend nothing had happened. We always passed off little spats that way. I tried to forget what she was going to do, and tried to tell myself it just proved she was human, after all. I blamed it a lot on Edwin Paisly,” she said, suddenly vicious at the mention of his name. “He had an unwholesome influence on her. She’s been so different these last few months.”
Shayne took the blackmail letter Harsh had given him from his pocket and handed it to Gentry. “Here, Will, take a look at this and compare the signature with the one she wrote me just before she died.”
Gentry spread the two notes on his desk and examined the signatures closely. Shayne got up and leaned across to compare them. After a long moment Gentry said:
“I’m not a handwriting expert, but they look the same to me.”
“And to me,” Shayne agreed morosely. He picked up both notes, folded them, and thrust them in his pocket. He sat down again, and Gentry asked:
“Anything else significant occur yesterday?”
“There were two things,” Beatrice said diffidently. “Ralph Morton called me in the morning and said he wanted to see his wife. I hung up on him.” Her lips rolled out in a sour grimace.
“Did he tell you where he was staying?” Gentry asked sharply.
“No. I got the impression he had just arrived in town.”
“What was the second thing?”
“She had a visitor late in the afternoon. I thought it was Ralph. But as I told Mr. Shayne, I didn’t go in to see. Both bathroom doors were closed and I couldn’t hear anything but a muttering of voices.”
Gentry dropped a soggy cigar butt in the trash basket beside his chair, took out a fresh one and turned it around to examine the wrapper. He bit off the end deliberately, took his time about lighting it, then squeaked his swivel chair back.
“Now we come to the telephone call,” he rumbled, “and your hurried trip to the Ricardo Hotel at twelve-thirty. Are you positive you didn’t see anything in that room before the light went out and you were knocked unconscious?”
“Not a thing. It all happened so fast-”
“And you don’t even know who the occupant of that room is?” he broke in casually.
“No. I went there to meet Mr. Shayne. I thought it was his room. Isn’t it?” Her round eyes held a moist question when she puckered them at Shayne.
“I have an apartment on the river,” he told her.
She was widening her eyes in surprised wonderment when Gentry hunched forward and asked abruptly:
“Have you ever seen this before?” His tone was a harsh growl.
Miss Lally jerked her head around and saw a pearl-handled. 25 automatic in Gentry’s square palm and not more than two feet from her naked, near-sighted eyes. She squinted at it worriedly, a perpendicular frown in her smooth white forehead. She leaned closer to examine it.
“Why-it looks like-I think-it’s one Miss Morton used to have,” she faltered. “I can’t be sure, of course, unless I check the serial number with her permit. But it’s the same kind hers is-was.”
“One she had, Miss Lally?” Gentry probed.
“Yes. Up until about a year ago. It was stolen. She always thought Ralph took it. He always took anything of hers he wanted and could get hold of. Where-where did you get it? I understood Miss Morton was stabbed.”
“She was. But a bullet from this gun killed Ralph Morton in room three-oh-nine at the Ricardo Hotel around twelve-thirty tonight.”
“Ralph Morton-dead? At the Ricardo where I–I-went tonight?” She drew away as far as the back of the straight chair permitted, staring at the pistol with hypnotic fascination.
“He is. And if his body hadn’t been discovered in that room by Shayne when it was,” he said grimly, “it is more than likely you would be dead, too. Suffocated in that closet.”
She gasped, looking slowly from Gentry to Shayne, her white skin suddenly suffused with a yellowish pallor. “Then you-found me?” she murmured.
“And lucky for you. Now you know why I asked if the voice over the phone sounded like Ralph Morton’s,” Shayne said.
“How horrible!” she burst out “Was he-murdered-too?”
“We think he was,” said Gentry flatly. He chewed the cigar, dead since the first puffs, across to the other side of his mouth, then resumed:
“It appears he hadn’t just arrived in Miami, but has been at the Ricardo several days and is the one who sent Miss Morton the threatening letters trying to force her to leave Miami before she completed her residence requirements for a divorce.”
“Ralph-sent those letters? Then he’s the one who killed her. But-” she included Timothy Rourke in her round of questioning glances now-“but who killed him? And who phoned me to go to that room? I don’t believe it was Ralph.”
“We’re fairly certain Ralph Morton didn’t phone you,” Gentry told her. “But it had to be someone who knew Morton’s room number-and who also knew Shayne had left you with Miss Hamilton. When we find that man-”
He was interrupted by a knock on the door and Riley opened it to report:
“We’ve got Mr. Harsh out here, Chief. He wants to phone a lawyer.”
“He can have all the lawyers he wants after we charge him with something,” rumbled Gentry. “I’ll be ready for him in a few minutes. Keep him away from Garvin.”
The door closed and Gentry asked, “Anything you want to ask Miss Lally, Mike?”
“There’s one thing I want very much to ask her. About Miss Morton’s watch, Miss Lally-was it any good?”
“Why, yes. It was a very expensive watch.”
“But did it keep time? Did she have it repaired often?”
“It always kept perfect time,” she declared. The puzzled expression in her eyes cleared, and she said, “Oh-you mean about it being an hour slow, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“That was one of her idiosyncrasies. She refused to ever change to daylight-saving time. She kept it on Standard the year ’round.”
“Didn’t that cause certain difficulties?”
“Oh, no. She was so used to it she always made a mental correction when she was where daylight saving was in effect.”
“As it is here right now,” Shayne muttered. “I guess that tears it, Will. Even if her watch did say seven-thirty when she wrote me the note she would have typed the correct time.” His bushy brows met over a scowl and he rubbed his lean jaw reflectively.
“Then none of the men involved has an alibi,” Gentry said heavily. “You’ve been most helpful and cooperative,” he told Miss Lally. “I may need more from you later, but right now I can’t think of anything else.”
“Then may I go back to the hotel? My eyes are terribly strained from going so long without my glasses. I have an emergency pair at the hotel.”
“Wait a minute,” said Shayne. “They should be bringing Paisly in soon, and I’d like to ask him a couple of questions in your presence.”
“Do you think it’s important?” She sounded tired and disappointed.
“Why do we need her, Mike?” Gentry demurred.
“I want her to listen carefully to his voice, for one thing, and see if she can recognize it as the voice that lured her to Ralph Morton’s hotel room.”
“But I’ve heard his voice often,” she argued. “The man on the telephone didn’t sound a bit like him.”
Shayne looked across at Timothy Rourke, who had gradually slumped in the straight chair until his vertebrae rested on the seat. His chin rested on his chest and his eyes were closed.
“Tim-wake up,” Shayne yelled,
Rourke’s eyes popped open. “I’m not asleep,” he said crossly. “And don’t yell at me.”
“Look, Tim, you told me Paisly used to be an actor. You know what kind? Was he an impressionist?”
“My guess would be the female chorus,” Rourke grated. “Back row. I told you she didn’t say.”
“Look, Beatrice,” he said. “If Paisly has studied acting he could probably imitate my voice. He heard me talking at the Golden Cock. When you listen to him this time, try to recall the telephone conversation and see if you hear any of the same inflections.” He stood up and stretched and added casually to Gentry, “Mind if I use your phone?”
“Who you calling this time of morning?” the chief asked suspiciously.
“Lucy. I promised I’d call her. She’ll be sitting on the edge of the bed waiting to hear from me.” He sauntered over to the chief’s desk and lifted one of the phones just as the man who had been sent to pick up Paisly opened the door and announced:
“We’ve got Paisly outside, Chief. And the dame who lives in the house. They think it’s a morals charge,” he added with a grin.
“Bring both of them in,” Gentry ordered.
Lucy answered just as Gentry spoke. Shayne shifted his position to watch Beatrice’s strained face as she waited for Edwin Paisly to be brought in.
He spoke softly into the mouthpiece. “Did I wake you, angel?”
“I’ve been waiting for you to call, Michael. Is Miss Lally all right?”
“She’s okay,” he assured her. “We’re in Will Gentry’s office right now and I’m going to take her home in a few minutes and tuck her in bed.”
“Then will you stop by here, Michael? I can’t possibly go to sleep until you tell me what happened.”
“Better take a pill,” he muttered. “I may be a long time with her. I’ve got to get hold of Sara Morton’s story on Harsh so I can destroy it before this thing blows up in my face and I lose half my fee.”
He looked around with the receiver to his ear as the door opened again and Edwin Paisly was ushered in. Behind him was a long-limbed blonde wearing sandals and a zippered housecoat. She glared at the occupants of the room with tight lips and contemptuous eyes.
Shayne spoke just above a whisper into the mouthpiece, “Hold it a minute, angel,” while he watched Paisly gesticulate in vehement protest at the outrage as the officer pushed him along. He was fully clothed, but disheveled, his hair twisted in little tufts across the front where it was longer, as if feminine fingers had playfully tried to curl it, and there was lipstick smeared around his mouth. He stopped suddenly and his features tightened with loathing and anger when he saw Miss Lally seated primly across the desk from Will Gentry.
“I knew you must be at the bottom of this,” he shrieked vindictively. “I hope you’re satisfied with all your snooping and spying.”
Lucy’s voice was protesting in Shayne’s ear, wanting to know what was going on, declaring she’d wait up hours for him to tell her-that she’d never go to sleep now.
“It’s no use, angel. Beatrice and I may even end up at my place-and you know she’s already got her toothbrush with her.” He grinned as he listened a moment, said, “Good night,” softly, and hung up.
“… and I was glad to tell the police where they could find you if that’s what you mean,” Beatrice was saying. “Staying with that woman while you pretended to make love to Miss Morton.”
“Who’s this dame, Eddie?” Paisly’s companion regarded Miss Lally haughtily with her hands on her skinny hips. “What kinda bum rap-?”
“I’ll ask the questions,” Gentry growled. “Where were you before seven o’clock last night, Paisly?”
“I was-at Ellie’s place,” he said sullenly, his breath coming in snorting anger. “She’ll tell you I was there.”
“What time did he come back to your place after failing to meet Miss Morton for his dinner date?” Shayne put in quickly to the girl.
She turned her head and looked him up and down coldly. “About ten o’clock. He’s been there ever since, and whaddaya want to make of it?”
“How many phone calls did he make after ten o’clock?”
“I didn’t make any,” Paisly said violently. “We were together all the time and Ellie can swear I didn’t.”
“And her testimony is worth about a dime a barrel,” grunted Gentry sourly. “This is no good, Mike. He has had hours to prime her to tell whatever story he wanted.”
Shayne nodded agreement and turned to look searchingly at Miss Lally, who was leaning forward intently. Her eyes were half closed and her head was turned sideways in a listening attitude.
He sauntered over to her. She motioned him to bend down, putting a finger to her lips to indicate she wanted to whisper something. “I just don’t know,” she told him. “I think it might be. But it’s so important I wouldn’t want to swear to it without-you know-”
“I see,” he whispered, then straightened up and raised his voice to Gentry. “She’d be much better able to tell by listening over the telephone, Will. Why not have her call you here after a while and you can try it out then.”
Paisly was twisting his head rapidly to look from one face to the other with complete bafflement. He appeared relieved when Gentry ordered, “Take these two out and keep them separated. I’ll have Harsh first, and then Garvin-and then I’ll be ready for Paisly.”
“May I go to my hotel now, Chief Gentry?” Miss Lally asked once more.
“But stay there,” the chief admonished. “I’ll want you again later.” He looked at Shayne, and again he nodded in agreement. When Shayne started toward the door with the girl, Gentry called out, “Don’t you want to sit in on questioning these birds, Mike?”
“I’ll be back,” Shayne answered blithely. “Beatrice and I have a date-remember? Don’t forget she’s going to call you to listen to Paisly’s voice on the phone. After that, if you don’t know who your murderer is, I’ll tell you. I’d tell you now,” he added with an infuriating grin, “except there’s something I need to pick up at the Tidehaven Hotel first.”
They went out and closed the door. Shayne hustled Beatrice down the corridor to a side exit and out to his car, got in and pulled away fast.
“Did you mean that, Mr. Shayne,” she asked anxiously, “or were you just fooling the chief?”
“I think I know,” he told her, “but I wanted to get away and go to your hotel room with you to pick up that story Miss Morton wrote about Harsh before the police get it. It’s worth money to me.”
“I don’t know about the carbon copy,” she said nervously. “Miss Morton kept it for some reason when she told me to file the original away.”
“The carbon is safe enough,” Shayne assured her.
Miss Lally shivered and sighed. She sat primly erect, as though too tired to relax, and they drove in silence to the Tidehaven Hotel.
The lobby was dimly lit and empty except for one clerk. They went to the elevator and up to the 14th floor without speaking. She led the way down the hall and unlocked the door of her bedroom, and Shayne stood back to let her precede him inside.
She went directly to the bureau and fumbled in the top drawer, sighed with relief as she lifted out a spectacle case and opened it.
With a duplicate pair of glasses on, Miss Lally became once more the epitome of a primly efficient and sexless secretary. She stooped to open the bottom drawer of the bureau and drew out a bulging cardboard folder, riffled through the papers inside, and handed Shayne a dozen typewritten sheets clipped together at the top.
He glanced at the first page and tucked the manuscript under his arm with a satisfied nod. She was facing the mirror, and she leaned forward to study her disheveled reflection with a rueful grimace. “I look and feel as though I’d been put through a meat chopper,” she murmured. “I hope you don’t mind if I just flop into bed.”
Shayne was standing very close to her. He reached his left hand around and covered the back of her hand gripping the edge of the bureau. “I have just one question, Beatrice.”
“What is it?”
“Why did you kill Ralph Morton?”