Approaching the Jinny Pit, Shayne caught a glimpse of Phyllis’s shining, ecstatic face framed by an absurd little white hat that gave her the youthful appearance of a high-school girl at a football game. Her white fur chubby hung open, revealing the scarlet scarf which vied with her cheeks for color. He wondered, fleetingly, whether she had been questioned at the betting windows regarding her age, in keeping with the state law against selling tickets to minors. She was clinging to Gil Matrix’s arm, her head level in height with his, though Shayne suspected she stood on tiptoe as she peered anxiously in all directions. When she saw him towering above the throng, she dragged the editor toward him. She laughed triumphantly up into his face and showed him a sheaf of bills in her purse, cajoling:
“Don’t take me away now, Michael. I’m having a wonderful time. I’m winning! Honestly!”
Shayne looked steadily at her, his eyes roving from the top of her little hat to the tips of her white sports shoes. His gaunt face softened and a smile quirked his wide mouth. He said, with excessive gravity, to Matrix, “We’d better turn her over to the police for investigation. The only way she could possibly win would be to get hold of a batch of counterfeit tickets.”
“Don’t you believe it, Mr. Matrix.” Her dark eyes danced merrily. “I met the most fascinating tipster-just a kid, and he looked like a jockey. He gave me a winner in every race, and he gets his dope right from the dogs.”
“So-o-o.” Shayne grinned. “He reads their mail, eh? Knows what their instructions are.” He circled the fur jacket sleeve with one of his big hands and led her toward an exit. “For once in your life you’re going to quit a winner.”
“But, Michael,” she wailed, then stole a look at his face. His features had hardened into set lines again. She made no other protest but went submissively with him.
“You look as though you’re on a hot scent,” Matrix suggested, stretching out his short legs to keep up with Shayne’s long strides.
Shayne grunted, “It’s getting warm,” and jerked open the door of his roadster. He helped Phyllis in, then went around and got under the wheel. Matrix got in on the other side beside Phyllis.
“I’ve got to see a lot of people in a hurry,” Shayne announced as he surged the roadster forward onto the highway.
“You should have to,” Matrix said shortly, “if you haven’t picked up any suspect besides me.”
“I was coming back to you.” Shayne’s voice crackled. “I want the lowdown on Edwards’s invention. The long-range camera that automatically shoots the interior of hotel rooms across the street. Is it a phony or on the level?”
“You’ve been listening to Mr. Hardeman,” Matrix shot back.
“By God, it was a relief to visit somebody who didn’t hedge. I want to know why Edwards refused to patent his invention.”
“What difference does it make now? After he’s dead?”
“It makes a hell of a lot of difference. He left a wife and kid, didn’t he? And it’s the key to four killings.”
“I don’t see how it can be. Just because Ben was a little cracked-shy of publicity-”
Shayne swore fervently, interrupting him. “I’ve been out to the Edwards house. I met Mrs. Edwards. She’s not cracked. They don’t live too well on the salary you paid Ben. There has to be a potent reason behind Ben’s refusal to commercialize his patent.”
They were approaching the spot where Ben Edwards’s body had lain. The road for blocks around was deserted except for one Ford which stood empty by the side of the road.
Matrix pulled himself up from the cushion and caught the doorlatch. “Let me out here,” he said hastily. “That’s my car.”
Shayne jammed on the brakes and the roadster slithered to a stop. “All right,” he said with deadly emphasis, “you know and you’re not telling. But the tide’s rolling in, Matrix. You can’t stop it. The undertow is going to suck somebody under and I don’t give a damn who it is.”
He waited until Matrix got out and slammed the door with unnecessary force and turned swiftly away toward his car, then Shayne gunned the roadster forward.
Phyllis started to speak but he silenced her. “Watch Matrix’s Ford in that rear-view mirror. I’m going to slow up. Tell me as soon as his lights come on and he turns around.”
She reached up quickly and turned the tiny mirror lower, watched tensely for a moment, then said, “His lights are on. Now, he’s backing around to head in this direction. He-he’s coming awfully fast.”
Shayne switched off the lights before she finished speaking. Light from the quarter moon sinking low in the west showed a side road shaded with a thick growth of Australian pines. He drove past it, then backed in to the thickest shadow, cut off his motor, and waited, signaling for complete silence to Phyllis.
The Ford whizzed by. Shayne waited a moment, then turned on his lights and drove out onto the highway. The taillight of the Ford showed faintly red a quarter of a mile closer to town.
Shayne put on enough speed to draw up within two blocks of the editor’s car and maintained that distance through the business section of Cocopalm.
Matrix swerved to the right on a residential street. Shayne followed, recognizing it as the street on which the Ben Edwards home was located.
The corner cottage was brilliantly lighted and there were three cars parked outside. Matrix sped by without slowing, drove on to a narrow paved road which paralleled the ocean shore, where he swung sharply to the left again.
Shayne slowed between rows of small beach cottages lining both sides of the road, with the surf rolling within a few feet of the foundations of the row to the east. He allowed Matrix to gain two more blocks while a deep frown of perplexity creased his forehead. The cottages became more straggling, and the pounding of surf on the shore was a low continuous rumble.
“Now, where would he be going?” Phyllis asked anxiously.
“I don’t know, but it’s important, angel.”
The Ford slowed, then stopped in front of a beach cottage where a porch light was burning. The light went off when the car stopped.
Shayne cut off his motor and his lights. He relaxed behind the wheel and crushed out his cigarette.
“So what?” Phyllis demanded in a taut voice. “Have you forgotten what to do when you park with me on the beach on a moonlight night?”
Shayne put his right arm around her and she relaxed with a brief sigh. While he continued to watch the cottage and the Ford, he muttered, “I don’t understand any of this any more than you do, angel.”
She shivered inside the circle of his arm. “Do you think Mr. Matrix is guilty?”
“Your guess is as good as mine right now,” he told her. “I’ll know more about that when I find out who lives in that cottage. I’ll give him a little more time-”
He swore softly when the lights of the editor’s Ford blinked on suddenly. Without turning on his own lights he stepped on the starter and pulled forward slowly. When the Ford’s taillight whisked around the first corner, back toward Cocopalm, Shayne stepped on the accelerator, then came to an abrupt stop in front of the cottage before which the Ford had been parked.
Phyllis put her hand on Shayne’s arm. “There’s a woman in that cottage,” she whispered. “I just saw her go past the window.”
“I suppose that means I’ll have to be chaperoned if I go in,” he said lightly. He opened the door and got out. Phyllis sat back against the seat pouting prettily.
“I mean it,” he urged. “I may need chaperoning if it’s who I think it is.”
Phyllis scrambled out and joined him on the shell walk leading up to the front door. “I’m so used to being left behind I didn’t suppose you’d want me along. I thought you were kidding me.” She gripped his arm with suppressed excitement as they stepped onto the porch. Shayne knocked when he couldn’t find an electric button to push.
Swift footsteps sounded inside. The door opened a crack and Shayne pushed it on open against Midge Taylor’s slight weight.
She exclaimed, “Oh! It’s you,” and stepped back, her wide blue eyes burning into his.
Shayne’s arm, to which Phyllis held tightly, pulled her forward. “I brought along my wife as a referee if you attack me again.” He laughed down into Phyllis’s surprised face. “This is Miss Taylor, Mrs. Shayne. Miss Taylor is responsible for these scratches on my cheek. She’ll tell you all about it.”
Midge stepped backward along the wall, groping with one hand like a drunkard searching for something to hold to. Her honey-colored hair was again coiled smoothly around her head in big braids. She was deathly pale. She had changed from the torn white silk dress to a clean wash frock with white ruffles on the sleeves and it made her look smaller and younger. The simple dress rid her of every hint of sophisticated poise and gave her an ingenuously domestic appearance.
Shayne tossed his hat on a chair and ruffled his red hair irritably. “Stop backing away as though you expect me to pounce on you.”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Phyllis reprimanded. She went to the girl’s side and took her unresisting arm. “Sit down here.” She drew Midge down beside her on an old rattan couch which was damp and sticky with salt air, demanding of her husband in an undertone, “Can’t you see you frightened her to death barging in like that? She’s about to faint.”
“No,” Midge protested. “I’m-all right. Really I am.” She drew her arm away from Phyllis, stared up at Shayne with taut defiance. “I should think you’d be ashamed to come here after what you did tonight. You-oh, you brute.” Tears gushed from her eyes and streamed down her pale cheeks. She slumped back, her mouth working convulsively, her hands balled into fists. Slowly she relaxed, gaining control of her tears.
Shayne watched her narrowly, his fingers touching the scratches her nails had left on his cheek. He stood in the center of the small room, and after a time he said harshly, “I suppose you had reference to what happened to your brother?”
“Yes-I-Oh, God! how can you stand there and gloat like that? Bud wasn’t bad-not really. I could have-I was trying so hard to make something of him.”
Shayne’s brows came together in an angry scowl.
Phyllis shook her head at him in an effort to stop his pitiless attitude toward the girl, but he disregarded her.
“How were you trying to help him?” he ground out. “By getting into the same mess yourself? By hanging out at the Rendezvous and tarring yourself with the same stick?”
Midge didn’t reply. Her head lolled back and tears again rolled unheeded from wide-open eyes.
“Your brother,” Shayne went on mercilessly, “deserved what he got tonight. I killed him-while he was trying to kill me. If that makes me a brute, all right.” He dropped into a chair and lit a cigarette.
Phyllis was beginning to understand dimly. She took a handkerchief from her purse and bent over Midge, wiping her cheeks and murmuring, “Please don’t. You’ve got to get hold of yourself. Mike is right. Your brother’s death was of his own making. I know just the way it happened.”
Midge took the handkerchief from Phyllis and dabbed at her eyes. She swallowed back some more tears and choked out, “I–I know. Bud wouldn’t listen to me. He was so headstrong. I was all he had and I–I failed somehow. I didn’t know about tonight until-until after-” She nodded toward Shayne and sucked in her lower lip, swallowing hard again.
“Until after you put on your act at the Rendezvous,” he supplied. “Who arranged that? Was Gil Matrix in on it?”
“No-oh, no. Of course he wasn’t.” Midge pushed herself up straight. “You’ve got to believe me,” she implored. “Gil and I had an argument this evening-about Bud. He told me Bud wasn’t worth trying to save. But I knew that Bud-for all his wildness-clung to me-loved me. Everything else had failed, so I decided to go out to the Rendezvous and-shame him into quitting that rough crowd. I meant to pretend I would hang around there-and make him quit to get me to quit.
“I had every intention of doing something sordid to show Bud how it felt to see his own sister do the things he thought were smart.” She paused, her eyes going from Phyllis to Shayne, pleading with them to believe her.
Shayne’s gray eyes were noncommittal through a cloud of smoke. He said, “Well?”
“Well, Mr. MacFarlane called me into his office and told me that Bud had done something terrible. He wouldn’t tell me what it was, except that he was in danger and a detective from Miami was after him. He suggested how I could-trap you-to make you leave Bud alone. He said he thought Bud would be willing to quit and go straight if he got out of this scrape. I believed him-and that’s why I did it.”
When she finished speaking her chin was tilted at a proud angle. Her shoulders were straight, her whole manner one of defiance, but her hands were clenched so tightly in her lap that the knuckles showed white against the suntanned skin.
Shayne nodded. “All right. I’m willing to believe what you say until I can prove something different. But I want to know this: Did Ben Edwards see you when Gil sent him out there just before you stopped me on the road?”
“Why, no. I saw Ben pass-going both ways. I knew Gil was worried about me and wanted me to leave the Rendezvous.”
Shayne said, “At last I’m beginning to find out one or two things.” He paused, then the question jumped at her:
“What did Gil tell you a few minutes ago-when he stopped here?”
She recovered swiftly from her surprise. “Nothing, except to talk to me about Bud and tell me about Ben Edwards.”
Shayne got up abruptly. He rubbed his chin, darted a guilty glance at Phyllis, and asked, “Where’s the bathroom?”
“Straight back,” Midge told him. “At the end of the hall.”
Shayne strode away. When he returned, Phyllis had both Midge’s hands in hers and was talking to her in a low, sympathetic voice.
Catching his wife’s eye, Shayne suggested, “Suppose you stay here with Miss Taylor for a while. I’m going to be dashing around.”
Phyllis nodded happily. “Of course-” she began, but Midge interrupted swiftly:
“No, you mustn’t do that. I couldn’t let you.”
“But I’d love to,” Phyllis declared. “I’m sure it would be better than being alone at a time like this.”
“No,” said Midge flatly. “I want to be alone. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help thinking that-that you’re his wife.”
Phyllis said, “Oh,” disappointedly. She glanced at Shayne for guidance, but he had turned his back and walked to the door. “Well,” said Phyllis uncertainly, “well, then, I–I guess I won’t stay.”
Midge didn’t say anything. She averted her face from Phyllis’s reproachful eyes.
Phyllis caught up with her husband as he started down the steps. “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “I thought she had forgiven you. She seemed so friendly while we were alone in the room together. She changed all of a sudden when you came back from the bathroom and suggested that I stay with her.”
Shayne patted her hand, which rested in the crook of his arm. His low chuckle held no mirth. When they reached the roadster he opened the door, helped her in, saying, “I’ll write you a letter of explanation the first spare minute I have.”
He stalked around the car and got in. When they pulled away from the little beach cottage he muttered, “You’re entirely too trusting, angel. Too willing to believe what you want to believe. But don’t change-keep it up. It’s very becoming to your face.”
“But, Michael, she did like me. I’m not guessing about that,” Phyllis flared.
“Maybe she did. Under happier circumstances you two might be friends. But she was anxious to get rid of us just the same. I looked in the bedroom on my way to the end of the hall. She was just starting to pack her clothes. It looks as though Gil stopped by to tell her to get ready to skip out with him.”
Phyllis’s dark eyes glowed with curiosity and regret. “Then you think Gil committed the murders-and is trying to get away.”
“He won’t get away if I can prevent it,” Shayne said in a noncommittal tone. He pressed the roadster forward to greater speed, groped for one of Phyllis’s hands and squeezed it. “Life plays dirty tricks on people sometimes. If I were God I’d arrange things differently, but I’m not God. I’m just a private dick with a job to do.”
She sighed and moved close to his big shoulder. “Just the same, I feel terribly sorry for both of them. I don’t believe either of them has ever known peace or happiness.”