Brett Halliday

Date with a Dead Man

1

With his tie off and collar loosened, Michael Shayne had just settled himself with what he expected to be the final drink of the evening when his telephone rang.

He hesitated before answering it, tightening big-knuckled fingers about the glass of cognac and lifting it deliberately to take a long swallow, rumpling his coarse red hair irritably before lifting the instrument with his left hand and growling a hello into it.

Lucy Hamilton’s voice came over the wire, eager and lilting as always, yet sounding a trifle strained as she asked, “Michael? Are you still up?”

“Just. As soon as I finish this drink…”

His secretary didn’t let him finish the sentence. “Finish it fast, Michael, and come over here. I’m across the street from my place. The Boswick Arms on the corner.”

Shayne took another long swallow of cognac and set the glass down, reaching for a tumbler of ice water beside it. “What’s up, angel?”

“It’s Mrs. Groat in number four-fourteen at the Boswick Arms. I know her slightly, Michael, and she’s terribly worried about her husband being missing. I think you should come and talk to her.”

Shayne said, “Groat?” with a frown. “Do I know him? The name sounds familiar.”

“You must have read about him in the paper, Michael. Please come over at once.”

There was no denying the urgency in Lucy’s voice. Shayne sighed and said, “Fifteen minutes.” He replaced the telephone and scowled at it, absently tugging on his left ear lobe while he tried to recall what he might have read about a Mr. Groat in the newspaper. The name seemed tantalizingly familiar, but that was all. He shrugged and tossed off the rest of the cognac, chased it with ice water and got up, buttoning his collar and going into the bedroom to pick up the discarded tie he had tossed on the back of a chair a few minutes previously.

It took him five minutes to get his car out of the apartment hotel’s garage, and another five to drive east to Biscayne Boulevard and north to the side street where Lucy’s apartment was located between the boulevard and the western shore of Biscayne Bay.

The side street was empty in front of the Boswick Arms, a modern eight-story apartment building that had been completed just two years before, and he parked in front of the canopied entrance and went in.

There was a small, well-lighted foyer with a desk and a switchboard behind it, a gray-haired woman facing the switchboard who did not turn around as Shayne strode past her to a pair of self-service elevators. One of the cages was waiting, and Shayne got in and pressed the button for 4. It rose smoothly and he stepped out into a well-carpeted and well-lit hallway leading in both directions with arrows painted on the wall in front of him indicating the direction for different numbers. A quiet, discreet and well-managed building, he thought to himself as he walked down the hall looking for 414. The impression was strengthened when his brown-haired secretary opened the door to his knock. There was a large, square, tastefully decorated sitting room with serviceable gray carpeting from wall to wall, an overstuffed sofa with comfortable matching chairs; an impersonal sort of room, yet with an air of quiet dignity that was friendly and welcoming.

Lucy wore the same tan blouse and dark skirt that she had worn to the office that day, but her brown curls were tousled and her face was washed clean of make-up. She put an impulsive hand out to Shayne’s forearm and said warmly, “Thanks for coming right over, Michael,” and turned toward a dumpy, middle-aged woman standing behind her. “Mrs. Groat, Michael Shayne. She knows I work for you, Michael, and when she began to be worried about her husband half an hour ago, she telephoned me to ask what I thought she should do.”

Wisps of graying hair escaped from what Shayne felt sure was a normally sleek coiffure, and Mrs. Groat’s blue eyes were red-rimmed and frightened behind rimless glasses. She wore a black silk dress that managed to look slightly girlish on her, and she twisted plump beringed fingers together nervously as she said, “I begged Miss Hamilton not to bother you, Mr. Shayne. A busy man like I know you are. But she insisted…”

“Of course, I insisted,” Lucy said warmly. The three of them moved into the room together and a young man got up from a deep chair at the other side. He was square-shouldered and square-faced with one of the deepest tans Shayne had ever seen on a man, and white teeth showing behind sulky lips. His eyes were gray and unsmiling with heavy black brows a straight line above them, and the redhead had an immediate and distinct impression that he was both ill at ease and not pleased by Shayne’s arrival. His cheap gray suit was obviously new, and too tight across the shoulders, the sleeves showing bony wrists with big, blunt-fingered hands dangling from them. There was a look of newness also about the light tan shoes and the heavily starched collar of a soft white shirt, and his coarse black hair was freshly barbered in a short crew-cut that left a narrow line of white skin around the back of his tanned neck where it had been shaved that day.

Mrs. Groat said, “This is Mr. Cunningham,” and with the name things clicked into place in Shayne’s memory. He crossed the rug, holding out his hand to the younger man, saying heartily, “I remember it all now. You and Jasper Groat were the only crew members rescued from the plane that was lost at sea a couple of weeks ago.”

Cunningham dropped his eyes and muttered, “That’s right. I was the steward and Mr. Groat was the copilot.” He clasped Shayne’s hand briefly and dropped it.

Shayne said, “It must have been tough. Weren’t you on a life raft all that time?”

“Nine days before we were picked up.” Cunningham retreated moodily and sank back into his chair, and Shayne turned to the sofa and sat down with Lucy, getting a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and asking, “You say your husband is missing, Mrs. Groat? Since when and what are the circumstances?”

“Missing makes it sound so formal, Mr. Shayne.” She sat down carefully in a straight chair and took off her glasses, looking bewildered and nervous. “It’s just that… this one night, you see. After all this time when I’d just about given up Mr. Groat for lost… this first night after the Lord gave him back to me…”

“You have a right to be worried about him,” Lucy said warmly. “He went out at eight o’clock, Michael, without telling Mrs. Groat where he was going. Just that he’d be back in about an hour. And he had a definite date with Mr. Cunningham, too, for dinner, and he didn’t show up for that. So she telephoned me about it and I told her she should call the police, but she hated to do that.”

“It’s just that… Jasper has been acting queer all day,” Mrs. Groat said nervously. “He sat around without talking much, worried and moody, you might say. He expected those Hawleys to telephone him after that story in the paper and all, and he wouldn’t move away from the phone. But he wouldn’t call them when I told him to. Made him angry and he said you couldn’t understand people like that.”

“The Hawleys?” Shayne turned to lift ragged red brows at Lucy sitting beside him.

“You’d know if you’d read the News carefully. The plane that crashed was bringing a load of soldiers back from Europe and Albert Hawley was the only one who got out on a life raft alive with Mr. Groat and Mr. Cunningham. He… died before they were rescued.”

“We did our best for him,” Cunningham said sullenly. “Jasper nursed him like a father. Gave him way over his share of water and emergency rations. They can’t blame us for him dying like that.” He lifted his head and stared at them defiantly as though answering a spoken accusation.

“I’m mortal sure Jasper did everything he could for the poor boy,” Mrs. Groat said heatedly. “You would think they’d have had the decency to call up and thank him and ask about their boy. He brooded about it when they didn’t.”

“The Hawleys live in Miami?” Shayne asked Lucy.

She nodded. “They’re an old pioneer family. Rich as all get-out, I guess. Refused to even see a reporter this morning after Mr. Groat and Mr. Cunningham were landed and the whole story came out about the Hawley boy dying at sea.”

“And you have no idea where your husband went this evening, Mrs. Groat?”

“Not an inkling. He acted queer, like I say, and I didn’t ask him when he went out. Bitter and withdrawn, he acted. I know he made a long-distance phone call late this afternoon, but I don’t know who to. I came in from the kitchen just as he was telling the operator to charge the call. Then later he seemed to make up his mind to something and went out, saying he’d be back in an hour.” She tightened her lips and looked at a clock on the mantel. “That was almost three hours ago.”

Shayne leaned forward to grind out the butt of his cigarette in a china ash tray. “Did he drive his car?”

“We don’t have a car. With Jasper just home between trips we don’t have much need for one.”

Shayne shrugged and said, “I’ll check with the police.” He got up and looked around for a telephone.

Mrs. Groat rose swiftly, her plump face contorted with fear. “The police? Do you think…?”

Shayne said carefully, “I don’t think anything, Mrs. Groat. They’ll have a record of any accidents.”

He saw the telephone on a stand near the door and went to it. As he lifted it and dialed a number, Cunningham said abruptly, “I know something bad’s happened to him. I told Mrs. Groat so when Jasper didn’t show up for dinner. We’d planned it, you see. Night and day, on the raft, we planned what we’d eat the first night we got ashore. You tell the police that.”

Shayne nodded absently, and spoke into the mouthpiece. He asked for Sergeant Piper and gave Groat’s name and address. He listened gravely for a moment, then said, “Thanks, Sergeant. Do that.” He hung up and said, “There’s nothing reported yet. I assume he did have identification on him, Mrs. Groat?”

“Oh, yes. All kinds of cards in his wallet.”

“I guess I’ll be going.” Cunningham got up diffidently. “If you do hear from Jasper, Mrs. Groat, you tell him I couldn’t wait any longer to eat. And I’ll call tomorrow.” He walked across the rug toward the door, pausing to pick up a new brown fedora which he turned around and around in his hands absently. “I can’t help thinking maybe it’s got something to do with Jasper’s diary he kept all the time we were on the raft. One of those reporters got him all hepped up this morning about maybe printing the diary in a paper and paying him a lot of money. You think that might be it, Mrs. Groat?”

“I think he would’ve told me, if it was. He talked to me about the diary and how much the reporter might pay him for it… but he was kind of funny about that, too. Like as though maybe it wouldn’t be right to take money for something like that. Though I told him, for goodness’ sake, why not?”

“You think it’s worth much, Mrs. Groat?”

“How should I know? I didn’t read it. Seems to me he said he gave it to the reporter this morning. I read some of his other diaries years ago and I didn’t think they were so much.”

Cunningham said vaguely, “Unh-huh. I’ll be saying goodnight. Mr. Shayne and… Miss Hamilton.” He opened the door and slid out unobtrusively.

“What’s this about a reporter and his diary, Mrs. Groat?” Shayne asked the dumpy woman after the door closed behind the airlines steward.

“Land sakes, I don’t know much. Jasper was some excited when he first came home. Said they might print it in the paper and pay him for it. I think he was expecting the reporter to call him this afternoon, but he didn’t. Then it seemed like he lost interest in the diary when he got to brooding more and more about those Hawleys not even wanting to know about their boy.”

“What reporter was it, Mrs. Groat?”

“I don’t know. Daily News, I think he said.”

Shayne swung on Lucy. “Was the rescue story in the News by-lined?”

“I don’t think so, Michael.” Lucy puckered her smooth brow. “Why don’t you ask Tim Rourke?”

Shayne said, “I will.” He turned back to the telephone and dialed another number. After waiting for some time, he hung up, shaking his red head.

“I don’t know much more we can do tonight, Mrs. Groat. If you haven’t heard from your husband by tomorrow morning, call me at my office and I’ll do everything I can to help you locate him. Coming home, Lucy?”

“I… guess so.” The brown-haired girl hesitated. “Unless Mrs. Groat feels she wants me to stay.”

“Land sakes, no.” Mrs. Groat replaced her glasses on her nose and said firmly, “I’ve got the feeling now that all this is what you might call a tempest in a teapot. I shouldn’t have got upset, and Jasper won’t be any too happy if he knows the police have been called in and all. You run along and get a good sleep,” she urged Lucy, walking to the door with them, “and I do thank you, Mr. Shayne, for coming over and talking to me. Made me feel a mighty sight better somehow.”

Shayne said reassuringly, “I think tomorrow morning will be time enough to really get worried, Mrs. Groat. Just be thankful tonight that you have him back safely.”

He held Lucy’s arm firmly as they walked toward the elevators, and she glanced up into his rugged face and sighed. “Shouldn’t I have bothered you about it, Michael?”

He pushed a button to bring the elevator up, and said, “Of course, you should, angel.” He opened the door when the cage stopped on the fourth floor, and followed her inside. “Something funny about Cunningham’s attitude,” he added.

“He’s scared to death,” Lucy said flatly.

“How well do you know Jasper Groat?”

“Just to say hello to him. I’ve known Mrs. Groat casually for a couple of years… ever since they moved into this building. That’s why she called me tonight when she didn’t know what else to do.”

The elevator stopped at the bottom and they got out. As they approached the desk, the gray-haired operator at the switchboard swung about to look at them inquiringly.

Shayne stopped in front of the desk and put both palms down flat on top of it. He asked, “Do you keep a record of long-distance calls?”

“Outgoing… yes.” Her tired eyes questioned him.

He said briskly, “Police business,” opening his wallet and giving her a glimpse of his credentials as a private detective. “Mr. Groat in four-fourteen made a long-distance call this evening. Can you tell me who he called?”

She said, “The police? Well, I… just a moment.” She swiveled away from him and consulted a clipboard. “It was person-to-person to Mrs. Leon Wallace in Littleboro.”

Shayne leaned an elbow on the desk and lit a cigarette. He said, “I realize this isn’t a public telephone, but… could you put a call through to Mrs. Wallace and let me pay you for it?”

She said primly, “There’s a telephone booth in the corner over there.”

Shayne said, “Thank you,” and went to the booth. He dialed operator and told her what he wanted. She got information, and finally a Littleboro number for Mrs. Wallace, but the number did not answer after she rang it eight times. Shayne told her to cancel the call, and emerged from the booth tugging thoughtfully at his left ear lobe.

Lucy jumped up from a chair in which she had been waiting, and clung to his arm as he went out the door. “What has Mrs. Leon Wallace in Littleboro got to do with it, Michael?”

He grinned and said, “How in hell do I know? I don’t even know where Littleboro is.”

Lucy said, “It’s about a hundred miles upstate and inland. A farming town.”

They went out onto the street together and she said uncertainly, “I guess I was foolish to bother you tonight. But Mrs. Groat was so darned worried… and like most people in Miami she has complete faith that a redheaded lug named Michael Shayne knows all the answers.”

Shayne grinned down at the moonlight glinting off her brown curls and turned her away from his car parked in front. He said, “I’ll walk you home and come back for my car. It wasn’t foolish, angel. Here’s a guy just been rescued from the dead after ten days or two weeks keeping alive in a life raft… and he walks out on his ever-loving wife the first evening he’s back. No use getting her hysterical, but there’s got to be some reason.”

They had walked east on the south sidewalk until they were opposite the modest building housing Lucy’s apartment, and as they started to cross the street, Shayne said quietly in a low voice, close to his secretary’s ear, “Don’t look now, but we’re being followed.” Her fingers tightened on his arm but she continued walking steadily beside him across the empty street. “Where, Michael? Who?”

He said, “Behind us. I’ll find out who after I let you in your front door. Keep your place locked tonight.”

He raised his voice as they reached the opposite sidewalk and crossed to the front door of her building. “Nothing else we can do about Groat tonight, Lucy. We’ll start wheels turning in the morning if he isn’t back. Got your key?”

She said, “Right here,” in a steady voice. They stood close together at the top of the steps and she opened the outer door leading into a small hallway with mail boxes on each side. She put both hands on his biceps and pressed close to him, turning her face up in the faint moonlight.

He kissed her lips and she drew away after a moment and whispered breathlessly, “Be careful, Michael.”

He said, “I’m always careful,” and gave her a little shove into the foyer, letting the door close behind her, and then turned back to the moonlit street.

2

He paused on the curb, a tall and deceptively rangy figure, lighting a cigarette with casual deliberation while his gaze searched the palm-shadowed sidewalk across the street. There were small, private residences there, east of the Boswick Arms on the corner, built close to the sidewalk with narrow driveways separating them.

As he exhaled smoke and spun the dead match into the street, Shayne caught a flicker of movement against a rose trellis in the driveway west of the opposite house. It was no more than that, and as he crossed the street with deliberate strides he was able to discern only the shadowy outline of a figure pressed close to the rose bush.

He reached the sidewalk and turned right, his heels striking solidly on the concrete until he was directly opposite the man lurking in the driveway not more than ten feet away. Then he swung into the driveway with a swift lunge that covered the distance in two strides and smashed into a bulky body that had no opportunity to retreat or to get set for the impact.

The man staggered back and would have gone down if Shayne’s left hand hadn’t grabbed the front of his coat and jerked him back. In the moonlight away from the shadow of the house, Shayne recognized the sullen, deeply tanned features of Cunningham, and he shook him angrily, with right fist doubled and drawn back, while he grated, “What kind of tricks are you playing?”

Cunningham’s body was solid and heavy. He braced himself and clubbed Shayne’s left hand away with his forearm while he twisted back, grunting, “You don’t have to jump a guy like that. What the hell’s eating on you?”

He continued to give ground as Shayne stalked him with right fist still doubled and cocked, “What’s your game, Cunningham?”

“Just wanted a chance to talk to you alone,” the steward panted. “I knew Miss Hamilton lived close and figured you’d be coming back for your car after telling her good night.”

Shayne stopped and shrugged. “All you had to do was say so.”

“I’m saying so now.” Cunningham licked his lips and moved forward with squared shoulders that carried a faint swagger of insolence. “I figure you and me might make us a deal.”

“What sort of deal?” Shayne turned abruptly and walked toward his car and Cunningham hurried his shorter legs to keep pace.

“I’ll buy a drink,” he offered eagerly.

Shayne said, “Get in.” He went around to the driver’s side and slid under the wheel and Cunningham opened the other door and sat beside him. The redhead started the motor and made a U-turn back toward the brightly lighted boulevard without glancing at the man on his right. “You know something about Groat you didn’t want to tell his wife?”

“Not that exactly. I mean I still don’t know where he is tonight. But there are some things she mightn’t understand.” He was silent for a moment and Shayne was silent. He hesitated for the boulevard stop, made a left turn into the midnight traffic and drove south two blocks before turning onto a side street and pulling in to the curb in front of a lighted barroom. He switched off the ignition and got out and they went into the bar together where half a dozen men were seated on stools and three of the six booths lining the right side were occupied. The bartender was fat and bald-headed and was chewing on the end of a kitchen match. He lifted tufted gray brows at Shayne and turned to reach for a bottle of cognac on the top shelf, but the redhead walked past, saying, “We’ll rest our feet, Ernie.”

He led the way to the last booth in the rear, and a pert waitress came to lean pointed young breasts over the table between them, and Shayne looked inquiringly at the steward who moistened his thick lips and said, “Bourbon on the rocks.”

Shayne said, “Ernie knows mine.”

When the waitress turned away, Cunningham put both palms of his solid hands on the table and said flatly, “First off, I’m bad worried about Jasper. I didn’t want to let on too much there in front of his old lady, but I swear to God something bad must have happened to Jasper to keep him from keeping that dinner date with me tonight. You know how it is when you’re in a spot like we were on that life raft? Nothing to eat and nothing to drink, and that’s all you think about after a few days.” He licked his lips and swallowed hard, dropping his eyes from Shayne’s hard gaze. “You talk about what you’re going to do first night ashore and what you’re going to eat and drink. Jasper and me… we had it all planned, see? A big celebration. It’s something… you know… a man wouldn’t run out on.”

The waitress brought his glass with two cubes of ice in it, and she poured the bourbon on top of them. She placed a four-ounce glass filled to the brim with amber fluid in front of the detective, and placed a tumbler of ice water beside it.

Shayne said, “I see what you mean. Jasper Groat knew where to get in touch with you if something did come up to prevent him meeting you tonight?”

“Sure. He had my phone number.” Cunningham tossed off half his drink and set the glass down, moving it around in circles on the table in front of him. “It’s something to do with those Hawleys,” he said hoarsely. “You mark my words, Mr. Shayne. If you didn’t know Jasper, you just can’t understand about it all. A real psalm-singer, he was. Sure enough religious, if you know what I mean. Praying all the time on the life raft, and telling that kid soldier and me we should both get right with God before it was too late. How we should confess our sins and humble ourselves before God and all that crap.”

There was a venomous ring in Cunningham’s voice. He shook his head, lifted his eyes to Shayne’s and added sullenly, “Not that I got anything against religion. I always been able to take it or leave it. But Jasper… he bore down on a man.”

Shayne took a long drink of cognac and a sip of ice water. He said flatly, “You didn’t hang around the Boswick Arms just to tell me this stuff.”

“No. You’re right. I didn’t. I want to get this straight, though. You’re not really the cops, huh?”

Shayne said, “I’m a licensed private investigator.”

“Yeah. That’s what I mean. Like a lawyer, huh?” Cunningham lifted one hand vaguely. “You got a client, you don’t tell all you know to the cops, huh?”

Shayne said, “I don’t obstruct justice by withholding information.”

“Yeh. Sure. Those big words mean you just don’t cover up for a crook, I guess.”

“That’s the general idea.” Shayne lit a cigarette without offering his pack to the man across from him. “Right now I haven’t got any client.”

“Maybe I could be one, huh? Then whatever I told you would be private.”

Shayne said, “I’ll have to be the judge of that. If it has to do with finding Jasper Groat…?” He let his voice trail off questioningly.

“If I knew that I’d tell you. It’s this here diary that Jasper kept on the life raft, see. Has he got a right to sell that to a newspaper to be printed?”

Shayne frowned. “His own diary? Why not?”

“No matter what kind of stuff it’s got in it? About somebody else.”

“About you?”

“Well… yeh. I never thought about it until this morning, see? After that reporter read some of the stuff and started talking big money to Jasper for printing it. But there’s a lot of private stuff in there I wouldn’t want people to read. You know, things I told him on the life raft when we didn’t think we had a chance in hell of getting out alive. A man talks kind of crazy at a time like that.”

Shayne said, “No reputable newspaper would want to print anything that might be libelous. They’d be pretty careful about deleting derogatory references to you or anyone else.”

“Yeh. Well, I don’t know just what Jasper wrote down and didn’t. If I could get hold of it to see, I’d feel a lot better.”

“Where’s the diary now?”

“That’s what I don’t know. The reporter took it off this morning and I don’t know whether Jasper saw him again or not. One thing I’ve been wondering… with Jasper missing like he is… if something has happened to him… you know. Would that reporter still have the right to print his diary?”

“You mean if Groat is dead?”

“Well… yeh. Like I say, I know something kept him from meeting me for dinner.”

Shayne said, “That would depend on whether they had concluded an arrangement to print it. Otherwise the diary would become Mrs. Groat’s property, I assume, and she’d have the right to arrange for publication.”

“Could you get it back, do you think?”

“I don’t know. Depending on who’s got it.”

“I’d pay good money to go through it and mark out the places I don’t want published.”

Shayne said, “I might arrange that… if a Daily News reporter has it.” He took another drink of cognac and set his glass down. “What about Leon Wallace?” he asked casually.

Cunningham’s big hand jerked and he spilled some of his whisky. His eyes widened in consternation or in fear. “What about him?”

“That’s what I asked you.”

The steward’s expression hardened into a sullen glare. “What kind of game are you and Jasper playing, mister?”

Shayne leaned back with a shrug. “I asked you a simple question.”

“And I’m asking you what you know about Leon Wallace. Where’d you ever hear about him, that’s what I want to know.”

“I’m a detective,” Shayne said quietly. “Remember? It’s my business to know about things.”

“Yeh, but… Was that just a put-up deal with you and your secretary and Jasper’s old lady tonight? Was it, huh? Just to fool me so I’d blab off to you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“The hell you don’t,” Cunningham spat out truculently. “The way they fed it to me was that when you walked in there tonight was the first you’d ever heard of Jasper or his diary. That was just play-acting to fool me, huh? What did Jasper tell you about Leon Wallace?”

Shayne said, “Nothing.”

“The old lady then? After I left, huh?”

Shayne said, “She didn’t mention Wallace’s name either.”

“You’re lying,” Cunningham said thickly. He half arose and leaned over the table, thrusting his square chin toward the detective. “Don’t think you’re cutting in on it, mister. To hell with that. Nobody’s playing Pete Cunningham for a sucker.”

Shayne said, “Sit down.” His voice was like a whiplash and his gaze held the inflamed eyes of the younger man steadily. When Cunningham sank back slowly, Shayne said, “I don’t lie. At least to punks like you.” He stood up. “You’re paying for these drinks. If you decide you want to talk to me further, you can reach me at my office or this address.” He gave Cunningham the name of his hotel.

He slid out of the booth into the aisle and strode to the front, nodding curtly to Ernie as he passed him.

Driving home, he stopped at a newsstand to pick up the early edition of the Herald, which he carried up to his room after garaging his car for the second time that night.

He laid the folded paper on the table beside the water tumbler that still held some unmelted ice, shrugged out of his jacket and loosened his collar, poured more cognac into the glass he had emptied after receiving Lucy’s telephone call, and settled down to read the front-page story about the dramatic rescue of the two civilian crew members of the airplane that had been lost at sea two weeks previously while flying forty enlisted men back to the United States for discharge after completing a tour of duty in Europe.

Since they had been scooped on the story by the afternoon edition of the News, the Herald coverage was not so full or dramatic, but there was more background material presented in a sober and factual manner.

There were photographs of Groat and Cunningham, bearded, that had been snapped at the dockside, and a picture of Albert Hawley, the young soldier who had succumbed on the life raft, which had evidently been dug out of the newspaper morgue. Jasper Groat was a thin, middle-aged man with sunken eyes and almost cadaverous features, while the picture of Albert Hawley showed a slender youth in riding togs and a debonair smile that was weakened by a slack-lipped mouth and a chin that was noticeably nonaggressive.

Shayne read the entire newspaper account with care and without encountering any mention of the diary which Jasper Groat had kept during the ten-day ordeal on a life raft. Nor did the name of Leon Wallace appear in the story.

The prominence of the Hawley family in the social and economic life of Miami caused a large portion of the account to be devoted to them and to their only son. It was duly noted that the young soldier was survived by his mother and a married sister named Beatrice. A portion of the background material was devoted to Albert Hawley’s marriage at the age of twenty, not much more than a year before, which was described as one of the gala social events of the season. It had evidently occurred just prior to the young man’s induction into the army, and, by reading between the lines, there was clearly evident a cynical interpretation of the marriage as a last-ditch and desperate attempt of a wealthy, spoiled young man to thus escape being drafted into the service of his country as a common soldier, an attempt which had been thwarted by a stern and incorruptible local draft board.

Curiously enough, there was no further mention of the widowed Mrs. Albert Hawley in the wealth of background material on the family. It was stated that no member of the Hawley clan was available for interview. No comment was forthcoming from the family on the death of young Hawley at sea, the only one on the passenger list miraculously saved from the crash along with the two crew members.

It was duly noted by the Herald, however, that this seemingly cold-blooded reticence of the Hawleys was due in part, at least, to the fact that the family was already in mourning for the recent death of Ezra Hawley, Albert’s uncle and the actual, patriarchal head of the clan for the last six years, since the death of his brother who had been a partner with him in the Hawley Enterprises.

Ezra Hawley’s death at the age of sixty-eight had occurred during the period after it was known that Albert’s plane had crashed into the ocean and before it was reported that Albert was the only passenger who had survived. This was coincidental enough to provide the writer of the story with a couple of paragraphs of philosophical comment on the Unknowingness of the Unknown and some vague conjectures concerning the disposition of Ezra Hawley’s immense fortune, which had not been released to the press.

Shayne laid the Herald aside with a brooding and dissatisfied frown. He drank the last of his cognac and drummed blunt fingertips unhappily on the table top, while he tried unsatisfactorily to fit various fragments of unrelated information into place to form a complete pattern that would begin to make sense. He glanced at his watch and again dialed Timothy Rourke’s home telephone number which had not answered when he tried it in Jasper Groat’s apartment.

Again he waited for a number of rings before hanging up. This time he tried the Daily News number and got the City Room. But Rourke was not on tap and no one knew exactly where he could be reached. Shayne settled for the City Editor, and when he was connected said crisply, “Mike Shayne, Dirkson. I’ve been trying to get hold of Tim Rourke.”

He listened a moment and then broke in impatiently, “Okay. I’ll check with Tim tomorrow. In the meantime… who covered the story of those two rescued airline personnel this morning?”

Dirkson said, “Joel Cross interviewed them first. What’s up, Shayne?”

“I don’t know,” the redhead said honestly. He didn’t know Cross, but had heard Rourke mention his co-worker in somewhat derogatory terms. “Is Cross around now?”

Dirkson said, “Hold it a minute.” In less than a minute, his voice came back: “Joel’s out on a story. Is this important, Shayne?”

Again the detective said honestly, “I don’t know. I’m chasing down a rumor that the copilot of the plane, Jasper Groat, kept a diary while on the life raft… that the News may be planning to publish it… or excerpts from it.”

There was a slight pause, and then Dirkson’s voice purred, “Now, wherever would you have picked up a piece of information like that, Shayne?”

He said, “I get around. Do you confirm it?”

Dirkson said abruptly, “No.”

“Do you deny it?”

Dirkson said again, and more abruptly, “No.” He hung up.

So did Michael Shayne. He sat very still for a brief period, frowning at nothingness and tugging at his left ear lobe.

Then he went to bed.

3

At nine-thirty the next morning Shayne was smoking a cigarette and working on his second cup of coffee when his telephone rang.

Lucy Hamilton’s voice said, “Michael? I hope I woke you up.”

He said, “Not quite,” and managed to yawn into the mouthpiece.

“You have a client here in the office.” Lucy’s voice was crisply businesslike. “Can you get down right away?”

Shayne said, “It’s pretty early, angel. Can’t you…?”

She said, “It’s Mrs. Leon Wallace from Littleboro and she has to get back home as soon as possible.”

Shayne said, “Right away. Uh… anything on Groat this morning?”

“Nothing. I’ll have Mrs. Wallace wait, Michael.” He finished his coffee fast and stubbed out his cigarette after hanging up. He was already shaved and dressed, and it took only a tie and a jacket to send him out of the apartment. Less than fifteen minutes after Lucy’s call he stepped out of the elevator in a downtown office building and long-legged it to a closed door marked MICHAEL SHAYNE. INVESTIGATIONS.

Lucy Hamilton was alone at her desk in the reception room when he entered. The door leading into his private office stood open, and she nodded toward it meaningfully as she said, “Good morning, Mr. Shayne. I asked Mrs. Wallace to wait inside.”

He tossed his panama on a hook beside the door and asked, “Have you talked with her?”

“Just briefly. Mrs. Jasper Groat suggested she come here. It’s something to do with her husband who is missing.”

Shayne frowned, “Mrs. Groat’s husband?”

“Well, he’s missing, too, as you know. But Mrs. Wallace is worried about her husband. I suggested she save the whole story for you so she wouldn’t have to repeat it.”

Shayne said, “Right,” and moved toward the open door. Over his shoulder he suggested, “Why don’t you bring your notebook and sit in, Lucy? You know more about the Groat matter than I do.”

A slender young woman arose from a straight chair beside Shayne’s desk as he entered his office. Her black hair was cut short, with tousled bangs lying across a high forehead, and she had a thin, intelligent face with a minimum of make-up, widely-spaced gray eyes that gave an impression of mature serenity at variance with her youthful appearance.

She wore a plain white blouse and a gray tweed skirt, serviceweight hose on her nice legs, and serviceable oxfords tied with neat bows. All of her clothing was of good quality, neat and worn without being shabby. There was an immediate first impression of reliability and strength about her slender figure, an exudation of good breeding and dignity which was strengthened by her modulated voice. “I’m very glad to meet you, Mr. Shayne.”

A pair of clean, white knitted gloves lay on the edge of Shayne’s desk, beside a sturdy handbag of good leather, designed to last for as many more years as it had already been in service.

She offered him a hand with well-shaped fingers and close-trimmed nails that were innocent of polish, and the flesh was firm inside his big hand, the grip strong without being masculine.

He said, “I’m glad to meet you, Mrs. Wallace,” and meant it. He held the chair for her to reseat herself, went around his desk to sit down while Lucy settled herself on the other side with notebook open in front of her.

Shayne said, “Start at the beginning and tell me why you’re here.”

“I live in Littleboro, Mr. Shayne, and I had a telephone call, long distance from Miami, yesterday afternoon. A man who said his name was Jasper Groat. It was the first time I had heard the name, although I read all about him on the bus coming in last night. He gave me his address and told me he had news about my husband, Leon. He promised to tell me everything if I would come to see him this morning, but refused to say anything else over the telephone. He wouldn’t even say whether it was good news or not. Just that he had important information about Leon that he’d tell me this morning.”

She leaned forward slightly, her fingers twisting together in her lap and the unnatural brightness of her eyes the only clues to the inner tension which she concealed so well.

“I came at once, of course, arranging with a neighbor to stay with the twins. And when I went to his address this morning, Mrs. Groat told me… that her husband is missing also. Since last night. She claims she doesn’t know anything about his telephone call to me and has never heard of my husband. And she suggested I talk to you about it.”

“You say your husband is missing too?”

“Yes. It’s been a little over a year now. I’d better start back at the beginning and tell you everything. I’ve held it in so long. I just didn’t know… I haven’t dared talk to anyone…” Her voice was still carefully modulated, but there was an undertone of rising hysteria that warned Shayne she was close to the cracking point.

He nodded encouragingly and got out a pack of cigarettes, leaned forward to offer her one and settled back to light one for himself when she shook her head and wet her lips desperately.

He said, “You can talk to me freely, Mrs. Wallace. Take your time and tell me everything you think may be important.”

“Leon and I were married a little over two years ago.” She dropped her gaze to her hands and slowly twisted a plain gold ring on her left hand. “Right after we both graduated from Agricultural College. We put all our money in a small truck farm near Littleboro and were completely happy. It’s what we both wanted to do. To live close to the soil and grow things and… raise a family.” She lifted her haunted eyes to Shayne’s and added breathlessly, “You must understand that. It’s important. We were in love and we were happy. There had never been anyone else for either of us after we first met when we were freshmen at college. Even when it was hard sledding on the farm and we had bad weather and two crop failures in succession. It was hard work, but we both loved hard work. We had a good farm and complete faith in ourselves. We knew there’d be crop failures and hard times, but we were prepared for that. But we were pinched for cash and Leon hated the idea of overextending his credit… and then suddenly I was pregnant. So Leon came to Miami to look for a job for a few months to get money enough to finance a new crop. And he was lucky. He found a fine job right away. Gardener for a rich family here in the city. The Hawleys.”

She stopped abruptly and Shayne narrowed his eyes and exhaled twin streams of smoke from his nostrils. “The Hawleys? The same family…?”

She nodded briefly. “The same family that is written about in the paper in the story about the airplane wreck. I remember Leon mentioning a son named Albert in one of his first letters. I don’t think he liked Albert much, but it was a good job and paid well. He had been there about two months when I got a letter from him, Mr. Shayne.” She reached for her handbag and unclasped it with shaking fingers and lifted out a long envelope which she pushed toward him. “You’d better read it yourself. You’re the first one… well, you can see why I never showed it to anyone else.”

It was a pre-stamped envelope with an extra stamp pasted beside the printed one. It was addressed to Mrs. Leon Wallace, Littleboro, Florida in firmly inked letters, and there was a return address in the upper left corner: Leon Wallace, c/o Hawley, 316 Bayside Drive, Miami, Florida. The envelope was worn and somewhat gray with much handling. It was postmarked in Miami slightly less than a year previously.

As Shayne opened the flap and took out a single sheet of plain, white bond paper, folded three times, Mrs. Wallace said, “There were ten one-thousand-dollar bills folded inside his letter, Mr. Shayne.”

He paused to study her face. “Ten one-thousand-dollar bills?”

She nodded. “Read it and see what you think.”

He finished opening it and glanced at the salutation. “I’ll read it aloud, if I may, so Miss Hamilton can take it down.”

She nodded again. “Of course.” She leaned back stiffly and closed her eyes, compressing her lips as Shayne read aloud the words which he knew must be indelibly engraved in her memory:

“Darling:

“Don’t be frightened by all this money. I haven’t robbed a bank or done anything really wrong. And it isn’t ‘hot.’ Better go to Ft. Pierce and deposit it in the bank there where they won’t ask embarrassing questions, and draw it out as you need it.

“I have to go away, Myra, and I can’t tell you where. This will take care of you and pay for a new crop and the hospital bills for the baby. I can’t write you any more, and you’ll have to trust me.

“Try not to worry, and don’t go to the police or anyone. Don’t ask any questions or try to find out anything. If you do exactly as I say, I will send you another thousand dollars every three months, but I will be in bad trouble and there will be no more money if you upset the apple-cart.

“Believe me, darling, I have thought it all out and this is best for you and me, and for the baby. This is more money than I could earn in a year.

“You can tell people I’ve re-enlisted in the army or something. Or that I’ve gone out West to another job.

“Just don’t worry! And don’t try to find out any more than I’ve told you. I love you and I always will. You will understand when it is all over.

“Kiss the baby for me when he comes… and please try to trust me to know what’s best. Your loving husband. LEON”

There was silence in the office when Shayne finished reading the letter. It was broken by the crackle of brittle paper as he carefully refolded the sheet into its original creases. Mrs. Wallace opened her eyes wide and swallowed. “Well? What should I have done, Mr. Shayne?” She turned to look at Lucy intensely. “You’re a woman, Miss Hamilton. What would you have done under those circumstances?”

Lucy shook her head slowly, her brown eyes warm with understanding. “If I loved my husband… and trusted him… I guess I would have done the same as you. But what does it mean, Michael?” she went on swiftly. “Ten thousand dollars! And another thousand every three months.”

He shook his red head at Lucy, asked Myra Wallace, “Did you hear anything further?”

“Only an envelope every three months, mailed from Miami and with another thousand-dollar bill inside.” Her voice trembled slightly. “It was addressed in his handwriting and had the same return address, but there wasn’t a scrap of writing inside. Just one bill. I’ve had three of them now. The last one about a month ago.”

Shayne replaced the letter in its envelope. “And last night Jasper Groat telephoned to say he had information about your husband… just before he disappeared?”

“That’s right. But he didn’t tell me what sort of information. Whether Leon was alive or dead.”

Shayne said, “I think it’s time you did some checking with the Hawleys.”

“I did! I telephoned out there this morning from Mrs. Groat’s apartment and asked for their gardener, Mr. Leon Wallace. Some servant answered. A Negro, I’m sure. And he said they hadn’t had any gardener for at least a year… and he didn’t know anything about my husband. That’s when I decided… I should come to you, Mr. Shayne. I’ve heard about you, of course,” she went on breathlessly. “Everybody in Florida has, I guess. I can pay you. I’ve saved most of the money Leon sent me. Just find him for me. I don’t care what he’s done. The farm’s doing fine now. We can pay all the money back.”

Shayne said, “I already have one client in this case, Mrs. Wallace. It seems to me that the disappearance of your husband and Jasper Groat are tied together somehow.” He hesitated, tugging at his left ear lobe and furrowing his forehead. “Have you kept those other envelopes the quarterly payments arrived in?”

“Yes. I have them at home. But they’re just like this one, Mr. Shayne. Addressed in ink in Leon’s handwriting. So I know he was alive and here in Miami just a month ago.”

Shayne said, “I’d like to have the envelopes, Mrs. Wallace. And a picture of your husband.”

“I have one at home I can send you.”

“Do that as soon as you get back. In the meantime, describe him to me.”

“He’s twenty-four. Just my age. He was a little late graduating because he elected to do his selective service between high school and college. He’s about five-ten, and slender and dark-haired. He…”

She broke down suddenly, bowed her face into her hands and her sobbing was loud in the silent office.

Shayne got up. He lifted one shoulder expressively at Lucy, jerking his head toward Myra Wallace, and, as she closed her notebook and hurried around to the young wife, he said, “Get her address and phone number, Lucy. And be sure she understands she’s to send us those other envelopes and a picture of her husband as soon as she gets home. You see she gets off all right. I think she said something about leaving a pair of twins at home in the care of a neighbor.”

“Of course, Michael. Where will you be?”

“Right now,” said Shayne grimly, “I have several questions to put to the Hawley family.” He walked out of the office angrily, wondering again, as he had so often wondered in the past, how any man could be so utterly obtuse as to suppose that a woman like Myra Wallace would prefer for one moment all the money in Fort Knox to her own husband and the father of her child.

Her children, damn it! Twins. And for a few thousand lousy bucks some goddam fool male human being calmly advised his wife to stop worrying about him and enjoy spending the money.

4

Shayne’s first stop was police headquarters and the Missing Persons Bureau presided over by Sergeant Piper who had been in charge for twenty years and carried more information in his head than was contained in the filing cases behind him.

Piper was bald-headed and red-faced, and he shook his head when Shayne stopped in front of his chest-high desk. “Nothing on that Jasper Groat you called in about last night, Mike. You ready for us to go to work on it?”

“Not until I do a little more checking and talk to his wife again. But I do want to know if you ever had a Leon Wallace in your files.”

“Leon Wallace?” The sergeant wrinkled his high-domed forehead and shook his head. “Nope. Want I should check?”

Shayne said, “I know you don’t need to check, Piper. It wouldn’t have been more than a year ago.”

“Then it’s positively no,” said Piper.

Shayne hesitated. “The name of Hawley strike any chord?”

Again Piper shook his head positively.

Shayne said, “I’ll let you know the moment we decide Groat goes on your official list.”

He went out and drove to the Daily News Building on Biscayne Boulevard and went up in an elevator to the City Room. With the early edition already coming off the presses, there wasn’t much activity in the room, and Shayne found Timothy Rourke relaxed at his desk in a corner. The reporter leaned back with a wide yawn on his cadaverous face and dropped his feet off another chair so the redhead could sit down. “Got something, Mike?”

“I don’t know. Is Joel Cross around?”

“Not likely.” Rourke glanced across the room at a vacant desk and shook his head. “Since he got a by-line, Joel can’t do much work here in the hurly-burly of working reporters.” Rourke’s tone was distasteful. “He creates better at home is the way I hear it.”

“Has he been in this morning?”

“I think so. Turned in a follow-up on the plane rescue he did yesterday.”

“Heard anything about a diary kept by one of the rescued men that the News may be printing?”

“Plenty,” said Rourke. “Read Cross’s story this morning. Deathless literature, no less. We got us a scoop, my boy.” He yawned again.

Shayne said, “I understand the Hawley family refused to be interviewed about the death of their son on the life raft.”

“Stuck-up society bastards,” said Rourke feelingly. “Don’t want any reporters intruding on their grief.”

“What do you know about them?”

“The Hawley clan? Nothing personally. Rich and exclusive as all get-out because the two brothers, Ezra and Abel, landed here from the Mayflower forty years, ago and established a trading post where they gypped the Indians out of a fortune.”

Shayne said, “Ezra is the one who died a week or so ago?”

“That’s right. Abel kicked off six years ago.” Timothy Rourke gathered his feet under him and sat erect, his sunken eyes studying Shayne’s face keenly. “Why this sudden interest in the Hawleys?”

“Couple of things. There should be a good file on them in the morgue.” Shayne kept his voice carefully casual, but as he stood up, Rourke lounged to his feet with him.

“That’s right. And I’ll go along and help you find whatever the hell you’re looking for.”

Shayne didn’t argue as they went out a side door and down steep stairs to the file room. They were old friends and had worked together on many cases in the past, and Shayne explained.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for, Tim. Two little things. One that sticks in my craw is that the Hawleys made no effort at all to contact either of the two survivors of the airplane who nursed their son on the life raft for several days. The other is a gardener named Leon Wallace who was working for them about a year ago. That name ring a bell?”

Rourke shook his head as they entered a long, quiet room with rows of filing cabinets stretching away into the dimness from a desk where they were greeted by a gray-haired woman smoking a cigarette in a long holder.

Rourke lifted a thin hand and said, “Don’t disturb your butt, Emmy. We’ll get what we want.” He led the way down an aisle and stopped in front of a file to draw out the second drawer. He lifted out a bulky cardboard folder loaded with an accumulation of press-clippings on the activities of the Hawley family for many years, and pulled the cord of a bright overhead light as he opened it for Shayne. “Where do we start?”

Shayne said, “About a year back. A little more, I guess. Let’s jump off with Albert’s marriage which occurred shortly before he was inducted into the army.”

“Thereby breaking the old lady’s heart and practically bringing on a state of armed insurrection in Florida,” said Rourke cheerfully. “It won’t be recorded in the news columns, but I remember the hell the old lady raised when Uncle Sam crooked his finger at her darling Albert. There were plenty other ordinary citizens who could serve in the army just as well.” He was flipping over the clippings with a practiced hand. “It was common gossip around town that the old dame practically performed a shotgun wedding to get her son married off, hoping he’d beat the draft that way. But the draft board took a dim view of it and yanked him in anyhow. Here’s the bride.”

Shayne leaned forward to look at a wedding picture taken on the steps of a local church. He said, “It wouldn’t take a shotgun to urge me into her bed.”

Rourke said indifferently, “I never did hear which one the old lady used the shotgun on. Here’s a family group if you’re interested.”

It was a picture taken at an outdoor wedding reception at the groom’s home and showed a thin, aquiline-faced matriarch on the lawn under a palm tree, surrounded by the bride and groom, another couple identified as her daughter Beatrice and husband, Gerald Meany, and a tall, hawk-faced old gentleman whom Rourke said was Uncle Ezra.

“The blood was thinned out by the time it reached the younger generation,” Rourke said dryly. “That Beatrice, now. There’s quite a dossier on her if you want to go back further. Quite a nympho before she snagged husband Gerald. Afterward too, maybe. I’ve heard stories…”

Shayne shrugged, turning the clippings. “The hell of it is, I don’t know what I’m looking for. Would a nympho tie in with a disappearing gardener?”

“Why not? If the old lady decided he was what her daughter needed.”

Shayne stopped at another picture of Albert Hawley, evidently snapped at the same time but not quite the same pose as the one he’d seen in the Herald last night. He glanced at the story beneath the picture and found it had been taken just prior to Albert’s departure for induction into the army. There was a statement, attributed to Albert Hawley, to the effect that he expected no special consideration whatsoever while undergoing boot training, and that he felt it would be a privilege to accept the anonymity of army life and share the hardships of his fellow draftees as a part of Democracy’s challenge to the evil forces of Communism.

Shayne closed the folder with a sudden gesture and said, “To hell with it, Tim. None of this gives me the faintest idea why Leon Wallace vanished a year ago and Jasper Groat disappeared last night.”

“Groat? The pilot of the airplane?”

“Copilot, I think. That’s not for publication, Tim.” Shayne stretched his long legs toward the exit, and Rourke broke into a half-trot to stay beside him.

“Give, Mike,” he panted.

Shayne said, “It’s not official yet. But why don’t you get the story from Mrs. Groat… if she’s willing to give it? Tell her I sent you. But don’t print anything until I get in touch with you after talking to Mrs. Hawley.”

“You won’t get within a mile of that old witch,” Rourke warned him.

Shayne said flatly, “She’s going to answer some questions.” He stopped in the hallway in front of the elevators and pressed a button. “You check with Mrs. Groat and get a story from that steward, Cunningham, in the meantime. Human interest stuff. The celebration dinner the first night ashore after their rescue… which Jasper Groat did not attend. Why? And I want to talk to Joel Cross about that diary as soon as I get back from seeing the Hawleys.”

An elevator stopped and he got in, lifting a big hand to Timothy Rourke in farewell.

He drove back downtown, past his hotel and across the river, out Brickell Avenue toward Coral Gables and the Hawley residence, while he tried to piece together the bits of information he had gathered. What had happened to Leon Wallace a year ago? And what did Cunningham know about the missing gardener? Wallace’s name had brought an immediate reaction from Cunningham last night. That, coupled with Groat’s telephone call to Mrs. Wallace, indicated that Albert Hawley must have confided some secret about the gardener to the two men before he died. A secret that someone had paid ten thousand dollars to hush up a year ago. And now Jasper Groat had disappeared before he could meet Mrs. Wallace and divulge it to her.

Shayne shook his head angrily when the pieces wouldn’t fit into place, and began watching for Bayside Drive, which he knew was a short street, right-angling toward the bay and dead-ending there.

This was one of the oldest and pleasantest sections of the city which had successfully resisted encroachments of the boom period; the avenue was lined with beautifully landscaped estates, many of them running all the way to the bayfront, and most with huge old houses, set so far back from the street they could be only dimly glimpsed through luxuriant tropical foliage.

He slowed and turned right on Bayside Drive, found the entrance to number 316 guarded by high gateposts in a forbidding stone wall enclosing an area of several acres of grounds that long ago had been carefully planned and magnificently planted with exotic trees and tropical shrubbery.

There was a heavy chain suspended from one gatepost, but now unhooked from the other to allow entrance, and Shayne turned in on a gravel drive that curved back through dense vegetation that was now untended, giving a feeling of desolation and decay to the once proud estate.

The grass was untrimmed and what had once been a beautiful sunken garden on the left of the driveway had been allowed to run wild. It was a riotous mass of briers and flowers giving off a heavy fragrance that was almost stifling in the still hot air beneath interlocking branches that shielded the ground from sunlight.

Wherever else Leon Wallace was and whatever he was doing, Shayne thought grimly, he certainly hadn’t been earning his wages as a gardener at the Hawley place for at least a year.

The driveway curved from beneath huge Cyprus trees into bright sunlight that glared down pitilessly on a huge stone fortress of a house with cupolas and turrets and outside stairways of wrought iron that led up to second and third story balconies and embrasured windows. Shayne braked to a stop, directly behind a heavy black sedan that was at least five years old.

There was utter silence after he cut off his motor. The old house seemed completely withdrawn from the world and there was nothing to indicate that a single person lived behind the thick stone walls in front of him. He shivered, despite the heat, as he got out and climbed six worn stone steps to a wide veranda that had warped, unpainted floorboards. They creaked under his weight, and it was a welcome sound in the stillness. There was an ornate bronze knocker on the wide oak door, and he thumped it loudly after searching in vain for a more modern electric button to announce his presence.

He had a queer feeling that no one would answer the knock as he waited. There was a smell of desertion and decay that seemed to arise almost like a tangible effluvium from the untended grounds and the isolation of the old house, and his muscles twitched involuntarily when the door opened in front of him without warning and with the rasp of rusty hinges.

An ancient and wizened Negro peered out at him. His shoulders were bent and his hair was grizzled, but his eyes were very black and very bright and he wore a shabby but clean and freshly pressed uniform jacket of gray with a row of big, shiny brass buttons down the front and his voice was a soft admixture of subservience and dignity as he said, “Yassuh?”

Shayne said, “I’ve come to see Mrs. Hawley.”

“Nossuh. She ain’t receivin’ this mawning.” He started to swing the heavy door shut, but Shayne blocked it with a big foot.

“She’ll talk to me.”

“Nossuh. Not ’thout you got a ’pointment, she won’t.” The voice was the same mixture as before, but it was firm and unyielding.

Shayne kept his foot in the doorway. “Tell her I’ve come to talk about a gardener named Leon Wallace.”

Shayne thought he saw a flicker of apprehension in the black eyes, but the grizzled head moved from side to side gravely. “No one like that name here. No gardener neither.”

Shayne put his shoulder against the door and pushed. It opened inward, carrying the elderly servitor with it.

“I still want to talk about Leon Wallace.” A wide, high-arched hallway stretched the full length of the house in front of him. It was paneled in black walnut and there were no rugs on the polished parquetry floor. Two old-fashioned chandeliers, spaced twenty feet apart and set with low-wattage bulbs, lighted the gloomy hall dimly. The air inside the thick stone walls was at least twenty degrees cooler than outside.

The old Negro held onto the doorknob doggedly, interposing his slight figure in front of the detective’s bulk. “It ain’t fitten you should push in thisaway,” he continued to protest. “You wanna wait right yere, I go an’ ask Miz Hawley…”

A tall man carrying a briefcase in one hand and a panama with wide curling brim in the other emerged through a curtained archway on the right and demanded peremptorily, “What is it, Ben? You know very well that no one is to be admitted.”

“Yassuh, Mistuh Hastings.” The old man darted a harried look over his shoulder. “You explain to this gentleman how it is.”

The man was in his sixties with a mane of silvery hair flowing back from a strong, bony face. He wore a black broadcloth suit tightly buttoned all the way up, and a black string tie such as Shayne hadn’t seen for years. The Negro closed the door to shut out the light and heat, and the elderly man confronted the detective commandingly. “What is the meaning of this intrusion?”

Shayne said, “I think it’s time someone intruded.”

“Who are you, sir?”

“A detective.”

The bony face in front of him tightened with disapproval. “May I see your credentials?”

“Who are you?” Shayne countered bluntly.

He stopped to set the briefcase beside him and extracted a card from his breast pocket. It read: Hastings A. Brandt, Attorneys-at-Law. Engraved in the lower right hand corner was the name, B. H. Hastings.

“I am legal counselor to the Hawley family. I’ll have your credentials and hear your business.”

Shayne said, “I’m private and my business is with Mrs. Hawley.” He started to move forward impatiently, but the lawyer did not give an inch. Shayne halted with his face inches from Hastings’, who told him coldly, “Mrs. Hawley is in seclusion and seeing no one. Perhaps you are not aware of the tragedy that recently befell her only son.”

Shayne said stubbornly, “I know all about Albert Hawley’s death. More than she does, I think. That’s one of the things…”

“In addition to that bereavement,” the lawyer interrupted him, “I have just this moment completed the sad task of reading the will of her brother-in-law who died very recently. Surely you can state your business to me without disturbing the family.”

“Can you answer some questions about Leon Wallace?”

“I’m sure I don’t understand…”

“Neither do I,” said Shayne. He sidestepped past Hastings and went toward the curtained archway, deliberately making his heels loud on the uncarpeted floor. The lawyer hurried after him with a smothered imprecation, and caught hold of his arm just as Shayne parted the curtains on a large square room that without artificial light was darker than the hallway. There were four French windows at the end of it, but heavy draperies were drawn to effectually seal out the sunlight. A small fire blazed in the fireplace in the center of the right-hand wall, incongruous when one had just entered from the midday heat of Miami, yet sending out welcome heat and light into the gloomy room. An oriental rug on the floor was faded and worn, and the heavy antique furniture was dark and depressing.

There were three people inside the room who lifted their heads and looked with wordless surprise at Michael Shayne when he unceremoniously parted the curtains.

The dominant personality was an old lady who sat in a high-backed fireside chair facing him. She was tall and spare, and held her desiccated body very erect with tiny feet planted solidly on the floor, leaning forward slightly from the waist with both withered hands clamped on the knob of a heavy cane with a brass ferrule at the bottom. Everything about her came to a point-her long, thin nose, the high mound of white hair, her cheekbones and the prominent, jutted chin. Her eyes were cavernous, a slaty blue that reflected lights from the dancing flames beside her. She wore a high-necked, long-sleeved black dress that swirled down to the tips of tiny black shoes and she had a ruffle of white lace at her throat. Her voice was unexpectedly harsh and strong as she croaked, “Who is it, B.H.?”

An overstuffed young man lounged back on a horsehair sofa on her left with both arms spread away from him on the back of it and legs outstretched. He wore a velvet smoking jacket and dark trousers. He was partially bald and his lips pouted sullenly. He lowered his petulant gaze to the tips of his shoes after a brief glance at Shayne.

The third occupant of the room was lanky and shapeless in a dark chemise dress, slouched in a leather-upholstered chair opposite the fireplace. Her black hair was cut short with a fringe of bangs across her forehead. She had a short upper lip that showed slightly protruding front teeth, and her eyes remained half-closed as she indolently surveyed the detective.

Shayne shook off Hastings’ arm and stepped inside the room as the lawyer started to reply to Mrs. Hawley. He said, “I’m a detective with some questions to ask all of you.”

“He has no legal standing whatsoever, Mrs. Hawley,” Hastings interposed. “He forced his way into your home, and I suggest we should call the police to remove him.”

Mrs. Hawley lifted her cane and thumped it loudly on the hearth. “Don’t be an old fool, B.H. Who are you, young man, and what do you want?”

“My name is Michael Shayne, Mrs. Hawley. Did Jasper Groat come here last night?”

“You are not required to answer his questions,” Hastings put in swiftly. “I’ve explained…”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Hawley with another thump of her cane. “Why shouldn’t I answer him? I don’t know any Jasper Groat,” she told Shayne. “No one came here last night.”

“Did you expect him to come?” Shayne persisted. “Did you ask him to come and see you?”

“Why should I? I don’t know the man.”

“Do you read the newspapers, Mrs. Hawley?”

“I know who he means.” The girl in the leather chair spoke languidly with almost no movement of her lips. “Jasper Groat was one of the men on the life raft when Albert died.”

“Why should I ask a man like that to my house?” demanded the old lady.

“Most mothers would have been eager to see him under the circumstances,” Shayne pointed out. “It was reasonable to suppose he might bring a dying message from your son.”

“Nonsense,” the old lady said harshly with another emphatic thump of her cane. “No Hawley would make a confidant of such riffraff.”

The girl said lazily, “He did call here on the telephone late yesterday afternoon. I told him I’d see him if he came at eight last night.”

“Beatrice! After I expressly stated I wanted no contact with either of those ruffians who allowed Albert to die while saving their own skins.”

“I know, Mother.” Beatrice’s upper lip lifted in an unpleasant smile that gave her face a perverse look of childishness. “But Gerald and I had talked about Uncle Ezra’s will that we knew Mr. Hastings was going to read this morning, and I thought it might be smart to talk to Mr. Groat.” She paused, regarding her mother with unblinking animosity. “Don’t you wish now that I had?”

Hastings cleared his throat loudly. “Please be quiet, Beatrice. This man is a stranger.”

Shayne stepped past him to look down at the girl. “Are you saying that Groat didn’t come?”

“Don’t answer the man, Beatrice.” The cane thumped again. “Address your questions to me, young man.”

Shayne stood looking down at the girl and didn’t turn his head. Her lids opened, disclosing sooty black eyes, and she caught her underlip between her teeth and gnawed on it as though it tasted good.

Suddenly she giggled and pushed herself out of the chair. She walked past Shayne without looking at him, and went out of the room.

Shayne transferred his attention to the young man who had not moved on the sofa during the interchange between mother and daughter.

“Do you know anything about Groat coming here?”

He lifted his gaze to Shayne’s, and then his eyes flickered away evasively toward Mrs. Hawley. “I think your questions are insolent, old boy.”

“Here’s another one,” Shayne said flatly. He half turned to the matriarch. “Where is Leon Wallace?”

Her eyes glittered at him and her hands clutched the top of her cane fiercely. “Who is he?”

“A gardener whom you employed here about a year ago.”

She said, “I don’t make a practice of keeping track of the names of my servants. Gerald is right. You are insolent.” She thumped her cane commandingly. “Eject this young man, B.H.”

Shayne grinned bleakly at the lawyer as he stepped forward hesitantly. He said, “The police will be around asking the same questions,” and turned his back and stalked out through the curtains.

The Negro was waiting at the door and he drew it open as Shayne approached. There was a scurry of feet in the hallway behind him as Shayne stepped out onto the veranda and thankfully drew a deep breath of clean, sunladen air.

Hastings joined him as he started down the steps, clamping his panama tightly onto his head. “Mrs. Hawley is under a great strain,” he said nervously. “I… ah… think we had best discuss certain matters in the privacy of my office. Will you meet me there, Mr… ah… Shayne, isn’t it?”

Shayne said, “I’ll be glad to,” and the lawyer hurried down the steps ahead of him and got into the black sedan parked in front of Shayne’s car.

He started the motor and pulled away as Shayne circled around to the left side of his car and opened the door.

A shrill, penetrating, “Eeewee,” from the house made him pause and lift his gaze over the roof of his car. It was a sound he hadn’t heard since he’d played Indians as a child, and it was repeated as he stood there.

Then he saw Beatrice. She was leaning over the ornamental iron railing of a second-floor balcony, beckoning to him eagerly with one hand while she held her finger tightly against her pursed lips.

His ragged, red brows came down in a frown and he hesitated as she pointed to the outside stairway leading up to her balcony and beckoned urgently again.

He shrugged and closed the door of his car, crossed around to the iron stairs and climbed up to the balcony where Beatrice waited for him.

5

She caught hold of his hand excitedly as he reached the top, pulled him back with her through an open French door into a large bedroom that was childishly girlish in its appointments. It was all pink and white, with delicate rosebuds on the wallpaper, ruffled skirts on the vanity table matching the cretonne bedspread and window curtains.

Beatrice stopped in the center of the room and turned to look at him, cocking her head on one side and demurely inserting the tip of the little finger of her left hand into her mouth. She said, “You know what?”

Shayne asked gravely, “What?”

“You make me feel all gurgly inside.” She giggled naughtily and turned aside to a low bookcase where she pulled out two books and groped in the back to bring out a pint whisky bottle a little more than half full. She worried the cork out with her teeth and presented the bottle to Shayne in much the manner of a little girl offering a playmate her favorite doll.

“You’ll have to take it straight,” she told him matter-of-factly. “It’s too much trouble to sneak ice and mixers up here.”

Shayne put the bottle to his mouth and swallowed a couple of times without letting much liquor trickle down his throat. He passed it back to her and she drank deeply, wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and said delightedly, “More damn fun.”

In the light from the open window behind her there was an abrasive hardness about her features that surprised Shayne. He realized, of course, that she was older than her brother Albert, and had been married for several years to the unpleasant-looking young man whom he had encountered downstairs, but in the half-light below he had gained the impression of retarded physical development. Now a hot light gleamed in her slate-gray eyes and she moved closer to him to confide, “If I didn’t keep a bottle stashed away where I could hit it once in a while I’d go nuts cooped up here.”

Shayne moved back from her to a slipper chair at the foot of the wide bed and sat down. He said casually, “You’re Albert Hawley’s sister, aren’t you?”

A faint frown creased her forehead. “I was. But Albert’s dead.” She sat on an ottoman a few feet in front of him with her feet placed too wide apart for grace and with the whisky bottle dangling from her hand. “Mother’s a tough old witch to live with. Gerald’s sort of precious, but he bores hell out of me sometimes.”

“Your husband?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How long have you been living here with your mother?”

“Couple of years now. Waiting for Uncle Ezra to die so I could collect my share of the estate.” She giggled unexpectedly and for no good reason that Shayne could discern.

He asked gravely, “Can’t your husband support you?”

“I guess he could but why should he bother?” She took another drink from the bottle, held it out toward Shayne but he shook his red head. “Uncle Ezra had millions,” she went on indifferently. “He stole it all from Dad and now he doles out just enough to Mother to keep this damned old monstrosity of a house going.”

“How did your uncle steal your father’s money?” Shayne asked patiently.

“They were in business together. When Dad died there wasn’t anything left of his share. Mr. Hastings explained all about it to us. He explains things like that very well.” She tilted her head to one side and thrust the tip of her tongue out between her lips. “You want to kiss me?”

“Not right now,” Shayne told her. “So now your uncle’s dead and you get all those millions he stole from your father?”

“That’s just it.”

“What’s just it?”

“Why I wanted to talk to you. He left every damned cent of it to Albert.”

“But Albert is dead.”

“That’s what I’m saying.” She was getting impatient with him. “After all these years of waiting we get cut off without a cent. It isn’t fair,” she ended sadly like a little girl who has been denied a piece of candy.

“You mean his wife will inherit?”

“That’s right. Believe it or not he left a will giving her everything even after she divorced him just because he was being drafted into the army.”

Shayne sat up very straight. “I didn’t know Albert was divorced.”

“Didn’t you? They kept it mighty quiet because it didn’t look good. Like maybe they just got married in the first place to try and keep him out of the draft and then got divorced when it didn’t work. Which is probably just about the way it was, but then I don’t see why he turned right around and made out a will leaving her everything even with the stipulation that it didn’t matter whether she remarried or not. Sure you don’t want to kiss me… or a drink?”

Shayne said, “Let’s get our talking done first.”

“Then I’ll take one.” She tilted the bottle to her mouth again, and when she lowered it this time there was little of the half-pint left.

“But when he made that will, I assume he didn’t know Ezra was going to leave everything to him.”

Beatrice said, “Maybe not. I never thought about it before.”

“Did she remarry?”

“Of course she did,” said Beatrice scornfully. “Right after she got her divorce in Reno. With the hot pants she always wore, you can bet she needed a man after being married to Albert for a few months.” She emptied the bottle and dropped it on the floor beside her and stood up, swaying a little. “Why don’t we lie down on the bed? I know just how it was with Matie because Gerald and Albert are two of a kind if you know what I mean.” She moved close to him and held down both her hands to his.

Shayne looked toward the bedroom door and said, “Suppose your husband comes in and finds us?”

She giggled and said, “I can lock the door if you’re afraid of that.” She started toward the door and stopped when it opened and Gerald walked in. He stopped when he saw his wife and Shayne together in the bedroom, but evinced no surprise.

He said, “I saw your car still parked in the driveway and thought you might be up here. Mother won’t like it… you talking to him this way,” he added reprovingly to Beatrice.

“How dare you barge in my bedroom without knocking?” she demanded. “Get out and stay out.”

“It’s my bedroom too,” he told her mildly. “Mother will be angry if…”

“Get out!” she stormed at him, advancing with clenched fists.

“All right. But you’d better lock the door behind me.” Gerald Meany turned around and went out.

“You see?” she said triumphantly to Shayne. “I told you he didn’t care what I do. He just married me in the first place because he thought I was rich.”

“And now you’re not?”

A look of cunning came into her eyes. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. That’s why I went out of the room first and waited on the balcony to call to you.”

“Then let’s talk while we have the chance,” suggested Shayne, “instead of lying on the bed.”

“But now you’re here, that’s what I want to do,” she pouted.

“I think we should finish our talking first. What’s really on your mind?”

“As if you can’t guess,” she giggled. Then she sobered and slitted her eyes at him. “Well, you are a private detective, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You do go around finding people and things like that?”

“Many things like that,” Shayne agreed.

“Well then. You’ve got to find those two men who were on the life raft when Albert died. I know one of them was that man Jasper Groat who didn’t come to see me last night after I invited him. And there was another one, the newspapers said.” She put her little finger in her mouth and sucked on it. “Can you find him?”

“I might. Why?”

“Don’t you see? Because the newspapers said four or five days, that’s why. But they didn’t say which.”

“Four or five days what?” Shayne asked gently.

“Before Albert died in the boat. Don’t you see how important it is? Mr. Hastings explained it all very carefully this morning. We didn’t know that it really mattered before that, you see? Not until he read Uncle Ezra’s will this morning and explained it all to us.”

“Exactly what did he explain?”

“How it is because Uncle Ezra died ten days ago… five days after the airplane went down with Albert on it. If he only lived four days on the raft, then he was already dead when Uncle Ezra died and the money comes to us. But if he was still alive when Uncle Ezra kicked the bucket, then that means he legally inherits everything and then that bitchy ex-wife of his gets it all. Everything depends on whether Albert lived four or five days on the life raft.”

“And you want me to get hold of the two witnesses and find out from them definitely whether it was four or five days?” said Shayne slowly, adding things up in his own mind and finally coming up with an answer that made sense.

“Well… get hold of them at least and get them to say it was only four days. You could do that, couldn’t you? If I was your client? If they understood how important it was…?”

“You mean bribe them to say it was only four days even if Albert really did survive for five days?”

Beatrice caught her lip between her teeth and chewed on it, tilting her head calculatingly at Shayne. “What’s wrong with that? The money really belongs to us. Certainly not to Matie… after she divorced him and went off and married another man… even if he was damn fool enough to fix it that way in his will. You can offer them plenty to say it was four days. There’s a couple of million altogether, I guess.”

Shayne shrugged and kept his face impassive. He said, “It’s a thought. Of course, you don’t know yet whether a bribe is needed. Maybe it was only four days… and all they’d have to do is tell the truth.”

“That’s what Mr. Hastings said this morning. But before they find out how important that extra day is, suppose they come right out and say five? Don’t you see why I want you to fix it for us? There’s no use talking to Mother or Gerald about it,” she went on disdainfully. “They don’t understand about things like this. They’d have ethics or something.” She practically spat out the word “ethics.” “But I can tell you’re not like that.” She sidled close to him, stood rubbing her hip against his shoulder and looking down at him with her mouth half-open.

Shayne said, “Maybe we can make a deal.”

“What kind of a deal?”

“Maybe I can help you out if you’ll do something for me.”

She giggled and rubbed her hip harder against his shoulder. “You know I’ll do anything you want, Michael Shayne.”

“Then tell me about Leon Wallace.”

She stopped moving her hip and her mouth closed slowly. “Leon Wallace?” she repeated stupidly. “You mean the gardener?”

“Who worked here on the grounds about a year ago,” Shayne amplified. “What became of him?”

A look of cunning replaced the stupidity on her face. “I never did know… really. Something funny, though. He just wasn’t here at work one morning. That’s really why I wanted to talk to Mr. Groat last night.”

“Why?”

“Because he said he knew all about Leon Wallace. I’ve always wondered, so I told him to come out and tell me. But he never did.”

Shayne considered this a moment, wondering whether to believe her or not. “Then you didn’t ask Groat out just to find out when Albert died?”

“I didn’t know how much it mattered then,” she explained patiently. “Not until this morning when Mr. Hastings explained it.”

“What sort of man was Leon Wallace?”

She pouted her lips consideringly and put the end of her little finger in her mouth. Her hip began moving back and forth rhythmically against Shayne’s shoulder. “He was pretty,” she said with sudden enthusiasm, as though she had just remembered.

“Did you like him?”

“Sure I did. Who wouldn’t? But he wouldn’t hardly look at me. Not with Matie chasing after him the way she did.”

“Albert’s wife?”

“Uh-huh. It was right after he went away that she went off to Reno to get her divorce.”

Shayne considered this bit of information for a moment. “Was Albert jealous of them?”

“Him?” Her voice became venomously scornful. “If he was he certainly never dared show it in front of Matie. She had him right under her thumb, I can tell you. Now why don’t we just go to bed for a little while?” she ended plaintively.

Shayne sighed and stood up. He put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed gently. “Not here in your house, Beatrice. As much as I’d like to,” he lied. “Give me a raincheck, huh?”

“You’re mean,” she pouted as he released her and turned away to the balcony.

He said grimly over his shoulder, “It’s just that I never did like to foul another man’s bed.” He stepped out into the hot sunlight and hurried down the iron stairs to get into his car and leave the decaying old mansion behind him.

6

The office of Hastings amp; Brandt, Attorneys-at-Law, was on the fourth floor of a shabby office building on Flagler Street. The dingy front office was presided over by a gnomelike little man wearing a shiny alpaca coat. He was humped over a ponderous legal volume and looked up with near-sighted irritation when Michael Shayne entered. “Yes, yes? What is it?”

“I’m Shayne. Mr. Hastings asked me to come in.”

“Shayne?” The clerk pursed his lips disapprovingly over the name. He consulted a memo pad and said reluctantly, “I guess it’s all right.” He pointed to a door that was lettered Private.

Shayne opened the door without knocking. Hastings was seated behind an ancient rolltop desk with papers spread out in front of him. He still wore the black broadcloth jacket buttoned all the way up though the heat in the office was stifling. He removed a pair of rimless glasses from his bony nose and said dryly, “You are very prompt, Mr. Shayne.”

Shayne sat down in a straight wooden chair that creaked under his weight. He said, “The way I understand this case, there isn’t any time to lose.”

“What case do you refer to, Mr. Shayne?”

“The Hawley inheritance.”

“I see. Yes. What, precisely, is your interest in the matter, Mr. Shayne?”

Shayne leaned back and crossed his legs while he got out a cigarette. “You asked me to come in.”

“So I did.” Mr. Hastings settled the glasses firmly on his nose again and dropped his gaze to the papers spread out in front of him. “Your questions about Jasper Groat led me to believe you are in contact with the man.”

“Let’s say I’m looking for him.”

“You mean to say he isn’t to be found?”

“Not since last night. When he left home to keep his appointment with Beatrice Meany.”

“An appointment which he did not keep,” Hastings pointed out stiffly.

“So Beatrice says. Is it true that neither she nor other members of the family knew until this morning that the exact date of Albert’s death on the life raft was important to them?”

“In what way, Mr. Shayne?”

“In what way, what?”

“Important in what way?”

Shayne leaned forward and said wearily, “Let’s not waste each other’s time. Before you read Ezra’s will this morning did any of the Hawleys realize that the precise date of Albert’s death meant a difference of a couple of million dollars to them?”

“I have no idea where you got hold of that piece of information, Mr. Shayne. Certainly, I said nothing…”

“But Beatrice did,” Shayne told him coldly. “She said all of that and a lot more while we killed a bottle of whisky in her bedroom after you drove away.”

Hastings sighed and removed his glasses. “Beatrice is not to be wholly trusted.”

“Not with liquor or anything wearing pants,” Shayne agreed cheerfully. “But she gave me a pretty straight story about Ezra’s will leaving all his fortune to Albert… but not to Albert’s heirs and assigns if Albert predeceased him. In other words and disregarding legal jargon: The Hawleys get the money if Albert died on the life raft before Ezra died. But if he was alive at the moment of Ezra’s death, he legally inherited and the money passes on to Albert’s divorced wife.”

“That is… essentially correct.” The admission seemed painfully wrung from Hastings’ thin lips.

“I’m asking if any of them realized the situation before you read the will to them this morning.”

“I believe they were aware that Ezra had planned to leave at least the greater portion of his estate to Albert,” Hastings replied cautiously.

“And they also knew that Albert had made a will after his divorce leaving his estate to his ex-wife.”

“I think perhaps they did have that knowledge.”

“Then it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out the obvious fact that they’d get the money if Albert died first, but wouldn’t inherit a cent if he lived five days on the raft.”

“An obvious fact, perhaps, to you or to me, Mr. Shayne, who are accustomed to legal matters. I’m not at all sure that they had the situation worked out so logically. Indeed, I had a distinct impression this morning that none of them realized the importance of the date Albert died until I explained it to them.”

“Beatrice says you’re very good at explaining things,” Shayne said casually.

“How’s that?”

“Things like how Ezra stole all the money from his brother while they were in business together.”

Hastings’ lips tightened distastefully. “There was no question of wrong-doing. Abel Hawley was a visionary and a poor businessman. He made bad investments and wasted his portion of the family fortune while Ezra cannily increased his own holdings.”

“And Sarah Hawley has been dependent on Ezra since her husband died?”

“He has been more than generous with her though he was under no legal obligation to provide for his brother’s family at all.”

“That run-down old house doesn’t evidence much generosity from a millionaire.”

“I fail to see what bearing that has on the present situation.”

“Just this: Will Mrs. Hawley and Beatrice actually be left destitute if Ezra’s money does go to Albert’s widow?”

“Practically speaking… I’m afraid the answer is yes.”

“Any chance that the widow will generously share with them?”

“I’m afraid I’m not in a position to answer that question, Mr. Shayne. There is no proof as yet that Mrs. Meredith will inherit.”

Shayne frowned. “Meredith?”

“Albert’s wife married a man named Meredith after their divorce.”

“You mean there is no actual proof yet whether Albert lived four days or five after the plane crashed?”

“That is precisely what I mean, Mr. Shayne.”

“There were two survivors who should be able to testify as to the exact date,” mused Shayne, leaning forward to stub out his cigarette in a spotless ash tray on Hastings’ desk.

“That is correct. If you have knowledge of their present whereabouts, I am most anxious to contact them.”

“Plus a diary which Groat kept on the life raft which should definitely pinpoint the day and hour of Albert’s death,” Shayne continued as though Hastings had not spoken.

“What’s that about a diary?”

Shayne looked at him in surprise. “I supposed you knew Jasper Groat had kept a diary.”

“How would I know?”

“Wasn’t the diary mentioned in the news story about the rescue yesterday?”

“I didn’t see any such mention.”

Shayne shrugged. “The Daily News has bought publication rights, I understand, and plans to print excerpts from it.”

Hastings was silent for a moment, twiddling his glasses nervously while he considered this latest item of information.

“If it weren’t for the diary,” said Shayne judicially, “Beatrice’s suggestion that I get hold of the two men and bribe them to swear that Albert died before his Uncle Ezra would be quite valid. I assume that’s what you had in mind for me,” he ended carelessly.

“What’s that? Bribery? I had no such thought in mind.”

“With a couple of millions at stake, it makes sense,” argued Shayne.

“Preposterous! I wouldn’t consider it for a moment.”

“The diary is a stumbling block,” Shayne confessed. “It will carry more weight than anything either of the men might testify to. So as long as the diary is around, there’s not much point in checking with either Groat or Cunningham.”

“Where is this purported diary?” demanded Hastings.

“No one seems to know… exactly.” Shayne hesitated. “If he took it along out to the Hawley place last night…”

“There is no proof that he went there,” said Hastings hastily.

“Beatrice says she invited him out.”

“But that he did not keep the appointment.”

“That’s what she says,” Shayne agreed calmly. “That’s why I made a point of wondering whether anybody out there realized as early as last evening that the exact time of Albert’s death meant a couple of million dollars to them. Because if they did, it might explain why Groat never returned from the meeting.”

“Are you suggesting that he did visit the Hawleys and one of my clients had something to do with his failure to return?” demanded Hastings indignantly.

“I’d say Beatrice is perfectly capable of bopping a guy over the head for two million bucks. The old lady, too, from what I saw of her. Gerald… I dunno.” Shayne shook his head slowly, recalling the husband’s appearance in the bedroom while the detective was visiting his wife.

“I assure you that all the Hawleys are people of the highest probity.”

Shayne grinned at him and said cheerfully, “We both know Beatrice is a dipsomaniac and a nympho to boot. And I don’t have to stretch my imagination far to see the old lady swinging on some guy with her cane. Hell, it stands to reason,” he went on persuasively, “that they must hate the guts of Albert’s ex-wife. The way she callously divorced him when he was drafted. Wasn’t he sore about that himself?”

“Albert did not confide in me at the time of the divorce.”

“Did you draw up the will leaving everything to his ex-wife even though she remarried?”

“I did.”

“And you didn’t question him about that provision?” Shayne asked incredulously.

“As his attorney, I followed his instructions. And now, Mr. Shayne, I don’t believe there is anything further for us to discuss.” The lawyer pushed back his chair and stood up.

Shayne remained seated with his legs crossed. He said, “There’s still Leon Wallace.”

“Who is he?”

“You heard me ask Mrs. Hawley about him this morning?”

“I dimly recall your mentioning the name. I have no idea who Leon Wallace is.”

“I told you this morning. A gardener whom they employed to keep the grounds in shape a year ago.”

“They’ve had no gardener for at least a year,” Hastings flatly.

“That’s evident from the condition of the grounds. And that’s what I wonder about.”

Hastings moved purposefully toward the door and said frostily, “It hardly seems a matter for discussion with you.”

Shayne still didn’t get up. He said, “The matter under discussion is the unexplained disappearance of Leon Wallace a year ago.”

Hastings paused with his hand on the doorknob. He kept his back to Shayne, but the detective saw his body stiffen to rigidity. “I fail to see how that concerns my clients. I understand he was discharged as an economy measure.”

Shayne said, “Maybe.” He stood up slowly. “Did Albert or his wife get the divorce?”

“Mrs. Hawley entered the suit in Nevada.”

“On what grounds?”

“Mental cruelty, I believe.” Hastings pulled the door open and turned worried eyes on Shayne. “It’s all water under the bridge now. I fail to see how anything constructive can come from reopening old wounds.”

Shayne said, “You’re probably right,” and sauntered out into the outer office, hearing the door shut firmly behind him.

A man and woman entered as he approached the outer door. The man was tall and cadaverous, with long apelike arms. The woman was young and smartly groomed, and even more sexually attractive in the flesh than she had appeared in the wedding photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Hawley which Shayne had studied in the News morgue earlier that morning.

Shayne stopped in front of them and said, “Hi, Jake. What’s a shyster like you doing in a legitimate law office?”

Jake Sims grinned without mirth and said, “I’ll throw that question right back at you, shamus. Don’t tell me the esteemed Lawyer Hastings has got down into the gutter by retaining you on a case?”

Shayne returned his grin, but his had real mirth in it. He said, “Aren’t you going to introduce me to Matie?”

She was studying him calculatingly, with her head tilted a little on one side, her eyes unabashedly telling him she liked what she saw. “Who is he, Jake?”

“A good guy for you to stay away from,” grumbled Jake Sims. He grasped her well-fleshed arm firmly and drew her past Shayne toward the little man at the desk. She turned her head to keep her eyes on his as she went past, and her full red lips formed a little circle of disappointment-or of promise.

Shayne said, “It’s okay, Mrs. Meredith. We’ll be seeing each other around,” and went out before she could reply.

7

Downstairs, Shayne picked up the first edition of the Daily News and glanced at the front page as he went out to his car. There was a double-column spread by-lined Joel Cross with the heading:

HEROISM AT SEA

It was an excited and effusive announcement that feature writer Joel Cross had made arrangements with Mr. Jasper Groat for the exclusive publication of Groat’s personal journal kept during those harrowing days at sea while he and two companions drifted helplessly on an open life raft after their plane crashed.

The announcement contained such phrases as: Authentic account of heroism on the high seas… vivid first-hand narrative of suffering and near-despair… what ordinary men say and think when faced with almost inevitable Death… a record of the last words of One Who Did Not Come Back… the simple story of a burial at sea that will wring the heart-strings of every reader…

Shayne folded the paper with a frown and got into his car. The whole thing was out in the open now. Anyone reading the News, with knowledge of the importance of the actual time of Albert Hawley’s death, would realize that Groat’s diary held the key to a fortune. As he drove east on Flagler toward his office he wondered if Joel Cross was yet aware of the dynamite contained in the pages of the diary.

Lucy Hamilton looked up with a frown puckering her smooth forehead when he entered his office. “Chief Gentry just called, Michael. You’re to call him. And Mrs. Groat telephoned earlier. She’s frantic and wants to know what you’re doing about finding her husband.”

Shayne shook his head soberly. “Not very much. I’m afraid we’d better give it to the police.”

“What do you think has happened to him, Michael?”

He said harshly, “I think he’s dead.”

He went into the inner office, circled his desk and opened the second drawer of a filing cabinet and took out a bottle of cognac. It was Three-Star John Exshaw, privately imported from France by a local dealer, which Tim Rourke had introduced to him recently, and his gaze dwelt pleasurably on the label as he carried it to the water cooler and fitted two paper cups together, filled the inner one almost to the brim and ran a cup of cold water to accompany it.

Carrying the cups to his desk he ranged them in front of him, sat down and took a deliberate sip of cognac, savoring the taste happily before letting it slide down his throat and chasing it with a sip of water. Then he lifted his phone and dialed Chief Will Gentry’s private number at police headquarters.

Gentry’s gruff voice answered and he said, “Mike Shayne, Will.”

“Mike! What’s with you and a man named Jasper Groat?”

Shayne hesitated a moment. “I’d like to find him.”

“Why?”

“Mrs. Groat asked me to last night when she became worried about his not returning home.”

“Didn’t return from where?”

“Mrs. Groat didn’t know where he was headed when he left a little before eight,” Shayne said truthfully. “But I’ve been doing some digging and I can make a guess.”

“Make it,” said Will Gentry.

“I don’t know that I’m ready to, Will. What’s your interest?”

“We’ve got his body,” Gentry said. “At least… a body with identification indicating it’s Jasper Groat. His wife is on her way to the morgue right now to make a definite identification.”

Shayne’s mouth was dry. He took two long swallows of cognac to rectify that.

“Where and when was he found, Will?”

“In the water just a while ago. Just offshore from Coral Gables. Knocked on the head and dead at least twelve hours. Now it’s your turn.”

“One more question, Will. Anywhere near where Bayside Drive dead-ends at the Bay?”

“Hold it.” Shayne drank more cognac and listened to a mumble of voices at the other end of the wire. Then Gentry said, “Less than a quarter of a mile. That mean anything?”

Shayne said, “Probably. The Hawley estate is on Bayside Drive near the water. I have information that Groat was supposed to call on a member of the Hawley family at eight last night… but never showed up. You might try checking taxis for information on that. He didn’t own a car.”

“Hawley?” Gentry’s voice was ruminative. “The rich ones? With a son who died on a life raft with Groat?”

Shayne said, “You’re getting the picture. They all deny that Groat was there last night. Look, Will.” Shayne’s voice became urgent. “Were there any papers on Groat? Anything like a diary, for instance?”

“Nothing like that. Just a wallet with identification. Enough cash in it to rule out robbery. What else can you give me, Mike?”

“Nothing else right now. I mean it, Will,” Shayne went on hastily when he heard an angry snort from the other end. “This changes things and I’ve got to move fast. Follow up on the Hawley end, and I’ll be in touch.” He replaced the telephone before Gentry could protest further, and sat very still for a moment, scowling across the office.

One down and one to go. With Groat out of the way, that left Cunningham as the only living person who could testify to the exact date of Albert Hawley’s death. Cunningham and Groat’s diary.

He lifted the pair of nested paper cups and drank off the rest of John Exshaw’s excellent cognac, turned his head slowly to look at Lucy Hamilton as she appeared in the doorway.

“I listened in on Will,” she said breathlessly. “Isn’t it terrible about Jasper? Poor Mrs. Groat.” She stopped and swallowed hard. “No matter how long I work for you,” she said angrily, “I can’t get used to corpses popping up all over. I keep thinking about Mrs. Groat going through all that period when she knew her husband’s plane had crashed and giving up all hope for him. And then he did come back to her safely… only to be murdered a few hours later. It just isn’t right, Michael.” Two tears rolled down her cheeks as she advanced toward him.

Shayne said, “Lots of things in this world aren’t right, angel.”

“Do you think it had something to do with Mr. Wallace? About Mr. Groat calling Mrs. Wallace and making a date to see her this morning to tell her something important. Is that why someone killed Jasper Groat last night?”

Shayne shrugged his shoulders and said mildly, “All we can do right now is a lot of guessing. It stands to reason that if Albert Hawley had any guilty knowledge about Wallace’s disappearance last year, he might have confided it to Groat when he knew he was dying on the life raft. From Groat’s wife and Cunningham, I gathered that Groat was some sort of religious fanatic who would feel it his bounden duty to reveal any deathbed revelations made to him. But how many people knew he had telephoned Mrs. Wallace and arranged to see her this morning?” He stood up abruptly behind his desk, his gaunt face tightening. “That’s one more question we have to get an answer to.”

Lucy started to say something further, but turned her head toward the outer office with a questioning look as she heard the outer door open. She moved out into the reception room, and Shayne heard her say, “Is there something I can do for you?” as she closed the inner door behind her.

Shayne stood undecided behind his desk for a moment, glowering down at the two paper cups. He picked them up after a moment and carried them across to the water cooler to dispose of them. Turning, he saw Lucy stepping back inside his office again.

“Two people to see you, Michael. Jake Sims and a woman. A Mrs. Meredith, he said. Shall I send them away?”

“On the contrary,” Shayne told her happily. “I can’t think of any two people I would rather see.”

“But you don’t like Jake,” she reminded him. “Don’t you remember a couple of years ago…?”

“I don’t have to like Jake to want to see him,” Shayne told her, moving back to his desk and dropping into the swivel chair. “Up to this moment I’ve been wondering how I was going to make a buck out of this affair. Does Mrs. Meredith look as though she has any bucks to spare?” He looked at Lucy hopefully.

She tightened her lips and said, “Mrs. Meredith looks to me as though she is in the habit of paying off her obligations in some other coin instead of United States currency, Michael Shayne. Do you still want to see her?”

“More than ever,” Shayne told her heartily. “After all, we’re not exactly broke. Send her in, Lucy.”

8

Michael Shayne remained seated behind his desk when Sims and Mrs. Meredith were ushered in. The lawyer had a folded copy of the Daily News in his hand, and he slapped it against his thigh as he advanced and asked belligerently, “What do you know about all this, Shayne?”

Shayne asked, “All what?” his gaze going past Sims to concentrate on Albert Hawley’s ex-wife.

She met his gaze coolly and with candid appraisal, folding her hands in front of her and staying back demurely as her companion leaned over Shayne’s desk and blustered:

“You know what. You knew who Mrs. Meredith was at Hastings’ office without being introduced. Hastings refused to admit that you’ve been retained to manufacture evidence that may deprive my client of her rightful inheritance, but I can’t imagine any other reason why he would be consulting a man with your reputation.”

Shayne continued to look past his angry face at Mrs. Meredith. “Can you think of any good reason why I would wish to deprive you of an inheritance, Mrs. Meredith?”

A faint smile quirked her lips and her lissome body appeared to sway slightly even while she stood motionless. “I don’t know you very well, Mr. Shayne. Only what Mr. Sims has told me.”

He leaned back and nodded toward a chair by his desk. “Why don’t you sit down and get better acquainted?”

“I’d like to very much.” She sat in the chair, moving it slightly so her elbows rested on the desk, cupping her chin in her palms not more than two feet from Shayne’s face.

“You haven’t answered me, Shayne.” Sims was breathing hard and his voice became increasingly hostile.

“I hardly ever answer people who come in my office making accusations.” Shayne turned his attention back to Mrs. Meredith and asked her, “Do we have to have Jake Sims in on this?”

“I suppose we do.” She made her voice regretful. “He is my lawyer and I need all the advice I can get.”

Shayne growled, “Then sit down, Sims, and watch your manners. One more nasty crack and I’ll throw you both out. I didn’t know you were in Miami, Mrs. Meredith.”

“I flew in this morning.”

“You know the terms of Ezra Hawley’s will?”

She nodded, keeping her round eyes fixed steadily on his face. “Mr. Hastings informed Jake Sims yesterday… knowing that he represents me.”

“And I see you know all about Jasper Groat’s diary.” Shayne glanced significantly at the folded newspaper in Sims’s hand.

“We just read about it,” the lawyer told him. “What I want to clear up first of all, Shayne, is how you got into this? What is your interest in the matter?” He had grudgingly seated himself opposite his client, and he took a thin, dappled cigar from his breast pocket and bit off the end with yellowed teeth.

Shayne said, “I became interested after meeting Cunningham and Mrs. Groat last night. An interview with the Hawleys this morning intrigued me further.”

“Is it true that Mr. Groat has disappeared?” asked Mrs. Meredith.

“Who told you that?”

“Peter Cunningham.”

Shayne said, “You didn’t lose any time getting in touch with him.”

“I made it a point to contact him last evening,” said Sims hastily. “We want to know if Groat has turned up yet.”

Shayne hesitated a moment. But he knew it would shortly be common knowledge so he said, “He’s turned up all right. Dead.”

Mrs. Meredith closed her eyes slowly and tightened her lips. “Dead?” exclaimed Sims. “How? What happened to him?”

“He got himself murdered last night. I gather he was the sort of man who had moral scruples. On the other hand, I gather that Cunningham isn’t. So… Groat is dead and Cunningham is still alive. When does he say Albert Hawley died?” he demanded suddenly of Mrs. Meredith.

“He doesn’t.” She rounded her eyes at him again, then reached out one hand impulsively to touch his wrist. “Do you think you could persuade him to say it was the fifth day?”

A hot glow showed in Shayne’s gray eyes. “I think the right sort of offer would persuade Cunningham to testify to anything… if he could be certain that an entry in Groat’s diary wouldn’t prove him a liar.”

“That’s the crux of it,” said Sims bitterly. “That diary! Do you know what date it gives for Albert’s death?”

Shayne shook his red head. “I haven’t seen the diary.”

“Can you find out?” Sims leaned forward eagerly. “You’re very close to Timothy Rourke on the News. He must know… or can find out easily enough from that other reporter.”

Shayne nodded. “Probably.”

“You know how important it is to Mrs. Meredith to prove that Ezra predeceased his nephew. You could earn a fat fee by finding out what the diary says before it’s published.”

“It’s just as important to the Hawleys to prove that Albert died before his uncle,” Shayne pointed out.

“Have they retained you?” demanded Sims swiftly.

“No. At the moment I’m open to any reasonable offer.”

“How much?”

“How much for what?” asked Shayne cheerfully.

Jake Sims hesitated, working the thin cigar around in his mouth and glancing surreptitiously at his client and then back at the redhead. “You understand the position as well as I do. If the diary proves that Albert died on the fifth day… we’re in. Even if the Hawleys offered Cunningham a million-dollar bribe to say it was the fourth day, he wouldn’t dare accept it because the diary would prove him a liar.”

“But he isn’t saying which day it was,” Shayne guessed sardonically, “until he knows the diary won’t pop up to make a liar out of him.”

“That’s about it. Which poses another question, Shayne. You say Groat is dead. Does the News still have the right to publish his diary?”

Shayne said, “You’d better ask their lawyers that question.” He turned his attention back to Mrs. Meredith whose fingertips were still resting lightly on his wrist. “I should think you might be able to make a private deal with a man like Cunningham.”

She smiled slowly and her fingers pressed harder against his flesh. “I imagine I could. In fact, he suggested as much this morning. But I’d much rather make a private deal with a man like you, Michael Shayne.”

“You’ve already pointed out,” Sims broke in, “that Cunningham’s testimony is valueless if the diary contradicts him. On the other hand, it’s also valueless if the diary confirms it. Either way, he has nothing to sell either side so long as the entries in the diary are to be published in a newspaper. That’s what I explained to Mrs. Meredith this morning.”

“But if the diary should disappear before it is published… or the salient entry be deleted from it before publication… then Cunningham’s testimony would be worth a couple million dollars to… someone,” mused Shayne.

“Precisely.” Sims leaned back and puffed vigorously on his cigar. “That’s why it’s so important for us to learn what it does say.”

“How important?” asked Shayne with alert interest. “In terms of actual dollars?”

“That depends a great deal,” hedged Sims, “on what it says. If the entry is in our favor the information won’t be worth a great deal. But if it isn’t…”

He paused and Shayne said curtly, “… and if you can find a way to suppress it, that would be worth a fortune. Assuming, as I am, that in that contingency Cunningham is prepared to swear Albert Hawley survived for five days.”

“I think we can assume that,” said Mrs. Meredith evenly. “I don’t think we should be so crude as to offer you a bribe, Mr. Shayne, but…”

“Go right ahead,” said Shayne harshly. “Be just as crude as you like.”

“Let us not be too hasty,” interposed Sims. “Until we read the entry in the diary we have no way of knowing whether it will have to be suppressed or not. Making an offer at this point is just like buying a pig in a poke.”

“But how will we know unless Mr. Shayne manages to get hold of the diary for us? I insist that we retain him, Mr. Sims. What will the fee be?” She turned a hopeful smile on Shayne.

“In dollars and cents?”

“What other medium of exchange will you consider?” Her eyes were bold and her smile provocative.

Shayne studied her gravely for a long moment. “Perhaps we could discuss that privately some other time, Mrs. Meredith. Right now… just to put me in a legal position… let’s agree that I am representing you in my efforts to learn what the diary says before it is published… and if I succeed you will pay me a thousand dollars for my services.”

“I agree,” she said promptly, still holding his gaze. “And if it should state in the diary that Albert died before his uncle… what then, Mr. Shayne?”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.” He got up and went to the door. “I’ll have my secretary type up a brief memo for you to sign.”

As he entered the outer office Lucy Hamilton snapped off the inter-com over which she had been listening and looked at him with an angry flush on her face.

“Exactly what medium of exchange do you and Mrs. Meredith have in mind, Michael Shayne?”

He grinned and told her, “A nice girl like you shouldn’t have the faintest idea what Mrs. Meredith and I have in mind, Lucy. Type up a memo retaining me to try and get a preview of the diary, and have her sign it.” He took a panama from a rack near the door and strode out while Lucy glared at his retreating back.

9

At The Steakhouse on Northeast 3rd Avenue, Shayne pushed in at the busy bar beside Timothy Rourke who was nursing a rye highball. Rourke glanced obliquely at him and shifted his weight to the other hip to make a couple more inches of room, and asked with interest, “How’d you make out with the Hawley clan?”

“I met them all… including Beatrice.” Shayne caught the bartender’s eye and lifted one ragged red eyebrow.

Rourke said, “U-m-m. I’ve heard rumors.”

“They’re all true,” Shayne told him flatly. The bartender set a four-ounce glass and an open bottle of cognac in front of him, and turned away for a glass of ice water. Shayne splashed liquor into the glass and asked, “Is Joel Cross around?”

“I saw him come in a few minutes ago.” Rourke twisted around to survey the crowded room and nodded toward a heavy-set young man with an aggressive crew-cut, wearing thick-lensed tortoiseshell glasses, who leaned against one of the booths, talking to four men eating lunch.”

“That’s our white hope of journalism, God help us. He’ll be completely insufferable if that pilot’s journal turns out to be as hot stuff as he thinks it is.”

“You don’t like Cross?”

Rourke shrugged thin shoulders and turned back to his drink. “He’s young,” he said indifferently. “He’ll learn.”

“I take it you haven’t read Groat’s diary.”

“No one has. It’s Joel’s very own exclusive scoop. He’s guarding it like the Kohinoor for fear some advance quotes will get printed.”

“One thing I wonder about it, Tim,” Shayne mused, taking a long appreciative sip of cognac and keeping his voice carefully casual. “What sort of arrangement has he made with Groat for publishing it? Specifically,” he went on quickly, “whether the rights have been signed, sealed and delivered… formally and irrevocably.”

A glint of interest appeared in Rourke’s eyes. He recognized Shayne’s carefully casual tone, and reacted to it. “He must have made some sort of arrangement with Groat else he wouldn’t have splashed that announcement over the front page today.”

Shayne took a swallow of ice water. “But I wonder whether it’s been formalized by the business office. Boil it down this way, Tim. Groat hasn’t been seen alive since seven-thirty last night. Has your paper a definite commitment from Groat, giving you legal publishing rights to the diary?”

The glint became more pronounced in Rourke’s eyes. “Hypothesizing that something has happened to Groat?”

“Keep this under your hat,” Shayne said quietly. “Groat is dead. Has been since about eight o’clock last night when he was supposed to show up at the Hawley place to keep an appointment with Beatrice. The simple question is: Does the News have authority to go ahead and publish the diary without further ado?”

“Does Joel know he’s dead?”

“It hasn’t been officially announced. Whoever knocked him over the head and threw his body in the Bay last night knows he’s dead.”

“Joel?” The glint in Rourke’s eyes had become a fervid glow.

Shayne shrugged. “You know him better than I do. Would he murder a guy for a scoop? Here’s what I mean,” he went on hastily before Rourke could reply. “Suppose Groat changed his mind about allowing publication of the diary yesterday afternoon… and told Cross it was all off. How would Cross react?”

“Joel would strangle his grandmother if she got in his way,” Rourke said grimly.

“But is the diary important enough?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t read it. Why don’t you ask Joel?”

“I will,” said Shayne, “in a minute.” He lifted his glass and studied it for a long moment. “Before I do I’d like to know one more thing about Cross.” He hesitated, frowning at the cognac to clarify his thoughts. “How important is money to Joel Cross? Per se? That is: If he had the choice of a good hunk of cash in hand as opposed to making a big splash journalistically… which way would he jump?”

Rourke shrugged. “It would depend, I suppose, on how big a piece of money and how important the journalistic splash. Why not lay it on the line, Mike? I suppose you’re wondering how much cash would induce Joel to give up his plan to print the diary?”

“Something like that.”

“Why, Mike?” Rourke clutched his forearm with talon fingers that bit into the redhead’s flesh. “Why do you want the diary suppressed? What’s your angle on it?”

“I didn’t say I wanted it suppressed. I happen to know there are certain parties who might be willing to pay a lot of money to prevent the diary from being printed. I’m wondering whether money or fame means more to Cross.”

Rourke said thoughtfully, “I don’t think there can be a positive answer to that. How much money… what degree of fame? For a million bucks, for instance, you can buy a damned newspaper.”

“Yeah,” Shayne muttered, “I know there are too many imponderables.” He sighed and finished his cognac, drank two gulps of water and pushed back from the bar. He looked back and saw that Cross had left the four men with whom he had been talking and was now seated alone at the rear booth where a waiter was setting a luncheon place for him. “Want to introduce me to your buddy?”

“Sure.” Timothy Rourke moved toward the back of the bar beside him, and asked in a low voice, “Shall I sit in?”

“I don’t think so, Tim. I’ll tell you the whole damned story as soon as I’ve got my finger on it.” He held back a little to let Rourke precede him to Joel Cross’s booth, where he stopped beside the younger reporter and said, “You’re being paged, Joel. If you’ve got any guilty secrets, clam up tight because this here individual is Mike Shayne.”

Cross turned a square aggressive face toward the detective and his upper lip lifted a trifle as he said, “I’ve heard about you,” in a tone that indicated the things he’d heard weren’t good. He had pale blue eyes behind the thick lenses, and he hesitated momentarily when Shayne grinned goodnaturedly and held out his hand, explaining, “I asked Tim to introduce me.”

Cross said, “Why?” and reluctantly held out a square hand. The flesh was hard and cold. Shayne let go of it quickly and slid into the seat opposite Cross without waiting to be asked. He didn’t answer the question, but asked instead, “Have a drink with me?”

Cross said, “I never touch the stuff,” and persisted, “Why did you want to meet me?”

Shayne settled his forearms on the table and hunched heavy shoulders forward, glancing obliquely up at Rourke who still hesitated there.

Rourke raised one eyebrow expressively and said, “You two have fun together,” then turned and strolled back to the bar.

Cross sat solidly erect across from Shayne with his shoulders precisely squared, his myopic eyes studying the redhead with open hostility.

Shayne said quietly, “I’m interested in Jasper Groat’s diary.”

“What about Groat’s diary?”

“Is it any good?”

Cross’s eyes glittered behind the thick glasses. “It’s a terrific documentary. Raw, elemental emotion torn from the very heart of an unlettered man. Groat had no thought of writing for publication, and that’s why it’s so gripping. We’ll publish it exactly as is… with no editing whatsoever. What’s your interest, Shayne?”

“Is the diary in your possession?”

A curious light flickered momentarily in the reporter’s pale eyes. He hesitated, obviously choosing his words carefully: “Naturally, I had to check it out to see if it was worth what Groat wanted.”

“How much was that?”

“I can’t conceive how that could be any of your business,” Cross parried. “Once more, I’ll have to insist on knowing exactly why you’re interested before I discuss it with you.”

Shayne said grimly, “I have a hunch that several people are going to be interested after reading your announcement in the News today.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “Frankly, I’d like to know precisely how much money it would take to prevent its publication.”

Cross became even stiffer than before. “I’m afraid you don’t know very much about the newspaper business, Shayne. That diary is a scoop of the first magnitude. You can’t measure the intrinsic value of a thing like that to a newspaper… not in dollars and cents.”

“I’m talking to you… not to a newspaper.” Shayne’s voice was challenging.

“The News pays my salary and my first duty is to them,” Cross told him pompously.

Shayne said, “I’d like to have a look at it.”

“You can read it in the News. Beginning tomorrow.”

“I mean a preview.”

Cross shook his head emphatically. “Not a chance.”

“You say you’re starting to print it tomorrow. Does that mean you’ve made final financial arrangements with Groat?”

“We could hardly print it if we hadn’t.”

“That,” said Shayne, “is what I was thinking.”

“So?”

“It boils down to this,” Shayne explained flatly. “If Groat should disappear suddenly… if he should die before you contact him again… has your paper the absolute legal right to publish his diary?”

“What do you mean?” demanded Cross, shaken out of his smug stiffness for the first time. “Where is Groat?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Do you know where he is right now?”

“I have no intention of answering it, Shayne. But I am interested to know why Jake Sims asked me exactly the same question half an hour ago. Perhaps you can tell me.”

Shayne said, “There’s never any telling what a man like Sims will be up to. Did he make you an offer for the diary?” he added casually.

Cross shook his head with a suggestion of a smirk on his broad face. “I don’t think that’s any of your business either.”

“Probably not,” agreed Shayne. He got up and said, “I’ll be seeing you around,” and sauntered back to the bar as a waiter came to the booth with a loaded luncheon tray which he placed in front of Cross.

Timothy Rourke grinned wickedly as Shayne stopped beside him and slopped liquor into a glass from the open cognac bottle which still stood beside Rourke.

“How’d you make out with friend Cross?”

Shayne shook his red head in angry disgust. “I didn’t.”

“Nobody does,” Rourke assured him happily. “He’s the kind of cold-blooded bastard who’d stash a tape recorder under his bed on a honeymoon and sell the result to a true confession magazine.”

Shayne twirled his glass between his big fingers and asked, “Where does he live?”

“The Corona Arms. Does most of his stuff at home on account he’s too highbrow to pound a typewriter in the City Room with the rest of us.”

Shayne tilted his glass to his mouth and emptied it. He laid a five-dollar bill on the counter and lifted one hand to the bartender, told Rourke, “I wish you’d interview Mrs. Groat about her murdered husband and try to find out for sure whether the payoff for the diary was ever completed. With Groat dead, your paper will have to go to her for the publishing rights to it unless the deal was completed with him. And tell her to get in touch with me before signing anything if it does stand that way.”

“Sure,” said Rourke. “Any more errands I can run for you?”

Shayne grinned widely and promised, “I’ll let you know if any occur to me.” He glanced back at the rear booth to see that Joel Cross was just beginning to eat his lunch, and then went out briskly.

10

The Corona Arms was a quiet residential hotel near the bay. Shayne drove there and parked his car half a block away, went into the telephone booth in a drugstore and looked up the hotel’s number. He dialed it, and when a pleasant female voice answered he asked for Joel Cross. She said, “Of course,” and he listened to the phone ring five times in Cross’s empty room before she said regretfully, “Number four-seventeen doesn’t answer. Would you care to leave a message?”

Shayne said, “Thanks,” and hung up. He walked down the street to the Corona Arms and entered a quiet, air-conditioned lobby and walked briskly past the desk to a waiting elevator at the rear. It was operated by a trim youth in a crisp blue and white uniform who let him off at the fourth floor. He went down a wide, carpeted hall to a door numbered 417, getting out a crowded key-ring as he approached. He studied the keyhole for a moment, selected a key without haste, and tried it.

The first key refused to enter the lock, the second one went in smoothly but would not turn, the third unlocked the door. Shayne turned the knob and pushed it open, stepped over the threshold, catching a momentary glimpse of a disordered sitting room at the same moment that he sensed a blur of movement on his left and felt excruciating pain at the base of his skull below and slightly behind his left ear.

He pitched forward onto the floor in a fog of grayness, unable to move, unable to see or to think clearly. It was a heavy blow, shrewdly delivered, and there was a black void invitingly in front of him as he lay supine on the floor; but he fought to remain on this side of the black curtain, and the gray fog remained heavy and impenetrable, blacking out sound or movement though he grimly clung to consciousness, knowing where he was and what had happened, but unable to move a muscle or do a damned thing about it.

He didn’t know how long he lay like that. He didn’t think it was very long, but in that semicomatose state there was no measurement of time.

The grayness thinned somewhat and he was vaguely conscious that someone knelt on the floor beside him. He felt a lax arm being lifted and fingertips lightly on his wrist searching for a pulse. The arm was lowered to the floor again and he heard footsteps moving away from him into the interior of the room. He opened his eyes and the grayness became a light haze. He could feel the roughness of a carpet beneath his right cheek, and was abruptly conscious of thundering pain in his skull. He used all his strength to draw his arms in close to his body and get his palms flat on the carpet, and pushed himself up slowly, twisting to one side and achieving a sitting position.

There were drawn shades at two windows of the hotel sitting room, but his vision cleared as he blinked his eyes, and his first fleeting impression as he had stepped inside the room was verified. It was in complete disorder. Cushions pulled from chairs and sofa and thrown on the floor, papers scattered from a desk in the far corner of the room, drawers pulled out and dumped on the floor.

Strength flowed back into his body as he sat there, and the thudding pain in his head slowly subsided and became localized below his left ear.

He lifted one hand to touch the spot gingerly, and was surprised to find no swelling and no pain at the touch. A sandbag, he thought disgustedly, artfully swung by someone who knew how to handle one of the things.

Without warning, Mrs. Meredith appeared in an open doorway on the left. She was as serene and well-groomed as when she had been in his office, and appeared in no-wise disconcerted to see him sitting up looking at her. A trace of a smile quirked her full lips and her voice was warmly sympathetic as she asked, “Feeling better, Mr. Shayne?”

“Not much.” He put the heel of his left hand to his forehead and pressed hard. “You swing a mean sandbag.”

“I, Mr. Shayne? What a nasty, suspicious mind you have.” She advanced to his side and stood looking down at him. “Did you find the diary?”

Shayne took his hand away from his forehead and held it up to her. She grasped it firmly and stepped back, tugging upward, and he got to his feet where he swayed on wide-spread legs, his senses suddenly reeling again. He shook his head doggedly and muttered, “I was just going to ask you the same question.”

She moved close to him and put a warm, full-fleshed arm about his waist to steady him. “Hadn’t you better sit down?” He let her help him toward the sofa and waited while she replaced two cushions before sinking down gratefully. “I’ll tell you my story,” he said flatly, “and then you tell me yours. We’ll probably both believe the other is lying, but that can’t be helped. Someone slugged me as I stepped in the door. This room was already torn up before I got here.”

She sat on the sofa beside him, her shoulder reassuringly firm against his. “You were passed out on the floor when I came. I felt your pulse and then had a look around. Where is Mr. Cross?”

“He was eating lunch the last time I saw him.”

“If you didn’t do this… who did?” She looked around the room curiously.

“Obviously someone looking for the diary who got here before I did. You’re still the best candidate.”

“And I still reserve the right to think you did the searching before someone came in and caught you at it.”

“Why are you here?”

“To keep an appointment with Mr. Cross.” She glanced at her wristwatch and frowned. “He promised to meet me here five minutes ago.”

Solid footsteps sounded in the hallway and then stopped at the open door. Shayne and Mrs. Meredith remained seated close together on the sofa, both turning their heads to look at Joel Cross who had halted in the doorway and was staring about the room and at the two of them with a look of blank stupefaction on his square face.

Shayne managed a weak grin and said, “Believe it or not, Cross, this isn’t exactly the way it looks. Have you met Mrs. Meredith?”

Cross advanced angrily toward them, shoulders hunched aggressively, putting each foot down flat and hard. “Before God, Shayne. You’ll pay for this.”

Shayne drew in a deep breath and expelled it slowly. “You tell him, Matie. Maybe he’ll believe you.”

She patted his shoulder reassuringly and stood up to turn her allure full on Cross. “Someone else searched your place and knocked Michael out before I got here to keep my appointment with you. He didn’t see who it was. We’re both wondering whether he got the diary.”

Cross said, “I don’t believe a word of it.” He circled Mrs. Meredith to the bedroom door, disappeared for a moment and returned almost immediately with a revolver in his hand. “Both of you stay right here,” he said ominously, “while I telephone the police.”

Mrs. Meredith moved in front of the telephone stand as he turned toward it. “You don’t want the police, Mr. Cross. The only important thing is the diary. Is it gone?”

“What do you mean… I don’t want the police?” he raged. “When I walk in and find my place burglarized and you two calmly making love on the sofa?”

He stepped close to her, waving his gun, but she stood her ground in front of the telephone and reminded him, “I made an appointment to discuss a private matter with you, Mr. Cross. Can’t we discuss it before you bother with the police?”

Shayne got to his feet. From Cross’s reactions in not seeming worried about the diary, he felt certain it had not been in the apartment at all. He said, “I’ve got the great grand-pappy of all headaches and I could use a drink. How about offering me one?”

Cross didn’t look at him. He tossed a surly aside over his shoulder, “I told you I never touch the stuff.”

“In that case,” said Shayne, “I’ll go find one for myself and leave you two to your private discussion.”

He started for the door on rubbery legs, and Cross barked from behind him, “Don’t leave this room, Shayne. I’ll shoot if I have to.”

Shayne didn’t think he would shoot. Not as long as he kept his back turned and kept going. He heard Matie Meredith’s full-throated voice say persuasively, “You know Mr. Shayne isn’t going to disappear. Please, let’s settle this calmly just between the two of us.”

Shayne reached the door and was going out without a bullet in his back, when her voice lifted and lilted to him, “I’m at the Biscayne Hotel, Michael. Phone me later?”

He said, “Sure,” and turned toward the elevator.

11

Half an hour and three slugs of cognac later, the throbbing in Shayne’s head had subsided to a dull ache behind his left ear and he felt prepared to discuss Jasper Groat’s death with Police Chief Will Gentry.

The chief was alone in his office when the redhead walked in without knocking. He looked up from his littered desk and shifted an evil-smelling black cigar from left to right in his mouth and growled, “Another half hour I’d have had a pick-up out for you, Mike.”

“Why?” Michael Shayne seated himself carefully in a straight chair beside the chief’s desk and wrinkled his nose distastefully at the aroma that drifted into his nostrils from Gentry’s cigar.

“Jasper Groat is why. His tie-in with the Hawleys. I want the straight of it.”

“I’ll give it to you, Will.” Shayne leaned back and locked his two hands at the back of his neck to ease the pain, and gazed up at the ceiling. “First: Tell me exactly what you’ve got, then I’ll fill in.”

“Damned little.” Gentry took the chewed cigar from his mouth, glared at the soggy end of it, and hurled it into a brass spittoon in one corner. “We got a taxi driver who picked him up outside his place before eight last night and delivered him in front of the Hawley residence. There was a chain across the driveway so the taxi couldn’t turn in. Groat got out and that’s the last record we have of him. That Hawley outfit!” Gentry went on angrily. “A bunch of screwballs. The old lady serenely swears she didn’t know Groat and didn’t want to. Even though he nursed her son for several days on the life raft and was the last one to see him alive. What kind of mother is that?”

“I gathered this morning that she resents the fact that Groat and Cunningham survived while her son didn’t.”

“So what? Well… then there’s Beatrice.”

“There is, indeed,” agreed Shayne soberly but with a twinkle in his eye.

“She admits asking Groat out to the house to meet her at eight last night, but won’t say why. What with her asinine giggling and sucking on her finger, it’s hard to tell what’s in her mind.”

“In addition to sucking on a whisky bottle,” said Shayne cheerfully. “All right, so you’ve got Groat bumped off after getting out of a taxi in front of the Hawley house and before anyone there saw him…”

“According to their stories.”

“According to their stories,” agreed Shayne.

“What about this Mrs. Wallace who turned up at Groat’s place this morning? According to Mrs. Groat, she claims Jasper phoned her yesterday and made the appointment… promising to give her some word about her husband who’s been missing for a year. What do you know about that? I understand Mrs. Groat sent her to consult you.”

“She did,” Shayne told him. “I know this much about it.” Without reservations, he repeated the story Mrs. Wallace had told him that morning. “My best guess right now,” he concluded, “is that Albert Hawley had some guilty knowledge of the reason for Wallace’s disappearance a year ago, and when he faced death on the life raft, he confided the secret to Groat. Groat was ready to tell Mrs. Wallace this morning, but before he could do so he got himself knocked on the head and dumped into the Bay.”

“Somewhere near the Hawley house where he had gone to keep a date with Beatrice,” amplified Gentry.

Shayne nodded, his eyes very bright. “There’s another angle, Will. Did you read the News this morning… and the story about Groat’s diary which they’re going to publish?”

Gentry, nodded absently, getting out a fresh cigar and frowning as he bit the end off it.

“It’s supposed to be a minute-by-minute true and accurate account of the time they spent on the life raft. It’s reasonable to assume that Groat wrote down whatever Albert Hawley told him before he died. So, if someone killed Groat to prevent him from telling Mrs. Wallace the truth about her husband, they must have had a shock when they read in the News this morning that the complete diary was going to be published.”

“Whoever it was would be after the diary now,” Gentry agreed.

“Which is evidently in the possession of Joel Cross, a News reporter. Have you had any word from him on it, Will?”

“Joel Cross?” Gentry lit his cigar and sniffed the blue smoke unappreciatively. “No. Why should I?”

Shayne shrugged. “I just happen to know that his hotel room was searched today by persons unknown… who I’d guess were looking for the diary. Wondered if Cross had reported it.” He got to his feet, shrugging casually. “That’s about it, Will. I promised I’d come clean.”

He turned to go out, but Gentry stopped him with a growled, “Hold it, Mike.”

Shayne stopped halfway to the door, turned his aching head slowly and carefully so it wouldn’t fall off.

“Assuming Groat learned something from Albert Hawley about Leon Wallace’s disappearance that was detrimental to the Hawleys… would he have tried to blackmail them?”

“I didn’t know Groat. But from what I gathered from his wife and Lucy, I think the exact opposite. He was a sort of religious fanatic. One who would insist on telling the truth and letting the chips fall where they might.”

“Giving the Hawley family the same motive for killing him as if he had threatened blackmail?”

“Y-e-s,” Shayne agreed slowly. “If they didn’t know he’d already arranged to publish the diary.” He thought for a moment and a hot glow came into his eyes. “Here’s another thought, Will. Suppose some other unscrupulous person knew what was in the diary and wanted to use it to blackmail the Hawleys. He’d be unable to do so as long as Groat was alive. But with Groat dead, and with him having possession of the diary, he’d be in a position to make a deal.”

“Who else knew about it?”

“Joel Cross, for one. He read the diary yesterday. I’d check and see what he was doing at eight o’clock last night.” Shayne turned to the door again, and kept on going this time.

Lucy Hamilton looked up with a grimace when he entered his office half an hour later. “A woman called just a few minutes ago and insisted that I give her your home address when I told her you weren’t in.”

Shayne ruffled his red hair and grinned at her. “Who was the lady?”

“I didn’t say she was a lady,” said Lucy primly. “She giggled when I asked her, and refused to give her name.”

“Did she also nibble on her finger?”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised,” Lucy replied disdainfully. “She sounded mentally retarded and man-crazy.”

Shayne nodded grave approval. “You’re developing quite a knack for character analysis over the telephone. I suppose you gave this charming maiden the information she wanted.”

“I gave her the name of your hotel. You once told me I was never to refuse it to a female inquirer.”

Shayne said, “That’s swell. My liquor supply won’t be safe from now on. Anything else?”

Lucy was shaking her head when her telephone buzzed. She lifted it and said dulcetly, “Michael Shayne’s office.”

She listened and said, “One moment, please. I’ll see if Mr. Shayne is in.” She covered the mouthpiece with her hand and said, “Another female. This one doesn’t giggle, and I bet she doesn’t nibble on her finger either. But I’ll also bet she just loves to chew on redheaded he-man detectives.”

“Mrs. Meredith?” Shayne asked with a grin.

“You’re so smart to guess, Mr. Shayne,” Lucy said with a bitter smile.

“I’ll take it inside.”

Shayne went through a door into his private office and lifted the phone there. “Hello.”

“Matie… Michael.” There was a slight pause, and Mrs. Meredith went on rapidly, “How is the headache?”

“Better, but… not good.”

“I’m so sorry,” she purred seductively. “I just happen to have a terrific headache remedy here. My own private recipe.”

Shayne said, “At the Biscayne Hotel.”

“Suite twelve hundred A,” she told him matter-of-factly.

Shayne said, “It’ll take me ten minutes,” and hung up.

He sauntered out to the reception room and Lucy looked at him with snapping brown eyes as he unhooked a panama from a rack near the door.

“I’ll just bet she’s got a private brew for headaches. A mixture of absinthe and benedictine and… and every aphrodisiac in the book.”

Shayne said, “Tut, Lucy. You shouldn’t listen in on private conversations. I’ve warned you before.” He settled the hat carefully on his throbbing head and went out.

12

Mrs. Meredith was waiting for Shayne in the living room of her hotel suite. She had changed to a clinging hostess gown of gray satin and her hair was brushed out in tiny ringlets that gave her a more youthful appearance. She took his hand warmly between both of hers and drew him into the room.

Shayne held back a trifle, looking down at her with an odd look in his gray eyes. She tilted her head and asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’ve decided I had better be afraid of you,” Shayne told her bluntly.

She gave his hand an extra pressure between her soft palms, and released it. “I like that very much. It’s every woman’s secret desire to be considered dangerously alluring. I assume that is what you meant, Michael Shayne?”

“I suspect you’re intelligent along with the allure,” he told her. “Which warns me that I should get the hell out of here while I can.”

“But you’re not going to.”

“You know I’m not.” He prowled past her across the room to a low table in front of the divan. It held an ice bucket, a bottle of bonded bourbon, a small bowl with a teaspoon, two tall glasses full of shaved ice, and a squatty vase holding a bouquet of mint sprigs. Green crushed mint leaves floated in the bowl on top of a syrupy mixture of sugar dissolved in a small quantity of bourbon.

She moved over and sat down in front of the table. “This is the headache remedy I mentioned.” She poured half the syrupy mixture into each glass of shaved ice, tilted the whisky bottle and filled both glasses to the brim with straight whisky. She looked up with a smile as she caught a look of mild amazement on Shayne’s angular face. “That’s the secret of a true mint julep. Don’t spare the horses when you pour the whisky.”

“No aphrodisiacs,” muttered Shayne.

She frowned slightly, decorating each glass with a sprig of mint. “I don’t understand.”

“Just a little private joke between my secretary and me.”

“She’s a charming girl,” Matie Meredith told him, offering him a glass with a direct look. “I’m sure you and she must have many private jokes. I’m afraid she doesn’t approve of me,” she added placidly.

Shayne buried his nose in the mint and took a long, slow swallow of the liquid. He moved back to a deep chair and sank into it, stretching his long legs out comfortably. “This is the only civilized way to drink whisky. You are an excellent prescriber for headaches, Mrs. Meredith.”

She said, “Thank you,” simply, as though accepting his statement not as flattery but as praise to which she was entitled. “Have you any idea who gave you the headache?”

“Does that mean you decided to believe my story?”

“I certainly don’t believe you knocked yourself out in Joel Cross’s room. Whether you searched the room or someone else did the job seems immaterial to me. I’m quite sure neither of you found the diary there.”

“Why are you sure?”

“Joel told me so, for one thing. But I was already certain by the way he acted when he first came in. He wasn’t worried about the diary at all.”

“Did he tell you where it is?”

“No.” She leaned back against the cushion and crossed her nice legs, taking a long drink and regarding him soberly over the rim of the glass.

“Or what was in it?” Shayne persisted.

“He refused to discuss the diary with me. I found Mr. Cross an insufferable young man.”

“Did you explain your interest in the diary? Tell him why the exact date of Albert Hawley’s death is important to you?”

“Certainly not. The fewer people who know that, the better.”

“Did you get any impression that he may guess or know the importance of the diary to you?”

“It’s difficult to get any sort of impression from him,” she parried coolly. “Do you think he knows?”

“Probably not. Assuming that the terms of Ezra Hawley’s will are not general knowledge. And even then,” added Shayne thoughtfully, “I don’t suppose many people know that you are still Albert Hawley’s heir even though you divorced the guy just before he went into the army.”

“Probably not,” Matie Meredith agreed indifferently.

“It certainly isn’t normal procedure,” mused Shayne. “In fact it’s one of the angles that’s bothered hell out of me from the beginning of this screwed-up affair. It just didn’t make sense… now it’s beginning to.”

She said, “Oh?”

He took another long drink. “I mean, I’m beginning to realize how a woman like you could have a man like Hawley wrapped around your little finger.”

“Albert loved me,” she said softly.

“That’s what I mean. Enough to change his will so you’d inherit all his money after you divorced him and remarried.”

“Albert was generous,” she said calmly. “And he had no one else he cared to leave it to. He hated his family,” she added in the same flat tone.

“What did he think of Leon Wallace?”

She leaned forward carefully to set her glass down on the table and, watching closely, Shayne detected a tremor in her hand. She remained leaning forward and her eyes were very wide and direct on him as she asked slowly, “What do you know about Leon Wallace?”

“I know this much, Matie. He was working as a gardener at the Hawley estate when you decided to go to Reno and divorce your husband. I know he disappeared soon afterward after writing a curious letter to his wife enclosing ten grand in cash and instructing her not to worry or attempt to trace him. In addition, she has received another thousand quarterly since then with no message whatever, mailed to her in a plain envelope from Miami.”

She held his gaze steadily with an interested expression on her face. She said, “You do get around, don’t you, Michael?”

“I’m a detective,” he reminded her, as he had reminded Cunningham the previous evening.

“So you are,” she murmured.

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Which one?”

“What do you know about Leon Wallace?”

“A great deal more right now than I did two minutes ago,” she told him evenly. “I knew nothing about his strange disappearance.”

“Perhaps not. But I have a strong hunch that your divorced husband knew all about it.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because Jasper Groat telephoned Mrs. Wallace long distance last night and told her that if she would come to Miami this morning he would tell her about her husband.”

“I see. You’re assuming that Albert told him about Leon Wallace while he was dying on the life raft.”

“And that Groat was murdered last night to prevent him from meeting Mrs. Wallace this morning and telling her the truth,” said Shayne sharply.

She frowned and closed her eyes slowly. She opened them with a little shake of her head and said, “I’ve been assuming he was killed by some of the Hawleys… or someone hired by them… to conceal the real date of Albert’s death.”

“Who knew that date was important last night?” Shayne pressed her. “They supposedly didn’t know the terms of Ezra’s will until Hastings read it to them this morning. You knew, of course,” he added quietly. “Else you wouldn’t have hurried to Miami to claim your inheritance.”

“I think they must have known, too. After all, Mr. Hastings is their family lawyer.”

“We’ve gotten off the subject of Leon Wallace,” Shayne reminded her. “How well did you know him while you were married to Albert and living there?”

She shrugged. “I’ve been racking my brain to remember and I simply can’t. I know there was a gardener around the place, but that’s about all.”

Shayne knew she was lying. He asked abruptly, “Is Mr. Meredith in town with you?”

She was obviously disturbed by the sudden question. “No.”

“Where do you live?” probed Shayne.

“How can that possibly concern you?”

“What’s your husband’s business? His first name? When and where did you meet him? What sort of man is he?” The questions came swiftly and angrily.

She didn’t answer any of them. She sat forward stiffly and lifted her glass to bury her face in the mint leaves while she drew liquid from the shaved ice.

“I want some answers.” Shayne spread out his big hands and scowled bleakly. “One man has been murdered. If I stick my neck out any further, I’m going to know what I’m sticking it into.”

Matie took a cigarette from a box on the table and lit it with steady fingers. She blew out a plume of smoke, stretched back languorously with ankles crossed and regarded Shayne through half-closed eyes. “How are you sticking your neck out?”

Shayne emptied his glass and set it down hard on the table beside his chair. He got to his feet and began striding up and down the room. “By taking you on as a client. By trying to help you prove that your ex-husband was still alive when his uncle died.”

“What have my private affairs to do with that?”

“I don’t know yet. But I can’t dismiss the coincidence of Leon Wallace’s mysterious disappearance at the same time you took off for Reno to get a divorce.”

She said coldly, “My husband’s name is Meredith, not Wallace, Mr. Shayne. His first name is Theodore, not Leon. He is not a gardener, I assure you. Does that satisfy you?”

“No,” Shayne said with blunt impatience. “Men have been known to disappear and change their names before this… marry and raise families under assumed names.”

“Really though!” She stiffened erect and her eyes opened wide and there was withering scorn in her voice. “A gardener!”

“I never met Wallace,” growled Shayne. “I understand he was a graduate horticulturist. Maybe he reeked of sex appeal. Women have been known to fall in love with their husband’s gardeners before this… and chauffeurs and houseboys.”

“And I suppose you think I gave him the ten thousand dollars he sent his wife to keep her quiet. Or perhaps you think Albert furnished the money so I could divorce him and elope with the gardener.” Her voice was icy.

“I don’t know where the money came from. I’d still like to meet your present husband.”

“No, you wouldn’t, Michael. You and he have nothing in common.” She relaxed back against the cushions and smiled seductively. “How is your headache by this time?”

“I’ve just about forgotten it.”

“So my remedy did work,” she purred, patting the cushion beside her. “So why don’t you stop striding up and down and glaring at me and imagining all sorts of ridiculous things and sit down here and let me run my fingers through that red hair of yours and find out for myself exactly how different you are from dear Theodore?”

Shayne stopped at the end of the divan and looked down at her with a sudden grin. “Don’t tempt me, Matie.”

“Why not?” Her red lips parted and she gazed up into his face boldly. “You do things to me, Michael. I could do things to you, too. Pour some more whisky in your glass and bring it over.”

Shayne sighed and shook his red head reluctantly. “One more of your drinks and I’d never leave this room.”

“Why should you, Michael?”

“Because I’ve got to keep a date with another dame. She’s waiting for me at my hotel right now, and I need to be sober to handle her.”

“Another dame, darling? When you can have me?” Matie pushed the tip of her tongue out between her full lips and her eyes were wondrously soft and appealing.

Shayne said, “This is business… sort of.”

“Isn’t pleasure more important? Besides, I am your client. Remember?”

Shayne said, “This dame happens to be your sister-in-law.”

“Beatrice?” she gasped. Her upper lip curled in contempt as she spoke the name, and then she relaxed and began laughing softly. “You and Beatrice. Oh, my God in heaven. Have you actually met her?”

“We had a long and private talk in her bedroom this morning,” Shayne told her, straight-faced. “Chaperoned only by a bottle of whisky she had hidden up there.”

“That must have been something.”

“It was.”

“Enough so you’d rather go to her than stay with me?”

“She’s the one who invited Jasper Groat out to the house to be murdered last night.”

“Did she murder him?”

“I don’t know. If she didn’t, I think she knows who did. If I can keep her sober long enough I think she will tell me. So I’d better get over there before she drinks up all my liquor and passes out.”

He turned away from the divan and started for the door. Someone rapped on it from the other side. Shayne stopped in mid-stride and turned to frown at Matie, one ragged eyebrow lifted inquiringly.

She shrugged resignedly and shook her head and mouthed the words, “I don’t know. Open it.”

Shayne went to the door and opened it. He said, “Well, well,” and stepped back when he saw Cunningham on the threshold.

The steward’s eyes glittered with surprise when he recognized Shayne. He jerked his gaze to Matie and muttered, “I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

Shayne said, “I manage to get around.” He stood aside, holding the door wide open and motioned for Cunningham to enter. “Mrs. Meredith is looking for another mint julep customer. I’m on my way out.”

Cunningham squared his shoulders self-consciously and stepped into the room. His gaze remained fixed on Matie’s face as though he waited to receive some signal from her, some hint as to what she wanted him to do.

She said smoothly, “It was nice of you to drop in, Mr. Cunningham. I would like to mix you one of my juleps since Mr. Shayne scorns them. Besides, he’s in a hurry to lay my charming ex-sister-in-law who’s waiting impatiently for him.”

Shayne said, “I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about,” starting through the door. “Just as I have with Mrs. Meany.”

Cunningham’s voice stopped him. “I’ve got some things to talk to you about. I just heard Jasper was murdered last night.”

Shayne turned with his hand on the knob. “Did it surprise you?”

“Not much.” Cunningham shook his head doggedly. “Like I told you last night, I figured something had happened to keep him from our dinner together. What about his diary?”

“You still have the diary to worry about. You and Mrs. Meredith and the Hawley clan, and Hastings and Sims… and maybe Joel Cross.” Shayne turned again to go out, but hesitated for some reason he could not fathom when he heard the telephone ring in the room behind him.

With his back turned and while holding the door slightly ajar, he heard Matie answer the phone: “Yes? Mr. Shayne? Just a moment and I’ll see…”

He went back into the room and Matie held the telephone out to him with a shrug. “I think it’s your delightful little brown-haired secretary.”

He took the instrument and said, “Yes?”

“Michael.” It was Lucy’s voice. “A woman who says her name is Beatrice Meany just telephoned. She didn’t giggle this time, but said to tell you she was waiting in your hotel room… and how soon could you get there.”

Shayne said cheerfully, “Call Mrs. Meany back, Lucy, and tell her to keep her lace panties on and the corks in my liquor bottles. Tell her I’m just leaving here but have one stop to make on my way back to the hotel. If she can stay sober for twenty minutes, I’ll be seeing her.”

He hung up before Lucy could offer any acid comments, said, “Thanks,” to Matie and strode out of the room, closing the door firmly behind him this time.

Downstairs in the lobby, he turned to the left from the desk and went down the corridor to a door marked Private. He knocked and then opened the door and went in. Kurt Davis was lounging in a chair behind a wide, clean desk, smoking a cigarette in a long holder. He didn’t look the way a hotel detective is supposed to look, but none of them in better-class hostelries do. He said, “Hi, Mike. Are you working?”

“Sort of.” Shayne pulled up a chair and sat down. “Can you get me the home address of Mrs. Meredith in twelve hundred A?”

“I can get you the address she wrote down when she registered.”

Shayne nodded. “I don’t expect an affidavit with it.”

Davis pressed a button on his desk and spoke into a metal box in front of him. He looked up at Shayne and asked, “Anything we ought to know about her?”

“I don’t think so.” Shayne hesitated. “You might keep an eye on the men she entertains in her suite. Excluding one Mike Shayne, of course.”

“Of course,” agreed Kurt Davis gravely. “A floozy?”

“Nothing like that. The worst she’s likely to do is knock some guy cold with one of her mint juleps. She’s mixed up in a case I’m working on, but I don’t know just how. I’ll let you know if anything develops.”

“Do that, Mike.” The metal box buzzed and Davis turned to it, pressed the button and said, “Yes?”

Shayne got out a memo book and pencil. He wrote down a street address in Chicago as Davis repeated it aloud. He thanked the house detective and went out of the office to a branch telegraph office in the lobby. There he wrote out a message to Mr. Theodore Meredith in Chicago, Illinois. It read:

Dangerous complications demand you here immediately. Wire me at once but not at this hotel because am watched. Send message to this address.

He completed the message by giving the name of his own hotel, signed it, Matie, and paid cash for it to go as a straight message.

It was twenty minutes later on the dot since leaving Mrs. Meredith’s suite when he swung into the lobby of his hotel. The desk clerk motioned to him urgently as he strode toward the elevators, and Shayne swerved aside to stop at the desk and ask, “What’s up, Dick?”

“Thought you’d like to know there’s a girl waiting up in your place, Mr. Shayne,” the clerk told him importantly. “You always told me it was all right to let a client go up and wait.”

“If they were female and passable,” Shayne agreed.

“This one’s that,” the clerk told him. “She put a call through to your office half an hour ago… and Miss Hamilton called her back, so I know it must be okay.”

Shayne said, “Fine.” He started away and then turned back. “Make a note of this, Dick. A telegram may be delivered here from Chicago, addressed to Mrs. Theodore Meredith… or maybe Mrs. Matie Meredith. It will actually be for me. See that it’s accepted and delivered to me.”

“You bet, Mr. Shayne.” Dick was scribbling on a sheet of paper with a conspiratorial grin. “Working on a big case?”

“Could be.” Shayne went on to a waiting elevator and got in.

As it carried him to the second floor, the operator told him, “There was a gentleman inquiring for your room number ten minutes ago, Mister Shayne. I told him I sure didn’t think you was in, but he got off at Two anyhow. I never did see him go back down.”

Shayne said, “Maybe they’re having a ball in my place.” He got out and went down the corridor, getting out his key and whistling cheerfully.

Light showed through his transom, and he knocked on the door and waited for a moment. When there was no response, he inserted the key and opened it.

The crumpled body of Beatrice Meany lay in the middle of the brightly lighted room.

13

Shayne reached the body in two long strides and dropped to his knees beside her though he knew she was dead before he felt for a pulse. He couldn’t detect any trace of a pulse beat but the flesh felt still normally warm to his fingers, and he knew she hadn’t been dead many minutes.

His face was deeply trenched when he stood up and stepped over her body to the telephone on the center table. He gave Will Gentry’s private number and when the chief’s gruff voice answered, said, “I’ve got a murdered woman in my room, Will. Beatrice Meany.”

Gentry wasted no time with questions over the telephone. He said, “Sit on it, Mike,” and hung up.

Shayne replaced the telephone and turned to look down at Beatrice Meany with bleak eyes.

The girl’s eyes were open and glazed, her tongue protruded slightly and looked faintly bluish, her head was twisted in a way to indicate a broken neck. Yet her naturally childish features had taken on a sort of dignity with death. She did not look like an immature dipsomaniac as she lay there. There was a troubled expression on her face as though she did not understand why this had happened to her.

Shayne turned slowly, his brooding gaze searching the familiar room that had seen more than its share of violence and tragedy. Everything was in place and there was no sign of a struggle. A wide-brimmed, floppy leghorn hat lay on the sofa, and there was a handbag beside it. An open cognac bottle stood on the table beside the telephone, and there was an overturned highball glass on the rug halfway between the door and the corpse. There was a wet stain in front of the glass, and a single cube of ice melted in the center of the wetness.

Shayne went to the kitchen door and saw a tray of ice cubes melting in the sink.

He glanced into the bathroom and bedroom, noting that everything was neatly in order as the maid had left it that day.

He turned back into the living room without touching his hands to anything, strode to the wall liquor cabinet and lifted down a sealed bottle of cognac. In the kitchen he opened it, got a clean glass from the cupboard and poured a stiff slug into the bottom of it. There was a knock on his door as he went back into the living room. He opened it and nodded to a young, uniformed officer who stood there. He said, “Mr. Shayne? We got a flash on our radio…”

He paused and gulped as Shayne stepped aside, jerking his head toward Beatrice’s body. “I’m to stay until Homicide gets here,” he said formally. “Don’t touch anything.”

Shayne said dryly, “I won’t.” He moved to one side and sat down with his drink while the young officer remained stiffly on guard in the doorway.

Less than three minutes later Chief Gentry came trooping down the corridor with a police doctor and three men from Homicide. Gentry nodded to the radio patrolman who saluted sharply and drew away in the hall. Gentry glanced at Shayne who remained seated, nursing his drink, then strode to the body and looked down at Beatrice for a moment. He hunched his heavy shoulders and nodded to the doctor and his men who were already unlimbering their apparatus, then walked back to Shayne and stopped in front of him. “Beatrice Meany, eh?” he said in a tired voice. “The Hawley daughter.”

Shayne nodded. “She came here about an hour ago, Will. After phoning Lucy to get my address. The clerk let her in. About half an hour ago”-he glanced at his watch-“she phoned Lucy from here to ask when I’d be in. Lucy reached me in Mrs. Theodore Meredith’s suite in the Biscayne Hotel. I told Lucy twenty minutes, and I assume she passed that word on to Beatrice. She was like that when I walked in. My door was latched and the lights were on. I didn’t touch anything after getting here except a fresh bottle in the kitchen and this glass.” He held up the cognac and took a sip.

“How soon did you leave the Biscayne Hotel after Lucy phoned you in Mrs. Meredith’s suite?”

“At once. I was on my way out when the call came through. She can verify that, and also a man who was in her suite at the time. A Mr. Cunningham.”

Will Gentry’s rumpled eyelids moved upward like Venetian blinds. “The last survivor of the airplane crash in which the Hawley boy died? Meredith?” Gentry tested the name on his lips, savoring it. “Would she be widow of Albert Hawley… since remarried?”

“She is exactly that,” Shayne told him blandly. “In Miami to claim her ex-husband’s estate.”

Gentry lowered his lids while he considered that. “What claim has she on her ex-husband’s estate? Didn’t she divorce the guy? Seems to me I remember some stink…”

“Your memory is okay,” Shayne agreed. “But she’s still his legal heir. Seems he made a new will after the divorce leaving everything to her.”

“Even though she remarried?”

Shayne nodded, his gray eyes very bright.

“Never heard of that before,” snorted Gentry.

“You never met another Mrs. Meredith either,” Shayne told him with a grin. “That’s it, Will.” He spread out the fingers of his right hand. “I stopped downstairs in the Biscayne to chat with Kurt Davis a minute… then came on home because I knew Beatrice was waiting. As I came up in the elevator,” he went on slowly, “the operator told me a man had asked for my room number about ten minutes before and insisted on getting off at this floor even though the operator told him he didn’t think I was home. He wasn’t seen leaving, so probably he went down the stairs. For my money, he’s your man.”

“Did the operator describe him?”

“I didn’t ask. I wasn’t particularly interested… at the time.”

Gentry turned and went to the door to speak to the patrolman outside. When he turned back, the doctor had completed his examination of the body and was turning away with his bag.

“What have you got, Doc?”

The doctor was young and smooth-faced and had a wispy blond mustache. He said, “Death by strangulation and almost certain fracture of the vertebrae. Not more than half an hour ago, and probably not more than fifteen minutes. There was a lot of strength in the pair of hands that caused those contusions on her throat. That’s all until we do a P.M.”

The photographer had finished with his pictures and was putting away his equipment, and the other two detectives had finished fingerprinting the living room and had moved into the kitchen.

Timothy Rourke came hurrying in from the hall as the doctor went out. “Just got the flash.” He glanced at the body on the floor without much interest, and then confronted Gentry, “What gives, Will?”

“Ask Mike,” grunted Gentry sourly.

“Is it tied up with the Groat kill?”

“She’s the one who invited him out there last night,” Shayne reminded them both. “Ever since talking to her this morning I’ve had a hunch she knew more about his death than she admitted. Now it looks as though Groat’s killer had the same hunch.”

“You think she was killed to prevent her talking?” demanded Rourke, getting out a wad of copy paper.

“It’s evident she came here to tell me something important.” Shayne shrugged.

The uniformed cop appeared in the doorway, officiously holding the arm of the elevator operator who had brought Shayne up, an elderly man who held himself very erect with conscious dignity, but whose eyes sought Shayne’s in frightened appeal after they first caught a glimpse of the dead body on the floor.

Shayne said quickly, “It’s all right, Matthew. These gentlemen just want to ask you about the man you let off the elevator after he asked for my room. Remember telling me about that?”

“Of course, Mister Shayne.” He spoke with deference but without subservience. Some of his dignity deserted him as he stammered, “You reckon he the one that do that?” He fluttered one hand toward the body.

“That’s what Chief Gentry wants to find out.”

“Can you describe the man?” asked Gentry.

“Sort of… I guess. I didn’t pay too much mind, you understand. He was young, seems like. Twenty-five, maybe. Heavy built.” He hesitated. “I see them going up and coming down all day long. You know how it is.”

“Just concentrate and do your best,” Gentry encouraged him. “Notice what he wore?”

“Just a plain suit, I guess. Sort of gray-like. You know… there wasn’t nothing special I noticed.”

“Wearing a hat, Matthew?” Shayne interposed.

“I think he was… now you mention it, Mr. Shayne.”

“Reason I asked that,” Shayne told Gentry before he could comment, “is because Mr. Meany is quite bald in front for so young a man, and it’s something likely to be noticeable without a hat. Gerald Meany is also a well-cushioned young man,” he went on thoughtfully.

“The girl’s husband?” snapped Gentry. “You think he was sore about her coming here to see you, and strangled her. Jealous type, huh?”

“I’d hardly say that,” Shayne grinned wryly at recollection of the scene that morning in Beatrice’s bedroom. “However, she did make a very obvious pass at me in front of him, and he may have got the idea she was coming here for an assignation.” He shrugged. “You never know how a husband will react.”

Gentry nodded and turned to the detectives who had completed their work and were waiting for instructions. “Anything from the prints?”

“Nothing good, Chief. The place has been thoroughly cleaned today and we got Shayne’s and another set, probably the maid’s in places you’d expect. Those of the girl on the refrigerator handle and sink, and the bottle and glass in here.”

“Pick up Gerald Meany and bring him in,” Gentry directed them. “Find out where he’s been this afternoon. Get all the information you can at the Hawley residence about his and his wife’s movements this afternoon. Whether there was any quarrel… all that.” He waved the three men away, turned back to the elevator operator. “I hope you’ll be able to identify the man who asked for this room if we show him to you, Matthew.”

“Well, sir, now…” The operator paused and wet his lips, a frown of intense concentration on his face. He glanced appealingly at Shayne, and, following his glance, Rourke saw the detective nod his red head in an emphatic affirmative.

Matthew swallowed hard and said firmly, “I do believe I can. Yes, sir. I can’t rightly just describe him good, but it comes to me I’ll surely know him if I see his face again.”

“That’s exactly what we need. You stay around on tap, and I hope we’ll call on you for an identification.” He nodded a dismissal, and told the patrolman, “Go down with him and tell the boys to bring up the basket. You got anything further for me, Mike?” he asked as the others left.

“Not right now, Will. God knows,” he added strongly, “I want the guy who messed up my living room as badly as you do.” He turned his angry eyes on the body again. “I drank with that gal this morning… halfway smooched with her. If she’d only stayed sober and come clean with me then…”

Gentry clapped him on the shoulder and said gruffly, “There’s other gals for drinking and smooching. Coming, Tim?”

“I think I’ll hang around and get a little more background from Mike,” the reporter told him. “What’s that stuff in your glass, Mike?”

“This?” Shayne looked at the cognac as though he had forgotten he held it, and then tossed it off. “I’ve got a bottle of rye for you, Tim.”

Gentry went out, and as they turned back to the kitchen together, two white-coated young men appeared in the doorway carrying a long wicker basket. They looked at the body and one of them asked cheerfully, “This the place?”

“That’s a silly damned question,” Shayne said bitterly over his shoulder. “Of course this isn’t the place. I don’t feel that my living room looks lived in without at least one corpse cluttering up the floor. Grab a bottle of rye, Tim, and come on out.”

14

When the two men returned to the living room, with their drinks a few minutes later, all traces of Beatrice Meany had been removed, the detectives having taken her hat and handbag with them.

Rourke and Shayne settled down comfortably, and the reporter took a long drink of his highball before asking irritably, “In the name of God, Mike, when are you going to start filling me in on this case?”

“You know just about as much as I do,” said Shayne cautiously.

“Just hints and oblique references,” said Rourke. “About, for instance, different people who don’t want Groat’s diary published… and how much cash Cross might accept for quashing it. Why, Mike?”

“There may be two reasons.” Shayne told him first about Ezra Hawley’s will and how a fortune depended on whether Albert Hawley had predeceased his uncle or had not died until his fifth day on the life raft.

“That’s one angle,” he explained, “with the Hawley clan on one side and Mrs. Meredith on the other. Neither side knows what the diary says as yet, and so neither side actually knows whether they want it suppressed or publicized.”

“Of course, there’s still Cunningham who should be able to testify as to the exact date of Hawley’s death.”

“True enough. But Cunningham, I think, is waiting to see which way the cat jumps. Without the diary to either back him up or refute him, he would be in the enviable position of inviting the highest bid from either side to testify the way they want him to. But he’s afraid to commit himself either way so long as the diary is around.

“And there’s still another angle that bears thinking about,” Shayne went on. “The mysterious disappearance of a gardener named Leon Wallace from the Hawley employ about a year ago… just when Albert’s wife was getting her divorce… and just before Albert was inducted into the army. Jasper Groat telephoned Mrs. Wallace last evening and promised her information about her missing husband, and was murdered before he could give her that information.”

He went on to sketch in the details of his talk with Mrs. Wallace that morning while Timothy Rourke listened with intense concentration and made notes on his copy paper.

When Shayne completed his account, Rourke said thoughtfully, “Then if the Hawleys did connive, somehow, to get rid of Wallace… for some unknown reason… and paid Mrs. Wallace ten grand to keep her from making an investigation… they had a further motive for murdering Groat before he passed the dope on to Mrs. Wallace.”

“That’s about it,” Shayne agreed gloomily. “And that may explain Beatrice’s murder. She was unstable as hell, and liable to spill her guts any time to any man who condescended to stroke her hand gently while she was tight.”

“Which one Mike Shayne did condescend to do only this morning,” guessed Rourke with a grin.

“In a manner of speaking. Did you talk to Mrs. Groat?” Shayne changed the subject abruptly.

“Yeh. Running errands for you,” growled Rourke. “The situation regarding sale of the diary seems to be this: Jasper Groat made a verbal deal with Cross to accept two thousand dollars for publication rights… but nothing was actually signed between them. There seems no doubt that Cross has physical possession of the diary, and Mrs. Groat feels morally bound to go through with the deal her husband made… besides not being averse to seeing the thing printed and also picking up an easy two grand.”

“Two thousand dollars,” ejaculated Shayne. “With a fortune of a couple of million riding in the balance. She could probably get twenty times that much for suppressing it from whichever of the two parties that stands to lose when the truth is known.”

“She doesn’t know that,” Rourke reminded him. “And, like her late husband, I gather that she has a strict code of ethics. I don’t believe a hundred times two thousand would tempt her to do anything dishonest.”

“Which is exactly why Groat was murdered,” sighed Shayne. He sat very still for a moment, sunk into morose thought. “My hands are absolutely tied until I find out what the diary says about the date of Hawley’s death and Leon Wallace. Damn it, Tim, we’ve got to persuade Joel Cross to give us a look at it.”

Rourke grinned saturninely and took a long drink. “He’s stubborn as a piebald mule about being persuaded.”

Shayne got to his feet and stalked up and down the room, tugging angrily at his left ear lobe. “Perhaps the reason he’s so cagy is that he’s playing both ends against the middle… waiting to see which side makes the best offer before destroying the diary. In the meantime, we’ve got two murders on account of the damned thing.”

He halted in mid-stride at the sound of a knock on the door, strode to it and pulled it open. He stepped back with a look of surprised pleasure on his face, and said, “Come right in, Mr. Cross. We were just discussing you.”

“Who’s discussing me? Oh, it’s you, Rourke,” he said unpleasantly as he stepped inside the room. “Where is Mrs. Meany?”

“Did you expect to find her here?” asked Shayne.

“Why, yes. I agreed to meet her here. I confess I got held up and am a little late, but I assumed she would wait. She insisted it was extremely important that I should come.”

“And bring Jasper Groat’s diary with you?” asked Shayne with assumed casualness, closing the door and leaning his shoulder blades against it.

“Certainly not. Did she leave any message for me?”

“Where is the diary, Cross?”

“In a safe place where you won’t find it.” Cross started toward the door with his jaw thrust out belligerently. “If Mrs. Meany isn’t here there’s no reason I should stick around.”

Shayne remained with his back against the closed door. “I can think of several reasons, Cross. I want to know more about your appointment with Beatrice Meany here. When did she make it?”

“She telephoned me about three o’clock… if it’s any of your business,” blustered Cross.

“I think it’s very much my business when a female makes an appointment to meet a man in my apartment. That’s more than two hours ago. Why did you wait so long?”

“I told you I got tied up.” Joel Cross stopped on flat feet directly in front of Shayne and with his face not more than four inches from the redhead’s. “Are you going to get out of my way?”

Shayne said, “No. Where were you tied up, Cross?”

“I didn’t come here to be cross-examined. Certainly, not by you.” Cross was glaring angrily at Shayne, and his fists were tightly clenched by his sides. He turned his head to Rourke and demanded, “Why are you both acting so peculiarly? Where is Mrs. Meany?”

“In the morgue,” Shayne said harshly.

Cross’s head pivoted back to him. “The morgue? But… when… how was she killed?”

“I think maybe you know.” Shayne put the flat of his right palm against Cross’s chest and pushed hard, growling, “Sit down. We’ve got some talking to do.”

Cross staggered back, his face livid. He caught his balance and collapsed into a chair, looking up with frightened eyes as Shayne towered over him and demanded, “Where were you this last hour?”

“In my room working.”

“Anyone able to back up your alibi?”

“My alibi? Good God, do you think I killed her?”

“I think it quite likely. You’re the only one who knew she was coming here to see me.”

“Do you mean she was killed here?”

“Not more than half an hour ago,” Shayne said inflexibly.

“I had no reason. I didn’t even know the woman.”

“Maybe you were afraid she was getting ready to tell me everything she knew about Jasper Groat’s murder. I’m just beginning to realize you fit like a glove for that one, too. You’re the only person who had read the diary at eight o’clock last night and knew its value as an instrument of blackmail. A value that vanished as soon as Groat reached the Hawleys and told his story. Sure, you fit, Cross.” Shayne’s eyes were beginning to glow hotly. “Will Gentry is already checking your alibi for last night. If it isn’t any tighter than the one for this afternoon, you’re a swell candidate for a hangman’s noose.”

“He must be crazy,” Cross appealed to Rourke. “He can’t be serious.”

Timothy Rourke was studying Shayne’s face quizzically. “I think he’s damned serious,” he confided to his fellow reporter.

“Here’s something you don’t know, Cross. I can place you right here on the spot at the time of the murder. You fit the description of the murderer given by the elevator operator perfectly, and he’s all set to make an identification if I give the word. On the other hand, he trusts me enough so if I say the man wasn’t you, he’ll swear it wasn’t.”

“Are you threatening to frame me for murder?” asked Cross incredulously.

“I’m not sure it would be a frame. Personally, I like you for the job more and more. Without an alibi you’ll have a hard time going against an eye-witness identification.”

“Damn you, shamus!” cried Cross stridently. “You can’t get away with anything like that. I still don’t know what all this interest in the diary is about.”

“You admit you read it yesterday.”

“Sure, I read it. But I still don’t know why people are being killed on account of it.”

“You’d have one hell of a time convincing a jury of that,” snarled Shayne. “It’s written down right there in black and white, isn’t it? In Jasper Groat’s handwriting.”

“What’s written down in black and white?”

“The story of Leon Wallace’s disappearance.”

“I don’t recall any such name in the diary.” Joel Cross was becoming stiff and aggressive again.

Shayne said, “I don’t believe you. Prove it by letting me read the diary.”

“Certainly not. Why should I care whether you believe me or not? Why should I bother proving anything to you?”

“To keep your neck out of a noose,” said Shayne grimly. “For the last time… before I call the operator to identify you… do I read the diary?”

“For the last time… no,” Cross spat out.

Shayne sighed. He said to Rourke, “Bring Matthew in, Tim. I want you to get him so you’ll be able to swear I didn’t coach him in any way to make the identification.”

Timothy Rourke got to his feet with alacrity and hurried out the door.

Joel Cross started to get to his feet, protesting loudly, but Shayne shoved him back hard. “Want to change your mind and let me see the diary? I can still stall Matthew off from making a positive identification.”

“Damn you, no,” raged Cross. “I’ve never been in this hotel before and you can’t prove I have. I refuse to be intimidated by you, Shayne.”

Shayne said, “Okay. You’re asking for it.”

He went to the door as footsteps came down the hall, pulled the door open to admit Rourke, but moved in front of Matthew to prevent him from seeing Cross as he said, “Mr. Rourke has probably told you, Matthew, that we’ve got the murderer of that girl in this room right now. If you can identify him it’ll be the last girl he ever does murder.”

“Stop him,” shouted Cross wrathfully to Rourke. “He’s telling him to identify me.”

In the meantime, Matthew’s eyes had been gravely fixed on the redhead’s face. He had known Shayne closely and followed his cases intimately for many years, and had a very real admiration for the detective. Nothing Mr. Shayne did, he was convinced, could possibly be wrong, and at this moment he was convinced that for reasons of his own Shayne wanted him to identify Joel Cross.

Consequently, when Shayne stepped back with a wave of his hand, and asked, “Is that the man who asked for my room an hour ago, Matthew?” he studied the reporter carefully for a moment and then nodded unequivocally, “I sure reckon that’s him, Mr. Shayne. You sure do catch murderers fast.”

“Wait a minute, now. This is an outrage…” Cross began, but Shayne stepped close and cut him off with a low warning.

“Give me the diary, Cross. If you don’t I swear to God I’ll let the identification stick.”

“Not till hell freezes over,” Cross told him passionately. “I’m telling you, Shayne…”

The abrupt entrance of Will Gentry interrupted his outburst. He saw the elevator operator first, and said, “I was looking for you, Matthew. Want you to come down to headquarters and look at a murder suspect. We picked Gerald Meany up dead drunk in a bar near here,” he went on to Shayne and Rourke, his gaze passing incuriously over Cross. “Looks like he’s our man, all right. The Hawleys say his wife drove away from home without any explanation about three o’clock, and half an hour later her husband came down from her room, waving a penciled notation he’d found beside her telephone with the name of this hotel and the initials M.S. When none of them could tell him what it meant, he drove away after her like a bat out of hell. Looks like an open and shut case of jealous rage. Hey! What’s the matter with all of you?” he demanded in astonishment, his eyes sliding from one face to another.

Rourke said, “It looks like we’ve got two murderers, Chief. Matthew has just got through identifying my confrere, Mr. Joel Cross of the Fourth Estate, as the man he brought up in his elevator to Mike’s room at the right time for the job.”

“That’s an absolute lie,” shouted Cross. “It was not a proper identification. It’s a frame-up. Shayne put that man up to saying he saw me here this afternoon. I wasn’t here at all. I don’t know one damned thing about Mrs. Meany’s murder.”

Shayne hesitated, tugging at his ear lobe in perplexity. If he didn’t speak up now-if he let Gentry go on believing…

Matthew solved the problem for him. He straightened up with dignity and said, “Mr. Shayne is a fine gentleman. I tell you, Mr. Chief of Police, if Mr. Shayne say this man is the murderer, he sure enough is. And I stand square behind what I say the first time. I sure reckon that’s the man.”

15

“That sounds pretty convincing,” Gentry said to Shayne. “What else have you got on him besides Matthew’s identification? What’s for a motive?”

“I tell you it’s not a real identification,” raged Cross almost tearfully. “Shayne put him up to it…”

Gentry and Shayne both ignored him, and Shayne told the chief: “Remember I told you the Groat diary had to be at the bottom of all this. And don’t forget that Cross is the only man who’s read the diary. That gives him a motive for knocking off Groat last night before he could talk to the Hawleys. And I’ve felt right along that Beatrice was killed by Groat’s murderer to prevent her talking to me. Add to that the fact that Cross was the only one who knew she was coming here… and why she was coming here…”

“But I didn’t know why,” Cross burst in. “When she telephoned to ask me to meet her here, she didn’t say…”

“So she asked you to meet her here?” Gentry transferred his attention to Cross. “When was this?”

“About three o’clock,” he muttered. “But she didn’t tell me…”

“Three o’clock?” Gentry ostentatiously looked at his watch. “You weren’t in any hurry to keep the date.”

“I got tied up with some work,” Cross said defensively. “Look here, for God’s sake,” he went on strongly. “If I had come here earlier and murdered her, do you think I would have returned brazenly and admitted I had an earlier appointment with her?”

“I think that’s exactly what he would have done under those circumstances,” Shayne told Gentry blandly. “To give the appearance of innocence in case someone else knew about the appointment-me, for instance-and began wondering why he didn’t keep it.”

“Where were you at eight o’clock last night?” demanded Gentry.

“How do I know? I haven’t thought about it. God, I’m all mixed up. You can’t take these outrageous accusations seriously.”

Gentry studied the reporter’s flushed face for a long moment from heavy-lidded eyes. Then he told Shayne in a troubled voice, “I’m not too crazy about this, Mike. What about the woman’s husband? If this is some kind of a frame you’ve engineered with Matthew, and Gerald Meany is actually guilty, we’ll never in God’s world hang it on him now after Matthew has identified Cross.”

Shayne shrugged. He said, “Frankly, Will, I like Cross a lot better for both killings than Meany.”

“Yeh,” said Gentry thoughtfully. “He’s more the type. I get an impression Meany is pretty much of a weakling. And another good thing about Cross is that there won’t be any damned unwritten law to mess up a case against him.”

“Stop it!” cried Joel Cross with a note of terror breaking his voice. “Stop discussing me as impersonally as though you were deciding which horse to back in the fifth at Hialeah.”

Gentry didn’t look at him. He told Shayne gruffly, “God help you, Mike, if you’re pulling one of your fast ones this time.”

Shayne started to protest, but Gentry waved it aside wearily. “I’ve seen you at work before, don’t forget. Cross may be our man,” he went on judicially. “I hope he is. But if he isn’t, Mike, you’ve handed Meany his freedom on a silver platter by working a phony identification through Matthew here. God help you if you’ve done that.”

“Even if he isn’t the killer, he’ll be safer in jail tonight,” argued Shayne. “If not Cross… the killer is still after the diary known to be in Cross’s possession.”

Gentry said, “Yeh,” noncommittally. He straightened his heavy shoulders and said, “Come along with me, Cross.”

“Where to?” the reporter asked thinly.

“To jail.”

“But you can’t do that. You’ve no evidence…”

“I can’t do anything else,” Gentry told him gruffly. “You’ve been identified by a reputable eye-witness. Come along.” He took Cross firmly by the arm and led him out.

There was silence in the room. Rourke took a sip from his highball and yawned widely, carefully avoiding looking at either Shayne or Matthew.

The elderly man stood erect near the open door looking at Shayne beseechingly. He started, “Before heaven, Mr. Shayne…” But Shayne shut him off with a decisive shake of his head and a warning glance at Rourke. “You did nobly, Matthew. You trust me, don’t you?”

“I sure do, Mr. Shayne. I thank God I do.”

Shayne got up and put his hand on Matthew’s shoulder and said kindly, “Go on back to your elevator and keep on trusting me.”

He closed the door and stood looking somberly at Timothy Rourke after Matthew went out. Rourke sighed and took a deep swallow from his glass. He leaned his head back and stretched thin legs far out in front of him and his cynical eyes studied the ceiling. “Congratulations, Michael, for one of the fastest and neatest frames I ever saw pulled.”

“Look, Tim. You heard Matthew…”

“I heard and saw a lot of things,” said Rourke wearily. “When Matthew was first asked whether he would be able to identify the killer and he hesitated, I saw you give him the nod and heard him respond. He would have identified me if you’d given him the go ahead. Why? Because the simple soul trusts you. That’s why. Because he trusts Mike Shayne, by God!”

Shayne sank into a chair and said bitterly, “I was just trying to pressure the fool into giving me a look at the diary. I had him going, too. If Gentry hadn’t walked in just when he did and spoiled it, Cross would have come through.”

“But Gentry did walk in. And now you’re stuck with a phony identification.”

“Hell, Tim. The chances are Cross is the murderer.”

“If he isn’t?”

“That diary is the answer, Tim. If I could get hold of that, I’d know.”

“Joel doesn’t seem disposed to let it out of his hands,” said Rourke dryly.

“Why, Tim? Unless it will prove him guilty. Is that why he’s hanging onto it like a leech?”

“Could be.”

“For God’s sake, you talk to him and make him understand how important the diary is. Now that he’s actually arrested and has a chance to realize the kind of spot he’s in, he may not be so stubborn. If he’s innocent the diary will prove it. And don’t forget, the killer knows that, too. So he’ll be more anxious than ever to get hold of it and destroy it… or at least prevent its being published. Explain all that to Cross, Tim, and induce him to give the thing to you for safekeeping.”

“So I can take it straight to my good friend Michael Shayne and give him a chance to cash in for a million or so? By God, Mike, that’s why you let the poor devil go on to jail, isn’t it? Hoping it will jar him loose from the diary.”

“Not entirely. But if he’s innocent all he has to do is produce the diary to prove it. You explain that to him, Tim, and…”

“Nuh-uh.” Rourke shook his head emphatically. “In the first place he hates my guts and figures I’m in cahoots with you and wouldn’t listen to a word from me. In the second place, I won’t play patsy for you, Mike. Not this time. The frame you just hung on Joel Cross stinks in my nostrils like a five-day-dead skunk. Count me out of any devious schemes for getting hold of the diary.”

“You’ve got me wrong, Tim.” Shayne’s voice was sorrowful and pained. “I’m thinking about Cross… if he is innocent. Hasn’t the News got a lawyer who can reason with him?”

His telephone rang. Timothy Rourke lit a cigarette while he answered it. It was the desk clerk. “Gee, Mr. Shayne, that sure was too bad about the girl. Right in your room, huh? And I thought she was real nice, too. They say you already got the murderer, huh? Fast work, I’d say.”

Shayne asked, “Did you call just to congratulate me, Dick?”

“Not really. Uh…” Dick lowered his voice conspiratorily. “Western Union just telephoned a message addressed to Mrs. Theodore Meredith here. I took it like you said, Mr. Shayne. This is it: You know utterly impossible me to come. Call me tonight. Extremely anxious. Theodore. You got that, Mr. Shayne?”

“Thanks a lot, Dick.” Shayne hung up, his brow deeply furrowed. He turned about, rubbing his angular jaw in deep thought, as though he had completely forgotten Rourke’s presence.

He opened the center drawer of the table after a long moment, searched among a litter of papers for a time and withdrew an aged and dog-eared address book. He thumbed through it meditatively, then lifted the telephone and told the switchboard operator, “Person-to-person to Chicago, honey. I want to talk to Benjamin Ames. I have an old number for him that you might try first.” He read off the number from the book and she said, “Thank you, Mr. Shayne,” and he waited with the receiver to his ear.

There were some buzzes and indistinguishable bits of conversation from various operators throughout the country, and then he heard a telephone ringing in Chicago. It stopped on the third ring and a nasal voice said, “Hello?”

“Is that Ben Ames?”

“Right. Who’s calling?”

“Mike Shayne, Ben.” Shayne waited, a slow grin breaking over his face as Ames exclaimed, “Shayne? Is it really you, Mike? Where in hell are you? In Chi?”

“No, I’m in Miami, Ben. Still running that cheap agency of yours?”

“It ain’t so cheap any more,” Ames told him happily. “Got three ops on the payroll steady.”

“Congratulations. Then maybe you can do a fast job for me.”

“Sure thing, Mike.” Ames’s voice became businesslike.

“Got a pencil handy?”

“Shoot.”

Shayne had the memo he had written in Kurt Davis’s office, and he read from it slowly: “Theodore Meredith.” He gave the street address and had Ames read it back, and went on: “I need a picture of Meredith fast. I don’t think he’ll give you one, Ben, so you’ll probably have to steal it. Take a photog out, and grab a front view. Get a print made fast and get it on a plane to me tonight. Let’s see, Ben.” He scrabbled among some papers in the open drawer and lifted out an airline schedule. “There’s a Mid-American plane leaving Chicago for Miami at two-fifteen tomorrow morning. Get a print of Meredith on it, Ben. To save time, hand it to the stewardess addressed to me, huh? With a ten-spot. I’ll meet the plane in Miami and pick it up from her. Got that?”

“I got it,” Ben Ames said, “and I’ll handle it myself. Any angle for approaching this Meredith?”

“He’s in the headlines here,” said Shayne, “as the current husband of the ex Mrs. Albert Hawley, recently lost at sea in an airplane accident. Albert, that is, who was lost. Mrs. Meredith is down here trying to claim Hawley’s estate, which may run into millions. That gives you a reason for interviewing him and grabbing a pic… whether he likes it or not.”

“Sure, Mike. Will do.”

“Call me at this number before two A.M. if you don’t make the grade. If I don’t hear to the contrary I’ll meet that plane in the morning.”

Ames said, “Right,” and Shayne hung up.

“Now what in hell is all that about?” asked Rourke. “Why a picture of Mrs. Hawley’s current husband?”

“Just to verify a hunch I’ve got.” Shayne went back to his chair and picked up his glass and the conversation where it had broken off.

“This is really the paper’s business, Tim. Don’t help me out, damn it, but think about the spot the News is in with their fair-haired boy under suspicion of murder. Who’s your paper’s lawyer?”

“Alfred Drake is on annual retainer to bail out any of the boys who get out of line.”

“Get on to him,” urged Shayne. “Or onto the publisher and tell them the facts of life. Explain how important that diary is in proving Joel Cross’s innocence, and for God’s sake have it picked up from wherever Cross has it stashed and put in a safe place. Damn it, Tim, I’m really worried about Cross. I admit I pulled a fast one on him trying to force him to give me the diary… and now it’s backfired. How do you think I’m going to feel if the diary vanishes with proof of his innocence with it?”

“I don’t know.” Rourke studied him cynically and sighed. “I just don’t know, Mike. First you frame a guy, and then…”

“Look,” said Shayne virtuously. “I’m not asking you to get the diary for me. All I’m asking is that Drake, or someone like that, get to Cross in jail and convince him how important the diary is. Goddam it, I don’t want to be responsible for an innocent man being hung.” There was a ring of passionate sincerity in his voice that convinced Rourke despite his doubts.

He emptied his glass and stood up, saying, “I guess maybe you do mean it this time. I’ll talk to Drake myself.”

Shayne got up and went to the door with him. “There’ll be headlines for you tomorrow morning, Tim. I promise it. If you see nothing happens to the diary.”

Rourke promised, “I’ll do my best.” Shayne watched him go down the corridor and then closed the door with a feverish glint in his gray eyes. He went back to the telephone and asked for the number of a local detective agency, and when it answered, said, “That you, Ned? Mike Shayne. I’m tied up and need a tailing job done. Got a man available? Fine. Here it is: There’s a Daily News reporter in jail on a murder charge. Name of Joel Cross. Got that? Shortly, at least within an hour or so, I expect him to be visited in jail by the newspaper’s mouthpiece. A lawyer named Alfred Drake. I want to know if and when Drake sees Cross. Got all that?”

Shayne took a deep breath as he listened. “That’s right. Plant a good man inside where he’ll know who visits Cross. The moment Drake shows, have him telephone me here and then wait outside to finger Drake for me when he leaves.” He gave Ned his telephone number and hung up, and then immediately called Lucy Hamilton’s home number.

When she answered, he told her, “Things are beginning to break on the Groat case, angel, but I may need Mrs. Groat to help tie it up. Do you think you could bring her over to my place pretty soon to help me find her husband’s murderer?”

“I’m sure I can, Michael. How soon?”

“Better make it right away… though we may have a long wait. I just don’t know.”

Shayne hung up before Lucy could ask any questions, and suddenly realized he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He went into the kitchen to stir something up while he waited for Lucy and Mrs. Groat to arrive.

16

An hour later, Shayne was draining his second cup of coffee royal and Lucy Hamilton and Mrs. Groat were seated close together on the sofa. For perhaps the tenth time since arriving with the older woman, Lucy pleaded, “I do wish you’d give us some idea what we’re waiting for, Michael.”

“I told you… a telephone call.”

“From whom? And what happens then? If we only knew what to expect, we’d be prepared.”

“I’ve told you several times,” he reminded her patiently, “that you’re better off without knowing ahead. You’d only argue about it if you knew.” He glanced at his watch as he set the cup down. “Besides, it may not come off at all. If the call doesn’t come through pretty soon…”

At that moment the instrument at his elbow rang. He snatched it up and said, “Shayne speaking.”

A man’s voice said, “Ned Frazier told me to call you as soon as a lawyer named Drake came to visit Joel Cross.”

“Right. Is Drake there?”

“Just went in to see Cross.”

“Hang around the entrance until I get there. About five minutes. Do you know me by sight?”

“I’ve seen you around.”

“Good.” Shayne slammed the phone down and got to his feet, telling the two women, “Come along down to my car.”

He hustled them out of the apartment and down through the lobby to his sedan parked near the entrance. He put Mrs. Groat in the back seat, told Lucy, “Get in front with me. You may have to do some driving.”

As he drove rapidly toward the city jail, he explained to her, “I’m going to park in front of the jail and wait for a man to come out, and then follow him. If he goes on foot, I’ll follow the same way, and you mosey along behind in the car without letting me out of sight.”

“Who’s the man, Michael?”

“Alfred Drake. A lawyer. I don’t know what he looks like myself.”

He said no more, but concentrated on his driving, and a few minutes later pulled into the curb in front of the jail in a spot marked Official Parking Only.

As he got out under a street light, a toothy man wearing a faded gray sweater and a cap sauntered forward. “Aren’t you Mike Shayne?”

“Right.”

“I’m Tinkham. With Frazier. Your man’s still inside. He arrived in a cab.”

Shayne nodded, moving back to stand beside his car where his features were shaded. The private detective moved with him, and said, “Drake’s middle-aged. Gray mustache cut short and a panama hat. Blue serge suit and a potbelly. Five-ten. About a hundred-eighty.”

Shayne nodded and got out cigarettes. Tinkham took one from the pack, and they smoked quietly. Inside the car beside him, Lucy put her hand through the open window and touched his arm, and whispered, “Why did you want Mrs. Groat along, Michael? I don’t see…”

He said, “Just follow my lead and you will.”

A man came down the steps from the jail. Tinkham nudged Shayne and said, “That’s him,” and walked away briskly.

Drake stepped to the curb and looked up and down the street for a cab. Shayne unobtrusively circled around behind his car and slid under the wheel. A cruising taxi pulled up at the lawyer’s signal, and he got in.

Shayne started his motor and waited until the taxi started to turn the next corner, then swung out behind it and flicked on his lights. He followed along a full block behind until the taxi turned south on Biscayne Boulevard and stopped in front of the News Tower.

Drake was getting out as he cruised slowly past, and he edged in to the curb between two parked cars, nodding with satisfaction when he saw the cab did not pull away.

He cut his motor and told Lucy, “This is it. I think Drake will be coming back out in a minute. I’m going back to his cab and wait. As soon as you see him come out, bring Mrs. Groat back to me with you. I’m going to need her.”

He sauntered back to the cab with its flag down and motor idling, and asked the driver, “Want a fare?”

“Sorry, bo. I’m taken. Party just went into the News asked me to wait.”

Shayne leaned on the door and got out a pack of cigarettes and offered the driver one. He said, “Thanks, but I don’t smoke. Quit two months ago… just like that.” He snapped his fingers loudly. “I read this here book, see? How to Quit Smoking. By some guy named Breen, or something like that. You know what?”

“Sure,” said Shayne. “You quit smoking. Same man has recently written another How to Quit Drinking. That one I’m staying away from like poison.”

He heard footsteps on the concrete behind him. He turned and stood solidly in the lawyer’s way. “Are you Drake?”

“I am.” Drake looked him over and added, “I’m sorry but I don’t believe I know you.”

Shayne said, “You don’t.” He saw Lucy and Mrs. Groat coming toward them and said, “There’s a little matter of stolen property, Mr. Drake,” making his voice loud and hard.

“Stolen property?” The lawyer drew himself up stiffly. “I don’t know what…”

“Belonging to Mrs. Jasper Groat,” Shayne continued harshly. “That diary you just picked up in the News office. This is Mrs. Groat who demands the return of her property.”

The lawyer blinked at Mrs. Groat and looked bewildered. “I don’t understand at all.”

“The hell you don’t,” snarled Shayne. “It’s right here in your coat pocket.” He took a quick step forward and pinned Drake’s arms to his paunchy body, reaching down with his left hand to grab the top of a leather-bound book protruding from Drake’s side coat pocket.

He released Drake and shoved him back, handing the book to Mrs. Groat and asking her, “Do you identify this as being your dead husband’s property, Mrs. Groat?”

“This is an outrage,” wheezed Drake. “The News has purchased publication rights in that diary. I have every right…”

“Not purchased, Drake. Nothing has been signed and not a penny has changed hands to validate the transaction. Do you identify it, Mrs. Groat?”

“Oh, yes. This is Jasper’s.” The widow was scanning the pages under the street light with tears in her eyes.

“You can’t resort to violence,” protested Drake. “I’ll call an officer and have you arrested.”

“That’ll be just fine,” said Shayne indifferently. “There’s nothing I’d like better than to have the police in on this. It’ll make a nice story… concealing stolen property and suppressing evidence in a murder case. Go right ahead and call a cop. And you hold onto that diary in the meantime,” he told Mrs. Groat. “It belongs to you and you have a perfect right to it. Are you calling the police?” he demanded of Drake.

“I’m afraid… I… I guess I didn’t fully realize…”

“Fair enough,” said Shayne, turning away and taking Lucy and Mrs. Groat firmly by their arms and leading them back to his car. He helped them in, then trotted around and got under the wheel and whirled away while Drake still stood on the sidewalk looking after him undecidedly.

“Michael!” gasped Lucy. “You can’t get away with it, can you? Mr. Groat did agree to let them publish it.”

“I have got away with it,” he told her cheerfully. “Don’t forget I just earned a thousand-dollar fee from Mrs. Meredith. That’ll help bail me out if Drake decides to prefer charges… which I don’t think he will.”

He made a U-turn on the Boulevard and drove back northward in the outer lane, glancing aside as he passed the News building again, and seeing Alfred Drake just getting into his taxi.

He stopped in front of Mrs. Groat’s apartment building, and said, “I need the diary just for tonight, Mrs. Groat. Do you trust it to me?”

“Of course, Mr. Shayne.” She put the book in his hand.

“You go in with her, Lucy.” Shayne put his arm tightly about her slender shoulders and grinned at the look of fright on her face. He bent to brush her lips reassuringly with his, and said, “See that she’s securely locked in before you leave, angel, and you keep your door locked tonight, Mrs. Groat. Don’t let anyone in on any pretext. If you have any phone calls or any callers, refer them to me.”

Back in his own sitting room, he double-locked-the door and laid the leather-bound book on the center table, staring down at it with pursed lips, working them as though he tasted something good. He opened it to the flyleaf and read in boldly legible script: The Private Journal of Jasper Groat.

Like a child prolonging the pleasure of a treat by putting it off as long as possible, Shayne firmly closed the diary and went into the kitchen where he put ice in a tall glass and filled it with water, poured out four ounces of John Exshaw in another glass and carried them back and set them side by side on the table. Then he settled himself in a chair and lit a cigarette, and took an appreciative swallow of cognac, chasing it with a sip of ice water.

Then he opened Jasper Groat’s diary and began reading the entries in the dead man’s handwriting.

The first entry in the journal was dated more than six months previously, and Shayne flipped the pages impatiently, noting the dates, until he came to the first entry written by Groat after the airplane went down in the ocean and the only three survivors were precariously afloat on the life raft.

It was a graphic account of the sudden failure of the plane’s engines and an expertly maneuvered crash-landing in a stormy sea, in which Groat gave unstinting praise to Peter Cunningham’s courage and physical strength and stubborn determination which had enabled the two of them to launch an inflated life raft while the others perished. It had been Cunningham, too, who had snatched the disabled soldier, Albert Hawley, from a watery grave and hauled him aboard the raft, and Groat paid tribute to his unselfishness by noting that a third person would diminish their slim chance of survival on account of the scanty rations of food and water aboard.

It appeared from the beginning that Hawley was badly hurt internally and that Groat had little real hope of keeping him alive for many days.

Shayne glanced at the entries with increasing interest, until on the third day, Groat had written: Hawley worse today. Vomited some blood after breakfast and is manifestly weaker. I prayed for him but he refused to join me in seeking solace in God. Pete sneaked some extra water at dawn. Pretended I did not know.

Later that same day, he noted: Hawley failing rapidly. Repeated the Lord’s Prayer with me. I trust he will find God.

On the morning of the fourth day, he wrote: Hawley very bad this morning. Feel sure he will not survive long. Something preys on his conscience. I have urged him to cleanse his soul before God but he stubbornly refuses.

And late that afternoon: Hawley realizes he is dying. Repeated the Twenty-Third Psalm with me, and am sure he received comfort. I do wish he would confess his sins before the inevitable end.

And on the morning of the fifth day! Shayne paused in his absorbed reading and took a deep drink. He stubbed out his cigarette and braced himself. This was the crucial entry.

His stomach muscles contracted as he read: The soldier died quietly during the night. I read a simple service this morning and consigned his earthly remains to the sea. Pete pretended to sneer, but think he was deeply affected. I have a great weight on my conscience and must struggle with it. Pete crept close to us last night and heard a portion of the dying man’s confession. I do not know how much. He acted peculiarly this morning and made several attempts to induce me to tell him what was confided to me as a death-bed confession. I must trust God to help me reach a just decision.

Shayne exhaled slowly and laid the diary down. So Albert Hawley had died during his fourth night on the raft. Before his Uncle Ezra had passed on.

Mrs. Meredith was not legally entitled to one cent of Ezra’s fortune!

He picked up the journal and glanced on slowly, seeking further reference to Hawley and to his deathbed secret. There were vague references to the Dying confession, and arguments with Pete who will not admit how much of the truth he heard from the dying man’s lips.

And there was a final notation a day before the two men were rescued from the raft: Pete argues strongly that we would be fools to let such a splendid opportunity for blackmail pass. He admits he overheard enough that night to realize the importance of the dead soldier’s secret. I pray God for strength to withstand this temptation.

Groat had not trusted Albert Hawley’s secret to the pages of his diary. Nowhere in the journal was the name of Leon Wallace mentioned.

Michael Shayne laid the leather-bound book aside with a deep sigh after he had convinced himself of this fact. Joel Cross had told the truth after all. But Shayne now knew that Peter Cunningham knew enough to plan a blackmail attempt on someone, and that Jasper Groat had vigorously opposed the plan.

That much Shayne had guessed before reading the diary. The one new fact he had learned was that if the diary were made public, the Hawley family and not Albert’s ex-wife stood to inherit Ezra Hawley’s estate.

He lit another cigarette and settled back with a blank look of concentration on his gaunt face, tugging at his left ear lobe and taking alternate sips of cognac and ice water while his mind went to work on the intriguing problem of how best to handle this new situation to enable Michael Shayne to make the most bucks out of it.

His cognac glass was empty by the time he had worked out a plausible line of action. The ultimate result depended on a lot of imponderables, but those were the chances a man had to take to make a living.

He lifted the telephone and called the Biscayne Hotel and got Mrs. Meredith on the line. He identified himself and said, “I’m at my place and I have Groat’s diary here, Matie. I’ve just finished reading it.”

He heard her quickly indrawn breath. “And… when did Albert die?”

He grinned at the instrument and said, “I suggest you come over and read it for yourself. That way, there’ll be no question in your mind whether I’m telling the truth or not. Get hold of Jake Sims and bring him along,” he went on. “After you’ve both looked at the diary, I have a proposition to make you.”

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Her voice was low and furious. “He would have to die one day too soon.”

Shayne chuckled at the venom in her voice. “Come over and read it for yourself.”

He hung up and called Lucy Hamilton. “In bed yet?”

“Not quite. Just brushing my teeth.”

“I have need of the services of an efficient secretary,” Shayne told her. “In about half an hour. Bring your notebook prepared to take some dictation.”

“Michael! At this time of night?”

“It won’t wait until morning,” he told her cheerfully. “And I need you for a chaperon anyway. Mrs. Meredith is on her way over.”

Lucy snapped, “I’ll be right there, Michael,” and hung up. He poured another dollop of cognac and settled back to wait for his company.

17

Matie Meredith and Jake Sims were the first to arrive at Shayne’s apartment. Mrs. Meredith’s features were set, her full lips angrily compressed as she demanded, “Cut out the silly suspense and tell us the truth.”

Shayne closed the door behind the pair, and told her smoothly, “You’ll read it for yourself soon enough. Want a drink first for a bracer?”

“Never mind the drink, Shayne. How’d you get your hands on the diary? How many people have read it?” Sims moved toward the center of the room, his ferrety eyes searching about for the diary.

“I had to frame one guy on a murder rap,” Shayne told him, “and then assault a respected member of the local bar in order to earn a thousand-buck fee.” He went to the center table and brushed Sims aside, pulled a drawer open and paused with his hand on the leather-bound journal. “So far as I know, only Joel Cross has read the diary… and I don’t think he realizes the importance of the date of Albert Hawley’s death to Mrs. Meredith. Keep that fact firmly in mind as you read the crucial entry. Then I have a proposition to make Mrs. Meredith.”

He lifted the book out and flipped the pages while Jake Sims and his client crowded close and peered avidly but not very hopefully at the handwritten entries.

Shayne slowed turning the pages after the crash-landing was noted. “Check the dates carefully,” he told them. “Here’s the first day after the wreck. The second and third days. The fourth day.” He paused tantalizingly. “And the morning of the fifth day.” He held the diary open so they could both read Jasper Groat’s entry for the fifth morning: The soldier died quietly during the night.

Matie Meredith did not waste time reading further. She stepped back and said bitterly, “I think I’ve known the truth all along. I’ve kidded myself trying to think the diary would say otherwise, but I think I knew I was kidding myself.”

Sims was still leaning over Shayne’s shoulder, reading from the page. He reached for the book with clawlike fingers, croaking with suppressed rage, “Lemme read a little more. Maybe I can…”

“Nuh-uh.” Shayne pushed him back ungently, closing the diary and placed it in his hip pocket. “I earned my grand by giving you this prepublication look at the diary. Nothing was said about letting it out of my possession. Either of you in a mood for that drink now?”

“I’ll have one. Thank you,” said Matie, moving to the sofa and sitting down to cross her ankles pensively. “Scotch on the rocks?” She regarded him steadily with a searching, probing gaze.

“One Scotch on the rocks,” Shayne repeated affably. “You, Jake?”

Sims shook his head. “I think I’d better stay sober to see what sort of proposition you have in mind.”

There was a light rap on the door as Shayne nodded. He went to it and admitted Lucy Hamilton, bareheaded and carrying a bulky leather bag on a strap over her shoulder. He said, “Just in time, angel. I’m taking orders for drinks.”

“I didn’t know it was a party.” Her brown eyes glittered as she took in Mrs. Meredith apparently making herself very much at home on the sofa. “You told me to bring my notebook.”

“So I did,” agreed Shayne.

“So it’s business,” she said a little too sharply. “And you know I never drink during business hours.”

Shayne said, “Sit down, then, and make like a secretary.” He carried a bottle of Scotch into the kitchen and reappeared after a moment with two cubes of ice floating in amber liquid which he handed to Matie.

Then he seated himself comfortably and poured himself a moderate portion of cognac, explained to Lucy, “Our client has just read the bad news in Groat’s diary. Her ex-husband died in the night preceding his uncle’s death. Thus he did not inherit, and not one cent of Ezra Hawley’s fortune will be legally passed on to Mrs. Meredith. I think the situation is clear to all of us.” He paused to glance at Matie and Sims.

She sipped from her glass and kept her eyes downcast without replying, while Sims prowled nervously about the room and exclaimed, “If no one else has seen that crucial entry… what’s to prevent our destroying it here and now? With it out of the way, Cunningham is perfectly willing to swear to anything that will assure Mrs. Meredith getting the money.”

Shayne said dryly, “I’m sure Pete Cunningham is perfectly willing to perjure himself to help Matie out. But don’t forget that Joel Cross, the reporter, has read the diary.”

“But he murdered the Hawley daughter, didn’t he? Right here in this room? I heard all about it on a newscast. His testimony won’t bear much weight if he’s in jail accused of murder.”

“I don’t know how long he’ll stay in jail. On the other hand,” Shayne went on briskly, “we have no reason to suppose he knew the importance of the date when he skimmed through the diary, and it probably made little impression on him. So it’s quite possible he wouldn’t dispute the date later on… without the diary to back him up.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” said Sims eagerly. “So let’s burn the thing here and now.”

“We can hardly do that. It’s Mrs. Groat’s property now.”

“Nuts!” snorted Sims. “What’s it worth to her? A few thousand bucks, perhaps, that the News will pay for permission to print it. We can pay her double or triple whatever they offer.”

“There is that,” agreed Shayne. “You probably can make a deal with her for cash. But there’s still my conscience to consider. Don’t forget, I’ve read the diary… and I realize the importance of the date of Hawley’s death even if Cross doesn’t.”

There was a little silence in the room. Then Matie Meredith lifted her head and opened her eyes wide and asked clearly, “What is the current quotation for Michael Shayne’s conscience?”

He said, “Let’s not be crude about it. There’s my license to consider as well as my conscience. My position here in Miami.”

“All right,” said Sims bitterly. “How much, Shayne? You’ve got us over a barrel and we know it as well as you do.”

“How right you are,” said Shayne affably. “So I’ve been trying to figure out a way to protect myself and at the same time do Mrs. Meredith a favor and make a buck for my declining years. Got your notebook, Lucy?”

She had been sitting at the table, stiff and silent, all the time they had been talking, and now she nodded and patted her bag but made no move to open it. “You can’t do it, Michael,” she said flatly. “It’s illegal and dishonest to suppress the evidence that’s in the diary. No amount of money in the world is enough to pay you to do a thing like that.”

He said lightly, “Suppose you let me decide that, Lucy.”

“I won’t let you do it,” she raged. “If you’re so infatuated with that woman smirking there on your couch that you’re willing to sell your soul to her for a mess of pottage… Well, I won’t let you do it. You’ve all been talking and acting as though I weren’t here,” she stormed on, her voice choked with tears. “Well, I’m a witness, too, don’t forget that. I’ll get up in court and testify that Albert died before his uncle. And no one can stop me.”

Shayne said, “Cut the histrionics, and get out your notebook, Lucy. You’re still on my payroll, remember? I want you to take this down in shorthand exactly as I give it to you. We can discuss the ethics of it later.”

While she hesitated, glaring at him mutinously, he added in an unexpectedly gentle tone, “You’ve worked with me for a long time, angel, and you’ve seen me cut corners before and always come out on top. Trust me a little bit. This is the big payoff, damn it. The one I’ve been waiting for a long time. Don’t spoil it with your little-girl tantrums. You’ll be riding around in a baby-blue convertible wearing mink if we pull this off.” His eyes glittered queerly as he stared her down. “Get out your notebook.”

She bit her underlip hard, and then dropped her gaze. Her fingers were unsteady as she undid the snap on her bag, groped inside to withdraw a stenographer’s notebook and half a dozen pencils. But they became steady as she opened the book in front of her and selected a pencil.

“This has to be very carefully worded,” Shayne explained dispassionately, “so I’ll have a document that will stand up in court after it’s all over and not lose my license on account of it. Let’s see now.” He took a sip of cognac and leaned back and studied the ceiling and began dictating.

“Memorandum of agreement between Mrs. Matie Meredith of Chicago, Illinois, and Michael Shayne, private detective, Miami, Florida, this date. Paragraph.

“Mrs. Meredith, the divorced wife of Albert Hawley and his legal heir, hereby retains Michael Shayne in his licensed profession as private detective to act for her in securing the necessary evidence to prove in court that her ex-husband was the legal heir to his uncle, Ezra Hawley, on said Ezra Hawley’s death.

“If Michael Shayne is successful in his endeavor, and if Albert Hawley is declared Ezra Hawley’s legal heir by a probate court and thereby inherits Ezra Hawley’s estate, then, for his invaluable services in bringing about this desired end, Mrs. Matie Meredith agrees to pay Michael Shayne one-quarter of Ezra Hawley’s estate… um… after deduction of inheritance taxes. Make that clear, Lucy, that my one-quarter share shall be based on the net amount after deduction of State and Federal taxes. Don’t you think that’s fair, Matie?” he added easily as Lucy’s pencil ceased racing over her shorthand pad.

“I think it’s highway robbery,” she choked out. “A quarter of the whole thing? My God. There’ll be over a million after taxes.”

“That’s what I understood,” he told her happily. “A quarter of that will make a nice little nest-egg for Lucy’s and my old age.”

“It’s preposterous,” burst out Jake Sims. “A quarter-million dollars just for destroying that diary in your hip pocket.”

“The agreement says nothing whatever about destroying a diary,” Shayne reminded him. “It doesn’t specify what my services shall consist of. I’m not a lawyer, but I believe it protects both of us from any charge or suspicion of wrongdoing or complicity.”

“The agreement is worded very cleverly,” conceded Sims. “Substitute ten or even twenty thousand for your first absurd demand, and I’ll advise my client to sign it at once.”

Shayne patted the diary in his hip pocket and said, “It’s a quarter of the estate or nothing.” He turned to Mrs. Meredith and said, “That applies to your share, too. Three-quarters… or nothing. Would you rather have nothing? Just say the word and Lucy can tear up her notes and you two can get out while I turn Groat’s diary over to the chief of police for safe-keeping as evidence in a couple of murders.”

While she hesitated, her eyes blazing venom at him, Jake Sims snarled, “He means it, Mrs. Meredith. I know Shayne. He’s perfectly capable of doing what he threatens if you don’t sign that agreement.”

“And then Jake wouldn’t get his cut either,” Shayne pointed out sympathetically. “Make up your mind, Matie.”

She said, “I’ll sign… goddam your greedy soul to hell. If I hadn’t hired you to get hold of the diary…”

“Exactly,” said Shayne dryly. “Then you wouldn’t have been faced with this decision. My typewriter’s in the bedroom,” he told Lucy briskly. “Make three clean copies of that agreement, with places for Mrs. Meredith and me to sign, with you and Sims witnessing our signatures. More Scotch, Matie?”

She held out her glass wordlessly, but as Shayne got up to take it from her, Lucy Hamilton laid down her pencil and said in a carefully precise voice, “I shan’t do it, Michael.”

He frowned, tugging at his left ear lobe. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I shan’t do it. I’m not going to let you do it, Michael. You’ll hate yourself the rest of your life if you do. Don’t you see? You’re stealing the money from the rightful heirs. From the Hawleys to whom it legally belongs. This is stealing, Michael. It isn’t just another one of your smart gimmicks where you play god and get paid for it. You can’t do this. I won’t let you do it.”

He studied her flushed face with raised eyebrows. “How about that mink coat, angel? And the convertible. Think how you’d look whooping it up around town with your curls flying in the wind and all the wolves whistling…”

“Stop it, Michael!” Lucy’s voice rose shrilly. “You know how I feel about mink coats and convertibles. I’ve done without both of them for a good many years, and I can keep on doing without them. Stop trying to kid about this, Michael.” Her voice became pleading, with a heartbroken sob in it. She completely disregarded the other two people in the room, baring her heart to him as though they were utterly alone.

“I’ve admired you and looked up to you, Michael. I’ve watched you cut corners in the past, but it was always for an ultimate good. Damn you, I’ve believed in you even when things looked black as hades. And you’ve always justified my belief, darling. Don’t do this, Michael. I beg you. Do you hear me? I beg you.” She stood up from the table facing him, her arms forward and out from her sides, palms upward.

There were deep trenches in his cheeks as he faced her unwaveringly. “You’ve trusted me in the past, angel. Keep on trusting me.”

“How can I?” It was a despairing cry, wrenched out of the uttermost depths of her being. “This is absolutely nasty-crooked. I don’t care whether there’s a quarter of a cent or a quarter of a million dollars involved. Please! If you care one tiny little iota about me, don’t do this.”

He said, “You know I love you, angel.”

She said, “I know you’ve pretended to love me. Prove it. Tell Mrs. Meredith and her crooked shyster to get out of here. Give the diary to Will Gentry tonight and wash your hands of the whole thing.”

Michael Shayne shook his red head slowly from side to side. In a tone of real regret, he said, “I can’t pass up an opportunity like this, angel. Another one like it may never come along again. Go ahead and type out three copies,” he added persuasively. “I give you my word you’ll never regret it. A quarter million bucks, Lucy?” His voice was wondering, almost awed.

“I won’t do it. I’ll be eternally damned if I’ll do it.” Lucy Hamilton whirled and snatched up her notebook with tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. She ripped at the pages containing her shorthand hieroglyphics, tearing them into shreds and scattering them on the floor.

Shayne lunged forward and clamped a hand on her shoulder, ordering harshly, “Stop it, Lucy. You’re not making sense.”

“Oh yes,” she retorted. “I am making sense. For the first time in a lot of years. You know what, Michael Shayne? I hate and despise you. I don’t care what you say, I’m not going to let you do this thing to yourself. Do you hear me? I’m not going to let you.”

She flung the last of the torn fragments of her notes on the floor and faced him defiantly.

He said, “You’re forgetting something, Lucy. You’re my secretary… not my wife. Stop acting like one.”

“Thank God I am just your secretary,” she cried out through her tears. “Because I can quit, and if I were married to you I couldn’t. And I am quitting. As of now. I wouldn’t be married to you, Michael Shayne, if you were the last man on earth… and I wouldn’t be your secretary if you offered me a salary of a million dollars a week.”

She eeled away from him, dislodging his hand from her shoulder, and ran to the door, jerking it open and then slamming it shut behind her with a bang that reverberated in the silent room.

Shayne stood looking at the closed door for a long moment, then shrugged his shoulders and said equably, “Lucky I’m a fair one-finger typist. Give me ten minutes and I’ll have the document ready for your signatures.”

He turned and stalked into the bedroom where a portable typewriter stood in one corner of the room.

18

Michael Shayne awakened early the next morning. He noted early sunlight streaming in the window, checked his watch to be assured it was as early as it seemed, then got a cigarette and match from the bedside table, and drew in the first lungful of smoke for the day.

For some reason it wasn’t as satisfying as usual. The smoke seemed to have an acrid bite to it, and he frowned and glanced at the pack to make sure it was his own familiar brand. It was, and his frown deepened as he took another deep draw.

Then the events of the preceding night came flooding back into his memory and he knew why his first cigarette did not taste as good as usual.

Lucy! And her incomprehensible behavior. Last evening he had steeled himself against her, had resolutely refused to allow her temper tantrum to affect his decision or his judgment in the delicate process of preparing the agreement for Mrs. Meredith’s signature and getting it properly witnessed so it would stand up in court without compromising him. And after she and Sims had left, he had tossed off half a tumbler of cognac before stumbling to bed and into a sound and dreamless sleep.

But now it all came back to him with depressing clarity. Lucy’s face, flushed with anger as she defied him. The exact intonation of her voice when she scathingly declared her pleasure that she was just a secretary instead of a wife… that she hated and despised him and wouldn’t marry him if he were the last man on earth.

And he winced and crushed out the bitter-tasting cigarette as he recalled that, in order to persuade her, he had gone so far as to say to her what he had said to only one other woman before in his life.

“You know I love you, angel.”

It was the first time he had ever told Lucy Hamilton that he loved her. He had been, on the verge of such a declaration several times, but had held off until last night to put the feeling into words.

For what purpose? To be angrily denounced as a crook.

He threw back the covers angrily and swung out of bed, padded out on bare feet to the kitchen where he put coffee water on to boil, and then went back into the living room to check with the airport and be assured that the Mid-American flight from Chicago was scheduled to arrive on time at eight-thirty.

He went back into the kitchen and poured boiling water into the top of the dripolator, set it over a low flame and hurried into the bathroom for a quick shave and shower. He dressed swiftly and drank two fast cups of coffee liberally laced with cognac, going over his plans for the morning with grim expectancy, forcing Lucy Hamilton and her defection out of his thoughts and out of his consciousness… reminding himself again and again that there was a quarter-million dollars at stake this morning if his wild hunch was correct and if he played it to the limit without worrying whether he still had a secretary or not.

He reached the airport at eight-twenty and got the gate number for the incoming Chicago flight, went to it and edged his way through the press waiting to greet arriving passengers until he reached the forefront just as the plane swooped down on a far runway and turned slowly to taxi in toward the Administration Building.

A uniformed attendant held the gate latched and there was a large sign over his head that said: No One Allowed Beyond the Gate to Meet Incoming Planes.

Shayne had a five-dollar bill loose in his left side pocket, and he drew it out with just a corner showing between his fingers as he said to the attendant in a low voice, “I’ve just got to have a word with the stewardess on the Chicago plane before she gets away. How’s if I slip through when the passengers start coming in?”

The guard grinned fraternally but started shaking his head. He stopped the motion when he glanced down and saw the number 5 on a green background between Shayne’s fingers. He shrugged and muttered, “I guess no one will notice if you wait till they start coming through,” and the bill changed hands.

Shayne waited quietly behind the barrier until the big plane was spotted opposite the gate, the stairs were wheeled up, the door of the passenger compartment opened and the trim figure of a stewardess appeared in the doorway and stood there with a pleasant word and smile for each departing passenger.

He eased aside when the gate swung open to let the first ones through, then unobtrusively sauntered against the stream toward the plane, reaching the foot of the stairs just as the last passenger started down. He stayed on the ground and dragged off his hat, catching the stewardess’s eye before she turned back inside, and called up to her, “Have you a parcel for Michael Shayne?”

Her eyes lighted as she took in his red hair and rugged countenance, and she nodded, putting a finger to her lips before disappearing through the door. She was back almost immediately with a thin flat parcel wrapped in brown paper, and hurried down the steps to him, saying breathlessly, “This is against the rules, you know. But when the man in Chicago explained that you were the famous detective and how important this is, I thought… well…”

Shayne said warmly, “You thought just right,” and knew immediately that he should not insult the girl by offering her money. “An important murder case depends on this,” he told her. “Read the headlines in this afternoon’s News.”

“Oh, I will.” She handed the package from Ben Ames to him and went back up the stairs to do whatever stewardesses have to do at the end of a flight.

It was a few minutes after nine o’clock when Shayne got off the elevator on his floor with the unopened package under his arm. Across the corridor, the outer door of his office stood ajar, and his gaunt features tightened perceptibly as he strode to the door and pushed it open.

Lucy Hamilton was alone in the small reception room beyond the low railing, bending over the open drawers of her desk, lifting things out and placing them inside a large, rattan shopping bag, open on her chair.

She straightened slowly and glanced sideways at Shayne as he crossed the narrow space toward her. Her voice was icy as she said, “You’re early this morning, Mr. Shayne. I had hoped to have my desk cleaned out and be out of your way before you got here.”

Shayne stopped beside the railing and said angrily, “Cut it out, Lucy. You know damned well you’re not quitting me.”

“That’s right. I’m not.” A tight smile flitted across her face. “Because I already quit. Last night. Remember? Or were you so taken up with that slut of a Meredith woman and her quarter-million-dollar bribe that you didn’t hear me when I said it?”

“Forget about all that. Look, you were sore and didn’t know what you were saying. Maybe you had a right to be sore. But you know I can’t run this office without you, angel.”

“But don’t forget you won’t have to be running an office after you put over your big money deal. You’re going to retire on the proceeds and buy baby-blue convertibles and mink coats for your woman.”

She turned her back on him and bent down to rummage in the bottom drawer.

Shayne smothered an exasperated oath, and leaned over the railing to clamp a heavy hand on her shoulder. “I haven’t retired yet,” he growled. “We’ve still got an office to run this morning, and a couple of murders to clear up. After that you can walk out and be damned. But right now we’ve got work to do. Has the morning mail been delivered?”

She remained bent over and he felt her slender body shudder beneath his hand. In a stifled voice she said, “Ten minutes ago. I put it on your desk… unopened.”

“Come in while I open it,” he said gruffly. “If the stuff from Mrs. Wallace is here, we’re going to be ready for a fast wind-up.”

He gave her shoulder a final squeeze, turned away and long-legged it into his private office without looking back to see if she was following.

A neat pile of letters lay in front of the swivel chair behind his desk. He put the package from Ben Ames beside it, and pawed through the letters, extracting an eight-by-ten manila envelope with Mrs. Leon Wallace’s return address in the upper left corner.

He laid it aside with a grunt of satisfaction and picked up Ames’s parcel as Lucy came in with her head held high and her cheeks flaming scarlet. “If you think for one moment, Michael Shayne…”

“Cut it for now,” he said tersely, ripping off the scotch-taped brown wrapping. “I have here a picture taken of Mr. Meredith in Chicago last night. In that envelope from Mrs. Wallace there should be a picture of Leon Wallace and the empty envelopes in which she received the money from him during the past year. Open it up and let’s see what we can see.”

Lucy compressed her lips, and then with quickened interest and despite her anger went around him to pick up the envelope.

Shayne discarded the wrapping paper and took a glossy photograph from between two sheets of cardboard. He laid it on the desk and studied the picture with brooding intensity. It was a full-length shot of a bareheaded young man standing in the doorway of a house. He was slender and about medium height, and his face had a slack-jawed look of astonishment indicating his surprise at the photographer’s flash-gun.

In the meantime, Lucy had extracted a four-by-six wedding photograph in a cheap cardboard frame, and she laid it beside the other one without speaking. The glowing bride was unmistakably Mrs. Wallace, a couple of years younger and prior to the birth of twins, and the beaming young man beside her had a strong, square face and a broad-shouldered body that towered six inches above her.

Shayne shook his red head slowly and his gray eyes were bleak as they moved from one photograph to the other. “See if you can see any resemblance. Damn it, no man could possibly change that much in two or three years.”

“Of course there’s no resemblance at all. You say that’s a picture of Mr. Meredith. The man Albert Hawley’s wife married after she divorced him? Did you think she had married Leon Wallace… under an assumed name?”

“It seemed a reasonable assumption.” Shayne stepped back with a frown. “He was a gardener at the Hawley place and vanished without a trace just about the time she got her divorce… sending his wife money to support his children. Where else did he go, if not off to marry her after deserting his wife?”

“I don’t know,” said Lucy. “But he certainly didn’t turn himself into this picture of Mr. Meredith.”

Shayne said, “No. That’s one thing he didn’t do. Are the envelopes in there?”

Lucy rummaged in the manila envelope from Mrs. Wallace and took out three long pre-stamped envelopes similar to the one Mrs. Wallace had shown them the previous morning. All were addressed in ink to Mrs. Leon Wallace, Littleboro, Florida but none had a return address. They were postmarked in Miami at three-month intervals during the past year.

Shayne studied the three empty envelopes carefully, and suddenly a glint of excitement showed in his eyes. It was also clearly in his voice as he said, “Do we have the original envelope from Wallace? The one she showed us?”

“Yes. I put it in the file with his letter.” Lucy hurried in to her desk, forgetful for the moment that she was no longer Michael Shayne’s secretary, and returned with the first envelope which she laid beside the others.

There was no doubt, as Mrs. Wallace had stated, that all four envelopes had been addressed by the same person, but as Shayne studied them carefully another fact also became apparent.

He told Lucy slowly, “I’m no expert on such things, but I can almost swear that all four envelopes were addressed at the same time with the same pen and same ink. See what you think, angel. They’re all faded to the same degree.”

She leaned close beside him, her shoulder pressing his arm companionably, and after a moment her brown head bobbed excitedly. “I think you’re right, Michael. I believe they were all addressed at exactly the same time.” She looked at him with her brown eyes anxious and a little frightened. “What does that mean?”

“One thing,” he pointed out grimly. “It disposes of those following three envelopes as evidence that Leon Wallace was in Miami when they were mailed to his wife… or even that he was alive at the time.” The trenches in his cheeks deepened, and he turned away abruptly to the water cooler where he mechanically fitted two paper cups together and got a cognac bottle from the filing cabinet to fill them.

As he poured the liquor slowly, he said, “I’m afraid we’re going to have bad news for Mrs. Wallace.”

“You mean… you think he’s dead?”

“If those envelopes were pre-addressed as I think, it certainly indicates that he didn’t expect to be around to mail those thousand-dollar payments to her himself.” Shayne tilted his head and gulped half the liquor just as his telephone rang. Lucy reached for it mechanically and said, “Michael Shayne’s office.” She listened a moment and said, “He’s right here, Chief.” Covering the mouthpiece with her hand, she said, “Chief Gentry. He sounds terribly angry.”

Shayne put the cups down and took the phone, grinning reassuringly at his secretary. He said, “Hi, Will,” and Gentry’s choleric voice bellowed back at him:

“Damn it to hell, Mike, you’ve really put the kibosh on the Meany girl kill. We’ll never get a conviction the way it’s messed up now. And I think I know why you did it, Mike. And if I can prove it, you’re through in Miami. This time I mean it.”

“Wait, Will. What’s the trouble?”

“Trouble?” raged Gentry. “That phony identification of Joel Cross you screwed out of the elevator operator at your hotel. He’s backed down on it now. After we got Gerald Meany sobered up this morning and he persisted in his story that he did start out to your place to get his wife but stopped for a drink on the way and then blacked out… well, I put him in a line-up with Cross and some others and had Matthew down to look them over. And you know what, Mike?” Gentry’s voice became savagely gentle.

Shayne sighed and said, “Tell me.”

“He can’t identify either one of them now. He’s all mixed up. Thinks it must have been one or the other, but he can’t swear which. Personally I think Meany is guilty as hell, but we’ll never get a conviction when a defense lawyer puts Matthew on the stand and extracts the story of his first positive identification of Cross.”

Shayne said, “That’s tough, Will. But when a man makes an honest mistake…”

“Honest mistake, hell!” raged Gentry. “The way I’ve been piecing things together, Cross was absolutely right when he accused you of putting Matthew up to identifying him. Just, by God, so you could get him thrown in the jug long enough for you to get your hands on the Groat diary.”

“How do you figure that, Will?” Shayne kept his voice calm and even.

“It isn’t too hard to figure. With a hint or two from Tim Rourke and a complaint from a lawyer named Alfred Drake of assault on his person and theft of valuable property from him last evening immediately after he visited Cross in jail. Before God, Mike, this is the last goddam time you’re going to use the Miami Police Department to set things up for your personal gain. And if we don’t get a conviction in the Meany case…”

“Hold it, Will.” Shayne’s voice was loud and harsh. “I’m ready to tie that up in a knot for you… along with Jasper Groat’s murder. If you want a solution to both of them, come along to my office right away. Bring both Cross and Gerald Meany with you. And you better invite Hastings, the Hawley lawyer, to attend. I don’t believe he’d come if I asked him.”

“You want anybody else?” Will Gentry demanded sarcastically.

“Several. But I’ll take care of those myself.” Shayne replaced the telephone and told Lucy, “Get Tim Rourke for me.”

After a curious look at Shayne’s face she lifted the telephone automatically and dialed a number. She had seen the redhead like this too often before to argue with him. There was a sense of driving urgency in his manner, a feeling of dominance, of surging power inside his big frame that meant he was on the home-stretch and wouldn’t let up until the finish wire was crossed.

Into the telephone, she purred, “Timothy Rourke, please.” And then, “Tim? Michael wants you.”

He took the instrument and growled, “Hell of a pal you turned out to be. Gentry’s about to snatch my license on account of some insinuations you made about Matthew’s identification of Cross.”

He listened a moment and then broke in irritably, “All right. So I did want to get my hands on Groat’s diary and Cross played sucker just the way I figured he would. We’re going to write headlines in my office in about ten minutes,” he went on swiftly. “Better get here fast. And bring along a copy of the Herald for day before yesterday. That’s right, the Herald covering the story of Groat and Cunningham being rescued. I don’t know about the News. I didn’t see their story… but I do know the Herald has what I need.”

He hung up and settled back and picked up the two nested paper cups that were still half full of cognac, and told Lucy, “We need three more to make a full house. Get hold of either Mrs. Meredith or Jake Sims and tell them to both high-tail it over here if they want to collect a million bucks or so. And have them bring Peter Cunningham along. Tell them we can’t pull it off unless he’s here to testify.”

Lucy Hamilton’s hand had reached for the telephone. She stiffened with her fingers touching it. “Michael! Are you still going through with it? I thought… the way you were acting a minute ago, I thought…”

“What did you think, angel?”

“That you had reconsidered.” The words came with a rush. “You were beginning to act like your old self… when a case was breaking right and you were sitting back pulling the strings to see that justice was done. You just can’t accept a bribe to toss a fortune into that Mrs. Meredith’s lap, Michael.”

Shayne said, “Are you going to call her?”

She took her hand away from the phone. “No. Do your own dirty work.”

Shayne emptied the cognac down his throat and tossed the empty cups on the floor. “Okay. And after it’s all over I’ll help you clean out your desk.” He picked up the telephone and began dialing.

19

They were all gathered there in Michael Shayne’s private office and the walls were practically bulging to contain them. Will Gentry, cold-eyed and red-faced, chewing angrily on a black stogie, escorted Joel Cross who looked a lot the worse for wear after a night in jail, and Gerald Meany, shifty-eyed and hung-over, with a sullen air of bravado that wasn’t at all convincing.

And there was Attorney Hastings who hadn’t the faintest idea why he had been summoned to the conclave, and Timothy Rourke with a wad of copy paper ready, hopefully expectant that Shayne would pull some promised rabbits out of his hat. In one corner was Jake Sims, wet-lipped and nervous, seated beside Mrs. Meredith who appeared to be the calmest one of the assemblage and who was obviously eager to impart some of her serenity to Peter Cunningham who stood close to her chair trying to appear insolently self-confident but managing to look only sullenly defiant.

Lounging in the open door to the reception room, Michael Shayne towered over them all and grinned confidently, conscious of Lucy Hamilton at her desk behind him where she was pretending to clean out the drawers to make ready for her successor but was, Shayne knew intuitively, listening desperately to hear every word that was spoken in the inner office.

“This won’t take long,” Shayne said abruptly. “We’ve got two murders and an unexplained disappearance to clear up, and the estate of Ezra Hawley amounting to a couple of million dollars to be legally allocated. Each one of you here has a certain personal interest in one or another of these matters.

“Everything goes back to the diary kept by Jasper Groat on the life raft after his plane ditched in the ocean leaving only three survivors,” he went on in a conversational tone. “He and Beatrice Meany were both murdered because of the diary and because of a death-bed secret confided to Groat by the young soldier known as Albert Hawley who died on the raft before they could be rescued.

“Most of you who are here know that Albert Hawley was named as sole heir to his uncle’s fortune in Ezra Hawley’s will in the event that he did not pre-decease his uncle who died on the fifth day after the plane wreck occurred. Thus it became of the utmost importance whether young Hawley died on the fourth day, or lived until the fifth day.

“And Jasper Groat’s diary was the one irrefutable proof of the current date.

“Thus from the beginning it looked as though Groat had been murdered by whichever of the two parties stood to gain a fortune by suppression of the truth-the Hawley family, or Mrs. Meredith who is Albert Hawley’s legal heir. But the trouble with that theory was that Groat was murdered the night before the content of Ezra’s will was made public… assumedly before either party knew how important the date of Albert’s death was to them.

“That brings us to the death-bed confession made to Groat and at least partially overheard by Cunningham who eavesdropped while the soldier was dying. Joel Cross, the only other person here who has read the diary, will confirm the fact that it was a secret concerning the Hawley family, a ready-made basis for blackmail if Groat and Cunningham decided to use it for that purpose.

“But Jasper Groat had a strong sense of probity,” Shayne went on evenly. “He was practically a religious fanatic, and he resisted Cunningham’s arguments that they should blackmail the Hawleys with the diary.”

“That’s a lie,” broke in Cunningham. “You can’t prove a word of it.”

“I think I can,” Shayne told him. “On the afternoon before he was murdered, Groat made a long-distance call to Mrs. Leon Wallace in Littleboro telling her he had news of her husband who mysteriously disappeared a year ago while working as the Hawley gardener. He also made an appointment by telephone to meet Beatrice Meany at the Hawley house at eight that night to talk to her about her brother and Leon Wallace. He was murdered after getting out of a taxi at the Hawley house that night to prevent him from talking to Beatrice.

“I’ve gone to the trouble to give you all this background,” he concluded quietly, “because some of you know some of the facts, but no one except the killer knows all of them. Now, who were the two people who knew what was in the diary before Groat was murdered? Joel Cross and Peter Cunningham were the only two. It’s that simple. One of them killed Groat that night, and later killed Beatrice in my hotel room to prevent her from telling me what she had seen.”

“Then it musta been him,” smirked Peter Cunningham, pointing a blunt finger at Cross. “I was with Mrs. Meredith in the Biscayne Hotel when you left her suite to go meet Mrs. Meany. She was dead when you got there from what I heard. You ask Mrs. Meredith and she’ll tell you I was right there with her.”

“We will ask Mrs. Meredith presently,” Shayne assured him, “but first I want to settle one thing once and for all. Yesterday while I was questioning Cross about Beatrice’s death, I asked him pointblank if Leon Wallace’s name was mentioned in Groat’s diary. He denied that it was, but refused to let me read the diary myself to check. Well, I have read it… and Joel Cross is right. Wallace’s name is not mentioned once.”

Shayne reached into his hip pocket and pulled out Groat’s leather-bound journal and tossed it onto his desk in front of Will Gentry. “Any of you want to see for yourselves?”

Jake Sims popped to his feet with a squeak of outrage as Shayne produced the diary. Matie Meredith sat as still as though she were carved from stone, only her eyes betraying the emotion that was boiling up inside her.

Shayne grinned across at Sims as Lawyer Hastings’ dignity deserted him and he made a snatch for the diary which Gentry covered with a heavy hand.

“That’s the evidence, Chief,” Hastings exclaimed frantically. “Don’t you understand what Mr. Shayne has been saying? A two-million-dollar estate is dependent on whether Albert Hawley died on the fourth or fifth day.”

“Why don’t you just ask Cunningham?” suggested Shayne as his grin widened. “I understand he’s prepared to swear it was the fifth day… thereby throwing the estate to Mrs. Meredith.”

Cunningham made strangled sounds in his throat and glared at the diary. “That was when…” He glared accusingly at Sims. “I thought you said Shayne was gonna…”

“Shut up,” roared Sims. “This is some kind of trick. Don’t let Shayne…”

“Let him say it, Jake,” admonished Shayne. “He agreed to testify that way after you assured him the diary wouldn’t be produced as evidence to prove him a liar. Shame on you, Jake, for thinking you could bribe an upright citizen like me to withhold evidence.

“Go ahead and glance through it, Will,” he added to the chief. “It’s a little past the middle, Mr. Hastings will be delighted to know that death occurred on the fourth night… before Ezra Hawley died.

“And now I’ve got one more little experiment to make before we wind this thing up,” he added as Gentry began turning the pages of the diary with Hastings breathing down his neck. “Give me that copy of the Herald, Tim.”

Rourke stopped scribbling furiously long enough to produce a folded newspaper from his pocket and pass it to the redhead. Shayne opened it out to the frontpage story of the rescue and held it in front of Cunningham, pointing out the picture of Albert Hawley which the Herald had dug out of their morgue for the occasion.

“Do you recognize that man, Cunningham?”

The airplane steward wet his lips nervously, looking at the picture and caption beneath it. “Sure,” he croaked. “That’s Albert Hawley. Can’t you see it says so right there?”

“I know what it says. But I want you to tell us whether that’s a picture of the soldier who died on the life raft with you and Groat.”

“Of course it is,” he stammered. “Albert Hawley. Why shouldn’t I recognize him after being with him four days on a lousy raft?”

“No reason you shouldn’t,” agreed Shayne smoothly. “If it weren’t for the fact that Albert Hawley had his photograph snapped in Chicago last night posing as Theodore Meredith.” He produced the glossy print of Meredith that Ben Ames had sent him, and laid it in front of Gentry. “Albert Hawley didn’t die on the life raft, Will. A soldier who was masquerading as Hawley died. His real name was Leon Wallace. And here’s his picture.” He laid the wedding picture of the Wallace’s beside the recent one of Hawley. “See if that doesn’t look a little more like the man who died,” he said to Cunningham.

“That is the secret the dying soldier confided to Groat,” he went on to Gentry. “You’ll notice Groat didn’t call him Hawley after he died. He referred to him merely as ‘the soldier.’ Old Lady Hawley didn’t want her precious boy drafted into the army,” he went on sardonically, “so she arranged with the gardener to take his place in the draft and serve in his name, sending Mrs. Wallace ten grand to keep her quiet, and another thousand every three months in envelopes pre-addressed by Wallace. And Matie helped out by getting a Reno divorce from Hawley and then remarrying him under the name of Meredith. Which I should have guessed just as soon as I learned that Albert Hawley had obligingly remade his will after his divorce still leaving everything to his ex-wife. It was the only way he could be sure of inheriting Ezra’s money without admitting the truth and being indicted as a draft dodger. That stuck in my craw from the beginning… the fact that a divorced husband left everything to his ex-wife, but I didn’t have brains enough to realize the significance of it.”

There was silence in the office and every eye in the room was on Mrs. Meredith. She squared her shoulders and broke the silence with an incisive voice:

“All right. I never did think Albert could get away with it. His mother planned the whole thing and used up her own money hiring Leon Wallace to go into the army in Albert’s place. I was against the plan from the beginning, but I loved Albert and finally agreed to get the divorce and remarry him under a different name.” She shrugged her shapely shoulders and smiled coldly. “I don’t think that’s against the law.”

“This is all very interesting,” said Will Gentry heavily. “There’ll be a federal charge against Hawley for evading the draft. But we’ve still got two murders here in Miami. Let’s get back to them. A while ago, Mike, you said it was between Cross and Cunningham. I’ve already established that Cross has no alibi for the time of either killing. If Cunningham can produce one…”

“Sure I can,” Cunningham cut in eagerly. “I told you I was right in Mrs. Meredith’s hotel room while the Meany dame was getting bumped off. Shayne will tell you so himself. I was sitting right there when he left to meet her at his place.”

“That’s right,” Shayne agreed amiably. “But the question is: How long did you stay with Mrs. Meredith after I left?”

“Half an hour at least. She’ll tell you.” He appealed to Matie. “We talked about it last night and you mentioned how you fixed me a drink and…”

“Let her tell it,” said Shayne sharply. “I think Mrs. Meredith might have been willing to perjure herself by giving Cunningham an alibi… last night,” Shayne explained to Gentry. “At that time she thought she needed his testimony to prove that her ex-husband didn’t die until the fifth day on the raft. But that doesn’t make any difference now because we know it was Wallace who actually died on the raft. I wonder if she is as willing to perjure herself this morning to save Cunningham’s neck.”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Meredith coldly. “There has never been any question of perjury or of alibis. But Mr. Shayne himself can’t deny that Mr. Cunningham was in my hotel suite when he left to meet Beatrice. That seems to me all the alibi that’s needed.”

“It would be,” said Shayne, “if I’d gone direct to my hotel from the Biscayne. But I didn’t. I wasted fifteen or twenty minutes getting your Chicago address from the house dick at the Biscayne and sending a telegram to your husband signed with your name. Plenty of time for Cunningham to get to my place ahead of me and strangle Beatrice… unless he did stay with you for half an hour.”

“But he didn’t,” she said calmly. “As soon as you left the room he muttered something about another appointment and hurried out. I had no idea that he had done anything to Beatrice,” she went on virtuously, “because I thought you’d gone directly to her and that he couldn’t possibly have done it. But I have no intention of lying to protect a murderer.”

Peter Cunningham made a strangled sound in his throat and whirled on her with big hands opened menacingly. “It’s all a pack of lies. Jasper Groat was my best friend, and I didn’t have nothing against the Meany dame.”

Shayne said, “He’s the only possible one, Will. Cross had no motive for Groat’s murder. Hell, he was tickled to death to buy the diary for his paper. But Cunningham had to kill Groat to cash in on the Leon Wallace story. And then he had to kill Beatrice when he learned she was waiting for me in my apartment. I practically handed her to him on a silver platter,” he ended moodily. “I’d given him my address the night before, and then he heard me tell Lucy over the telephone that I had a stop to make before I saw Beatrice… I even mentioned twenty minutes. That gave him all the time he needed to get to her and break her silly neck. Look at him carefully, Will. Don’t you see he fits Matthew’s description of the killer better than either Cross or Meany? No wonder Matthew got balled up this morning and couldn’t positively identify either of them. Put Cunningham in a line-up and see what happens.”

20

When the inner office was finally emptied, Michael Shayne stood for several minutes at one of the windows overlooking Flagler Street with his back to the open door into the reception room. He was listening intently for some sound from the outer room, but could hear nothing.

After a time he sighed and went to the water cooler where he nested a paper cup inside another and filled it with cognac. He ran cold water into another cup and carried them to his desk where he ranged them carefully in front of the swivel chair and sat down. He lit a cigarette and took a sip of John Exshaw and hesitated a moment with his forefinger poised over a button on the desk. Then he squared his shoulders and pressed the button firmly.

When Lucy appeared in the doorway, her brown curls were disarranged and there was a stricken look on her face. She paused timidly and said in a small voice, “I’m sorry, Michael.”

“Sorry for what?” He grinned expansively.

“For the horrid things I said last night. Because I was a fool not to trust you as you begged me to. Oh, Michael! Can you ever forgive me?” She ran to him suddenly and leaned over his chair and buried her face in his shoulder, her slender body shaken with tearing sobs. He put one arm tightly about her waist and said gruffly, “There’s nothing to cry about, angel. We pulled it off okay.”

“But why didn’t you give me some hint last night?” she sobbed. “Why did you let me go on thinking you planned to destroy the diary just so Mrs. Meredith would get the money instead of the Hawley family?”

“Because you’re a lousy actress. You never would have been able to put it over if you’d known the truth.”

“What do you mean by that?” She pulled back and stood erect, still circled by his comforting arm.

“Don’t you realize that your tantrum was the absolute clincher in getting that agreement signed? I had to make her believe I was going to destroy the diary. She certainly wouldn’t have agreed to pay out a quarter-million bucks for me to prove that Hawley is still alive so he can be jailed as a draft evader. And when you believed it so strongly, you convinced her I was just the rotten sort of heel she could do business with.”

“You knew the truth when you got her to sign that paper, didn’t you?”

“Knew is too strong a word. I had a hunch, let’s say. And I had nothing to lose. If my hunch was wrong, all I had to do was tear up the agreement and forget the quarter-million.”

“When did you first realize it was Leon Wallace who died on the raft and not Hawley?”

“I think it first came to me as a possibility when he replied to my wire signed by his wife… refusing to show his face in Miami. And then when I read the diary… noticed that after the death-bed confession Groat no longer called the dead man Hawley, as he had referred to him previously. Instead, he said, ‘The soldier died…’ I wasn’t sure how significant that was, but I realized what it could mean. And then everything fitted. It was the only reasonable explanation for the one thing that had bothered me from the beginning… a divorced man making a new will leaving everything to his ex-wife even though she remarried. Particularly a man divorced under those circumstances… just as he was being drafted. Normally, he’d be plenty sore about that.”

“Do you really think you can collect on that agreement?” Lucy asked in an awed voice.

“It’s absolutely airtight the way it’s worded. No one can deny that I provided…” Shayne paused to grin at Lucy and clear his throat before quoting one of the phrases she had torn out of her notebook “… the necessary evidence to prove in court that her ex-husband was the legal heir to his uncle, Ezra Hawley, on said Ezra Hawley’s death. She’ll pay up all right. But let’s not start spending all of it, angel. If you agree, I thought we might sort of split the take with Albert’s mother. Somehow, I feel sorry for that old lady. All that trouble and expense she went to just to keep her no-good son out of the army. And then there’s Mrs. Wallace with a pair of twins living on a farm in Littleboro. It was her husband’s death that threw Ezra’s estate to Albert and Matie, so it seems only fair that she should get a goodly portion of the proceeds.”

“Oh, Michael, you’re… wonderful.” Lucy’s eyes were starry as she flung her arms about his neck and kissed him warmly on the mouth. “You make me so ashamed for accusing you of trying to steal money from the Hawley family last night. When all the time you were just doing it for them… and for poor Mrs. Wallace.”

“Well, not exactly just for them,” evaded Shayne. “I think we might hold out a few bucks as a reasonable fee. At least enough to buy that mink coat and blue convertible we talked about last night. Unless you still feel you don’t want to be compromised…”

Her arms tightened about his neck and she whispered ecstatically, “Oh, Michael,” and he knew she didn’t in the least mind being compromised that way.

Content

Brett Halliday
Date with a Dead Man

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