Brett Halliday

Too Friendly, Too Dead

1

The ringing of her bedside telephone awakened Linda Fitzgilpin as daylight was breaking on Saturday morning. She awoke confused and startled from some sort of bad dream, and was immediately conscious of a splitting headache and a foul taste in her mouth. The window was closed and heavy drapes drawn tightly over the west window of her bedroom, so the room was very dark and she had no idea what time of night it was.

She shook her head dismally as she reached for the telephone, propping herself on one elbow to put it to her ear. She said, “Hello,” and a man’s voice answered:

“Mrs. Fitzgilpin?”

She said, “Yes,” and he asked, “Is Mr. Fitzgilpin there?”

Still confused and half asleep, Linda replied, “Why… yes. Just a second,” and lowered the telephone to call, “Jerome.”

There was no reply from the twin bed across the room, and she wondered how long she had been asleep and if Jerome hadn’t come in yet. She let go of the telephone and fumbled for the light switch and turned on a shaded light. Her husband’s bed was empty and neatly made up. Fear struck at her sharply and she lifted the instrument and said, “No. No he isn’t here. Who is this and why are you calling? What time is it?”

“It’s a little after six, Mrs. Fitzgilpin.” The voice became soothing and essayed a cheery note. “It probably isn’t important, but does your husband drive a Fifty-seven Chevrolet sedan? Dark blue?”

“Yes. Who is this?” Fear was giving way to panic, and Linda sat bolt upright, staring wide-eyed across at Jerome’s unused bed. Six o’clock in the morning! He had never in his life stayed out…

“This is Sergeant Main speaking. Miami Beach Police Department. Please describe your husband, Mrs. Fitzgilpin.”

“Jerome is forty-five. Five feet seven and he weighs about a hundred and fifty pounds. Brown hair that’s getting thin in front; brown eyes and a small mustache. What… has happened?”

“Brace yourself for a shock, Mrs. Fitzgilpin.” All of the attempted cheeriness had vanished from the sergeant’s voice. “I’m afraid I have very bad news for you. When did you last see your husband?”

“Why he… he wasn’t in when I went to bed. I took a sleeping pill and… he isn’t here now. Tell me! What’s happened?”

“I’m terribly sorry to break it to you this way, Mrs. Fitzgilpin, but I’m afraid your husband is dead. A man answering your description of him was found early this morning close to his parked automobile. His wallet was missing and there was no identification on the body so we had to check out the license number.” The voice went on talking, but Linda Fitzgilpin dropped the instrument on the bed and put both hands over her face and the tears came and racking sobs shook her body.

Not Jerome! It couldn’t be Jerome. It couldn’t happen. It had happened. Because he wasn’t here in bed. He hadn’t come home. And a body answering her husband’s description had been found close to his parked car.

Gradually the racking sobs ceased. She sank back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling, and slowly became aware of noises coming from the telephone lying beside her. Listlessly she picked it up and heard the police sergeant saying sharply and anxiously, “Mrs. Fitzgilpin, are you there? Are you there, Mrs. Fitzgilpin?”

“I’m here,” she told him. “Where else would I be?”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she responded viciously. “Just fine and dandy. Why shouldn’t I be?” She began laughing hysterically while the tears continued to stream down her cheeks.

“Try to get hold of yourself,” the sergeant admonished her. “We’re not certain yet, you know. It may not be your husband at all. Until we have a positive identification we can’t be sure.”

“It’s Jerome all right,” she said sadly. “Don’t you understand? He didn’t come home to bed. He’s never done that before in his life. He wouldn’t stay out all night if… if…” Her voice broke again and the sergeant broke in hastily, “Would you like a doctor or a nurse? I can call the Miami police and arrange…”

“No,” she said sadly. “What could a doctor or a nurse do for me?”

“Well… have you someone…?” The sergeant paused awkwardly. “It will be necessary for you to come to the morgue to make a formal identification. We’ll be glad to send a police car over to pick you up.”

“No!” she said sharply. “Not a police car. I’ll get someone. I’ll be fine. How… soon?”

“You don’t need to hurry, Mrs. Fitzgilpin. Any time in the next hour or so will be fine. If you’re sure you’re all right now…?”

She said flatly and harshly, “I’m as all right as I’ll ever be,” and replaced the telephone on its cradle. Then she sank back and closed her eyes tightly and lay on her back, fighting for self-control.

Let’s see now. The children. Oh, God! the children. How could she tell them? How do you tell your children that they no longer have a father? A loving, kind father whom they both adored.

A long, shuddering sigh escaped her lips, and slowly she forced herself to sit up. Forced herself to look across again at the unused bed which Jerome had occupied all during the fifteen years of their married life.

It was still as empty as it had been when she first looked. She lowered her gaze to the empty highball glass on the bedside table and the uncorked whiskey bottle on the floor beside it. She knew better than to take whiskey with sleeping pills at night. Why had she done it last night? If she hadn’t knocked herself out and slept so soundly she would have realized that Jerome hadn’t come home… that something terrible must have happened. But what good would that have done?

She got up and walked across the carpeted bedroom barefooted, wearing a white nylon nightgown. She went past the empty bed without looking at it again, and out into the sitting room where the new light of morning streamed in through the east window. The door to the children’s bedroom was tightly closed.

She crossed to it and opened it silently. They were both sound asleep. Nine-year-old Ralph characteristically curled up with his knees under his chin, the covers twisted about his thin body; and Sara, sleeping peacefully and blissfully, her angelic, pouting face framed by brown ringlets of fine hair… just the color of her father’s hair.

Linda closed and latched the door softly and turned back. Let’s see now. She must think. Today was Saturday. No school for the children. She had to go over to Miami Beach. The policeman had said there was no need to hurry. But it was something she had to do.

If she could get away before the children woke up… make certain that it was Jerome lying on a cold slab in the morgue…

She shuddered and forced herself to think coherently. That nice Lucy Hamilton in the apartment one floor below. She worked for a private detective. She would know about these things.

Linda went back into the bedroom and found Lucy’s number written in the front of the telephone book and dialed it.

2

Michael Shayne’s telephone wakened him ten minutes later on that same Saturday morning. He came suddenly out of the depths of sound sleep, blinked at the early morning light streaming in his window, and let the instrument ring five times before stretching out a long arm to bring it to his ear.

He said, “Shayne,” in a gruff and non-committal voice, but came fully awake when his secretary’s voice came incisively over the wire:

“Michael. Please come over here right away.”

“Sure, Angel. Where’s here? What’s up?”

“My place, Michael. That is, the apartment above me. Three-B. The Fitzgilpins. It’s terrible. Her husband. He didn’t come home last night and the Beach police just called. She has to go to the morgue to… identify him. I thought if you’d go with her…” Lucy Hamilton’s voice trailed off, and Shayne said swiftly:

“Right away. Hold the fort.”

He threw back the covers and stood up, unbuttoning his pajama top with one hand while he rumpled his bristly red hair with the other. He dressed in a hurry, splashed water in his face and on his hair so he could comb it into some semblance of order, then strode into the living room and glanced longingly into the kitchen and the dripolator standing on the drainboard. But he had told Lucy “right away,” so he compromised by hastily downing a couple of ounces of cognac to fortify him, then hurried out to get his car from the hotel garage.

Driving north on Biscayne Boulevard through the cool pre-sunlight of the spring morning, Shayne scowled as he recalled everything he could about the Fitzgilpins, who occupied an apartment on the floor above Lucy.

He had met both of them once, he recalled vaguely, having a drink with Lucy in her apartment. There were children, he thought, and he knew Lucy liked the family… particularly the wife. What was her name? He couldn’t bring it to mind, but he did remember that she was red headed and lissome, and a good ten years younger than her husband. A nice, quiet, inoffensive guy. Some sort of small business on the Beach, Shayne thought.

So, now he was in the morgue; and there was a sorrowing, red-headed widow and a couple of fatherless children. His scowl deepened. Why did such things happen to nice, quiet, inoffensive people? There were thousands of no-goods infesting Miami and the Beach who wouldn’t be missed by anybody if they suddenly kicked the bucket. But they were still alive this morning, and a nice, little guy like Jerome Fitzgilpin (yeh, that was his name… Jerome. And his wife’s name was Linda) wasn’t around any more.

Lucy Hamilton opened the door of apartment 3-B when he rang the bell. She had no makeup on, and her curly brown hair was a mess, and she had been crying. She wore bedroom slippers and a fluffy chenille robe over a pair of white silk pajamas, and she put out her hands to him and said, “Oh, Michael,” in a stifled voice as he came through the doorway.

He put his arms around her and held her closely and understandingly while she pressed her face against his shoulder and cried some more. She drew back after a moment and looked up into his face with tear-wet eyes and said simply, “I don’t know why. But when something like this happens… so close to home… it makes you want to… be sure you still have someone.”

Shayne patted her shoulder and said gruffly, “I know, Angel.” And he did know. He had been close to violent death so often, had seen the reactions of so many people suddenly confronted with the fact of death. There was an instinctive groping toward someone close… someone whom you cared for… who cared for you.

He closed his big hand on Lucy’s shoulder and squeezed it hard, then pulled the door shut and glanced about the living room with ragged red eyebrows lifted inquiringly.

“Linda is in the bedroom getting dressed,” Lucy told him. “The two children are still asleep. I thought if you’d drive her to the Beach, I could stay here with them. They know me and won’t be frightened if they wake up and Linda is gone.”

He said, “Of course. What happened?”

“Linda doesn’t know. Except Jerome didn’t come home last night, and they phoned her this morning to say they’d found his body close to his parked automobile and they wanted her to come and identify him. He always keeps his office open late on Friday nights. It’s an insurance business, you know, and the majority of his clients are salaried people who carry small policies and pay premiums weekly in cash. He stays open on Friday nights to accommodate them, and brings the cash home. Several hundred dollars generally. He often stops off at a tavern for a beer or two… that’s all he ever drinks when he’s away from home… and doesn’t get home until about midnight. So Linda thought nothing of it last night when she took a sleeping pill and went to bed at eleven. And she didn’t wake up until the phone rang this morning. The police told her that Jerome’s wallet was missing, and they had to check the car registration to get his name. He was such a nice little man, Michael. So gentle and friendly. I never knew a friendlier, nicer man.”

The tears came into Lucy’s eyes again. “Who would do a thing like that? Just for a few hundred dollars. You’ve got to find out, Michael.”

He patted her shoulder again and said absently, “Sure, Angel. We’ll get the bastard that did it,” his gaze going past her to the bedroom door that was opening to admit Jerome Fitzgilpin’s widow.

She looked ten years younger and a hell of a lot prettier than he remembered her from that one brief encounter in Lucy’s apartment. She was tall and slender, with softly waved, copperish red hair, and there was a fine-drawn look about her face which betrayed an emotional tension which she otherwise concealed admirably. She wore a simple black sheath dress belted tightly at the waist, with no adornment. Her lips were lightly rouged and her voice was muted and composed as she advanced with a faint smile on her lips and with hand outstretched, saying, “Mr. Shayne. It was good of you to come.”

He took her slender hand and received a firm pressure from it, and told her, “I’m very happy…” He paused awkwardly and corrected himself in a gruff voice, “I’m very glad to do anything I can.”

Linda nodded her head slightly and turned to Lucy. “The children will probably sleep for another hour. You’re sure you don’t mind staying with them?”

“Of course not.” Lucy’s voice was warm and reassuring. “What else are friends for?” She hesitated, glancing down at her robe and slippers. “Why don’t you and Michael sit down for a minute while I slip downstairs and change?”

Linda nodded again and said abstractedly, “Of course. I’m sure there’s no… hurry. The sergeant said… to come any time.”

She moved back to seat herself carefully on the sofa while Lucy went out. All her movements were somewhat mechanical, as though she were consciously thinking them out in advance, consciously willing each muscle to act.

Shayne got out a pack of cigarettes and shook one loose, advanced toward her with the pack held out. “Will you have a cigarette, Mrs. Fitzgilpin?”

“Thanks.” She accepted it and glanced briefly up into his face with haunted, gray eyes. “Please call me Linda. I don’t feel like Mrs. Fitzgilpin this morning.”

Shayne struck a match and held it for her. Then he lit one of his own and moved back to a chair by the window. “I don’t want to sound Pollyanna-ish or anything like that, Linda, but Lucy tells me there’s no positive identification yet. Just the fact that your husband’s car was found near a body. There may be a dozen other explanations.”

“No.” Her voice was strong and positive. “Jerome would never stay away from home all night. He never has in all the years we’ve been married. He was very considerate and always phoned me even if he was only going to be half an hour later than I expected him.”

“He didn’t phone last night?”

“No. Fridays he stays late at the office. Until nine usually. Then he usually stops off at some bar for a beer or two, and he often gets interested talking to people and doesn’t get home until midnight. Friday night was… was sort of his night to do that, you see, and I didn’t object. I urged him to stay out one night a week. He’d never drink more than two or three beers,” she went on strongly, as though feeling a deep need to establish this fact, “no matter how late he stayed out. So I never worried about him. He loved people. Different kinds of people. The sort he’d meet on Friday nights in a neighborhood bar.” Her voice was musing now, her eyes lowered as though she were talking to herself. “He was so friendly and interested, he’d draw them out to talk about themselves. Tell him all sorts of personal things.

“Why… why?” she cried out suddenly, lifting tragic eyes to stare at him. “Why would anyone hurt him, Mr. Shayne? He never hurt anyone in his life. He didn’t have an enemy in the world.”

Shayne said, “If it’s going to be Linda, you’d better start calling me Mike.” He shook his head angrily and rumpled his red hair with knobby fingers.

The buzzer sounded and he got up to admit Lucy who had changed into a light print dress. Linda got up too, mashing out her cigarette. “If the children wake up before I get back, Lucy, tell them… oh God, I don’t know what you should tell them.”

“Better not tell them anything until we know for sure,” Lucy said briskly. “Just that something came up and you both had to go out. Luckily, I’ve babysat before, so they won’t be surprised to find me here.” Lucy met Linda in the middle of the room and squeezed her arm tightly. “Go along with Michael and don’t worry about the children.”

Linda nodded and compressed her lips tightly and hurried out of the apartment in front of Shayne.

He followed her down the two flights of stairs, admiring the set of her shoulders, the proud lift of her head. At least, he wasn’t going to have an hysterical female on his hands. Not for a time at least. Not until the initial shock had worn off and she was confronted with the inescapable fact of widowhood.

She sat in the front seat of Shayne’s car beside him and composedly folded her hands in her lap and looked straight ahead through the windshield while he drove across the Causeway to Miami Beach. Neither of them spoke during the drive, but her shoulder touched his lightly on occasion as he sped around a curve, and he felt a warm sense of understanding and communion between them which he believed she shared and which was gratifying under the circumstances. She was Lucy’s friend, he reminded himself, and this made him want to be her friend also.

She sat very still in the car and breathed a deep sigh when he pulled into the parking lot behind police headquarters where one room of the building was arranged as a temporary morgue until bodies could be removed to the County Morgue on the mainland.

He got out and went around to open her door and helped her out, and held onto her arm tightly as he led her through a side door and down a short corridor to an unmarked closed door which he opened without knocking. There was a small anteroom with a desk and a shirt-sleeved police officer sitting behind it. He grinned recognition at the redhead and greeted him heartily, “Hi there, Shamus. What brings you…?” and stopped abruptly when he saw the pale-faced woman beside the detective.

Shayne said, “I’ve brought Mrs. Fitzgilpin, Dexter. Shall we… go in?”

“Yeh… good… sure.” The patrolman arose hastily, grabbed his uniform coat from a hook and shrugged into it. He pressed an intercom button on his desk, explaining over his shoulder to Shayne, “Chief wanted to know when she got here.” He leaned down and spoke into the intercom, “Mrs. Fitzgilpin is here to make that identification, Chief.”

“Hold it till I get there,” Chief Peter Painter’s voice rasped over the wire, and Patrolman Dexter straightened up and began fastening the buttons of his coat and said officiously, as though they hadn’t heard Painter’s order, “Just a minute, folks. Chief Painter will be right in.”

Linda was standing very close to Shayne, and he felt her body begin to shake as though gripped by a chill. She whispered faintly, “Couldn’t we… couldn’t I see Jerome?”

“Just a second.” He held her arm tightly against his, knowing that Painter was right in wanting to be present to observe her reaction when she viewed the body, but mentally damning him for prolonging her agony just the same.

It was only a couple of minutes before the door opened behind them and the Miami Beach Chief of Detectives strutted in. He was a short, very slender man, and his natural gait was a strut. He was thin-faced and immaculately dressed, and wore a pencil-line black mustache. His expression of grave sympathy changed to one of irritated surprise when he saw Shayne standing close beside the widow. He stiffened and drew himself up and demanded, “How does this concern you, Shayne?”

“I’m a personal friend of Mrs. Fitzgilpin’s,” Shayne told him coldly. “Save any other questions for later. Let’s get this job done.”

Painter hesitated, his black eyes sparkling with hostility. He would have enjoyed ordering the detective to stay outside while they viewed the body, but nothing in the circumstances warranted that, so he nodded shortly and said, “Very well. Dexter,” he snapped at the waiting patrolman.

Dexter saluted briskly and stepped forward to open a door beyond his desk. He held it open and Shayne waited for Painter to enter the small, drab room before following with Linda, slipping his arm about her slim waist as he did so.

The body lay on a wheeled stretcher in the middle of the floor, just as it had been brought in from the ambulance, though it had been stripped of clothing and was now covered by a white sheet.

Painter went forward and circled to the other side of the stretcher and waited with his hand on a corner of the sheet until Shayne and Linda stood opposite him. Then he drew the sheet back to disclose the face of the dead man, who lay on his back with sightless eyes staring upward.

Linda’s body became absolutely rigid inside Shayne’s encircling arm as she looked down at the plump features of her husband, now flaccid and undistinguished in death. She said, “Yes,” sibilantly, and then moaned an anguished, “Oh… Jerome,” and she leaned over him and her tears fell on the waxen flesh and she reached forward a trembling hand to put her fingertips gently on the cold forehead.

Shayne tightened his arm about her waist and drew her back, swallowing down an angry lump in his throat. That little inoffensive man on the stretcher, two fatherless children at home, and a young and vital widow who now faced the future alone! Despite the years he’d been close to violent death, a scene like this still affected Shayne as strongly as though he were just starting out in his profession. He turned Linda away, saying gruffly to Painter, “You’ve got your identification. Now tell us what happened.”

Painter followed them out to the anteroom officiously. “I’ll have to have a statement from you, Mrs. Fitzgilpin. Where you were last night. When you saw your husband last. The state of his personal and business affairs. Anyone who had a motive for doing him harm.”

“Wait a minute, Petey,” Shayne interrupted him angrily. “I gathered this was a straight mugging job. What have all those questions got to do with that? Are you trying to cover up your inefficiency here on the Beach by trying to make it into something else?”

Painter drew himself up angrily. “This isn’t your affair, Shayne. I am conducting this investigation. I must insist that Mrs. Fitzgilpin make a statement.”

“All she knows is that he worked late at his insurance office here on the Beach last night, and was presumably carrying several hundred dollars in his wallet. Was he rolled, or wasn’t he?”

“He was rolled, all right. That is, his wallet is missing and there are indications that a ring was pulled from his finger. Did he wear a valuable ring, Ma’m?”

Linda nodded woodenly. “Not particularly valuable, but he prized it highly. An amethyst. Worth, perhaps, a hundred dollars.”

“There you are,” Shayne said hotly. “Round up some of the petty crooks whom you allow to run free on the Beach, and you’ll have your killer. Mrs. Fitzgilpin’s statement stands. She went to sleep last night expecting her husband to return about midnight as he generally did on Fridays. She was wakened by your phone call this morning and discovered his bed unslept in. I think that’s all you need to know right now.”

“I’m not so sure about that, Shayne.” Peter Painter spoke with smirking satisfaction and caressed his thin mustache with a beautifully manicured thumbnail. “You’ve stupidly neglected a very important point. You haven’t asked the cause of death.”

“All right. What caused his death?”

“We haven’t had time for a P. M. yet, of course. Just a preliminary examination of stomach contents while we were awaiting identification,” Painter purred happily. “But he was poisoned, Shayne. There isn’t the faintest shadow of doubt that death was due to poison… probably administered in alcohol from half an hour to an hour before he died. Do you consider that reason enough for requiring a full statement from the widow without interference from you?”

Linda said falteringly, “Poisoned? Oh no!” She put her hands to her face and swayed against him in a faint and would have slumped to the floor if his arm hadn’t supported her.

3

“Goddamn it,” said Shayne angrily. “That’s one way of breaking the news to a newly-made widow.” He slid his left arm gently beneath Linda’s knees and lifted her limp body. “Where can I take her? Got some smelling salts?”

“There’s a sofa in my office. I’ll get a doctor if necessary… if she isn’t faking it.” He opened the door and strutted out, and Shayne followed him down the hall to the chief’s private office.

Looking down into Linda’s white face as he carried her, Shayne saw her closed eyelids begin to flutter and knew she was coming out of it.

He laid her carefully on a sofa in the office, sat beside her and took both her hands in his, rubbing them gently between his palms. “She doesn’t need a doctor,” he said shortly. “She just needs a moment to recuperate from one shock before she receives another. You could have taken me aside and told me privately…”

“When I need lessons from you in how to interrogate a suspect, I’ll ask for them, Shayne.”

“A suspect?” Watching her face, Shayne saw the color slowly coming back; her eyelids opened briefly to allow her to see his concerned face looking down into hers, and closed again as she breathed a faint sigh.

“What else?” said Painter sharply. “The man was poisoned, Shayne. It’s not a simple mugging. Closer to home than that.”

“How do you know it isn’t a new M. O. for your Beach muggers?” demanded the redhead angrily. He released her hands as Linda opened her eyes wide and struggled to sit up, slid his hand beneath her back to help her and said soothingly, “Take it easy, Linda. Your husband is dead. That’s a fact you have to live with. How he died isn’t really important.”

“I say it’s extremely important,” Chief Painter cut in incisively. “I need every tiny detail I can get about the man in order to proceed intelligently. I’ll call in a stenographer and take down a complete statement… if you don’t mind, Mr. Shayne,” he added sarcastically, moving behind his desk and reaching for the intercom button with pointed forefinger.

Shayne said bluntly, “I do mind, Painter. She’s my client and she’s in no condition to make a statement at this point. Goddamn it, man! There are two small fatherless children at home waiting for her to come back and tell them what happened to daddy. You can get a statement from her later, but right now I’m taking her home.”

“Your clients aren’t immune to interrogation, Shayne. If you continue to interfere with the due process of law, I’ll have you locked up here and now.”

Shayne didn’t bother to reply to that. He told Linda, “Listen to me carefully. When you do make a statement, I want you to be out of shock and in full possession of your reasoning faculties. If this idiot is stupid enough to hold you here against your will, refuse to answer any questions. Do you understand, Linda? Call a lawyer. That’s your legal right, and I want you to promise me you’ll do it.”

She nodded, her face grave, her eyes intent on his. “I promise.”

“Okay, Petey.” Shayne stood up and grinned at the infuriated detective chief. “Am I under arrest?”

“By God, Shayne, I ought to throw you under the jail. Get out of here. And stay out of this case, do you hear?”

Shayne said, “I’ll get out gladly… for now. But I told you Mrs. Fitzgilpin is my client, and my license entitles me to practice my profession in Miami Beach as well as any other municipality in this state. Come on, Linda. The little man wants us to go now.”

He arose, holding out his hand to her, and she took it and he pulled her to her feet. He said, “She’ll be at home and available to you at any time, Painter. But you keep it clear in your mind that you have no jurisdiction across Biscayne Bay. When you question her it will have to be in cooperation with the Miami police.”

He stalked to the door, holding Linda’s arm tightly and leaving Peter Painter standing behind his desk transfixed with frustration and rage.

When they reached Shayne’s car and Linda subsided weakly in the seat beside him, she asked in a low, frightened voice, “He did say Jerome was poisoned, didn’t he, Mike? I’m not dreaming that.”

Shayne nodded, backing out carefully. “That’s what he said. Just a preliminary medical report, of course, but we can take it pretty well for granted there’s no mistake.”

“It’s so horrible. So utterly vicious and unthinkable. Poison! That means premeditation. Someone who wanted and planned Jerome’s death. Who could? Everyone he knew loved him. He was gentle and generous and kind. It’s appalling and impossible to try and realize that there’s such a monster alive who would do that to Jerome.”

Shayne drove toward the Causeway very carefully several minutes before answering her. “These are questions you’re going to have to face, Linda. Not only will they be asked by the police, but you must ask them of yourself and try to know the answers. We don’t know what sort of poison it was yet… how it was taken. There’s always the possibility of suicide in a poisoning. Can you positively rule that out?”

“Oh, yes.” Linda sounded honestly and completely shocked. “Not Jerome. He loved living. He really did… as much as any person I’ve ever known. Though we weren’t wealthy, we lived comfortably and his business was increasing all the time. He never wanted to make a lot of money, and was determined to keep his business small, to have personal contacts with his clients. That was one of the things he liked most… his feeling that he really was of help and service to the people who came to him. He was such a friendly man. I can’t conceive him having an enemy.”

“There wasn’t any difficulty recently? Nothing to upset him?” probed Shayne.

“Nothing at all. Well, there was a funny thing happened about a week ago at the office, and we laughed about it. Some woman wanted to insure her husband’s life for a quarter of a million dollars without him knowing about it… the husband, I mean. That’s absolutely against the rules, you know, and Jerome told her so point-blank. He didn’t know her from Eve, and didn’t know why she came to him with such a proposition, but he suspected it was because he has such a small business and she hoped he’d be tempted by the fee. Because it would be huge, you know, on such a yearly premium. And that made him angry. Because she had the effrontery to think he’d do something like that just for the money involved. He told her off flatly, I guess. It was funny,” she added wistfully. “For one whole evening, we both felt rich. You see, she called one day to make an appointment to see him the next day and discuss the policy and he told me about it that night. Naturally, she didn’t tell him she wanted to take out the policy without her husband’s knowledge, so it was a shock the next day when he came home and told me it was all off.”

Shayne was driving westward quite slowly over the Causeway, staying in the right-hand lane and letting other cars scoot past on the left, letting the widow talk herself out because he realized that was the best possible therapy under the circumstances and also because these were exactly the sort of things he needed to know about Jerome Fitzgilpin if he was going to investigate his death.

“This woman,” he asked, “didn’t come back?”

“No. I’m sure she didn’t or Jerome would have mentioned it. I’m sure he made her understand emphatically that he would have no part of such a scheme.”

“Was he attractive to women?” Shayne asked abruptly. “Did he ever give you reason for jealousy?”

“Jerome?” She laughed with the happy indulgence of a woman who knew herself well-loved. “They liked him, of course. Everybody did. A lot of his clients were widows or spinsters who had to earn their own livings, and they trusted him and asked for business advice. But we’ve been married fifteen years and I don’t believe he ever as much as looked at another woman.”

“I can believe that,” Shayne told her sincerely with a sidelong glance. “You’re a very beautiful woman. And a lot younger than Jerome, I’d guess. How much? Fifteen years?”

“Eleven,” she replied promptly. “I was only nineteen when I married him and I’ve never regretted it.” She sighed deeply and relapsed into silence, and despite his procrastination they were approaching the mainland.

Then she laid her hand on his forearm and asked timidly, “Will you work on the case, Mike? I can afford to pay you. Jerome left quite a lot of insurance, and I’d feel so much better if I knew you were working on it. That little man at the Beach! Ugh.” She shuddered. “He gave me the creeps somehow. Lucy Hamilton talks about you and your cases a lot and I know how successful you are. I suppose you know Lucy is hopelessly in love with you,” she confided.

Shayne laughed. “Not hopelessly. Sometimes she hates me. Right now, for instance, I’m sure she’d hate me if I didn’t take your case… or if I accepted a fee for solving it.” He had turned north a few blocks off the Causeway, and now drew up in front of Linda’s apartment house.

“I’ll go up with you,” he suggested, “and see if I can induce Lucy to invite me down to her place for a cup of coffee and a slug of cognac.”

“I can make coffee,” she offered. “And there’s whiskey, but I’m afraid no cognac.”

“Lucy always keeps a bottle on hand,” he assured her, “and I think you’ll want a few minutes alone with the children.”

He took her arm as they climbed the stairs together, and released it when Lucy opened the door of the Fitzgilpin apartment and he saw a boy of nine and a little girl of six clinging to his secretary’s two hands.

They both started talking at once when they saw their mother in the doorway, “Mommy… Mom… Lucy’s gonna make a picnic… take us to the park… to have a picnic lunch,” little Sara explained soberly, and then Ralph pulled away from Lucy and straightened his shoulders manfully and asked, “Where’s daddy, Mom? Lucy said there’d been an accident…?”

“… cident,” echoed Sara, and Linda dropped to her knees on the floor and held out both her arms, and the two children crowded into them.

Looking over their heads into Lucy’s mutely questioning eyes, Shayne shook his head and said, “Have you got a drink downstairs, Angel? I need one.” She understood at once, and circled the little family trio to go out the door with him. Shayne pulled it shut firmly, and told her, “Linda will be okay. She’s got what it takes. Right now she doesn’t need us.”

“It was Jerome?” she breathed as she went down the stairs with him to her apartment

He nodded absently. “Not only that, Angel, but it’s not as cut and dried as we thought. He was rolled, all right. Even a fairly inexpensive ring taken off his finger, but it wasn’t just a conventional mugging. He died of poison.”

Lucy had unlocked her door and pushed it open. She turned to him with exactly the same exclamatory words with which Linda had greeted the same announcement. “Poisoned? Oh no!”

Shayne nodded, walking past her into the familiar, pleasantly cool living room. “It’s just a preliminary report, but the M. E. on the Beach doesn’t make mistakes. Painter tried to take Linda over the hurdles, of course, on account of that, but I put my oar in and shut him up for the time being.”

Having worked with Shayne for a lot of years on a lot of cases, Lucy Hamilton knew exactly what he meant without any further explanation. A poisoning almost positively indicated premeditation. Very few poisoners act on the spur of the moment. It also, in a large majority of cases, meant a woman murderer… particularly if the victim were a male. More than that, it was (too often) the preferred method for wives to get rid of unwanted husbands.

Lucy came to him in the middle of the room and clutched his arm fiercely. “Not Linda, Michael. I know her. I’ve seen them together a lot. She’s a lovely mother… crazy about those two kids. And they were nuts about their daddy. She’d never in the world…”

Shayne grinned down tiredly into Lucy’s intense face. “All right. So I’ve got a job cut out for me. A cup of your coffee might help.”

“I’ve got the percolator ready to plug in.” She released his arm and hurried into the kitchen. He dropped his angular frame on the sofa and lit a cigarette, and Lucy called out to him, “Could you stand a drink first?”

“First and with,” he told her firmly, and settled back on the sofa and drew deeply on his cigarette until she came in with a four-ounce glass of cognac in one hand and a tall glass of ice water in the other.

He accepted the drink with muttered thanks, a thoughtful scowl on his face. “Right now, I don’t know what the poison is or how taken, though Petey intimated he was well loaded with alcohol also. Any chance of suicide, Lucy?”

“No. I don’t think so. I’d swear on a stack of Bibles, no, Michael. He just… well… Lucy spread out her hands helplessly. “He wasn’t the suicidal type, Michael.”

“If there is such a thing,” growled Shayne, taking a long and thankful pull at the cognac glass and washing it down with ice water. “All right. We skip that for the moment. Any more ideas in that pretty head of yours?”

With the electric percolator making proper noises in the kitchen, Lucy sank down on the sofa close beside him and rested her brown head on his shoulder. “At the moment… none,” she told him firmly. “A poisoner means, to me, an implacable and vicious enemy. This, I cannot visualize for Jerome Fitzgilpin. I’ve told you, Michael, he was the sweetest, friendliest little man you ever saw. I never knew a man more eager to do favors for people, not fawning or servile, but with real generosity and a great big heart. That’s why they didn’t have too much money, I think. I suspect he was always carrying his poorer clients over bad times… paying their insurance premiums for them himself rather than allowing them to lapse.”

“Did Linda object to this generosity on his part? Did it gripe her that they had to live cooped up with two kids in an apartment like theirs?”

“Never,” said Lucy sturdily. “She loved him for being what he was, and didn’t try to make him over.”

Shayne drained his cognac glass and set it down on the coffee table in front of him with a thump. “You know what you’re handing me, Lucy? An impossible case. A man whom nobody wanted dead. Yet, he is dead. Someone fed him poison last night.”

“And then stole his ring and wallet with several hundred dollars in it,” Lucy reminded him spiritedly. “Why couldn’t it be that way, Michael? He often stopped in a bar for a few beers after he kept his office open late on Friday night. Many of his clients might have known this. Even a few hundred is a temptation to a lot of the sort of people who dealt with Jerome. Not professional muggers, of course,” she added eagerly. “Some person who would shrink from actual physical violence, but who wouldn’t be too squeamish to put some poison in his beer and then steal his wallet when it took effect.”

Shayne nodded unhappily. “This I shall attempt to sell Painter. But he’s a confirmed cynic, and he operates according to rules. In his experience, a poisoning is a close-to-home job. I’m afraid your friend Linda is in for a pretty rough going-over when Petey gets around to her.”

“She has nothing to hide,” Lucy told him strongly.

“I sincerely hope not.” Shayne turned his head toward the kitchen and sniffed pleasurably. “Hasn’t your coffee-pot stopped perking?”

“I think so.” Lucy jumped to her feet and gathered up the two glasses she had brought in previously. “With, Michael?”

“With,” he told her firmly, and when she returned shortly with a mug of strong black coffee giving forth the aroma of cognac, he accepted it from her gratefully and settled back on the sofa, saying, “Let me relax here alone with your heavenly brew, Angel. I think you’d better go back upstairs and take those two youngsters off Linda’s hands. By this time she must have told them whatever she’s decided to tell them, and she can probably use a respite.”

“Of course. What are you going to do, Michael?”

“Drink a couple of coffee royals and then hie me over to the Beach to get my teeth into a few facts before doing any more vain theorizing. Tell Linda I’ll be in touch.”

Lucy nodded and hurried out, leaving him alone with his cognac-laced coffee and his thoughts.

4

Twenty minutes and two coffee royals later, Shayne telephoned Timothy Rourke at the News from Lucy’s apartment. When the reporter’s voice came over the wire, he said, “Tim. Have you got anything on the Beach killing… Fitzgilpin?”

“Not much. I’ve just been sitting here thinking about the little guy and what a shame it is. Are you interested, Mike?”

“His widow is a close friend of Lucy’s. I drove her over to make the identification. What do you mean… you’ve been thinking what a shame it is? Did you know Fitzgilpin?”

“Not really. I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago and did a piece about him for the paper. Human interest stuff. He got an insurance company award… top ten in the United States for annual increase in number of policies for five thousand bucks and under. He seemed a hell of a nice guy. Knocked off for a few hundred bucks, huh?”

“That’s not too certain,” Shayne told his old friend cautiously. “I guess he was rolled, all right, but he was poisoned first.”

“Poisoned? You sure?”

“Painter is. You better ask him.”

“Damn right I will. How do you stand in it?”

“The widow is officially my client. And Painter isn’t pleased.”

“No. He wouldn’t be.” Rourke’s voice was thoughtful and Shayne could almost hear the wheels spinning around in his head. “He’d like to hang it on her, huh?”

“You know how a cop is when a husband turns up with poison in him. I’m at Lucy’s place, Tim, and she’s upstairs with Mrs. Fitzgilpin. You want to go over to the Beach and nose around? Painter isn’t going to give me much, but he can’t refuse the press.”

“I’m practically on my way,” Rourke told him enthusiastically. “Where’ll I meet you?”

“How about that bar a couple of blocks from headquarters? Jim’s Joint, I think it is. In about an hour?”

“Right. I’ll have the dope.” Rourke hung up and so did Shayne, tugging thoughtfully at his left earlobe. He looked at his watch and dialed another number that gave him a direct line to Will Gentry’s private office.

When the Miami Chief of Police answered, he said, “Mike Shayne, Will.”

“Mike? What’s with you so early of a Saturday morning?”

“Early?” said Shayne reprovingly. “I’ve been up for hours. Making hay before the sun even started to shine.”

“What spoiled your beauty sleep?”

“The Fitzgilpin case. On the Beach.”

“That mugging? I see a report here on my desk, but I didn’t know… what’s he to you, Mike?”

“His widow is one of Lucy’s best friends. I wanted to tell you this may be your case, Will. Don’t let Painter hog it. The guy lived on this side of the bay and was loaded with poison that may well have been fed to him at least an hour before he died. That could easily make it your problem.”

“Fine,” said Chief Gentry wearily. “Nothing I like better than a nice, clean poisoning.” He paused and then added sharply, “Widow’s a friend of Lucy’s, you say?”

“Lives right upstairs in the same apartment building with two cute kids. Lucy’s with her now. Reason I called, Will, I don’t want Painter throwing his weight around over here with Mrs. Fitzgilpin. He has a perfect right to question her, but I’d like a good man of yours with him when he does. You know how he is about any friend of mine?”

“And she’s… a particular friend of yours, Mike?” Gentry asked urbanely. “Good-looking?”

“Yeh,” said Shayne angrily, “a red-headed sex-pot, if you want the truth. Don’t make anything out of it, Will. Leave that to Petey.”

“Sure, Mike,” Gentry soothed him. “I’ll check into it and if it seems anything for me I’ll go around with Painter myself to talk with her.”

Relieved, Shayne said, “Fine. I’ll be in touch later.” He hung up, knowing he had done all he could to protect Linda Fitzgilpin from over-officious questioning by Painter.

He hesitated about going upstairs again, decided against it. He had nothing to go on yet. Nothing to discuss with the widow until he’d been to the Beach and dug up more facts. She would be better alone with Lucy at this point.

He went out to the kitchen and poured himself a very moderate drink and relaxed with it on the sofa until it was time to meet Timothy Rourke on the Beach.

The gangling reporter was seated in a booth at the rear of Jim’s Joint with a bourbon and water in front of him when Shayne entered the dim interior half an hour later. He looked up with a saturnine grin on his thin face as the redhead slid into the booth opposite him and said admiringly, “Boy! Did you ever rub Petey’s fur the wrong way this morning. What I got is strictly confidential… not to be passed on to an interfering shamus from Miami who thinks, by God, he can run the whole Miami Beach police department.”

Shayne returned the grin and said, “It isn’t difficult to rub Painter the wrong way. You made no promises, I hope?”

“Not… under oath,” Rourke told him cheerily. “I agreed with him that you certainly were a pain in the neck and didn’t deserve any cooperation whatsoever. But I didn’t say you weren’t going to get it.” Rourke lifted his glass and sipped from it pleasurably.

“How much dope did you get?”

“Everything they have thus far. Let’s see. Officer Farrel found him about four o’clock lying off to the side of Lone Palm Road about ten blocks north of the Causeway. That’s a quiet, sort of run-down section on the Bay side. There was an empty car parked on the shoulder near the body. Nobody around that time of morning. Body was cool, but no rigor. Smelled of whiskey and staggering tracks from the car to where he was found. No wallet. No nothing for identification. Routine check on the car registration got Fitzgilpin’s name in Miami and they called the number. You know that much.”

Shayne nodded, drumming impatiently on the table top with blunt fingertips. “Time of death?”

“Probably between midnight and two o’clock. The complete autopsy may set it closer. Not a mark on his body to indicate any sort of slugging. He was loaded with sodium amytal and alcohol. It’s a sleeping drug, really, but enough of it is poison. He had enough.”

Shayne nodded thoughtfully. “Wouldn’t a load of it likely put him to sleep before it killed him?”

“Doc says it’s probable. At least he’d be knocked out on his feet and never know what hit him. That’s about all I got, really. They’re doing a complete autopsy. Seems he generally kept his insurance office open late Friday nights collecting small cash premiums from clients, and probably was carrying a roll of several hundred in small bills. Might have looked like a lot more if he flashed it in a bar.”

Shayne nodded absently. “I got that. And it was normal procedure for him to drop into a bar for a couple of beers on Friday nights on his way home. His wife expected it and wasn’t alarmed when she went to bed, with a sleeping pill, about eleven o’clock.”

“Sodium amytal?” asked Rourke alertly.

Shayne said, “I’ll have to ask her.”

“He sure as hell had a lot more than a couple of beers last night. He was loaded, and the doc figures he got the stuff in whiskey. Says it would kill the taste fine. Goddamn it, Mike, I don’t like this one.” Rourke spread out his thin hands in front of him and slowly closed them into tight fists. “Like I said on the phone, I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago and thought he was one of the nicest guys I ever met. Friendly as hell and sort of bubbling over with goodwill toward his fellow men. I got the impression… and I wrote my story that way… that he was a completely satisfied and happy man. One of the very few I ever met. I can’t conceive him having an enemy.”

“But someone fed him poison last night,” Shayne said grimly. “Unless you think he took it himself.”

“Not him,” said Rourke flatly. “He was so proud of that citation he’d gotten from his company, and about having a write-up in a newspaper. Hell, you’d thought he’d been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Biggest thing that ever happened to him in his whole life.” Rourke drained off his bourbon and regarded Shayne shrewdly. “What’s the wife like?”

Shayne replied simply, “She’s a close friend of Lucy’s, who swears by her. They lived right upstairs and she baby-sits sometimes. Two kids… six and nine, I think.”

“Could she be cheating?”

“Right now, all I have to go on is Lucy’s judgment, but I’ll accept that until I have some reason not to. Let’s see what we’ve got without the widow. You say there were staggering tracks from the car to where he was found. Any other tracks?”

“You mean to indicate he was rolled after he died or collapsed. No. Farrel’s report says not. And his tracks didn’t lead exactly from where the car was parked. From the edge of the pavement, rather, starting about twenty feet from the car. I saw photographs and a sketch of the scene.”

“Then it looks as though he drove there or was driven there… got out of the car and started up the road before he staggered off and died.”

“He was driven,” Rourke told him promptly. “Or else someone went to the trouble of wiping his fingerprints off the steering wheel after he got out. No prints at all on the wheel, light switch or gear shift. They’ve still got his car at the lab giving it a thorough job.”

“Someone who met him in a bar,” suggested Shayne. “Gave him the stuff there or noticed he was already passing out and offered to drive him home.”

“Could be either way. I’m sorry, Mike, but this time I have to string along with Painter. Poisoning puts it closer to home than just some stranger in a bar.”

Shayne sighed morosely. “Probably. But don’t tell Petey I said so.” He glanced at Rourke’s empty glass and put a dollar bill on the table. “Let’s drive out and look at the spot. Lone Palm Road?”

“Yeh. A couple of blocks from the bayshore. I’ve got the address.” Timothy Rourke slid out of the booth with him and they went out to where both their cars were parked outside. Shayne waved the reporter on to his car and said, “You go ahead and I’ll follow.”

He got in his own car and followed Rourke’s shabby coupe away from the vicinity of police headquarters westward toward the bay.

Rourke followed a winding course, checking street signs, and finally pulled off and stopped in the middle of a block of quiet homes on a street that dead-ended against the bay a couple of blocks ahead.

Shayne pulled up behind him and they got out and walked forward in front of Rourke’s car where chalk marks on the edge of the pavement indicated the position of Fitzgilpin’s parked car, then on ten or fifteen feet to a chalked arrow pointing off to the side where the body had evidently been found. There were many tracks back and forth across the soft shoulder here showing that the police had made an intensive search of the scene, and Shayne shrugged and glanced up and down the residential block, muttering, “These people are the kind to all be in bed and asleep by midnight. Painter’s men will have been ringing doorbells up and down, but I doubt that he’ll get anything.”

“Nothing had come in worth a damn by the time I left his office,” Rourke agreed.

Shayne stood there and looked toward the bay in the bright sunlight at a large, two-story stucco building built adjacent to the water’s edge. “Isn’t that Pete Elston’s Sporting Club up ahead?”

Rourke glanced in that direction and nodded. “He’s got a nice quiet little bar downstairs,” he suggested hopefully. “And Fitzgilpin’s insurance office isn’t too far from here, from the address I got. Might be a place he’d stop in at on his way home.”

Shayne said, “I could use a drink about now. How about you?”

“Why not? The one you paid for at Jim’s was my first this morning.”

Without more ado they both got in their cars and drove up to the Sporting Club and parked in front where only one other car stood at this hour of the morning. There was a neon light on over the door to indicate the place was open for business, however, so they got out and went in purposefully together.

5

The interior of the Sporting Club bar had subdued lighting and a quiet decor. It was not one of the garish, chromium and red leather cocktail lounges that are characteristic of Miami Beach, but had a homey quality about it that was more like the atmosphere of a neighborhood bar in a small town.

There were two men seated at the far end of the bar when Shayne and Rourke went in. They had beers in front of them and were engaged in earnest, low-voiced conversation. None of the tables or booths was occupied.

Shayne and Rourke took the first two stools and the bartender moved in front of them with an indifferent, almost hostile, expression on his horselike face. He had a protruding Adam’s apple, a bald head, and his small eyes were set too close together.

He swiped a damp cloth across the bar in front of them and asked, “What’ll it be, gents?”

Shayne said, “A bourbon and water for my friend. Old Crow. And a cognac and water on the side for me. Martel,” he added glancing at the row of bottles behind the bar.

Shayne lit a cigarette and blew out the match as the bartender set their drinks in front of them. He said, “Had some excitement around here last night, didn’t you?”

“Huh?” The bartender blinked at him suspiciously. “I don’t recollect any.”

“Were you on duty last night?”

“Sure was. Right up to quitting time.” Horseface started to turn away, but Shayne stopped him by asking, “What about the stiff they found down the street this morning? Was he passed out when he left here?”

“Look here, Mister. I don’t know nothing about a stiff down the street. We run a quiet place here, and nobody passes out if I’m serving him drinks. Get that straight. I already told the cops nobody answering his description was in here last night.”

Shayne said quietly, “We’re not cops.”

“Then how come you’re around asking questions?” The bartender seemed unduly belligerent and his close-set eyes were slitted as he glared at the two men.

“Rourke here is a reporter covering the case,” Shayne told him evenly. “He’d like a quote from you.”

“Quote, I don’t know nothing about the stiff, unquote,” snapped Horseface showing his teeth in what was intended to be a grin but came out a sort of sneer. “Say! You’re that private eye from Miami, ain’t you?”

Shayne nodded. “I’m working on the case. The way I get it, Fitzgilpin used to drop in here for a couple of beers in an evening.”

“That his name? Fitzgilpin? Never heard it before. Like I already told the cops…”

“But we’re not cops,” Shayne reminded him gently. He had his wallet out and he extracted a twenty-dollar bill and laid it on the counter. “We’re willing to pay for information. You notice a short, plump-faced guy in around midnight flashing a roll?”

“Friday nights are busy and the joint was jumping,” Horseface told him shortly. He turned away with the bill in his hand and rang up the price of their two drinks, turned back and ostentatiously counted out the exact change in front of Shayne. “No charge for that info. And it makes me nervous having reporters and private snoopers hanging around. Boss don’t like it either.”

Shayne said, “We’re not interested in Pete Elston’s gambling room upstairs. What we want…”

“You already got all you’re gonna get,” snapped the bartender. He turned his back on them and strolled down the bar to stand in front of the two beer-drinkers and rest his elbows on the bar.

Timothy Rourke grinned sideways at the redhead as he sipped his bourbon and water with relish. “Methinks our friend protests too much.”

Shayne shrugged his wide shoulders. “Elston wouldn’t like it one little bit if a guy were mugged after drinking down here. He pays plenty for protection, but not to Homicide.” He finished his drink and picked up a half-dollar and rapped sharply on the bar. The two other patrons glanced up the bar at them, but Horseface kept his back turned to them.

Shayne called loudly, “Two more, bartender.” He continued to keep his back turned.

The grin faded from Rourke’s face as Shayne slid off the bar stool and stalked back to confront the bartender. The reporter remained seated on his stool, turning his head to observe Shayne going into action with pleasure and interest.

The two beer-drinkers sat rigid, staring down into their glasses with complete absorption as Shayne stopped beside them. Horseface pretended not to notice his presence. He was talking fast in a low voice, “… so there was this dame, see? And she says to me…”

Shayne reached over the bar and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “My friend and I would like another round.”

Without turning his head, the bartender snapped, “I said you already got all you’re gonna get in here. Can’t you take a hint? No private snoops or reporters wanted.”

Shayne’s voice remained dangerously calm. “You’re getting out of your depth, bud.”

“Am I?” The bartender turned his head to sneer at the rangy redhead. “I gotta right to refuse service to anyone. See that sign back there?” He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. “Strikes me you had enough already, Mister. I wouldn’t want you passin’ out in my place and then maybe getting rolled down the street. Law says I ain’t allowed to serve no drink to a drunk.” He spread his lips wide and smirked across the bar at Shayne. “So whyn’t you just go on quiet and pass out some other place?” He slid his right elbow off the bar as he spoke, and his hand disappeared under the mahogany.

Shayne’s left hand shot out and his fingers closed around the bartender’s scrawny neck. Horseface gurgled and tried to back away, his right hand coming up from under the bar swinging a two-foot length of leaded pool cue.

Shayne laughed shortly and released his neck to clamp his big left hand about the man’s wrist.

The weighted cue was interrupted in mid-swing. Shayne put pressure on the wrist and the bartender gasped loudly in pain and the cue clattered down to the mahogany.

Shayne released his wrist and stepped back. He said, “Two more of the same,” and strode back to seat himself beside Rourke again.

The bartender hesitated a long moment, his bony face working convulsively, then sullenly moved up behind the bar and placed two more drinks in front of them. Shayne counted out the exact change for the drinks and pushed it across the bar. Horseface turned away without a word, moved to the center of the bar where he began washing glasses as though he had no interest in anything else in the world except getting the glasses clean as fast as he could.

Rourke gulped some of his bourbon appreciatively and smacked his lips. He said loudly, “Damned if I know why, but this one tastes better than the first one.”

Shayne relaxed and grinned at his old friend. He said, “It’s on account of the service. Something psychological about getting served with a smile.”

They sat and finished their drinks in silence and the bartender continued to wash and dry glasses as though his life depended on it.

When both their glasses were empty, they got up and walked out of the bar together. In the bright sunlight outside, Rourke looked at Shayne with brightly expectant eyes and asked, “You going to let him get away with that?”

“With what?”

“I’ll swear he’s covering up something.”

“Sure he is,” Shayne agreed amiably. “But I need something to pressure him with. I’ll come back for another talk when I get hold of it.”

Rourke chuckled and said, “You seemed to be pressuring him fairly effectively when he let go that home-made billy.”

Shayne said, “Right then, I wanted a drink. I got it. You headed back to your office?” he asked abruptly.

“I’d better get a story written.”

“Give me the address of Fitzgilpin’s insurance office. I’ll drop in there and see what I can find out.”

Rourke consulted his penciled notes and provided the address. Then they went to their own cars and separated.

6

Michael Shayne found the office of the Fitzgilpin Insurance Agency on the ground floor of a run-down office building about ten blocks north and west of the Sporting Club. The door of the office stood open and a plump, pleasant-faced woman was typing behind a desk in the anteroom, facing the outer door.

She appeared to be in her mid-thirties, wearing a fresh, white shirtwaist and a brown skirt, and her eyes were red-rimmed from weeping.

She looked up from her typing as Shayne paused in the doorway, pushed back a straggling lock of brown hair from her forehead, and frowned nearsightedly at him. “Yes? Is there something I can do for you?” Her voice trembled slightly and her teeth gnawed nervously at her full lower lip which already had most of the rouge chewed off it.

Shayne took off his hat and stepped inside. “Are you Mr. Fitzgilpin’s secretary?”

“Yes. That is… I was.” She blinked her nice brown eyes and a single tear slid out from beneath each lid and coursed down her cheeks. She lifted her lids and faltered, “Perhaps you haven’t heard yet…?”

Shayne said hastily, “I have heard. In fact, that’s why I’m here. I’m a private detective and also a personal friend of the Fitzgilpins. My name is Michael Shayne.”

“Oh yes. Of course.” Her eyes were wide now, still moist, but friendly and welcoming. “I should have recognized you from pictures I’ve seen in the papers. I didn’t know Mr. Fitzgilpin knew you, Mr. Shayne. I never heard him mention your name.”

“His wife… widow… is a close friend of my secretary’s,” Shayne told her, sitting down in one of the two chairs in the small reception room. “She called me this morning as soon as the tragic news reached her, and I’ve promised to do what I can to help.”

“Oh, Mr. Shayne. Isn’t it terrible? I can hardly realize it yet. Jerome… Mr. Fitzgilpin was such a wonderful man. Always so kind and considerate to everyone. Who would do such a dastardly thing as that?”

Shayne said, “I hope you can help me find out, Miss…”

“Mrs. Ella Perkins. That is, I’m a widow. Have been for ten years. Ever since I came to work for Mr. Fitzgilpin. I never had a better employer or a position that I enjoyed more. It was positively a pleasure to work for Mr. Fitzgilpin and do things for him. Is it true, Mr. Shayne, that he was poisoned?”

Shayne said, “I’m afraid it is. Have the police been here?”

“Yes. An hour ago. They asked all sorts of the most outrageous personal questions. About Mr. Fitzgilpin and the intimate details of his family life. Did they quarrel, and did he have women friends… and did he ever date me.” She clasped her plump fingers together in front of her and gulped back a sob. “I got the distinct impression that they… they can’t suspect her, can they, Mr. Shayne? I didn’t know her well, but she seemed such a nice person. And I know he was devoted to her and the children. Just an old-fashioned family man… I always felt he was. He didn’t have an enemy in the world, and I told those policemen so.”

“That’s what everyone says about him,” agreed Shayne. “Do you always work on Saturdays, Mrs. Perkins?”

“I come down every Saturday morning to bring the records up to date for the week-end. He stays late on Friday nights, you know, and I like to have everything entered and filed and fresh for Monday morning.”

“I understand he collects a certain amount of cash every Friday night. Do you know how much it was last night?”

“Yes. The police asked me that. Two hundred and sixty-two dollars and forty cents.”

“And he always took it home with him?”

“Always. You see we have no safe here in the office and he felt it was safer that way. He’d stop by the bank to deposit it on Monday morning.”

“How many people do you suppose knew this was his habit?”

“I simply don’t know. It’s not the sort of thing he’d mention casually, is it? On the other hand, he was always so friendly. Even with complete strangers. He’d never think it was something he should conceal. He was so confiding. So full of goodwill himself that he would never suspect anyone else of having an ulterior motive.”

“Do you know who his last client was last night?”

“Yes. The police asked me that and I checked the record. A man named Julian Summerville. He paid a nineteen dollar premium and that’s the last entry for the night.”

“You don’t know what time that was?”

“No. Mr. Fitzgilpin generally stayed until nine or ten o’clock on Fridays.”

“This Summerville,” probed Shayne. “Was he an old client? Particularly friendly? Would your employer have been likely to ask him out for a drink?”

“I don’t believe so. I know the police took his name and address, so I assume they’re checking with him.”

“All right, Mrs. Perkins. What’s your opinion of this? You were probably closer to Mr. Fitzgilpin than anyone else in the world… excluding his wife. And I know lots of secretaries who are actually much closer to their employers than their wives are. No offense intended,” he went on hastily, seeing a hurt, protesting look on her face. “Certainly you know a great deal more about his business… his daily associates. How was his business, by the way? Would you say it was thriving?” Shayne let her see him glance disparagingly about the small and shabby reception room.

“I don’t know what you mean by thriving,” she responded with more spirit than she had shown before. “His income was adequate for his needs, and the business has grown steadily every year since I’ve been here. Actually…” and her face began to glow with pride. “… just recently Mr. Fitzgilpin was honored with an award that is given annually by an insurance association in the United States for being among the top ten brokers in the country showing an increase in policies sold during the year. He was interviewed by a reporter for the Miami paper and had a real nice write-up. He didn’t want to expand too much,” she went on earnestly. “He liked having a one-man office and maintaining a direct personal contact with every one of his clients. He wanted to know them… about their personal lives and their problems. He felt strongly that every insurance policy he sold should be tailored to each individual’s particular situation and needs… that he was performing an important service to his clients rather than just sitting back and collecting money from them. He was such a good man…” She broke down at this point and began crying helplessly, rocking forward over her typewriter with her hands over her face.

Shayne lit a cigarette and smoked it thoughtfully, letting her cry herself out. She accomplished this in a couple of minutes, straightened up and blew her nose loudly with Kleenex, wiped her eyes and told him tremulously, “I wish I could be more help to you, Mr. Shayne, but I just can’t think of anyone who wanted Mr. Fitzgilpin dead or who would benefit by it.”

“Yet, someone did,” Shayne reminded her. “His wife mentioned one peculiar thing this morning,” he went on. “About an incident some weeks ago when a woman came in and wanted him to break the rules by issuing a large policy on her husband’s life without his knowledge. Do you recall that?”

“Oh, yes. Very well. It was most peculiar. It wasn’t as long ago as that. Not more than ten days. I remember she telephoned for an appointment the day after the interview appeared in the paper and I thought maybe she’d read it and got his name from that. Because she was a complete stranger and wouldn’t say who had recommended him… you know, the way most people do if they come to an insurance office. And she acted funny when she did come in the next day. He was busy with another client when she arrived, and she sat and talked to me for fifteen minutes at least. I tried to be nice to her because she had mentioned a quarter-million dollar policy when she telephoned and we never had anything near that big in this office before. But she seemed more interested in Mr. Fitzgilpin than she did in getting a policy. She sat right in that same chair you’re sitting in and asked all sorts of funny questions. Like, how long had I worked here, and did he go out of town very often, and did he enjoy going to New York and when was the last trip he’d made, and all like that. It just seemed so funny.”

“What was her name?” Shayne interposed.

“Mrs. Kelly. That’s the only name she ever gave. And not even any address or anything. Because after she did go in and talk to Mr. Fitzgilpin and told him what she wanted him to do, he gave her short shrift. I never saw him so vexed before. He was quite insulted to think anyone would come to him with a proposition like that. Like he said to me, a rich woman like that must certainly have a lot of insurance business of one sort or another, yet here she was coming to him to buy a huge policy like that. You see, she pretended to him that she didn’t know it was against the law to do that, but he was sure she did know, and that’s why she didn’t go to her regular broker.”

“Do you think she was a rich woman?” Shayne probed.

“Oh, I guess she was, all right. Great big diamonds on her fingers and a mink jacket that must have cost a fortune. Poor thing, though, I felt sorry for her before I found out what she was trying to get Mr. Fitzgilpin to do. She was pathetic with all her jewelry and mink. She was a woman who looked dowdy no matter what she wore. She was tall and awkward with big hands and feet, and a great, big nose and a thin mouth. You could just imagine her as a young debutante sitting on the sidelines and never getting asked to dance no matter how much money her family had.”

“You didn’t hear from her again?”

“I should say not,” she told him with satisfaction. “Not after Mr. Fitzgilpin got through telling her off.”

Shayne sat back for a moment, drawing on his cigarette and tugging thoughtfully at his left earlobe. Two things had occurred recently that were out of order in the even tenor of Jerome Fitzgilpin’s life. He had received a national award for salesmanship and been interviewed by the News, and a woman had come to his office a day or so later in an effort to induce him to sell her a quarter of a million dollar policy on her husband’s life without his knowledge or consent.

And now he was dead.

Were those two seemingly unrelated events tied together somehow? And if so, could they possibly constitute a motive for his murder? Mrs. Perkins’ thought that Mrs. Kelly might have come to him as a result of seeing the interview in the paper was a possibility, of course. But why would his refusal of her lead to murder?

Shayne leaned forward and mashed out his cigarette butt in a clean ashtray on Mrs. Perkins’ desk.

He glanced aside at the closed door labeled PRIVATE, and asked, “Do you mind if I go into Mr. Fitzgilpin’s office to take a look around?”

“No reason why I should mind, but I don’t know what you expect to find. The police already looked around without finding anything.”

She got up and moved around her desk to open the door for him, and Shayne asked her, “Did he keep his personal checkbook here? Any private records?”

“No. Nothing like that. Just the office accounts, and I take care of those. I can assure you everything is in perfect order.”

She switched on an overhead light and stepped back to allow the detective to enter a small, neat office with window shades tightly drawn to exclude the morning light. There was a bare desk with a swivel chair behind it, two comfortable leather chairs for clients to sit in, and three green metal filing cabinets ranged along the wall behind the desk. Shayne stood in the doorway for a moment, looking at the swivel chair and imagining the figure of the little man he had seen in the morgue sitting there. An inoffensive, friendly little man, eager to be of service to his clientele, patiently listening to their small troubles and sometimes giving them a helping hand in times of financial stress.

“You call me if you want me to explain any of the files or anything,” Mrs. Perkins said nervously from behind him. “I know right exactly where everything is.”

Shayne said absently, “I don’t suppose our answer is going to be in the files.” He moved across the room slowly, circling the desk and seating himself in Fitzgilpin’s swivel chair which creaked softly under his weight. There was a flat center drawer, and three deeper drawers on the right side of the desk. He shrugged non-committally as he sat there, relaxing and letting his mind go as blank as possible. This was where the dead man had sat daily, where he had transacted his business, interviewed clients, and whatever else an insurance broker did during office hours. He had sat in this chair behind this desk last night while a succession of small-salaried people had come to his office after their own work was done, laying grubby bills and silver in front of him to pay up weekly premiums on their small policies.

Shayne reached down and tried the handle of the top right-hand drawer. It opened easily and he saw it was neatly arranged with letterheads and envelopes and invoices.

The other two drawers showed the same neatness, with sharpened pencils, stamps, a Notary Seal and other adjuncts to Mr. Fitzgilpin’s business. Nothing out of order. Nothing of a personal nature.

The center drawer was different. It was not, Shayne was certain at first glance, one that was attended to by Mrs. Perkins.

There were half a dozen loose cigars, an untidy miscellany of memoranda torn from small pads, a few old letters still in their envelopes, exactly the sort of things that accumulate for years in a man’s desk which he probably forgets as soon as he closes the drawer on them.

Shayne pawed through them idly and without much real interest. They told him nothing more about the man than he already knew. He pushed the scraps of paper aside and reached farther back inside the drawer, jerked his hand back involuntarily when the sharp point of a pin pricked the ball of his thumb. He opened the drawer wider and groped in to discover a restaurant menu with a single long-stemmed yellow rosebud securely pinned inside the fold with a corsage pin. He drew it out carefully, and several of the faded, dried petals fell from the bud as he did so.

He laid the folded menu on the desk in front of him and regarded it curiously. It was from a restaurant in Greenwich Village in New York, and the printed date on the cover was November 19, 1961. About a year and a half ago.

Shayne carefully removed the big-headed pin so he could open the menu out flat. A small photograph was between the folds. About two by three inches. The sort of souvenir photo that is shot by girl-photographers in night clubs and restaurants, developed on the spot and sold to patrons for an exorbitant price.

It showed a couple seated at a restaurant table facing the camera. The girl was young and radiantly beautiful, wearing a low-cut cocktail gown with a corsage of tiny rosebuds pinned on the left shoulder of the gown. The man was about thirty, dressed in a business suit and dark four-in-hand tie, and looking superlatively well pleased with himself. He had dark, lean, handsome features, with a crew cut. The single faded rosebud that had been pinned inside the menu appeared to have been taken from the corsage the girl was wearing.

Shayne frowned and turned the photograph over. It was blank. There was no writing of any sort on the menu. He settled back in the creaking swivel chair and tugged at his earlobe while he considered the three exhibits carefully. Roses for remembrance!

A sentimental souvenir of something. Of what? A dinner in Greenwich Village a year and a half ago.

He sighed and explored the rest of the center drawer without finding anything further to attract his interest. He closed the drawer and squinted down at the menu, the rosebud, and the photograph again. They seemed to be trying to tell him something. Something about the nature of the murdered man. An insurance broker who had kept this carefully in the back of his desk for more than a year.

He placed the flower inside the menu again, folded it together and got up, carrying the folded menu in one hand and the photograph in the other back to the outer office where Mrs. Perkins sat behind her typewriter again with her hands folded in her lap and a far-away expression on her nice face.

She looked up with a start as Shayne emerged from the inner office, her gaze going instinctively to the objects in his hand. “Did you find something?”

“I don’t know.”

Shayne laid the menu in front of her, still folded over the rose. He turned the photo around for her to look at. “Do you know this couple?”

She frowned down at it, slowly shaking her head while her eyebrows creased in puzzlement. “I don’t… think so. Neither one of them looks familiar at all.”

Shayne hesitated with one big hand covering the menu. “When you were telling me about Mrs. Kelly’s visit to the office, you mentioned the fact that she appeared to be interested in certain personal things about Mr. Fitzgilpin… including the frequency of his visits to New York and the last time he’d been there. Do you recall the date you told her?”

“Oh, yes.” Mrs. Perkins’ eyes brightened. “He’s only been there once since I’ve been in the office. To attend a convention in the fall of nineteen sixty-one. In November. About the middle of the month.”

Shayne nodded with satisfaction. He took his hand off the menu and opened it to show her the faded and brittle rosebud inside. “Do you know why he had this carefully preserved in his desk drawer? It’s dated November nineteenth, nineteen sixty-one.”

“Of course,” she said softly. “I remember it all very clearly now. The rosebud and the menu. And there was a picture of the bride and groom. I suppose that’s it, though I couldn’t be sure. He was the best man at a wedding at City Hall,” she explained to Shayne.

“It was all very romantic, and it was the high point of the convention for him. It was just like Jerome to do a quixotic, sentimental thing like that. He didn’t know the bride and groom from Adam and Eve. He just met the bridegroom the night before in the bar at the hotel where he was staying in New York while he was having a beer after a convention meeting. I’ve told you before how friendly he was, and interested in strangers. He’d just start talking to anyone, any time or place, and generally they’d end up by responding and confiding in him.

“Well, this night he got in conversation with this nice young man, who finally told him he planned to get married at City Hall the next day, but he was a stranger in New York and didn’t know a soul to stand up with him. Well, you can imagine what Jerome said to that?”

She paused, smiling expectantly at Shayne, and he made the response she evidently wanted. He grinned encouragingly and said, “From what I’ve learned about your boss, I suspect he offered to help them get married.”

“Not only that,” she said triumphantly, “but he went out and bought the bride a corsage of rosebuds the next day, and then ended up by blowing the four of them to an expensive dinner at this restaurant down in Greenwich Village. The bride lived in New York and had a friend, you see, to stand up with her. It was just the sort of kind, thoughtful thing Jerome would do. He was so pleased about it when he came back and told me all the details. He said they were a lovely young couple, so obviously desperately in love, and he was certain it was a real love match and that they’d live happily ever after.”

Shayne nodded slowly, staring down at the photograph of the newly-weds. “You don’t remember their names? Nothing else about them?”

“I’m not even sure he told me their names. He just met them that one time, you see. Why are you so interested? He never had any further contact with them that I know about.”

Shayne said honestly, “I don’t know. Mrs. Perkins, you don’t mind if I take these along with me?”

“Of course not. But I still don’t see…”

“Neither do I,” he told her frankly. “Right now I’ve got a picture of the friendliest and nicest man in the world who got himself poisoned last night. It’s not a pretty picture,” he added grimly, “and it may change a great deal before we come to the end of it.”

He carefully folded the dry rosebud and the picture back inside the menu, and thrust it into the side pocket of his jacket.

“If you think of anything else… anything at all… don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.”

“I will,” she breathed. “Oh, I will, Mr. Shayne. You’ve got to… you’ve just got to… get the person who did that terrible thing to Jerome.”

7

Linda Fitzgilpin was alone when she let Shayne into her apartment half an hour later. She still wore the simple black dress she had worn to the morgue, but now there was a look about her as though she were beginning to come apart at the seams.

Her lip rouge was mostly gone, but there was higher color in her cheeks than previously. The red hair that had been softly waved was now slightly dishevelled and her hands trembled as she held both of them out to Shayne. Her voice was higher-pitched, with an almost strident note in it:

“Mike! I’ve been wondering when you’d come. Lucy’s taken the children out… you know she promised them a picnic in the park… poor darlings, they don’t seem to quite realize what has happened to their daddy… and I’ve been sitting here all alone, thinking and wondering…”

She drew him into the room with her hands grasping his, and she talked too fast and too nervously. Her eyes were slightly dilated and Shayne caught a strong whiff of liquor from her breath as he was drawn close to her.

He disengaged his hands gently and told her, “I’ve been around. Gathering up bits and pieces as I went.” He moved across to a deep chair near the sofa and sank into it with a sigh. She closed the door and stood indecisively in front of it for a moment while he got out a cigarette and lit it. Then she said with forced gaiety, “I’m going to confess I’m having a wee bit of a drinkee. Would you like one? There’s bourbon and gin in the kitchen.”

“No reason why you shouldn’t relax with a drink,” he told her amiably. “Sure. I’ll have a small gin… with tonic if you have it.”

She swayed very slightly as she turned and went into the kitchen. Through the open door, Shayne saw her pick up a tall glass as she went by, and take a gulp from it before getting down a fresh glass for him.

Her “wee bit of a drinkee” he thought wryly, was quite an understatement. He hoped she knew how to handle the stuff because there was certain information he hoped to get from her.

She held two tall glasses in her hands when she returned. One was colorless with gin and tonic, the other a deep, brown hue that betokened lots of bourbon and not much else.

Shayne accepted his glass gravely, took a sip and discovered she had not spared the horses in pouring his gin either. She sat on the sofa and crossed her nice legs, and he asked, “Have the police been around yet?”

“No. Not a word from them. Not a word from anybody.” She drank from her glass and grimaced. “I’m… afraid, Mike,” she said in a small voice. “Help me. Please help me.”

“Of course I’ll help you, Linda. Why are you afraid?”

“Of the police. That nasty little man at the Beach. You see I… I lied to you this morning. And now I don’t know…” Her voice quavered into silence and she took another drink, her round eyes peeking at him anxiously over the rim of her glass.

Shayne sat very still, expelling a lungful of smoke. “What did you lie about specifically?”

“About… Jerome and last night. I was so confused and frightened when I first woke up and they told me,” she rushed on. “I thought… oh God! how can I tell you what I first thought? You see, they didn’t say it was poison at first. Just that Jerome had been found dead beside his car. I just naturally supposed that… that he’d been murdered. You can see that, can’t you? So when I called Lucy I told her… well, that I’d taken a sleeping pill before Jerome came home from the office and that’s all I knew about it.”

“And you hadn’t?”

“Oh, I took a sleeping pill, all right, and then a big drink of whiskey, and I woke up groggy and confused. I didn’t know he hadn’t come home until I looked over at his bed and saw it was empty. So it wasn’t really a lie… except…”

“Except what, Linda?”

“He did come back from the office. A little after ten o’clock. At least an hour before I expected him. It was one Friday night he didn’t stop to have a beer with the boys,” she went on with a trace of bitterness in her voice. “And he had a big drink of whiskey and… and we had a sort of argument, and then he had a phone call and went right out again. That’s when I took my pill and went to sleep.”

“Sodium amytal?” Shayne asked sharply.

“What?”

“What kind of sleeping pills do you take?” he asked grimly.

“Nembutal,” she faltered. “I have a prescription. Oh, Mike! You don’t think…?”

“Right now I don’t know what I think. Your husband was killed last night by a lethal dose of a sleeping drug called sodium amytal probably administered in whiskey. I’ve been told he never drank whiskey in a bar. Just beer. Is that correct?”

“Yes. It was one of his idiosyncracies. He just hated the thought of paying all that money for a little drink. Seventy-five or ninety cents for one ounce. He used to lecture me about it, pointing out that there are twenty-six ounces in a fifth that costs about five dollars.”

“So he did his whiskey drinking at home in order to save money,” Shayne said harshly. “And he did take a drink here with you last night, and he did die of poison administered in whiskey. What do you think the police are going to make out of that, Linda?”

“I don’t care what they think, it isn’t so.” She sat up angrily and glared at him. “He made his own drink in the kitchen. If there was any poison in it, he put it in.”

“You said this morning it couldn’t possibly have been suicide,” he reminded her.

“I know I did. And it couldn’t,” she cried out. “Don’t browbeat me, Mike. I thought you were on my side.”

“I am. I was,” he amended angrily, “and I will be again if you give me reason to be. But, Goddamn it, Linda, you’ve got to tell me the truth. Look at the spot I’m in with Painter right now… assuring him that you didn’t see your husband last night and couldn’t possibly be guilty. It’s bound to come out, Linda. Every tiny detail. This is a murder investigation. Every facet of your private lives is going to be explored and put on the record. Now, don’t keep anything back from me. You mentioned a phone call that took him away… to his death. Don’t you see how important that may be? Who was it from? Where did he go?”

“I do see… now,” she faltered. “I didn’t at first. It was about ten-thirty, Mike. He was just finishing his drink. I was going into the bedroom when he answered the phone, and I just paused in the doorway long enough to know it wasn’t for me. I heard him say, ‘Kelly? Yes, this is Fitzgilpin,’ and that is all I heard. I went in and closed the door. When I came out he had hung up the phone and was putting on his jacket. All he said to me was, ‘I’ve got to go out. Be back in an hour or so.’ Then he slammed out. As I said, we’d been quarrelling,” she ended miserably, “and I didn’t even ask him where he was going.”

Shayne said, “Kelly? Man or woman, Linda?”

“How do I know? He answered the phone.”

“You’re sure he didn’t say Mrs. Kelly?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“He wouldn’t necessarily,” he ruminated, “even if it had been a Mrs. Do you know any Kellys? Did the name mean anything to you?”

“Nothing. I just supposed it was one of his clients. In some sort of jam probably. He was always ready to dash out in the middle of the night to help anybody who called on him.” Again, there was a trace of bitterness in her voice which Shayne had detected once before.

“And you have no idea where he was going?”

“None at all.”

“All right. Let’s go back to this morning when the police woke you with a telephone call. You were confused and groggy, and surprised to discover that your husband hadn’t come home. What was your process of reasoning that caused you to deny to Lucy that he had been home last evening and had gone out again?”

“I… don’t know exactly. I was frightened and… and I guess I felt guilty because we’d quarreled and he’d slammed out that way. I didn’t see how it would help,” she went on piteously. “I didn’t know who the call was from or where he went.”

Shayne said slowly, “You know what the police are going to think, don’t you?”

“Do they have to know, Mike? Do you have to tell them?”

“Of course they have to know. My God, Linda! I could lose my license for withholding vital information like that. This is murder. Get that fact firmly implanted in your pretty red head.”

“All right.” She tilted her chin defiantly. “What will the police think?”

“That you knew all the time he’d been poisoned,” he told her inexorably. “That you were afraid to admit he’d been home and had a big drink of whiskey with you because you had dosed it for him. All we need now is to find some sodium amytal around the place,” he added disgustedly.

“But I didn’t know,” she cried out helplessly. “That’s why it was such a shock to me in the morgue when they said he’d been poisoned. You know I fainted practically in your arms.”

He said drily, “I know. And I also know that Peter Painter suspected you were faking it at the time.”

“But I wasn’t faking, Mike. You know I wasn’t.”

“Right now,” he growled, “I’m not positive I know anything about you for sure. And no matter what I think… what Painter thinks is more important at this time. You say you quarreled with your husband last night,” he went on abruptly. “What about?”

“He… oh, it was stupid, but… Jerome was very jealous, Mike. Any little thing sent him off into a tirade.” She took a long drink from her glass, fluttering her eyelids down to conceal her gaze from his.

“What sort of little thing?”

“Oh, you never could tell. Last evening, for instance. When he came home there was the butt of a cigar in an ashtray still smouldering. He accused me of having entertained a man in his absence. I told him it was Emily and Ernie Cahill from down the street who’d just dropped in for a few minutes. He knows Ernie smokes cigars, but would he believe me? Oh, no. Not Jerome. It’s a sort of neurosis with him. It was, I mean,” she amended hastily. “Because he had a sort of inferiority complex about women. You know. You saw him. He wasn’t particularly dashing or masculine. And he was eleven years older than I. It’s plagued our marriage from the beginning. If I so much as looked at another man at a party…” She shuddered delicately. “He was… well, I used to tell him he was masochistic about it.”

“So he didn’t believe it was the Cahills?” Shayne prompted her when she paused.

“No. For no reason on God’s earth, he suspected it was some other man. He insisted he was going to call them and find out the truth. That’s when I blew up.”

“You didn’t want him to call the Cahills?”

“I didn’t mind. That is, well, I did mind, too. I was so ashamed that he didn’t believe me. I would have been so humiliated to have Emily find out that my own husband was checking up on me. I told him that if he dared to call the Cahills and ask them that I’d bundle up the children and march out of this apartment and he’d never see any of us again in his life.”

“How did he react to that?”

“Well, it made him angry, but… that’s when he went out to the kitchen and made himself that strong drink I told you about.”

“So, he didn’t call the Cahills?” Shayne asked lightly.

“No. We were still arguing about it when he had that phone call I told you about.”

Shayne said quietly, “Linda. Remember now. I want the truth from you. How much reason have you given your husband to be jealous of you during your married life?”

She met his gaze squarely. “Never. Nothing. I loved Jerome. He was just obsessively possessive.”

“You’re a very beautiful young woman,” mused Shayne. “You must have attracted a lot of men.”

“I’ve had my share of passes made at me,” she agreed easily. “But I married Jerome. I had two children by him. Why couldn’t he accept that instead of suspecting me?”

Shayne said, “Men are like that.” He paused and took a long drink of his gin and tonic. He set the glass down and asked Linda, “Where do Ernie and Emily Cahill live?”

“Down the street a block and a half. They’re old friends and often drop in unexpectedly.”

Shayne got up and went to the telephone stand. “What is their telephone number?”

“The Cahills?” Her face showed real consternation. “You’re not going to call them, Mike?”

“I’m going to call them,” he told her grimly. “Do you know the number offhand, or shall I look it up in the book?”

“But why, Mike?” she wailed. “Don’t you believe me either?”

“At this point I’m not taking anything for granted. You can’t really object to my calling them, Linda. This is different from your husband doing it out of jealousy. I’m investigating your husband’s murder. If I don’t call them, you can be sure the police will.”

“Don’t do it, Mike!” She rose slowly from the sofa and her eyes were wide and glazed. “You make me feel unclean,” she whispered throatily. “I thought you… Please trust me, Mike.” She closed her eyes and swayed toward him like a sleepwalker with hands extended, groping for him.

“Don’t do this to me.” Her voice was low and throbbing with emotion. She stumbled against him and nuzzled her forehead beneath his chin like a frightened, exhausted child.

Shayne said wearily, “It’s a good act, Linda. I’m impressed as hell. But right now I want to know whether it was Ernie Cahill who left a cigar in the ashtray last night, or someone else.”

She shrank away from him as though he had struck her, her face white, eyes glinting with anger.

“All right,” she grated. “You men are all alike. Every damn one of you. All right.” Her voice rose shrilly. “If you want the truth, it wasn’t Ernie. It was another man, though I didn’t know he was coming and I tried like hell to get him out of here before Jerome returned. Make what you want of that, damn you to hell.” She turned her back on him, sobbing.

Shayne took his hand off the telephone. “You tried to get rid of him,” he said softly, “but you didn’t succeed? Is that it, Linda? Now, suppose you tell me exactly what did happen here last evening?”

8

Linda Fitzgilpin stared down into her glass, then lifted it and drained the contents. She got to her feet and started for the kitchen, muttering, “’Nother drink won’t hurt.” She was swaying more obviously now than when Shayne had arrived.

He got to his feet and intercepted her, took the empty glass from her hand and turned her back firmly to the sofa. “Get just as drunk as you like after I leave. Right now, I want straight answers, Linda.”

He stood flat-footed in front of her while she sank back on to the sofa, and said, “Take it from the beginning. It is true that your husband came home somewhat unexpectedly about ten o’clock, found a cigar butt smouldering and suspected you had been entertaining another man?”

“That’s true.” She looked small and frightened, curled up on the sofa and avoiding his stern gaze.

“And the Cahill bit, and your quarrel? And the telephone call? Are you sure you can’t remember anything else he said over the phone?”

“I’m sure. I went into the bedroom immediately I realized the call wasn’t for me, and closed the door tightly. George was in there and I was scared to death what he might do. You see, just by the grace of God, he was in the bathroom when Jerome walked in, and he heard him and realized what had happened, and kept out of sight. But I didn’t know what moment he might take it into his stubborn head to walk out and ‘have it out with Jerome’ which is what he’d been threatening to do for the past hour. I was frantic, of course, and I begged him to hide in the closet while I tried to get Jerome out on some pretext, so George could slip out without being seen. He refused,” she went on dully. “He insisted he was coming on back out with me and have a showdown with Jerome. I finally opened the bedroom door and there was Jerome putting on his coat and going out the door. He said just what I told you… that he had to go out and would be back in an hour or so, and then slammed out of the apartment without ever guessing there was a man standing right behind me.”

Michael Shayne grimaced and tugged slowly at his earlobe. He moved back to his chair and sat down. “George being your lover,” he said calmly. “That was a close call. How often did you entertain him here?”

“I hadn’t seen him for more than a year until last night. Nor heard a word from him. He turned up completely unexpectedly about nine o’clock. He’d been out in California and just returned to Miami.”

“George who?” Shayne kept his voice amiable and interested.

“Nourse. He’s a professional gambler. I had an affair with him a year and a half ago. It happened while Jerome was in New York attending a convention,” she went on wearily. “I thought I was in love with him and I asked Jerome for a divorce. He refused point-blank. He was convinced in his own mind that it was just an infatuation which would soon wear off. He threatened to enter a counter suit if I tried to get a divorce, naming George as corespondent and demanding custody of the children. He even consulted a lawyer about it, and I knew he would have done it, so I gave George up and he went away. No matter what else you may think about me,” she ended defiantly, “I do love my children. Better than I loved George, I found out then. So Jerome and I patched up our marriage and we’ve got along. Only he’s been terribly suspicious and jealous ever since.”

Shayne said, “All right. We’ve got Jerome slamming out the door to keep some sort of appointment. Is that the last you saw or heard of him?”

“Until the police telephoned this morning and I looked over and saw his empty bed.”

“How long did George stay here?”

“That’s just it.” Suddenly Linda crumpled up on the sofa and began sobbing. “That’s the awful part. That’s why I didn’t know what to do this morning. He didn’t stay at all. He went right out behind Jerome saying, by God, he was going to settle it once and for all. And so this morning… don’t you see… my first thought was that George had followed him and they’d had a fight and… and Jerome was dead.”

Shayne said slowly and deliberately, “So you believed your lover had murdered your husband, and your only thought was to cover up for him.”

“Not murdered,” she cried out desperately. “I thought they’d had a fight. George has a terrible temper. Don’t you see, I didn’t know what to do?” She pleaded with him tearfully. “If I did tell the truth and it was George, don’t you see it would all have come out? The scandal! Don’t forget, there were two innocent children involved. I needed time to think,” she cried desperately. “I had to find out what had happened. I wouldn’t have protected George in the long run. You’ve got to believe that. But I thought maybe he was already arrested. In that case, what would have been gained by my telling? That’s why I fainted when they said Jerome had been poisoned. It was such a wonderful relief. Because then I knew it wasn’t George after all, and I wouldn’t have to implicate him.”

“How could you be sure it still wasn’t George?” demanded Shayne.

“George Nourse poison a man?” Linda stared at him disbelievingly. “You just don’t know George. He has a violent temper and associates with a tough crowd, but poison? Oh, no. As soon as I heard that, I knew it couldn’t be George.”

“Did Jerome know him by sight?”

“George? No. They never met face to face. George wanted to meet him man to man to discuss a divorce, but I wouldn’t let him. I was afraid of what might happen.”

“Then it’s possible he did follow Jerome last night… to some bar, say… start buying him drinks there and load Jerome’s with sodium amytal. You’ve said your husband was the type to be friendly with any stranger he met in a bar.”

“Yes. He was. But George isn’t that type. If he had approached Jerome he would have told him right out who he was and what he wanted to talk about.”

Shayne shrugged, unconvinced. “Tell me more about Nourse. Describe him.”

“I’ve told you he’s a gambler. Quite a successful one, I guess, though I never could understand how a man could be a successful gambler. I thought they always ended up broke. But he seemed to have plenty of money. He’d just laugh when I asked him why he won money and other men lost. He claimed it was luck and good judgment… that he worked at it as hard as other men work at any other profession.”

Shayne nodded. “Professional gamblers do,” he agreed. “The operating phrase among that fraternity is: ‘Never give a sucker a break.’ Never mind that. I want a full description of him… where he’s staying in Miami… who his associates are.”

“I don’t know much about that. He told me he’d just come back to Miami from the West Coast. I never did meet any of his friends or know very much about his personal life,” she added wistfully.

“What does he look like?”

“He’s tall and… dark… and handsome. About thirty, I guess. There’s something dashing about him. A quality of recklessness, I guess you’d call it. You just feel he’s a man who lives dangerously and loves it.”

Shayne said grimly, “Just the qualities to appeal to a woman married to an unimaginative, steady provider like Jerome Fitzgilpin. All right, Linda. I’m not going to preach you a sermon on morals. Those are your own affair. You’ve got to live with your conscience in the future. I haven’t. Answer a few more questions. Did you ever hear Jerome mention the Sporting Club on the Beach as one of his hangouts?”

“The Sporting Club?” she repeated. She shook her head. “I don’t think so. He had two or three favorite places where he used to drop in for a beer, but I don’t know the names of them. Why?”

“His body and his car were found near the Sporting Club last night. I wondered if that’s where he went when he left here.”

“I don’t know. Wait a minute, though.” Linda sat erect on the sofa with excitement and hope in her voice. “I always emptied the pockets of his suits when I sent them out to the cleaners and there were often half-used matchbooks in the pockets. I’ve a wicker basket in the bedroom where I always dumped them, and then we’d take one out whenever we ran short of matches. Let me get it.”

She hurried into the bedroom and returned with a round wicker basket filled to the brim with partially used matchbooks. She dumped the contents onto the coffee table in front of the sofa, and began pawing through them.

“The Sporting Club?” she asked. “I think I may have noticed one…”

“Here.” She sat back and held up a matchbook, her face flushed with excitement. “The Sporting Club.”

“See if there are any more like it. If I can establish the fact that he went there often, it may give me the wedge I need.”

She went on through the collection of matchbooks and ended up with a total of seven that had come from the Sporting Club.

Shayne pocketed them happily and said, “That’s plenty. That’s fine. Now, there’s one more thing, Linda.” From his pocket he withdrew the restaurant menu from New York City and opened it in front of her, displaying the faded yellow rosebud and the small photograph. “Do any of these mean anything to you? Do you recognize either one of the couple in the picture?”

She shook her head in what appeared to Shayne to be honest puzzlement. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Have you any idea why he would have this menu and rosebud carefully put away in his office desk?” Shayne paused and added, “The menu is dated November nineteenth, nineteen sixty-one.”

“From New York,” she breathed. “That’s when his convention was. He stayed in New York a week. That’s when…”

“You had your affair with George Nourse,” Shayne completed for her. “Do you remember him mentioning anything about this when he returned home? Anything about attending a wedding, perhaps? That looks like a wedding corsage and picture to me,” he added.

Linda shook her head. “I’m afraid he didn’t mention it to me. You see,” she faltered, “right after he came back from that trip, I told him about George and asked for a divorce. It was extremely unpleasant and we… scarcely spoke for weeks afterward. I remember, when he was so holier-than-thou about George, asking him what he’d done all that week he was in New York at the convention. If he hadn’t maybe at least looked at another woman while he was away… and it made him very angry. He swore that he’d never been unfaithful to me in his life… even with a look.”

“All right.” Shayne folded the rose and picture inside the menu and returned it to his pocket. He settled back in his chair and asked casually, “Have you told me the works now, Linda? The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Are you holding anything back about George Nourse that might aid me in tracking him down?”

“Do you have to? You can’t suspect him, Mike.”

“It doesn’t make one goddamn whom I suspect or don’t,” he told her patiently. “Nourse is in this up to his ears, and until we find him and he proves an alibi he’s going to be our number one suspect. The sooner he comes forward and clears himself, the better. If he contacts you, tell him so. In the meantime, I’m looking for him. Tell him that.”

“I don’t think he’ll… be in touch with me,” she protested weakly.

“If he’s innocent, he should be. A man like Nourse knows what the score is. I’m surprised he hasn’t called you already. Now. Once more. Can you give me any line that might lead me to him?”

“Honestly, I can’t. I just don’t know anything to tell you.”

“All right.” Shayne finished off his gin and tonic and got to his feet. “Chief Painter from Miami Beach will be around to interview you any time now. I’ve already fixed it with the Miami police to have one of their men accompany Painter to see that he treats you decently. It may even be Will Gentry, the Miami chief of police. So I want you to promise me this: Tell them exactly what you told me. Tell them why you hesitated to admit the truth this morning, and be damned sure they get it straight that I didn’t know any better when I shot off my mouth in Painter’s office this morning. Have you got that?”

“Yes, Mike,” Linda said in a small voice. “I’ve got it.”

“One more thing. Don’t mention the fact that you’ve seen me and told me this in the meantime. Just let that ride. Give them the impression that you came to the realization all by yourself that you could no longer withhold the truth. Make a clean breast of it, and hope for the best. One thing I will say for Petey Painter,” Shayne went on. “One of the very few good things I can say about the little squirt. He isn’t really mean. He does have a couple of decent instincts. Unless it becomes absolutely necessary in solving the case and prosecuting it later, he won’t give out any personal items to the newspapers. Throw yourself on his mercy. Make big round eyes at him and admit what a bad girl you’ve been. Show him pictures of your two children and squeeze out a tear or two as you explain how they adored their daddy. He’ll play ball.”

“Oh, Mike!” Linda got to her feet and convulsively threw her arms around his neck. “You make me feel… oh, all cleansed and purified.” Shayne put both his big hands on her shoulders and pushed her back to look down into her face. “I suggest you remain on the purified binge,” he said drily. “It won’t hurt one damned bit to lay off the liquor at least until Painter has come and gone. A beautiful and bereaved widow is one thing. A sodden, drunken bum of a wife is another. If you do hear a word from Nourse, for God’s sake convince him he should give himself up to me if he didn’t catch up with Jerome last night. If he did, tell him South America is his best chance.”

He turned to the door and then paused with his hand on the knob. “I need a picture of Jerome. Do you have a late one I can take along?”

She said, “There are some snapshots we took last year with the children at the beach.”

She went into the bedroom and returned with an envelope containing several prints showing Jerome Fitzgilpin in bright sunlight with his children.

Shayne selected two of the clearest shots and pocketed them. “All right, Linda. Keep your chin up and I’ll be in touch.”

9

There were at least a dozen cars parked in front of the Sporting Club when Shayne drew up this time, and the bar was doing a brisk pre-luncheon business when he stepped inside. There was a younger bartender now on duty near the front of the bar, and Shayne saw Horseface working the farther end.

He turned to the left away from the bar, into a small anteroom with a wide stairway leading to the second floor. There was a velvet rope at the foot of the stairway which Shayne unhooked and then refastened behind him.

He went up to the top of the stairs where heavy double doors were closed and barred to shut off the gaming room beyond. He went down a narrow hallway to a closed door that was marked PRIVATE, turned the knob and walked in without knocking.

Pete Elston was alone in the office, seated behind a big desk checking entries in a ledger. He was a solid, stocky man in his forties with an unruly shock of very black hair, and he wore black-rimmed glasses while he did his paper work. He looked up at Shayne with a scowl which did not become more welcoming as he recognzed the redhead. He said,

“Don’t you knock when you walk into a private office?”

Shayne said, “Sometimes, Pete. But only when I’m pretty sure I’ll be welcome.”

Elston shrugged and pushed the ledger back. He removed his glasses. “Some special reason why you shouldn’t be welcome here this morning?”

“Actually, no. In fact, I’m here to do you a big favor. But that horsefaced ape on the bar downstairs tried to give me the bum’s rush when I was here earlier.”

“Barney? You know how it is with a place like this, Shayne. We’re pretty careful about our clientele. It wouldn’t be good for business to have a private eye hanging out here.”

Shayne pulled a chair closer to the desk and sat down, stretching his long legs out in front of him. He said, “Barney should have been more careful about his clientele last night.”

“That so?” Elston’s eyes became alert, questioning.

“Yeh. And maybe you should tell him to be more careful about the kind of Mickeys he feeds his customers. It’s not going to do your business one bit of good to have it get around that a guy’s in danger of getting doped and mugged when he has a drink downstairs.”

Elston sat very still, his solid features hardening. “How is that story likely to get around, Shamus?”

Shayne said, “I’ll make it my business to see that it does unless Barney comes clean with me. Get him up here.” Their eyes locked across the desk.

Elston said softly, “Like that, huh?”

Shayne said, “Like that. I mentioned a favor. This is it. A man named Jerome Fitzgilpin was fed dope in your bar last night. He was rolled outside, and died about a block down the street. You probably read about it in the paper.”

“Yeh. I read about it. Not that he was in my place first, though.”

“Maybe you won’t have to read about that… if you play ball with me.”

“Is that a threat, Shayne?”

“It sure as hell is.”

Elston sighed and relaxed. “I like to get things straight and clear. Have a drink?” He swivelled about to a small bar at his right.

Shayne said, “Get Barney up here.”

“Sure, Mike.” Elston’s voice was mild and placating. “If anything like that has been going on in my bar I want to know it as much as you do.” He turned and set two glasses and a bottle of cognac on the desk. “I haven’t gotten ice this morning. You want Barney should bring some up?”

Shayne relaxed with a grin. “A tall glass with water will be fine.”

Elston unhooked a microphone from beneath his desk and pressed a buzzer. He said, “Barney. I got a guest. Bring up a bucket of ice and a pitcher of water.” He replaced the microphone and said worriedly, “You’re sure about this, Shayne?”

“Just tell Barney to give me straight answers this time. If you’re lucky we may be able to keep the cops out of it.”

“Yeh. I knew they were here earlier asking questions. Barney swore to me he never saw the dead man in here.”

Shayne said flatly, “He lied.”

Elston shook his head sadly and said, “You know how it is. One thing I won’t stand for is any stuff like that downstairs. If Barney has been getting out of line, I’m the one who wants to know it.”

“I figured it that way,” Shayne told him amiably. “That’s why I came to you instead of the cops.” Elston poured cognac in the two glasses and pushed one toward the redhead. There were footsteps in the hallway outside and the horsefaced bartender came in the door carrying a bucket of ice cubes and a pitcher of water. He stopped abruptly when he saw the detective, and said, “Hey, Boss. This here guy…”

“This here guy,” Elston interrupted him smoothly, “is a good friend of mine. Pour him a glass of ice water.”

“Well, sure,” said Barney uneasily. “But he comes in here with a newspaper reporter making trouble…”

Elston said, “Skip it.” He leaned back in his chair while Barney nervously poured Shayne a glass of water.

“Now. Answer his questions… straight. I’m anxious to hear the answers myself.”

Shayne got the two snapshots out of his pocket and laid them on the desk. “Take a good look at this man, Barney. And tell me the last time you saw him in the bar.”

Barney leaned over the desk and looked at the pictures of Fitzgilpin, his long, bony face becoming grayish. “I never saw him in my life,” he stated positively. “Not that I know of, that is. Maybe he has been in here some time, but I never noticed him. You know how it is when you’re working the bar, Boss. You don’t look at the guys on the other side.”

Shayne said, “This one, you’d notice and remember, Barney. He’s a very friendly type that gets into conversation with anybody. He’s been dropping in here at least once a week for a few beers and conversation during the past few months. He was in here last night about eleven o’clock. Did you feed him the Mickey that killed him, Barney?”

The bartender drew back, sweating profusely. “I swear I never. Maybe I mixed him a drink or two… yeh, I guess maybe I do remember seeing him around now. But I swear I never…”

Elston stood up swiftly and leaned over the desk and swung the flat of his right hand against Barney’s face with force enough to swing him around.

“I told you straight answers,” he snarled. “Goddamn your soul. I want to know what’s been going on in my place. Start talking before I come around the desk and stomp the truth out of you.”

“Sure, Boss. Sure. Whatever you say. But when them cops first come around this morning asking questions I figured you wouldn’t want me to tell ’em nothing. And then this tough eye from Miami…”

“Shut up,” snapped Elston. “Excuses aren’t any good now. You admit you knew this Fitzgilpin… that he was in last night?”

“I never knew his name,” defended Barney. “Sure, he usta come in for a few beers. Nice little fellow. Quiet and friendly. I guess I did see him last night, but the place was crowded and I didn’t notice him special.”

“What was he drinking?” cut in Shayne.

“I don’t know. Beer, I guess. Wait a minute though.” Barney paused and mopped sweat from his face, darting a frightened and agonized look at Elston. “I remember there was a kinda crowd around him at that end of the bar. But that wasn’t unusual because he was always friendly and talky like I said. But I don’t believe he was drinking beer last night. I think I kinda noticed he’d switched to hard liquor.”

“Who was buying them for him?” demanded Shayne. He added in an aside to Elston, “Fitzgilpin had an aversion to paying out good money for hard drinks in a bar.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. Maybe somebody was buying.”

“He was staggering when he left your bar,” Shayne charged. “Practically out on his feet. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice that much.”

“Well, I guess he maybe was pretty well lit up,” admitted Barney sourly. “But I figured it was just from switching from beer to hard liquor. If anybody fed him a Mickey, it sure wasn’t me,” he ended virtuously.

“Now you’ve admitted he was here and was drunk when he went out,” Shayne pointed out harshly. “That’s a big jump from denying you’d ever seen the man. Give us the rest of it. Who followed him out? Was he flashing a roll at the bar? Who saw him… and decided he was an easy mark?”

“I didn’t see him flashing no roll. Maybe he was, but I didn’t see it. I do recollect now that that Timmy the Twist and Ox Yokum were hanging around about then. I didn’t for sure see them follow him outside, but I guess maybe I didn’t see them around the bar no more afterward.”

“Timmy the Twist and Ox Yokum,” exclaimed Elston in an outraged voice. “You let a pair like that hang out downstairs? Goddamnit to hell, Barney. You know my orders. What the hell do I hire you for? This isn’t any mugger’s hangout.”

“Timmy the Twist and Ox Yokum?” said Shayne with interest. “They’re new to me.”

“Just a couple of chiseling, small-time punks,” snarled Elston. “They couldn’t buy a drink in half the decent bars on the Beach. And now, by God, I find out they’re headquartering at my place.” He looked across the desk wonderingly at Barney. “What else has been going on downstairs that I don’t know about?”

“Nothing, Boss. I swear it. It ain’t like they headquarter here. Come in sometimes is more like it. Last night I guess they was in. That’s all. If this fellow was rolled after he went out… well, maybe they done it.”

“Where will I find them?” Shayne asked grimly.

“I dunno. They’re the kinda creeps that stay inside while it’s daylight.” Barney spread out his hands with a placating smile. “They’re no friends of mine.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Elston venomously. “I’d look for them down around South Beach,” he told Shayne in an aside. “Depending how much your man was carrying. Was it real money?”

“Couple of hundred.”

“They wouldn’t take it on the lam with that. But you can put it in your hat, Shayne, those two would roll a drunk, sure, but the way I get it… this was murder. You can count those two punks out on that score.”

“Sure. That’s right,” agreed Barney earnestly and righteously. “That’s why I never thought to mention them right off. Them two would run like hell from a killing.”

Shayne said, “All right. I’ll have a talk with them. Now then. Do either one of you know a man named George Nourse?”

Both looked at him blankly and slowly shook their heads.

“A gambler,” Shayne amplified. “Hasn’t been around town for maybe a year or so.”

“Nourse?” Pete Elston frowned. “Wait a minute. I think I make him. A smooth type. Plenty hot with his own pair of dice in floating crap games. Strictly illegit. Sure, Barney. George Nourse. He was on our list a couple years ago. We were off-bounds to him along with all the other straight places on the Beach.”

“Nourse? Maybe,” conceded Barney. “Tall guy? Pretty much the ladies’ man?”

“That would be Nourse,” agreed Shayne. “He’s back in town. Was he in last night?”

“I’ll swear he wasn’t. I remember him now. I’d of made him fast if he’d showed last night.”

“You lied to me once before,” Shayne reminded him icily. “Don’t make the same mistake again.”

“Listen to the man,” Elston told him. “If you’re holding out one Goddamned thing…”

“I swear I’m not. I’ll ask around,” Barney went on hastily. “If he is back, some of the boys’ll know.”

“Pass the word around,” Shayne told him. “I want Nourse. I want him bad.”

Elston said, “I’ll see the right people get the word, Shayne. Anything else you want from Barney?”

“I guess that’s about it.”

“All right. Get back down to the bar,” snarled Elston at his bartender. “You and I’ll have a long talk later on today when business eases off.”

Barney nodded unhappily and went out.

“How do you like that?” exclaimed Elston wonderingly. “By God, you just don’t ever know, do you? Here, I try to run a clean straight joint downstairs. Keep the suckers happy so they won’t mind dropping a few bucks at the tables. One thing that’d ruin me would be a reputation for running a clip-joint. And so, by God, what does my bartender do? Lets characters like Timmy the Twist and Ox Yokum hang out downstairs. How the hell do you like that?” He thumped his fist solidly on the desk.

“It’s tough trying to make an honest dollar,” agreed Shayne with a grin. He tossed off his cognac and chased it with a sip of ice water, stood up purposefully. “If I get Nourse I may have this thing cleaned up without pulling the Club into it.”

“In the meantime you gotta go after those two punks? If they just rolled him, maybe…” said Elston anxiously.

“I’m going after them,” Shayne said. “Sooner we turn Nourse up, maybe the better.” He went out of the gambler’s office with a wave of his big hand.

10

It took Michael Shayne slightly less than an hour to locate Timmy the Twist and Ox Yokum. He went about the job methodically, starting on South Beach as Elston had suggested, working his way up and down the street, buying a drink here and there and asking questions in the right places.

He had no difficulty immediately getting a line on the pair. They appeared to be fairly well-known by others of their ilk, and were regarded with a sort of amused tolerance by others slightly higher up on the criminal scale than they. Timmy was the brains of the pair, Shayne soon learned (although no great shakes at that) while Ox supplied the muscle for their small-time operation which consisted mostly of rolling drunks for any sum from five bucks up, a spot of pimping on the side, and an occasional go at peddling marijuana.

They had been seen around that morning, and it was generally agreed that they must have made some sort of hit the preceding night, though no one professed any knowledge of how it had come about.

Shayne finally came up with them in a crap game in the back room of Renaldo’s. Joe Renaldo himself gave him the office when Shayne dropped into the dingy bar and ordered a drink of California brandy, the best the place could offer. Joe served him, and leaned over the bar to say out of the side of his mouth, “Word’s got around that you’re looking for a confab with Timmy the Twist and his partner.” Shayne nodded and sipped the brandy.

“Back there. Craps.” Renaldo jerked his head toward a closed door at the rear of the bar. “Keep it quiet, huh? You could of got the info a dozen other places.”

Shayne said heartily, “Sure. That’s why I dropped in.” He slid a ten-spot on the bar which Joe’s hand covered quickly, and pushed back the rest of his brandy. For the benefit of three patrons a few bar stools removed, he said loudly, “That’s lousy brandy, Joe. I was told there was a little game in back where a real hot dice shooter might pick up some easy dough.”

“You feelin’ hot today, Mike?” Renaldo picked up his cue faultlessly.

“That, I am.” Shayne strolled back past the trio who had overheard the exchange, opened the door and walked into a small room murky with smoke. There were half a dozen dice players squatting and kneeling in a circle around a blanket spread out on the floor. There were crumpled bills and silver in front of each man, and a half a dozen dollar bills were in the middle of the blanket while the shooter tried to make his point.

From descriptions he’d gotten, Shayne recognized the shooter was Timmy. The lunkhead on his left must be Ox, he thought. He vaguely recognized the faces of a couple of the other players, though he could not have put names with them.

None of them looked up at Shayne as he entered quietly and closed the door behind him. Timmy’s point was evidently a nine and he exhorted the dice fervently each time they left his hand.

He sevened out while Shayne stood there with his back to the door watching. One of the men across the blanket took the money, and Ox swept the pair of dice up into his hamlike hand.

Shayne said, “Fun’s over, boys.” And they all froze in curious attitudes, turning their heads to look at him. First one and then another of the players scooped up the money in front of him and got to his feet. Shayne opened the door and held it with his hand on the knob.

“The rest of you beat it. Timmy and Ox have got some talking to do.”

Ox Yokum was a broad-faced, stupid-looking gorilla. He lumbered to his feet with a displeased scowl on his face, looking around, in consternation, at the others who were quietly gathering up their money.

“Hey, youse guys. Who’s this smart guy comin’ in to bust up a friendly game? I’m twenny bucks behind, by Christ!”

One of the departing players said shortly, “That’s Mike Shayne, dim-wit.”

Timmy came to his feet swiftly when he heard the name. He had narrow, ratlike features with yellow teeth that showed behind tight, thin lips.

“Mike Shayne? Ox and me, we got no talk for you. C’mon, Ox. We’re going out with the others.” Three of them hurried past Shayne through the door with averted faces, and Ox made a guttural sound deep in his throat and came behind them with big fists belligerently swinging at the end of long arms. Timmy was close behind him, and the sixth player unhappily brought up the rear.

Shayne’s eyes narrowed and he shifted his weight to his left foot. He gauged the distance carefully, swung his right foot up and planted it with ramrod force in the big man’s belly. Ox grunted and doubled forward, and Shayne smashed a right to his jaw as he went down.

Timmy ducked his head and attempted to dart past the redhead to safety. Shayne blocked him halfway through the doorway, put both hands around his neck and lifted him bodily, flung him back into the room. He held the door open and said to the last man, “Beat it,” and he scampered through the door without looking back.

Shayne closed it behind him, found a key conveniently in the lock and turned it. He dropped the key into his pocket and turned around to see Timmy on his hands and knees staring at him fearfully. Ox lay on his side groaning, trying fitfully to raise up to a sitting position.

Shayne disregarded him and told Timmy, “I guess you know who I am, and why I want to talk with you. You two killed a man last night.”

“God, no.” Timmy was trembling frantically. He sank back to sit on the floor with his hands on both sides supporting him, shaking his head from side to side. “You got it all wrong, Shamus. Me and Ox, we never hurt nobody. Not in our whole lives. I swear it on a stack of Bibles. Maybe we rolled a drunk, huh, but we never put a hand to him. I swear we didn’t.”

“What did you slip into his drink at the Sporting Club before you followed him out?”

“Nothing. I swear it, Mister. The guy was tight. What the hell? He was ready to fall flat on his face. We never touched a finger to him. I swear we didn’t.”

“You read in the paper about him being found dead this morning?”

“Sure, we read about it, and naturally we felt bad. We figure somebody else come along and slugged him. There was somebody in a car,” Timmy went on eagerly. “He come along slow, kind of creeping along like he was looking out for him. That was right after he staggered off the road and fell down.”

“After you and Ox snatched his money and that ring off his hand?”

“All right. I ain’t gonna kid you. That damn Barney,” breathed Timmy indignantly. “He musta put you wise. After him taking half all the time…” Ox was now grunting loudly and had worked himself up to a sitting posture. Shayne studied him coldly with bleak eyes, then stepped forward and kicked him with precisely calculated force on the side of the head. Ox toppled sideways and lay still.

“Okay,” said Shayne conversationally to Timmy. “Let’s get this straight. Were you and Ox in the Club last night when Fitzgilpin showed up about eleven o’clock?”

“I don’t know whether we was or not. We got there maybe eleven. About then. Barney give us the high-sign. That there was a sucker down to the end of the bar maybe we could take. We didn’t push right in,” Timmy said virtuously. “We had us a drink and waited. Oh, maybe half an hour or so. There was this three or four people back there together. Talking and kiddin’, you know. One or two dames and a couple guys. You couldn’t tell who was with who, but it didn’t matter to us. Then this little guy comes stumbling out an’ Barney he gives us the office. Nobody’s with him, so we just went on out behind and there he is in the moonlight staggering down the street. We trailed along figurin’ he’d pass out any minute. Ox, he wanted to tap him a little, easy-like, but I said what the hell? Give him a little minute an’ we wouldn’t even hafta.

“So, I’m right. He makes it about a block, going from one side of the road to another, an’ then falls flat on his face. So we lifted his wallet and he never knew it. And Ox took a fancy to a ring he had on, and snatched that. But we never touched a finger to him, I swear it. We figured if we didn’t get it, somebody else would.

“Then he kind of comes to for a minute and gets up an’ staggers on. And there’s a car comin’ real slow, and Ox and me we slips off to the side and hides behind a oleander bush. And we watch while this car comes along slow with him in the headlights, and then he goes off the pavement into the ditch and the car pulls up just beyond him and stops and the lights go off. So we figure it’s a friend of his from back at the Club and they’ll find out he’s been rolled, so we beat it back fast and get in our jalopy and take off. And that’s all to Christ and hell I know about the whole deal, and when Ox comes back to his senses he’ll tell you the same damn thing. We never touched a finger to him, and I swear we didn’t.”

Ox was groaning and trying to sit up again. Shayne stared down at the pair with unconcealed disgust, and told Timmy, “You’ll have a chance to convince the cops that you’re clean on the killing. Before you do that… think hard and straight and tell me one thing: Did you ever know a gambler named George Nourse?”

“Sure.” A crafty look came into Timmy’s eyes. “He was a big-shot here… two-three years ago. He really did have a pair of educated dice. Gawd! I seen him one night take three grand in a game with seven straight rolls.”

“When did you see him last?”

“Nourse? Not for the last year or two. I heard tell he was out on the West Coast… and doing all right, too.”

“You’re positive you didn’t see him at the Sporting Club last night?”

“George Nourse?” Timmy looked honestly surprised. “Is he back in town? I hadn’t heard it around.”

“All right,” Shayne said disgustedly. “Get your muscle-bound friend in shape to take a ride. I’m calling for the meat-wagon.”

He turned to the door and unlocked it, opened it and called out to the proprietor. “Call the cops and tell them I’ve got a couple punks that want free taxi service to police headquarters.”

11

After Timmy and Ox had been bundled off to jail, Shayne took time out to grab some much-needed nourishment, his first of the day. Thus, it was almost an hour after the two muggers had been locked up when he reached headquarters. He found Timothy Rourke closeted with Peter Painter in the latter’s office, and the reporter looked up with an approving grin as the redhead entered.

“From what I hear you must have gone back to the Sporting Club after we got thrown out.”

“Those two punks? Yeh, the bartender finally decided to come clean. How do you like them, Painter?”

“For a cheap little rolling rap, fine,” Painter said condescendingly. “For a big rap, they’re out. We’ve put them through the mill and all we’ve got on them is they followed a drunk out of a bar and snatched his roll.”

“After maybe slipping some sodium amytal in his drink first so he’d be an easier take,” Shayne suggested, pulling up a chair and seating himself without waiting for an invitation.

“Not a chance,” snorted Painter. “While you’ve been chasing all over town after those two-bit punks, I’ve been finding out some things about that redhead widow you were cuddling up this morning.”

“That so?” Shayne lifted ragged, red eyebrows in surprise and busied himself lighting a cigarette.

“It is a truism in police work that the most obvious answer is generally the true one. Your trouble, Shayne, is that you can’t see the woods for the trees. Give me a husband-poisoning and I’ll give you a two-timing wife ninety-nine percent of the time.”

“Linda Fitzgilpin?” Shayne frowned sourly and shook his head. “She seemed a hell of a fine woman. A loving wife and devoted mother. Lucy Hamilton knows her quite well, and that’s her opinion.”

“Maybe I should put Lucy on the payroll as psychological advisor,” said Painter sarcastically. “These loving wives and devoted mothers,” he sneered. “When I see one of them stacked like that widow is stacked… married for years to a meek little man without too much on the ball… I start digging. And if you dig far enough and intelligently enough you generally find paydirt. I’ve only gone back a couple of years this far, and I’ll lay ten to one I’ll find plenty more as I go back further.”

“What have you got so far?”

“Plenty to build a case against her. She had a red-hot affair with a tin-horn gambler about a year and a half ago. Asked her husband for a divorce and he refused to give her one. This isn’t for publication yet, Tim,” he went on to the reporter who was busily taking notes, “though I’ve got all the proof I need. Fitzgilpin went to an attorney at that time for advice, and turned the tables by threatening a suit of his own, naming her lover as co-respondent and demanding custody of the children. I have an affidavit to that effect from the lawyer Fitzgilpin consulted. How do you like that for a loving wife and devoted mother?” he demanded happily of Shayne. “What will the prosecuting attorney do with that in court?”

Shayne shook his head wonderingly and sighed, “You never know, do you? But that was a year and a half ago. They patched it up and went on living together. If her husband was willing to forgive her, why should she suddenly want him dead a year and a half later?”

“Who knows how well they patched it up? How do we know how completely he forgave her? Maybe she carried a torch all this time… or maybe she found another man better in bed than her husband?”

“Who was the other man?” asked Timothy Rourke alertly. “You got any line on him?”

“Name of George Nourse. I’ve got lines out on him. He apparently left town about that time, and rumor says he’s been on the West Coast ever since. But he could have come back to get some more of that redheaded stuff. If I can put him in town last night I’ll have an open and shut case against the two of them,” Painter ended triumphantly.

“Have you talked to her?” Shayne asked curiously.

“Not yet. I want to be ready to really throw the hooks to her when I do. I’ve got you to thank, Shayne, for preventing me from questioning her this morning before I had this stuff to throw in her face,” he added happily.

Shayne said, “Yeh. She had me fooled all right. A gambler named George Nourse, huh? I’ll be asking around.”

“You do that, and I’ll do the same. Right now I’m waiting for a reply from some contacts on the Coast.”

Shayne let his shoulders slump dispiritedly and rose to his feet. “I thought I was pretty smart coming up with Timmy and Ox, but I guess they’re not very important in the light of what you say.”

“You did all right on them, Shayne,” Painter told him magnanimously. “Not that I wouldn’t have gotten around to them myself sooner or later. But, first things first in police work is the way I see it. Sure, I knew he’d been rolled but I figured all along it was just an accidental by-product of him having been poisoned first.”

Shayne hesitated on his way to the door, “You coming, Tim?”

The reporter recognized his tone of voice as a request, and arose hastily. “Yeh. I guess I got all I can here.”

“Not a word in the paper about this other,” warned Painter. “Right now, play up Timmy and Ox as our chief suspects. Give Shayne full credit for bringing them in,” he added generously, “and quote me as saying I’m not completely satisfied and am working on some other aspects of the case.”

Rourke said, “Will do,” and briskly followed Shayne out of the detective chief’s office.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked Shayne eagerly as they went down the corridor.

“Plenty. Let’s stop at Jim’s for a drink.”

When they were settled in a secluded booth in Jim’s Joint with drinks in front of them, Rourke said anxiously, “You were damn well sold on the widow Fitzgilpin this morning, Mike. Are you unsold now?”

“Let’s say I’m slightly disillusioned,” Shayne admitted wryly.

“You got to hand it to Petey sometimes. When he gets a hunch he hangs onto it like a bulldog. If he can put this lover of hers in Miami last night it’ll be tough sledding for both of them.”

“I can do better than that,” Shayne informed the reporter grimly. “Strictly off the record, I can place George Nourse hiding in Linda’s bedroom when her husband came home unexpectedly from his office last night.”

“Wha-at?” Rourke stared across the table at him in complete amazement. “All that stuff wasn’t news to you? The divorce threats and all? The way you acted in Painter’s office…”

Shayne shrugged irritably. “He has his methods and I have mine. Each of them works… sometimes.”

“You held out on him,” charged Rourke. “Damn it, Mike. If he knew Nourse was in town playing bedsie with Linda! That he was actually at their place last night…!”

“And,” said Shayne cynically, “for a real clincher, that the husband downed a big drink of whiskey while he was there… which Linda says he fixed in the kitchen for himself… but how in hell does anybody know at this point? Yeh,” he muttered. “Petey would have himself a prima facie against the two of them. That’s why I didn’t hand him the dope on a platter.”

“You’re on pretty thin ice, Mike,” Rourke warned him seriously. “Withholding important information in a murder investigation. You sat there in his office and blandly pretended you’d never heard of George Nourse before.”

“He was telling me, he wasn’t asking me,” Shayne pointed out irritably. “He was so damned full of his own self-importance. Hell! I’ll bet that lawyer came to him with the information about the proposed divorce, and now he’s taking all the credit for digging it up.”

“Still and all…” Rourke paused, shaking his head dubiously.

“All the little twerp has to do is go to Linda and get the whole story for himself just the way she gave it to me. But he’s playing it smart. He’s so damned busy fashioning a noose to go around her pretty neck that he won’t do the obvious thing. To hell with that,” Shayne went on briskly. “I’ve got more important things that Painter could also find out for himself if he’d go to Linda. There’s a mysterious female named Mrs. Kelly who showed up at the insurance office a day or so after your interview with Fitzgilpin was printed. She talked with his secretary who recalls that she seemed much more interested in Fitzgilpin and his private affairs than in a big policy on her husband’s life. Particularly about his last visit to New York in November nineteen sixty-one.

“A lot of funny little things seem to point back to that convention he attended in New York. That was when Linda had her affair with Nourse, and immediately after Jerome’s return, she asked for the divorce. And I found this tucked very carefully back in a drawer of his desk at the office.”

Shayne got the menu with the rosebud and the picture of the young couple out of his pocket and spread them out in front of Rourke. “See the date. His secretary remembered his bringing it back as a sentimental souvenir of his trip. Some young couple, whom he met at the convention and characteristically befriended to the point of being best man at their wedding and blowing them to a wedding dinner in the Village afterward. What do you make of it? Recognize either the bride or groom?”

Rourke had the photograph in his hand studying it carefully. He shook his head. “Not off-hand. I’ve got a sneaking hunch way down deep inside me that I should know who the man is, but I don’t. Why do you figure this is important, Mike?”

“That same sort of sneaking hunch that you’ve got,” Shayne told him. “As I say, several things seem to pinpoint this trip he made to New York. Linda’s affair with Nourse. The Kelly woman’s interest in the date he’d been there. This menu, rosebud and picture carefully put away in his desk.”

He paused and Rourke frowned and said, “None of that seems to tie in together with murder. Isn’t it a pretty far-fetched hunch?”

“It was until Linda told me about the telephone call last night that took Jerome Fitzgilpin out to his death. All she heard him say was Kelly. She doesn’t know whether it was Mr. or Mrs.”

“Goddamn it, Mike. You are holding out.”

“Not really. It’s still nothing that Painter can’t get for himself by simply going to Linda and asking her. Here’s her version of what happened last night.”

Shayne succinctly repeated what Linda had told him about Nourse’s unexpected appearance at the apartment, her husband’s return and their quarrel about the cigar butt, the telephone call he received, and his opportune departure without discovering Nourse… and his leaving on Jerome’s heels.

Rourke listened to the recital with absorbed interest, and when Shayne finished, he breathed out excitedly and said, “So if Nourse did follow him to the Sporting Club and they had a showdown there…”

Shayne said, “There’s nothing to indicate that’s what happened. Don’t forget the phone call that took him out. Kelly. Poisoning indicates premeditation, Tim. You don’t just happen to have a supply of sodium amytal in your pocket handy when you decide to commit murder. Nourse was a gambler. According to Linda, a reckless and violent man. Right now I’m willing to accept her judgement on him.” Shayne sighed and tossed off his drink.

“I hoped this picture or the name of Kelly might trigger off something for you.” He refolded the menu carefully and put it back into his pocket.

“I’m sorry it doesn’t. What’s your angle now?”

“Since Petey is already on Nourse’s trail, let him run that down. I’m going to check back on that convention trip to New York and the wedding angle. If I can come up with the name of Kelly I’ll feel I’m on the right trail.”

Shayne put money on the table and got up. Rourke got up also, asking, “Anything I can do at the moment?”

“Just keep in touch with Painter and let me know fast if anything breaks. I’ll do the same.”

“How about my going around to get an exclusive interview with the widow?” suggested Rourke eagerly.

Shayne shook his head. “She’s dynamite right now… until Painter gets around to her. If she did spill anything to you, you’d have to take it to him before you printed a word of it. No, Tim. Goddamn it, I’m trusting you to be surprised when you hear all this from Painter eventually.”

12

Back in his own apartment for the first time that day since Lucy Hamilton’s early morning call had taken him away, Shayne shrugged off his jacket and loosened his tie, poured a small drink of cognac and set a glass of ice water beside it on the center table, and settled himself comfortably beside the telephone.

He had to think for a moment to remember the name, but then it came to him. Angelo Fermi, fingerprint expert for the New York police department who eagerly hoped Shayne could help him get a television series on the air.

It was Saturday, but he hoped Fermi would be on duty. He put in a person-to-person telephone call for the New York detective, and sipped his drink and waited a couple of minutes while persons at police headquarters in New York shunted the call around, and finally got Fermi’s voice over the wire.

“Mike Shayne in Miami, Angelo. Did Brett Halliday contact you about your television series while he was in town last year?”

“He did that.” Fermi’s voice sounded enthusiastic “He is a nice fellow. It is difficult to sell the networks a new idea, but I now have an option. Can I help you here?”

“If you’ve got a pipeline into City Hall. I know it’s Saturday, but this may be important.”

“We have pipelines, Saturday or not,” Fermi assured him.

“This should be relatively simple. I want all the dope on a wedding performed on…” He checked the date on the menu to be sure. “… November nineteenth, nineteen sixty-one. I don’t know the names of either bride or groom, but one of the witnesses was a man named Jerome Fitzgilpin. Do you think you can get that for me fast?”

“It shouldn’t be more than fifteen or twenty minutes,” Fermi told him. “Shall I call you back?”

“Please. Collect, of course.” Shayne gave him the number. “Everything from the record on that particular wedding.” He hung up and settled back comfortably to wait for the detective to call him back.

The telephone rang much sooner than he expected it to. He answered it, but instead of Fermi’s voice, it was Lucy Hamilton on the wire.

“Michael.” Her voice sounded worried and strained. “Are you getting anywhere on the Fitzgilpin case?”

“I’m beginning to move. Right now I’m waiting for a phone call from New York which may help. What gives with you?”

“I’m dreadfully worried about Linda. I brought the children home from the park a little while ago and she’s… well, she’s lying on her bed fully-dressed and passed out cold, Michael. She seems all right,” Lucy went on doubtfully. “I guess it’s just liquor because her breath reeks of it, but I never knew her to drink too much before, and I know she does take sleeping pills…” Lucy’s voice trailed off doubtfully.

“I think I’d just let her sleep it off,” Shayne advised. “She was well on her way to passing out when I saw her a little before noon. Another drink or two would have done it.”

“Poor woman,” said Lucy disconsolately. “It’s such a terrible thing. Have you found out anything important?”

“Quite a lot. Where are the children?”

“I brought them downstairs with me. I told them their mother was sick and couldn’t be disturbed and they accepted that explanation without question. They’re such darling kids, Michael.”

“Yeh,” he said gruffly. “Hang onto them for a time, Lucy. Do you know any other friends of hers whom you might call on to help out?”

“Well, I don’t know really.”

“There’s a couple down the street whom she mentioned to me. Let’s see. Cahill. Ernie and Emily Cahill. Do you know them?”

“Of course. I have met Emily Cahill. She’s very nice. Has a little boy of her own.”

“You might call her to help if the kids get restless.”

“All right. And, Michael… keep on trying.”

“I will. Hold the fort.” Shayne hung up and sat back to sip his drink and tug at his earlobe while his somber gaze kept going back to the menu and the rosebud in front of him.

When his phone rang again five minutes later, it was Detective Fermi in New York. “I’ve got the information you wanted, Shayne. Ready to take it down?”

Shayne said, “Sure,” and reached for a pencil.

“The bridegroom was Rutherford G. Rodman, thirty. Address: The Commodore Hotel, New York City. Bride: Rose McNally, three-two-six West 89th Street, City. Twenty-six. It was the first marriage for both of them. Witnesses, Jerome Fitzgilpin, also the Commodore Hotel, and Blanche Carson, same address as the bride. Have you got all that?”

“Got it,” Shayne said. “Thanks a million, Angelo.”

“I hope it’s what you wanted. If there’s anything else…?”

“If there is I’ll call you. If not… be seeing you on television, huh?”

“Well, I don’t know how soon. I’ve got this option from a Hollywood producer, but you know how they are.”

“I certainly do know,” Shayne agreed emphatically. “Thanks again.”

He hung up and frowned at the information he had jotted down on a scratch pad. Three names and a wedding date a year and a half ago. He glanced from the names to the photograph of the happy newly-weds. Now he had names for them. Rutherford G. Rodman and Rose McNally. How and why were they important in Jerome Fitzgilpin’s life?

Maybe they weren’t, of course. He had damned little to go on. But the nagging hunch persisted. If only one of them were named Kelly.

A young couple whom Fitzgilpin had met once in New York by the merest chance and had bought a wedding dinner. Had he been in contact with them since, or had that been the end of it? Would he have mentioned it to his secretary if he had? Possibly, and quite possibly not.

Shayne frowned and drummed fingertips impatiently on the desk. Was this a dead-end? He hated to think so. Impulsively, he lifted the telephone, got the operator and said, “Will you please check with New York Information and see if they have a telephone listed under the name of Rutherford G. Rodman. I don’t know the address. Not even which borough it might be in, but it’s vitally important.”

She said, “Certainly,” and he listened in while she got New York Information and he was finally informed they had no such listing in any of the boroughs.

He got up to refill his cognac glass, came back and reseated himself, still deep in thought. He finally decided that having gone thus far he might as well go on to the end of the line, and he again lifted the phone to ask the operator if there were a New York number for Blanche Carson at the West side address Fermi had furnished.

This time he had more luck. He wrote the number down as New York gave it, and asked his operator to connect him with it.

The telephone rang in New York four times before a woman’s voice answered.

He asked, “Is this Miss Blanche Carson?”

“No. This is Doris Young. Who’s calling?”

“This is long distance from Miami, Florida,” Shayne said carefully. “Do you expect Miss Carson in soon?”

“Yes. She should be back about six o’clock. Who in Miami?”

“I’m a detective. Perhaps you could help me with some information, Miss Young. It’s in reference to a girl who used to live at that same address with Blanche Carson before she married. Her maiden name was Rose McNally.”

He heard a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the wire. “Has something happened to her?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well, you said you were a detective, didn’t you?”

“Do you know Rose?”

“No. Not personally. I never met her. But I know she was Blanche’s room-mate until she got married and I moved in with Blanche.”

“And Blanche has talked about her?” Shayne encouraged the girl.

“Some. You know. Not very much, really. There was something happened a month or so ago. I know Rose called up one day unexpectedly and Blanche had dinner with her. I know she came home worried about her, and there was something said about Miami, but I don’t remember what. And so when you said you were a detective from Miami calling about Rose, I wondered.”

“I understand,” said Shayne patiently. “And that’s all you can tell me?”

“That’s about all. Has something happened to Rose?”

“We’re not sure,” said Shayne cautiously. “You’re sure Blanche will be home by six o’clock?”

“She said she would. Shall I tell her you called?”

“Yes. And that I’ll be in touch with her about six o’clock.” Shayne hung up, and sat back, musing over this information. Excitement was beginning to churn up inside him. There was some connection, damn it. Blanche had been at the wedding with Fitzgilpin. The bride was her former roommate, and must have confided in her. They had remained in touch after Rose’s marriage… as lately as a few months ago. And there had been something about Miami…

How those bits and pieces added up to the murder of Jerome Fitzgilpin last night, Shayne couldn’t possibly guess. But he was suddenly convinced that Blanche Carson held the key to the mystery. She was the only contact he had.

He looked distastefully at the telephone as he considered calling her at six o’clock. People were apt to clam up over the telephone. If she suspected Rose were in some kind of trouble in Miami…

Blanche and Rose must have been close friends. Blanche would probably be inclined to cover up for her if a detective started interrogating her over the phone.

On the other hand, you could learn so much more asking questions face to face. Not so much by what the witness said sometimes, but how she said it. How she evaded direct answers to certain questions.

Shayne looked at his watch and made a quick decision. Jet flights to New York took less than two hours. If there were one leaving soon he could be there before six o’clock.

He called the airport and found there was a nonstop flight scheduled to depart in forty minutes. He made a reservation and hung up, then called Lucy Hamilton’s number and asked her, “Everything under control?”

“Oh, yes, Michael.” She sounded calmer than before. “I called Emily Cahill and she was very nice. She’s coming over in about fifteen minutes to pick up the children. And I peeked in upstairs a few minutes ago. Linda is still dead to the world, but sleeping peacefully as far as I can tell. Her pulse is strong and she’s breathing easily.”

Shayne said, “Fine. Just keep a check on her, Angel. I’m off to New York in about forty minutes. You might let Tim Rourke know. I hope to be back before midnight with something definite to work on.”

“To New York, Michael? Whatever for?”

“I’ve got hold of something,” he told her cautiously. “Right now, I’m not sure what. Stay sort of close to Linda, huh? Personally,” he added slowly, “I wouldn’t be too much upset if she remained incommunicado to Peter Painter. What I mean to imply is… if she should come out of it and feel like another drink, I wouldn’t discourage her too much if I were you.”

“Michael Shayne! You mean you want me to keep her so drunk she can’t talk to Chief Painter?”

Shayne grinned at her indignant voice over the telephone. “I didn’t say I want you to keep her drunk, Angel. Just don’t keep her from staying drunk if she wants to. When Painter does get around to talking to her, she’s going to tell him some things that he’s likely to misconstrue. That’s all I’m saying. So if she feels like another drink when she wakes up, just be sure it’s handy and that you pour with a lavish hand. As long as the children are out of the way and being taken care of,” he added.

Lucy said doubtfully, “All right, Michael. I’ll… do my best.”

“It’s for Linda’s sake,” Shayne said sharply. “Very frankly, I think Painter will put her under arrest when he hears her story. Right now, I don’t want that.”

“Arrest her? Oh, no, Michael! Nothing in the world could make me believe Linda had anything to do with it.”

“I told Painter that,” Shayne said blithely, “and he’s considering putting you on his payroll as psychological consultant.”

“What?”

Shayne laughed. “I don’t think he’d pay as much as I do. I’ve got to get out to the airport. I’ll try to call either you or Tim from New York… around seven or so.”

13

At the New York airport, Shayne went directly to the Information counter to inquire about return flights that night. There was only one scheduled. For eight-thirty. Shayne made a reservation for it on the chance that he’d be able to make it.

It was a quarter to six when he called Blanche Carson’s West side apartment. A pleasant, youthful, feminine voice answered.

He asked, “Is this Blanche Carson?”

“Speaking. Who is this?”

“I’m a detective from Miami, Miss Carson.”

“Oh, yes. Doris told me. Something about Rose. What is it?”

Shayne said, “I wonder if I could possibly have a talk with you. I’m at the airport. Just flew in from Miami particularly to see you.”

“Well… I don’t know. I have a date to go dancing at eight. What did you say your name is?”

“Shayne. Michael Shayne, Miss Carson. I’m a private detective…”

“Oh!” she thrilled. “Mike Shayne? Really? That cute one that was on TV a year or so ago?”

Shayne grimaced wryly and said, “I’m afraid I’m not quite as cute as the actor who portrayed me. But I am Mike Shayne. And I want very much to see you at once. Could we possibly have dinner together? I have to fly back at eight-thirty.”

“I’d be thrilled to death to have dinner with you,” caroled Blanche Carson. “Where?”

“Can you suggest a place close to you? I can be there in thirty or forty minutes.”

“There’s a nice French restaurant about two blocks away.” She gave him the name and address. “I’ll be waiting for you there in half an hour.” Shayne said, “That will be wonderful,” and hung up. Well, that was one thing a television series did for you, he told himself sourly, as he went to look for a taxi. You could make dinner dates with strange women without any difficulty.

When he entered the dim foyer of the restaurant forty minutes later, a girl arose immediately from a bench and came up to him. She was slightly on the plump side and wore glasses, but she had an intelligent face and her eyes sparkled. “You’re Mike Shayne,” she said eagerly, offering him her hand. “I’d recognize you anywhere.”

“From watching TV?”

“Of course not.” She laughed happily. “I know he was just an actor. But I’ve read lots of the books about you and your cases, and you’re just like the author describes you.”

Shayne grinned and took her arm and they went into a small, quiet dining room and were promptly seated at a secluded table in a corner of the uncrowded room.

Shayne asked if she would have a drink, and she said promptly, “I’d love one. I’ll drink a sidecar in your honor. With Martel cognac, if you have it,” she told the hovering waiter gravely, “and just a little easy on the cointreau.”

Shayne grinned and said, “You have been reading the books. I’ll have two or three of the same,” he told the waiter. “Just keep them coming as fast as I finish one.”

“Now,” said Blanche, planting her elbows on the table and becoming suddenly serious. “What is it about Rose? I haven’t heard a single word from her.”

Shayne said, “I’m not just sure how much of it is about Rose. I hope you’ll help me there. Actually, Blanche, a man was murdered in Miami last night, and that’s what I’m working on. His name was Jerome Fitzgilpin.” He watched keenly for the girl’s reaction to the name, and saw a look of puzzled doubt spread slowly over her expressive features.

“Fitz-gilpin?” She repeated the syllables slowly. “Wait a minute. I think I know. Isn’t that the name of the nice, little man who stood up with Rose and Rutherford Rodman when they were married?”

Shayne nodded. “And took you to dinner in the Village afterward.”

“Yes. He was so nice about everything.” She clasped her hands together tightly. “A complete stranger like that. He had just met Rutherford at the hotel the night before. He bought Rose a corsage of tiny yellow rosebuds and insisted on paying for the dinner… with a bottle of champagne and everything. And you say he’s dead? Murdered? Who would murder such a friendly little man?”

“That’s what I hope to find out.” Their sidecars arrived and Shayne sipped his with pleasure. It was astringently cold, with no sugar around the rim of the glass. “Do you remember what he talked about that night? Anything important?”

“I think he was in New York attending some sort of convention. Mostly he talked about young love and marriage. He was married and had a couple of children, I think. He showed us pictures of them. He was so sweet talking about his wife. Still terribly in love with her after being married so long. I remember he said they’d never had a single quarrel in all the years they’d been married. And he was so anxious to get home to her. I didn’t realize he lived in Miami,” she added. “I don’t believe he mentioned that.”

And that was exactly the time Linda had been having her affair with George Nourse, Shayne thought grimly. Poor devil. It had been a hell of a home-coming for him. Aloud, he said, “Tell me about your friend Rose and her husband. Was it a happy marriage?”

“Oh, no. It was dreadful. Perfectly horrible for poor Rose. But it was partly her own fault. I have to admit that. I told her she was out of her mind to marry a man under false pretenses like that, but she was crazily romantic and got caught up in a lie and it kept getting bigger and bigger and she didn’t know how to tell him the truth. She thought it would be all right after they were married, and they’d laugh about it, because you see she thought he had all kinds of money and he wouldn’t mind. But it turned out he was fooling her, too, and had just married her because he thought she was rich.”

“Wait a minute,” protested Shayne. “How long had they known each other?”

“Just about a week. They met at a party and he was introduced to her as a wealthy bachelor from Chicago. So she made up a silly story about having rich parents in Philadelphia and just being in New York on a visit… and… and that’s the way it happened,” she ended helplessly, spreading out her hands. “Rose was actually a salesgirl at Bonwit’s and she spent practically every penny of her salary buying clothes there at a discount. So she did have beautiful things to wear, but not a penny in the bank. And neither did he, as it turned out. He couldn’t even pay his hotel bill at the Commodore a few days later, and he was furious when he discovered she wasn’t rich at all. He was a thoroughly nasty man,” she went on, lowering her eyelids and hesitating. “I didn’t know about this until months later, after he had left her, because she was too ashamed to tell me in the beginning, but he actually wanted her to… well… have men come up to their room at the hotel to get money to pay the bill.”

“Did she?”

“No!” Blanche shot at him. “She was a good girl. They slipped out of the hotel without paying, and she went back to her job and rented a cheap room where they lived for a time. Then he just disappeared one day and she never heard from him again. I didn’t know about any of this until a long time later because she never even called me when it was going on.”

Shayne thoughtfully finished his second cocktail and waited appreciatively while a third was set before him. Then he picked up a menu and suggested, “Shall we order dinner? I have to be back at the airport a little after eight.”

“Yes. Let’s.” She began looking at her menu also, and Shayne asked, “Can you suggest anything in particular?”

“Their pot-au-feu is wonderful, if you like it. They make it as a specialty for two. A whole chicken in one pot, with herbs and vegetables and wine.”

Shayne said, “It sounds perfect to me,” and nodded to the waiter, who was listening attentively.

“When you did see Rose again, her husband had left her?”

“Yes. Just walked out without a word. After she’d been supporting him for two or three months. It was good riddance, of course, and she never wanted to see him again.”

“Did she?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t see her much for about a year. Then suddenly she called me up about two months ago and asked me to have dinner with her. She was happy and excited… more like the old Rose I’d known before her marriage. And she had some kind of secret scheme for getting a lot of money. Oodles of it, she told me. But she was very mysterious and wouldn’t tell me how she was going to do it. Just that she was going to Miami the next day, and when she came back she’d call me and maybe we’d take a trip around the world together, and like that.

“She was so romantic. Always imagining things and making up stories. Like pretending to be a rich debutante when she first met Rutherford. So I was skeptical when she told me this, but she insisted it was true this time. She seemed so very positive that I was halfway convinced myself. And I kept waiting to hear from her, and never did. Not a word. And I called Bonwit’s after a couple of weeks and they said she’d quit her job and they had no new address for her. And I went around to her old place and they didn’t know anything. Now it’s your turn,” Blanche told Shayne soberly. “I’ve told you everything and you haven’t told me anything.”

“At this point,” said Shayne frankly, “I’m not sure what I’ve got to tell you. Does the name of Kelly mean anything to you? Ever hear Rose mention it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Or George Nourse?”

“No. Who are they?”

“A couple of names that have come up in connection with Fitzgilpin’s murder last night. Both of them more or less leading back to his trip to New York a year and a half ago.”

Shayne paused as their chicken was placed before them in a large earthenware pot. He waited while the waiter deftly served joint portions to them, appreciatively sniffed the aromatic steam arising from his plate, and asked Blanche one final question.

“Did you ever know of Rose having a prescription for sodium amytal? It’s a high-powered sleeping drug.”

“No. Rose never took anything like that while she lived with me. Why?”

“That’s what killed Jerome Fitzgilpin last night. He was poisoned by sodium amytal.”

“Do you suspect Rose had anything to do with his death?” Blanche leaned toward him, her young face showing concern and strain. “Why? What reason can you have?”

“Right now,” growled Shayne, “I’m not being reasonable. I’m clutching at straws. You’ve been frank with me, and you deserve to know the truth. Eat your chicken while I explain what brought me to New York to talk to you.”

He started at the beginning with a recital of Fitzgilpin’s death and the homicide investigation which had followed. When he concluded the story, he spread out his hands and admitted, “That’s all I’ve got, Blanche. Admittedly, it’s damned little. If we only knew what Rose had in mind when she took off for Miami. You say she spoke of a lot of money. How much would have been a lot to a girl like Rose? Ten thousand? Fifty thousand? Half a million?”

“Fifty, I should think. Not ten. Not the way she was talking. But fifty or a hundred thousand would be really big money to her.”

“How could she possibly plan to get her hands on a sum like that? Think carefully, Blanche. You knew Rose. If it were an inheritance, she would have given you the details. You must have wondered about it… why she was so secretive. Didn’t you come to the conclusion that she’d planned something illegal… something she knew you wouldn’t approve, and thus didn’t tell you?”

Blanche nodded miserably. “Yes. I did think that. She was a peculiar girl. Nice, but… but, she was hard too. She was an orphan and had to make her own way from the time she finished high school. She didn’t exactly feel the world owed her a living, but she did feel… oh, I don’t know exactly. That whatever she could get out of life, she deserved. That’s why… she saw nothing really wrong about tricking Rutherford Rodman into marriage by making him believe she was rich. Later, when it developed he’d tricked her too, she was philosophical about it.”

“Blackmail?” suggested Shayne gently. “Would that be out of her line?”

“I don’t know,” Blanche confessed miserably. “Under certain circumstances. If the person had a great deal of money and Rose felt he didn’t deserve any decent consideration. Yes, I think I can see her justifying blackmail under those conditions.”

“Someone like Rutherford Rodman,” said Shayne flatly.

“Yes. Certainly Rutherford,” said Blanche with spirit. “I’m positive Rose wouldn’t have hesitated to blackmail him if she were given the opportunity. But he had no money.”

“Neither did Jerome Fitzgilpin,” said Shayne broodingly. “Not the sort of money that would appeal to Rose. I just don’t know at this point. You’ve been a big help,” he told Blanche, finishing his chicken and glancing at his watch. “And you’ve got a date to go dancing. Shall we just have coffee and skip dessert?”

“Oh, yes,” she said a trifle ruefully. “I never eat dessert though I can’t seem to lose a pound. You will let me know about Rose, won’t you? As soon as you find out anything. The one thing I can’t understand is why she didn’t let me know. That last night when I saw her… she promised me so faithfully that she would let me know how things turned out. I can’t think of any reason why she hasn’t even dropped me a card.”

Shayne could think of one reason, but he didn’t mention it to Blanche. If blackmail had been Rose’s object, it was a pretty dangerous project to embark upon.

They finished their coffee while talking about trivialities, and Shayne found a taxi outside which dropped Blanche at her apartment and then took him back to the airport in ample time for him to put in a call for Timothy Rourke at the News before his plane took off.

“I’m at the New York airport,” he told the reporter. “Catching an eight-thirty plane back. Eastern, Flight number six. Meet me at the airport?”

“What in hell are you doing in New York?” groaned Rourke. “All hell has broken loose here. The widow Fitzgilpin has disappeared and Painter is having kittens all over the place.”

“Disappeared? When? How?”

“No one knows. She just turned up missing when Painter finally got around to her. She and both the children. I guess he suspects you spirited them off to New York with you. Did you?”

“Hell, no,” growled Shayne. “I don’t know any more about it than you do. Has he caught up with Nourse yet?”

“That’s another thing,” said Rourke aggrievedly. “I’m sitting on that and wondering when in hell it’s going to blow up under me. Yeh. Painter caught up with Nourse. In L. A. this afternoon. Nourse is there and swears he hasn’t been in Miami for over a year. Painter believes him.”

“Doesn’t Petey realize it’s only five hours by jet plane to Los Angeles?”

“Evidently not. Anyhow, that’s when he decided it was time to interview the widow… and she wasn’t home when he got there. Have you got her hid out, Mike?”

“No. Look, I’ve got to get on that plane, Tim. One thing I want you to do. Check on any unsolved murders in the last couple of months. Unidentified bodies of gals in their mid-twenties on either side of the bay. I’ve run into a missing person here in New York.”

“Right now I don’t remember… wait a minute,” said Rourke with rising excitement. “I think there was such a one, Mike. I’ll have to check it out, but…”

“You check and have all the dope for me when I get there. They’re calling my plane right now. See you at the airport, Tim.”

14

Back at the Miami airport Shayne found Timothy Rourke, as expected, waiting for him at a small table just inside the bar. The reporter had a drink in front of him, and he was alert and eager as Shayne sat down and ordered a drink. “What’s this fast trip to New York about? Damn it, Mike. Why don’t you keep me posted?”

Shayne said, “Hold your horses. I’ll bring you up to date fast enough. One thing at a time. Is Linda Fitzgilpin still missing?”

“Right off the face of the earth. And Painter is really gunning for you. He blames you for preventing him from getting her story earlier.”

“At noon today he was thanking me for it. You heard him yourself.”

“Yeh. But that was noon. Level with me, Mike. Did you arrange to have her hide out from Painter?”

“No. In fact the last time I spoke to her… before noon… I extracted a solemn promise from her that she’d tell him the exact truth when he came around. When did he discover she was missing?”

“About five o’clock. After he’d checked out Nourse in L. A. and become convinced the man hadn’t been in Miami last night. You’re sure he was, Mike?”

“No. I’ve only the widow’s word for it. No one else saw him that I know of.”

“Any reason for her to lie about it?”

“I sure as hell can’t see any.” Shayne sipped his drink and frowned. “It was about the worst sort of admission she could make, and I had to drag it out of her piecemeal. Painter went to her place at five?”

“Yeh. With Sergeant Drake from Miami Homicide. They got no answer at her door, and got the super up to let them in… fearing, I guess, that maybe she’d done both herself and the youngsters in. No sign of them. Everything in order. No evidence of packing or hurried departure. He figured, naturally, that you’d spirited her away.”

“Naturally,” Shayne agreed blandly. “After all, she is a good-looking redhead. We’ll find her, Tim. I can’t believe she’s gone very far. What did you pick up on that other? Any unidentified female bodies in the last two months?”

“Just one.”

“That’s all I need. Give.”

“It was just about two months ago.” Rourke got some notes from his pocket and consulted them. “Body of a young woman washed up on the West shore of Biscayne Bay about Eightieth Street. She’d been in the water several days and just wore a slip and underwear. Her face had been bashed in, and several days in the water hadn’t improved her appearance. There was never any identification. Missing Persons put flyers out on her all over the country with no results. And you know something, Mike?” Rourke paused dramatically, pleased as a child with the secret he was about to impart.

“Not very much.”

“Autopsy showed she was full of sodium amytal when she was beaten and thrown in the water. How do you like that?”

“Very much. Rose McNally.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Rutherford Rodman. Remember the photograph I showed you this morning? Together with this menu?” Shayne got them from his pocket and showed Rourke the picture again. “That’s Rose McNally when she got married over a year ago. The man is Rutherford Rodman. Jerome Fitzgilpin was a witness at their wedding.”

“How do you know all this?” Rourke asked helplessly.

“That’s why I flew to New York. Rose disappeared from there headed for Miami about two months ago. She told a girl friend she was excited about getting her hands on a big wad of money. How does that figure to you?”

“Attempted blackmail?”

Shayne shrugged. “She wouldn’t be the first blackmailer who ever turned up floating in the water.”

“But who, Mike? Where would blackmail come in? And how does that connect with Fitzgilpin’s murder last night?”

“The sodium amytal connects the two. It worked successfully once two months ago, why wouldn’t it work again? Murderers aren’t too imaginative.”

“But why?”

“That’s for us to figure out.”

“The way I get it, Fitzgilpin did the couple a favor purely out of the goodness of his heart. Why should someone kill him for that?”

“What reason did anyone have for killing him? That’s what we’ve been up against from the beginning. Friendliest man in the world without a single known enemy. Yet someone fed him poison. That’s been the stumbling block. Now it begins to look as though he was killed because he was so friendly.”

“Hell of a note,” muttered Rourke, turning up his glass. “Generally when you dig back into a man’s life you discover scads of people who wanted him dead the worst way.”

“That’s right. So you trace down a few alibis and find one that doesn’t stand up, and that’s it.” Shayne sighed and rubbed his angular jaw reflectively. “That’s not the way it comes out this time.”

“There is the widow. She admitted having an affair and asking him for a divorce.”

“Yeh,” Shayne agreed noncommittally, “we’ve still got the widow.”

“Only, we haven’t got her. She did take a run-out powder, damn it. If you’ve got any idea where to find her…”

“Let Painter find her,” said Shayne grimly. “Right now, I believe Linda’s story: That she and her husband were reconciled and she hadn’t seen or heard from Nourse until he turned up unexpectedly last night. Women don’t normally kill a husband who has been good enough to take them back after an affair like that.”

“Then who…?”

“There’s that goddamned telephone call. Kelly!” Shayne ran knobby fingers through his bristly red hair. “If we could only tie someone named Kelly into the picture. A woman looking for an insurance broker who is willing to disregard the rules and sell her a quarter-million dollar insurance policy on her husband’s life without his knowledge. Just the first premium on that policy would be a hunk of money. I wonder if she went elsewhere after Fitzgilpin turned her down. I suppose there are plenty of crooked brokers who would arrange a deal like that.”

“No doubt.”

“If she did succeed in putting it over, we’d be doing the husband a favor by telling him. How many Kellys do you suppose there are in Miami?”

“Several hundred. It’s a damned common name. Almost like Smith or Jones, I think.”

“Yeh,” said Shayne slowly. “Almost as common as Smith or Jones. I wonder, by God, if we’ve been barking up the wrong tree.”

“How?” asked Rourke alertly.

“It just occurred to me that if you wanted to choose a common name as an alias you’d be smart to choose one like Kelly instead of Smith or Jones.”

“So?”

Shayne shrugged. “It’s an idea, that’s all.”

Rourke looked disapprovingly at his empty glass, then glanced down at the picture of the newly-married couple still lying face up on the table. He picked it up and turned it to get a better light, and frowned angrily. “I’ve still got that sneaking hunch I had when I first saw this picture. That I should know the guy. That I’ve seen him somewhere recently. Rodman, you say?”

“Rutherford G. Rodman. At least that’s the name he gave the New York license bureau.”

“Rodman?” Rourke closed his eyes tightly and savored the name while Shayne watched him hopefully, knowing the reporter’s uncanny ability to remember faces he had seen maybe only once or twice in the sometime distant past.

Slowly a change came over Rourke’s tight-drawn features. They relaxed and he opened his eyes wide. “I think I’ve got it, Mike. Hold onto your horses, but by God, I think I have. Let’s get the hell over to the News morgue.”

“Who is it?”

“Don’t push me.” Rourke pushed back his chair. “Don’t kill the image. It’s tenuous right now. I’ve got to hold onto it. See you at the office.”

He hurried out of the room almost at a trot, head thrust forward and thin shoulders hunched as though he were a hunting dog following an almost indefinable scent.

Shayne paid the bill and left almost immediately behind him. He got his car from the parking lot where he had left it a few hours earlier and drove at a moderate pace toward the News office.

Driving through the balmy hush of the Miami night he was conscious of the beginning of a driving excitement that welled up inside of him. He was coming close to an answer. He knew he was. All his past experience told him he was on the edge of it. Somehow the tangled threads were beginning to untangle. He didn’t know how it would happen, nor where the various threads would lead, but he knew it wouldn’t be long now. He had all the various pieces of the puzzle in his hands and it was only a matter of time before they fitted themselves together into a clear pattern.

As yet, there certainly was no discernible pattern, clear or otherwise. He discovered he was in no hurry to reach the newspaper office. The answer would be there. He had no real doubt of that. He had seen Timothy Rourke in action too often in the past to doubt the veracity of the reporter’s hunch this time.

In the meantime, Shayne enjoyed seeking the answer in his own mind, and he refused to be annoyed when he did not find it. Somewhere at the end of the line was a two-time murderer who had employed sodium amytal twice to kill his victims. It was a vicious, cold-blooded method of killing, and he wouldn’t regret tracking the murderer down.

He felt wholly calm and impersonal about it as he parked outside the News and went in to see if Rourke was at his accustomed desk in the City Room. The reporter was there waiting for him. Slouched back in his chair with two cardboard files he had gotten from the morgue in front of him, and with a satisfied smile on his thin face.

One of the files was fat and bulging with newspaper clippings, and the other was thin. The fat one was labeled “Durand,” the thin one bore the name, “Rodman.”

Rourke patted the Rodman file as Shayne sat down beside him. “This just goes back a little over two months, but I think it’s what you want.” He opened it to display the first clipping, a brief story with a New York dateline, headed: ROMANTIC OCEAN INTERLUDE.

Shayne leaned forward to read the story which began: “When the S.S. Alexander docked at pier 14 this afternoon, reporters were given the details of a moonlit-studded and tropical nights romance which culminated in a seagoing wedding three nights ago performed by Captain Jesse Bergstrom, Commander of the Bermuda vacation liner.

“The happy couple are Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford G. Rodman who became acquainted on the cruise and plighted their troth in Bermuda before the return trip began.

“The radiant bride is the former Betsy Ann Durand of Miami, Florida, daughter of land-developer and real-estate tycoon, G. A. Durand of Miami, and the couple plan to set up residence at the Durand estate on Miami Beach.

“The personable groom is clubman and industrialist Rutherford G. Rodman from Cincinnati, Ohio, who told this reporter he plans to liquidate his holdings in the mid-west and devote his future energies to managing the Durand properties in Florida.

“It was the first venture into marriage for both bride and groom…”

Shayne read the newspaper clipping no further. He pushed it aside, his forehead furrowed in thought. “If it’s the same Rutherford G. Rodman…”

“It is,” Rourke assured him happily. “Here’s a story from our society section five days later. Betsy Ann Durand is headline news in Miami, and we had a photographer out to meet their plane.”

He showed Shayne a second clipping, much longer than the dispatch from New York, featuring a somewhat cloudy shot of a man and woman poised at the top of the steps leading off a jet plane with their arms around each other.

The picture of the man was quite clear, and was unmistakably that of the same Rutherford G. Rodman whose photograph Shayne had been carrying around inside a folded menu all day. The bride was wearing a wide, floppy-brimmed hat which obscured her features somewhat; she was as tall as her husband and stood very straight and gracious beside him.

Shayne studied the picture briefly without bothering to read the text. “That’s our boy,” he muttered. “This Betsy Ann Durand, Tim?”

“One of the important catches in Miami society,” Rourke told him. “You’ve heard of Durand. An associate of Flagler in the old days. Left a lot of millions when he kicked off ten years ago. Betsy Ann was the only child and inherited most of it. Rodman did all right for himself this time.”

He opened the bulging folder marked Durand, and began leafing through it. “Here’s Betsy Ann at Hialeah last year. And another one of her opening the Flower Show at the Woman’s Club.” He slid two glossy portraits out to show Shayne, and the detective studied them with at first a bewildered and then a growing and more positive sense of recognition.

He said, “It’s Mrs. Kelly, Tim. Goddamn it, it has to be Mrs. Kelly!”

15

“Mrs. Kelly?” echoed Timothy Rourke.

“That’s right. The woman who tried to take out a quarter-million dollar policy on her husband. This Betsy Ann Durand fits Fitzgilpin’s secretary’s description of her to a T.” Shayne closed his eyes and brought to his mind a vivid memory of Mrs. Perkins’ voice that morning. He quoted aloud: “She was pathetic with all her jewelry and mink. She was a woman who looked dowdy no matter what she wore. She was tall and awkward, with big hands and feet, and a great big nose and a thin mouth. You could just imagine her, as a young debutante, sitting on the sidelines and never getting asked to dance no matter how much money her family had.” He opened his eyes to look down at the pictures of Betsy Ann Durand again. “How’s that for a description of the heiress?”

“Absolutely perfect. The secretary was right, you know, about no man ever paying her attention. She must be in her mid-thirties now, and everyone figured her for a confirmed spinster.”

“So she was ready and ripe for a good-looking no-good like Rodman on a tropical cruise. Are they in Miami now?”

“I’m sure they are. They reopened the big house on the Beach. But, Mike. Why in hell would she want to take out a big policy on her new husband? She’s the one with the money. Millions of it.”

“Who knows why a woman does anything? Maybe she figures he’s worth that to her. Sort of coppering her bet.”

“Why would she use an alias?”

“That’s easier to understand. Probably she did know her proposal was illegal, and she was trying Fitzgilpin out. If he’d responded, she would have given her real name. As it was, she left no trail behind her.”

Both men were silent for a moment, staring down at the pictures and clippings and trying to see how this new development fitted into Fitzgilpin’s death.

“We’ve got several things,” Shayne said slowly. “We know he concealed his first wedding from his new wife. The clipping says it was the first marriage for both of them. That story was in a New York paper two months ago. If Rose read it she might well have been tempted to try a little blackmail.”

“Just because he hadn’t told his wife he’d been married before?”

“Well… that. And we don’t even know if he’d gotten a divorce, Tim. Rose hadn’t mentioned it to her best friend if there had been a divorce. Bigamy would make a nice juicy blackmail item. With him married to a millionairess this time. If that were true, you can’t blame Rose for thinking she was in a position to come down to Miami and collect a wad of cash.”

“Instead of which,” said Rourke, “she collected a lethal dose of sodium amytal.”

Shayne nodded somberly. “That’s the way it’s beginning to look. And it would lead directly to Fitzgilpin’s murder also. Don’t you see how one would follow the other? Assume Rodman did kill her when she showed up in Miami demanding money for her silence. He’d feel safe then. Until suddenly a couple of weeks ago he came across Jerome Fitzgilpin’s name in the interview you printed. According to Blanche Carson in New York, none of them knew Miami was Fitzgilpin’s hometown. But Jerome Fitzgilpin is quite an unusual name. Think how Rodman would feel knowing that one of the witnesses to his first wedding lived right here. Married to a rich woman, there were bound to be pictures of him in the papers and stories about him. Sooner or later, Fitzgilpin would see a picture and read one of those stories. And he’d wonder what had happened to Rose McNally. Rodman would really have been in a sweat if that’s the way it was.”

“But he couldn’t be sure this Fitzgilpin was the same man.”

“No. And that’s why he sent his wife to the office to see the man and find out if he was the right one.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” protested Rourke. “Your theory is that everything depended on him keeping the truth from Betsy Ann. How could he send her to the office to find out?”

“God knows what sort of story he dreamed up to get her to do it. Don’t forget that all our information points to Rodman as a fairly accomplished con man. He could have thought up some tale that would send her to Fitzgilpin. A woman like that… she’s probably completely enamoured of him and eager to believe any damned thing he tells her.”

“I’ll buy that much,” Rourke agreed. “But still and all… it’s a pretty far-fetched theory.”

“Have you got a better one?”

“No. Not right now.” Rourke scowled and began gathering up the clippings and pictures and putting them back in their proper folders.

Shayne shrugged and said, “There’s one good way to find out.”

“What’s that?”

“Ask him.” Shayne looked at his watch. “Do you know where the Durand house is?”

“Vaguely. It’s one of those little islands dredged up on the east side of the Bay that stick out from the peninsula.”

“A handy place to toss a former wife into the water and have her turn up on the other side of the Bay a few days later,” Shayne commented drily.

“Exactly. You going to take Painter along?”

“Hell, no.” Shayne looked at him in surprise. “Right now, this has got to be strictly off the record. Do you suppose the address is in the phone book?”

Rourke shook his head, reaching for a well-thumbed directory. “Not Rodman. But Durand should be.” He opened the book and looked for a moment, then nodded. “Five-sixteen Loma Vista. That’s out… oh, around Sixtieth Street.”

Shayne said, “Why not give him a call, Tim? Find out if he’s in, so we won’t waste a trip.”

“What’ll I say?”

Shayne looked at him in surprise. “Hell, that you’re a reporter and want an interview with him to get his expert opinion on the future of land values on the Beach.”

“At this time of night?” scoffed Rourke, reaching for his telephone nevertheless.

“At least we’ll find out if he’s home.”

Rourke dialed the number and waited. Shayne lit a cigarette, frowning absently at the spiral of blue smoke that rose up past his eyes. It was all pretty pat. Too pat? Who could say? Everything seemed to fit. And it was the only answer that did fit, he told himself. He listened to Rourke say, “Mr. Rodman, please.”

And then, “This is a reporter on the News in Miami. It’s important that I speak with Mr. Rodman as soon as possible.”

He paused a moment, then shook his head and said, “No, thanks. I’ll try again in about an hour.” He hung up and told Shayne, “I got a British accent you could cut with a knife. A butler, I bet, if they still have such things on the Beach. Mr. Rodman is out, but is expected to return within the hour.”

Shayne nodded and said, “So we’ve got a little time to kill. Look in your directory again and see if you can find a number for Mrs. Ella Perkins on the Beach.”

Rourke started looking without asking why. In a moment he gave Shayne a telephone number and address, and the detective reached to lift the phone from his desk and said, “I’ll talk to her if she answers.”

Rourke dialed the number for him, and after several rings a sleepy and somewhat worried voice answered, “Yes? Who is it?”

“This is the detective who was in your office this morning, Mrs. Perkins. Michael Shayne.”

“Oh yes, Mr. Shayne. Whatever is it? I’m afraid I was asleep…”

“Sorry to disturb you, but something important has come up. Would it put you out terribly if I stopped by in about half an hour for just a minute?”

“Of course not, Mr. Shayne. Is it something to do with… Mr. Fitzgilpin?”

“You may be able to identify a murderer for me,” he told her grimly, then added reassuringly, “Not in person. But by looking at a picture.”

“I’ll certainly do my best,” she faltered.

He hung up and told Rourke, “Let’s take one of those pictures of Betsy Ann Durand with us. With Mrs. Perkins’ positive identification we’ll be in a better position to put pressure on Rodman.” They drove over together to Miami Beach in Shayne’s car, and found Mrs. Perkins’ address was in a neat apartment building only a few blocks from the insurance office. Shayne left Rourke in the car while he went in with the photograph in his hand and rang the bell of her ground-floor apartment.

She opened it at once, wearing a faded, gray housecoat and with her hair done up in curlers. “You’ll have to excuse my appearance, but I was asleep when you called like I said, and I just didn’t take time…”

He said, “That’s perfectly okay, Mrs. Perkins. I appreciate you seeing me at this late hour. I want you to look at this picture and tell me if you’ve ever seen the woman before.”

She took the picture from him and looked at it. “Yes. Of course,” she said at once. “It’s a picture of that Mrs. Kelly. You remember. The one I told you about who came to see Mr. Fitzgilpin…”

“About taking out an insurance policy on her husband without his knowledge,” Shayne ended for her grimly. “Thank you, Mrs. Perkins. That’s the one positive link I needed.”

“But… was it her did it, Mr. Shayne? Whatever on earth…?”

He said, “I think you’ll be able to read all about it in the newspaper tomorrow morning. Go on back to bed knowing that you’ve done more to break the case than any other single person.”

Back in the driver’s seat of his car, he told Rourke jubilantly, “Got it. No question whatsoever about her identification.”

He started the motor and drove northward, letting Rourke watch for street signs and direct him to the Durand mansion.

It was a huge, three-storied pile of weathered coral standing alone on a small man-made island in the Bay, reached by traversing a short private bridge from the bayshore.

There was dim light showing in a second-story window when Shayne stopped under the wide porte-cochere beside a black Thunderbird.

They got out and Shayne slid his hand over the sleek hood of the other car as they went by. It was very warm to his touch.

They mounted stone steps and Shayne found an electric button and put his finger on it. He held the button pressed down for at least ninety seconds before a light showed behind the glass pane above the door.

He took his finger off the bell and waited, heard a chain being released inside and then the door opened cautiously. A broad, solemn-faced man of middle age confronted them. He was in his undershirt and suspenders, and there was a look of outrage on his face. “I say now. Whatever is the meaning of this?”

“Police business,” Shayne told him curtly, moving forward so he couldn’t close the door. “Call Mr. Rodman, please.”

“Mr. Rodman has retired, I’m afraid. Police business, you say. And what may I ask…?”

“Roust him out,” Shayne interrupted. “He hasn’t been retired long.”

“What’s the meaning of this intrusion, Albert?” The incisive question came from behind Albert and above him. He stepped back and turned, opening the door wider so Shayne could see the tall and darkly handsome figure of Rutherford Rodman standing on the landing of a wide stairway that led directly up from the entrance hall.

He wore a foulard dressing gown tightly belted around his slim waist, and he looked every inch the Master of the Manor. He also held a heavy. 45 automatic in his right hand by his side with every indication that he knew how to handle it.

16

“These men say they are police officers, Sir,” Albert replied.

“Policemen? At this time of night?” Rodman lifted one eyebrow ironically. “Suppose you show Albert your credentials before you come any farther inside my house.”

“I didn’t say we were cops,” Shayne told him. “I said we’re here on police business. I’m a private investigator from Miami, and this is my associate, Mr. Rourke.” He got out his wallet and flipped it open to show the butler his I.D. card.

“A private detective?” said Rodman. “If this is police business, why aren’t the police here to conduct it?”

“You can have them if you prefer. In a matter of minutes,” Shayne told him. “I’m giving you a chance to answer some questions privately which may obviate calling in the police at all.”

“His credentials seem to be in order, Sir,” Albert said nervously, handing Shayne’s wallet back to him.

“Very well then.” Rutherford Rodman descended the stairs slowly, lowering the barrel of his pistol and letting it dangle at the end of his arm. “Show them into the library, Albert.”

The butler switched on another light and led them down a short hall on the right to a large, gloomy room with its walls lined with books. Rodman followed them in and crossed to a fireside chair and laid his automatic on a table beside it. He said, “That will be all, Albert, but remain on call.”

Albert said, “Very well, Mr. Rodman,” and soft-footed out.

“Now,” said Rodman. “What is this about? You say your name is Shayne?”

The redhead sat down in a chair near Rodman and nodded. “That’s right.” Rourke unobtrusively took a chair slightly behind Rodman and took some copy paper from his pocket.

“I’m investigating a murder that occurred here on the Beach last night,” Shayne explained amiably to his host. “I think you may be able to give us some valuable information. The dead man is Jerome Fitzgilpin.”

Rodman nodded thoughtfully, making a tent of his ten fingers in front of him. Not a flicker of expression showed that the name meant anything particular to him. “I read about it in the paper,” he said indifferently. “Really, I don’t know what sort of information you expect me to have.”

“You knew him, didn’t you?”

“A man named Fitzgilpin?” Rodman looked surprised. “Not that I am aware of.”

“You knew him in New York a year and a half ago well enough to ask him to be a witness at your first wedding.”

Rodman sat rigidly still, looking down at his hands and pressing the palms tightly together.

“Was that his name? The little fellow who stood up with us? I didn’t even know he lived in Miami, and his name has slipped my mind entirely.”

“Wouldn’t you like to change that to: You didn’t know he lived in Miami until you saw a write-up about him in the paper two weeks ago?”

Rodman looked up with a flash of anger. “No, I wouldn’t. What makes you suggest that?”

Shayne shrugged. “You do admit a former marriage in New York to a girl named Rose McNally at which Fitzgilpin was a witness?”

“I’ve stated I don’t recall the man’s name,” snapped Rodman. “Possibly it was Fitzgilpin.”

“And,” Shayne went on smoothly, “you admit you concealed your first marriage from your present wife?”

“Is that a crime? I consider it wholly a private affair what I may or may not have told my wife.”

“I suspect it was a bit of perjury,” Shayne told him cheerfully. “I believe you have to swear to the facts when you take out a wedding license. But we’re not interested in perjury. How about bigamy, Mr. Rodman?”

“I don’t know what you mean. I was legally divorced from Rose, of course.”

“Without her knowledge?”

“I’m sure she was served with the necessary papers. It was a Mexican divorce.”

“Do you have a copy of the decree handy?”

“See here, Shayne. I don’t like your attitude nor your questions. Both are insulting. What on earth has any of this to do with the murder you claim to be investigating?”

“Where were you last night?”

“Do I need an alibi?”

“The police are going to require one from you.”

“When they require it, I will produce one. In the meantime, I think I have had about enough of this.”

Shayne said, “Suit yourself. But if we leave, don’t bother going back to bed. The police will be here within fifteen minutes.”

For a long moment, Rodman’s glance locked with his. Then he relaxed and said sulkily, “If we can get this over without the police, naturally I prefer it.”

Shayne said again, “Where were you last night?”

“At what time?”

“From ten to midnight?”

“I was upstairs asleep in my own bed. I had a slight headache and I took a strong sleeping potion at nine-thirty and retired.”

“A lot of people seem to have conveniently taken sleeping pills last night. Can anybody swear you were at home between ten and twelve? Your wife? Servants?”

“My wife was out when I went to sleep. I haven’t inquired exactly when she returned and came to bed, but I assume it was not much later than ten. The servants know I went to bed early. Unfortunately,” he added sarcastically, “they are not in the habit of peeking in every half hour or so to ascertain whether I have remained in bed or slipped out.”

“What sort of sleeping pills do you take?” Rodman’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “What on earth has that to do with it?”

“Do you mind telling me?”

“Of course not. Do you also wish to know my favorite after-dinner drink and the breakfast food I prefer?”

“No. Just the brand of sleeping pills.”

“I don’t know. It’s a special prescription I got from a doctor years ago. Quite a strong drug, I believe. I’ve had the prescription refilled occasionally over the years.”

“Sodium amytal?”

“What?”

“Is that the name of the drug?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Would you mind getting your bottle and letting me see the prescription?”

“Yes, I would mind.” Rodman was suddenly shaken with rage. He said through clenched teeth, “This is a monstrous invasion of privacy. Unless you explain at once what all these questions have to do with murder, I shall ask you to leave at once.”

Shayne said, “Jerome Fitzgilpin was murdered by an overdose of sodium amytal. And so was your former wife two months ago… also here in Miami.”

“Rose? You can’t mean it. Dead? And in Miami?” He rose to his feet and strode back and forth in agitation while Shayne studied him closely.

Shayne said, “She was blackmailing you, wasn’t she, Rodman? Here you were, sitting pretty at last with a wife worth several million dollars, and Rose was a threat to it. So you killed her.”

“No! That’s a filthy lie. I haven’t seen Rose for more than a year. Or had any contact with her.”

Shayne said evenly, “I don’t believe that, Rodman. I can prove she came to see you in New York immediately after your marriage at sea and you promised her money for her silence if she would come to Miami to collect it.”

“You can prove nothing of the sort because it simply is not true.”

Shayne abandoned that tack for a moment because, of course, he could not prove the accusation. He said, “All right. Let’s take what you do admit up to now. You don’t deny a previous marriage in New York which you concealed from your present wife?”

“No. I don’t deny that. How can I? It’s a matter of record. It was a foolish mistake which I regretted within a week after marrying her.”

“As soon as you discovered she wasn’t a Philadelphia heiress and couldn’t pay the hotel bill you’d run up at the Commodore while courting her?”

Rodman slumped back into his chair sullenly. “I was a fool to be taken in by her,” he admitted. “I just happened to be in a cash bind at the time… with all my liquid assets tied up. It would have been only a matter of time… as I tried to explain to her.”

“When you offered to pimp for her so she could earn money to pay your hotel bill?” asked Shayne coldly.

“Goddamn it, Shayne. I don’t have to take that kind of talk from any man.” Rodman’s eyes were hot and his right hand shot out to lift the heavy pistol from the table beside him. “You’re goading me beyond the limit a man can endure,” he warned the detective through clenched teeth.

Shayne leaned back and grinned mockingly. “While you’re about it, tell me how much progress you’ve made in liquidating your industrial holdings in the Mid-west since you’ve been married to Betsy Ann Durand.”

The automatic wavered in Rodman’s grasp. He said thickly, “None of this has the slightest thing to do with murder… which I understand is your purported reason to be here.”

“Two murders,” Shayne reminded him. “Your first wife and one of the witnesses to that first wedding. Two murders,” he repeated grimly. “Both by use of sodium amytal and within two months of each other. I strongly suspect that an analysis of your sleeping pills will show them to have a sodium amytal base. Whether we can prove murder against you or not,” he went on dispassionately, “you must realize by this time that you’re washed up in Miami, and have lost every chance you ever had of getting your hands on the Durand millions. How do you think your wife is going to react to the knowledge that you are a penniless adventurer who deserted his first wife because she refused to prostitute herself to pay your bills, and then married her on false pretenses? If you are legally married to her,” he added. “Personally, I doubt that you ever bothered to get a Mexican divorce. Even in Mexico these days there has to be the written consent of both parties, and I’m quite certain Rose never gave her consent. I don’t think a woman like Betsy Ann Durand is going to take all that lying down, Rodman.”

“Leave Betsy Ann out of this discussion,” panted Rodman hoarsely. “She’s my wife and she trusts me implicitly. You can’t drive a wedge between us.”

“Maybe not,” said Shayne. “Somehow, though, I find myself doubting the implicit trust of a wife who recently sought to take out a large insurance policy on your life without your knowledge.”

“What sort of nonsense is that?”

“It isn’t nonsense. I have a sworn statement to prove it. The funny thing is, Rodman, that she went to Jerome Fitzgilpin with her proposition. How do you explain that?”

“Not Betsy Ann. There’s some mistake.”

“There’s no mistake about it. The only question in my mind is why she did it. Is she already getting tired of you, Rodman? Has she discovered the truth… that you just married her for her money?”

“That’s absolutely false.” Rodman was breathing heavily, his handsome features contorted. “She loves me devotedly. I’m the first man who ever…” He paused suddenly, his face working, and Shayne finished for him mockingly:

“… the first man who ever proposed marriage to her. Naturally, she was flattered. In the beginning, at least. But how do you explain her attempt to take out insurance on your life without your knowledge? That’s hardly the action of a loving and devoted wife.”

“I don’t believe a single word of it.”

“I can prove it,” Shayne told him relentlessly. “Tell me why she chose Fitzgilpin to go to, Rodman. It’s a hell of a curious coincidence that of all the insurance men in Miami Beach she should go to the one who just happened to have been a witness to your previous wedding.”

“I don’t believe it,” he said again stubbornly.

“It’s a matter of record. How do you suppose she’ll explain it when I ask her?”

“Leave Betsy Ann out of this.”

“She’s in it,” Shayne told him. “Up to her neck. Unless you want to make a full confession and explain how you conned her into going to Fitzgilpin to discover for certain whether he was the same man whom you met at the Commodore Hotel in New York a year and a half ago. Because that’s what she did, and goddamn it to hell, if she doesn’t have a logical explanation for what she did, we’ll charge her with being an accessory before the fact.”

Rutherford Rodman leaped to his feet, baring his teeth and waving the heavy automatic excitedly.

“Get out!” he shouted. “I don’t know what your stinking game is, but I don’t want any part of it. If you dare come around saying any of these things to my wife…”

“What sort of things is the man saying Rutherford?” inquired an icy voice from the hall doorway. They all turned to see a tall, angular woman framed there. Her hair was stringy and her plain face was devoid of makeup. She clutched a blue woolen dressing gown tightly about her, and her lips were thinned against slightly protruding teeth.

17

Rodman exclaimed, “Betsy Ann! My dear. I’m terribly sorry you were disturbed. These men are here on business and…”

“What sort of business, Rutherford? At this time of night and you waving that ridiculous gun around?”

Rodman looked down at the pistol in his hand as though surprised to discover it there, and Shayne got to his feet behind him. He said, “Police business, Mrs. Rodman. Now that you’re here, I’d like to ask you a couple of questions.”

“I warned you, Shayne. Leave her out of it.” Rodman whirled about, lifting the gun menacingly, but Shayne’s big right hand shot out and his fingers clamped about the man’s wrist. He tightened his grip inexorably and said, “Drop it.”

Rodman’s body writhed for a moment against Shayne’s bone-crushing grip, then the automatic dropped from his lax fingers.

Shayne stooped to scoop it up and dropped it into his coat pocket. He said curtly, “Both of you will answer my questions or I’m taking you in to police headquarters.”

“What sort of questions, dear?” Mrs. Rodman moved slowly into the room to stand beside her husband and link her arm in his. “I’m certain we have nothing to hide from the police.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling him,” blustered Rodman. “He’s made the ridiculous and damnable accusation that you have been trying to insure my life without my knowledge.”

“But, darling. I wanted it to be a surprise,” she said composedly. “You said you wanted us to take out joint policies, but were a little short of cash to pay the premiums, and I thought I’d surprise you by doing it myself.”

“Using the name of Mrs. Kelly?” Shayne put in.

“I suppose it was foolish of me,” she agreed, “but I intended to use my right name, of course, when the policy was issued. But the nasty little man I went to was most insulting in his refusal. He seemed to think I had an ulterior motive.”

“Jerome Fitzgilpin?” Shayne asked.

“Was that his name? I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention. You don’t mean to say the police are interested in my trying to take out an insurance policy?”

“The police are interested in Jerome Fitzgilpin’s murder last night,” Shayne told her grimly. He was somewhat baffled by her ready explanation of her visit to Fitzgilpin’s office. Rodman appeared baffled too, but by this time Shayne had reached the conclusion that the man was a consummate actor.

“Can you alibi your husband for the period between ten and twelve?”

“Of course I can. We were right here at home together. Murder, you say?” Her plain, bony face showed an expression of revulsion.

“You spent the entire evening together?” Shayne demanded swiftly.

“Don’t answer any more impertinent questions, darling,” Rodman put in before she could reply. “This is utterly ridiculous, but I think I should call an attorney.”

“But I don’t mind answering his questions, Rutherford. We were together all evening, you know.”

“Your husband says differently, Mrs. Rodman.”

“Why would you do that, Rutherford?” Her voice was soothing and almost maternal. She pressed his arm closer to her angular body. “You know you’ve nothing to hide.”

“He’s been hiding other things from you,” Shayne told her harshly. “Did you know, for instance, that you aren’t his first wife?”

“Of course I knew that. You mean that silly little Rose in New York? Rutherford tells me everything.”

For a long moment there was a queer silence in the room. There was a curious, baffled expression on Rodman’s face which Shayne was at a loss to understand. It was as though the two of them had somehow got their signals crossed. As though each one was desperately playing it by ear, and neither was quite sure what the other would say next.

Shayne said, “Did he tell you also that he had neglected to get a divorce from Rose before marrying you?”

“That’s a lie!” Rodman jerked around to glare at the redhead. “I told you there was a Mexican divorce.”

“Have you seen the decree, Mrs. Rodman? Are you sure you’re legally married to him?”

“I trust Rutherford implicitly,” she stated with quiet and dignified poise.

“Will you continue to trust him after it’s proven that he murdered his first wife because she was trying to blackmail him, and then murdered Fitzgilpin last night to cover up the first crime?”

“But that’s ridiculous,” she said aloofly. “Rutherford couldn’t do such a thing. He wouldn’t harm a fly. And I’ve told you we were together last night.”

“Please, Betsy Ann,” begged Rodman helplessly. “Let’s not say anything more. I insist upon consulting an attorney.”

This was the weak point, Shayne realized anew. This was where they hadn’t gotten together in advance and synchronized their stories.

“Exactly what time did you return home last night?” he demanded of the heiress.

“I was with Rutherford all evening. He couldn’t possibly have done anything to that little man.”

“He said you were still out when he went to bed with a strong sleeping pill at ten o’clock,” Shayne told her. “Why do you suppose he told me that?”

“But, Rutherford, dear,” she protested. “You know I was right here…”

Rodman’s face was ashen. He swallowed hard, looking at her with an odd expression as though he were seeing her for the first time.

“But you weren’t, Betsy Ann. Why do you keep on saying you were here with me? Why do you lie about it?” His voice rose shrilly. Frightened and nearing hysteria.

She replied quietly, “Because I thought you wanted me to, darling. Because I thought you needed an alibi.” Her voice became warm and possessive, “You know I’d lie for you any time, my dearest one.”

“And provide yourself with an alibi at the same time,” Shayne put in swiftly. “Isn’t that it, Mrs. Rodman? Isn’t that what you really wanted? It was you who phoned Fitzgilpin, wasn’t it, and asked him to meet you some place for a drink? Did you tell him you had reconsidered about the insurance policy and had told your husband all about it? He would have responded to that sort of invitation. There was a hell of a big premium involved if you made it a legitimate proposition.”

“Betsy Ann,” begged Rodman, a look of horror on his face. “You didn’t! You…?”

“Don’t look at me like that,” she told him coldly. “I did it for you. I did everything for you. I love you so much. I can’t lose you, Rutherford. You’re all I have. My husband.” Her face was awed as she crooned the two words. She held her chin aloofly and closed her eyes as though in unbearable pain, but tears streamed from under the closed lids and coursed down her cheeks.

“Rose came to you in New York, didn’t she? You were the one with the money. She knew better than to bother with your husband.”

“Yes. That bitch! That supremely self-satisfied little bitch. Only three days after we were married. And she had her marriage certificate showing she was married to Rutherford.”

Betsy Ann opened her eyes wide and stared candidly at Shayne. “He was mine,” she said simply. “I didn’t care what the law said, he was mine. Do you think I wouldn’t kill to protect my marriage? She didn’t. She was a fool. A simple little fool. She didn’t know the meaning of love. I promised her anything. She wanted fifty thousand dollars. I told her, of course, but she’d have to come to Miami to collect it. And she believed me. The little fool believed me.”

Betsy Ann Rodman started laughing hysterically. “It was so easy. I took three of Rutherford’s sleeping pills which he’d told me were terribly strong. She enjoyed the vodka martini I dissolved them in. And then we went for a boat ride. Just the two of us. I told her I wanted to give her the money where there would be no witnesses.”

Her eyes became glazed as she spoke. Little bits of froth appeared between her lips. Rodman had drawn away from her and he was regarding her with open-mouthed astonishment.

“The little fool,” she said again, viciously and flatly. “She deserved what she got. She even laughed at me for thinking one minute that Rutherford really loved me. He loved only money, she said. My money. That’s what I couldn’t stand. That’s when I decided to kill her. When she laughed at me.”

“You saw Fitzgilpin’s name on the marriage certificate as a witness,” Shayne said helpfully. “Later, when you saw the story about him in the Miami paper you were afraid it was the same man, and you went around to his office to see him and find out if he was the right Fitzgilpin.”

“Yes. What else could I do? It was my happiness,” she cried out stridently. “My life. My… my husband. I did it for you, Rutherford.”

She turned to him, crying out fearfully, “Don’t look at me like that. My God, don’t look at me as though I’d done anything wrong.”

She held out her arms and swayed toward him, and when Rodman stepped aside hastily with a look of loathing on his handsome face she fell into a crumpled, sobbing heap at his feet.

18

It was a little after one o’clock in the morning when Shayne pressed Lucy Hamilton’s button in the foyer of her apartment house, signaling that it was he downstairs. The almost immediate click of the release catch on the door told him that she was still up and waiting for him.

He went up one flight of stairs and found her standing in her doorway. She wore her chenille robe and white silk pajamas, but she hadn’t removed her makeup and her brown hair was neatly combed and fluffy. She put up her face sweetly for his kiss and breathed, “I’m so glad you came, Michael. I was afraid you were still in New York.”

“But you kept a light in the window for me,” Shayne teased, looking past her at the coffee table in front of the sofa which held a tray containing a bottle of cognac, a pitcher of ice cubes, and three glasses.

She nodded happily. “You know there’s always a light in the window for you. What’s happened? Are you getting any place?”

“We’re already there,” he told her. “It’s all over. Did you hear that, Linda?” He lifted his voice and looked toward the open door into the dark bedroom. “I’m alone. You can come out now.”

“Michael! How did you guess Linda was here?”

He laughed and rumpled her hair, moving into the room toward the sofa. “I know you, Angel. And the way you operate. Do you realize all the cops in Dade County have been looking for Linda since five o’clock this afternoon?”

“Of course not.” Lucy’s eyes widened innocently. “I admit I haven’t turned on the radio or anything. But Emily Cahill is keeping the children tonight and I thought Linda would be more comfortable with me.”

“I’m sure she was,” Shayne said emphatically as the widow came eagerly from the bedroom wearing a trailing dressing gown and with an anxiously hopeful look on her face. “Did I hear you say it’s all over. Do you really mean…?”

“I mean the case is closed. Your husband’s murderer is safely locked up in the Miami Beach jail, and she’s made a full confession.”

“She?” both girls exclaimed at once.

“That’s right.” Shayne poured himself a slug of cognac and sniffed it happily. “A woman neither one of you have ever met and probably haven’t heard of. Except by the name of Kelly, Linda. Which she used when she visited your husband’s office that one time.

“The woman who wanted to take out a huge policy on her husband without him knowing about it?”

“That was just a dodge she used to get in to see him. She knew it was against the rules and he’d throw her out, and that was what she wanted him to do. Then last night she called to say she’d changed her mind and wanted to discuss the policy legally. By that time she had a handful of her husband’s sleeping pills which she slipped into his drink at the Sporting Club.”

“But why, Michael?” protested Lucy. “If she didn’t want a policy…?”

“It’s a long story and goes back to the convention trip Jerome made to New York more than a year ago. One thing I should tell you at once, Linda. The police have established to their complete satisfaction that George Nourse was in Los Angeles all the time. The investigation is closed and there’s no need for his name to come into it.”

“Who is George Nourse?” asked Lucy.

“A friend of Linda’s and her husband’s whose name came into the case. Both of you have a drink and I’ll tell you all about it. Actually, Linda, you were right. Your husband didn’t have an enemy in the world. He was killed because he was just too damned friendly.”

Twenty minutes later, Shayne finished his second drink and concluded, “Betsy Ann had lifted his car keys from his coat pocket while they sat together in the bar and when the drug was taking effect. She waited a few minutes and then followed Jerome and the two muggers out, and saw them going down the street in the moonlight with Jerome practically out on his feet. She got in his car and followed slowly, thinking that the farther she got it away from the Sporting Club the less likely the place would be investigated and the better chance she’d have that no one would remember she had been in there buying Jerome drinks. When he finally staggered off the road to die, she left the car near his body and wiped her fingerprints off it. Then she went back and got her own car and drove calmly home where her unsuspecting husband was sound asleep.”

“What a fiendish woman, Michael,” exclaimed Lucy fervently.

“That’s hardly the adjective I’d use. If you’d seen her… when that louse of a husband rejected her at the last. Pitiable is a better word. She was fighting the only way she knew for the one thing in life that was important to her. There’ll be a dozen top-notch psychiatrists to testify at her trial that she was temporarily insane when she committed both murders.”

Shayne got up and yawned widely. “It’s been a long day, children. Let’s all catch some sleep. The sun will come up again tomorrow in the east and at its appointed time… and life will go on.”

Content

Brett Halliday
Too Friendly, Too Dead

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