Brett Halliday

Stranger in Town

1

Michael Shayne’s first impression of the girl was her breath-taking loveliness. Not more than twenty, he thought, she had that illusive sheen of youthful vitality that would be replaced in later years by a more mature and steadfast sort of beauty, but right now it caused a catch in your throat just to look at her standing there hesitantly just inside the door of the drab bar-room.

She would be outstandingly beautiful anywhere, Shayne told himself. At a Junior League dance in a New York ballroom, or at a Hollywood premiere flanked by all the Monroes and Gardners and Lollobrigidas the film colony could dredge up to throw into juxtaposition with her.

But in these surroundings she was like a single American Beauty rosebud with the fresh dew of dawning on its petals rising gloriously out of a heap of stinking garbage.

Sure, it was fantastic for a guy like Mike Shayne to have such thoughts the moment he glanced up and saw her. He grinned inwardly at his own poetic imagery while he was conscious of the undeniable catch in his throat, the violent leaping of a pulse that he had long ago thought too atrophied to respond that way to the mere sight of a beautiful girl.

It was a dirty, drab, ill-lighted bar at which he sat alone in the middle booth with an almost-full four-ounce glass of cognac in front of him. A neighborhood sort of workingman’s bar which he had entered by the merest chance because there was parking room in front and it was dusk and he was wearied with a long day on the road and with the prospect of three more hours of steady driving before he could hope to reach Miami.

There were two shirt-sleeved men on bar stools drinking beer and discussing baseball statistics with the fat bartender. Two of the five booths along the wall were occupied. Two elderly men wearing leather jackets were in the first booth talking earnestly with a too-nattily-dressed, too-pallid-faced young man whom Shayne had put down at first glance on entering as a bookie or numbers runner.

The second booth was unoccupied, and a man sat alone in the rear booth, facing the door. He had a tall highball glass in front of him that was half-full of amber liquid in which the ice-cubes were melted. The way his eyes jerked up hopefully when Shayne entered the door and then dropped again listlessly to his glass told the detective that he was waiting for someone to join him, that he had been waiting for some time and was beginning to be apprehensive that the someone wasn’t coming after all. He had mild features and was middle-aged and bald. He wore a dark blue suit and black bow tie.

There were cigarette butts strewn on the floor of the room, and a pervading odor of stale smoke, spilled beer and human sweat in the thick atmosphere.

Not exactly the place Michael Shayne would normally have chosen for a pre-dinner drink, but when you’re trying to make time on the highway you don’t waste time turning off your route in a strange town to search for the perfect surroundings.

And there was a dusty bottle of Martel high on a shelf behind the bar. Shayne’s eyes gravitated to it automatically as a brief silence followed his entrance and the seven occupants of the bar turned their heads to regard him with the mild disapprobation any obvious outlander will receive from the clientele of any similar neighborhood bar throughout the country.

The silence continued when he asked the bartender for brandy, and drew his attention to the imported bottle high on the shelf which had stood unused so long it had been forgotten.

What kinda stuck-up was this, Shayne knew they were asking themselves. Any guy that didn’t order scotch-on-the-rocks or rye-and-water or bourbon-and-soda, for Crissake! Or beer, of course.

But he disregarded the withdrawn hostility of their watchful silence, finally managed to persuade the bartender to fill a four-ounce wine-glass with his favorite beverage and to provide him with a tumbler of ice water on the side. After some cogitation and scratching his third chin with a troubled forefinger, the bartender reckoned that would be worth about a dollar six-bits, and Shayne put two bills on the bar and carried his two glasses to the center booth. The low drone of conversation in the front of the room began again as he settled himself, lighted a cigarette and took an exploratory sip of excellent cognac.

He would be ignored now. He had been classified and pigeon-holed as a queer, but one who need not impinge on the little close-knit community of ordinary fellows with normal drinking appetites.

Michael Shayne’s second impression of the girl was that she was frightened. Terrified, was a better word for it. It showed in the quivering rigidity of her stance just inside the doorway, in the compressed lips that told of tightly-set teeth behind them, in the hands that were clasped into white-knuckled fists at her sides, in the wide blue eyes that surveyed the interior of the barroom with stark fear.

From where he sat, Shayne could not see the reactions of the occupants of the booths to the girl. There was immediate silence as the door closed behind her, and the two men on stools turned to stare. The bartender’s mouth sagged open in ludicrous astonishment.

The girl’s wary, fearful gaze slid swiftly over the trio at the bar and focussed on the first booth. It remained fixed there for the space of ten seconds and then moved down to rest on the angular face of the red-headed detective from Miami.

Michael Shayne’s third impression of the girl was that she recognized him, that she had expected to find him sitting there, that he was the reason she had entered the bar.

It was preposterous, of course. He couldn’t have met her before. No male in his right mind would be able to forget a girl like that if he had ever seen her before.

And Shayne had never been in Brockton before. He was not, so far as he was aware, even casually acquainted with a single one of the 40,296 inhabitants which a huge sign on the outskirts had told him was the population of the city.

More than that: no one could possibly have expected to find him seated in this particular bar at this particular time. No one, again so far as he was aware, could have guessed that he even planned to choose a route that would take him through Brockton on his long drive from Mobile to Miami. And he hadn’t known he was going to select this bar for his patronage until the moment he saw the sign outside and the convenient parking space in front that lured him to stop.

So his third impression was more than preposterous. It was impossible. The girl could not recognize him. She could not have entered the bar looking for him. She could not be moving with that queerly tortured sort of rigidity of body muscles toward his booth, with widened eyes fixed on his face and with lips trembling as she sought to loosen jaw muscles so she could speak to him.

But she was doing just that.

She was younger, Shayne thought as she neared him through the murky atmosphere, a year or so younger than the twenty his first impression had been. Not more than nineteen, with the rose-petal coloring of a young girl trembling on the brink of maturity. Her face was very grave, her eyes wide and unblinking; and he knew again and with deep certitude that she was gripped by an agonizing terror that forced her to approach him.

Her body was slender and graceful, and she held her head erect, chin up-lifted, with a sort of regal grace that accentuated the clean young lines of neck and throat.

She wore a deceptively simple dress of creamy silk, hand-embroidered in jade-green at throat, waist and hem in a bold pattern that looked Mexican to Shayne. She had golden hair that was cut short and clung to her head in tiny soft ringlets that gave an illusion of height above her five feet three or four.

She moved quite slowly, with a sort of gliding motion that gave the impression each forward step was an effort, that only by concentrating on each muscle required for movement could she force herself forward at all.

Shayne sat quietly, both big hands cupping the glass in front of him, his eyes locked with hers as she drew near. There was more than sheer terror in her unblinking eyes. They questioned him, and they implored him to understand, and they begged piteously for forgiveness.

The hell of it was that Michael Shayne did not know what question they were asking-what they wanted him to understand-or what he was being asked to forgive her for.

Then she was standing directly beside his booth, and she leaned forward from the waist, slowly untwining the curled fingers of both hands to place palms flat on the table to support her weight as she bent close to him.

Two men had followed her inside the room. Shayne was not aware of their entrance. He waited, staring back into her fear-dilated eyes, seeing the lips tremble uncontrollably, then part enough to allow three words to be wrenched from her throat:

“I’m sorry. I…”

She got no further.

The two men who followed her inside had strode forward, and one of them shouldered her roughly aside, thrusting her back against the wall and moving slightly behind Shayne as he did so.

He was a big man, with hulking shoulders that strained the seams of a light brown gabardine suit-coat. Heavy-boned and black-haired wrists extended well below the cuffs, and his hands were the size of picnic hams. He had a moon-like expanse of ruddy face, with an incongruously small and pursed-up mouth beneath a wide, flattened nose through which he breathed stertorously. His eyes were small, and inflamed like those of a maddened boar as they glared down at the detective.

His companion was tall and slender and wore a conservative, pin-stripe business suit, and a natty snap-brim hat tilted low over searching black eyes. He was in his mid-thirties, with rather high cheekbones and a cleanly sculptured jaw that gave his face a curiously ascetic expression. He stood calmly in front of Shayne, no single flicker of expression on his face as the black eyes beneath the low brim of the hat carefully studied and assayed the seated detective.

Smoke curled up lazily from a cigarette in his left hand. His right hand was thrust deep in the side coat pocket that clearly showed the outline of a stubby automatic. Probably a. 32, Shayne thought mechanically.

Shayne made no movement. Both hands were in front of him on the table. After his first swift glance at the bigger man, he disregarded him and gave his entire attention to the other.

He said, “I think there’s some mistake.”

“No mistake,” the tall man said. His voice was pleasant and supremely self-confident. “Want to talk to you. Outside.”

Shayne lifted his glass of brandy and took a deep swallow, eyes not leaving the other’s face. There was the briefest nod, and a ham-like fist crashed against his right temple like the kick of a mule. The brandy glass flew against the wall, and Shayne was catapulted side-wise so his body was wedged in the corner between the wooden table and the back of the booth.

From a long distance away he heard a shrilly whimpering exhalation of breath from the girl who had stopped at his booth and started to speak to him. The most beautiful girl Michael Shayne had ever seen in his life-and an absolute stranger to him.

There was no further sound in the bar-room.

Shayne set his teeth together hard and slowly pushed himself erect. The tall slender man had not moved. His face was as dangerously non-expressive as before. His black eyes continued to study the rugged features of the red-headed detective with the same impersonal interest as before.

He said, “Outside,” and took a single backward step, right hand still bunched in his coat pocket.

Shayne put his hands on the table in front of him and pushed his wide-shouldered body as erect as the narrow space between table and bench would allow.

Thus, with knees slightly bent and leaning forward from the waist for balance, he awkwardly sidled out of the booth.

As he straightened to his full height in the aisle, his left foot shot out behind him in a vicious kick aimed in the general direction of the big man’s groin, and at the same instant he dived headlong at the slender man with the gun.

The sole of his shoe struck solid flesh behind him and gave his body impetus that threw him into the other man before he could sidestep. They crashed to the floor together and Shayne had his big hand over the pocketed automatic before it was fired.

But he had missed the vital target behind him, for while he and the gunman were still rolling on the floor under the first impact of his dive, the toe of a number twelve shoe caught him squarely on the side of the neck just below the cheekbone, not quite wrenching his head completely off his shoulders.

For one brief instant everything blacked-out. It was purely by instinct that the grip of his hand on the automatic did not weaken and that his other hand found the throat of the writhing figure beneath him. Shayne’s body acted as a superb fighting machine that had been wound up and set into motion, and his reflexes took over during that brief period of unconsciousness.

Then the big man undid what he had done before by kicking him viciously again. This time the toe of his shoe landed in Shayne’s ribs as he was rolling on the floor on top of the gunman, and the impact brought him back to sharp awareness.

He was wedged half under a booth, but the automatic came free in his hand and he whirled onto his back and fired upward once at the blurred hulk of the second man stepping in for the kill.

He knew he had missed as he pulled the trigger, but the big man halted momentarily and Shayne dragged himself to his knees with the gun ready, blinking his eyes desperately to sweep the red mist of pain away, and he was barely conscious of swift movement toward him from the front of the bar-a third man hurrying in to help the first pair.

He swung his head desperately against the pull of bruised neck muscles, trying to align the automatic against the new threat, but his muscles refused to respond fast enough to save him.

He didn’t see the short length of lead pipe that clunked solidly against the side of his head. He didn’t see anything at all for some little time.

When life did come back to him he realized he was huddled half on the floor and half on the back seat of a moving car. There was someone on the seat beside him, and he heard a voice speaking from in front. It was the cold, incisive voice he had heard in the bar: “Put it back in his pocket where you got it, Mule. And don’t try to slip even a buck out of it. This has got to be a straight hit-run accident and no fooling about it.”

There was a low rumble of disgust from the man in the back with him, and Shayne felt a big hand feeling over his body for his hip pocket and slipping something into it. His wallet, he supposed from what he had just overheard.

They had made some sort of mistake, of course. The girl and the two men who had evidently followed her into the bar. This hadn’t happened to Michael Shayne. It had happened to him, of course, but not to Michael Shayne per se.

But they hadn’t wanted to argue the matter back in the bar. They hadn’t been at all interested in any explanation. The voice came from the front seat again:

“Still passed out, Mule?”

Close beside him on the back seat, a hoarse rumble responded disgustedly, “Cold like a mackerel. Hell, I didn’t kick him hard as all that. To look at him, you’da thought…”

“Just so he doesn’t die on us for another half mile,” the pleasant voice cautioned. “Sure he’s still breathing?”

Shayne made all his muscles stay limp while his rear-seat companion fumbled for a wrist and found the pulse.

“Yeh. Sure. He’s okay.”

Neither of them said anything else. The car moved forward smoothly at moderate speed. Another half mile! Shayne had very little idea how long he had been unconscious-how long they had been driving. They were out of the city, he knew. There was country silence around them. They met an occasional car speeding in the opposite direction.

So it was all right if he just stayed alive for another half mile! After that it wouldn’t matter.

Why not?

Because he was slated to get it then in any event, of course. Whether he had returned to consciousness in the interim or not.

There was something particularly cold-blooded about that inference.

He was quite sure, now, that he didn’t wish to discuss the matter of a possible mistake in identity with this pair in the car. His instinct told him that the faintest show of returning consciousness would earn him nothing more than another sledge-hammer blow from one of Mule’s big fists.

And that he simply couldn’t take under the circumstances. Crammed down on the floor as he was with only his chest and shoulders resting on the cushion, he was in no condition at all to argue with the man whom he had heard called Mule.

The brakes went on evenly, and the driver’s pleasant voice announced, “This looks just about right. A nice long straight stretch where we can see a car coming from either way.”

The car came to a smooth stop. The door opened on the side away from Shayne and Mule grunted, “You stay put, Gene. I’ll handle this hunk of meat easy.” Shayne stayed a limp hunk of meat while huge hands caught his shoulders and dragged him roughly out of the car. He made his eyes stay shut without screwing up the lids while the strong beam of a flashlight sprayed over his face.

“Good enough,” said the driver approvingly. “Lucky for you you didn’t put any marks on his face back there that wouldn’t fit a hit-run. You remember how I told you we’d handle it?”

“Sure, Gene.” Mule’s voice was placating. “Long’s he’s out cold it’ll be easy. You back off, huh, and come fast? I hold him up here side thuh road like a rag-doll, see, an’ shove him out in front so the bumper hits him square. That’ll do it fine.”

As Mule spoke, he lifted Shayne’s limp body by the shoulders so his feet dangled inches above the ground. He held the detective’s hundred ninety pounds of dead weight like that for a moment as easily, Shayne realized, as a child might, indeed, hold a rag-doll aloft. Then he lowered him again to a crumpled heap as Gene warned him:

“We hold off if a car comes from either direction. Drag him back into the borrow-pit and wait till it’s clear.”

“Sure, Gene. I know. Just like you tol’ me.”

Shayne heard the car go into gear and start backing away. He stayed hunched down and relaxed while the receding headlights fanned out to encompass them on the edge of the pavement.

He doubted that Mule would have a gun. A man like Gene was unlikely to trust him with one. Not on a mission like this. Not when they couldn’t afford to have a bullet-wound found in a body to be left beside the road presumably the victim of a hit-run driver.

The receding lights were some distance away now. Crouched as he was at Mule’s feet, Shayne’s eyes were wide open and shrewdly calculating.

There was silence and darkness about them. They appeared to be on a deserted stretch of two-lane country highway, and the only headlights visible in either direction were those of Gene’s car as he backed away a sufficient distance to get up good speed before he reached them again.

He had stopped now. Some three hundred yards back, Shayne judged. And almost immediately the lights moved again. Coming forward this time. Slowly and then faster.

The swelling drone of the heavy motor became a roar in the night silence as the automobile rushed toward them at ever-increasing speed.

Mule stooped down to pick up the inert body at his feet. The oncoming headlights were bright now, rushing toward them at eighty feet per second.

Mule’s big hands gripped Shayne’s torso beneath the armpits from behind and lifted him easily.

As he came erect, Shayne put everything into one twisting motion that jerked the hands loose and brought him face to face with the big man.

This time his knee found the groin unerringly and Mule gasped and pitched forward off balance into the path of the speeding car.

Brakes screamed as Gene’s headlights lighted the roadside struggle, but it was far too late to avert the collision now.

The heavy car slewed violently, but Shayne’s shove from behind sent the big man directly in front of the bumper and there was a sickening, high-pitched scream of animal terror that was cut off abruptly by a bone-crushing thud of hurtling steel smashing into two hundred pounds of flesh and bone and cartilage.

Shayne whirled away at the instant of impact and leaped into the shallow borrow-pit, clambered up the opposite bank and through a barbed wire fence into an open field without looking back.

He ran swiftly and easily in the faint starlight, taking a course diagonally away from the road and back in the direction from which the car had come.

There was utter silence behind him now, but in his ears there still lingered the inhuman cry of agony that had been wrenched from a man’s throat as he died in the manner Shayne had been supposed to die.

2

Shayne ran steadily across the fields for fifteen minutes, slowing to a dogged trot after his first burst of speed, then to a walk when he reached another barbed wire fence that bordered a dirt road running approximately parallel to the highway behind him.

Dimly in the distance, some three or four miles, he judged, there was a faint glow on the skyline that marked the city lights of Brockton.

At least, he supposed it would be Brockton. He hadn’t noted the exact time when he stopped at the bar for a quiet drink before dinner, but it hadn’t been quite dark and he imagined it must have been close to seven o’clock.

It was fully dark now, and his watch told him it was a few minutes after eight. He had been in the bar not more than fifteen minutes, he thought, before the girl entered. So he couldn’t have been unconscious long enough to have been carried too far from Brockton. Not far enough, certainly, so he would be this close to another Central Florida town large enough to give off such a glow of light as was ahead.

He had terrific headache, and the neck muscles on the right were so numb and bruised that he was forced to carry his head slightly askew to make the pain bearable, but that was the extent of the physical damage he had suffered as far as he was able to tell.

There were farmhouses dotted along the dusty country road as he strode along toward the lights of the city, but he hesitated about going up to one of the houses and trying to arrange for a ride into town.

He was in no great hurry to get back, he told himself grimly. He had a lot of thinking to do before he reached his parked car again.

If it was still there in front of the bar where he had left it. And walking, any sort of physical exercise, was good for thinking.

There were so many unanswered questions. Who-how- why?

Who was the girl who fingered him in the bar? And the men named Gene and Mule?

Mule was a type he knew well, and who could be dismissed from real consideration. First, because he was obviously a half-witted brute who would happily kill on orders from Gene; and also because Shayne didn’t think Mule was likely to enter into the picture again-not after the sound Shayne had heard of the impact between the bumper of the speeding car and Mule’s body.

Gene was a different matter. Cold anger and a helpless sense of outrage sent a tremor up and down Shayne’s spine as he considered Gene. He had never, he told himself flatly, encountered an individual whom he so much desired to meet again. And the third man whom he hadn’t even seen?

But it was difficult to keep his thoughts on Gene and the other man more than fleetingly. Inevitably and without his volition, they returned to the Girl.

For now he was so thinking of her. With a capital G. Back and forth in his mind, he went over and over each moment that had followed her arresting appearance in the doorway.

A girl of eighteen. An exquisite beauty. With every external sign of character and breeding. Yet she had deliberately come to that bar-room, had deliberately selected him sitting at the booth as her victim, had deliberately put the finger on him for two of the most murderously inclined gents he had encountered for a long time.

Somehow, he couldn’t doubt that she had known exactly what she was doing. That she had known they were behind her, and that when she stopped and spoke to Shayne she was deliberately signing his death warrant.

Looking back on it carefully, he couldn’t doubt that. Those fleeting impressions he had received from her face as she approached him. She had known what she was doing.

But why? In the name of God, why?

Even granting that somehow, someone had divined that he would be seated in that particular bar at that time, and granting also that somehow the girl had recognized him-still, why?

He wasn’t working on any case. He had just completed a lazy week of vacationing with congenial friends in Mobile, and he didn’t know a reason in the world why anyone should want to waylay him. Sure, he’d made plenty of enemies among criminals during the past ten or fifteen years-but that was in the past. Anyone who had a killing grudge against him had had many, many much better opportunities to bump him off in Miami than this crazy set-up tonight.

Twice he stepped to the side of the dirt road and concealed himself in the bushes to allow a car to pass. One in each direction. One of them could have been Gene still looking for him-and he didn’t want to meet Gene again quite yet. Not until he had oriented himself a little and gotten a gun out of the glove compartment of his car. Also, he was nearing the outskirts of Brockton now, and he still had more thinking to do before deciding how to play the queer hand of cards that had been dealt to him.

There was one faint possibility, he decided. Could be something had come up in Miami after he left Mobile that morning. Some new client whom Lucy had told that he was driving back from Mobile and wouldn’t be back until late. Some case so important that someone had gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to stop him in Brockton before he reached Miami to handle it.

A telephone call to Lucy would settle that, of course. Even if it did prove true-there was still the riddle of the Girl.

The dirt road turned into macadam, and then into a city street with small houses dotted along either side. Shayne turned off on the first side street he reached, which seemed better lighted and more thickly populated, and before he had walked two blocks was lucky enough to flag down a cab that had just dropped a fare at a house ahead.

Shayne climbed in the back and gratefully relaxed against the cushions as the cab pulled away. The driver turned his head to ask, “Where to, Mister?”

The question brought Shayne up with a jerk. Where to, indeed! How could he describe the bar-room where he had parked his car? He hadn’t noticed the name of the place, nor even the street it was on.

He hesitated a moment, and then explained, “You’ll have to try and help me find it, I guess. I drove in this afternoon from Tallahassee… on the main highway.”

The driver said, “Yeh?”

“I don’t know the town at all,” Shayne told him. “I hit pretty heavy traffic and one or two stop-lights. I was looking for a bar to stop for a drink, and came to one on the right-hand side where I parked and went in. My car is still there… I hope.”

The driver chuckled and said, “With a parking ticket if it’s been standing more’n an hour.” But he didn’t ask any questions except, “You want I should hit the highway about the center of town and take it slow till you see the place? Lotsa bars along there. Think you’ll know the one?”

“I’ll know my car at least. A black Hudson sedan. Miami license plates.”

He settled back and made his aching head as comfortable as possible until they reached the center of town and the cab swung into the highway leading through from Tallahassee.

“I remember passing here,” Shayne told him. “Eight or ten blocks ahead, I guess.”

The taxi driver spotted the sedan with Miami license plates first. “That it, Mister?”

Shayne peered out as he slowed and saw his familiar tag on the rear. “That’s it.”

The driver chuckled as he pulled in to the curb in front. “Got you a ticket under the windshield wiper awright. If there ain’t no cops hangin’ around, whyn’t you pull on out to Miami and forget it?”

Shayne said, “Maybe I will.” He got out stiffly and gave the man a generous tip. Then he walked back to his car, unable to repress a wry grin at sight of the big, square parking summons under the wiper.

Cops! he thought disgustedly. Right around on the dot to check up on overtime parkers, but let a man get slugged in a public place and dragged out on a murder ride, and where in hell are they?

He stopped beside his car and opened the right-hand door. The flat. 45 automatic was where he had placed it that morning. He lifted it out and slid it inside his waistband and belt, snugly against his inner right thigh, then slammed the door shut and strode across the sidewalk to open the door of the bar-room he didn’t remember leaving more than an hour before.

3

Michael Shayne stopped just inside the door to look the joint over exactly, as the girl had done when she entered. Business had picked up considerably since he had been kicked into unconsciousness and dragged out. It was now crowded with fifteen or twenty customers. A jukebox in the rear was grinding out dance music, and a two-bit slot machine just to the right of the door, which Shayne hadn’t noticed before, was getting heavy play from three juvenile delinquents clustered in front of it.

The two elderly men in leather jackets were still seated in the first booth, with beer mugs in front of them, but the bookie they’d been talking to was no longer there.

Among the half dozen or more men seated at the bar, Shayne recognized one of the pair who had been there previously and witnessed the assault on him. He stood unmoving just inside the door for a long moment, studying all the faces he could see, then strolled back to the rear to get a close look at all those seated in the booths.

When he moved back to the bar again, he was positive that only three customers and the bartender remained out of the seven who had seen the thing happen.

Shayne pushed up to the rear end of the bar, and the fat man behind the mahogany recognized him as he came back to get his order.

He stopped dead still with his mouth sagging open in the same ludicrous astonishment he had manifested on first sight of the girl in the doorway. His eyes narrowed and a distinct quiver of fear rippled over the folds of fat that made up his face.

Then he stepped a pace forward and his right hand groped underneath the bar while slitted eyes remained fixed on Shayne’s face.

He said hoarsely, “Better go on quiet, Mister. We don’t want no trouble here.”

As though on signal, the jukebox chose to stop at the precise moment that the bartender began speaking. He had pitched his voice loud to carry over the noise, and consequently his words rang out clearly above the hum of talk.

Everyone craned their heads to look at the tall redhead at the end of the bar, and all conversation ceased.

Shayne was turned half to the front, his right forearm resting negligently on the bar with his hand inches from the butt of his gun. He still held his head slightly askew to relieve the pain of bruised neck muscles, and, although he wasn’t aware of it (not having yet encountered a mirror), a livid bruise showed on the right side of his face where he had taken Mule’s first unannounced blow, and his right eye was puffed and beginning to blacken.

He said bleakly, so that every man in the room heard him: “That’s fine, Fatso. Neither do I want trouble. So bring your hand out from under the bar… empty.”

For the space of ten seconds, Fatso hesitated. This was his bar and these were mostly his regular customers watching him and waiting to see how he would back up his warning. He had a certain reputation to maintain in Brockton and it wouldn’t do that reputation any good to back down before a man who’d been dragged out of the place unconscious an hour before.

But Fatso did back down. Shayne’s negligent attitude didn’t fool him at all. There was something terrifying about that voice, about the faint hollows in the redhead’s cheeks and the quiet set of the jaw that brought the bartender’s hand out empty and put a false joviality on his face and in his voice.

“Hell, Mister. That’s jus’ fine. Thought maybe you come back figgering to blame me for what happened while ago. This here’s a respectable place, see, an’ I don’t want no part of such doings.”

Shayne said, “Now that we understand each other, I could use that drink that got spilled last time.”

“You bet,” Fatso said effusively. “On the house.” He turned and bustled back to lift down the Martel bottle, and this time he selected a six-ounce glass.

In the meantime, a low, disappointed hum of conversation started up again. Men continued to glance furtively at Shayne, though looking away when they caught his eye. Halfway down the bar, Shayne saw the shirtsleeved witness to the encounter whispering excitedly to the men on each side of him.

The bartender waddled up with a full glass and set it before Shayne. “Was that soda or water, Mister?”

Shayne said, “Water,” and lifted the glass to his mouth. He looked over the heads of the seated men and saw the two elderly beer drinkers in the front booth staring at him with avid interest.

Fatso slapped a tumbler of ice water down in front of him and leaned two fat forearms on the bar. “Honest to God, Mister. What was it all about? Happened so fast I never did know how-come you and them tangled.”

Shayne said, “Who was the girl that came in first?”

“Gawd, I dunno.” The voice sounded truthful. “Some looker, huh? Friend of yours, I reckon. Went right to you at the booth.”

Shayne said, “I know. Ever see her in here before?” He took a drink of cognac and lifted the water glass to sip from it.

“Her? Gawd, no. We don’t get dames like that in here.”

“And the three men that followed her in?”

This time there was a hint of evasiveness. “Not them neither. Plumb strangers to me. Like I say, this here’s a respectable place and…”

Shayne said in a low voice, “Don’t lie to me, Fatso.”

“I swear to Gawd, I…”

Shayne shook his head slowly though it pained his neck to do so. “I’m looking for them, Fatso. When I find them… and find out you’ve lied… I’ll be looking for you, too.”

The bartender swallowed hastily and backed away a step. “I swear I dunno nothin’. You can’t blame me none.” He turned gladly to refill a beer mug and Shayne took another slow sip of his drink.

Then, with glass in hand, he moved up to a position behind the man he had seen on first entering the bar, and tapped him on the shoulder.

The shirtsleeved man turned slowly and reluctantly. He had a receding chin, and mild blue, frightened eyes. He said swiftly and virtuously, “I couldn’t do anything to stop them dragging you out that way. The big fellow that kicked you…” He shuddered at the recollection. “And when his buddy pulled a gun…”

Shayne said mildly, “I’m not blaming you for not butting in. Would like to talk to you.”

He took hold of the man’s arm and urged him off the stool, led him to the front booth where the elderly men watched their approach with interest. Shayne waved him into the booth opposite the men and seated himself beside him. The two older men looked like brothers, with lined, leathery faces, silvery hair, and work-roughened hands.

They regarded Shayne gravely as he seated himself, and one of them said, “We saw it happen, Mister, but it wasn’t our place to git killed too, we reckoned.”

Shayne took out his wallet and began selecting bills from it. He placed five twenties in a neat pile in front of him, and said quietly, “I don’t want to make trouble for anybody. It’s worth that much for me to get a line on the girl or the three men all of you saw. I’m a stranger in Brockton,” he added by way of explanation, “and have no idea who they were or why they jumped me.”

They all muttered surprise at this announcement, but whether they believed him or not Shayne could not be sure. There was something guarded about their reactions, though three pairs of eyes rested greedily on the sheaf of bills in front of Shayne.

They all denied having ever seen the girl or either of the men before. The man who had been seated on a stool explained that this was the second time he had ever been in the place, and he had no idea who the man was with whom he’d been talking baseball when it happened. Nor did he know any of the other occupants of the bar either by name or by sight.

The other pair were slower-spoken and more guarded in their responses. Though the four were alone in the booth and the jukebox was playing again and the youthful trio in front of them had resumed their pastime of feeding quarters into the slot machine-so there was no chance of being overheard-they kept glancing aside uneasily as Shayne questioned them, and answered in monosyllables.

Yes, they were regulars here.

Dropped in every afternoon from work to have a few beers.

The younger man who had been sitting with them?

Well, yes, they’d seen him around a lot. He always seemed to have lots of money and was buying drinks for strangers.

No, they didn’t know what his business was. A bookie? They sure wouldn’t know. They had no money for such-like. No, they didn’t know the man down in the end booth either. He’d come in alone half an hour before Shayne and sat there nursing a drink all that time.

The other man who’d been at the bar in shirtsleeves was another regular, they admitted. But they didn’t know his name nor nothing about him.

This had always been a quiet place for a few beers in the evening, they insisted, and nothing like tonight had ever happened before. They thought it was a holdup, sort of. Like a scene out of a movie.

The girl? Well, that was funny. She’d hung back looking scared to death and not saying a word until the third man came running in the door with his lead pipe when it looked like Shayne was getting the upper hand. Then when he was socking Shayne, she had run out like a frightened deer, and a minute later when things got squared around, the tall man cursed the third one and sent him running out behind her while he and the big one dragged Shayne out unconscious. Right exciting it was, and nobody had talked about much else after it happened until Shayne miraculously reappeared, and not seeming hurt much either.

“What did the police think about it?” Shayne asked quietly when all his other questions had been answered.

There was awkward silence in the booth. The two elderly men looked at each other doubtfully, and then across at the shirtsleeved man.

Hadn’t been no police in on it, the man across from Shayne muttered at last.

Shayne sat very still, his eyes searching their faces. “You mean it wasn’t even reported to the police? A thing like that?”

“Oh, the bartender, he reported it all right,” he was told swiftly. “Over the telephone in the back. Not more’n ten minutes after it happened. They just never got around here yet.”

Shayne finished his brandy and digested this news in silence. He looked up and saw Fatso leaning on the front of the bar regarding them with an anxious expression, his head turned as though he were trying to catch their words.

Shayne set his glass down and pushed a twenty-dollar bill in front of each man with his forefinger. He said, “Thanks a lot for wasting my time. What’s the best hotel in town?”

The Manor, he was told. Right down the street. The only good hotel in town.

“I’ll be there,” he told them. “Michael Shayne. If any of you gentlemen should happen to remember more than you’ve told me you can earn some more just like that one in front of you by getting in touch with me.” He slid out and turned to set his empty glass on the bar in front of Fatso.

The bartender was rubbing the stained wood vigorously with a dirty rag and he asked Shayne in a conspiratorial whisper, “You get any line on your… uh… friends?”

Shayne said, “Just enough to make me ask one question, Fatso. What was the name of the officer you spoke to when you reported to the police?”

The bartender got red in the face and shifted his eyes. “Jeez, I dunno who I talked to at headquarters. You know how it is?” he appealed to Shayne. “I was that worried and mad it’d happened here in my bar. I just rung the cops an’ told ’em. Dunno who I talked to.”

“But none of them have showed up yet?”

“Not yet. Busy night, I reckon. ’Scuse me, I got customers waiting.” He waddled away and Shayne turned to go out the door.

He breathed night air deep into his lungs as he stepped outside, hesitated a moment, then strode across to his car and jerked the door open. He got in on the right side, slid over behind the wheel and reached in his pocket for his keys.

Blinding rage swept over him as he again noticed the cardboard square of a parking ticket outlined against the windshield in front of him.

A busy night, sure enough! Cops so busy stopping outside the bar-room to ticket his car that they hadn’t time to investigate assault and attempted murder inside the joint.

What the hell sort of town was Brockton? What kind of police force was that? He’d met inefficiency in the past, but this!

The door of the bar opened as Shayne started his motor. The man in shirtsleeves hesitated there, then came swiftly across to lean head and shoulders through the open right window. His receding chin quivered and his mild eyes were more frightened than before as he stammered apologetically:

“I… uh… didn’t want to say too much back inside there. I was afraid… uh… I don’t know but it seemed like… back there before… it seemed like to me that maybe there was some… uh… that some of them in there weren’t too surprised-like when… uh… you know…”

“You mean you felt it mightn’t be too healthy to tell me very much inside there?” Shayne helped him.

“That’s it. I don’t know. It was just a feeling I had. I don’t know whether this is any good, Mr. Shayne, but it might help. I did tell you the truth when I said I’d never seen the girl before. I never did. But I do believe I’ve seen her picture. In the paper. Not more than a few days ago. I don’t know what the story was. I just remember her face-like. In the newspaper. I don’t know if that helps any, but…”

A car came up from behind them. It paused hesitantly just alongside Shayne, then rolled in smoothly to the curb in front of him, stopping so its rear-end blocked him. It had a tall radio antenna and the letters P.D. above the rear license plate.

The rabbity man leaning in beside Shayne breathed swiftly, “Jeez, the cops! I don’t want to…” He withdrew and hurried away on the sidewalk in the opposite direction as the right-hand door of the police cruiser opened and a smartly uniformed figure stepped out briskly.

Shayne set his teeth together hard as the policeman strolled back, cut across in front of his car to come up on his side.

Instinctively, almost, his hand went down quickly to draw the. 45 from beneath his waistband and ram it down behind the seat cushion beside him.

Sure, it was registered and he had a permit to carry it. That went along with his private detective’s license. But these small-town cops. You never knew. Particularly in a town like Brockton where an armed assault complaint went unanswered for hours.

The policeman was young and clean-featured, and aggressively hard-jawed. He leaned his elbow on the door beside Shayne and said, “Stranger in town, huh?”

“Driving through.”

“Guess you didn’t see that ticket on your windshield, huh?”

“Just noticed it.”

“H-m-n. Got your motor running and all. You wouldn’t be planning on slipping away from town without stopping by the station to settle it up, I guess.”

Shayne said, “No.”

“Wouldn’t like for you to do that. Been parked here in front of this bar a long time, haven’t you?”

“You should know.” Despite himself, Shayne’s irritation leaked out into his voice.

“Had yourself a lot of drinks, huh?”

“Is that any of your business? Okay, so I over-parked. If you’ll get your wagon out of the way I’ll pull around to the station and settle the ticket.”

“Maybe it is some of my business.” The young cop’s eyes narrowed importantly. “From that whiff of your breath I just got I’d say that’s quite a load you’re carrying.” His voice changed abruptly to curt command. “Cut off your motor and step out here. You’re not driving anywhere till I decide whether you’re sober enough to be trusted behind the wheel.”

That did it. Despite all his past experience with arrogant cops, small-town or big-town-despite the fact that all he wanted in the world was to get to a hotel where there was food and drink and a telephone and a soft bed to relax on, Shayne lost control.

All the frustrated, bottled-up anger of the last two hours came out in his snarl, “Out of my way, punk. I’ve had one damned drink if that’s what…”

The door came open and an officious hand grabbed his shoulder and jerked hard. Shayne braced himself and chopped the edge of his palm down on the policeman’s forearm muscles, numbing them so the hand fell away.

“Keep your goddamned hands off me.” Shayne’s voice was throaty and rough.

The young policeman was well-trained. He stood back, rubbing his forearm, and called out, “Want to come here a minute, George? Got a drunk that thinks he’s tough.”

Sanity reasserted itself as the other door of the police car opened and a bulky figure stepped out.

Shayne knew this was no good. Never argue with a strange cop. Who knew that axiom better than he? But here he was-a hundred miles from home-

He stepped out from behind the wheel as the other patrolman approached and said thickly, “Sorry, Officer. I really didn’t mean…” Pain hit him in the neck as he stood upright and he swayed slightly and put his hand on the open door to steady himself.

The second cop was burly and red-faced and older. He shoved the first one aside and said happily, “Drunk and resistin’ arrest, huh? Come along with me now.” He caught Shayne’s left wrist in both big hands and moved in behind the detective swiftly but inexpertly to thrust the arm up behind him in a hammerlock.

Everything went crimson before Michael Shayne’s eyes. Every man is constituted to endure so much before the breaking point is reached. Shayne had endured enough in Brockton that night.

He eeled out of the hammerlock and drove his right fist into the bulbous red face beside him. The burly cop staggered back with blood spurting from his nose, and the younger man stepped in calmly and sapped Shayne behind the ear with his blackjack.

For the second time in Brockton that evening, Shayne went out like a candle in a hurricane.

4

Michael Shayne awoke quite early the next morning. He lay on his back on a rough army blanket folded to cover a built-in bunk of iron lattice-work. His coat was rolled up under his head for a pillow. He was in a small, iron-barred cubicle, dimly lighted by a 25-watt ceiling bulb in the corridor outside.

Shayne lay as he was without trying to move for several minutes which he devoted to cursing himself and his goddamned crazy temper that had betrayed him into this situation. He clearly recalled all the events leading up to the point where he socked the older policeman in blind rage. After that, there was hazy memory of being pushed and pulled around, of voices questioning him and of somewhat incoherent replies on his part.

His head ached dully and steadily, and for a long period of minutes he didn’t dare try to lift it for fear neck muscles wouldn’t respond. It was very quiet in this cell of the Brockton jail. He got up strength finally to lift his arm and squint at his wristwatch. 6:30. It would be hours yet before there’d be any chance of talking his way, or paying his way, out of jail.

“And when that chance comes,” he warned himself grimly, “keep your goddamned big mouth shut, Mike Shayne. Take every insult like a little man, and speak only when you are spoken to. Apologize for living, if necessary, and plead guilty to whatever they throw at you.”

Much as he hated to admit it even to himself, it was basically his own fault that he was in a cell right now instead of luxuriating in a soft bed in the Manor Hotel. Couldn’t blame the two cops too much, he admitted grudgingly. Sure, they had been over-tough and officious, but most cops are. They get that way after dealing with criminals and drunks night after night. It’s an occupational disease.

And no one knew that better than Michael Shayne. That’s why it was his fault more than theirs. The pair who had picked him up hadn’t known, of course, about what had happened inside the bar earlier. They didn’t know he was already boiling with anger because no official cognizance had been taken of the unprovoked attack on him.

So, all right. So, the thing now was to get out of jail. Meek and submissive, that was the ticket. Until he got free. After that-well, he thought maybe he’d be around Brockton for a short time at least, and chances were he might run into the two cops again under more propitious circumstances.

The thought invigorated him enough that he temporarily lost his caution and sat up suddenly.

A groan escaped his lips before he could repress it. Sledgehammers began pounding inside his skull, and his neck and shoulder muscles on the right side were a mass of agonizing pain.

He stayed sitting up, head held askew in the only position that wasn’t sheer torture, gritting his teeth and moving it a tenth of an inch from this side to that to work some of the stiffness out.

No wonder the guy was called Mule. Probably nicknamed that by some other victim whom he had kicked around.

Shayne fretfully began wondering what and why again, then sternly stopped that guessing game and concentrated on massaging the soreness out of his neck. Because it couldn’t be anything but a guessing game until he accumulated a few facts to go on.

He thought about his brown-haired secretary instead. Lucy Hamilton in Miami-expecting his return last night. He remembered the one faintly plausible hypothesis for the affair that he had come up with last night. If it was a new case that someone didn’t want him to work on, he’d been effectively prevented from taking it all right. At least for one night. But he wasn’t lying in the morgue yet, the victim of a hit-run driver. That was one consolation.

He found a crumpled pack of cigarettes in his pocket and lit one. He was smoking his third and had worked the stiffness out to a point where he could turn his head a couple of inches in both directions when a sad-faced turnkey came down the corridor with the breakfast Brockton jail served its guests for free.

There was an aluminum pie-plate with a thick piece of tough fried ham and a mound of boiled grits with meat fat poured on top. And a slice of bread. And there was a big aluminum mug of muddy coffee so sweet that it set Shayne’s teeth on edge.

These were slid through a small hole in the bars at floor level by the turnkey and Shayne sat on the edge of his bunk and thanked him as though it were a serving of crisp bacon, fluffy scrambled eggs, golden toast and steaming black coffee.

The turnkey was obviously unused to such fulsome gratitude, and he rocked back on his heels with a snaggle-toothed grin.

“Ain’t no Waldorf Astoria, but ain’t nobody never starved tuh death here yet. You that tough private shamus they was talkin’ about from Miami?” He regarded Shayne with open-mouth interest.

“Not so tough,” Shayne told him wryly. “Pass the word along, huh? Maybe I thought I was till I tangled with those two boys of yours last night, but they sure as hell taught me different.”

Snaggletooth chuckled delightedly. “Brockton ain’t so such-a-much fer a fact, but I reckon our police force does stack up purty good. Burke and Grimes, now, they sure ain’t a pair to take no foolin’ when they goes to make a pinch.”

“You’re telling me,” said Shayne fervently. He gingerly picked up the aluminum pan and balanced it on his knee after trying a sip of the liquid in the mug. “What’s the routine here in Brockton? How soon can I pay a fine and get out?”

“City judge sits downstairs at nine. Them that’s got sense and pleads guilty gen’ally gets out fast.”

“How much,” asked Shayne humbly, “do you think my fine will be?”

The turnkey considered this judiciously. “Way I heard it, you socked Grimes good. Dependin’ how drunk you was, I reckon. An’ how Judge Grayson’s liver’s actin’ up this mornin’. Fifty an’ costs, maybe, if he feels good. I gotta go now.”

“Thanks for everything,” Shayne called after him. “Any chance of me getting in first to see his honor I’d appreciate it.”

He gagged over a spoonful of the lumpy grits as Snaggletooth disappeared. How To Win Over Turnkeys and Influence Judges by Michael Shayne, he thought disgustedly. But right now Snaggletooth would be spreading the news that the tough private eye from Miami had more than met his match in the Brockton police force. That he was penitent and submissive after a night in one of their cells.

All right, he told himself angrily. Keep it up. Be penitent and submissive if you don’t want to spend thirty days eating hawg and hominy.

And-it paid off for once. Snaggletooth appeared at his cell-door a few minutes before nine o’clock jingling a huge brass ring with keys strung on it. His features were still sad, but it was a jovial sort of sadness.

“All out for the honorable butt-kissin’ court. Take yuh down first, huh, tuh see how Hizzoner feels this mornin’.”

Shayne said, “Fine. Thanks,” with more heartiness than he felt.

He came out of the small cell with a faint sigh of relief as the door opened, waggled his head cautiously backward and forward as he followed his jailer down a short corridor to stairs leading downward.

The early morning hearings conducted by Judge Grayson were quite informal. There was a small anteroom at the rear of police headquarters with a desk and a swivel chair behind it, and one straight chair drawn up at one side. The judge sat behind the desk with crossed American flags behind him. A bored clerk sat beside him with pen poised over a large, open ledger. Standing stiffly at attention along one wall, in uniform, were the two traffic officers who had arrested Shayne the night before.

The judge was a sallow-faced, balding man who was sucking carefully on a long black cigar as Shayne was ushered in. The turnkey spoke Shayne’s name and withdrew.

The detective glanced anxiously at the two officers as he entered. The younger one, Burke, he assumed, was drawn up very stiffly with folded arms, and he glared at Shayne as though he had never seen him before and hoped never to see him again.

His red-faced companion was not quite so obviously at attention. He had a bulbous nose, and a network of tiny red veins showed in his cheeks, and Shayne was happy to detect the trace of a human twinkle in his eyes. There was a slight swelling on his upper lip which Shayne supposed had resulted from contact with his fist the night before, and he played it by ear by nodding solemnly to the judge and then turning impulsively aside to Officer Grimes and saying:

“I must have been crocked last night, Sergeant. Buy you a drink to make up for it if I get out of here with the price of one.”

Grimes grinned momentarily, but the clerk was reading the charges against Shayne aloud in a sing-song voice, and the detective swung back to listen to them solemnly.

“Over-time parking… Drunk and Disorderly on a public street… resisting arrest… How say you, Michael Shayne?”

Shayne looked down at the judge and said, “I plead guilty, your Honor.”

Judge Grayson leaned back in his swivel chair and judicially placed the tips of five fingers against the tips of five other fingers beneath his chin. “Any extenuating circumstances?”

Shayne hesitated and gulped once. He lowered his eyelids and said humbly, “I’m afraid I had one too many to drink, your Honor.”

“I see. I understand you are a licensed private detective in the State of Florida.”

“Yes, your Honor.”

“Is it your habitual custom to drive your automobile while under the influence?”

“No, sir.”

“Yet you were attempting to do so last night when Officer Burke intercepted you.”

Michael Shayne drew in a deep breath and lifted his eyelids to look squarely at the judge. “I will always be thankful that he did, your Honor. I congratulate Brockton on their diligent and alert police officers.”

“Very well.” The judge’s voice was peremptory, but Shayne felt he had scored a point. “Brockton is a community of children and of homes. We like to think of ourselves as a friendly community, but we do love our children. Ninety-five dollars and costs,” he told the clerk. He looked past Shayne to the doorway where the next offender was being ushered in. “Next case.”

Grimes and Burke disappeared while Shayne was paying his fine and receiving his wallet and other possessions back from another uniformed man who took him in tow.

It was almost ten o’clock before he sat in his car again, parked in the rear of the police station, and was free to drive away, to put the smell of Brockton and their efficient police force behind him.

Instead, he had gotten directions to the Manor Hotel, and he drove directly there. It was a large, six-story modern building on Main Street, and his spirits rose when he saw a liquor store with its doors open for business directly beside it. He maneuvered the Hudson into a small parking lot in front of the hotel, got out and handed his keys over to an impressively uniformed doorman.

“Two bags in the back seat,” he told him. “I’ll be right in to register.”

He found a bottle of Monnet in the liquor store, returned to enter the cool, modernistic lobby with it tucked securely under his arm. His head had almost stopped aching, and he had learned to turn his head slowly and gingerly so it didn’t feel that it would fall off each time he did so. The world was distinctly a better place to live in than it had been two hours ago.

The room clerk had a sandy mustache and a deferential manner. His manner became almost effusive as he studied the registration card Shayne filled out and the detective asked him for a suite.

“Yes, indeed, Mr. Shayne. From Miami, eh? In our little town on business?”

“Certainly not for pleasure.”

“Indeed… yes.” His toothsome smile stayed in place, though very slightly awry. “I can give you a lovely suite, Mr. Shayne. Double bedroom and a lovely sitting room. Will you be with us long?”

Shayne shrugged. “No longer than it takes me to clear up a few things.”

“A pity, Mr. Shayne. We in Brockton pride ourselves on our hospitality to strangers within our gates. We are a small community of home-lovers, but friendly we like to think. Front!” He struck a bell on the desk sharply.

A neatly uniformed young bellboy took Shayne’s bags up to the fourth floor. Shayne took the bottle out of its paper wrapping as the boy bustled about opening windows and checking towels. He gave him a dollar and said, “Bring up a pitcher of ice, please. I’ll leave the door unlocked because I may be in the shower.”

As the boy nodded and started to leave the room, Shayne stopped him with another dollar bill in his outstretched hand. “This is for not explaining how friendly Brockton is to strangers.” He turned away and started shucking off the clothes he had slept in the night before.

The pitcher of ice cubes waited for Shayne when he emerged naked from the bathroom ten minutes later. He padded across to the cognac bottle, opened it and poured a water glass half full. With two ice cubes tinkling in the glass, he lit a cigarette and sat down beside the telephone. He gave the hotel operator the number of his Miami office, and drank half the contents of the glass while he waited to hear Lucy’s voice lilting over the wire.

5

But Lucy’s voice sounded unlilting and strained when it finally came over the wire: “Michael Shayne. Private investigations.”

He said, “You sound queer, angel. Could it be you’re worried about me?”

In a very brief silence he heard her swiftly indrawn breath at the other end of the wire. Then, “I’m not just sure about that, Mr. Johnson. Will you hold on please while I go into Mr. Shayne’s private office and see if I can find the memo?”

Shayne said, “Sure,” and the knuckles of his left hand became white as he gripped the receiver hard. Sweat started creeping down the trenches in his cheeks as he waited. In about thirty seconds, Lucy’s cautiously lowered voice came over the line again:

“Michael! Where are you? I expected you back last night and I waited up late at my place with a bottle of cognac expecting you to call me, and…”

“What’s all the hush-hush about?” he interrupted harshly.

“There’s a man in the outer office, Michael. He was waiting in front of the door when I came in this morning. He… gives me the creeps. Won’t give any name or say what he wants, except to see you. I told him I expected you back any moment, and he just settled down in one of the chairs and there he sits. Smoking cigarettes and watching every move I make from under the brim of his hat. Do you know…?”

“Describe him,” Shayne interrupted.

“He’s just sort of medium. Honestly, Michael, he looks like a fugitive from a private eye program on television. Like he’d modeled himself after one of those gunmen they’re always showing. And Michael… I’m sure he does have a gun. Once or twice when he twisted in his chair I’m positive I saw a bulge inside his coat like a gun. Where are you? At home? I just thought I’d slip in here where it’s private to warn you so you wouldn’t walk in the door and be caught unawares.”

“I’m in a town called Brockton, Lucy. In the middle of the state.” Michael Shayne’s tone was peremptory. “I may be stuck here for a day or so… so listen to me carefully.”

“Brockton? What on earth…?”

“It’s a long story, angel. I stopped in here at a bar on my way home last night for a drink before dinner… and there was this girl. She came into the bar and… well, hell, Lucy, it’s too long a story and too crazy for you to understand.”

“But you did spend the night in Brockton on account of her?” Lucy Hamilton’s voice was suddenly icy.

Shayne grinned and took a drink of cognac from the glass in his right hand. “That’s right, honey-chile,” he drawled. “I sure did. All on account of her. And I’m sticking around for awhile hoping to get another look at her.” His voice became crisp. “Tell me this fast. Anything come up there at the office after I phoned you yesterday morning? Any new clients? Anyone whom you told I was driving back from Mobile who might have made a guess at my itinerary?”

“No. There’s been nothing at all. Until this man who showed up this morning. Is it trouble, Michael? Are you mixed up in… something?”

“I’m plenty mixed up,” Shayne told her grimly. “Write this down. The Manor Hotel in Brockton. Number four-ten. And, angel… that goon in the front office may be part of it.”

“Part of what?” wailed Lucy.

“That’s what I’d like to know. As soon as I hang up, you stay in my office and call Will Gentry. Tell him I’m out of town and you’ve got a suspicious character in the front office. Have him send a couple of men up to pick the guy up and go over him. Find out who he is and why. Then you go back to your typewriter and distract him until Will’s boys get there.”

“All right, Michael. Please… be careful.”

“In Brockton,” said Shayne, “it doesn’t seem to help much. Call Gentry now.”

“He probably isn’t what I think at all. It may just all be my imagination, Michael.”

“I know. But if it ties up with this thing here last night, he’ll be playing for keeps. Good luck.” He slammed down the phone and stood up. He had planned to phone down for a decent breakfast while he dressed leisurely in fresh clothes, but all thought of food was driven from his mind by this development.

He hurried to a suitcase and unstrapped it, got dressed swiftly and went out, leaving the cognac bottle standing uncorked beside the telephone. He had only one faint clue to work on. The Girl whose picture had been in the newspaper a few days previously. The local newspaper, he presumed, though the man from the barroom hadn’t stated specifically.

Downstairs the doorman directed him a block and a half down the street to the building housing the Brockton Daily Courier. It was a large, modern brick building with presses in the basement, advertising and make-up on the first floor, editorial offices on the second.

Shayne climbed a stairway and explained what he wanted to a spectacled girl on the switchboard and information desk. She motioned to a long table at one side where a week’s issues of the Courier were neatly stacked up.

Shayne started with yesterday’s paper, turning them swiftly and glancing at each front page for the picture he sought. If that didn’t work, he’d start back, going through the inside pages also.

But it worked. Her picture leaped out at him from the front page of the preceding Friday’s issue. Not too good a likeness in the somewhat smeared newsprint reproduction, but good enough for Shayne in whose mind her features were indelibly imprinted.

Heavy black letters over the picture asked: WHO IS SHE?

The caption beneath, in smaller letters was: AMNESIA VICTIM IN LOCAL HOSPITAL.

Shortly before two o’clock this morning, the girl pictured above presented herself at the front door of City Hospital in a dazed state of shock.

Sobbing and distraught, she was unable to give a coherent story of the events leading up to her appearance at the hospital, and had absolutely no knowledge of her own identity, with no memory whatsoever prior to a short time previously when she stated she had found herself wandering alone on some deserted stretch of highway near Brockton with no knowledge of how she came to be there or where she was or who she was.

According to her story, a passing motorist stopped his car to pick her up, and after hearing her story, drove her directly to the hospital entrance where he let her out and drove away at once without giving his name or any clue to his identity. He was driving a shabby coupe, she stated, either dark blue or green, and one of the popular makes, Ford, Chevrolet or Plymouth.

She could not describe his physical appearance in any detail, but said he was kind to her and she was very grateful for his help.

A physical examination disclosed that she had suffered a hard blow on the right temple from some blunt instrument an hour or so previously, which undoubtedly was responsible for her amnesia.

Dr. Jay Philbrick, who was summoned from his home to conduct the examination expressed his opinion that it was entirely possible she might recover her lost memory after the first state of shock passed, although he admitted that in many similar cases the victims had remained with no vestige of memory of past events for weeks or for months.

“The very best treatment for a case of this type,” Dr. Philbrick stated emphatically after his first examination, “is to place the patient in contact with familiar surroundings and with her own family and friends. Recovery is generally swift under those conditions, and there is little reason to fear this young lady will not be as good as new as soon as her memory is jolted by some familiar face or circumstance and begins to function again.

“It is of the utmost importance, however,” he concluded, “that she should be identified as soon as possible, and placed among friends.”

For this reason the Courier is running her photograph, taken last night by a staff photographer, on our front page with an appeal to our readers for any information that may lead to her identification.

A detailed description of the Mystery Girl follows: Age: about 20. Height: five feet four inches. Weight: 115 pounds. Fair complexion; blue eyes; naturally curly golden hair; no distinguishing scars or marks. She was wearing an obviously expensive white silk dress, sheer nylon stockings and bronze evening pumps, and no jewelry of any sort except a gold wrist watch.

It is particularly requested that the Good Samaritan who brought her to the hospital and left her there without identifying himself should come forward to tell the authorities where and under what conditions he found her, because the police theorize that she may have been the victim of an auto accident, and the spot where she was first found may help to pinpoint inquiries along that line. This theory, Dr. Philbrick conceded, is wholly plausible as a possible cause of the concussive blow she had sustained.

Shayne laid the paper aside with a frown creasing his forehead. Maybe that explained the crazy set-up-she was wandering around loose still a victim of amnesia. Maybe she had thought she recognized from out of the blankness of the past.

But they wouldn’t have released her from the hospital, would they? Unless she had recovered fully?

He turned the next day’s paper, shaking his head dubiously. On the front page, he found the answer. There was no picture this time, but a headline told him: AMNESIA VICTIM IDENTIFIED.

The girl who mysteriously appeared at City Hospital early yesterday morning suffering from advanced shock and complete loss of memory was identified early yesterday afternoon by means of the photograph which was displayed on the front page of the Courier as a public service.

Her father, Mr. Amos Buttrell, wealthy socialite of New York and wintering at the Roney Plaza Hotel in Miami Beach, drove here from that city after seeing his daughter’s picture prominently displayed on the front page of the Courier at a newsstand there.

“I recognized my daughter, Amy, immediately,” he stated to a representative of the Courier who was on hand at the hospital when the happy reunion occurred, “though I haven’t yet the vaguest idea how she came to be wandering on the highway near Brockton in such a condition.”

She had left the hotel two days ago to visit friends in St. Petersburg, he explained, driving her own car, a two-toned, 1954 Pontiac convertible, and expected to reach St. Petersburg late that evening. When he received no word of her safe arrival yesterday morning, he telephoned her friends in St. Petersburg and learned that she had not arrived in that city as expected.

“I wasn’t actually worried at first,” Mr. Buttrell explained. “Amy is a competent and careful driver and I knew she had sufficient cash to tide her over any ordinary emergency. I was surprised, though, that she hadn’t called either her friends or me to explain the delay, for Amy is usually very punctilious about such things. I was completely bowled over when I recognized her picture on the front page of the Courier which I just happened to see at a newsstand. I drove here at once, of course, to find her in this distressing state.”

Though Brockton is not on the most direct route between Miami and St. Petersburg, it is on an alternate route which Miss Buttrell might easily have chosen for her trip.

The whereabouts of her automobile, however, remains a complete mystery as we go to press, as do the events leading up to her dramatic appearance at the door of the local hospital in the small hours of the morning. A statewide description of the missing automobile has been broadcast by the police, and Chief Ollie Hanger has issued an urgent request that anyone possessing any information at all about the girl or her car should communicate at once with the Brockton police.

There were a couple more paragraphs of straight sob stuff describing the meeting between the distraught father and his beautiful daughter who did not recognize him, with some reassuring words from Dr. Philbrick to the effect that he was positive she would swiftly recover her memory when returned to familiar surroundings.

Shayne folded the paper thoughtfully, picked up the preceding issue that carried Amy Buttrell’s picture and the first story, and as an afterthought, also gathered up all the following issues so that he might go over them at his leisure to see if anything further had been learned about the girl and the accident that had brought on her attack of amnesia.

He paid for the papers at the Information desk and hurried back to his hotel room with them tucked under his arm. He dropped the pile of papers on the floor and strode directly to the telephone where he asked the hotel operator to connect him with the Roney Plaza hotel in Miami Beach.

After a brief wait, “The Roney Plaza, good morning,” came through the receiver, and he asked for Mr. Amos Buttrell.

There was a short wait while Shayne sank into a chair, worried a cigarette out of a limp package and got it lighted with his free hand. Then the voice said, “I’m sorry, sir. We don’t have any Mr. Buttrell. Did I get the name correctly?”

“B-u-t-t-r-e-l-l,” Shayne spelled it out for her patiently. “Amos Buttrell.”

“Yes, sir.” The voice was doubtful. “He isn’t registered, I’m afraid.”

“He was a few days ago. Last Friday or Saturday. If he’s checked out since, can you give me an address where he can be reached?”

“I’ll connect you with the office if you wish.”

Shayne said, “Please do.” A deep frown creased his forehead and his nostrils tightened as he drew a deep lungful of smoke. When a brisk male voice asked if he could be of service, Shayne explained tersely, adding, “This is long distance and very important police business. I’ll hold on.”

He held on until the cigarette was smoked down close to his fingertips. Then the brisk voice told him apologetically, “I’m afraid there is some mistake. Our records don’t show any Mr. Buttrell registered here at all during the past two weeks.”

“How about a Miss Buttrell?” Shayne asked harshly. “Amy.”

“No one by that name at all, sir.”

“You’re positive there’s no mistake?”

“Quite positive.” The voice was very firm and somewhat offended that anyone could dare challenge the accuracy of the Roney Plaza’s records.

Shayne hung up thoughtfully and reached a long arm for the open bottle of cognac. He took a short drink from the bottle, then got up abruptly to check the newspaper story on the chance he had misread the information it contained.

He hadn’t misread it. The Courier stated explicitly that Mr. Amos Buttrell was wintering at the Roney Plaza Hotel in Miami Beach.

Either the news story was in error, or Mr. Buttrell had lied for reasons best known to himself.

6

Michael Shayne strode up and down the length of the hotel sitting room, clawing at his coarse red hair with his right hand and tugging at his earlobe with his left.

What in hell did it all add up to? A beautiful victim of amnesia, supposedly the daughter of a wealthy New Yorker, walking into the bar last night and fingering him for a trio of murderers!

Yet she had never seen him before in his life. At least, he had never seen her. Could that be a quirk of an amnesiac, he wondered. If they couldn’t remember things back beyond a certain point, were they likely to have hallucinations and think they remembered someone?

But what was the girl doing in Brockton last night when she supposedly had been taken away by her father the preceding Saturday? Had she regained her memory in the meantime and come back to Brockton to identify the man or men who had attacked her in the first place? That was, supposing she had been attacked on the highway and a simple automobile accident wasn’t the reason for her appearance at the hospital in the condition she had been in.

Nothing made sense any way you looked at it. Shayne needed a lot more answers before he could possibly start theorizing. He stopped by the telephone stand and looked up the number of the Courier, called it and got the City Desk.

He asked, “Could you tell me the name of the reporter who covered the story of the identification of the girl-amnesia victim last week by her father?”

“Wait a minute.” The voice was brusque and disinterested. Shayne waited, listening to the typical background noises of a busy City Room over the wire as he did so.

“Yeh. That was Hy Brown. You got something new on it?”

“I might have,” said Shayne cautiously. “He around now?”

“Covering the police beat. Who’s calling?”

The redhead hesitated. Then he said firmly, “Michael Shayne. If Brown comes in…”

“Shayne? Hey, we got an item here…” There was a lengthy pause. Then a pleased chuckle. “Private detective from Miami, huh? How you like our hoosgow? Give us a quote, Mr. Shayne?”

“You couldn’t print it,” Shayne said amiably. “Yeh. Your alert police force protected Brockton’s innocent children from my reckless driving last night. Okay. If I could get in touch with Brown…”

“You still in town?” the voice demanded.

“At the Manor Hotel. I’d like…”

“Hy’d like too, I bet. An interview from you would make the front page, Shamus. You’re by way of being famous in Florida, you know.”

Shayne said, “I didn’t know, but swell. If you could…”

“You at the hotel now?”

“In my room.”

“I’ll have Hy around there in three shakes. Sit tight, huh?”

Shayne said he would and hung up. He took the pile of newspapers dating back to the morning after Amy Buttrell had turned up at the hospital, and started going through them carefully. There was no Sunday edition, but the Monday paper carried a short item on the front page stating that no progress had been made by the local police toward solving the mystery of what had happened to Amy.

Her missing automobile had not been located, and no one had come forward with any information about the girl at all. Not even the man who had picked her up on the highway late at night and then faded away without identifying himself. Locally, the case seemed to be at a dead-end and likely to remain there until the girl recovered her memory and was able to tell her own story.

Shayne was searching through the inner pages of the previous day’s paper for anything further on Amy Buttrell when there was a rap on his door.

He got up to open it and admit a wiry, eager young man who gripped Shayne’s hand enthusiastically in thin fingers and introduced himself as Hy Brown while his excited eyes danced happily as they studied the livid bruises on Shayne’s face.

“Holy cats! They did work you over, huh Mr. Shayne? Resisting arrest it says on the docket. Which one of the bastards you resist? Burke or Grimes?”

Shayne grinned briefly and his hand went up to his face. “Both, I guess. The younger one prodded me into it.”

“Yeh. He would. Grimes isn’t such a bad old guy. But that Burke!” The reporter whistled expressively. “Took both of them to handle you, I bet. From all the stuff we’ve read about you.” Brown perched himself on the edge of a straight chair expectantly and produced a wad of copy paper and pencil. “You here in Brockton on a case, Mr. Shayne?”

“No. Just stopped in unexpectedly on my way to Miami to sample your famous hospitality.” Shayne grinned wryly and went into the bathroom to get another glass. He brought it back and set it beside the pitcher of ice cubes with a wave of his big hand. “Help yourself.” He poured cognac in his own glass, added ice cubes and swished them around thoughtfully while the younger man poured a modest dollop in the bottom of his glass and settled back with a look of disappointment on his face.

He said, “I thought maybe… when I heard you were still here at the hotel and hadn’t gone on this morning… I hoped…”

“As a matter of fact,” said Shayne easily, “I did think that while I was here I’d check into that Buttrell girl’s case just out of curiosity.” He gestured toward the newspapers on the floor. “You folks at this end never did find out what happened to her that night?”

“Not a damned thing. That is a real mystery, Mr. Shayne. You hear about it in Miami?”

“There was something in the papers,” Shayne said cautiously. “You covered the story?”

“That’s right. From the beginning. I took a photographer out to the hospital that night and shot the pic her father later identified her from.”

Shayne shrugged and settled back comfortably with his drink. “What did you make out of the whole screwy deal?”

“What could you make out of it? There she was with a big bruise on the side of her head, scratched up some, and her mind absolutely a blank. Didn’t even know her own name. No identification. Not a damned thing to go on. And a real doll, too. Beautiful, but real class, too, if you know what I mean. You knew right away she wasn’t any tramp.”

“You interview her father when he came to pick her up?”

“Yeh. I had a long talk with him.” Brown subconsciously glanced at the papers. “Read my story?”

Shayne nodded. “What sort of man was Buttrell? What did you make of him?”

Hy Brown shrugged. “About what you’d expect of a yankee geezer with enough rocks to be spending the winter at the Roney. Just ordinary, but a nice enough little guy, I guess. Worried to hell-and-gone about his daughter, and fussing over her like he was a biddy with one chick.”

“You positive you got the name right?” asked Shayne idly. “And that he’s staying at the Roney?”

“Sure, I did. Amos Buttrell. Made him spell it out for me. And we talked about the Roney. I stayed two nights there last year. On expense account,” he added with a grin.

“You haven’t heard anything from him since he took his daughter away?”

“Not a word. The police either. And that’s funny because he promised he’d keep in touch and let us know how she came along. He took my name down and even my telephone number, promising to give it to me exclusive he was that grateful to us for publishing her picture that brought him here. You heard anything in Miami about whether she got back her memory or not?”

Shayne said he hadn’t heard one way or the other. They talked on for a few minutes about the mystery of the girl and her vanished automobile, and then Shayne got rid of the young reporter.

As soon as he was alone, he put in a person-to-person call to Timothy Rourke on the Miami Daily News. The connection was made promptly and as soon as Shayne identified himself, Rourke asked curiously, “Know anything about the thing with Lucy at your office this morning, Mike?”

“What thing?”

“One of the boys just brought in an item from headquarters. Some hoodlum the police pulled in on Lucy’s complaint, seems like. I haven’t had a chance to check with her.”

“Do that right away, Tim. And then get onto Will Gentry and find out everything you can about the man. Particularly, if there’s anything at all to tie him up with Brockton or anybody in Brockton.”

“Brockton? You mean that town up-state?”

“That’s where I’m phoning from. Know anything about it?”

“No. Except there’s a kid reporter on the paper there I used to know. Name of Brown.”

“Hy Brown,” Shayne told him. “He just left here but didn’t say anything about knowing you.”

“It’s been three or four years. What are you doing there?”

“Having fun,” said Shayne grimly. “Here’s what I called about, Tim. Do you recall a local story the last few days about a girl amnesia victim turning up in Brockton and being identified by her father in Miami?”

“Nothing like that in the papers lately, Mike.”

“The name would be Buttrell,” Shayne persisted. “Amos Buttrell and daughter Amy. Spending the winter from New York at the Roney. Ring any bells?”

“Not a tinkle.”

“He was supposed to be registered at the Roney as late as last Friday. I called them long distance but drew a blank. You check at that end to be sure there’s no mistake. And see if there are any other Buttrells in town. Miami or the Beach. And if they’ve got a daughter named Amy who doesn’t remember very well.”

“Will do,” said Rourke. “Where can I reach you in Brockton?”

“At the Manor Hotel.” Shayne looked down and read off the number. “Will you get onto it fast?”

“I’m on it now,” Tim Rourke assured him cheerfully and hung up.

Shayne put the instrument down and got out of his chair to riffle through the Brockton directory. He found Philbrick Jay Dr listed as living at 312 Orange Drive without any additional office number, and called his residence.

A briskly impersonal female voice answered his ring, “Dr. Philbrick. May I help you?”

“You may and I hope you will,” Shayne told her gravely. “Is the doctor in?”

“He’s with a patient just now. Who’s calling?”

“Michael Shayne. I’m from out of town and need to see the doctor as soon as possible on an urgent, private matter. When will he be free?”

“If you could come right along,” she said doubtfully, “I might be able to slip you in between patients. His next appointment isn’t for half an hour.”

Shayne said, “Right away,” and hung up. He got his hat and hurried down stairs to ask directions from the doorman for reaching Orange Drive.

7

Following the doorman’s directions, Michael Shayne discovered that Brockton was essentially a peaceful and pleasant community of home-loving citizens. It was a different picture than he’d got the night before, driving into the business section on the main artery through town, stopping off at the bar and then being escorted to the city jail.

As soon as he left the business section, he entered a series of quiet residential streets lined with well-kept two-story homes with neat green lawns and many shade trees, with clean children playing decorously on the grass, young mothers in fresh print dresses strolling along shaded walks pushing strollers and baby carriages.

There was no hint of beneath-the-surface tensions or violence here. The events of the preceding night took on a completely unreal quality in the bright sunlight and the atmosphere of middle-class gentility that was evident on all sides as he drove along.

But it had happened, despite all the evidence that Brockton just wasn’t the sort of town where such things did happen. Shayne’s bruised face and aching neck muscles kept reminding him of the unpleasant facts of life.

And the three gangsters who entered the bar behind the girl cold-bloodedly intent on killing him hadn’t been out-of-towners imported just for that job. Somehow, Shayne was sure of that. They were indigenous to Brockton despite all the peaceful evidence to the contrary. Call it intuition or hunch, or the result of long experience in such matters, Shayne was positive the men were local products and had been recognized by at least some of the habitues of the bar-room.

There was the matter of the phone call to the police, for instance. The phone call that had not brought a policeman to investigate a clear case of armed assault and kidnapping. That was a matter to be checked later, Shayne reminded himself grimly. It would be interesting to know who had received the call and when. Who was responsible for the fact that no official action had been taken.

There had been something about the feel of the place when Shayne walked back through the door half an hour after he’d been dragged out unconscious that told him they feared and resented his return to the place alive. It wasn’t exactly that he suspected any of the bystanders of actual complicity in what had happened, or even that they particularly approved. It was more a feeling that he was an outsider and therefore probably deserved whatever had happened to him. An apathetic acceptance of the situation more than anything else. Yet out here on the peaceful outskirts of the town, it seemed inconceivable that Brockton could be under the domination of any sort of criminal element.

Again and again as he drove along slowly watching for Orange Drive, Shayne ransacked his brain for any conceivable answer to why?

Conceding that he had been recognized somehow, why had Gene and his two thugs been sent to the bar to wipe him out? No one in Brockton, so far as he was aware, had any earthly reason to fear Michael Shayne or even to hate him.

Had the girl made a mistake in identity when she came directly to his booth to finger him for the men who entered behind her?

Shayne didn’t think so. There had been no hesitancy in her manner. He distinctly recalled the look of recognition on her face, his definite impression before she ever took a step toward him that he was the reason she had entered the room. That she had come in looking for him and expecting to find him there.

Maybe that was an after-result of amnesia. A sort of hallucination that took the place of memory. That was one possibility he wanted to check with Dr. Philbrick. But there hadn’t been a single thing about the girl to give the impression that she was anything but completely normal. Shayne didn’t know much about amnesia cases, but he had a vague idea that such a person would be outwardly different from one in full possession of her faculties. That there would be something about the look in her eyes or in her bearing that would indicate loss of memory. That was something else to ask the doctor.

He passed a neat, stuccoed church on the right which was the last landmark the doorman had mentioned, and slowed for the next corner. A neat street sign told him that it was Orange Drive, and he made a right turn into it as directed. The address was well out from the center of town, and the houses here were generally larger, the grounds of each place more spacious than closer to the hotel.

Number 342 was one of only two houses in an entire block. A large, three-story white house with round columns guarding the front veranda and a cupola on top. It sat well back from the street shaded by magnolias and ancient oak trees, with a graveled drive leading up between a double row of neatly clipped hibiscus shrubs.

There was a double garage to the right at the rear, and the drive circled in front underneath a porte-cochere where wide wooden steps led up to the veranda.

Another car was parked directly in front of the steps, and Shayne pulled in behind it. It was a shabby Ford sedan.

Shayne cut off his ignition and got out to circle around in front of the Ford and mount the steps. The sunlight was bright and there was almost complete country silence as he crossed the scrubbed porch boards and found an old-fashioned knocker on the front door.

There was no electric push-button visible, so Shayne lifted and dropped the brass knocker a couple of times and waited.

The door was opened onto a large center hall by a trim Mulatto maid who smiled pleasantly when he asked for Dr. Philbrick, and led him down the cool hall to a sparkling, modern reception room on the right.

The room was empty. A sign beside the door said PLEASE RING BELL AND BE SEATED.

Shayne rang the bell but perversely refused to obey the second instruction. There was a conventional long center table with neat stacks of popular magazines and medical journals, comfortable chrome and leather chairs ranged about the walls with smoking stands beside half a dozen of them. On the walls were etchings of hunting dogs, and several framed diplomas. Shayne was studying one of them which conveyed the reassuring information that Jay Philbrick had duly passed the proscribed courses in the Southern Medical College in the year 1932 and had been duly awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine by that institution when he heard a side door open and turned to see a plump and red-haired nurse emerge in her starched white uniform. She was young and had smiling eyes, a pert nose and a saucy mouth. She tilted her head slightly on one side as she looked at him, and said, “Yes?” in a questioning, hopeful sort of way as though wondering what the devil he was doing there and hadn’t he maybe got in the wrong pew by mistake.

Shayne grinned disarmingly and shrugged toward the diploma he had been reading, “Just checking up on the doc’s credentials,” he confided. “Make sure he isn’t a quack.”

Her left cheek dimpled and her eyes danced with merriment, but she said gravely, “Did you wish to see the doctor?”

“I’m Shayne. I phoned you a few minutes ago…”

“Oh yes.” The dimple vanished and the merriment went out of her eyes to be replaced by what appeared to be anxiety. “Exactly what was it you wished to see Dr. Philbrick about?”

“It’s an urgent, personal matter. I’ll take only a few minutes of his time. You promised to try and slip me in between patients.”

“I know. But I should have checked with the doctor before suggesting you come out. He’s much busier than I thought and won’t be able to see you until much later. If you’d give me some idea of what you want, I might be able to help you.”

Shayne kept his irritation from showing. He said, “I don’t mind waiting,” and sat down in a comfortable chair.

The nurse frowned nervously and wet her lips. Shayne had a distinct impression she had been bawled out for asking him to come, and had been commissioned to get rid of him fast. She said, “It may be late in the afternoon until he’s free to see you. He’s terribly rushed this morning…”

Just then a resonantly mellow voice came through the half-open doorway behind her. “Not at all, Ed. You know I want you to drop in any time you feel the ticker needs a check-up. As a matter of fact, Ed, I had time on my hands this morning. If there weren’t strict doctor’s orders against it, ha-ha, I’d be tempted to suggest that my julep bed is just begging to have a few sprigs plucked and I know where my wife has got a bottle of real bonded Old Racehorse hidden away, and we might adjourn to my den and see if maybe the twain would meet…”

The voice was coming closer as it spoke, and a little sallow-faced man pushed the door open and came out, followed by a tall, solid-bodied man with a shock of white hair and a ruddy beaming face who was still talking as he entered the room and saw the nurse and Michael Shayne.

“… but it is doctor’s orders, old man, and I’d be the last one in the world to…”

Dr. Jay Philbrick’s booming voice stopped abruptly in mid-sentence. He glanced uncertainly from Shayne to the nurse, and then back to the patient whom he was just ushering out, and ended in a quieter, more professional voice, “Slow down a little, Ed, and don’t worry. Call me in a day or so after I’ve had a chance to go over the results of the test.”

He turned about abruptly and pulled the door of the reception room shut behind him.

Shayne moved forward in a long, unhurried stride, and reached the closed door just as the nurse stepped in front of it and faced him with an embarrassed flush coloring her cheeks.

“I’m sorry but the doctor can’t see you now.”

Shayne looked down at her quizzically. “I told you it was extremely urgent and I’ll be only a few minutes.”

“I’m sorry, but he told me…”

“To explain that he was too busy to see anyone?” The quizzical smile stayed on Shayne’s face and he kept his voice deceptively gentle. “Although he has got time on his hands for a Mint Julep.”

Shayne put a big hand on the nurse’s shoulder and firmly moved her aside. “How does he know I’m not a salesman for bonded Old Racehorse?” He opened the door and strode into a small room outfitted as an office with typewriter desk and filing cases.

The redheaded nurse followed him protesting weakly as he crossed to another closed door marked PRIVATE. He opened it without knocking into another small room that contained a bare mahogany desk, a thick rug on the floor, three deep comfortable chairs, and a swivel chair behind the desk.

Dr. Philbrick stood with his back to him, leaning over the desk with a telephone to his ear. He turned his head to look at Shayne, and his ruddy face was no longer beaming. He replaced the telephone slowly and straightened to face the detective. “This is a private office, sir, and you are intruding.”

Shayne said, “I think there’s some mistake. I telephoned and your nurse made an appointment for me to see you. The name is Shayne.”

“I judged it was,” said the doctor coldly, “when I saw you in the outer office. My nurse had been instructed not to admit you.”

“Why, doctor? You don’t even know what I want.”

“I saw this morning’s Courier. You’re a private detective from Miami who was arrested last night for common drunkenness and disorderly conduct. I can’t conceive what you have to say that could possibly interest me.”

Shayne grinned and said lightly, “I see. I didn’t realize that little affair had made the front pages. I want to ask you some questions about Miss Buttrell, doctor. I represent her father who has asked me to investigate.” He uttered the lie coolly, turning as he did so to an upholstered chair directly in front of the desk.

A change of expression came over the doctor’s face the moment he mentioned Miss Buttrell’s name. It was a curious look, and one that Shayne could not interpret. He couldn’t tell whether it was fear or relief.

Dr. Philbrick hesitated a moment, then seated himself stiffly in the swivel chair. His ruddy face was bland again, though no longer beaming. “Miss Buttrell?” he repeated. “The young girl who lost her memory. Why didn’t you tell my nurse you were an authorized representative of her father?”

Shayne shrugged. “It didn’t occur to me it was necessary to spread the news around that I’m in Brockton investigating the affair. One of the jobs of a private detective is to keep his business as private as possible.”

“Ah… I see.” The doctor’s smile was frosty. “Now that you are here, Mr. Shayne, how can I help you? And how is the child, by the way? Did she respond to treatment and familiar surroundings?”

“Not too well. Not to the extent of recovering her memory. What, in your professional opinion, caused her condition?”

Dr. Philbrick frowned and carefully placed the tips of five fingers against the tips of five others before replying. “Do you mean the precise cause of amnesia, or my opinion as to how she suffered the injury?”

“Both. You see we have absolutely nothing to go on, doctor. Her car has not been recovered. We have a gap of several hours between the time she might have passed through Brockton on her trip and the moment when she appeared at the local hospital suffering from shock and loss of memory. First, let me get this absolutely clear. Is there any possibility, doctor, even the slightest possibility, that the girl was faking amnesia?”

The doctor leaned back, more at ease now, and professionally sure of himself. “Not the slightest, Mr. Shayne. Amnesia is exceedingly difficult to fake successfully, notwithstanding many fiction stories and newspaper articles to the contrary, and medical evidence in this case proved conclusively that the type of concussion she suffered would necessarily produce some degree of retrograde amnesia. Are you intimating that her own physician questions my diagnosis?”

“I haven’t discussed it with him,” said Shayne truthfully. “I wanted your assurance first. I understand it was a blow on the head that caused concussion. What sort of blow?”

“Do you want me to describe it in medical terms?”

“No,” said Shayne hastily. “What I mean is… how, in your opinion was it administered? I understand you examined her immediately afterward. Do you think it was the result of an automobile accident… or had she been attacked?”

“Not immediately afterward, Mr. Shayne. I was called to the hospital immediately after she arrived there, but it had obviously been some hours since the injury was sustained. There were certain minor bruises on her body that might well fit the theory of an auto accident, but they were not conclusive. As to the girl having been attacked… there was no evidence of sexual attack if that is what you infer. The blow could easily have been administered by a blunt instrument, or it could have come from being thrown clear of a speeding car and striking her head on a smooth rock, let us say. There was really nothing conclusive from the external evidence.”

“She is the first amnesia victim I ever met,” Shayne said frankly. “I was amazed that there were no outward signals to a layman indicating her condition. Is that normal? What I mean is,” he went on hastily, “I guess I expected to find her confused and dazed. Sort of vague and dull-eyed, maybe. But there were none of those physical indications when I saw her.”

“Of course not.” The doctor’s manner was properly condescending. “This was a clear-cut case of retrograde amnesia, you must understand. The concussive shock was confined to certain nerve centers of the brain which automatically block out past memories. Nothing else. Her brain functions perfectly normally otherwise. Your mistake is a common one, I might add, and if she did display those symptoms it would be more than likely that she was faking loss of memory.”

Shayne said slowly, “I see. One other thing, doctor. By the way, do you consider yourself an expert on amnesia?”

Dr. Philbrick flushed slightly and his voice was testy. “I consider myself competent to diagnose and treat such a case. No physician, Mr. Shayne, would consider himself an expert on amnesia. It is a relatively rare occurrence in real life, but I am thoroughly familiar with the literature on the subject.”

“Good,” said Shayne heartily. “Then you can tell me this. In a case like Miss Buttrell’s… where she doesn’t remember anything prior to receiving the blow on her head… is it possible that in striving to remember, the patient may be subject to hallucinations? That is, think she remembers things that aren’t true at all? Might she honestly think she recognizes someone whom she has never actually seen before at all?”

“This gets into the realm of the psychological rather than the physiological,” protested Dr. Philbrick. “I have never seen such a case reported, but I daresay it might be a possible result under certain conditions of psychological stress. I cannot venture a categorical answer, though my personal opinion would be in the negative in this particular case at least. During the period I had Miss Buttrell under observation I judged her to possess a quiet, sound temperament, with a high degree of intelligence. Not at all the type to work herself up into hysteria or hallucinations.”

“How did she react to her father’s appearance?”

“Passively. She didn’t recognize him, of course. She was certainly pleased when he announced his identity and that he had come to take her home. It was a terrible strain, you know, to be at the hospital completely unrecognized. With no knowledge of who you are… how you got there… whether you will ever be reunited with your family.”

“There was no question whatsoever about Mr. Buttrell’s identification of her?” asked Shayne casually.

The doctor peered across the desk at him curiously. “None whatever. Her physical appearance was unaltered. She was his own daughter whom he had seen just two days before. How could there be any possible question?”

“I guess there couldn’t,” sighed Shayne. “I was just thinking about the newspaper picture he identified her from. I’ve seen it, and like most photos reproduced in papers, it’s quite blurred and isn’t a terribly good likeness.”

“That’s quite true. In fact, until he arrived and saw the girl in the flesh, Mr. Buttrell confided to me he had not been at all sure it was his daughter. I felt he was to be commended for not hesitating to make the long drive up here to relieve his parental anxiety. A less devoted father might easily have been satisfied with a telephone call which would not, of course, have proved anything since there was no physical mark on her body positively identifying her. As a matter of fact, I believe there were two other such telephone calls from persons in other cities who thought they had recognized the newspaper picture.”

“Is that so? Before or after Mr. Buttrell had identified her?”

“One was before, I believe, and the other came through an hour or so after they had left the hospital for Miami. The first caller was not referred to me because the girl they were looking for had a large birthmark which Miss Buttrell did not have, but the second was so insistent that it must be his daughter that I had to talk to him myself to convince him she could not be a Miss Henderson from Orlando.”

“Orlando? Some girl missing from there?”

“A student at Rollins College in Winter Park. Mr. Henderson is a professor there but lives in Orlando. He was quite relieved when I convinced him it was a case of mistaken identity on his part. Now, Mr. Shayne, if you have any further questions I suggest you make them to the police who have made a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding Miss Buttrell’s injury.” He pushed back his swivel chair and stood up. “Please remember me to Mr. Buttrell when you report back to him, and remind him that I am most interested in hearing the details of his daughter’s ultimate recovery.”

Shayne assured him that the next time he talked with Mr. Buttrell he would deliver Dr. Philbrick’s message, and he let himself out, smiling reassuringly at the nurse who was typing in the outer office as he went through.

8

At the hotel there was a message for Shayne to call Timothy Rourke in Miami. The detective hurried up to his room to put the call through.

“I don’t know what the deal is with your friend Amos Buttrell,” Rourke told him when he came on. “But he definitely ain’t.”

“Ain’t what?”

“Not registered at the Roney Plaza and hasn’t been. No mistake on that, Mike. I know one of the assistant managers, and that’s straight. What’s more, there’s nobody named Buttrell listed in either the Miami or Miami Beach directories. And I went back through the issues of both papers the last few days on the chance I missed the amnesia story you mentioned. I found two short dispatches from Brockton. Nothing at all locally. The second dispatch mentioned your Mr. Buttrell and his daughter as wintering at the Roney, and I checked here in the office since it would be routine for us to send a man to interview him and get a story. Ned Piper pulled the assignment, and ran into the same dead-end. No Buttrell at the Roney for him to interview. It looked funny but he just figured there’d been a mistake in the name and let it drop. That help you out any, Mike?”

“Damned if I know,” groaned Shayne. “At this point I don’t know what would help out. Did you check with Will Gentry?”

“Oh, yeh. I called Will and went to look over the lug myself. Here’s the story on it. This guy was waiting outside the office when Lucy opened up this morning. Asked for you, and said he’d wait when she said she thought you’d be in later. So he did. He sat and waited. And made Lucy nervous. She’s a smart gal and she sensed something wrong. That he was dangerous. She’s been around you long enough to get a feel for a thing like that, I guess. And she thought a certain bulge under his coat looked suspicious. I guess she gave you this when you phoned her, huh?”

“Some of it. Enough to worry me a little after what happened here last night, and I told her to call Gentry to have a couple of boys look the situation over.”

“Yeh. She did. From the phone in your office, and then went back to her desk and typed until they got there. Well, they frisked this gent, and Lucy was right. A shoulder-holstered gat. But he wasn’t talking. Not a damned word except he was waiting to see Mike Shayne on private business. They took him down to headquarters and shook him down good, but got nothing else. Not a scrap of identification. Clean like any sharp hood gets when he goes out on a job. But there was one funny thing, Mike. It didn’t seem to mean anything until you asked me that question about there being anything to connect him up with Brockton.

“A newspaper clipping folded up neatly inside his inner coat pocket, Mike,” Rourke went on triumphantly. “I got it here in front of me. Want me to read it to you?”

“What is it first?”

“A front-page story clipped from the Brockton Courier. Dated Saturday last. About an assistant State’s Attorney from Orlando whose charred and almost unidentifiable body was discovered inside his wrecked and burned car in the bottom of a ravine near Brockton the preceding afternoon. Name of Randolph Harris. That mean anything to you?”

“Not yet,” said Shayne harshly. “Not one damned thing.”

“Want me to read you the story over the phone?”

“Last Saturday’s Courier? You needn’t bother, Tim. I’ve got a copy of it right here in my hotel room. Gentry’s holding the man, huh?”

“Sure. Concealed weapon. He’ll pull sixty days if they don’t hang anything else on him. What is happening up there, Mike? Ready to give me a lead for a story?”

“Not yet,” said Shayne dismally. “A lead is what I need right now. Just so you won’t think I’ve wasted your time, I damn near got killed last night, and spent the night in jail.”

“Hell, that’s not news when it happens to Michael Shayne,” countered Tim Rourke cynically.

“I know,” Shayne sighed. “So don’t print it. I’ve walked into the middle of something, but I’ll be damned if I know what. I’ll be in touch if anything breaks.”

He hung up and turned eagerly to the back issues of the Courier he had brought from the newspaper office. Saturday’s paper was the one that carried the second story about Amy Buttrell… in which her father had arrived to identify her.

Shayne spread out the front-page and found the story Rourke had described in the center column. It was past noon and he hadn’t had anything to eat since the garbage offered him at the jail that morning, so he poured an inch of brandy in a water glass to assuage his stomach while he settled back to read the story that had been found in the pocket of a gunman waiting for him in his Miami office.

ACCIDENT VICTIM IDENTIFIED

The burned and disfigured body of Randolph Harris, 26, assistant to the State’s Attorney in Orlando was tentatively identified this morning by local police after they traced the license number of his automobile which was discovered late yesterday afternoon destroyed by fire at the bottom of a deep ravine just off the Miami highway about six miles south of Brockton.

Two boys from nearby farms, Lee Jenkins, 12, and Peter Ellrich, 13, made the gruesome discovery while out rabbit hunting after school yesterday afternoon.

The point where the ill-fated automobile left the highway to plunge through a guard-rail and tumble to the bottom of the ravine is a sharp curve at the top of a long slope which has been the scene of several accidents in recent years, and is known locally as Dead-Man’s Curve. From the physical evidence at the scene, police believe Mr. Harris was driving south on the highway at a high rate of speed and lost control of his car at the curve, which rolled down the steep hillside and burst into flame at the bottom, trapping the driver in the front seat where he was burned beyond recognition.

The fatal accident is believed to have occurred around midnight Thursday, and the intense heat of the gasoline-fed holocaust was such that every particle of the dead man’s clothing was burned from his body which made immediate identification impossible.

As we go to press there is no definite proof that the driver of Mr. Harris’ car was the owner, but the theory is strengthened by the fact that Chief Ollie Hanger has ascertained from Orlando that the young assistant State’s Attorney did drive his car away from that city early Thursday evening without telling anyone his destination, and did not return to his home or office all day Friday.

The grief-stricken parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. L. Harris, 1879 Dabney Avenue, Orlando, are unable to offer any explanation for their son’s presence at the scene of the midnight accident.

“We just don’t know where Randy was going or what he planned to do Thursday evening,” Mrs. Harris sobbed over the telephone to a Courier reporter today. “He didn’t say anything about his plans when he drove away soon after dinner. His father and I just naturally assumed he had a date with one of the local girls whom he knows, and we retired about ten o’clock without thinking anything about it at all. I can’t imagine what he would be doing forty miles away from home at that time of night. Randy was always such a steady boy and so very conscientious about his work he hardly ever stayed out past midnight, especially on a week-day.”

It wasn’t until Mr. and Mrs. Harris arose the next morning that they discovered their son had not come home, and they weren’t unduly alarmed then, thinking he might have decided to spend the night with a friend.

Neither could State’s Attorney Elmer Jacobson throw any light on the mystery when interviewed early today, insisting he was positive it was not official business that had brought his assistant to Brockton Thursday night, though this city does lie within the jurisdiction of the Orlando district.

“We had no cases pending in Brockton,” he stated positively this morning in his courthouse office. “Mr. Harris was engaged in handling only routine cases at this time, none of which could have taken him as far afield as Brockton. Randolph Harris was one of the finest young men I have ever had in my office,” Mr. Jacobson continued with obvious emotion. “A fine young lawyer sincerely interested in abstract justice and with a brilliant future before him. His untimely death will be a great loss to the community and to the entire state of Florida, and my heart goes out to the fine parents of this stalwart young man in their hour of bereavement.”

One false lead which police had hoped might be a vital clue in the mystery petered out this morning when authorities interviewed Dr. Joseph R. Winestock, Superintendent of the Brockton Sanitarium on the outskirts of the city.

Previously, John Agnolo, attendant at the Squaredeal Filling Station situated on the Orlando highway a half mile north of Brockton, had reported to police that he believed Mr. Harris had been the driver of a car answering to the description of the burned vehicle that had stopped for gasoline about nine o’clock Thursday evening, and who had asked Mr. Agnolo for directions to the Brockton Sanitarium.

“He came inside the station to pay me for the gas,” Mr. Agnolo told the police early this morning. “And when he asked how to reach the Sanitarium I drew him a little sketch on a piece of paper. I told him it was easy from my place, and how to avoid city traffic. Just turn left at the first traffic light and follow straight out East Avenue about two miles till the road forks. ‘You take the left fork where you’ll see the sign,’ I told him, ‘and it’s about a quarter mile on and you can’t miss it.’”

Mr. Agnolo also told police he had a vague impression there was another person in the front seat of the car, but he couldn’t be positive and didn’t know whether it was a man or woman. When shown a picture of Mr. Harris at police headquarters, he tentatively identified it as the man he had given the sketch to on Thursday evening, but could not swear to it.

Police now believe it must have been a case of mistaken identity, because when Dr. Winestock was questioned later he denied any knowledge of Mr. Harris. The only visitor to the Sanitarium Thursday evening, he averred, was a young man who arrived shortly after nine o’clock for a short visit with his sister who is a patient there. Since this young man answered in a general way to the description of Randolph Harris, police are satisfied that Mr. Agnolo was mistaken in his identification.

The brilliant young assistant to the State’s Attorney was born in Tallahassee…

Michael Shayne skimmed through the rest of the news story to see that it contained no further information except a laudatory recap of Randy Harris’ scholastic and brief professional career.

Then he laid the paper aside and applied himself with a frown to the cognac remaining in his glass.

Why had a gunman been enough interested in that particular item to clip it out carefully and carry it about with him in his coat pocket?

Thursday night, of course, was the same night Amy Buttrell had mysteriously appeared in front of the local hospital suffering from amnesia.

Amy Buttrell had fingered him for three hoodlums here in Brockton last night after she had supposedly been taken away to Miami by a father who seemed not to exist. By the grace of God, Shayne had escaped their ministrations, whereupon a killer appeared at his office door the next morning armed with a gun and carrying a clipping from the Brockton paper.

Shayne knew it all had to make sense somehow, but at the moment it was all a crazy hodge-podge of impossibilities and improbabilities. He tossed off his brandy and went down to the hotel dining room to see if food would make his thinking any clearer.

9

The food was good. Nicely served by a pleasant-faced waitress in a quiet, uncrowded dining room. Shayne sat alone at a table by a window with sunshine coming in from the street, ate a large amount of food and postponed all thinking until he settled back with a pot of coffee to wash down a large serving of excellent strawberry shortcake.

There wasn’t any discernible pattern yet. He went over and over the small store of facts thus far garnered, and remained as much at sea as ever. Dr. Philbrick, for instance. What had actually been behind his effort to have Shayne turned away from his office without interviewing him? Had it, indeed, been due solely to the fact that he had learned Shayne was a private detective who had been arrested by local police the night before, or had he suspected why the detective wanted to see him… and wished to avoid answering questions about the girl? About Miss Buttrell… if that was her name. There was no proof as yet, Shayne reminded himself, that her name was Buttrell. Her father had said he was Amos Buttrell, but he had also said he was at the Roney Plaza for the season. Since the second statement was false, he might have given a false name as well. No one had bothered to check the man’s identity, of course. There had been no reason why they should. They were pleased enough to have a man of evident wealth turn up to identify the girl and take her away from the hospital. Glad to have her bill paid and to be relieved of the responsibility.

But why would a father lie about his identity under those circumstances? Because he knew his daughter had been engaged in some criminal activities and wanted to cover up for her? Could be. Also, could be a hundred other reasons.

Shayne poured a second cup of coffee and lit his third cigarette, and again carefully went over the information contained in the clipping found in the pocket of a gunman who had been waiting for him to appear at his Miami office that morning.

An assistant State’s Attorney from Orlando who had been burned to death in his wrecked car the same night Amy Buttrell (call her that for want of a better name) had been brought to the hospital by an unidentified motorist in a state of shock.

It was too much to think the possession of the clipping had been mere coincidence. It indicated a definite connection between the girl and Randolph Harris. Both injured near Brockton the same night. Her participation in the attack on Shayne last night, and the hood’s unexplained appearance at his office this morning.

That was at least one coincidence too many to swallow.

Orlando! Randolph Harris lived in Orlando, forty miles north of Brockton. And a Professor Henderson lived in Orlando also. Father of a girl who looked enough like Amy Buttrell that the professor had feared he recognized her from the newspaper picture. Professor Henderson had been greatly relieved, Dr. Philbrick had stated, when he learned that the girl could not possibly be his daughter because she had already been identified by a man who called himself Amos Buttrell and said he lived in Miami.

Obviously, the professor would not have pressed his inquiries beyond that point.

Shayne got up from the dining table hastily when he reached this point in his thinking. His waitress hurried to him with a luncheon check, and Shayne signed it and gave her a dollar bill.

Upstairs in his suite again, he got the long distance operator and told her, “I want to talk to a Professor Henderson in Orlando. I don’t know his name or initials, or his street address. He teaches at Rollins College in Winter Park. Will you try to locate him for me?”

The operator told him she would try, and that she would call him back as soon as she had the professor on the wire. Shayne hung up, and prowled restlessly up and down the length of his sitting room, tugging at his earlobe with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand while the knobby fingers of his right clawed through coarse red hair on his head.

There had to be a connection, he told himself. Suppose the girl was Professor Henderson’s daughter! That meant that the man who called himself Amos Buttrell was an imposter. That for reasons of his own he had come to the hospital and pretended to identify the girl as his daughter Amy and taken her away with him.

There would have been nothing to prevent it. Suffering from amnesia, the girl could not protest that he was not her father. In her state, she must have accepted him without question. Just as Dr. Philbrick and the authorities had accepted him without question.

And he hadn’t taken her back to Miami. That much was clear. Because she had still been in Brockton last night.

His telephone rang. Shayne reached it in two long strides. The operator said, “On your call to Orlando. We have Mr. Henderson on the wire. Go ahead, please.”

Shayne said, “Professor Henderson? My name is Michael Shayne and I’m calling you from Brockton.”

“Shayne? In what connection…?” The voice was precise and cultivated. A trifle thin and peevish.

Shayne said swiftly, “I’m a detective working on the case of the girl who had an accident here last Thursday night and suffered amnesia. I understand you telephoned from Orlando Friday after seeing her picture in the paper, thinking it might be your daughter.”

“Jean. Yes. It did give me a frightful turn when I saw the picture so like my Jean. But it wasn’t, you know. I was told she had been positively identified as someone else before I telephoned.”

“I know.” Shayne paused, then went on quickly. “It now appears there is a slight possibility that first identification of the girl may have been an error. Just to make certain… has your daughter turned up safe in the meantime?”

“Why, yes. That is… I have no reason to assume otherwise. You see, Mr… ah… what’s the name?”

“Shayne.”

“Of course. Stupid of me. You see, Mr. Shayne, I didn’t really see how it could possibly be Jean in Brockton even when I telephoned. She had no reason to be near Brockton that night, and I was morally certain she wasn’t, but when I saw that picture so like her and because of the… ah… coincidence of the previous accident to her younger sister which was naturally strongly in my mind, I allowed myself to jump to the conclusion that it might be Jean. You say, now, that there might be some mistake? Dear me. You don’t mean to imply that… that…” The professor’s voice faltered thinly into disbelieving silence.

“I don’t want to imply anything,” said Shayne soothingly. “Do you mean you still aren’t sure it wasn’t your daughter?”

“Why I… I… this is so very sudden. I made no further inquiries, Mr. Shayne. My apprehensions were put at rest and I saw no need to.”

“You mean you’re not actually certain where your daughter is?”

“I… of course assumed she was with her friends on their cruise. They had planned to sail from Apalachicola early Friday morning, you see, to be gone for a week. Since Brockton is not even on the bus route from here to Apalachicola, you can see how I did not consider it possible for Jean to have been injured in Brockton. Yet, with Jeanette’s recent accident so strongly in my thoughts, I could not refrain from wondering… ah… you see, do you not?”

“Not quite,” sighed Shayne. “You say your daughter Jean went by bus Thursday afternoon to Apalachicola to go on a cruise with friends?”

“Exactly. And I assume, of course, that she is on the cruise with them now. Certainly, they would have informed me before this had she not arrived safely.”

“But you’ve had no definite word from her since Thursday?”

“N-n-no. That’s quite true.”

“Do you know the names of her friends in Apalachicola?”

“Oh, yes. Certainly. Mr. and Mrs. Larch. Old family friends. I assure you, Mr. Shayne…”

“I think you’d better try to telephone them,” interrupted Shayne. “If we can just be certain your daughter is safely on a cruise, it will simplify our investigation here.”

“But they are somewhere in the Gulf on a sailboat,” protested Henderson. “Don’t you see? I did attempt to telephone Mr. Larch Friday after I had seen the picture I thought might be Jean. They had left early in the morning to be gone a week.”

“And there’s no possibility of contacting them now?”

“None, I’m afraid.”

“Do you know your daughter took the bus to Apalachicola?”

“If by that, you mean did I actually see her board the bus… the answer is no. She had planned to take the six o’clock bus, and so far as I know, she did so. For the love of heaven, Mr. Shayne, tell me what you do suspect. You say there may have been an error. Does this mean you suspect the amnesia victim may have been Jean after all?”

“We don’t want to worry you unduly,” said Shayne. “Probably not. But please answer a couple more questions. Was your daughter acquainted with Randolph Harris?”

“Harris? Randolph Harris?” The professor’s voice held no note of recognition. “Who may he be?”

“A young attorney who lives in Orlando. Previously connected with the State’s Attorney’s office there. I wondered if your daughter knew him.”

“I’m certain she doesn’t. Jean is only nineteen, and since her mother died three years ago we have been very close. I think I can say I have her complete confidence and know all of her friends. I have never heard her mention the name of Randolph Harris among them.”

“One more thing. You spoke twice about an accident to a younger daughter. Something about the coincidence that led you to wonder if the other girl could be Jean even though you were quite positive she was on a bus to Apalachicola at the time.”

“Yes. Jeanette. If you are a detective in Brockton, you certainly must recall the tragic details. Less than a month ago, it was. A terrible shock. Jeanette was such a gay and fun-loving girl. Quite unlike her older sister, Jean, who inherited my traits, I fear, rather than those of her mother. With the grief of Jeanette’s loss so fresh in my mind, you can understand why I felt impelled to investigate the remote possibility that the girl whose picture I saw in the paper might be Jean.”

“Of course,” said Shayne heartily, deciding it would be best not to admit that he wasn’t on the Brockton force and knew nothing about the prior accident. “Thank you every much indeed for your splendid cooperation,” he went on. “It may be that I’ll want to run up there a little later on just to confirm a few minor details. Will you give me your address and tell me what time you’ll be at home?”

Professor Henderson gave him a street address in Orlando, and said he’d be at home all afternoon. He was pathetically anxious to ask more questions about the new development in the case, but Shayne cut him off as gently as he could and hung up with a promise to let Henderson know the first moment they had any definite news.

Beads of sweat stood on Shayne’s corrugated forehead, and his angular jaw was set hard as he slowly stood up. His gray eyes were blank and unseeing as he mechanically groped for the cognac bottle and poured out a small drink. He stood with it gripped tightly in his hand, looking across the room and out the windows to the bright sunlight lying peacefully on the small city of Brockton, but his gaze was focussed inward.

Another fatal accident in Brockton a month ago. Too many accidents. The three words kept pounding through his mind. Altogether too many accidents in a short space of time for such a small place.

A young girl from Orlando named Jeanette Henderson a month ago. A young attorney from Orlando last Thursday night. A girl who looked enough like Jeanette’s sister to be her double also last Thursday night. And last night a pair of cold-blooded killers named Gene and Mule assaulting Michael Shayne in a bar where no one could possibly have known he would be, dragging him out to their car and driving out onto a deserted country road to stage another “accident.” But for the grace of God and by virtue of an exceedingly hard head, he would have been the fourth “accident” victim within a month in Brockton.

Entirely too damned many accidents!

On an impulse, Shayne downed his drink and turned to the telephone book again. Luckily, he found only one Grimes listed, and he asked the switchboard for his number.

While he waited, he thought back to the scene of his arrest last night, and to the mock trial before Judge Grayson that morning. Grimes was the older cop who had stayed in the patrol car until his younger partner had succeeded in badgering Shayne into protesting his arrest. Not until Burke had called for help, had Grimes inserted himself into the situation.

And in court the older policeman had grinned at him with a twinkle in his eye when Shayne apologized for the trouble he had made. There were several things Shayne needed from the official police records, and if Grimes could be a pipeline…

A woman’s cheerful voice came over the line, “Hello?”

“Is Mr. Grimes there?”

“He is that. Hold on while I call him.” He heard her voice raised loudly. “George! Somebody wants you on the telephone.”

There was a brief wait and then a thick voice, “Yeh? Whosit calling?”

“A guy who promised to buy you a drink this morning.”

“Yeh?” Grimes’ voice was incredulous. “I don’t get it. Who’d you say?”

“In police court this morning. Mike Shayne from Miami.”

“Oh, hey! Sure.” Grimes chuckled deeply. “You still around? I made sure you’d had plenty of Brockton law.”

“I’m still around. And I did get away with the price of a drink. Wondered if you could join me for a couple?”

“Well, say, sure.” Grimes sounded pleased and he lowered his voice. “I don’t go on duty till four. Whereabouts?”

“You name it. I’m a stranger here myself.”

“Where you now?”

“The Manor Hotel.”

“There’s a little place down the street toward the station. Harry’s Hangout. Meet you there in twenty minutes?”

Shayne said, “It’s a date,” and hung up. He rubbed his jaw and decided he had lime to shave before meeting Grimes, and went swiftly into the bathroom.

10

Michael Shayne was seated in the front booth at Harry’s Hideout nursing a slug of domestic brandy in a tall glass, diluted with ice cubes and soda, when George Grimes came in the front door. The patrolman was in uniform, but his blue coat was unbuttoned, shirt open at the throat, and he was unarmed.

He paused inside the door and grinned quizzically at the redhead, pushed his peaked cap back on a broad, perspiring forehead and sat down opposite him. He said, “So it’s sure-enough true, huh?” wrinkling his wide nose at Shayne’s glass. “Just like you see it on TV. You private eyes do slobber up that stuff all hours of the day.”

Shayne grinned and said. “Not a damned thing you see on TV is true. You’re not working either, so how about you slobbering up some?”

Grimes shook his head as the small, dapper proprietor approached their booth. “Nothing stronger’n beer for me. Got to go on the four o’clock shift. Suds, Harry.”

“And keep his glass from getting too empty,” Shayne told Harry amiably.

“This is real nice of you,” Grimes told him. “Glad there ain’t no hard feelings about last night, though I guess I wouldn’t have blamed you much the way that Burke pushed you around.”

Shayne grinned and said, “Young cops. They’re all alike. Give him ten years on the Force and he’ll be taking it in his stride.”

“Yeh, but… You wasn’t sure-enough drunk last night, huh? Burke didn’t have no right…”

Shayne took a cigarette and slid the pack across to Grimes. He said, “Forget it. I will say I was quite impressed by the way you boys handle traffic problems. Shouldn’t have many accidents around here if you pick every guy up soon as he takes a few drinks.”

“We can’t get ’em all,” Grimes said genially. His beer arrived and he lifted the glass in a salute, drank half of it off and smacked his lips loudly. “Sure-enough, I’m surprised you’re still around. Take it easy, huh? I heard Ollie sweetening up Burke this morning for the way he handled you. He’s just plain got a down on privates, Ollie has.”

“Ollie?” said Shayne with interest. “That would be Chief Hanger?”

“Yeh. And a mean son-of-a-bitch if you ever saw one. You here on a case? Don’t see no blonde secretaries hanging around.” Grimes laughed heartily at his own wit and drained his glass.

“Matter-of-fact, I was just driving through last night. I’m not kidding, though, when I said I was interested in your auto accident rate hereabouts. Thought I might check a little and see if strict enforcement like you and Burke handed out last night does cut them down.”

“You kidding?” Grimes was ready to grin at the joke, but Shayne remained perfectly serious. “Hell, no,” Grimes said after a moment. “We have our fair share, I reckon. Just last night we had a hit-run outside town.”

“That so?” Shayne displayed a slight interest. “Just last night when you wouldn’t let me drive? Fatal?”

“Neck and back was busted.” Harry brought a full glass of beer and Grimes nodded his thanks to Shayne. “Not that it was any great loss,” he went on thoughtfully. “We can get along without Mule easy.”

“You mean it was a mule that was killed?”

Grimes guffawed at that. “Naw. Fellow they call Mule Larsen. Hangs around town doing odd jobs for drinks. And I mean odd more’n one way if you get what I mean.”

“Tough?”

“Plenty tough. Been hauled in three times I know of for beating guys up. One of ’em died, but they couldn’t prove Mule did it.”

“A quiet little place like this,” said Shayne thoughtfully. “You wouldn’t think there’d be any real crime problem. Like anybody to require the services of this Mule you speak of and his ‘odd’ jobs. I suppose you meant rough stuff by that.”

“Yeh.” Grimes turned his glass slowly on the table in front of him. “You get stuff like that anywhere, I guess. No matter how big or little the town. Hell, I started out as constable in Lemon Acres, population four hundred and seventy-two. Had a bootlegging syndicate there, by golly, that had more hoods on the payroll than people in church on Sunday. You just can’t never tell.”

“But bootlegging’s out now. Nothing like that in Brockton.”

“There’s always something undercover for the fast-money boys to shoot at. And where there’s big money involved, you always get your ‘protection’.”

There was a note in George Grimes’ voice that led Shayne to drop that particular subject before the patrolman clammed up on him. Grimes was eager for casual shoptalk with the city detective, but if he got the idea there was a reason behind Shayne’s questions he was unlikely to be so free with his generalities.

Shayne took time to empty his glass and catch Harry’s attention to signal for two more, though Grimes protested weakly that two beers were enough for him.

“This isn’t important and I don’t expect it to be anything official,” Shayne said casually, “but while I’m in Brockton I wonder if you know anything about a hood who’s supposed to headquarter around here. First name of Gene, I think.” He proceeded to describe the leader of the three men who had attacked him the preceding night, watching for Grimes’ reactions carefully as he did so. “I just remember I ran into some dope on him in Miami recently,” he ended. “Not my case, but something the cops were bothered about.”

Grimes recognized Gene’s description. There was no doubt about that in Shayne’s mind as he watched the patrolman’s face. But he wasn’t giving much away either. When Shayne finished, he said, “I think maybe I’ve seen him around, all right, but I don’t believe we’ve got any record on him. Some guys like that keep clean in their hideaways and pull all their jobs outside.”

“Sure, I know. What brought it to my mind was I saw a man in that bar last night. You know, the one where you and your friend Burke tagged me. Reminded me of the fellow I asked about. Just what kind of joint was that anyhow?” he added ingenuously. “I just stopped in for a drink by accident. Got the impression a lot of tough boys hung out there.”

Grimes shrugged broad shoulders, hunched over his third beer. “One of half a dozen places in town we keep an eye on. Jasper Black runs it pretty quiet and we don’t bother him. He’s the bartender. I wouldn’t want to flash a big roll there late at night and take too many drinks. Man could probably lay a bet there or get propositioned by a pimp if he was so-minded.”

Shayne nodded absently and sipped from his second glass of brandy and soda. “We’ve slid ’way off from my original question about your rate of traffic accidents. You mentioned a hit-run last night. Wasn’t there an other bad accident last week?”

“You mean the Harris boy from Orlando that got burned up in his car?”

“That’s right. District Attorney or something.”

“Yeh. That was a bad one, but nothing we could do anything about. Damn fool tried to take a curve too fast was all. Didn’t find him or his car till next afternoon.”

“Visiting his sister in the hospital, wasn’t he?”

“Naw. That turned out a phony lead. Nobody ever has found out why he was in Brockton that night. Guy in a filling station thought he’d stopped outside town to ask directions for the Sanitarium, but where he got killed was ’way off that route.”

“Maybe he drove to the Sanitarium first and then drove there.”

“No. It was ’way south of town. Not back toward Orlando. And he didn’t go near the Sanitarium. We checked.”

“What kind of Sanitarium is it?” Shayne asked idly.

“Private.” A fleeting expression of distaste screwed up Grimes’ ruddy face. “Dipsos mostly, I guess. Different kinds of nuts, from what you hear. Expensive as hell for city folks that can afford to take the cure. Mostly society dames, I guess, from cities all over like Miami and Jax. Even from as far as Atlanta and Memphis, they say. Stands out to itself and Brockton folks don’t have anything to do with it.”

“Strictly okay? They wouldn’t have any reason for denying a man came to visit his sister if he had?” There was faint hesitation on Grimes’ part, and again Shayne felt he was treading close to a dead-end beyond which he could not go in a seemingly casual conversation.

“Don’t see why they would.” It was almost as though he were arguing with himself. “It is private and exclusive as hell, I guess, and they don’t give out a list of patients to the papers. That’s why people pay their prices. For privacy. But I don’t reckon they’d lie to us. Ollie went out himself and talked to Doc Winestock.”

“That makes two accidents in a week,” said Shayne thoughtfully, deciding not to arouse any suspicion by bringing up the girl amnesia victim. “When was your last one before that?”

“Last what?”

“Traffic accident.”

“Oh. Well I got to admit we have been having more than our share hereabouts lately. That’s the way it goes. Nothing happens in a couple of years, and then you get a batch. Seems like sure-enough maybe there is something in that old saying that things go by threes. Hadn’t thought of it before, but Mule last night did make the third in a month. Funny, ain’t it? There was a young girl about a month ago. First bad accident, I do believe, for three-four years.”

“Happen here in town?”

“No. That was out on the highway, too. Forget her name, but she was a pretty little thing they said. Driving an old Ford coupe that went off the road on a curve, too. Rolled over half a dozen times before it landed.”

“But she didn’t burn up, too?” Shayne asked, masking his alert interest.

“No. Some driver saw it happen and pulled her out. She was banged up bad and died on the emergency operating table at the Sanitarium before recovering consciousness.”

“The Sanitarium?” Shayne couldn’t conceal his interest in this revelation. “The same one outside of town?”

“Yeh. It was the closest place to take her.”

“The man who saw it happen,” Shayne persisted. “What did he say caused the accident?”

“He never did say. Nobody ever did know who he was. He just dropped her at the Sanitarium and drove away in the excitement without ever giving his name. Never did show up to make a report.”

“Like the man who brought the Buttrell girl to your hospital just the other night,” said Shayne slowly. “You seem to have a lot of anonymous Good Samaritans operating in Brockton.”

“We do, don’t we for a fact? Well, you know how it is sometimes. A guy is maybe out some place where he ain’t supposed to be that time of night. Maybe he’s playing around with somebody else’s wife. So he does what he can to help out and then beats it without giving his name. Can’t blame him much. Not if he’s married to a battle-axe like I am.” Grimes laughed heartily and applied himself to his beer.

“That’s probably the explanation,” Shayne agreed. He changed the subject abruptly. “One thing I wondered about last night.” He laughed wryly and went on: “Gave me a completely wrong idea about the efficiency of your police department, I guess. Maybe I wouldn’t have stuck my neck out like I did if I hadn’t seen this other thing.”

“What was that?”

“While I was in that bar where you picked me up. There was a ruckus and one man got beat up. I saw the bartender call the police, but nobody ever did come to investigate it. Gave me the idea you boys were pretty slip-shod… and that turned out to be my mistake.”

“Is that so?” Grimes looked mystified. “They called the cops and nobody came?”

“That’s right. At least half an hour before I left and you and Burke pinched me. It got my goat to have you so on-the-ball for a parking ticket when you didn’t even bother to check the other.”

“I can see how that’d be, sure-enough,” agreed Grimes. “Funny, though. We got three radio cars on the streets all night. Any report of trouble should be covered in five minutes after it hits the despatcher.”

“That’s why,” said Shayne, “I asked you about the reputation of the joint. If maybe it was a place you cops stayed away from.”

“Nothing like that in Brockton. Must be some mistake.” Grimes was obviously nettled by Shayne’s implication against the probity and efficiency of the Brockton police. He glanced at his watch. “Take a walk up to the station with me and we’ll check what happened to the call. We may be a small town, but we got a system set up just as good as they got in Miami, I betcha.”

Shayne said, “I’d like to.” He left three dollars on the table and they went out together.

The Brockton police headquarters was like hundreds of others in similar towns which Shayne had seen throughout the country. It was housed in a modern, three-story brick building with court-rooms and city office above, and Grimes led Shayne around to a side door where they entered a small room divided in half with a shoulder-high counter. A uniformed man sat on a high stool behind the counter and yawned somnolently as they entered.

Grimes nodded as he led Shayne toward a rear door, and the man stopped yawning long enough to say, “Hi Georgie,” and to look at Shayne with a curious frown.

Grimes opened the rear door onto a wide corridor and turned to the right, telling Shayne, “The file room’s up here at the end. Only take us a minute to check and see…”

He broke off abruptly as a side door opened in front of them and a big man stepped into the corridor.

He was fat as well as being big in every direction. Well over six feet, with spreading shoulders and a thick torso, he had a huge paunch that hung out over his belt, his eyes were almost hidden by puffy rolls of fat on each cheek, and triple chins overlapping each other beneath an absurdly small and pouting mouth.

He stopped in the center of the wide passageway, filling it to the extent there was scarcely room for a man to pass on either side, and glowered at Grimes and Shayne as they approached.

Grimes slowed uncertainly and said in a placating voice, “Hi, Ollie. This here’s Mr. Shayne from Miami. Chief Hanger, Mr. Shayne. Being in the business himself, Mr. Shayne wants…”

Chief Ollie Hanger snorted loudly, like a sweated horse that has plunged his nose too deeply into a water trough.

“The big city shamus, huh? What’s he suckin’ up to you for, Grimes?”

“Like I was going to say, Chief. He just wants…”

“Well, we don’t want his kind in Brockton. You hear that, Shayne?”

Shayne said, “I hear you all right.” His fists were balled lightly by his sides and a muscle jumped at the left side of his tightened jaw, but his voice was placid.

“Get him out of here, Grimes. We do all right in Brockton without any help from private cops. Better get on out of town, Mister, before John Burke or some of the others like him catch up with you and run you in again.”

Shayne shrugged his own wide shoulders. He said mildly, “Tell Burke and your other tough boys that I’ll be expecting them next time.” He turned abruptly and walked back down the corridor, opened the door into the small side room and went out without looking back.

Fifteen minutes later he was in his car speeding out of town northward toward Orlando.

11

The Henderson house in Orlando was a neat stuccoed bungalow on a quiet side street flanked by similar bungalows on either side. There was a small area of neatly clipped lawn on either side of the walk leading up to the front door and a flame vine in riotous bloom over the front door.

It opened immediately to Shayne’s ring, and he was confronted by a precise little man with a perfectly bald head, wearing rimless glasses and a worried expression on his rather pale face. He wore neatly pressed brown trousers with a white shirt and neat bow tie, and a shabby corduroy smoking jacket, and had a shortstemmed meerschaum pipe in his hand. He looked up into Shayne’s face with soft brown eyes behind the rimless lenses and said nervously, “Yes? What can I do for you, sir?”

“I’m Shayne. From Brockton. I spoke to you on the phone…”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Shayne. Of course. Come right in. Do come right in.” The professor led the way down a short hall to a living room some twenty feet square. It was comfortably though shabbily furnished, and gave the impression of disorder though of basic cleanliness. A black Scottie lay outstretched on the brick hearth before the firescreen and rolled incurious black eyes at them without moving his body.

Professor Henderson paused in the center of the room, looking about vaguely as though surprised to find himself there. “I’m afraid… ah… you’ll have to excuse the appearance of things here. Bachelor quarters, you know. With Jean away this week. But do sit down, Mr. Shayne. You’ll find that chair comfortable if you don’t mind a few dog hairs.”

The professor seated himself across from Shayne in what was evidently his favorite lounging chair, with a shaded reading lamp by its side, a low table holding a tobacco humidor and large ash tray, and littered with ashes and spilled flakes of pipe tobacco. A large book in brown leather binding lay upside down open in the middle on the wide arm of the professor’s chair. He sat bolt upright and removed the glasses that pinched the bridge of his nose and held them deliberately aloft between thumb and forefinger.

“Now, sir. I understand you are a detective from Brockton.”

“That’s right, Professor Henderson. We don’t want to alarm you at this point, but there does seem to be some question about the identity of the girl who was previously identified as Miss Buttrell. Have you succeeded in making a definite check on your daughter’s present whereabouts?”

“I haven’t, Mr. Shayne. I put in another call to Roy Larch in Apalachicola after you telephoned, but his house doesn’t answer of course. The entire family is away on a cruise in the Gulf as I told you. And I have every reason to believe Jean is with them. Certainly,” he went on with nervous asperity, “the Larches would not have just gone on their cruise Friday if Jean had not arrived when they expected her. It simply isn’t like Roy and Maria. They have a daughter Jean’s age, you see, and Jean was to be company for her on the cruise. If anything had happened to prevent Jean’s arrival, they would certainly have contacted me before sailing without her.”

“It would seem so,” Shayne agreed. “And for your sake, I hope you’re right.” He lit a cigarette and looked around the small room frowningly, got up to walk to the fireplace to inspect more closely a framed picture of two young girls on the mantelpiece.

They were about seventeen and fifteen in the picture, he judged. The younger had a piquant, laughing face that brought a sense of bubbling gaiety into the quiet room. The other girl had a broad forehead and a serenely beautiful face. She was, undoubtedly, one of the most beautiful girls Shayne had ever seen.

And she was also, undoubtedly, the girl in the white dress who had come up and spoken to him in the Brockton bar the preceding evening-the original of the photograph on the front page of the Brockton Courier-the girl who had been positively identified as his daughter by a man who said he was Amos Buttrell from the Roney Plaza Hotel in Miami Beach.

The professor had risen and stood close beside Shayne. The sun-tanned top of his bald head came slightly above the detective’s right shoulder.

“Jean and Jeanette,” he said softly. “Taken two years ago. Wonderful girls, both of them. Yet so different. Jeanette was completely irrepressible. So like her dear mother who left us three years ago. Such a comfort after Mrs. Henderson was taken. We were a close-knit trio, Mr. Shayne. The long shadow cast by their mother’s passing was just beginning to dissipate when tragedy struck again last month. When Jeanette was…” His voice faltered and he gulped audibly. “… when she was killed in a motor accident as I told you. It was a difficult blow. A terrible blow. Jean is all I have left. If anything has happened to her now…”

Shayne continued to look straight ahead at the picture of the sisters. His eyes stung and he set his teeth together tightly. He turned away abruptly and went back to his chair and sat down. The professor remained before the fireplace, peering near-sightedly at the photograph with head lifted and both hands thrust deep into the patch pockets of his smoking jacket.

Shayne cleared his throat and said, “I can see they’re lovely girls, Professor. I certainly hope Jean is safe and this is wholly a false alarm. But as you said, it does seem quite a coincidence that both accidents happened near Brockton. What was your younger daughter doing in the vicinity when the wreck occurred?”

“Jeanette?” The professor turned troubled eyes on him and slowly replaced his glasses. “She was on her way to visit a school chum in a small village beyond Brockton for a few days. Driving her own small car. I thought it was perfectly safe. She was seventeen and had had her own license for a year. A very careful driver, I thought. Never had an accident before. And then… like a bolt out of the blue…” He shuddered and pain contracted his ascetic features. He turned slowly and reseated himself, mechanically picking up the meerschaum and uncovering the humidor to dip the bowl inside.

“I think the cause of the wreck was never determined,” said Shayne thoughtfully.

“No.” The professor was carefully packing tobacco into the bowl with his thumb. He got a kitchen match from his pocket, struck it on the underside of the table beside him and drew flame into the pipe. “Your police theorized that she lost control of the light car on a curve and went over the bank. Some passing motorist rescued her from the wreckage and rushed her to the nearest hospital but she succumbed to an emergency operation without regaining consciousness. And he disappeared in the night without leaving his name or telling exactly what happened.”

“I didn’t have any part in that investigation,” Shayne told him gravely as Henderson emitted a cloud of blue smoke that almost obscured his features. “Was there any possibility that the other motorist was somehow responsible for your daughter’s accident, and that motivated his abrupt disappearance after doing what he could for her?”

“The possibility was mentioned. However, I believe a subsequent careful examination of her car proved conclusively no other automobile was involved. It didn’t seem terribly important to me at the time. No matter how it came about, nothing would have given Jeanette back to me.”

“Were you perfectly satisfied with the treatment she received at the hospital she was taken to?”

“Why not, Mr. Shayne? I had no reason to question… are you intimating, sir, that there was laxity in the care she received?”

“I’m not intimating anything,” said Shayne bluntly. “I’m groping around in the dark. She wasn’t taken to the regular Brockton hospital, you know. But to a small private sanitarium on the outskirts of town.”

“So I understand. Because her condition was obviously serious and it was much the closer of the two to the scene. At least, so I was informed by your own chief of police who came in person to break the news to me.

“I’m sure the Sanitarium was closer.”

“I was assured personally by your Chief Hanger that everything humanly possible was done to save the child, and that was a great comfort to me. If I should learn now that there had been negligence…”

“I didn’t mean that,” Shayne cut in, realizing that such a suspicion could only arouse fresh sorrow in the parent. “You remember I asked you earlier if Jean was acquainted with a young Orlando attorney named Randolph Harris?”

“I remember that question. Yes. And I answered that I was quite certain she was not.”

“What about Jeanette? Do you think she might have known him?”

The professor was a little slower and less positive in his reply this time. “I’m quite sure I never heard his name before you mentioned it over the telephone,” he said stiffly. “But in all fairness, I must explain that Jeanette was not as close to me as her elder sister. She led a gayer life than Jean, and had a much wider circle of friends. It is possible he might have been among them and I was not aware of the fact.” He puffed more smoke from his pipe and sighed deeply. “It is exceedingly difficult these days to know just where to draw the line with young girls. They are so much freer today. Without a mother to exert a firmly guiding influence… it is exceedingly difficult,” he repeated. “Since the tragedy occurred, I cannot forgive myself for having weakly gone against my better judgment and allowed Jeanette to have her own car. Yet other girls her same age and in her social group did, and it was difficult to say no.” He smiled wanly. “It was always difficult to refuse Jeanette anything she had set her heart upon. And it was her own money that paid for the car. Their mother left each child a small cash inheritance to be absolutely theirs upon her death. It was her belief that girls needed the freedom and responsibility of having a certain sum that was their very own to do with as they wished. I’m sure her instincts were right,” he added gently, “and I cannot blame her for what happened.”

Shayne said, “Of course not.” He got out a small notebook and pencil. “Just to get everything perfectly clear… can you give me the name of the school friend Jeanette was going to visit when she had the accident?”

“A girl named Lois Dongan. A very sweet child. One of Jeanette’s dearest friends. She lives with her parents on a farm near the town of Diston. Just a few miles beyond Brockton. She and Jeanette were both in the freshman class at Rollins, and she often visited here during the semesters.”

Shayne made a note of the name in his book. “Would Lois be at home now, or at college?”

“Why… at college. She lives in one of the dormitories there and only goes home for vacations.”

“You don’t know which dormitory?”

“No. The registrar can give you that information, I daresay. But what has this to do with Jean, Mr. Shayne? I can’t see any possible connection…”

“Neither can I… at this point.” Shayne arose decisively. “But there are a couple of curious aspects that bother me. If you should get any definite information at all about Jean… if you think of anything that may be at all pertinent that you haven’t told me, please telephone me at once at the Manor Hotel in Brockton. Michael Shayne. You won’t forget that?”

“Indeed not.” Professor Henderson got up in some agitation and Shayne turned to study the picture on the mantel again.

“You have another picture of Jean I could take with me, Professor Henderson? A later one if possible.”

“Why yes, I… I believe I do. If you’ll wait just a moment…”

The professor bustled from the room and Shayne waited. He couldn’t bring himself to tell Henderson that he knew his daughter was not safely on a cruise with friends from Apalachicola. That he had seen her just the night before in Brockton, and that she was apparently consorting with a gang of hoodlums who took murder in their stride.

It couldn’t possibly do any good to tell the professor now, he told himself. The old boy had suffered grief enough from the death of his youngest daughter. Time enough for him to find out about this elder daughter after the mystery was cleared up. Perhaps she was still suffering from amnesia and didn’t even know what she was doing when she fingered him for the three men. Could be she’d had her attack of amnesia before getting the bus for Apalachicola.

Could be all sorts of implausible things, because there certainly didn’t seem to be any plausible answers at the moment.

The only thing he had to go on was the very tenuous fact that Jeanette had been taken to the Brockton Sanitarium after her accident by a man who had hurried away without identifying himself, and a filling station attendant thought that Randolph Harris had asked directions to the sanitarium the evening before he had his fatal accident-the same night Jean had been brought to the Brockton hospital and left there by another unidentified man after what appeared to be another accident.

None of it seemed to tie together at all. Except that all three of them lived in Orlando.

Shayne turned slowly from the fireplace as Professor Henderson reentered the room carrying in his hand a glossy 5x7 print of Jean’s head and shoulders.

Again, in this picture (a later shot and better likeness than the one on the mantel), Jean was serene and beautiful and unsmiling. There was an unpleasant constriction in Shayne’s chest as the professor handed him the print happily. “This is very good of Jean. Very like her. A lovely girl, Mr. Shayne, and a great comfort to me. If anything should happen to her…”

Michael Shayne said gruffly, “I’ll do my very best to see that nothing does, Professor Henderson. Thank you for helping, and I’ll be in touch with you.”

He stowed the photograph away inside his coat pocket and followed Henderson to the door.

12

Winter Park was a short drive from Orlando. A neat, pleasant village with the unmistakable atmosphere of a college town. Shayne went directly to the registrar’s office where he obtained, without difficulty, directions for finding the dormitory where Lois Dongan roomed. An obliging student assistant also checked Lois’ schedule for him, and he learned that the freshman was at that moment attending her last class of the day which would be over in about fifteen minutes.

He went back to his car and drove the short distance to the dormitory, parked outside in the shade and settled himself comfortably with a cigarette behind the wheel, hoping Lois would appear as soon as her last class ended.

Boys and girls passed on that sidewalk as he waited, some gaily chattering groups of three or four, but mostly in couples. The girls young and buoyant in short skirts and bright scarves on their heads, the boys young and grave in unpressed slacks and T-shirts.

It was the extreme youth of all of them that Shayne noted particularly. They looked like high-school kids to him. Yet he knew they must all be seventeen or older. It seemed to him that these were mere children compared to the seventeen-year-olds of his day. He, for instance, had been on his own for two years at that age, doing a man’s work and drawing a man’s pay. Many of the girls he had gone to school with had been married at eighteen, settled matrons by the time they reached voting age.

It was a distinct pleasure to watch them passing by, and he tried not to think of Jeanette Henderson as having been one of them only a month ago. And Jean, too. She would be a Junior, he assumed. He wondered idly how she had obtained leave from her classes to go on a cruise in the Gulf, and mentally noted that as one more question he should ask.

Twenty minutes had passed and he was working on his third cigarette when a group of eight or ten girls appeared from the direction of the college, and turned opposite his car onto the walk leading into the dormitory. Shayne slid from under the wheel and overtook them in long strides, calling as he approached, “Are any of you girls Lois Dongan?”

They paused in a group and turned to look at him curiously, and one girl detached herself from the others and said, “I’m Lois. Who’re you?”

She smiled as she spoke, which took away any hint of impudence, and Shayne smiled back, liking her at once. She was taller than most of her companions, and had a pleasant, well-tanned face. She was solidly fleshed without any excess fat, and stood flatly on low-heeled shoes with a nice look of candid curiosity in her brown eyes. A sensible girl and a trustworthy one, Shayne decided immediately, recalling Professor Henderson’s statement that she lived on a farm beyond Brockton. She had a self-reliant air of confidence that pleased him. He took off his hat and explained, “My name is Michael Shayne, Miss Dongan. Professor Henderson in Orlando suggested you might be able to answer a few questions for me.”

The professor’s name brought a slight cloud to her sunny features, though her eyes were as candidly curious as before. After lingering glances at the tall, red-headed stranger, the other girls withdrew and went on toward the building.

“What sort of questions?” Lois asked quietly.

“About Jeanette. I understand you were her best friend.”

The girl’s underlip trembled almost imperceptibly. “What… do you want to know about Jeanette?”

“Could we sit in my car while we talk? It won’t be quite so public,” Shayne urged as another group of girls came down the walk toward them.

She compressed her lips and then nodded. They went side by side to his car and Shayne opened the door on the right for her to get in. He went around to the other side, and saw her studying him intently as he got under the wheel.

“Shayne?” There was a question and a slight tremor of fear in her voice. “Michael Shayne. Aren’t you a private detective from Miami? I’m sure I’ve seen your picture in the papers.”

Shayne said, “That’s right, Lois. I’m investigating Jeanette’s… accident.”

She caught her underlip between her teeth and turned to look straight ahead through the windshield. In a moment, she asked in a strained voice, “What is there to investigate?”

“That,” said Shayne, “is what I hoped you’d be able to tell me.”

“She had an accident. She died,” said Lois in the same strained voice. “What else is there?”

“There was another fatal accident near Brockton last week. Perhaps you heard about it. A young lawyer from Orlando named Randolph Harris.”

Watching her profile carefully, Shayne thought he detected a faint expression of relief on her face. She turned to look at him and there was only curiosity on her face now. “I remember reading about it. What has that to do with Jeanette?”

“Weren’t they rather good friends?” Shayne asked bluntly.

Her “No,” was very positive. “I don’t think she even knew him,” Lois amended. “Wasn’t he quite old? A State’s Attorney or something?”

“He was all of twenty-six,” Shayne told her drily. “Did you know all of Jeanette’s friends?”

“I think so. All of her friends anyway.”

“Did she have many?”

“Scads. She was one of the most popular girls in the freshman class.”

“Had you known her long?”

“Ever since first year high-school. We used to live near Orlando until we moved to a farm near Diston two years ago.”

“And she was on her way to visit you there when it happened?”

There was the slightest indication of hesitancy before Lois answer firmly, “Yes. It was mid-term vacation beginning the fifteenth of last month.”

“Did you ever hear of the Brockton Sanitarium, Lois?”

This time there was no hesitancy in her reply. “That’s where they took Jeanette after the accident, wasn’t it? That’s the first I ever heard of it.”

“When did you first learn about Jeanette’s accident?”

“Early the next morning. Professor Henderson telephoned.” Lois shuddered and bit her underlip again. “I just couldn’t believe it at first. Not Jeanette. She was so… so vital if you know what I mean. So full of the joy of life. She was… wonderful,” she added softly.

“Hadn’t you been worried about her not reaching your house?” Shayne put in fast. “After all, you expected her the preceding evening.” He was guessing on this point, but it seemed reasonable to assume that a seventeen-year-old girl driving her own car would plan to arrive at her destination at a reasonable hour.

She was taken off base by the unexpected question and stammered, “I… I was surprised of course when she didn’t come and didn’t come. But I thought something had delayed her.”

“And you just went calmly to sleep that night,” asked Shayne harshly, “without bothering to call her home to see if she had left on schedule?”

Lois’ chin was set and her eyes flashed angrily as she faced Shayne again. “What right have you to ask me these questions? I had nothing to do with her accident.”

Shayne hesitated a moment, assaying the temperament of the girl beside him. His first impression remained strong. A sensible and trustworthy girl. And loyal to her friend’s memory. If she were concealing anything derogatory, wild horses wouldn’t drag it from her unless she were given a good reason for revealing it.

He said, “I don’t blame you, Lois, but I’m not just snooping for the fun of it. You know Jean Henderson, don’t you?”

“Of course. What about her?”

“I’m afraid she’s in trouble, Lois.”

Amazement and utter disbelief spread over the young girl’s face. She cried, “Jean? I don’t believe it. She’s not the type. She doesn’t… why I just don’t believe it.”

“I don’t know what type,” said Shayne wearily, “you expect to get into trouble, Lois. But I assure you that Jean is. And Brockton is the focal point again.”

“I thought Jean had gone on a cruise with the Larches in Apalachicola.”

“Her father also thinks that,” Shayne told her grimly. “But I saw Jean in Brockton last night. She’s in danger. In deadly danger, Lois. I’m working in the dark and I need any tiny bit of information I can get.”

“But what’s she doing in Brockton?”

“I don’t know. What,” asked Shayne deliberately, “was her younger sister doing in Brockton a month ago?”

“But I’ve told you. She was on her way to visit me.” The girl’s voice was pleading. She avoided Shayne’s eyes, nervously twisting her fingers together in her lap.

“And I don’t believe you,” Shayne told her promptly. “I’m convinced Jean’s presence in Brockton has some connection with her sister’s accident.” He was going out on a limb with that statement, but he had to convince the girl somehow and it was no time for half measures. “I tell you Jean is in danger and you’re the only one who can help me save her.”

There was a little silence after Shayne’s purposefully melodramatic statement. Lois’ face was working and she swallowed back a sob before saying in a low voice, “I don’t see… how it can possibly help Jean for me to tell you. I just don’t see how…”

“Tell me,” said Shayne gently, “and let me decide, Lois. In strict confidence,” he went on. “You’ve bottled it up too long. Jeanette is dead now. But her sister is still alive. Think of her father. He’s lost one daughter already…”

“I… I don’t know.” Blinding tears streamed down Lois’ cheeks. She turned slowly, her girlish face a mask of fright and bewilderment.

Shayne put his right arm tightly about her shaking shoulders and she convulsively buried her face against his shoulder and wept uncontrollably. He held her tightly until the sobbing subsided, then got a clean handkerchief from his left hip pocket and pressed it into her hand.

He said, “Dry your eyes, Lois,” and got out a pack of cigarettes as she drew away shakily and dabbed the handkerchief at her wet cheeks. He held the pack out without looking at her and asked impersonally,

“Want one?”

“N-no thanks. I–I don’t smoke.”

He lit one for himself and went on without looking at her. “What happened to Jeanette may not have a thing in the world to do with Jean. But I have to be sure, Lois. What did happen that night?”

“Why, she had an accident and was killed. You know that. Not right off, but she died during an emergency operation. They said she never recovered consciousness.”

“I know all that, but… tell me the whole truth, Lois.”

“I will.” She spoke thinly, wetting her lips and staring straight ahead through the windshield. “She really wasn’t going to visit me. Except the last couple of days. It was something we fixed up. So her father and Jean wouldn’t know.”

“Wouldn’t know what, Lois?”

“That she was… well, that she was going off for a few days with… with a man. She didn’t tell me outright who it was, but I guessed and she didn’t deny it when I did. Because she had this sweetheart, you see. She was terribly in love with him and they were engaged but her father thought she was too young to be engaged and she was afraid to tell him. And he didn’t like for her to go around with Will. He wouldn’t let him come to their house to see her. It was all so thrilling and romantic. They were sort of going to elope, she said. But she was under-age and couldn’t get married yet. And she had a theory that every couple should… you know…” Lois’ cheeks blazed crimson but she forced herself to turn and meet Shayne’s grave eyes defiantly. “… well, sleep together before they got married. That way, they’d know, you see. Whether they were really suited or not. Anyhow, that’s what Jeanette thought, and she begged me to help her. So I did. She told her father she was coming to visit me all through the vacation and I promised not to give her away.”

“Where did they plan to go?” Shayne asked carefully.

“I don’t know. She didn’t tell me, except they had some place picked out where they’d pretend to be married and no one would ever know.”

“Were they going to take her car?”

“I don’t know. I guess so. I don’t think Will has one of his own.”

Shayne drew in a long breath. “So he was probably with her in the car when it happened.”

“I… I guess maybe he was,” she agreed miserably.

“And you didn’t tell anyone this?”

“Why should I have?” she demanded wildly. “It was done when I first heard. Jeanette was dead. Nothing in the world would change that. I felt so sorry for Professor Henderson. He just adored the ground Jeanette walked on. She was so much like her mother who died three years ago. I couldn’t tell him the truth. Promise me you won’t.”

Shayne said, “I promised that whatever you told me would be in strict confidence. I agree that Professor Henderson must never know if it can possibly be avoided. Now tell me this, Lois. Did Jean know anything about her younger sister’s plan?”

“Gosh no! I’m sure she didn’t. I don’t think she even really knew about Jeanette being engaged. Jeanette wouldn’t dare tell her. Not that Jean’s a prude or anything. She’s just older and… different, sort of. She wouldn’t have understood and she certainly wouldn’t have approved. She would have done something to prevent it if she had known. I just don’t understand about her now,” faltered Lois. “What kind of danger is she in? Why is she in Brockton? Does Professor Henderson know about it?”

“Not yet. He isn’t going to know if I can help it until Jean is safely home. Who is the Will, Jeanette was engaged to?”

“Will… Lomax,” she said unwillingly. “Does he… will you have to tell him I told you?”

Shayne shook his head. “No reason at all for him to know where I got my information. Is he in college here?”

“Oh, no. He’s a town boy. I don’t know him really. I only saw him twice. Jean always slipped off alone when she went out on a date with him.”

“Where will I find him?”

“He lives here in town. I don’t know just where. I’m afraid he has a sort of wild reputation. He’s pretty old,” she confided. “About twenty-two or three, I guess. And he’s got a motorcycle and is a member of some sort of club that go around on their cycles. Jeanette told about riding on it behind him a couple of times on trips and what a thrill it was.”

Shayne said, “I’ll find him in a town the size of Winter Park.” He lifted a big hand and put it on Lois’ shoulder and squeezed gently. “You’ve been wonderful. And a big help. Go on now and try to forget all about it. Don’t worry about having betrayed Jeanette’s confidence. If she were alive, I’m sure she would have done the same for her sister.”

He leaned over behind her and unlatched the door on her side. “When you get engaged to some lucky man, try not to be too impatient. There are long, long years ahead for… what Jeanette didn’t want to wait for.” He felt choked up and paternal as the young girl responded to his advice with a wistful smile and slowly got out. He watched her walk slowly up the pathway toward the dormitory with bowed head, and then pulled away fast to begin his search for Will Lomax.

13

Michael Shayne stopped in front of the first drug store he saw, went inside to consult the telephone directory. There was only one Lomax listed, and that number didn’t answer when he tried to call it.

He emerged from the booth and went across to the prescription counter where an elderly, mild-faced man came from behind a partition to ask what he wanted.

“I’m trying to locate a young man named Will Lomax. Do you know him?”

“Would that be Jasper Lomax’s boy? Goodness me, I remember him in knee britches. Would he be a young man now? I guess he would at that. Time does fly, doesn’t it?”

Shayne politely agreed that it did, and asked the druggist if he could suggest where to start looking for Jasper Lomax’s boy.

“I couldn’t say for sure. You try phoning the house?”

“They didn’t answer.”

“Jasper drives a taxi. U-m-m, let’s see now. I recollect hearing recently something about Will. In some sort of trouble, I think. Nothing serious but some cussedness he’d got into. Tell you what. You walk down to the next corner where you’ll find Officer Herschel directing school traffic. He knows every kid in town and where they hang out.”

Shayne thanked him and went down the street to the next corner where a big red-faced man was genially herding a group of small children across the street.

The elderly policeman nodded at once when Shayne asked about Will Lomax. “Known him since he was knee-high to a grasshopper.” He studied Shayne keenly. “What was it you wanted him for?”

“To ask a couple of questions about a college girl he’s been dating.”

Herschel had to step out to halt traffic for another group of children, and when he returned to the curb he asked Shayne bluntly, “You a dick?”

“Private. From Miami. Michael Shayne.”

“Say. I’ve heard about you. This mean trouble for Willie?”

“I don’t know. What sort of boy is he?”

“Wild,” said the officer succinctly. “Not bad, but just a showoff. He’s got in with a gang that roars around the country on motorcycles. They got a sort of clubhouse where they hang out just out on the road to Sanford. If he ain’t there, they’d maybe know where he is.” Shayne got directions for finding the clubhouse and went back to his car. It was just outside the city limits, an old derelict farmhouse that was easily identified by four motorcycles parked in the yard in front.

Shayne pulled into the driveway and got out. A hand-painted sign over the front door said, THE RED RAIDERS’ ROOST.

He heard a juke-box playing inside as he went up on the sagging wooden porch to the door. He turned the knob and went in.

There was a large square room brightly lighted by a hundred-watt bulb in the ceiling. The juke-box stood just to the right of the door, and there were a dozen or more rickety wooden chairs scattered about the bare floor. An ancient pool table was centered under the ceiling light, and two youths were playing rotation. In a far corner, another pair were on their knees shooting craps for small change, and three others were seated in chairs tilted back against the rear wall drinking beer out of cans.

The pool and dice games came to an abrupt halt as Shayne walked in unannounced. Seven youthful faces turned in his direction as though jerked by strings, and seven pairs of eyes regarded him with animosity.

They were all in their early twenties, and all dressed alike in what Shayne knew to be a sort of uniform worn by similar groups of young cyclists throughout the country. It consisted of tight-waisted Levis cinched low on swaggering hips with wide leather belts, and turned up high at the bottom so they came well above the ankles; dark T-shirts with the emblem of a racing motorcycle stitched in silver thread on the front; short, loose, black leather jackets that were uniformly unbuttoned; high, tightly-laced black leather half-boots, carefully shined to gleaming brightness.

None of the seven said anything. They studied Shayne appraisingly, with a disdainful air of arrogant truculence which they made no effort to conceal.

Shayne said, “Is Will Lomax here?”

One of the pool players moved slowly toward him. He did not put down his cue, but reversed it so the heavy end hung downward. He was heavy-set and dark-browed, with pimples on his face and a front tooth missing. He said belligerently, “This here’s a private club, Mister. You ain’t been invited.”

Shayne made an impatient gesture. “I was told in town I might find Will Lomax here. That your name?” He knew it wasn’t as he spoke. One of the trio drinking beer in tilted chairs at the back rocked forward so the front chair-legs thudded loudly on the floor. He stood up with his thumbs hooked in the front of the wide leather belt, and swaggered a little as he moved forward.

He was tall and lean and moved with the fluid grace of a wild animal. His face was very dark, and a lock of black hair slanted downward across his forehead. There was a reckless glint in his black eyes, and he was quite handsome in a daredevil sort of way. The two crap players gathered up their dice and money and rocked back on their heels watchfully. The others remained as they were, tense and waiting.

The tall youth stopped beside the cue-wielder and asked Shayne dispassionately, “What do you want with Will?”

Shayne said, “I want to ask you a few questions. About Jeanette Henderson.”

The dark face in front of him tightened. “What gives you the idea I’m the one you’re looking for?”

Shayne shrugged impatiently. “Mind stepping outside with me where we can keep this private?”

“Why, yes Mister.” The words were drawled out slowly and provocatively. “I reckon I do mind.” He turned his head slowly to rake his glance across the reinforcements behind him. Two more chairs thudded forward, and the dice players got to their feet.

He turned back, and white teeth showed in his dark face in an insolent grin. “You a copper, or what?”

The pimply-faced boy with the pool cue stepped two paces to one side and two paces forward so he stood directly on Shayne’s left. The others were lazily drifting forward.

Shayne said wearily, “Cut out the tough kid stuff, Lomax. You either talk to me here or we go down to headquarters and talk.”

“Hear that, fellows?” Will Lomax seemed vastly amused. “This here one’s real tough, I guess. Out-of-towner, too.” He swung back to sneer at Shayne. “What you carrying that says I go down to headquarters?” Out of the tail of his eye, Shayne saw the lad on his left set himself solidly and heft the heavy cue. He stepped forward fast and hit Lomax full in the face, knocking him sprawling on his back on the floor. At the same moment he whirled and ducked a wide swing of the cue stick and drove his left fist into the pit of the swinger’s belly.

He collapsed with a grunt and the cue clattered to the floor. Shayne kicked it into a corner and turned to face the other six.

The five on their feet had halted uncertainly in their advance. Two of them were fumbling in their pockets where Shayne supposed they had switch-blades concealed. Will Lomax was sitting up on the bare floor with blood gushing from his nose and a look of wild hatred on his twisted face.

“Get wise to yourselves, punks,” Shayne advised them shortly. “Push me just a little bit more and I’ll take all of you in.” He strode toward them contemptuously and they sidled backward, glancing uncertainly at each other, bereft of leadership with Lomax ungallantly sitting on the floor holding a handkerchief to his bleeding nose.

Shayne stooped over him and caught the lapels of his leather jacket in his left hand and lifted him to his feet. He held him at arm’s length and told the others, “We’re going out to sit in my car and have a talk. First one of you comes through the door, I’m driving in with Will. Stay inside, and he may come back all in one piece.” He turned and went through the open door, dragging Will Lomax behind him. He heeled the door shut, pulled the dark-featured youth upright and shoved him across the porch toward his car. “Just forget about how tough you are, Sonny,” he advised him coldly. “I’m going to get some answers if I have to beat them out of you.” Lomax shambled ahead a few steps and then whirled about with clenched fists, sobbing, “Goddamn you. Goddamn you to hell! You goddamn smart bastard. Just because you’re bigger’n me…”

“That’s it exactly,” said Shayne coldly. “Just because I am bigger, you’ll take it. Get in the front seat there and tell me about you and Jeanette.”

He gave him another shove and the young man’s defiance crumpled. He walked slowly to the car and got in, sat bolt upright on the far side of the seat with handkerchief still pressed to his nose as Shayne got in beside him. “Who are you,” he asked sullenly, “and what you want to know?”

“I’m a friend of Professor Henderson’s for one thing. I want to know all about that trip you were taking with Jeanette when she was killed a month ago. She was under-age, you know, and there’s a legal phrase for it. Contributing to the delinquency of a minor. I don’t want to hurt the professor by having it come out in the open, but that’s up to you.”

“What do you mean?” mumbled Lomax. “Jeanette and I never… you got no right to say that. What trip you talking about?”

“The pre-marital honeymoon you and she had all planned. Don’t waste time denying it,” Shayne went on wearily. “I know you were in her car with her that night near Brockton. I want to know exactly what happened.” Will Lomax turned incredulously as he spoke, and slowly took the handkerchief away from his nose where the bleeding was reduced to a mere trickle. Shayne had a definite impression that there was gladness and relief in the black eyes. That this wasn’t the question he had expected and feared, and the boy’s voice confirmed that impression as he spoke.

“You’re nuts, Mister. I wasn’t near Brockton that night and I can prove it. I didn’t even know anything about it until I saw it in a paper two days later. Sure, I dated her sometimes even if her old man did treat me like dirt under his feet, but I hadn’t seen her for a week before she had the accident.”

“Were you waiting for her to join you some place that night?”

“I sure wasn’t.” Will’s upper lip curled away from his teeth and his voice had a note of jeering triumph. “I was in R.O.T.C. camp at Gainesville when it happened. You can check on it easy enough. Bed-check at nine every night and not a damned pass from camp for two whole weeks. I don’t know what kind of bee you got in your bonnet. We were both sore because I had to go for spring training the same time as her vacation, and she was going to visit with a girl in Diston. Name of Lois Dongan. You can ask her.”

Shayne didn’t bother to tell him he had already asked Lois. Will’s voice and manner bore the strong stamp of truth. It would be a simple matter to check his statement, of course. He’d be a fool to make it if it weren’t true.

“If you weren’t the one she was going off with,” said Shayne harshly. “Who was it? Who else was she playing around with while you were in camp?”

“Damn you,” Will snarled angrily, and braced himself to swing an ineffectual fist at Shayne’s face. “There wasn’t nobody else. Jeanie and me were…” He stopped and swallowed hard. “We were in love, damn it. She never looked at another man. I don’t know who in hell you are, but you sure ain’t going around fouling up her memory with such stories. You do that and I’ll get you, by God, if it’s the last thing on earth I do.”

“What about Randy Harris?” Shayne demanded.

“Harris?” The youth’s jaw fell open slackly. “Never heard of him. Wait a minute. You mean that lawyer over in Orlando that got burned up in his car last week? What about him?”

“You sure Jeanette wasn’t two-timing you with him?”

“Sure I’m sure, Mister.” Will’s voice was sullenly dogged. “She wasn’t two-timing me, period. She was my girl and we were going to get married as soon as she was eighteen.” He took on a sort of youthful dignity as he said this, and his hand reached out to unlatch the door.

Shayne made no move to stop him as he got out. He stood beside the open door and said, “I’m going back inside now. Some of the fellows are going to be pretty sore about the way you barged in on us and threw your weight around. Tough as you may be, I wouldn’t stick around Winter Park after dark if I was you.”

He held his head high and walked stiffly away toward the farmhouse. Shayne sighed and started his motor and backed out the driveway.

Despite his disinclination to do so, he couldn’t help believing Will Lomax. But the hell of it was, he also believed Lois Dongan. She hadn’t, he realized, stated flatly that Will Lomax was the man Jeanette had planned to stay with during the period she was supposed to be visiting Lois. In fact, Lois had admitted that Jeanette had not told her who she was going with. Knowing that Jeanette and Will were supposed to be in love and engaged, Lois had assumed Will was to be her companion. But it might have been anyone else at all. Jeanette probably wouldn’t have told her closest friend the truth, Shayne decided as he drove morosely back to Winter Park. Lois was young and sentimental, and it had seemed perfectly all right and romantic to her to help Jeanette go away with the man she was engaged to marry, whereas she might have refused to lend herself to the scheme had she known the man was someone other than Jeanette’s fiance.

Discovering his identity now would take a lot of digging, Shayne told himself uneasily. And he didn’t want to waste any more time away from Brockton where Jean Henderson had last been seen. She was more important now than her younger sister who had been dead for a month.

14

On a sudden impulse, Michael Shayne braked his car and swung in to the gas pumps at the Squaredeal Filling Station just outside of Brockton. His gas tank was three-quarters empty, and he got out and said, “Fill it up, please,” to the brisk young man who trotted out from the office to wait on him.

He waited until the gasoline was running before asking casually, “Your name John Agnolo?”

“That’s right, Mister.” The young man’s voice was cheerful, his face was intelligent and showed a certain amount of curiosity as he regarded the stranger.

“I’m doing some checking on the man who was burned up in his car last week-end,” Shayne explained. “I understand you thought he stopped here for gas Thursday evening before it happened.”

“Yeh. I did think it was him at first. Same make and color of car. And when they showed me his picture at the police station I was ’most ready to swear it was him that asked me how to get to the Sanitarium, but if it was I guess he changed his mind and turned off on the other fork instead because they said he didn’t go there.”

Shayne frowned. “According to the paper, you gave him a pencil sketch showing how to get there, and it wasn’t a difficult route.”

“That’s right. I sure did. Drew it out for him. ‘You just turn left at the next light,’ I told him, ‘and keep going straight till the road forks where there’s a sign. You take the left fork,’ I told him, ‘and you can’t miss it.”

“But his car was wrecked on the other fork?”

“That’s right. About a mile from where he should have turned left.” Gasoline gurgled up from the tank, and Agnolo shut off the pump. He hung up the hose and replaced the tank cap and asked Shayne, “Want me to check your oil and water?”

“They’re okay. You might give the windshield a swipe.” Shayne followed him around to the front and went on, “You’re not sure whether the man was alone or not?”

“I was pretty sure at first there was someone with him, but I could be wrong. I just didn’t notice particularly. They said at the Sanitarium that a fellow who looked like him was there about the right time that night to see his sister, so I reckon I must of been mistaken. It wasn’t anything I could swear to, you see.”

Shayne gave him a five-dollar bill as he finished cleaning the windshield. He took his change and got in, pulled out onto the highway again and followed it to the first traffic light. He turned left and was on East Avenue, and glanced at his speedometer. It registered almost exactly two miles from the light when the road forked in front of him.

He slowed and clearly saw the neat sign on a post directly ahead in the Y of the fork where a car’s headlights could not fail to pick it up at night. It said, BROCKTON SANITARIUM, and there was an arrow pointing to the left.

Shayne followed the arrow up a winding, black-topped road a half mile to a high fence of meshed wire with swinging gates closed across the road barring the way. Beyond the gates, landscaped grounds sloped upward to a large, sprawling white building almost concealed from view by a row of gnarled magnolia trees.

There was a small brick shelter beside the gate, and a man stepped out of it as Shayne pulled up with his bumper against the steel gates. He was a small, spry man of about sixty, wearing a faded gray smock and gray trousers that had the look of a uniform. He unlatched a narrow gate that was a part of the bigger one, and came around to Shayne’s side of the car. His face was brown and wrinkled and his eyes a wintry blue. He leaned ah elbow on the door and extended his hand. “Let’s see your card.”

Shayne said, “I haven’t any card. I want to see Dr. Winestock.”

The old man shook his head. “Can’t let you through ’less’n you got a card.”

“It’s personal,” Shayne told him.

“Can’t help what it is. You don’t get in without a card. Them’s my orders.”

“It’s police business,” Shayne said.

He continued to shake his head obstinately. “I got no orders to admit a policeman.”

“What kind of place is this?” demanded Shayne angrily. “Why are you afraid of visitors?”

“Private, that’s what. Patients pay for privacy and we aim to see they get it. Happens some of ’em don’t want visitors… they don’t have ’em.”

“Are you on the gate at night?”

“Till eight, mostly. Then I get a relief. Look, Mister.” The old man’s voice was placating. “It ain’t my rule. You got to phone up for an appointment first if you ain’t got a card. That’s the way it is and no amount of talking in this world will change it. You go back and do that and if I get word to let you through, you go through. Not no otherwise.” He turned back and walked behind the car and reentered the grounds through the small gate which he carefully latched on the inside.

Shayne sat immobile behind the wheel and lit a cigarette, peering through narrowed eyes up the green slope to the white building behind its screen of trees.

It was very quiet here in the late afternoon sunlight. Very peaceful and serene. Unaccountably, a shiver traveled slowly up the detective’s spine as he sat there moodily regarding the well-guarded sanitarium.

He shrugged and backed away in an arc on the wide apron that had been thoughtfully provided in front of the gate for visitors who weren’t allowed through, cramped the wheels and drove back toward Brockton.

At the fork half a mile away, he slowed, debating whether to take the other turn and drive out to investigate the scene where Randolph Harris’ automobile had gone off the road on a sharp curve and burst into flames at the bottom of a ravine.

He decided against that, and continued in to town on East Avenue. There would be nothing there for him. Nothing that the police had not already thoroughly investigated.

He was a mile beyond the fork when he noticed the car behind him in the rear-view mirror. It was far back and coming fast when he first noticed it as he rolled along at moderate speed, and he had no way of knowing whether it came from the Sanitarium or the right-hand fork behind him.

Deep in thought as he reviewed the perplexities of the problem confronting him, Shayne forgot the car behind him as he drove on, until he suddenly realized it hadn’t passed him yet-as it certainly would have done had it continued at the speed it was coming when he first noticed it.

Another glance at his mirror showed him it had slowed to the same moderate pace he was driving at a point about a thousand feet behind, and was keeping that distance as he continued on.

The road ahead was empty for half a mile, and Shayne abruptly stepped hard on the gas pedal. His heavy sedan leaped forward with a surge of smooth power, and his speedometer needle moved from thirty to sixty in a distance of five hundred yards.

A grim smile tightened Shayne’s features as the car behind him fell into the trap and responded immediately. It was slower to accelerate and he was pulling away fast, approaching the residential section of Brockton where there were cross streets leading in both directions.

He took his foot off the gas to let the other car regain its distance behind him, and stepped on his brake hard when it was again no more than three hundred yards in the rear.

His tires squealed their protest and he fought the wheel hard to swing the heavy car across the road in front of the other, but the second driver realized what he intended and didn’t try to slacken speed. He increased it instead, and a light gray sedan careened past Shayne on his left before he could slow enough to block the roadway, outer tires going off the pavement and flinging gravel from the shoulder as it shot by.

There was only one man in the front seat, hunched forward over the wheel as the gray car shot past, and Shayne caught only a momentary glimpse of a snap-brim hat pulled low over the driver’s forehead as it went by.

He cursed and whipped his foot from brake to gas pedal and the Hudson accelerated fast from almost a dead stop, but the gray sedan was fleeing ahead like a frightened antelope and made a screeching turn on a side street before Shayne could regain enough speed to remain in sight.

He didn’t attempt to follow the other driver around the corner. With no knowledge of the geography of Brockton, he realized it would likely be useless.

He thought the man in the gray sedan had been Gene. He couldn’t be positive because he hadn’t seen his face, but the snap-brim hat and the tilt of it were definitely remindful of the man who had tried to kill him the preceding evening.

He drove on into town, putting two and two together, and getting five or six for the answer each time he did so. If Gene had followed him from the Sanitarium… if his slowly awakening suspicions about the nature of the place were correct…

Two and two still added up to six no matter how he twisted the meager supply of facts at his disposal. Jean Henderson was still the key to the puzzle. Why had a stranger positively identified her as his daughter and taken her from the hospital? What had she been doing last night in Brockton? Why had she come up to speak to him as he sat alone in a bar-room booth that he had entered by the merest chance? Why had her apparent recognition of him brought on the immediate attack by Gene and his companions?

The questions kept passing through his mind again and again as he entered Brockton’s Main Street, and the image of the girl was clearly before his eyes as he had first seen her standing timidly inside the door of the bar-room less than twenty-four hours before.

So it was almost like a physical materialization of his own concentrated thoughts when he saw the figure in the white silk dress with its distinctive green embroidery of Mexican symbols moving toward him on the crowded sidewalk across the street.

Today, on the street, she wore a wide-brimmed Leghorn hat that hid her features from Shayne, but he would have recognized that distinctive dress anywhere, in any crowd.

She was almost opposite him when he saw her, and he was in a stream of slow-moving traffic that would not allow him to stop at once.

He looked ahead frantically for a parking space, breathed a deep sigh of thanks when he saw an empty spot along the curb a few car lengths ahead.

He set his teeth together and swore harshly when the car directly in front of him slowed and stopped just beyond the parking space, and the woman driver signaled her intention of backing into it.

Normally a polite driver, Michael Shayne shed all pretense of politeness under the sharp necessity of getting his car out of traffic and hurrying back to intercept the girl in the white dress.

He shoved forward and cut in sharply, grazing the left front fender of a parked car, forced his right front wheel up onto the sidewalk and cut it back viciously to squeeze into the curb before the woman could start backing into it.

He snatched his keys from the ignition and leaped out, trotted across the street, disregarding the angry voice of the driver whose rightful place he had preempted.

When he reached the opposite sidewalk, he thought for a moment that he was too late, that Jean had turned in one of the many store entrances along the street where he might never find her again, but as he plowed forward through the stream of pedestrians, he saw her half a block ahead and he breathed more easily.

She was sauntering along looking in the shop windows, and Shayne came up behind her fast. He slowed into step beside her and looked down at the spreading brim of straw that hid her face, and then without speaking he took her bare upper arm in a firm grip and stopped her on the sidewalk.

A gasp of astonishment came from beneath the hat brim and she turned to look up at him indignantly.

He had never seen this girl before in his life.

15

She was about twenty-five, with a plump, over-rouged face. Her mouth was small and petulant, but the indignation in her blue eyes slowly faded away as she looked the rangy red-head up and down.

Damn it, he couldn’t be mistaken about the dress. There couldn’t be two exactly alike in a town like Brockton. It was obviously hand-embroidered even to Shayne’s untutored eye, not at all the sort of thing that came off a New York assembly line.

She said, “Well…?” and looked down at his big hand still tightly holding her bare arm.

He didn’t let go. He said with a slow grin, “At the risk of sounding trite… I did actually mistake you for someone else.”

From her expression, he gathered that she didn’t know the meaning of the word trite. But she was also apparently willing to be lenient about his mistake. She tossed her head coquettishly and said, “Whyn’t you run along then and look for her some more?”

Shayne said, “Why bother? Now that I’ve found you? How about letting me buy you a drink to make up for my rudeness?”

“Why, I wouldn’t mind, I guess. “Not,” she added sedately, “that I drink with strange men as a rule. But seeing you did make a mistake like you say…”

Shayne looked up the street and saw a sign, COCKTAIL LOUNGE, a few doors up. His fingers tightened on her arm to turn her toward it and he fell into step beside her. “This place be all right? I’m a stranger in Brockton,” he added.

“Sure. The Elite’s real nice. I figured you must be new here, on account I never saw you around before.” She rolled her blue eyes up at him from under the drooping brim of her hat. “And you don’t look like Brockton,” she added, “if you know what I mean.”

He said gallantly, “And you don’t either, if you know what I mean.” He guided her through the door into the dim interior of a cocktail lounge that had red leather benches all around the walls with rows of small tables set close together in front of them.

“I’m not really,” she said with a toss of her head as they sat down in a corner by themselves. “Kind of nice little one-horse town, though. Quiet and easy-like if you’re tired of cities like I was. I been around plenty. West Coast and all over.” She gestured vaguely, leaning both elbows on the table and pushing her pouting mouth forward to let him insert the end of a cigarette between her lips.

A waitress came up to their table and Shayne looked at her with ragged red eyebrows lifted enquiringly as he put a lighted match to the other end of her cigarette. She drew in smoke and let it curl languidly from her nostrils and asked, “Could I have a rum Old-Fashioned, Miss? You know, you make it with rum instead of…”

“One rum Old-Fashioned,” said the waitress.

“And a double brandy,” said Shayne. “Imported if you have it. Ice water on the side.”

He looked at the girl with all the approval he could muster and told her, “I knew right away you didn’t belong in Brockton. Just by that dress you’re wearing for one thing. You didn’t buy that in any store here.”

“N-n-o.” She looked down at the dress with distinct pleasure. “I’m glad you like it. It’s one of my… uh…it sure has got real class, hasn’t it?” she ended complacently.

“Looks like a million dollars. Mexican, isn’t it?”

“Uh… oh sure. That’s right it is. What’d you say your name was?”

“Mike Shayne.” He watched her round face but observed no reaction. “What do I call you?”

“Flo.” She giggled. “That is, you can if we’re going to get real well acquainted. And I bet most of the girls call you Red.”

The waitress brought their drinks. When she deposited them and went away, Shayne lifted the brandy glass to his nose and sniffed deeply. It was cognac. Hennessey, he thought, but still cognac.

“Whereabouts in Mexico?” he pursued. “You ever live there?”

“Tia Juana, I think it was. I was there to the races once with this actor fellow from Hollywood. Gee, he was a card. Five and ten dollar bets on every race.” Her voice was awed. “But not stuckup a bit. A real good Joe.” She drank half her drink and set the squatty glass down. “What’s your line… Red?”

He said, “I’m a detective.”

“You wouldn’t kid me, I bet.” She giggled. “Like the nannygoat said to the Billy.”

Shayne said flatly, “I wouldn’t kid you, Flo. That’s why the dress you’re wearing interests me so much. You see, it wasn’t you I recognized on the street. It was that dress. I’m working on a case involving the theft of a whole shipment of expensive Mexican hand-embroidered dresses just like that one. You didn’t buy that in Tia Juana.”

Her expression was first frightened and then outraged. “Who says I didn’t?”

“I do.”

“You can’t prove it.” Her voice was shrill. She looked down and gulped the rest of her drink. “Aw, you’re just kidding,” she appealed to him. “You’re no more a detective than I’m the Duchess of Windsor. I don’t like cops and I can spot one a mile off,” she added candidly. “You can bet your bottom dollar I wouldn’t be sitting here letting you buy me a drink if you was one. I just don’t like cops.”

Shayne said, “I’m private. Maybe that makes a difference, Flo.”

Her blue eyes rounded into more perfect circles. “You mean one of them private eyes that goes around slapping dames and tearing their clothes off? Like that Mike Hammer in the movies?”

Shayne said, “Not exactly like Mike Hammer, Flo. But I still want to know where you got the dress you’re wearing.”

“I already told you.”

“A lie.” Shayne held up one finger to the waitress and nodded to the girl on the leather bench beside him. “I don’t accuse you of stealing it, Flo, but there’s a big reward offered if I catch the gang that snatched them. Maybe some boy-friend gave it to you. Tell me the truth and no one will ever know you’re the one that gave me the tip.”

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and stared down at the table as another drink was placed before her.

“How big a reward is it?”

“Big enough,” Shayne told her promptly, “that I can spend a piece of cash for information.” He got out his wallet and extracted a twenty. Flo’s eyes glinted as he folded it twice length-wise and held it carelessly on the table between the first two fingers of his left hand.

“I’m not any stool-pigeon,” she gulped. “I wouldn’t want to get anybody in any trouble.”

“Likely as not the person you got it from is just as innocent as you are,” Shayne encouraged her. “But it may be the lead I need to get onto the trail of the real crooks. You’d even be doing her a favor, most likely,” he went on persuasively. “Give her a chance to pick up one of these for her information.” He wagged the bill on the table and her eyes settled on it greedily.

“How do you know it was a her?” she objected. “You said awhile ago maybe my boy-friend gave it to me.”

“But I didn’t really believe it. You don’t look like the sort of girl to run around with crooks. It was a girl, wasn’t it, Flo? And just today, too?”

There was distinct fright in her eyes now as she jerked her gaze up to meet his. “How’d you know that?” she gasped.

“I told you I’m a detective. It’s my business to know things. Look. Why do you think I’m here in Brockton on this case? Because we got a report one of the stolen dresses was seen here yesterday. But the girl who was wearing it doesn’t fit your description. That’s why I was surprised when I nailed you on the street and then saw your face. Don’t you see how it adds up?”

“Sure. I guess I do now. Maybe you are a detective at that.” She lifted her drink undecidedly and sipped from it. “I thought at first it was just a line. Fellows are always thinking up new ways of picking a girl up on the street.”

“Can’t blame them when you’re the girl.” Shayne reverted to gallantry again and was rewarded by a pleased smile.

“You’re just saying that to get me to tell you what you want to find out.”

“I wouldn’t kid you, Flo… like the billy-goat told the nanny, ha-ha. You give me your address, and when I get this case sewed up, I’ll show you. So, how’s about helping me sew it up fast?”

“I… just don’t know. I sure wouldn’t want to get her in no trouble by blabbing off to you. She acted real nice, but I knew there was something funny about it when she claimed she liked my dress best and offered to swap hers even. Just a little blue and white print that’s been washed half a dozen times. I told her, I said I betcha your dress cost a lot more’n mine. Twice as much, maybe. And it’s hardly been worn at all.” She looked down at her newly acquired dress again and fingered the material.

“But she said no she was tired of wearing it and wanted a change and she was broke flat until she collected her first pay and I’d be doing her a real favor if I’d trade right then.” Flo sighed dreamily and gulped down more of her drink. “Would you need this one for evidence, maybe?”

“No,” Shayne assured her. “All I want to know is where I can find the girl you got it from.”

“Well… I don’t know.” She looked at him with underlip quivering. “I wouldn’t want to make trouble for her. I could tell she was frightened and worried sort of when she first showed up and asked for the job.”

“What job?”

“At the place where I work.” Flo looked at him calculatingly. “You act like a detective, all right, snapping questions at a person like that. But I don’t know yet whether I ought to tell you. I remember thinking when she was so crazy to trade off dresses with me that maybe she was in trouble and hiding out, and wanted to get rid of it for that reason. I sure wouldn’t want to…”

“Look,” said Shayne, restraining his impatience as best he could. He reached inside his coat and drew out the photograph of Jean Henderson her father had given him, and pushed it across the table beside Flo’s drink. “That’s the girl, isn’t it?”

She looked at the picture and wet her lips and nodded. “That’s her, all right.”

“Her life may be in danger right now,” Shayne told her, making his voice hard. “The gang of dress thieves are trying to find her, too, because she wasn’t supposed to wear that in public where it could be seen. If I don’t get to her before they do. I don’t know what they may do. And it’ll be your fault, Flo. Don’t forget that. It’ll be too late to change your mind then. The best way in the world you can help her now is to tell me where she is.” He moved the folded bill closer to her hand as he spoke, and after another moment of hesitation she reached out and plucked it from between his fingers.

“Well, all right I guess. She just came to work this morning. There was a card in the window, see? It said ‘Waitress Wanted. Experience Unnecessary.’ So she came in wearing this pretty dress and nervous like she never had a job before. Which I guess she hadn’t maybe. Leastways, not waiting on tables. No make-up at all, and her hair not even brushed. But you could see she’d be real pretty if she was fixed up a little. So Mr. Entwhistle gave her the job and turned her over to me to show her the ropes. She tried hard but, my god, she didn’t know from nothing about waiting tables. But I showed her some of the tricks and by the time the lunch-hour rush was over she’d got the hang of it pretty good. Then when I got out of my uniform and was changing to take my regular time off before supper, she said maybe I’d like to trade dresses with her because she was tired of wearing this one and liked mine a lot better. We’re both fourteens, so hers fit me perfect. You wouldn’t know it wasn’t fitted special for me, would you?”

Shayne said between tightly set teeth, “No. Where is this place you work, Flo?”

“On Union Street. Just off Main. It’s not very classy, but they do serve good food. Their Businessman’s Luncheon Plate Special is a real bargain and we have a big rush at noon. Lots of the real important men in Brockton come there to eat. And the tips are pretty good. Hardly ever less than a quarter, and with a table of four they generally leave a dollar.”

“Will this girl be there now?” Shayne asked when Flo finally ran down.”

“Yes. She’s working straight through today. There’s four of us girls, see, and we work straight through every other day. Two of us do. We’ve been shorthanded for a week and I’ve got back-time coming, so I don’t have to go back till six-thirty.”

“You haven’t told me the name of the restaurant, Flo?”

“That’s right, I haven’t.” She looked at him wisely. “I just don’t know…”

Shayne said, “Don’t be silly.” He got out his wallet and beckoned to the waitress for a check. “I already know it’s on Union Street just off Main, and Mr. Entwhistle runs it. How long do you think it will take a detective to find it?”

He got up leaving some bills on the table, and she slid out hurriedly to stand beside him.

“I’ll walk along and show you. Then if you’re telling me any lies, I’ll be right there to see for myself. If you aren’t a detective like you say, don’t think I won’t call the cops fast.”

Shayne said, “Fine. Let’s go.” He took her arm and they went out the door, blinking as they emerged from the dimness into the light of late afternoon.

The sidewalk was momentarily deserted as Flo turned back in the direction she had been walking from when Shayne first saw her.

He didn’t notice the light gray sedan parked directly in front of them at the curb until a loud gunshot shattered the afternoon quiet of Brockton’s Main Street. The girl in the white dress and drooping hat sagged against him as two more shots followed swiftly. Pain seared the top of Shayne’s shoulder and stung his thigh, and he flung himself forward instinctively to cover Flo’s body as she crumpled to the sidewalk.

As he went down he caught a glimpse of a low-pulled snap-brim hat above the steering wheel of the gray sedan not six feet away, and it roared away from the curb before he could see anything else.

16

Flo was dead. The first bullet had struck her at the base of the throat and gone on to smash the spinal column. Blood gushed from the wound and stained the concrete sidewalk beneath Shayne as he crouched on hands and knees over her body.

An excited group gathered about them swiftly as Shayne slowly pushed himself up and found he could stand erect despite the flesh wound in his thigh. He put his hand up on his left shoulder and it was warm and came away smeared with blood.

Uniformed men came running up from two directions and pressed the curious crowd back from Shayne and the dead girl. He snapped at them, “It was a man in a light gray sedan. Plymouth, I think. Get it on your radio fast. The girl is dead.”

One of the officers went to telephone, and a druggist who had emerged from his shop beside the cocktail lounge looked at Shayne’s wounds and volunteered first aid. Shayne limped into the drug-store behind him and he got bandages and sulpha powder and bound both wounds so they stopped bleeding. He didn’t stop talking while he worked:

“… knew they were pistol shots soon’s I heard them from in the back here. First time anything like that ever happened in Brockton. Broad daylight too. Now hold your arm out steady and this won’t hurt. Just nicked you, by golly. A sixteenth an inch lower would have ripped the muscle. There you are. Now let’s see that hip. I’ll just have to make a cut in your pants here. Gangsters, you reckon? Right here in Brockton? Shooting at you, huh? Or the girl? Stranger in town, aren’t you? Didn’t think I’d seen you around before. There we are. This one’s deeper but you got more room here for it to be deeper, ha-ha. Just stand still now.”

Shayne thanked him and offered to pay for the bandages when he was done, but the druggist refused, insisting he was happy to be of service.

Shayne walked to the door, stiff-legged, just in time to see a patrol car pull into the curb in front of the spot where Flo still lay.

George Grimes was at the wheel. His beefy face was grave as Shayne circled the body toward him. Officer Burke stepped out briskly on the other side. He came behind the patrol car and grabbed Shayne officiously by the arm. “What’s going on here? Who’s the girl and what happened?”

Shayne stood very still and disregarded him. He addressed Grimes. “Same guy I asked you about this afternoon. Remember? Driving a light gray sedan. Probably a Plymouth.”

“You come along and tell it to the chief at headquarters,” said the younger officer sternly. “He’s not going to like this big-city shooting stuff in Brockton a-tall. Told you once before to get on out of town, didn’t he?” Shayne stood close beside Burke and looked into his eyes for a long moment with his right fist balled up at his side and his muscles flexing dangerously. Then he made himself relax, and told Burke in a tight voice, “Just the sort of games I do enjoy, of course. Sure. Let’s go tell Ollie all about it.” He jerked his arm loose from the other’s grasp with a sudden turn, stepped sideways and opened the back door of the patrol car.

Burke hesitated a moment, torn between his desire to take Shayne in like a fugitive and his fear of appearing ridiculous before the large group of townspeople who were gathered on the sidewalk watching the scene curiously. He turned away after a moment and circled around the car to the front seat and got in beside Grimes, who had turned to ask Shayne, “Who’s the girl? What in hell happened anyway?”

“Drive on, George,” he said gruffly, before Shayne could reply. “You know Ollie’ll want to handle this himself.”

Grimes grunted something, but turned back to put the car in gear and pull away from the curb just as an ambulance came up behind them.

Shayne sat silent on the back seat while they circled the few blocks to police headquarters. He was out first when Grimes stopped in front of the side door, and he went through swiftly to the rear door through which Grimes had taken him before.

Burke came sprinting across the small room behind him, ordering brusquely, “Hold on there, Shayne. I’m taking you in to the chief.”

Shayne turned in the doorway and showed his teeth in a grin that was more a snarl than a smile. “Lay a hand on me, Burke, and I swear I’ll knock your teeth down your throat.”

The officer slid to a stop, his face turning a furious crimson. “You see here, Shayne. I don’t take that kind of talk…”

Shayne turned his back contemptuously and strode down the corridor to the room from which Chief Hanger had emerged earlier that afternoon. The door was closed and Shayne went in without knocking, drawing it shut behind him.

It was a large clean office and the chief’s big body was ensconced in a swivel chair behind a flat desk in the center of the room. He had a telephone to his ear and was listening intently, and his only movement as Shayne entered was the shifting of his eyeballs behind the rolls of fat in the detective’s direction.

The door was opened behind Shayne immediately as he stalked toward the desk.

The chief said into the phone, “Okay for now,” and replaced it. Behind Shayne, Burke’s voice came hoarsely and out of breath, “I was bringing this shamus in like you said, Chief, for questioning about the killing on Main Street, but he broke loose and barged right in…”

Shayne kept his back turned. He stopped in front of the desk and leaned forward with the fingertips of his right hand resting lightly on the flat surface. “If you don’t get that punk off my neck, I will.”

Chief Ollie Hanger said, “Beat it, Burke.”

The policeman’s feet shuffled uneasily behind Shayne, and Burke said, “Well, heck, Chief…”

“Beat it.”

Shayne and the chief both maintained their positions until the door of the room was closed and they were alone. Then Hanger’s swivel chair creaked loudly as he ponderously settled back and clasped his hands together in front of his fat belly. “I told you to get out of town while the getting was good.”

Shayne said, “I’m beginning to like it in Brockton.” He turned and pulled a straight chair closer to the desk and lowered his body into it gingerly.

“Who was the woman you just got killed on Main Street?”

“The one that got shot down by one of your local hoods, who then calmly drove away in front of the whole police force?” Shayne asked savagely. “She told me her name was Flo.”

There was a rap on the outer door and Hanger said, “Come.”

A young man in a gray suit and wearing horn-rimmed glasses entered and laid a slip of paper on the desk in front of Hanger. “That’s all they got so far.”

He went out briskly and the chief studied the slip of paper. “Florence Dinwiddy. Waitress at the Union Cafe. Died instantly. Probably a forty-five slug.” He put the paper down and rolled his eyeballs at Shayne. “Why was she bumped, Shayne?”

“Ask the man that triggered her… and me. We had a drink together in the Elite bar and walked out and he started throwing lead. That’s all I know.”

“Nuts,” said Chief Ollie Hanger. “Was she helping you on something?”

“I never saw her before this afternoon.”

“Nuts again. You know, you’re in a real bad spot, shamus. You better come clean fast.”

“In a spot because I can’t buy a waitress a drink without getting myself shot?”

“You might put it that way. We never had any trouble like this in Brockton till you turned up here. That girl would still be alive if you’d got out of town when I ordered you to.”

Shayne said, “Maybe.” He shook out a cigarette and lighted it.

“So now you quit horsing around and give me the story. This is my town, Shayne, and I aim to know what’s going on. If you’ve got legitimate business here that your private license entitles you to have, lay it on the table and we’ll cooperate. What brought you here in the first place?”

“I was driving through last night and stopped off for a drink before going on to Miami. Your boy Burke picked me up on a parking ticket and slugged me with his partner’s help and I spent a pleasant night in your stinking can. So I decided I’d stick around a little and see what makes your town tick.”

“So why’d you tell Dr. Philbrick you were checking on the amnesia case for the girl’s father?”

Shayne shrugged and spread out his hands. “All right. I was trying to keep it quiet while I found out a few things.”

“You claim now you are working for Mr. Buttrell in Miami?” The chief’s voice was hard as flint. Shayne sensed the trap behind the question. If Hanger had done some checking of his own and learned that Amos Buttrell was a phony, he’d know an affirmative answer from Shayne was a lie. And if Shayne denied it, he’d be left without a client to explain his interest in the girl.

He said, “All right. Buttrell isn’t my client. I used that gimmick to get Philbrick to talk. The Miami Daily News is interested in the story and I’m getting together the facts for them. Is that legitimate business that my license entitles me to have in Brockton?”

“If it happens to be the truth.”

“Call the City Desk and check with Timothy Rourke. He’s the one sent me out.”

Chief Ollie Hanger said, “I’ll maybe do that. And if you’re lying I’ll throw your singed butt into the can for more than one night. Even if you’re not, I want to know what your interest was in Florence Dinwiddy that got her killed.”

“I met her on the street and bought her a drink.”

“Why?”

“Didn’t you ever have an impulse to buy a pretty girl a drink?”

“Maybe. But I didn’t end up murdering her.”

Shayne said, “That’s your job, for god’s sake. Maybe she’s got a jealous husband. Your men picked up the killer in the gray sedan?”

“Not yet. Nobody seems to have seen him except you, Shayne.”

“If your cops weren’t so busy dragging me into jail, maybe they’d have time for something else.” Shayne dropped his short cigarette butt on the floor and toed it out angrily. “You going to arrest me this time for getting myself shot on your main street?” He stood up as he spoke, and glowered down at the fat chief of police.

“Not this time. But I’m giving you a last warning. Get out of Brockton and stay out.”

Shayne turned away and walked out of the office with a slight limp. Burke was lounging against the wall just outside. He started eagerly erect when Shayne came out and looked hopefully through the open door behind the detective. Shayne grinned at him and said, “Not this time, Burke. Ollie and I are real palsy-walsy and the next time you bother me I’m not going to restrain myself.” He continued down the corridor to the outer room where George Grimes was loitering at the counter talking to the man on his stool behind it.

He joined Shayne eagerly and asked in a low voice as they went out, “What the hell goes on around here?”

Shayne said, “I wish I knew. First time I ever got pulled in for letting myself be shot at.” His voice and manner were grim. “Which way is Union Street from here?”

“Turn to your left two blocks.” Grimes walked beside him, dropping his voice still more. “What you said back there on Main Street. You mean the guy that shot the girl was the one named Gene you mentioned this afternoon?”

“I’m pretty sure it was, George.” Shayne stopped and looked down into the worried red face gravely. “That give you any ideas?”

“No,” Grimes disclaimed hastily. “That is…” He looked around furtively and lowered his voice still more. “I told you this afternoon I’d maybe seen him around. In Ollie’s office, that’s where.”

Shayne nodded slowly. He said, “You better get on back to your car. Don’t forget the last person seen talking to me is dead.”

He went away toward Union Street in long strides, leaving Grimes gaping after him.

17

There wasn’t much business in the Union Cafe when Shayne entered a few minutes later and stopped just inside the front door to look it over. In the lull before dinner, only three of the wooden tables covered with red-and-white checked cloths were occupied.

A young couple sat against the wall near the front, more interested in each other than in the food before them. Halfway down the long room a farmer and his wife and two children sat at a table for four, sipping water from tall glasses while they waited for their meal to be served, and farther on a white-uniformed waitress was standing with her back to Shayne in conversation with a male customer who sat alone at a small table.

The waitress appeared taller than Shayne remembered Jean Henderson to be, but at that distance the soft ringlets at the nape of her neck looked as golden as Jean’s and he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t she without seeing her face.

A tall, white-haired man sat behind a cash register at Shayne’s right as he stood there looking down the room, and when Shayne did not move for a matter of thirty seconds, he asked, “Would you like a table, sir?”

Shayne hesitated, still watching the waitress at the rear, but she showed no inclination to turn so he could see her face. He moved over in front of the cash register and told the proprietor with a worried frown, “I’m really looking for my sister. She had a fight with Mom last night and left in a huff and hasn’t come back. We live in Orlando,” he went on swiftly, “and a friend of mine here in Brockton telephoned me this afternoon that there was a new waitress just started here today that looks like her. I drove right over and I wondered…” Again his speculative gaze went to the rear.

“Your sister, eh?” The white-haired man’s voice was sympathetic. “I did hire a new girl this morning. We’ve been short-handed for a week and I didn’t bother much about references. You know how it is getting help these days. She said her name was Marion Smith. Would that be her?”

“She probably wouldn’t give her right name. Mom’s terribly upset, and if I don’t get her to go home with me…”

Then he saw her. She pushed through swinging doors at the rear carrying a heavily loaded tray held out stiffly in front of her gripped tightly in both hands. She was wearing a white uniform like the other waitress and her head was bent forward, gaze fearfully fixed on the loaded tray as she came with short, mincing steps toward the party of four waiting for their dinner.

“That is Jean,” Shayne said swiftly to the man. “Imagine her coming here and getting a job. I hope you don’t mind if I…”

Jean Henderson lifted her gaze from the tray at that moment and looked directly at Michael Shayne. Her eyes widened and her mouth made a big O, and her hands let go of the tray.

It crashed to the floor with a clatter of broken crockery, and Jean stood stiff and frightened for a moment, then whirled about frantically as though to escape.

But Shayne was striding toward her, and he leaped over the broken food and dishes on the floor to catch hold of her wrist and jerk her back.

A little whimper of anguish broke from her lips as she tried to tug away, but Shayne inexorably drew her close and tucked her arm through his.

“I’ve come to take you home with me, Sis,” he said loudly, and pulled her toward the cash register while getting out his wallet with a free hand.

He grinned with embarrassment at the proprietor and proffered a ten-dollar bill. “I hope that’ll pay for the damage, Mister. And maybe another five for the uniform she’s wearing, huh?” He laid another bill on top of the first one. “Don’t want to let her loose even to change now I’ve found her. Aren’t you ashamed of going off like that and frightening Mom half to death?” he went on severely to Jean. “You come right on home and apologize.”

She stood beside him laxly, staring straight ahead with a blank look on her face and with her lips tightly compressed.

“Well, sir, I guess that’ll cover it all right,” said the proprietor uncertainly, scooping up the bills. “If she’s a minor, I reckon I don’t blame you any, wanting to take her home.”

Shayne said, “Sorry for all the trouble. Come along, Sis.”

She moved beside him through the door like an automaton, as though she had no will of her own, like a small child bewildered and frightened by the inexplicable rage of an adult and timidly afraid to question the cause of it.

Shayne held her arm firmly locked inside his and hurried her toward Main Street. The light changed on the corner as they reached it, and he crossed to the other side where his car was parked in the place he had left it when he had first sighted Flo.

He led her around to the left-hand side, not trusting her to sit quietly while he got in, opened the door and thrust her in under the wheel roughly, maintaining his grip on her wrist.

He said quietly, “Move over so I can get in and don’t try anything, Jean. I’m not in a mood for arguments right now.”

She stiffened and jerked her head around and her eyes were wondering and puzzled as he spoke the name aloud. She said, “Is… that my name? Are you… my brother?”

“Don’t you remember?” Shayne kept his voice casual. He got in beside her and inserted the key with his left hand, started the motor and put the automatic transmission in gear.

She went to pieces then, and sank back against the seat sobbing piteously. “I don’t remember… anything. You’re not my brother, are you? You can’t be. You’re the man that I… that I saw in the bar last night. What are you going to do with me?”

With the car moving in traffic toward the hotel, Shayne let go of her wrist and glanced at her appraisingly. She was as beautiful as he remembered her. And her bewilderment and distress seemed genuine. He said, “We’re going to have a long talk. About lots of things.” He was nearing the hotel and he saw an alleyway running back along the side of it with a sign that said: PARKING FOR HOTEL GUESTS.

On an impulse, he turned into the alley and drove back where there was a lot of empty space in the rear. And, as he had surmised, there was a rear entrance into the hotel for the use of guests who left their cars there.

He stopped and let Jean get out on the right side and come around to him. The expression on her face puzzled him as she came up to stand directly in front of him and put both her hands on his arms. Tears glinted in her blue eyes and there was a look on her young face that was almost exaltation. She looked directly up into his eyes and her voice was tremulous.

“I don’t know who you are, but… I have the strangest feeling that I’m not frightened any more. That everything is all right finally. Are you my brother? Tell me, are you?” Her fingers tightened on his arms and she shook him hysterically.

Shayne looked down into her face and believed her. And he felt sorry as hell for her, though he didn’t know why he should feel sorry for a girl who had done her best to get him killed.

He said, “I’m not your brother, Jean, but we’re going in the hotel the back way and up to my room. And if anybody sees us going up or sees you there, you’re to tell them you are my sister. Do you understand?”

She said very simply, “Yes. I’m so tired of not understanding. If you only knew how terrifying it is.”

He said gruffly, “We’ll talk inside,” and took her arm and led her toward the rear door.

There was a narrow hall leading directly to the lobby in front, but just before they reached it they came to a stairway leading up.

Shayne told her, “This will be better than the elevator,” and they climbed the stairs silently to the fourth floor. They reached his suite without encountering anyone, and he unlocked the door and stood back to let her enter. She walked ahead of him docilely and seated herself on the extreme edge of a chair with her hands folded in her lap, looking around the room with grave interest as though she had never seen a hotel sitting room before.

Shayne took a DO NOT DISTURB sign off the inside knob and hung it on the outside. He double-locked the door, flung his hat across the room and stood looking at her while he rumpled his red hair fiercely.

She sat and looked at him submissively.

He crossed to the open cognac bottle and turned to her with it in one hand and a glass in the other. “Would you like a drink before we begin?”

“I… don’t think so. You see, I don’t think I drink. It tasted awful when they gave me some whisky a couple of days ago.”

Shayne bit his underlip in perplexity and turned away from her to pour an inch in the bottom of the glass. The ice cubes were melted in the pitcher, but he diluted the liquor with an equal portion of cool water.

He sat down and regarded her soberly and said, “Let’s start with last night. You remember that all right, do you?”

“Oh, yes.” She seemed eager to answer. “I remember everything perfectly well after that one night. They said at the hospital I had a concussion and it caused amnesia.”

“Last night,” Shayne reminded her, “you walked into a barroom and came to my booth and spoke to me. Then all hell broke loose and I got slugged by three of your friends. Why?”

She shuddered. “Not my friends. That awful Gene and Bill. And the other one I’d never seen before we picked him up in the car last night. Mule, they called him.” Her face contorted and tears slid down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I thought they’d killed you when I ran out. I didn’t know what to do. I… I… what did they do?”

“They tried to kill me. Why?”

“Because they thought… because I… because I stopped at your booth instead of going on to the right one beyond you. I couldn’t do it to him,” she tearfully pleaded with Shayne. “Don’t you see I couldn’t? He’d been so kind to me that night. And he looked so little and defenceless sitting there. And you were so big and… and, well, tough-looking. It just came over me all at once when I saw you both. I hadn’t planned it that way. But I knew they planned to do something terrible to him as soon as I told them which one he was, so I just couldn’t do it to him. You do see why I couldn’t, don’t you?” She was leaning far forward with glistening eyes that begged him to understand and forgive. In a moment Shayne thought she’d be on her knees before him.

He said, “I don’t see… yet. Sit back and relax and let me get one thing clear if I can. They brought you there to identify someone for them? And he was sitting in the booth behind me. But you didn’t want to put the finger on him, and so you picked me instead. Someone you’d never seen before. Is that the picture?”

“Yes,” she said gladly. “I know it was a terrible thing to do, but like I said, you looked, well…”

“A little better able to take care of myself with Gene and his pals than he did,” Shayne ended for her with a wry grin, recalling the meek little man he’d noticed sitting alone in the rear booth when he first entered the bar. “All right. So I did manage to take care of myself… no thanks to you. Who was the man you were supposed to finger for them?”

“I don’t know his name. He picked me up on the road and dropped me in front of the hospital that night.”

Shayne considered this a moment, tugging at his earlobe. “What did Gene have against him? Strong enough to cause him to try and kill me after you pointed me out as the man?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Jean Henderson shuddered and her blue eyes pleaded with Shayne to believe her. “I knew they might do something awful. I just felt it. From the beginning when they started in on me and kept after me to describe him. I kept telling them I didn’t know anything about him. And I don’t really. I just had one good look at his face when he stopped to let me out at the hospital. When they first asked me, I made the mistake of admitting I had seen his face. But I didn’t describe it to them. I kept saying he was just sort of ordinary. But that’s why they took me to the bar last night. Because I had seen his face once. Please tell me what it’s all about,” she begged. “Why did they keep me locked up in a room? What happened to my… to the man who said he was my father and took me away from the hospital?”

“Let’s finish up last night first. What happened to you?”

“I got away from them. I saw my chance when you started fighting and Bill came running in to help Gene and the other one. He had stayed outside, you see. To keep me from running away. I was supposed to point you out and then turn and go out to Bill again. He had a car waiting and was going to take me away while Gene and Mule ‘took care’… that’s what they called it… of you.”

“So you ran out?” Shayne prompted her. “What then?”

“I didn’t know where I was. Not even what town I was in. I didn’t have a penny. I just ran up the street to get away. And I came to a little hotel sign with stairs leading up off the street, and I ran up. There was a dirty lobby and a really nice old clerk. I made up a story about being on a date and having a fight with a man and running away. And I offered him my wristwatch if he’d give me a room for the night. So he did. And I signed the first name I thought of, Marion Smith from Miami. And went to bed.”

“And this morning you walked down the street and stopped at a restaurant where you saw a Help Wanted sign in the window, and applied for a job as waitress?” Shayne supplied for her.

“Yes, I… I didn’t know what to do. I was hungry and desperate. You don’t know what an awful, desolate feeling it is.” Tears ran down her cheeks and she struggled to hold back her sobs. “I’m not anybody. I don’t know where to go or what to do. And with those men after me…”

“Why didn’t you go to the police at once? That’s what they’re for.”

“I was afraid to. I don’t know just why, but from things Gene and Bill said, I think they’re in with the police in Brockton. They didn’t seem a bit worried about any of the things they did. And that awful fat Chief of Police! I couldn’t bear facing him again.”

“When did you meet Ollie Hanger?”

“At the hospital. When Mr. Buttrell came to take me away. He was there with Doctor Philbrick. I was scared even then and felt there was something wrong. I just didn’t think he was my father. But he insisted that he was, and I was so dazed and frightened, and so happy to have somebody recognize me that I didn’t protest. But later, after Gene and Bill had me locked up, I thought about it a lot and it seemed to me Chief Hanger was awfully anxious to have me go with Mr. Buttrell. I don’t know. They didn’t say anything out loud, but I had the impression they knew each other and were sort of in it together. That’s why I was afraid to go to the police.”

“You were probably smart,” Shayne told her somberly. “Before we go back any farther, tell me what happened after Mr. Buttrell took you away from the hospital?”

“He was awfully kind. And fatherly, I guess, in an oily sort of way. He had a car waiting, a blue Buick sedan, and said we’d drive straight back to Miami to have my doctor examine me. And we drove out of Brockton and stopped at a drive-in place where he got a bottle of beer and a chocolate malted for me. I thought it tasted funny and sort of bitter, but I wanted it and drank it down. I began to feel dizzy and sleepy before we even drove away… and that’s all I remember. Until I waked up in that locked room all by myself, and I haven’t been out of it since, until last night.”

Michael Shayne took a long drink of his diluted cognac and set the glass down firmly. “It’s all over now. You have nothing to be afraid of, and you’ll be home with your own father soon. You believe that, don’t you? You trust me?”

She said, “Yes,” gladly and without hesitation. “Back in the restaurant when you said you were my brother, I had the strangest feeling of peace and happiness. I just didn’t know how you could be, but it came to me that maybe that was why I’d picked you out last night in the bar. And I wish you were my brother,” she added impulsively.

Shayne acknowledged the undoubtedly sincere compliment with a grin. “Your name is Jean Henderson,” he told her slowly. “You live in Orlando with your father, Professor Henderson. You’re a student at Rollins College where he teaches. Does that bring anything back to you?”

She knit her brow fiercely and put her fingers up to her eyes. He watched while her lips moved inaudibly, and he knew she was repeating the name to herself over and over again. When she looked up at him and shook her head, her face was blank, her eyes frantic with disappointment and fear again. “It just won’t come back. Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“It will,” Shayne told her cheerfully. “Stop trying so hard. Think about other things. It’s all there. Locked away in your subconscious mind. There’s just a physical block caused by your head injury between conscious memory and your unconscious. Let’s go back now to what you do remember. What is your first conscious memory?”

“It was night and dark and I was alone stumbling down a strange road,” she said in a low monotone as though she had repeated it often before and the lines were memorized. “I had a dreadful headache and I was bruised all over and I didn’t know who I was or where I was or how I’d gotten there. I just didn’t… know. I kept walking and after a time a car came up behind me and it stopped when I waved and a man jumped out and asked me what was the matter? And I tried to explain to him how it was. And he was nice and didn’t ask many questions and helped me into the back seat and said I needed a doctor. And he drove on in the dark for what seemed a long time, and there were the lights of a town ahead and he said it was Brockton and he’d take me to the hospital and drop me off at the door, and he asked me to promise to let him drive away without being seen and not to tell anybody what he looked like or anything about him. And I promised, but I asked him why, and he said it would just ruin everything for him if his wife found out he was out in that direction that night because she thought he was somewhere else. And he sounded sad and frightened and I felt sorry for him and promised. Because he had been kind and stopped on the road to pick me up, and he stopped in front of the hospital and I got out and he drove off fast, and I waited until he was out of sight before I went in.”

Shayne sat silent for a moment, considering her story. It sounded to him like the truth. But how did it tie up with the other bits of information he had gleaned? Her sister’s death in an auto accident in the same vicinity a month ago. Randolph Harris’ fatal accident the same night she had been hurt. The coincidence of her sister having been taken to the Brockton Sanitarium after her injury, and a man answering Harris’ description having asked directions to the Sanitarium a short time before he died.

He emptied his glass and said quietly, “Lean back and relax, Jean. Shut your eyes and try to make your mind a complete blank. I’m going to mention some names. Don’t tussle with them. Don’t try to remember. Tell me if any of them evoke anything.”

She nodded and wet her lips and settled back in the deep chair. She drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes, folded her hands in her lap.

“First there’s your own name. Jean Henderson. That didn’t get us anywhere. Let’s try Jeanette. Jeanette Henderson. A sister, perhaps. A younger sister. Don’t bother to answer me unless something comes through. Randolph Harris.” He spoke the name distinctly and waited a moment. “A young lawyer, Jean. From your home-town of Orlando. Assistant to the State’s Attorney there.”

He waited again but there was no flicker of response on the girl’s face.

“The Larches who live in Apalachicola and have a sailboat. Mr. and Mrs. Roy Larch. They have a daughter about your age, Jean. I don’t know her name but you are assumed to be on a cruise on the Gulf with the Larch family now. Lois Dongan,” he went on slowly when there was still no response from Jean. “Your younger sister’s best friend. Also a student at Rollins. Will Lomax. Another friend of your sister’s. The Brockton Sanitarium, Jean. Not the hospital you were taken to. The Sanitarium.”

Her eyelids flew open and she sat up, her face showing excitement and hope. “It was there! I almost had it. I know it was there. Something dreadful, it seemed. Something so dreadful my mind just closed down and refused to admit it. The Brockton Sanitarium! What is it? What should I know about it?”

Shayne studied her tortured young face gravely, reminding himself that he knew nothing whatever about psychiatry, and this fooling around with a human mind might be dangerous as hell. But there was a fierce urgency within him to get on with it. Hardly more than an hour before, he had seen another girl gunned down in broad daylight in front of his eyes because she had been with him and was wearing Jean Henderson’s distinctive dress.

He set his teeth together hard and said, “For one thing, Jean, the Brockton Sanitarium is where your younger sister, Jeanette, died last month after an automobile accident.”

Her face went white and she shrank back in the chair from the impact of his words. “My… sister… died there?” she said weakly: “Oh, God! If I only could remember. If I could only remember something. I think I’ll die if I don’t. I can’t go on living this way! Don’t you see that I can’t?” Little bubbles of spittle showed on her lips as her voice rose in hysterical shrillness. Her eyes were round and glazed and she beat her clenched fists impotently on the upholstered arms of her chair.

Shayne was on his knees beside her instantly, cursing himself for a blundering fool while he caught both her hands in a grip tight enough to cause physical pain.

“Stop it, Jean!” His voice was harsh and commanding. “Stop it and listen to me. I’m not going back any more. Not yet. Not until you’re ready. We’re going to talk about the last few days. About Gene and Bill and the room where you were kept prisoner.”

She quieted gradually, and the glazed look went away from her eyes. “I’m sorry. But I wish you’d tell me who you are and how you know all these things.” Shayne released her hands and stood up to look down on her broodingly. “I should have told you sooner. I’m a private detective from Miami. My name is Michael Shayne, and many years ago I was married to a girl whom you remind me of very much. I got pulled into this situation by sheer accident last night when you selected me in the bar as a recipient for Gene’s attentions rather than the man you were supposed to betray. I’m not sore about that,” he added quietly. “It was an honest impulse on your part to protect a man who had been kind to you, and I’m glad you picked me for the scapegoat even if it was pure accident.

“Not knowing why I was attacked last night, I’ve been digging into things all day, and I soon learned that you weren’t Amy Buttrell at all. I’m convinced now that the man who called himself Mr. Buttrell and pretended to identify you was just a tool used by Gene to get you away from the hospital before your own father came to take you home. I talked to Professor Henderson this afternoon, Jean. He’s a hell of a nice guy, and you’re a lucky girl to have him for a father. As soon as this mess is cleared up and you’re in your own home in familiar surroundings, your memory will return all right. Stop worrying about it. This is a perfectly normal course for an amnesia case such as yours to take.” He wondered if this were true as he spoke, and hoped to God it was. At least, he was rewarded by a tinge of color in her pallid cheeks and an expression of trust in her eyes.

“I’m sorry I went to pieces for a moment. All right, Mr. Shayne, what can I do to help… other than making my mind remember things it refuses to remember?”

Shayne went back to his chair and sat down heavily. “Right at this point, there’s only one thing in your story that I question. The fact that Gene didn’t know who I was when he assaulted me last night. You see, there was a man waiting for me to show up at my office in Miami this morning who seems to have some connection…”

“My God!” He sat up suddenly with an expression of fierce disgust on his lined face. “How dumb can a man get? Of course. My wallet last night. When Gene made Mule put it back in my pocket in the car. They wanted it to look like a straight hit-run accident. But it told them who I was. And when I got away, Gene thought I’d head straight for Miami… and he still thought I was the man who’d rescued you previously. Because you had identified me as that man for him. So he sent someone, maybe Bill, to finish off the job he and Mule had bungled.”

Listening to him with a puzzled frown, Jean asked timidly, “Does it help? What you just said.”

“It puts me back on the right track. Our job right now, Jean, is to figure out why you were dangerous to them; why they went to the trouble to snatch you from the hospital and keep you prisoner for several days.” He sprang to his feet and began to stride back and forth across the room in front of her. “The obvious answer is something that occurred before you lost your memory. Something that someone can’t afford to let you remember. Your attack of amnesia was okay, but they couldn’t trust it to last forever. In fact, Dr. Philbrick stated plainly in the paper that you should recover your memory quickly once you were home among familiar surroundings and faces. And they evidently could not allow that to happen. So Buttrell came in to the picture. That much seems fairly clear. But what about the stranger who picked you up in his car that night? Why is he important in the picture? Why were they prepared to kill him out-of-hand last night as soon as they thought you had showed them the right man?” He stopped in the midst of his stride and his theorizing to glare down questioningly at Jean.

“I don’t know,” she responded helplessly. “They’ve been after me for days to identify him for them. From the way they acted, I knew it was terribly important for them to find him. They kept asking me questions about him and threatening me when I told them over and over again that I just had one good look at his face and didn’t recall a single distinguishing feature. I didn’t tell them any of the things he told me in the car either,” she added firmly. “Not even that he lived in Brockton or anything like that that might have helped them find out who he was.”

Shayne drew in a deep breath and turned away from her to pick up his empty glass and pour a very moderate drink of straight cognac in the bottom of it. He sank back into his chair and said, “That’s where we’ll pick up the pieces, Jean. Start back from the moment his car stopped beside you on the highway. Tell me every word he said, every tiny detail you can remember until he drove away in the night leaving you in front of the hospital.”

18

“I’ll do the very best I can,” Jean Henderson promised him solemnly. “But it’s all sort of blurred, particularly at the beginning. I was in a state of shock, I guess. I didn’t know how I’d got there on the strange road at night. I didn’t know who I was or…”

“And then a car came down the road from behind you and stopped,” Shayne put in to get her on the track he wanted. “Did you signal the driver to stop?”

“I… don’t know,” she faltered. “Probably I did. At least I stopped on the side of the road and turned to look at the headlights. And he slowed down and stopped right beside me and jumped out on the other side and came around behind and caught my arm just as I seemed about to faint. And I went all to pieces. Hysterical and crying like a baby and asking him who I was and how I got there. And he was awfully gentle and had a soft soothing voice. I remember he kept saying, ‘There, there, you poor lamb. Don’t take on so, dear child,’ just as if I were about twelve instead of nineteen. And when he finally understood I had hurt my head and lost my memory, he didn’t waste time with any more questions, but said right off, ‘We’ll have to get you right to a doctor, child. No doubt your loved ones are badly worried about your whereabouts this very moment,’ and he helped me into the back of the car and told me to lie back and relax and he would take care of me.”

“What kind of car?”

“I don’t know. A sedan. It ran smoothly and the motor was quiet. He drove quite slowly. I don’t know whether it was ten minutes or an hour, but it seemed a long time to me. He spoke back over his shoulder to me half a dozen times without turning his head, worried about how I felt and whether I was comfortable. And then when the town lights showed ahead, he slowed down some more and began talking real fast, explaining that he did want to do what was right, and his conscience just wouldn’t let him pass me up on the road back there even though he hadn’t wanted to because it might get him in a lot of trouble if it ever came out that he was the one brought me to the hospital.

“I didn’t know what he meant by it at first. It just didn’t make sense. And then he hinted very delicately-because he thought I was too young to understand about adultery I guess-that he had been visiting a lady friend that night. Well, that’s exactly what he called her,” she protested in response to Shayne’s amused look.

“And that his wife thought he was tending to a business matter in another direction entirely, and if she ever found out the truth that it just wouldn’t be possible to live with her any more.”

“He didn’t tell you the name of his lady friend or anything helpful like that?”

“No, but he kept on talking sorrowfully about what a burden it was to be married to a woman whom he didn’t respect or love, and how wonderful it would be to be free again-feeling awfully sorry for himself, you know, and explaining it all to me so I’d understand why he wanted to drop me off in front of the hospital and drive away before he was seen.

“And he kept on about it so much that I asked him why he stayed married to her if it was so terrible, and he told me I was too young to understand. First he quoted from the Bible or marriage service about people whom God had joined together no man should put asunder and it sort of disgusted me because I just don’t believe in that sort of… You know what?” she broke off suddenly, sitting erect and alert.

“No… what?”

“Maybe that’s a clue. To me. I hadn’t thought about it before, but I must be sort of irreligious. But I forgot. You already know who I am and all about me, don’t you? Jean Henderson?” She repeated her own name uncertainly.

Shayne said, “You’re a modern young woman who has evidently been reared with a liberal attitude toward religion. So you thought he was being hypocritical and told him so?”

“Not in so many words.” She smiled at Shayne and it was the first real smile he had seen on her face. “But I did tell him that kind of talk sounded sort of silly when he admitted he was sleeping around at the same time, and then he sighed very dolefully and said if he could only get away from his wife and Brockton and make a new start in the world that he’d be the happiest man on earth.

“But it was impossible, he said, on account of every cent he had on earth was invested in his business here, and it was in his wife’s name, and from one year to another he just couldn’t seem to get any extra money laid aside that he could use to make a new start somewhere else.

“And about that time we were getting close to the hospital, and he begged me not to tell anyone who had brought me there-to just let him go on without trying to find out who he was or anything like that. So, of course I promised. I felt sorry for him, and I did appreciate him stopping to pick me up under those conditions. Plenty of other men, I thought, might just have speeded up instead of stopping, for fear of getting involved in something that would cause them trouble at home.

“So he pulled up under a street light in front and I got out of the back seat, and I saw his face just that once when he turned his head to wave to me before driving on. And when I saw how middle-aged and meek he was I felt sorrier for him than ever… and that’s why I just couldn’t get him in trouble last night when they pushed me inside the bar and told me to pick him out from the men inside.”

Michael Shayne set his empty glass down and lit a cigarette as Jean Henderson finished her story. He tugged at his earlobe thoughtfully while he considered the meager information she had been able to furnish about the man he had seen waiting in the rear booth the previous night. He hadn’t really appraised the man carefully. Had just given him an incurious glance when he first entered and was looking for a place to be comfortable while having his drink.

But there had been something about the man’s appearance that now tugged at Shayne’s memory. Something he had noticed and forgotten, but which had almost been brought back to his memory by something Jean had just said. He didn’t struggle to get the memory back. It would come to him faster if he let it lie.

He said, “After Mr. Buttrell took you away and you passed out in his car after drinking a malted milk… you say you woke up a prisoner in a room where you were kept locked in until last night? What sort of room was it?”

“Just a room,” she said helplessly. “Not quite as big as this one. With a single bed and a dresser and vanity. There was a tiny bathroom opening off it, and two windows in one wall that were solidly boarded-up outside the glass. Just a… an impersonal kind of room.” She puckered up her face in thought.

“That’s it,” she said finally. “It was impersonal. Just like this hotel room Like any hotel room. You had a feeling hundreds of other people might have occupied it briefly, but none for a long enough time to leave the slightest imprint of their personality on it. It was very quiet inside the room,” she went on slowly, “almost as though it were soundproofed. There was an airconditioning duct so I didn’t lack air. I think it must have been a farmhouse. Out in the country at least. I never heard any traffic.”

“And you saw no one all that time except the men you call Gene and Bill?”

“No one else. One of them would unlock the door three times a day to bring my meals on a tray. It was good food and there was plenty of it. And whichever one brought it would sit and talk to me while I ate. They wouldn’t answer a single question, except that I would be released as soon as I told them more about the man who had picked me up on the road. They kept at me about him all the time. About him and about whether I remembered any farther back than I did at first. I didn’t mind Bill so much, but something about Gene frightened me terribly. Something cold and… and reptilian almost.” She shuddered. “He’d sit and look at me with those cold eyes and I’d have the most awful feeling that he would enjoy killing me. That he hated me for being alive.”

Shayne nodded and said grimly, “Your instincts were fairly valid, I think. Tell me about last evening.”

“Bill brought my supper. And Gene came in, too, just as I finished eating. He told me we were going for a little ride. He said they were going to blindfold and gag me and take me out to a place where the man would be. It would be a barroom, he said, and I was to walk in the door alone while they stayed outside… and they’d shoot me if I said a single word to anyone except the right man. I was to go right up to him and say something… and then I was to turn around and walk out the door where Bill would be waiting for me.

“So they put a gag in my mouth and blindfolded me and led me out to a car and put me in the front seat between them and drove awhile and then stopped and picked up the one they called Mule. He got in the back seat and Gene drove some more and I could tell we were in the center of some town, and then they stopped and took off the blindfold and gag and we were right in front of the place where you were sitting in the booth. And you know the rest of it,” she ended simply. “I hadn’t thought of getting away. It just came to me suddenly that it was my one chance when I saw Bill run in the door to help the other two. I ran behind them and was out the door before they saw me, they were so busy with you. And right at that moment,” she went on with a timid attempt at a smile, “I was glad I’d picked you out for them instead of the right man because I knew he would never have given enough trouble to bring Bill in and give me a chance to get away.”

Shayne scarcely heard her final words. He sat up and snapped the fingers of his right hand excitedly. It had come to him! Something about the man’s outward appearance last night, coupled with a phrase of his that Jean had repeated a short time previously.

A phrase that only a certain type of man would use in normal conversation. A minister, or perhaps a doctor. But he was neither. He had explained to Jean that he was tied to Brockton by owning a small business which did not earn him enough to make a get-away.

A small businessman who talked the way that man had talked to Jean when he picked her up on the road.

It came to Shayne suddenly. Jean was beginning to talk again, but Shayne leaped to his feet without hearing her. He caught up the telephone directory and turned to the yellow, Classified pages in the back. In a town of forty thousand, he didn’t know how many such business concerns would be listed, but he didn’t believe there would be a great many.

There weren’t. There were only four listings under the heading he wanted. He reached for pencil and paper to write down the four addresses, then hesitated. Not knowing the town, he would have to ask directions for getting to each one. It might take hours going from one to another until he struck the right man.

He settled back beside the telephone with the open book in his hands and grinned reassuringly at Jean who had risen from her chair and was demanding to know why he was acting so pleased with himself.

He said, “I’ll explain in just a moment. First, I want to invite your friend up to have a talk with us.” He lifted the phone and gave the hotel operator the first number on the list.

When a cool female voice replied, he said, “I’d like to speak to the proprietor, please.”

She said, “Certainly, I’ll call Mr. Johnson.”

Mr. Johnson had a rounded voice that might have been sonorous had it not obviously been hushed. “Yes sir? What service may I render?”

“I’m not well acquainted in Brockton,” Shayne told him. “And my wife…” He paused and gulped audibly. “It was very sudden. Could you come at once to my room in the Manor Hotel to discuss the details privately. I just don’t feel up to going out and…”

“Precisely. I understand only too well, sir, and our services are yours to command. Ah… your name?”

“Mr. Shayne. Room four-ten.” Shayne hung up on Mr. Johnson’s eager assurance that he would be around at once.

He called the second number and a mellifluous voice informed him that Mr. Magner of the Final Tryst Funeral Home was entirely at his disposal. Having been assured by Mr. Magner that he was, indeed, the proprietor and owner of the Final Tryst, Shayne made the same arrangements with him and hung up.

His third call brought forth the information that the owner of the Home was in Arizona on a vacation, that he had been gone for two weeks and was not expected back for another week. The manager, however, pleaded to be of service, but Shayne cut him off and called the fourth number.

A pleasantly seductive female voice cooed back at him over the wire, and when Shayne asked for the proprietor, she assured him that he was speaking to her at that moment and that nothing would fill her cup of happiness so full to overflowing as to personally take care of whatever his needs might be.

Shayne grinned wryly at this offer, and told her, “Another time, lady, I may take you up on that. But I wonder if I could deal with your husband this time?”

She was extremely sorry, but she was Miss Elroy, and if he would put his problem in her hands he was assured he would never regret it. He politely declined the invitation and hung up, turned to Jean and told her confidently, “Sit down and relax. He’ll be here very shortly.”

“Who will be here?”

“Either Mr. Johnson or Mr. Magner,” he told her. “I’m inclined to pick Magner as my candidate right now. Of the Final Tryst, you know?” he ended blandly.

“I don’t know.” Enough of her spirit had returned under the relaxing quiet of her talk in Shayne’s hotel suite to cause her to stamp her foot on the floor. “Why are you looking so smug?”

“Because we’ve got our man on the hook. Don’t you understand yet? He’s an undertaker, Jean. A funeral director, I suppose he calls himself.”

“However do you know?”

“Who else,” demanded Shayne, “would call your relatives your ‘loved ones’ when he mentioned how worried they must be about you? Who else… in business for himself as he told you he was? And think back on the man sitting in the rear booth last night nursing half a warm highball in his hand.” He laughed confidently and got up to pour himself a small drink while he waited for the two undertakers to come to him.

“Let me do the talking, Jean. You sit back there on the side and stay as relaxed as you can, and listen. Break in on us if anything is said that strikes any chord in your memory.”

19

They hadn’t long to wait. When his bell rang not more than ten minutes after he finished telephoning, Shayne was glad the man had turned out to be an undertaker instead of plumber.

He opened the door and found a short, rotund man in the hallway, with a cherubic, moonlike face that expressed tactful sympathy for his host’s supposed bereavement.

He intoned, “Mr. Shayne? Johnson is my name, sir. You asked me to call on you…”

“I know I did.” Michael Shayne stood with his body blocking the doorway and made no move to step aside. “I’m sorry to have bothered you, Mr. Johnson, but I’m afraid I’ve changed my mind in the interim. Later, perhaps? The next time something of this sort happens…”

The elevator stopped again at the fourth floor as Shayne spoke, and Mr. Johnson turned his head to see the man who got off and hurried toward them. His round features tightened in an unpleasant grimace, and he turned back to Shayne with asperity. “I’m afraid I don’t understand why you called both Mr. Magner and me. It’s hardly ethical…”

“Just changed my mind,” Shayne told him heartily, leaning out to look down the corridor and make certain that Mr. Magner was, indeed, the man Jean Henderson had been supposed to point out the night before.

Shayne recognized his mild, horselike face immediately, and he drew back, telling the other undertaker, “After phoning you, I suddenly recalled that I had met Mr. Magner before and had promised to give him all my business. Sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

Mr. Magner came up as he spoke, and stopped to address his competitor in surprise: “Mr. Johnson. Do you consider it good ethics to try and push in ahead like this when it was I who was summoned?”

Johnson grunted something indistinguishable as Shayne stepped out to shoulder him aside and take Magner’s arm firmly. The smaller man gasped and tried to shrink back when he saw the detective’s rugged face, but Shayne pulled him forward through the door and closed it firmly in Johnson’s face.

Mr. Magner stood aside helplessly, his face ashen and his eyes flitting nervously from the girl curled up in the deep chair across the room and back to Shayne.

He gulped deeply and said in a high, thin voice, “You… you are the man last night, aren’t you?” He wet his lips desperately and turned back to Jean. “And… and Miss Buttrell there…?”

“Not Buttrell,” Shayne said flatly. He put his hand on Magner’s shoulder and pushed him back toward a chair. “We’re going to have a long talk, so make yourself comfortable. Her name is Jean Henderson and she’s told me about how you picked her up on the road and ducked away after dropping her in front of the hospital.”

“I had done everything I could for her under the circumstances. I assure you that I had.”

Shayne sat down in front of him and waved his protestations aside with a big hand. “That’s not the point. If she had come up to you in the bar last night instead of stopping at my booth… those men would have killed you outright. Thinking I was the man they wanted, they tried to kill me instead. Why?”

“I don’t… that is, I… if you knew how terribly I felt last night, sir, when I saw that awful thing happen right in front of my eyes. I realized it was some terrible mistake. I was so taken by surprise to see her come in the door. I’d thought I was perfectly safe coming there… that she was in Miami and no one could possibly recognize me. And I was simply petrified when those thugs assaulted you. I beg you to understand and forgive me for not speaking up manfully to say there had been a mistake.”

Shayne said, “None of that matters now. Stop snivelling and pull yourself together. Who were the three men who jumped me and why did they do it?”

“I recognized only one of them, and him only by sight,” muttered the distraught undertaker. “His name is Eugene Forbes, I believe. His reputation in Brockton is not good at all. He has… well… a great deal to do with the management of the Sanitarium. That’s why he was there last night, Mr… ah… Shayne, was it? He was after me, of course. I do not deny it. It was foolhardy of me to think I could successfully challenge the Sanitarium. But I had worked out such a careful plan. I didn’t see how it could fail. And I was intentionally moderate in my demand upon them. Only ten thousand dollars. That’s all I asked for my silence. It was so little to them, yet it meant so much to me.”

“You were trying to collect blackmail from the Sanitarium,” Shayne said harshly. “For what? As a price for your silence about what?”

“Why… about this young lady. The night I found her wandering along the road with no memory of what had happened. I didn’t realize the truth that night, of course. I saw no sign of the car then. But later when I read about Mr. Harris burning up in his car at the bottom of the ravine, I realized that was almost exactly the spot where I had found her, and that she must have been in his car with him when it was wrecked. And him being a State’s Attorney, and that in the paper about him asking his way to the Sanitarium earlier in the evening… well, I can put two and two together and make four, Mr. Shayne.”

“That’s more than I can do right now,” the redhead growled. “Suppose she was in Harris’ car when it went over the bank, and was thrown clear, maybe, with a bad concussion. How does that add up to blackmail material against the Brockton Sanitarium?”

Mr. Magner wet his lips and looked at Jean appealingly. “I’ve just suddenly realized… did you say her name is Jean Henderson?”

“That’s right.” Shayne glanced with him at the girl. She was sitting erect in her chair, hands clasped tightly in her lap, and her blue eyes were alight with excitement.

“I thought you said Henderson. She… had a sister named Jeanette. Perhaps you don’t know that she is supposed to have been killed in another automobile accident near here a month ago.”

“I know about that. And some passerby like you picked her up and took her to the Brockton Sanitarium for emergency treatment and hurried away without leaving his name. Don’t tell me you were in on that rescue also?”

“Oh, no. No indeed. In fact, Mr. Shayne, I…” Mr. Magner paused, his voice harried and his face tortured with fear and indecision. “How far can I trust you, Mr. Shayne? What is your interest in this matter? In short… who are you, sir?”

“I’m a detective from Miami. My interest is to settle scores with Gene… and whoever is behind him. What actually goes on out at that sanitarium, Magner? What sort of secrets do they keep locked up behind a steel fence?”

“It is widely rumored in Brockton that most of the patients are young women who… who come there for illegal operations. You… ah… understand?” He darted an embarrassed glance in Jean’s direction, and Shayne said for him:

“An abortion mill, eh? Seems rather a small town to support anything like that.”

“They don’t come from Brockton. I have heard it said, in fact, that they consistently refuse to admit any local patients. It is said their clientele is drawn from larger cities throughout the state… and that fabulous prices are charged in many cases.”

“So that’s it!” said Shayne grimly. “I guessed something of the sort. You were about to tell us about Jeanette Henderson and her accident.”

“Yes. But it was no accident, Mr. Shayne. Believe me, I know her death was not the result of an accident. I had… ah… it devolved on me to… ah… prepare her mortal remains after she passed away, and I am prepared to swear, that her death did not come from an accident. It was definitely the result of an illegal operation during which she succumbed while under the anesthetic. To hide the hideous truth, I suspect they deliberately drove her car out onto the highway and wrecked it. And then told the story about her having been brought to them for emergency care during which she died on the operating table.”

“Wasn’t there an autopsy?” demanded Shayne.

“There was not.”

“Did you report your suspicions to the police?”

“No, Mr. Shayne, I confess I did not.” Mr. Magner’s face was a tragic mask of fear and self-hatred. “I am in business here as you know. I freely confess it was weakness and fear that prevented me from speaking out. But it was easy to be silent. And so difficult to speak up. And where could I turn? It is a well-known fact that Dr. Winestock at the Sanitarium is the brother-in-law of our chief of police, Ollie Hanger. It was Chief Hanger who investigated Jeanette Henderson’s death personally, and who arranged to have me take charge of the remains. Who could I have trusted? Who would have listened to me?”

“I’m beginning to get the picture straight. Having rubbed up against Ollie a couple of times, I see what you mean. And I heard today that the gunman named Gene is a sort of pal of his. All right. So you came to the conclusion that Jean here was likely in Harris’ car when it went into the ravine, but could recall nothing about it. What sort of lever did you figure that gave you against the Sanitarium?”

“I was the only person who knew where she was picked up that night,” Magner explained simply. “The only person who could place her in the vicinity of Harris’ so-called accident. Because I realized at once it had probably been no more of an accident than the death of the Henderson girl a month ago. I assumed that Mr. Harris and the girl had actually gone to the Sanitarium together after asking directions from the filling station man, and they had somehow learned who Harris was. I even theorized that he might have gone there on official business and threatened prosecution. That would explain the accident. Having been successful in staging a similar accident a month ago, it seemed likely to me they would try the same method again. Criminals do, I believe, tend to follow a sort of pattern in whatever sort of crimes they commit.”

A choked gasp from Jean’s throat brought both their heads around to her. She had one hand at her throat, and her eyes were wide and staring. “Jeanette,” she whispered as though in agony. “Jeanette! I… I’m beginning to remember. Oh, God in heaven, yes! Jeanette!”

Shayne was instantly by her side, peering down into her eyes and to her contorted face. “Take it easy, Jean. Don’t try to make it come back. It will all come eventually.”

“But I want to,” she cried out clearly. “I remember part of it now. It’s vague, like a nightmare. With parts that are clear and parts that are black. My little sister! I knew there was something terribly wrong. I knew there was. But she wouldn’t tell me. She wouldn’t let me help. She denied it, but I knew. Yes, she was pregnant. And she went to that place and they murdered her. They butchered my sister…”

Her voice was rising angrily and Shayne clapped his hand over her mouth. He said grimly, “You’ve got to help us, Jean. Don’t go to pieces yet. Think back now to a month ago. You suspected your sister was pregnant though she denied it. Did you know she was going to the Brockton Sanitarium for an abortion?”

“No. I don’t think I knew. It’s all clouded and indistinct. I remember her clearly. I remember I was worried when she wouldn’t tell me. And I remember…” Her voice dropped and she shuddered. “I remember now that she died. And it was an accident and I was almost glad. Because Father didn’t have to know and she didn’t have the shame of it. And then… oh, I don’t know. It’s mixed up. There was the Sanitarium in it. And a doctor. And then that man… Gene…” She broke down and sobbed frantically.

Shayne patted her shoulder and told her again, “Take it easy. This is all adding up to tie in with Magner’s story. I’m sure you’ll remember more and more as we go on.”

He turned back to the undertaker and said, “So you figured they had tried the same thing again with Randolph Harris and the girl. That she had somehow escaped death in the bottom of the ravine with him and got back to the road where you picked her up.” He nodded approval. “That makes sense. It gives them a damned good reason for arranging to have a man appear at the hospital and claim to be her father because she was a definite danger to them as long as she was alive and might regain her memory. And you saw a chance to pick up a piece of change by offering to keep quiet about where you had picked her up that night. So you tried to put the bite on them for ten grand. That right?”

“Yes, I…” Mr. Magner’s face was flushed with shame. “It sounds so much worse when you say it out loud that way. I… I suppose I rationalized my conduct by telling myself I had no real proof. Nothing I could go to the police with. And I needed money so badly. Just enough to get away from Brockton with.”

Shayne said, “I’m not sitting in judgment on you. Exactly what did you do about the situation?”

“Well, I telephoned the Sanitarium first. From a pay-station and I disguised my voice. I spoke to Dr. Winestock and told him I wanted ten thousand dollars in old hundred-dollar bills for my silence. And I told him I would call again Monday to explain how the money was to be delivered, and then I hung up on him. And over the week-end I thought of a plan for getting the money that seemed safe to me. You see, they had no idea in the world who I was, and I didn’t think they could possibly identify me by sight. So far as I knew she…” He nodded at Jean. “… I thought of her as Miss Buttrell, of course, was safely out of their hands and in Miami, and she was the only person who could identify me. So my plan seemed safe enough.”

“What was your plan?”

“I selected that bar-room as the place because it is on the other side of town from me and not at all the sort of place any of my acquaintances might frequent. I went there Monday morning and took a list of three songs that are on the juke-box there, and when I phoned again Monday afternoon I had it all worked out in detail. I told Dr. Winestock he was to have a man go there at eight o’clock Tuesday night with the money in a long envelope. That he was to put three nickels in the jukebox and punch the numbers of the three songs in the order I gave him. Then he was to sit in a vacant booth and order a drink, and while no one was looking he was to fasten the envelope on the underside of the table with scotch tape, and then get up and leave. I planned to be there at eight and watch for the man playing the songs I had ordered. Then it would have been a simple matter to wait until he left the booth, sit down there myself and detach the envelope at my leisure. I was waiting in the rear booth, and was simply bowled over when she walked in the door. I simply sat frozen in my seat and died a thousand deaths while she walked back toward me.

“Then… she stopped at your booth instead. I couldn’t hear what she said because Gene and that other big tough came in right behind her and… well, you know better than I do what happened then.”

Jean spoke in a quavering voice as he finished, “It’s all come straight in my mind now, Mr. Shayne. It’s like a miracle, the way everything has suddenly clicked into place. I did go to the Sanitarium with Randolph Harris because of what happened to Jeanette. I remember it all. After we heard about her accident, I was in her room cleaning out her personal things and in her desk I found a slip of paper with the words, Dr. Winestock. The Brockton Sanitarium.

“I remember how I sat and stared at it. I couldn’t believe it. The Brockton Sanitarium was where they had taken her after the accident for an emergency operation. But she had written it down there before the accident. As though she had had a premonition, I thought. But I knew that was silly and it couldn’t be a coincidence.

“I didn’t tell anyone and I brooded about it for days. The more I thought… with my suspicions about her condition… the more I came to believe that she had intended going to the Sanitarium when she left home supposedly to visit Lois Dongan. And I knew that she had gone to visit a strange doctor in Orlando named Dr. Jessup a few days before, and that she was different and happy when she came back from seeing him. She had been dragging around and listless before that, and then perked up right after seeing him.

“So I took a chance and went to see Dr. Jessup myself. I gave him a false name and told him I was a student at Rollins and lived at Miami, and that I was… in trouble, and I’d heard from some of the other girls at Rollins that he could help get rid of the baby.

“He was very stern at first and denied it and talked about professional ethics, and I wept and pleaded with him and he finally asked me how much money I had. I told him plenty, and then he talked some more and for a hundred dollars in cash he finally gave me a card with Dr. Winestock, Brockton Sanitarium printed on it, and his name signed in ink underneath.

“He told me to show that card at the Sanitarium, and take nine hundred dollars in cash with me, and not let anybody in the world know where I was going, and that everything would be all right.

“I went straight from his office with the card to see Randolph Harris whom I had met a couple of times at parties. I told him what I suspected and everything, and he got excited and said they suspected the kind of business the Brockton Sanitarium did, but never could get any proof. He said he thought they were hand in glove with the police department here and it wouldn’t do any good to make a complaint, but if we could get real evidence the State’s Attorney could go to the State Police and have it raided. And he asked if I was willing to take a chance helping him, and I said I was after what I knew had happened to Jeanette.

“So we planned it for the next week-end,” she went on rapidly. “I had a week’s cruise planned with some friends in Apalachicola and was supposed to leave by bus Thursday afternoon. Instead I phoned Mrs. Larch that I couldn’t make it and for them to go on without me. And Randolph picked me up in his car that evening and we came to Brockton. I had the card signed by Dr. Jessup that I showed at the gate and they let us in. We had it all fixed. I was to say I was pregnant and he was my sweetheart, and he had nine hundred dollars in marked bills for the operation. So we went in and talked to the doctor in his office, and then they took me off into a side-room to wait while he made the final arrangement.

“And I don’t know what happened in the office,” she went on with a shudder. “The first thing I knew two men came and grabbed me and hustled me out to Randolph’s car and hit me on the head and piled me in the back where he was already lying knocked out. They were Gene and Bill, I know now. I was dazed but not unconscious. I vaguely remember them driving away and stopping and putting us in the front seat and I kept on pretending to be unconscious but held onto the door handle. And they poured gasoline on the car and on Randolph, I guess, and steered it off the road. I fell out as it turned over, and everything went black. And the next thing I knew I was walking down the road and you stopped to pick me up,” she told Mr. Magner.

Shayne said, “That’s it, then, Harris was absolutely right about calling the State Police in to clean up the mess. There’s a station just outside of town.” He got up and lifted the telephone calmly and told the operator: “Get me the State Police barracks, please.” A voice spoke through the receiver into his ear at the precise moment that a key grated faintly in the lock of his door ten feet away. He whirled toward the door and spoke in. a low, terse voice into the phone:

“Hold the line open.” He rammed the instrument back into his hip pocket with the mouthpiece sticking up and clear, and moved in front of the telephone as the door opened and the big muzzle of a. 45 preceded the bulk of Chief Ollie Hanger into the room.

Sliding through the opening behind him with sinuous grace was Gene with a faintly pleased smile on his ascetic face and a short-barrelled. 38 dangling negligently from his fingers.

20

Shayne said loudly, “What the hell you mean walking in with a gun like that? You can’t use it here. This is the Manor Hotel, for God’s sake. In the center of Brockton. Room four-ten of the Manor Hotel,” he repeated with emphasis. “You’re finished, Chief Hanger. You and your chief abortionist from the Sanitarium.”

“Yeh?” Hanger stepped aside stolidly with the muzzle of his gun steady on Shayne’s mid-section. “Don’t forget I’m still the law in Brockton, and if I shoot a man resisting arrest it’s nobody’s business. My God, you guessed right, Gene. The girl is here. But what in hell are you doing with these two, Magner? Didn’t know you were in on this. But maybe you’ll come in handy at that, and pick up a little business before the evening’s over.” He chuckled evilly and his big paunch jiggled up and down where it overflowed his belt.

Michael Shayne said, “Mr. Magner has been giving us some interesting information about the way your friend murdered Jeanette Henderson a month ago. Eugene Forbes, I think your name is,” he went on with a slight nod in the direction of the tall man who stood, blank-faced, against the door with the gun still dangling from his fingers. “Of course,” Shayne continued conversationally, “You’re already stuck with the murder of that waitress this afternoon on Main Street, and I watched you run down Mule last night and kill him. So even without Mr. Magner’s cooperation, I had plenty on you.”

“So you finally had to stick your big mouth into it?” said Chief Hanger venomously to the undertaker. “All right, by God. We’ll see just what…”

“Can it, Ollie.” Gene spoke in a voice that sounded unutterably weary. “We’ve got the three of them here where we want them, and all the talking in the world won’t change any of that. You better do the job with your gun so it’ll be official.” He inclined his head slightly toward Shayne as he spoke.

“Sure,” snapped Shayne. “You go ahead and blast me, Chief. You don’t see Gene sticking his neck into a noose. You do the job and if there’s any kickback, you’ll get it.”

“What about these others?” asked Ollie helplessly, looking from the girl’s erect figure to Magner who was shrunk back in his chair making himself as inconspicuous as possible. “I don’t mind a-tall gunning this goddamn snoopy shamus right here,” the chief went on. “But how in hell can I explain the others?”

“I’ll take them out with me,” Gene suggested easily. “Another accident won’t be too many, and they got to be shut up. On your feet both of you.” He did not raise his voice as he issued the order. He hardly looked at either of them.

“Don’t be fools,” Shayne said over his shoulder harshly to them. “Stay where you are. They can’t afford to start any shooting up here in a hotel room until you two are safely out of the way where he can finish you off at his leisure. No matter how much either of them wave a gun, don’t move out of your chairs.” He turned back to Ollie and asked, “About how far is it out to State Police barracks?”

“About six miles, but it might as well be six hundred far as you’re concerned.”

“Why, no,” said Shayne easily. “Six miles is just about a nice distance. In about one minute, give or take thirty seconds, they should be knocking on that door behind Gene. I told you you were through, Ollie. But if you’re smart and don’t pull that trigger before they get here, you should be able to beat a murder rap. Gene’s done all the actual killing thus far, the way I see it. Better let it stay that way.”

“Don’t let him kid you, Ollie.” Gene came away from the door slowly and began raising his gun. “We checked at the desk and he hadn’t made any calls. He’s bluffing. He didn’t have time to call ’em before we got up here.”

“How do you like this for a bluff?” Shayne didn’t look at Gene. He turned very slowly and stepped away from in front of the telephone so his back was to Chief Hanger. “That thing sticking up out of my hip pocket is the mouthpiece of a telephone… if you haven’t guessed. And it’s connected right now on a direct line to the State Police. They’ve been listening to every word spoken in this room since you two moved in, and if they’re the boys I think they are you’ve got twenty seconds left to figure what you’re going to tell them when they bust in.”

Shayne heard a sibilant gasp from Ollie behind him as the chief saw the telephone in his pocket. Gene was four feet on Shayne’s right with his gun coming up fast and his face twisted in vengeful rage.

As he spoke his last word of warning to the chief, Shayne dropped his body in a driving tackle toward Gene’s legs that put him beneath the bullet that slammed toward him the instant he moved.

Shayne laughed exultantly as his shoulder hit the gunman’s knees and drove him backward. The gun exploded again before he got a grip on Gene’s wrist and twisted it.

The. 38 slid across the floor and Shayne drove his right fist into Gene’s face as a thunderous knocking sounded on the door.

Shayne got to his feet, dragging Gene up with him. He shot a look at the bewildered and frightened fat face of Chief Ollie Hanger who was hesitating while he tried to figure out the best move he could make under the circumstances, and who hesitantly started toward the door when a gruff voice barked outside, “Open up in there. State Police.”

“Not yet,” Shayne snarled at him, lunging forward to drive the chief away from the door. His left hand gripped Gene’s shoulder and held him erect like a rag doll while his right fist slammed as monotonously as a piston into the bloody and smashed features that were no longer distinguishably human.

He didn’t stop until two brawny state troopers smashed the door down and hurtled into the room. Then he dropped the blood-smeared mess of flesh on the floor at their feet and told them quietly, “I’ll go along with you peacefully, boys, and it’ll be a pleasure to plead guilty to assault and battery in any damned degree you want.”

21

It was nearing midnight when Shayne finally approached Miami on the wide and well-lighted boulevard leading into the city from the north.

There was still brisk traffic in both directions at this hour, and the lights of downtown Miami glowed a welcome for him ahead.

“My town,” he found himself thinking with a queer sort of warmth he had never felt before. A nice town to come back to, by God. Particularly after Brockton. His neck still pained him when he forgot and turned his head too far or too abruptly, and the bullet creases in shoulder and thigh burned a little, but he felt good nevertheless.

He was just about twenty-four hours late, he reminded himself. Twenty-four hours since Lucy Hamilton had sat in her apartment with a bottle of cognac on the center table waiting for his return.

As he neared the street that turned off Biscayne Boulevard toward her apartment, he wondered if she would be sitting up waiting for him again tonight.

He hadn’t called to say he was on his way-hadn’t spoken with her since the morning telephone call when she’d told him about the man waiting in his office.

After the wind-up in the hotel room in Brockton, he felt he couldn’t get out of the town fast enough. There had been a lot of questions and a long statement to be given to the State Police, and then all he’d thought of was getting away.

He didn’t consciously plan to turn onto Lucy’s street as he approached it, but his thoughts of her induced an instinctive reflex action that swung the wheel hard to the left at the intersection when he reached it.

He slowed at the second block on the side street, and a wide, pleased grin lighted his rugged face when he saw light shining from the front windows of her second-floor apartment.

He pulled into the curb directly opposite, cut the motor and got out stiffly. Inside a small, neat foyer, he put a blunt forefinger on her button and pressed it, then turned and waited with his hand on the knob of the inner door for her to release the catch.

There was a buzz and the knob turned. He stepped inside and slowly began climbing the stairs, trying not to limp but wincing each time he pulled his wounded leg up another step.

He heard the sound of a door opening above, and quick, light footsteps approaching the landing. He paused with his left hand holding the railing and looked up to see Lucy poised on the top step above him. She wore a pleated hostess gown of stiff silk that swirled about her ankles and clearly outlined her slender figure in the light from beyond.

He grinned and lifted his right hand in a casual greeting and said, “Hi,” and began climbing toward her, taking great care now that he shouldn’t limp.

She drew back silently and waited for him, her brown eyes enormous and questioning in the strained tenseness of her face, brown hair drawn back smoothly and knotted at the back as she wore it in bed.

Michael Shayne’s face was even with hers when he stood on next-to-the-top step. He stopped there and his grin widened, and then it went away as he saw her hands were clenched tightly into fists at her sides, and that a tear was rolling down each unrouged cheek.

He said gruffly, “Don’t look like that, angel. I’m all in one piece. Kiss me.”

He moved up the last step and she flung herself into his arms, sobbing.

He held her tightly with his good arm and tipped her face up and carefully kissed the tears from her cheeks and the hollows of her eyes and said wonderingly, “Damned if I don’t believe you’ve been worried.”

She drew back from him and swallowed hard and said wretchedly, “I called that hotel in Brockton an hour ago. They refused to tell me anything. Except there’d been shooting in your room and you’d been taken off by the State Police and you were badly wounded and… and I didn’t know what had happened.”

His grin came back as he turned her toward the rectangle of light that was the open door leading into her apartment.

“Well, you know I told you there was this girl in the bar last night…”

“I know you did and I’ve been hating her ever since. Did she do that to your face?”

“Not with her own hands, but…”

Shayne stopped on the threshold and looked approvingly at the neat room with a low coffee table drawn up in front of the long sofa with a bottle of cognac, an ice-bucket, a pitcher of water and two glasses standing on it.

His arm tightened about Lucy’s slim waist and he turned her slowly to face him.

“She wanted me to stay over another night, angel, but I told her you’d be waiting here with a bottle of cognac in the window to light my way for me.”

He kissed her lips gently and they went toward the sofa together.

Content

Brett Halliday
Stranger in Town

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