A clothes closet offered the only other place of concealment. He pulled the door open, calling Marsha’s name, then pressed the dresses and coats back on their hangers to assure himself the girl wasn’t hiding against the wall.
Emerging from the closet, he started toward the door. His eyes were wary, anxious. He stopped with his hand inches from the knob, wheeled and went swiftly to the shaded windows near the head of the bed.
The end of a twisted bedsheet was knotted to the caster and led out the center window. He lifted the shade and found the screen swinging loose on hinges. He thrust his head out and looked down at two twisted sheets tied together and almost touching the ground.
He lowered the shade, turned to look around the room uncertainly, then started talking in a low persuasive voice, “Now, Miss Marco, you mustn’t adopt that attitude. I can’t diagnose your case unless you’re entirely frank with me,” all the while crossing to a littered vanity where a note lay beneath a comb. He picked it up and read:
“I can’t stand this. I’d rather be dead. I’m going where you’ll never see me again.
“MARSHA.”
He folded the note, slipped it into the side pocket of his jacket. Then he explored the drawers of the vanity, lifting his voice a trifle so it would carry across the empty room to the hallway outside.
“I understand, Miss Marco. I’m inclined to feel that your case isn’t quite as serious as Doctor Holcomb intimated. I’ll have to ask you a few more questions.”
He continued a rambling, low-toned conversation, interspersed with frequent pauses, while he carefully rummaged through the room, wondering irritably where the devil a girl like Marsha Marco would keep her handkerchiefs hidden.
He passed over a pink satin folder in the long center drawer at first, but making a second round, he lifted the top and found layers of folded handkerchiefs neatly arrayed, with a couple of tiny sachet bags nestled among them.
He studied each one dubiously, and finally picked up a frilly square of sheer linen that looked an exact duplicate of the one he had taken from Grange’s lifeless fingers. Closing his eyes, he sniffed the delicate fragrance, trying to remember the scent of the other handkerchief, realizing with deep disgust that he was probably the poorest connoisseur of perfume in the world.
He had a hunch that it was the same perfume, but it was no more than a hunch.
A hard lump beneath the handkerchief folder attracted his attention. Lifting the holder, he stared down at a. 32 automatic. He took it up and smelled the muzzle, getting only an odor of oil which indicated the pistol had been cleaned since last being fired.
He slid the automatic and handkerchief into his jacket pocket, closed the folder and replaced it, moved to the center of the room where he stood in scowling indecision for a moment, then stepped noiselessly to the clothes closet where he looked through the hangers until he found a light silk jacket. On a shelf was a small felt toque to match.
He unbuttoned his shirt and slid those two articles of Marsha’s wearing apparel down in the front, distributing them so they would not bulge, then went toward the door, saying aloud, “I understand perfectly, Miss Marco. I’ll have a consultation with Doctor Holcomb, and I’m sure you’ll begin to respond to treatment at once.”
He opened the door as he finished the sentence, turned to block the entrance with his body and said, “Good day, Miss Marco,” and closed the door firmly behind him.
The maid was standing close to the door, twiddling the key, a curious look of uncertainty on her broad, stupid face.
“Is she-she’s awake, huh?”
“Partially.” Shayne watched her alertly from beneath drooping eyelids. “She’s not quite herself, I’d say. Don’t disturb her until she calls.”
“Yessir.” The maid was obviously relieved.
As Shayne turned away, he heard the click of a key in the lock behind him.
He had to restrain himself to keep from taking the stairs two at a time, holding his body erect and dignified as be imagined a physician would do. He drew a deep sigh of relief when he reached the front door without encountering the housekeeper again.
Chapter Nine: GAMBLING WITH A GAMBLER
Shayne drove slowly away from the Marco residence. He unbuttoned his shirt and transferred the articles of clothing to the side pocket of his car, tossing the automatic in after them.
At Ocean Drive, he turned to the left and drove directly to Marco’s Seaside Casino, turning in the curving driveway and parking his roadster at the curb directly behind a glittering limousine.
Tall royal palms with trunks like columns of gray concrete shaded the gambling casino. Its appearance was desolate by daylight. There was no uniformed and beplumed doorman on duty, and the grilled front doors stood open.
Shayne heard the voices of cleaning women drifting out from rear rooms as he strode down the long hall to the stairway and went up to the second floor. A door directly in front of him came open as he reached the top, and he was confronted by the tall white-haired man who had taken Marsha Marco out of her father’s office last night.
His crafty eyes glittered as he recognized Michael Shayne, and he asked in a soft voice, “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
Shayne said, “Right here for the moment, Whitey. When did you get out of Raiford?”
“Last month, if it’s any of your damned business.”
“It isn’t,” Shayne conceded mildly. “Marco got to the parole board, eh? Do they know you’ve got your old job back here at the casino?”
“No. They got crazy rules about such things. You know how it is.”
Shayne said, “Yeh, I know. They’d bounce you right back to Raiford if they knew you were working in a gambling joint, wouldn’t they?”
Panic flickered in Whitey’s eyes. “They don’t know, see? And I don’t think nobody’s going to tell ’em.”
“Maybe not,” Shayne agreed carelessly. “What did you do after taking Marsha Marco home last night?”
“I didn’t-say, what the hell are you trying to find out?”
“ Just that.”
Shayne turned and walked down the hall to Marco’s private office, jerked the door open and found the Miami Beach councilman leaning over a litter of papers and account books on his desk.
Marco said over his shoulder, “Is that you, Whitey? We’ve got to do something about that second roulette table. It got jammed up last night.”
“Paid off to some of the suckers, eh?” Shayne said in a tone of shocked condolence. “You’ll certainly have to do something about that.”
John Marco swung his heavy body sidewise in the swivel chair and stared at the detective through opaque blue eyes.
“So, it’s you again,” his little, pursed mouth snarled. Shayne nodded amiably and moved past the desk to drop his long body into a leather and chromium chair. “It’s me-horning in where I’m not wanted.”
“How’d you beat that Grange rap?”
Shayne grinned.
“Not your fault that I did. You didn’t skip the chance to put in your two-bits’ worth.”
Marco pulled out his cheeks.
“It was my civic duty to give the information in my possession to the authorities.”
Shayne laughed harshly and lit a cigarette.
“You’ve always been a heel, Marco. Getting yourself elected to the City Council hasn’t changed you. You’ve
