seduced.”
Shayne shook his head sadly and reached for a second cocktail. “Such talk-from a mere infant. I’m-I’m appalled, Angel. Really I am.”
“The price of my silence,” Phyllis told him happily, “is a great deal more than just one dinner. You’re hooked, darling, and you might as well admit it.”
Shayne growled. “I don’t get it.”
He drank, looking broodingly over the rim of his glass at her loveliness and wondering what the devil he was going to do about it.
“I’ve got you in the palm of my hand,” she exulted. “Don’t forget I know all about the mysterious woman who went aboard Elliot’s yacht last night. One word from me, and you’ll be proved a liar and a cheat.”
“Oh, that!” Shayne laughed easily and finished his second drink. “I’ve been proved that often in the past.”
“But this is different,” Phyllis persisted. “You can’t spread lies all over the front page of a newspaper and get away with it.”
Shayne put a cigarette between his lips and the flame of a match lighted the shadows on his face.
“So, you’re going to blackmail me under the threat of telling all?”
“You catch on quick. Which is quite natural, with you being so well up on all phases of blackmail and assorted skullduggery.”
“This is a great relief to me,” Shayne assured her. “As a matter of fact, I did have an ulterior motive in asking you to dine with me tonight. I planned to ply you with wine and flattery, break down your resistance, and-”
“And-?” Phyllis leaned toward him hopefully.
“And induce you to swear to an affidavit that I planned that entire drowning hoax,” Shayne chuckled. “You save me a lot of trouble by threatening to do what I was afraid you wouldn’t do.”
“I don’t believe it,” she cried furiously. “This is just another of your tricks. You think I’ll change my mind on your pretense that you want me to tell. I’m on to all your trickery, Detective Shayne, and it won’t work-not with me.”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree this time, Angel.” Shayne paused to half-empty his third sidecar. “Right now, Peter Painter is trying to take all the credit for my very clever ruse in getting confessions from Thomas and Marco. He called me a short time ago and very generously offered to take full responsibility for planting the fake suicide evidence that drove Marco into telling the truth.”
“I still don’t believe it,” Phyllis protested in a small voice. “It’s-why, it’s illegal to do a thing like that.”
“But very effective,” Shayne pointed out. “Marco was determined to keep his daughter quiet and let me burn for the Grange murder until he was made to believe that Thomas had taken matters in his own hands and disposed of Marsha so she couldn’t tell the truth. The man who gets full credit for that ruse is going to be a hero.”
“Which still doesn’t convince me you want it known you did it. What about your supposed disdain for public credit?”
“This,” Shayne told her, “goes much deeper than a question of mere public credit. Dollars are involved, darling. And when dollars are involved, no one can say Michael Shayne is modest about stepping to the front and getting his.”
“Dollars? I don’t see how-”
“You will,” Shayne promised.
He finished his third cocktail and asked irritably, “Why do you nurse that glass so tenderly in your hand? It’s not going to hatch any young ones. Drink up.”
She lifted the glass obediently and took a sip. “I like your drinks best.”
Shayne gazed at her in awed admiration. “What a girl! I’ve always sworn that if I ever discovered a femme who preferred straight liquor to these messy concoctions, I’d invest in a wedding license without further delay.”
“They only cost a couple of dollars,” Phyllis said sweetly.
“But two dollars is two bucks. A monumental sum to an indigent private detective faced with the loss of a fee because a stubborn twerp threatens to withhold an affidavit from him.”
Shayne thumped down his third empty glass and considered the fourth and fast sitting in front of him.
“If I was sure you’d invest that two dollars the right way, Mr. Shayne,” she said in a serious, businesslike tone, “I might be persuaded to make out this affidavit.”
“Tell you what. I’ll give you the two dollars to use as you wish.” He made an expansive gesture.
The girl’s breath quickened.
She said, solemnly, “I’m not kidding.”
“Reminds me of a joke,” Shayne said brightly. “What the nanny goat is supposed to have said to her pal, Billy: ‘Go as far as you like, big boy, just so you don’t kid me.’”
Phyllis didn’t laugh. An uneasy silence fell over them. Shayne emptied his last cocktail glass lingeringly. Ultimate evaluations were beclouded in perplexity. Back there along the way, far back, he had lost something that Phyllis Brighton was offering to give back to him. She had it in her power to do that. Shayne had known she possessed that power when he first met her two months ago. He had evaded the issue.
He set his empty glass down and looked around for the waiter to order another set of four. Phyllis leaned toward him and the firm coolness of her fingers closed over his big hand. Her eyes were darkly luminous. There was a serene knowingness of youth upon her face. She said, “Please, Michael, don’t drink any more right now.”
“All right. I won’t.”
She patted the back of his hand and withdrew her fingers.
He caught the waiter’s eye, called him over, and ordered dinner.
The pounding went from his temples and the fever of unbearable desire left his blood. Darkness settled more heavily and the stars were brighter overhead.
Shayne attacked his steak with the appetite of a man no longer obsessed with doubts. Phyllis thoughtfully ate her crabmeat salad, finding it surprisingly good.
After a time she said, “I’m slowly learning lots of interesting things about the detective business. But I still don’t understand how you make a living at it. You wouldn’t even take a retainer from me when you got me out of my trouble. And I don’t see how there could possibly be any profit in this case just ended.”
Shayne grinned at her. “I manage to get along. Though I was practically dragged into this case, and had to swim out. And, by the way-”
He took out his wallet and drew two one-thousand dollar bills from it, handed them to her.
She looked at them in amazement. “Where-what are they for?”
“That’s the two grand I rescued for you from John Marco’s coffers. The money you lost on his crooked roulette wheel.”
“But I didn’t know-”
“Stick them in your purse before some crook lamps them and follows you home,” he advised.
She obeyed him, murmured her astonished thanks, then resumed the discussion of his income.
“You tried to convince me that other time that you made out all right without my retainer. I’ve always believed you lied. I believe you’re lying now.”
“I never lie, Angel. Not about money.” He looked around for the waiter and summoned him with a crooked finger. “Is the final edition of the ‘Miami News’ out?”
“I believe so, sir. Shall I get one for you?”
Shayne said, “Please.” He grinned at Phyllis. “Now I know you’re in earnest. One of the first things I learned in getting my bachelor’s degree was to beware of a woman who takes a personal interest in your income.”
“I’ve been in earnest all the time,” she told him candidly.
The waiter came back with a folded paper. Shayne spread it out and read the latest headline aloud: “Marsha Marco refutes rumor of her own death.”
He chuckled and read it.
“Apprised by newspaper stories that she had supposedly drowned in Biscayne Bay last night, Miss Marsha Marco, prominent Miami Beach debutante, came out of voluntary hiding to emphatically brand the rumor as false. Admitting herself to have been an eyewitness to the murder of Harry Grange, Miss Marco asserts she fled from her home and went into hiding under an assumed name at a downtown hotel after her father forced her to withhold her
