Painter held his manicured hand out and closed the fingers slowly.
“There’s your motive, boys.”
An electric silence followed. The five newspaper men stared at Shayne.
Shayne’s wide mouth twitched into an ironic smile.
“And I say that makes a swell motive for a frame-up. Hell, I’m not going to deny I threatened to break Grange’s neck.” He opened his big hands and closed them in front of their eyes. “I might have done it, too-if somebody else hadn’t beaten me to the pleasure.”
“Mike’s right,” Tim Rourke declared. “His run-in with Grange earlier in the evening gives meaning to his story about the frame over the phone. For God’s sake, tell us who you think it was, Mike. I’ll run it down into its rathole if you’ll give me an inkle.”
Shayne shook his head slowly, carefully avoiding Rourke’s eyes.
“I might be wrong,” he protested. He turned to Painter with a frown creasing his forehead. “You can see how tough it is. Take you and the anonymous tip that you say sent you racing out to the beach almost before Grange’s heart had stopped beating-and just in time to conveniently catch me. You didn’t recognize that voice either.” A sardonic smile spread his wide mouth.
“No,” Peter Painter admitted stiffly. “But it was likely someone I didn’t know.”
“So you say,” Shayne snapped. “What proof have you? Who overheard the conversation and can swear there even was such a call?”
Shayne’s hands rested on the chair arms, his body tensed forward from the waist, his eyes inscrutable between lowered lids.
“By God! I don’t need any proof. I’m not charged with murder.” Painter’s face was red with wrath. “If you’ve got anything to say before I lock you up-start talking.” Shayne spread out his bony hands, palms upward, and settled back in the chair.
“There you are. He doesn’t need proof. I do. What chance have I got against that sort of a set-up?”
Timothy Rourke was studying Shayne’s face closely. A muscle wriggled in his lean jaw. In an oddly choked voice he said, “Spring it, Mike,” and bent a compelling gaze on the detective.
Shayne looked up at him with a gleam in his eyes. Slowly he looked around at the others.
“All right. I admit I didn’t recognize the voice at first. That was because I didn’t have any idea. Then, when I realized it was a fixed-up job, I began checking over the people who might want to pull a rotten, dirty stunt like that, and I started wondering.”
He paused, got up with his hands thrust deep in his pockets.
“It’s been coming clearer and clearer while I sat there. I’m pretty sure now-sure enough to take oath on it. Do you know why, Tim?” He whirled suddenly and faced Rourke with a wide grin. “I’ll bet you can’t guess. It’s because I’ve been listening to that same voice-recognizing it more certainly all the time.”
Silence hung over the room. Pencils waited above notebooks. Peter Painter stared at Shayne in silence.
Shayne lit a cigarette, then turned about to point a long, bony finger at the chief of the Miami Beach detectives.
“Peter Painter is the man who called me to the scene of murder. He’ll deny it, but what the hell can you expect? You’ve all heard him threaten to get me a dozen times. He saw his chance to hang one on me-and that’s what he did.”
The reporters stared, breathed again, and pencils flew over white paper.
Rourke, alone, kept his pencil and pad in his pocket. After a long look at Shayne, he turned his face away, no longer able to control his delighted laughter.
Chapter Five: INVITATION TO GO FOR A RIDE
For a moment, Peter Painter was too stricken to move. Then he sprang to his feet like a jack-in-the-box.
“Me?” he exclaimed in a smothered tone. “Why… you… you…” His throat moved convulsively.
“Yes, you,” Shayne said wolfishly. “You’ve forced my hand-so take it.”
“You’re crazy,” Painter sputtered. “You-you’ve lost your mind.”
Behind Shayne, Timothy Rourke laughed aloud. “Crazy like a fox,” he exulted. “Oh, my sweet grandmother! This is one for the book.”
Shayne disregarded his friend’s whooping merriment. He kept his face set in solemn lines.
“I’m sorry, Painter.” He sounded very convincing. “That’s the hand I’m playing. You would have witnesses.”
“But I-” Painter sank back into his chair. “You’ll never make it stick, Shayne. God knows, I didn’t phone you.”
“That’s what you say.” Shayne shrugged and sat down. “You’ve shot off your mouth too often about hanging something on me to hope anyone will believe you didn’t grab off this chance to do it.”
Slowly, the bewildered expression cleared from the chief’s face.
“I get it,” he snarled. “You know goddamn well it wasn’t me. You’re bluffing-hoping I’ll back down.”
“I don’t give a damn whether you back down or not,” Shayne clipped out. He leaned back easily and crossed his legs. “Without a shred of real evidence against me, you were all set to try me in the newspapers. All right, I’ll play that way. These boys are just itching to get out of here and make some headlines.”
“And how!” Rourke burst out. “Is that the way it’s going to lie, Painter?”
“Lie!” he roared. “That’s the word, all right. Now wait.”
The tip of Painter’s finger trembled as he caressed his mustache.
Rourke stood with a hand on Shayne’s shoulder, pressing down. Shayne’s hands were on the chair arms, pressing up.
“No use going off half-cocked,” Painter went on. “You boys certainly don’t believe Shayne’s absurd accusation.”
“We’re not writing our opinions,” Rourke told him sharply. “We’re reporting facts.”
“That,” said Shayne, settling back again, “is all you’ve got to worry about, Painter. The mere facts. Just because I tried to save you embarrassment by not naming you as my anonymous telephone caller at once-”
“You know damn well it wasn’t me-”
“I’m taking an oath that it was. If you want anyone to believe you’re clean-dig up the man who called and prove he wasn’t you.”
“And in the meantime Shayne will be languishing in your bastile working up a swell case for false arrest,” Rourke reminded Painter.
Painter’s dark face was livid with wrath. In a choked voice he warned, “I’m going to get you, Shayne. If it’s the last thing I do on this earth, I’m going to hang one around your long neck that you won’t wriggle out from under.” Shayne’s bland gaze was fixed on the toes of his number twelve shoes stretched out in front of him.
“In the meantime I’ll be chasing down murderers and turning them over to you so you can stay on the public payroll.”
The reporters were becoming bleary-eyed from switching astounded gazes from Shayne to Painter.
“How about it?” one of them demanded irritably. “Does the suspicion of murder charge stick against Mike?” Painter ground his white teeth. His black mustache trembled upward when he snarled, “Not officially. If I release him, you won’t need to print-”
“What’s just occurred here,” Shayne put in swiftly for Painter. “Nope.” He shook his head and shot a warning glance at the newsmen. “Play the whole thing down, boys. Just say that I explained my presence at the murder scene to Mr. Painter’s complete satisfaction by identifying the voice that called me over the telephone.”
“Wait,” Painter protested. “That won’t do. You haven’t identified the voice. If you print that and it later gets out that you accuse me-” There was a tremor of panic in his voice.
“It might smoke someone out,” Shayne explained patiently, “if you didn’t do the telephoning. If the culprit reads the story, then he’ll figure he’s got to get rid of me in a hurry. That ought to bring him out into the open, and maybe I’ll get knocked off in the process-which should be a happy prospect for you, Painter.”
Peter Painter shook his head dubiously.
