She came to him again and pressed her body wantonly against him, crying, “I can make you want me again. You’ll hate yourself if you call the police. It’ll turn this into something ugly…”
“… And make very bad publicity,” Shayne interrupted with harsh irony. He put her away from him, saying, “I’m going to call the police. You can do as you please, but if you’re smart you’ll get into some clothes fast.” He turned away, searching the room for the telephone.
There was no instrument visible. He went into a bedroom and turned on the light. A French phone stood on a table beside the bed.
He dialed Will Gentry’s number. Edna came back into the room as he waited for an answer. He kept his back toward her, and when Gentry answered, said:
“Mike Shayne talking. I want to report a homicide.”
CHAPTER 12
Will Gentry turned away from the body and the small group of men clustered in the doorway of Edna Taylor’s living room. He said, “You can take him away now.” He moved heavily to a small table and dumped out a handful of trifles taken from the dead man’s pockets. He folded his arms and teetered back and forth on widespread feet, addressed Shayne who sat slouched in a chair.
“Well… let’s have it, Mike.”
“Is his name Edward Seeney?”
“That’s right. The fellow you phoned me about. What makes?”
Shayne glanced behind him and saw the front door closing behind Gentry’s men and their limp burden. He said, “I haven’t introduced you to our hostess. Chief Gentry, Miss Taylor.” In a gently mocking tone, he went on, “Miss Taylor is a she-lawyer, Will. Vice-president of the Motorist Protective Association.”
Gentry looked with new interest at the slender woman sitting stiffly erect on the couch. She had changed to the gray tweed suit, and appeared composed with her hands folded in her lap. She nodded and said, “How do you do, Chief Gentry.”
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Taylor,” Gentry rumbled, and after a searching scrutiny he turned his attention to Shayne. “This time you’re going to put your cards on the table, Mike. Four men have died while you horsed around and acted mysterious.”
Shayne said, “Sit down, Will. I’m ready to do a lot of talking. How about pouring us a drink, Edna?”
She said, “Of course. I’ll mix some more,” and got up.
Gentry watched her admiringly as she swung out of the room. “She the one you figured was ready to go off like a firecracker?” A faint smile of amusement quirked his mouth.
“I forgot my matches,” Shayne grinned.
Gentry lowered his big body into a chair, stripped cellophane from a cigar and lit it, then said, “I’m listening.”
“I want Miss Taylor in on this,” Shayne told him.
She returned in a few moments with a fresh shaker of cocktails and an extra hammered copper bowl for Gentry. She poured three drinks and went back to the couch.
Shayne said, “Miss Taylor and I were having cocktails when this man came to the door. Perhaps you’d better give him your version first, Edna.”
In a calm voice she said, “I didn’t know who it could be. I have no friends here… very few acquaintances. I wasn’t expecting anyone. I asked Michael not to answer the door, but he insisted. He drew a gun from his pocket when he went to answer the door. I looked out and saw that man, a complete stranger, trying to force his way in. I could see he was horribly drunk, and he began cursing and threatening us. When he started in, I guess I was frantic with fear. I hardly know what I did, but I have a confused impression of grabbing Michael’s gun to defend myself and my home. There was a shot… and that’s all.”
Gentry looked at Shayne. “That’s the way of it?”
Shayne said gravely, “Miss Taylor would make a good witness. I have a couple of corrections. Eddie Seeney didn’t curse or threaten us, and he didn’t try to force his way in. He didn’t have time. He merely said, ‘I’m coming in,’ and started forward. Miss Taylor snatched my gun and shot him before I could stop her.”
Gentry rolled his cigar across his mouth and rubbed his blunt jaw. He did not see the flare of anger in Edna Taylor’s eyes before she swiftly lowered her lids.
He turned to her and asked slowly, “You’re sure you didn’t know Seeney?”
“I never saw him before,” she avowed.
“Ever hear of him?”
She hesitated for a moment, looking at Shayne, then said bitterly, “Mr. Shayne asked me if I knew him… a little while before it happened.”
“That right, Mike?”
“Sure.”
“How’d you come to ask her that?”
“I wanted to find out.”
Gentry spread out his broad hands and rumbled, “Quit playing hide and seek with me, Mike. Who was Seeney? Why did you ask me to pick him up a couple of hours ago?”
“He may very well be Clem Wilson’s murderer. Or one of the men at the filling station. That is, if there were two men.”
Gentry asked, “What do you mean…?”
“Seeney’s wife paid me a visit this afternoon,” Shayne interrupted. “I called you right after that. Now that list of names, with Clem Wilson’s crossed off, sounded like it might be the real thing,” he ended. “I’d give a lot to get the other names off it.”
“Seems to me like you’re doing a lot of guesswork,” Gentry growled. He got up with Shayne and they went to the pile of the dead man’s belongings. Gentry picked up a creased and worn sheet of Hammond Bond typewriter paper. He smoothed it out, explaining, “I noticed a bunch of names but didn’t look at them careful.”
“This is it.” Shayne pointed to the middle of the list. “Clem Wilson… with a pencil line drawn through it. And there’s the other one his wife mentioned… Felix Ponti. Several others with check marks and some not marked at all.”
“What do you make of it?” Gentry asked.
“I don’t know. I’d like to have this list.”
Gentry shook his head emphatically. “Not until you tell me a lot more than you have.”
“Then let me copy the names.” Before Gentry could remonstrate, Shayne got out a pencil and notebook and began jotting down the names on the list, noting the same check marks as were on Seeney’s list.
Gentry went back and sat down again. When Shayne finished, he growled, “All right for that. But why did you think Miss Taylor might know the guy?”
Shayne tucked his copied list in his pocket, returned to his chair and picked up his odd-looking cocktail bowl. Turning it around slowly in his hands, he confessed, “It was a shot in the dark.”
Gentry grunted. “Some more of your guesswork, huh?”
“Some things you find out, and some things you guess at,” Shayne said, aggrieved. “You know how that is, Will. But here’s the way things stack up.” He went into a full recital of all that had happened in Brannigan’s office that morning.
Edna Taylor sat quietly and listened without a change of expression as Shayne continued:
“Then she invited me over here. She did her best to pry some information out of me on the Wilson murder. Maybe the reason she and Brannigan gave is legitimate… maybe it isn’t. It’s not hard to figure that an organization like that could be on the racket side. Brannigan’s special services could mean furnishing certain monied members with bootleg gas and tires, while others who couldn’t afford to pay more than the nominal fee… or pay an abnormal price for gas and tires… would be no better off than before they joined up.”
Edna Taylor said, “You rat!” in a vicious undertone.
Chief Gentry glowered at the vice-president and asked, “What additional services can you render to the public
