Shayne passed over that angle. “Try to think back to the morning Katrin was found dead. Did you have any trouble with your gas range that morning?”
She thought for a moment, then shook her head decidedly.
“Are you certain the pilot light wasn’t out? There wasn’t any odor of escaping gas in the kitchen?”
She shook her head more vigorously than before. “Lord, no. I’d remember a thing like that.”
“All right,” Shayne said. “There’s just one more thing. Did Katrin Moe have her gas grate burning when you said good night that last night?”
He waited tensely for her reply.
Again he got a decided shake of her gray head, “That she didn’t, you may be sure. To my knowing she never had it lit. She hated the smell of burning gas, she did. Like poison it was to her. She’d complain of a headache, poor lass, if she stayed in my room long with it burning.”
Shayne said, “Hell!” He studied Mrs. Brown’s kindly, good-natured face for a long time, muttered, “You, too, eh?” Then he grinned ruefully and started to the door growling, “There goes a hell of a good theory. Thank God Quinlan isn’t here.”
All his plans seemed futile now, and he had been so sure in his own mind when he left Quinlan’s office. However, he thought he might as well push on with what he had planned. He might think of something. He wasn’t ready to accept Katrin Moe’s death as suicide.
Standing beside his car he looked cautiously around before going quietly up the steps to Neal Jordan’s apartment. He opened the door and stepped into a small well-ordered living-room with a well-filled bookcase and an easy chair and writing desk.
There was a lavatory and shower in a small bathroom and a bedroom beyond.
Shayne darted an inclusive glance around the living-room, and not finding what he wanted, went on to the bedroom.
There was a photograph in a cardboard frame on the dresser, a picture of Neal standing beside an elderly woman. Shayne judged the woman to be his mother. The likeness of Neal was extraordinarily good and was evidently taken only a couple of years previously.
Shayne slid it under his coat and went back to his car, shifting his eyes around the house and grounds as he went. He could hear Neal hammering in the basement. Apparently no one had noticed his foray. He got in and drove back to his office.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lucy Hamilton looked up at her employer with an expression of petulant boredom when he strode briskly through the door. An amused smile started on her lips when she saw the ridiculous angle at which he wore his hat to protect the sore lump on his head.
The smile faded and she rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter as he stalked toward her with his jaw set in a grim line and his eyes preoccupied.
Shayne said, “Put in a call to the Victoria Hotel in Baton Rouge and find out whether Mrs. Nathan Lomax spent the night there last Tuesday night.”
She looked at him with sparkling interest as her fingers rapidly typed. “Have you learned something new?” she asked when the notes were finished.
“Nothing but dead-ends in this business,” he grumbled; and seeing the anxious look in her eyes he added, with a broad grin, “But I’ve always wanted to drive on through one of the damned things.”
“Mr. Lane is waiting for you,” she told him, and picked up the receiver to dial long distance.
Gabby Lane was waiting with his feet on Shayne’s desk. A wizened little man with big ears, he looked like a gnome. He wore an old, ill-fitting suit that enhanced the illusion. Shayne had known him well ten years before, and knew him to be one of the cleverest tails in the business.
Apparently feeling that a special greeting was in order after ten years, Lane said, “Hi,” as Shayne walked in.
Shayne grinned. “You’re as long-winded as ever, I see,” and held out his hand to grip Gabby Lane’s limp fingers. “How’s tricks?”
Lane’s feet remained on the desk. He lifted his thin shoulders and dropped them in answer to the question.
“Glad to hear it,” Shayne said. He sat down in his swivel chair and leaned forward. “Did you read the paper this morning?”
Gabby stifled a yawn and nodded.
Shayne said, “I need the man who killed Dan Trueman. You got any ideas?”
“Nope.”
“Have you any contacts around the Laurel Club? Anybody to help me pull a fast one-a frame?”
Gabby considered this for a moment. He finally nodded and said, “It’ll cost.”
“You know the side entrance to the club?”
Gabby nodded.
“I need a couple of bozos who saw a certain man in that vicinity about the time Trueman got his. That’s all. Just place him there. They don’t have to swear they saw him go in or anything complicated like that.”
“Was he?”
Shayne answered honestly, “I don’t know. Up until fifteen minutes or so ago I was sure of it. Now, I’ll be damned if I know what makes. But I’m way out on a limb and I’ve got to play it straight.”
“Cost more if he wasn’t. How many in the know?”
“You and I. It’s got to look legitimate. I want the cops to pick him up and your men to point him out in a line-up.”
“Bad business if it’s a bust.”
Shayne shrugged. “Mistaken identity. They can’t hang a man for making a mistake.”
“Hurt their reps,” Gabby pointed out. He studied his fingertips for a moment, then said, “Five C’s on the line. If it busts, another five C’s.”
Shayne said bitterly, “And fifty for you, I suppose.”
“Right.”
“Perjury has gone up since I was here.”
Gabby shrugged.
Shayne said, “All right.” He took out his wallet and counted out five of the bills he had won at the Laurel Club. He pulled the photograph of Neal and his mother from his vest and handed it to Lane. “That’s the guy. It’s a good likeness. Here’s the easy part of it. His picture was in yesterday’s paper in connection with the Moe girl’s suicide. He had driven her several places the afternoon before. Now when your boys turn in the tip, they say they spotted him from that. Keep this photo out of it but have them study it so there won’t be any slip-ups in the identification at headquarters.”
Gabby studied the photograph. He said, “Lomax-chauffeur,” pocketed the bills Shayne gave him and got up.
“When can I expect to hear from you?” Shayne asked.
“Couple hours,” said Gabby, and ambled out.
Shayne followed him to the outer door. When he closed it and turned around he was surprised to see an expression of violent aversion on Lucy’s face.
He asked, “What the hell?”
“I thought you were a detective,” she said bitterly. “I didn’t know you went around framing people.” She yanked a desk drawer open and took out her purse, opened it, and began stuffing it with small personal belongings from the drawer.
“You eavesdropped,” Shayne said.
“I couldn’t help it. The door was open. You made it plain enough. You’re paying five hundred dollars to have some men perjure themselves by swearing the Lomax chauffeur was at the Laurel Club last night while a murder
