well, and deeply regretted her untimely demise.
Shayne asked, “Do you remember her last visit here?”
“I do, indeed. It was the day before she died. Day before yesterday afternoon, to be exact. Wednesday. She always came on Wednesdays. Just after lunch. To deposit her check, you know, so I didn’t think anything about it when she came in that day, though I believe it was a little later than usual.” He caught the lap of flesh under his chin and blinked his eyes thoughtfully. “Yes. It was decidedly later. At least an hour later than her regular time, though I must confess I didn’t notice anything else. Nothing peculiar, you know,” he went on regretfully, “and I’ve thought about it a lot since. It does seem that one should be able to tell, and I thought that if I’d just-”
“Did she deposit her check as usual?”
“Yes, indeed. She always withheld a certain amount in cash, but this time she deposited the check and withdrew fifty dollars in cash. I remember asking her, in a joking way, of course, what she was going to do with so much. She smiled in that slow way, and very attractively too, and said she was getting married and might need it for a honeymoon. Can you imagine that? Getting married the next day and-”
“I certainly can’t,” Shayne said. He broke away and trotted out to drive back to his office without wasting any more time.
Lucy Hamilton’s interest in her job had undoubtedly risen to a high pitch of enthusiasm. The moment Shayne opened the outer door she called excitedly, “Inspector Quinlan called a few minutes ago. He’s hot on your trail and said for you to call him the instant you returned. I’m sure he must have something that’ll clear you of-”
“Get him,” Shayne said, stalking through to his office. He picked up the receiver and listened while Quinlan’s phone rang, said, “Quinlan?” when a voice answered.
“That you, Shayne? It looks like you were right and things are breaking faster than we expected. My men dug up a couple of witnesses who saw Neal Jordan, the Lomax chauffeur, sneaking around to the side entrance of the Laurel Club about the time Trueman got his.”
“Good work, Inspector,” Shayne said heartily. “They’ve identified him?”
“Conditionally. Jordan’s mug was in the papers yesterday, you know. They say the man they saw looks like him. I’ve sent a couple of men out to pick him up, and I’ll put him in a line-up. If they pick him, we’ll really have something to go to work on.”
“You bet,” Shayne said. “I’ll be right over to see what goes.”
He hung up and went slowly back to the outer office. “The wheels have started to turn,” he said grimly. “Neal Jordan has been fingered for the Trueman killing and Quinlan is bringing him in.” He watched closely for her reaction.
She said, “It’ll be all right, Michael. I know it will. But”-she turned her eyes away-“I hope they don’t-beat him-too hard.”
Shayne grinned. “Don’t worry too much about that. They don’t beat a man except as a last resort. You see, they try sweating it out of them first, and they’re pretty good judges of whether a man is actually guilty or not.”
“Oh,” she breathed, “then it will be all right.”
“Sure,” said Shayne. He took out the notes he had made at the Federal Building and studied them. “Call the depot, Lucy, and get the arrivals and departures of trains to Craigville, Wisconsin. Also the exact fare; coach, first- class, and Pullman. And call me at Quinlan’s office in about half an hour with the dope.”
Lucy grabbed a pencil and notebook and asked, “Craigville, Wisconsin?”
“That’s right,” Shayne said, and closed the door on his way out.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Six men stood in line under a bright white light at one end of a big basement room at headquarters. From left to right they were a city detective in mufti, a police reporter, a derelict from the bull-pen, another detective, Neal Jordan, and a second vagrant.
The detectives stood erect and unsmiling under the glaring light. The reporter grimaced into the semi- darkness of the big room where some of his colleagues were watching him. The two vagrants shuffled their feet nervously.
Neal Jordan faced the two groups of men with folded arms and a faint smile of contempt twitching his mobile lips. He had been picked up at the Lomax residence and brought to headquarters to stand in the line-up without any explanation whatever.
The two groups of men in the big room viewed the scene from widely separated vantage points. Each group was composed of a couple of officers and a reporter, and one of the two men who were there to identify the suspect. Each was being forced to make a separate identification in order to prevent any possible backfire when the case came to court.
Shayne and Inspector Quinlan were in one of the groups. Their witness was a fat Italian with bulging eyes and very white teeth. He surveyed the row of men under the light for a long moment, then flashed his teeth at the inspector and declared, “Next one to the end-that-a-way.” He swung his arm to indicate Neal Jordan. “That’s him for sure.”
“You want to be very sure,” the inspector warned. “You may have to testify in court.”
“Sure I’m sure. Didn’ I see ’im last night?”
“All right.” Inspector Quinlan raised his voice to call, “Any luck over there?”
“We’ve got a positive identification,” a voice called back. “Are you ready for it?”
“Shoot.”
Quinlan nodded his satisfaction when the voice said, “Next to the end on the left-the chauffeur.”
“Bring him back to the boudoir,” Quinlan said. Then warned the reporters, “There’s nothing to print yet. This is hot, but we need a confession. You’ll all be treated alike.”
Shayne hung back a little as the inspector hurried forward to intercept the officers escorting Neal back to the bare little room reserved for the questioning of recalcitrant suspects.
Quinlan stopped in front of them and confronted the chauffeur. “Why did you murder Dan Trueman?” His cold blue eyes bored into Neal’s.
Neal glared back and said quietly, “So that’s what this is all about.”
“You’ve just been identified as the man seen sneaking in the side entrance about the time Trueman got it. Might as well give us the whole story, Jordan, and save yourself a lot of trouble.”
“Why,” asked Neal in a wondering tone, “would I kill Mr. Trueman?”
“We know that, too,” Quinlan told him. “You left a little memento behind in your haste to get away.”
“Did I?” Neal Jordan’s unruffled manner was a match for Quinlan’s stoicism.
“We’ve got you dead to rights,” the inspector warned evenly. “The boys won’t be too easy when they start asking the questions. Better give it to me.”
Neal shrugged his handsome shoulders. “There has been a mistake. I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
Quinlan stepped back, nodded, and said, “All right Take him, boys. But get a before-and-after photo. We won’t want any plea of strong-arm stuff after he confesses.”
He was scowling when he rejoined Shayne and asked, “What do you think?”
“I think he’ll be a tough one to crack,” said Shayne.
“I’d better warn the boys,” Quinlan said. “They know a couple of tricks to make him talk.” He left Shayne and went to the room where Jordan had been taken for questioning.
He returned presently and suggested, “Let’s go up to my office while they soften him up.”
“Of course,” said Shayne as they walked along.
In his office Inspector Quinlan took the bottle of brandy from the filing cabinet and set it on the desk before Shayne, saying, “Here it is-help yourself,” and permitted himself the rare luxury of becoming jubilant.
“We’ve got him, all right,” he went on, seating himself comfortably in his desk chair. “Funny, too, the way my men pulled him in right after you’d showed me why it might be him. Just goes to show that two of us can reach the same objective by taking different forks in the path. Plain police work is what finally turned up the two witnesses, and we’d have got him anyway if you hadn’t cleared up a couple of things for me.
