Shayne studied it for a moment, then ripped it into thin shreds and dropped them into his coat pocket. He stood up and said, “Thanks.” Turning his back on Barbizon he went to the door, unbolted it, and walked out into the empty corridor.
He returned to the gaming room and stopped just inside the door to look around.
Business had picked up since be left. Two blackjack games had started, and another crap table was going strong. At the roulette table, he saw Timothy Rourke standing beside the frizzled blonde with the expensive perfume and the dress that did not fit her. He didn’t see the stocky man who had come in with her.
The blonde was pressed close to Rourke and talking earnestly to him.
After studying the crowd carefully and not seeing Angus Browne, Shayne stalked across to the door leading into the cocktail lounge. The lounge was filled with people and with cigarette smoke and loud talk. He strolled slowly along the bar, but neither Angus Browne nor the blonde’s earlier companion were present.
In the checkroom he got his hat, went down the stone steps to the curb where the doorman was assisting a couple from a chauffeured limousine. When the big car pulled away, Shayne asked the doorman, “Any chance of getting a cab?”
“As soon as one comes in with a load, sir. There’s one turning in now.”
Shayne stepped back when the taxi pulled up. A young sailor and a very young girl got out. They were both quite drunk. They refused the doorman’s assistance, and staggered away arm in arm. The doorman nodded to Shayne, who started toward the empty cab.
“Cab! Cab!” A shrill voice called from the top of the stone steps. The blonde was running toward the taxi, her face white in the dim light, holding the long skirt of her dinner gown up to make more speed.
“I’m sorry, Miss,” the doorman said. “This gentleman has already-”
The girl rushed on, crying, “I must have this cab,” and started to climb in.
Shayne stepped up to the driver and asked, “Any reason why you shouldn’t earn a double fare?”
“Okay by me,” the driver told him with a wide grin.
Shayne put a quarter into the doorman’s hand and got in beside the girl who was huddled in the far corner of the seat. “If you don’t mind sharing the cab with me,” he told her cheerfully, “I’ll be glad to drop you first.”
“But-hurry,” she said in a shaky voice.
The taxi wheeled around in a circle and went out under the archway. The driver asked over his shoulder, “Where to?”
“You first,” Shayne said to the girl.
She was sitting erect now, stiffly alert. “One thirty-nine Magnolia Lane,” she said. “Please hurry.” Her voice broke on the last words.
Shayne repeated the address aloud, “One thirty-nine Magnolia Lane,” frowning at the sound of it on his lips. The address engraved on the shreds of note paper in his pocket. The blonde was going to Leslie Hudson’s house.
He settled back in his corner and lit a cigarette, shielding the match in his big cupped palms to hide his face. The odor of her perfume had worn off somewhat and was not too strong inside the cab. The girl shrank back in her corner and did not look at him. He wondered why she had been in such frantic haste to leave the Play-Mor Club. He wondered who her earlier companion had been, and what connection, if any, there was between her and Timothy Rourke. She was not the type to attract Rourke, yet he felt sure that it had been Rourke and not himself she had stared at across the roulette table.
The taxi sped south past the Roney Plaza a short distance, then turned west toward the bay. There was a half-moon and brilliant stars twinkled in the dark blue sky. The taxi followed a winding course westward along palm-lined streets, finally turning south again on a street paralleling the east shore of Biscayne Bay. The driver slowed and pulled up in front of a tall hibiscus hedge that concealed the lower story of the house, but there were lighted windows in the upper story.
The girl was fumbling in her handbag when Shayne opened his door next to the hedge and stepped out. He held the door open and said, “I’ll be glad to take care of the fare, Miss.”
She moved over on the seat and slid out the door, breathing a tense, “Thank you very much.”
For an instant he caught a glimpse of her broad face in the moonlight. Her features were strained and tight, and she seemed to shrink away from him. She opened a wooden gate, left it ajar, and he could hear her heels clicking rapidly up the concrete walk.
Shayne said quickly, “Hold it here for me just a minute,” and went quietly and swiftly after her. He saw her swerve from the path and disappear around the side of the house toward the rear.
He stopped for a moment and listened, then went up the front walk to the porch where a night light burned, and pressed the electric button.
There was a brief wait. The door was opened cautiously by a middle-aged woman with a pleasant face and well-cushioned body clad in a simple print dress.
Shayne removed his hat and said, “I’d like to see Mrs. Hudson, I’m an old friend, and it’s rather urgent-”
“I’m sorry. Mrs. Hudson is not in.”
“Mr. Hudson, then?”
“Mr. Hudson isn’t in either. If you’d care to come in and wait-” She opened the door wide.
Shayne said, “Thanks. I’ll try tomorrow morning.” He went down the walk to the waiting cab, got in, and gave the name of his hotel in Miami.
The driver grinned as he pulled away. “That dame didn’t seem very friendly-you letting her ride in the cab, and all. I figured you and her didn’t know each other when you got in back there.”
Shayne said, “We didn’t,” shortly, discouraging further probing by the driver.
It was eleven o’clock when he reached his apartment. He glared at the half-packed Gladstone on the table, poured a slug of cognac, drank it neat, and went into the bedroom. Fifteen minutes later he was sound asleep.
Chapter Four: MURDER ON THE BAY
Shayne awoke at eight o’clock the next morning. He lay blinking at the ceiling for a moment, then tossed the covers back and padded into the living-room in his pajamas. A stiff breeze blowing in the two open windows had a late November chill so early in the morning, and he stopped to close them on his way to the kitchen.
He set a pot of coffee on the stove to brew, then went into the bathroom where he hurriedly shaved and showered. Wrapping a towel about his middle, he went back to the kitchen, pulled the percolator off the fire, and returned to the bedroom to dress.
He drank a cup of black coffee, poured another and added a generous amount of cognac, and settled himself comfortably with a cigarette. This morning routine was accomplished with a minimum of movement and of effort, and without conscious thought
Now, he frowned meditatively as he took a deep pull on his cigarette and took a stiff drink of the coffee royal. The events of the previous afternoon and evening came to him in rapid succession. His visit from Christine Hudson, the securing of her IOU from Arnold Barbizon, Angus Browne loitering in the Play-Mor bar, the girl in the taxi, her companion, and Timothy Rourke’s connection with her.
He finished his cigarette and the coffee royal, sat for a moment looking at the Gladstone, sprang up and started packing. He had kept his promise to Christine Hudson. Her IOU was safely scrapped and in his pocket He decided that he was making a mountain out of a molehill, and that the only thing left for him to do now was to deliver the IOU and her pearls. He stopped packing to go in the kitchen and get the pearls from the hydrator and put them in his pocket.
He came back and packed the last of his things, snapped the bag shut, and went down to the lobby to arrange to have it delivered to the airport by 11:30. He then went out and found a taxi, got in and directed the driver to 139 Magnolia Lane on the Beach.
The Hudson residence was an imposing structure by daylight, of Moorish and Spanish architecture in high favor during the early period of Miami Beach’s development. A vast expanse of terraced lawn spread out to the water’s edge, bordered on two sides with coco palms and Australian pines, and dotted with fern-bedecked fish ponds over which tiny decorative coral bridges were fashioned.
