Shayne looked around the small room. The walls and ceiling were of pine panelling, painted a light gray. The wide rough boards of the floor were stained a dark brown with cotton rugs here and there. The furnishings and drapes were cheap, the colors blending to give the room a pleasant atmosphere.
When the radio was turned low, she said, “I’m sorry if I’m supposed to recognize your name. Michael Shayne?”
“There’s no reason why you should,” he told her. “Unless you’ve heard Roche mention me.”
“Jimmy?” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, frowned and shook her head. “Are you a friend of his? I supposed you were another newspaper reporter.”
There was a moment of silence between them. Then Shayne said, “I may as well begin by telling you I’m a detective… retained by the mine operators to look into Charles Roche’s murder.”
“To help hang it on George Brand,” she said placidly.
“If he’s guilty.”
“They don’t care whether he’s guilty or not,” she said unemotionally. She took a cigarette from a pack on the end table beside her.
Shayne got up and lit it for her, lit one for himself, and said, “Is he?”
She looked up at him, moving her head slowly. “I don’t know. If he killed Charles Roche he’s a bigger fool than I thought.” She sounded convincing, and her eyes were candid.
“You knew Brand well?”
“Quite well. He’s been living alone in that house across the street several months.”
Shayne returned to his chair, sat down, and crossed one knobby knee over the other. “And you were… neighborly?” he resumed.
Ann Cornell smiled. Her whole face lighted when she smiled. A healthy, youthful expression of real mirth. “He liked my corn,” she said. “Would you like to try some?”
“Corn?” Shayne asked, puzzled. Immediately he smiled and said, “I almost forgot this is Kentucky. I could use a whiff after the brandy I sampled at the Eustis Restaurant tonight.”
She lifted her voice to call, “Angus!”
Shayne had been hearing sounds coming from the rear of the cottage, running water and the clatter of dishes. These noises ceased at her call, and there was a shuffling of feet on the bare floor of the rear hall.
The figure of a man appeared in the living room doorway. He was short and slight, with sleek black hair and a thin, peaked face. His sleeves were rolled up on thin arms and his hands were red and dripping. He was enveloped in a long white apron that reached to the tops of carefully polished black shoes. His eyes were small and very bright, a look of hope or of expectancy burning in them. His gaze slid over Shayne and settled on Ann Cornell.
She said, “Bring in the jug, Angus. And two glasses.”
The glow in his eyes died. He wet his thin and colorless lips with the tip of his tongue, nodded, and made an abrupt about-face.
Ann Cornell was watching Shayne. She chuckled at the expression on his face and said, “Angus is a handy little guy to have around.”
“He looks as though he’d be more at home on Third Avenue than in Centerville.”
“He likes it here,” she assured him carelessly. “Don’t you Angus?” she demanded as the little man came back carrying a gallon jug half filled with colorless liquid in one hand and two glasses in the other.
“Don’t I what?”
“Like it in Centerville better than Third Avenue where Mr. Shayne thinks you belong.”
He slanted his eyes at Shayne as he passed him, and venom showed in them. “Sure I like it here.” His voice was dry and low. He set the jug and glasses on the table beside Ann and shuffled out, muttering, “I gotta finish up them dishes now.”
“Angus is a real fancy cook,” she told Shayne complacently, pulling the corncob stopper from the bottle. “And it’s nice to have a man around the house.”
“Must be expensive, though… keeping a hophead happy.”
“How’d you know that?” She looked honestly surprised and puzzled.
“Eyes… skin. Everything.” Shayne waved a big hand. “Old friend of yours?”
“He drifted into town a few months ago. Hitch-hiking home from the Derby.” She poured white liquid into the glasses and said in a matter-of-fact tone, “If you’re one of those damyankees who has to mix gingerale with good liquor, you’ll have to go out and get some.”
“I’ll take it straight.” He got up, went over and picked up one of the glasses, sniffed the pungent odor, and his belly muscles contracted in sharp protest. But he nodded and smiled, resettled himself in his chair and took a preliminary sip. It was like liquid fire in his throat.
Shayne set the glass aside and watched Ann Cornell take a swallow from her glass. She had, he realized, the faculty of making a man feel at peace and at home with her emotional placidity and the absence of affectation. She certainly was not beautiful, and she employed none of the artifices with which so many women try to conceal their lack of beauty. She gave off an aura of sensuality in a healthy, animal sort of way; but she was also able to make a man feel completely at ease with her, just sitting and talking, and perhaps drinking. She could easily become a habit with a man. One that would be difficult to break away from.
She must be about thirty, he decided. Old enough for any man, and young enough for any man.
Angus came to the door. He had taken off his apron and was rolling his sleeves down on moist forearms. He hesitated diffidently in the entrance and looked at Ann Cornell with question marks in his shoe-button eyes.
She said, “Come in and sit awhile, Angus, if you’re done with the dishes.” She took a big gulp of corn and added, as though it were a casual afterthought, “Mr. Shayne is a detective from the city.”
Angus was sidling across the room toward a chair in one corner. His hands hung open and lax at his sides. When she spoke, they closed into tight, quivering fists. His back was toward Shayne, and it stiffened as he hesitated a moment before seating himself. Shayne glanced swiftly from him to Ann and surprised a look of innocent pleasure on her face. The same look with which a two-year-old might contemplate the death throes of a butterfly whose wings have just been pulled off.
“From Miami,” Shayne corrected. “I haven’t been around the Main Stem for fifteen years.”
Ann Cornell laughed softly and emptied her glass. She frowned at Shayne’s glass and asked, “Don’t you like my corn?”
Shayne picked up his glass, drew in a deep breath, and took two long swallows in quick succession. Fire kindled in his stomach and spread over his body. When he could speak, he said, “It’s damn good liquor. George Brand must have been a frequent visitor.”
“He dropped in right often,” she said, indicated the jug of corn and added, “Help yourself.”
Shayne grinned and said, “I’m supposed to be working on a murder case.”
He was watching Angus out of the corner of his eye as he spoke. The little man sat stiffly erect with his hands folded tightly in his lap. His left eyelid was twitching and sweat stood on his forehead, but he looked steadily at the floor and gave no evidence of interest in what was being said.
Ann Cornell asked, “What do you want from me?”
“Everything that happened last night.”
“I told Chief Elwood everything I know. My radio was on loud all night. I keep it loud so I can hear when I have to go to some other room. I didn’t hear any shot. I didn’t see anybody around until Seth Gerald knocked on my door about four o’clock to ask if I’d seen Mr. Roche or Brand. It was about an hour later when I saw Brand drive up to his house… just like he said in the paper.”
“How much did you see and hear, Angus?” Shayne shot the question at the rigid figure.
Angus jerked his head up. His eyelid stopped twitching. He looked shocked and stupid, and had difficulty getting his head turned to look at Ann Cornell.
“He didn’t hear anything,” she said to Shayne, and for the first time he detected emotion in her voice. “He was in his room… asleep.”
“Loaded?” Shayne asked casually.
“To the gills.”
Angus got to his feet unsteadily. His thin face was twisted and his body was trembling violently. Tears streamed from his little black eyes. He jerked out spasmodically, “You don’t hafta… I’m goin’ in an’ lay down.” He relaxed suddenly, and his short thin legs became rubbery as he placed one highly-polished shoe before the other
