“I’m sorry, Ann,” he said. “We could have had fun together, but now we never will. Take it easy. The less you fight the less sore you’ll be when you’re free.”
He turned and strode back to the living room where he found Angus still crumpled in the middle of the floor, unconscious. He lifted the light body easily to his shoulder and went out, leaving all the lights burning and the radio playing, and closed the front door firmly behind him.
He dumped Angus in the front seat of his car, went around and got in on the other side, connected the wire behind the switch and drove away, straight through the sleeping village and up the steep mountain slope toward the Moderne Hotel.
15
The cabin at the end of the row was still lighted when Shayne stopped in front of his own. He shut off the motor and snapped off the headlights, went in and turned on the cabin light and took his suitcase from the bed.
Angus was still unconscious, but he breathed regularly and his color was normal when Shayne carried him inside. He stretched him out on his back on the bed, and gagged and bound him, pulled down the shades, got a flat. 45 automatic from his suitcase. He threw a cartridge in the firing chamber and pushed on the safety, and slid it in his hip pocket.
Angus was lying limp, with his eyes closed, when Shayne turned out the light. He locked the door when he went out, then strode down past the row of dark cabins to a point where he could again look through a window into the lighted one.
Persona was sitting on the side of the bed now. His profile was toward the window, and he was leaning over Lucy Hamilton who lay on her back laughing up at him. Persona’s right hand rested on Lucy’s left shoulder, pinioning her to the bed with his weight, but Lucy didn’t seem to mind. Persona had an eager, hopeful look on his flushed face.
It seemed to Shayne that Lucy was shamelessly enjoying herself, and he had a funny feeling in his belly as he crept closer to the window. It was one thing to get a man drunk and try to dig information out of him, but quite another to give every indication of bitchy pleasure in the process. He hadn’t expected her to carry out his suggestion so literally.
As he neared the open window he was able to distinguish Persona’s voice clearly. It was thick with drink and with passion, and he was proclaiming over and over again that Lucy was the most beautiful and the most desirable woman in the world.
Shayne moved swiftly to the door, closing his mind to Persona’s voice, and knocked loudly.
Dead silence inside the cabin followed his knock. Then the creak of bedsprings, and the light went out suddenly. Shayne tried the knob. The door was locked. He pounded on it, and Persona called out, “Who is it?”
“Chief Elwood sent me.” Shayne’s voice was harsh and queer in his own ears.
A key turned in the lock and the door opened a cautious crack. He shouldered it wide and pushed in, reaching for the light switch on the wall and flipping it.
Lucy had swung her legs over the edge of the bed and was sitting primly erect, pushing strands of brown hair back with both hands. Her eyes were lowered and there was a demure smile on her lips.
Persona, shoved back against the wall by Shayne’s entrance, blinked a couple of times before his bleared eyes and blurred mind recognized the intruder. He exclaimed, “Shayne! What the devil does this mean?”
Shayne slammed the door shut and turned the key in the lock, withdrew it and dropped it in his pocket. He didn’t look at Persona. He asked Lucy, “Everything all right?”
“The Marines,” she said matter-of-factly, “landed just in time to save me from a fate worse than being your secretary.”
“What’s this?” Persona demanded thickly. “You know each other? What the devil…?”
Both of them continued to disregard him. Shayne went toward Lucy and asked, “Did you get anything?”
“Nothing much. Mr. Persona,” she continued, her lids lowered, “had other things on his mind.”
“See here!” Persona moved forward and grabbed Shayne’s arm. “Is this some sort of a badger game?”
“She’s my sister,” said Shayne savagely. “What have you been trying to do with her? An innocent, virtuous girl…”
“You must be crazy,” Persona burst out. “It was all her idea. She suggested we ditch Tatum. I can prove it.”
Shayne laughed shortly and shrugged Persona’s hand from his arm. He pointed a long forefinger at Persona and said, “Sit down in that chair and try to sober up enough to understand me. Miss Hamilton is my assistant and she’s been enduring your loathsome pawing in the interest of justice.”
“That’s not strictly true, Michael,” Lucy told him calmly as he seated himself on the bed beside her. “It was nice to be flattered for a change.”
Persona hesitated, staring from Shayne to Lucy, before sitting down in the only chair. He seemed remarkably sobered by Shayne’s entrance. He said, “I thought you were looking for evidence to convict Brand. What have I to do with it?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Why did you have a couple of your deputies try to rub me out after I visited Ann Cornell? What were you afraid I’d learn from her?”
Persona looked astonished and hurt. “There’s some mistake,” he declared. “I certainly didn’t try to have you rubbed out.”
“That’s a lie,” said Shayne flatly. “A couple of your men went for me the same way they took that witness for Brand on the highway near here this afternoon.”
“I know nothing about these matters.”
“You hand out the orders to those deputies,” Shayne charged. “AMOK pays their salaries. You’re as guilty of the death of Joe Margule as the two deputies who ran him off the road and beat him to death. And just as guilty in Charles Roche’s murder, if my guess is right,” he added grimly.
Persona had worked himself up to a high pitch of shocked indignation. “That’s the most preposterous accusation I ever heard. I can’t imagine what you base it on, or why…”
“Right at the moment,” Shayne said wearily, “I’m wondering what you were afraid I’d learn from Ann Cornell. Or from Angus. My guess is that one of them actually saw your deputies kill Roche… acting on your orders, of course.”
“That’s fantastic,” sputtered Persona. “Roche was my friend. A member of the organization I represent.”
“He was a hot-headed liberal who saw justice in the miners’ demands and had made arrangements to give them a union shop and everything else they asked as soon as he took charge of the Roche mines. You couldn’t afford to have that happen, Persona. You admitted this evening that such a settlement would practically wreck the mining business in Kentucky.”
“It certainly would have been a blow to our economy,” Persona admitted. “But I never believed Charles would give in. Not John Roche’s son. This talk of an arrangement to settle the strike is utter nonsense.”
“I don’t think it is,” Shayne told him quietly. “In fact, I think I know where to put my hands on a copy of such an agreement, signed and post-dated by Charles Roche.”
Persona ran a plump hand over his eyes and forehead and over his black hair. “That’s extremely important if you’re correct,” he faltered. “If there is such a document it must be destroyed. If it should be offered as evidence at Brand’s trial…”
“It would smash the case against him,” Shayne finished for him. “On top of that, it would add up to the goddamnedest evidence against you.”
“Against me? I was in Lexington last night. I can prove it.”
“I’m not saying you pulled the trigger. One of your gun-handy deputies would have done the job. But how long do you think it’ll take to break him down and point you out as the one who gave the order if he goes on trial?”
Persona shakily drew together the remnants of his dignity and said, “I swear I issued no such order. I’m not a
