corpse. “What do you know about Bert Jackson, Mike?”
“Not much. I first met him a couple of years ago when he went to work on the News with Tim Rourke. He seemed a nice kid, newly married and enthusiastic about being a reporter.”
Gentry brushed this nonessential information aside and said brusquely, “You threw him out of your apartment this afternoon. Why?”
“A personal matter.”
“You told Rourke you didn’t like his proposition.”
“I didn’t.”
“What sort of proposition?”
“It can’t have any bearing on this,” he answered stubbornly.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Gentry growled. “Why did you throw him out?”
“I’ve told you it was personal.”
“Privileged communication from a client?”
“You might call it that.”
“You said you didn’t have any clients,” Gentry reminded him with thinly controlled anger.
“I didn’t then.” Shayne drew in a long breath. “But this changes things. Mrs. Jackson is now my client. My talk with Bert Jackson also concerns her.”
“Don’t push me too far, Shayne. Don’t forget that as soon as Rourke saw the condition of your office he guessed it had a connection with Bert Jackson. We had one murder then, but I let you walk out without giving me anything. Now we’ve got another.”
Shayne hesitated before answering. He knew Gentry to be a man of long patience, but the fact that the chief had addressed him by his last name evidenced that his patience was reaching the breaking-point.
“Look, Will,” he said placatingly, “Jackson couldn’t have done the job in my office. The doc said he’d been dead since about midnight.”
“I’m not saying he did that job. I want to know why Rourke thought there was a tie-up.”
“Ask him,” said Shayne.
“Morgan,” Gentry called, and an officer detached himself from the group and came toward them. “Put a pair of cuffs on Shayne,” the chief directed pleasantly.
Shayne thrust his hands deep in his pockets and took a backward step. “Dammit, Will,” he raged, “you’re making the biggest mistake of your life.”
“I don’t think so. You can either talk now or sit in a cell until you decide to give me what you’ve got.” The trenches deepened in Shayne’s cheeks, and his voice was hoarse with anger and disbelief.
“This is a fool move. Let me work out my own angles and I’ll solve both murders for you.”
“Give me what you’ve got and I’ll attend to solving the murders. I can’t take this sort of thing from you any longer, Mike,” he continued in a pleading tone. “I’ve let you have your head too often in the past, and look at the publicity it’s got me. People read the papers and get the idea that we don’t need a police department in Miami, that you’re a one-man homicide bureau.”
“Maybe they’d be right at that,” Shayne said angrily. “Give me a little time on this. Just a few hours.”
“I’ve done that too often,” Gentry told him stolidly. “We sit around and twiddle our thumbs while you withhold vital information until you can work out some sort of deal to collect a whopping fee for solving a case we’d have tied in knots if you didn’t hold out. This time it’s going to be different. If you won’t give, at least I’ll know you’re put away where you can’t make a deal. Go ahead and put the cuffs on him, Morgan.”
Shayne was shaking with rage. He backed away another step, taking his hands from his pockets and clenching them into fists.
“Before God,” he grated, “I’ll break the jaw of the first man-”
“Dennis-Martin,” Gentry ordered gruffly, “help Morgan arrest this tough shamus.”
Shayne was thinking fast and fighting against his overpowering anger as the three officers moved toward him. “Better hold it a minute, boys. I’ve got to figure this thing out.”
The trio paused, glancing at Gentry for orders, uneasily aware of the redhead’s long friendship with the chief.
“You’ll have lots of time to figure it out in jail,” said Gentry. “This time I mean it, Mike.”
“Call Mrs. Jackson first,” Shayne demanded. “Get her permission for me to give it to you. That’s all I ask, Will, that you don’t force me to betray the confidence of a client.”
“We’ve already tried to call her. Right after I tried to call Rourke. No one answered at the Jackson house. What the hell does that add up to? Nobody home at four o’clock in the morning?”
“I can’t help that,” Shayne pointed out. “I don’t go around tucking my clients in bed. Wait until you get hold of her. If she agrees-”
“I’m not waiting any longer. Either give it to me now or stick out your wrists for the cuffs. Or take them the hard way,” he added uncompromisingly.
Shayne relaxed his white-knuckled fists. He realized that he couldn’t keep quiet any longer. Locked up, he couldn’t do Rourke or Betty Jackson or anybody else any good. His one chance to accomplish anything was to buy a few hours of freedom with some sort of story that would satisfy Will Gentry. To even hint at the few facts he knew about in the case would be damning to Rourke and to Betty Jackson.
“All right, Will,” he said, forcing a choke into his voice. “You’ve got me in a corner. If you’re sure you want it this way-”
“I’m sure,” Gentry interrupted.
Shayne took a deep breath and began tonelessly, “Bert Jackson came to me this afternoon to hire me to get divorce evidence against his wife. I threw him out because I don’t like that sort of business.”
“And?”
Shayne spread out his big hands. “That’s all. I refused the job and tossed him out on his ear.”
“Maybe so. But you still haven’t told me why Tim suspected Jackson and his proposition had something to do with the elevator operator’s murder and the ransacking of your office. And where does Tim come into the picture?”
“Tim’s an old friend of both Betty and Bert. A sort of brother-confessor. He got Bert his first job on the News, and-”
“I want to know why Tim brought up Jackson’s name in your office tonight.”
“I’m coming to that,” said Shayne rapidly. “I didn’t understand it myself until Tim and I left the office together. It seems that Bert had told his wife he was hiring me to get evidence against her-gave her the impression, in fact, that I had already got enough dope to get him a divorce. Tim said she was hysterical about it, and wanted him to get the evidence from me. When he refused to help her he was afraid maybe she had gone to whoever is involved with her and gotten him to search my office for it.”
It wasn’t a very convincing story, Shayne knew, but it had to do for the moment. It would provide Gentry a tangent to investigate, and Shayne could only hope fervently that there wasn’t a man involved with Betty Jackson on whom suspicion would fall.
Gentry was frowning and chewing on a fresh cigar. His protuberant eyes were fixed on Shayne’s brightly illuminated face, but the redhead didn’t bat an eye.
“That sounds okay for a beginning,” said Gentry grudgingly, “but how does it fit in with this?”
“I told you I didn’t think Jackson’s death had anything to do with it. If I have to solve all your homicides for you-”
“Beat it!” Gentry roared. “Next time, come clean in the beginning and there won’t be any hard feelings.”
Shayne stalked to his car without replying, got in and gunned the motor viciously in a U-turn, hit Okeechobee Road fast, and followed it to Grapeland Boulevard, where he turned north to 67th Street.
The cool stillness of the hour before the dawn shrouded the city as he drew up in front of a three-story stucco apartment with Las Felice lettered on the archway above double entrance doors.
He got out and went up the walk, found the outer doors unlocked, and entered a small foyer with a row of letter boxes on each side. Shayne tried the inner door and wasn’t surprised to find it locked in the absence of a doorman to admit visitors.
He turned back and found the mailbox for apartment Three A. A small engraved card inserted in a slot read Miss Marie Leonard. He didn’t want to forewarn the occupant of Three A of his impending visit, and decided it was
