too early in the morning to ring bells at random.
Instead, he took out a well-filled key ring, stopped to study the lock for a moment, then began selecting keys and trying them. The fifth one opened the lock, and he entered a small lobby. A self-service elevator stood waiting. He got in and pressed the button for the third floor.
Three A was the front apartment on the right. Shayne put his finger on the button and held it down while he counted to twenty. He released it, listened, and started to press it again when a crack of light showed under the door and the knob turned cautiously.
A sleepy voice asked through the narrow opening, “Who is it?”
Shayne said, “Police,” and shoved the door hard to confront the occupant.
Chapter Six
Marie Leonard looked small and appealing in a blue silk dressing-gown that trailed behind her and swept the floor around her bare feet. Her eyes were enormous and blue, round with fright in a heart-shaped face that seemed waxen without make-up. Her brows and lashes were dark; and blond, touseled hair fell around her shoulders. She looked almost childish until she drew back from the tall redhead and wrapped the robe tightly around her to reveal the mature curves of her body. She opened and closed her lips three times before she succeeded in gasping the three words, “You-said-police.”
“They’ll be here soon enough,” Shayne said gruffly. He closed the door, took off his hat, and absently rubbed his palm over his stubby hair as he looked around the living-room.
He recognized this as one of the widely-acclaimed efficiency apartments in Miami which were usually rented furnished. This one, beyond doubt, had been done over by the occupant with gray and dull-blue stippled walls to accentuate the richness of deep cream silken drapes at the triple windows that blended into the dull-gold brocaded cover of a day bed, replete with blond end tables and fat pillows resting against the inner wall. The rug was silver- gray, leaving a generous portion of polished floor between the edges and the wall. A lacquered Japanese table with splotches of red at the west end held a combination television set, and at the east end, near the windows, two leatherette club chairs were drawn companionably together with a low glass table between.
Directly across from the entrance door where he stood Shayne saw a swinging door which he guessed led into a kitchenette, and opposite the leatherette chairs a door with an inside full-length mirror stood ajar to reveal a portion of the bedroom.
Two small, oddly shaped lamps on the blond end tables, a larger one on the Japanese table, and three or four choice statuettes added to the decorativeness of the small room. There was no suggestion of crowding, nothing expensive, and Shayne’s swift glance of approval gave him the impression that Marie Leonard strove for an effect of simplicity, comfort, and elegance with inexpensive imitations.
His eyes were softer when he turned back to the shrinking figure.
“What do you mean-the police will be here?” she asked tremulously. “Who are you and what do you mean by forcing your way into my apartment?”
“I’m a friend of Bert Jackson’s.”
Color flooded into her face. “But-why the police?” she stammered.
“Don’t you know the sort of mess Bert has got himself into?” Shayne demanded.
Marie Leonard backed away until she leaned against the sill of the swinging door, lifted her pointed chin, and said stormily, “There was nothing wrong about Bert coming here. It was all in his wife’s nasty mind. We never-” She hesitated, her lashes half closing over her eyes.
“It’s not the vice squad you’ve got to worry about.” He turned away, hat in hand, and dropped into one of the chairs opposite the mirrored door. “We’ve got to talk about a lot of things, and I could do with a drink.”
“Has something happened to Bert?” she cried, taking a few quick steps toward him.
As she moved Shayne caught a glimpse of bare legs and guessed that she wore nothing underneath the dressing-gown. “Didn’t you know he was heading for trouble when he left here tonight?” he countered.
She held the robe at her waist with one hand and covered her face with the other as she sank down on the edge of the day bed. “Yes-I was afraid,” she wailed, bending forward until her chin touched her bare, crossed knee. Then she lifted her face. It was waxen-white again. “Damn him, anyway,” she said. “I begged him not to go through with it, but he was wild. He wouldn’t listen.”
“If you could scare up a drink,” Shayne suggested.
She caught her breath in sharply and exclaimed, “I know who you are! You’re Michael Shayne, the private detective Bert went to see yesterday afternoon.”
“That’s right.”
“Why did you encourage him to go on with it?” she raged. “You’re older and more experienced. You must have known it would never work. If anything has happened to him it’s your fault.” She grabbed at the crawling silk of the robe and covered her legs.
“Wait a minute,” Shayne protested. “I don’t know that-”
“I know your reputation,” she burst out, spots of red in her cheeks. “You’re tough and cynical, and you don’t care what happens to other people. You egged him on-”
“Is that what he told you?” Shayne broke in gruffly.
“Yes. And you can’t deny it. I heard him make the phone call.”
“What call?” Shayne demanded. “To whom?”
“I don’t know who the man is. Bert never would tell me. He didn’t even mention any name when he phoned.”
Shayne lit a cigarette, and a breeze from the windows floated the smoke across the room before he said gently, “Tell me about the call.”
“Why should I tell you anything?” she blazed at him. “You know all about it. If something-has happened-to Bert-” She stood up and moved closer to him, tightening her robe again. A single tear squeezed its way out from under each lowered lid and ran down her cheeks.
“I think we could talk this out better with a drink,” Shayne told her quietly. He met her stormy gaze through a cloud of smoke, his gray eyes cold and demanding.
She backed away, tucking her hair behind one ear with one hand while the other clung to the lap of the long, loose robe. She nodded without speaking, turned, and disappeared through the swinging door.
Shayne slid down in the chair and stretched his long legs out comfortably, put his head back, and scowled at the ceiling. Something was definitely wrong here. Marie Leonard was certainly not his preconceived idea of the “other woman.” She couldn’t be much more than twenty, he thought wearily, and nothing about her fitted into the Betty-Bert triangle. She acted more like a bobby-soxer with a naive crush on a man who was about to break into the limelight with something big, yet-
Her return broke into his analysis. She carried a small tray containing a tall glass with ice cubes, a bottle of Scotch, and a siphon.
“Aren’t you having one?” he said, quirking his red brows when she deposited the tray on the table.
She shook her head with decision. “I don’t take a drink very often.” She took a backward step as he poured whisky in the glass and squirted soda over it.
“Please tell me about Bert, Mr. Shayne,” she begged. “Is he in jail?”
He stirred his drink and tasted it before saying, “Bert Jackson is dead, Marie.”
She gasped, and her body stiffened. Her eyes widened a trifle, and her lips tightened. Then she shivered and without warning began to sway forward.
Shayne jumped up just in time to catch her. She leaned against him and buried her face against his chest and sobbed convulsively, her arms limp at her sides. Shayne left one arm around her waist and stroked her soft blond hair with his free hand.
She straightened after a while, drew back, and tried to smile. “I’m sorry. I think I knew it all the time-as soon as you came. Maybe before that.” Her lips trembled, and she caught the lower one between her teeth. “Do you
