Michael Shayne, twisting, grabbed at Sergeant Brannon’s holster. The flap was unfastened and his fingers slid across the cold hardness of the pistol grip. He tugged at it, but it resisted. Apparently the holster had a safety catch that would release the pistol only when it was pulled at the proper angle.
Only one of the cops had kept his two-handed grip on Shayne’s arm. The redhead bent his arm and drove the point of his elbow into the man’s midriff, with the full weight of his body behind it. The cop grunted but still managed to hold on until Shayne pivoted on one knee, straightening his arm suddenly and swinging it upward in a half arc. The cop’s grip broke. Shayne rolled and came to his feet, crouching.
Brannon was fumbling with the flap of his holster. Powys, drunk as a lord, lost his balance again and sprawled forward, arms and legs outflung, keeping the two cops out of action. So it was between Shayne and Brannon. The American threw a quick glance at the retaining wall, a dozen steps away. He could probably get over it before Brannon could draw and fire, but he didn’t like the idea of being hunted through loose sand by three men with flashlights and guns. He stepped quickly around the tangle of arms and legs, going into position to deliver a quick kick at Brannon’s head. But his foot struck the long object Powys had been carrying in his basket, and without any conscious thought he instantly switched gears.
It was one of the murderous three-pronged spears carried by skin-divers. He snatched it up, stepping backward. With a quick pass of his right hand, he cocked it, and in the same movement he released the safety. Now the broad rubber bands that gave the weapon its hitting power were at full stretch. He held it lightly in both hands, aimed just above the group on the ground.
“Let the gun alone, Brannon,” he said sharply.
The sergeant looked up at the vicious prongs, three feet from his head. Shayne grinned down at him wolfishly. The two cops ceased to struggle. Powys disentangled his long arms and legs; to Shayne’s surprise the pipe was still firmly clenched in his mouth.
“Surely want to apologize,” he said. “The confounded machine bolted on me. Anybody hurt except me?”
Shayne nudged the Englishman with his toe. “Get up. The rest of you stay where you are.”
Powys rose unsteadily. “Nothing strenuous, if you don’t mind, old chap. Perfectly sober and all that. I see you’ve got my spear. Quite right. Get it out of harm’s way.” Then he cried suddenly, peering owlishly at Shayne, “Great Scott, my dear chap! You’ve got it cocked!”
“Yeah, so I have,” Shayne said. “Now reach down and pull the sergeant’s gun out of its holster. Don’t make any sudden moves. Just be slow and careful.”
“Careful!” Powys said indignantly, suddenly sounding almost sober. “You’re the one who’d better be careful.”
Shayne made a small gesture with the spear, and the Englishman said hastily, “My God! Don’t point it. You don’t realize. That’s for barracuda. Those prongs can go through a two-inch plank.”
“Get the gun and give it to me,” Shayne said. “I’m a little nervous, but I’ll try not to pull the trigger.”
“Point it higher, please! You don’t aim the bloody thing like a rifle. It shoots low.”
Watching Shayne fearfully over his shoulder, he bent down and tugged at the gun in Brannon’s holster until he had worked it into position to come free. Holding it between thumb and forefinger, so Shayne would have no reason to think he was going to try to fire it, he handed it up to the redhead, who sent it spinning over the retaining wall into the sand.
“Now two more,” Shayne said.
The Englishman disarmed the two other cops and Shayne disposed of their guns in the same fashion. He backed toward the bike until he could touch it with one foot. Very little time had elapsed; the front wheel was still revolving slowly.
“What do you hope to accomplish, Shayne?” Brannon demanded, recovering the use of his tongue. “You don’t think you can get off the island before I catch up with you, do you?”
“I can try,” Shayne said grimly, reaching down.
“Perhaps we might come to some compromise,” Brannon said slowly. “I was a little hasty, I see that. Forget what I said about putting you in jail.”
Holding the spear in one hand, Shayne set the bicycle upright and ran it forward and back to be sure it could still be ridden. One of the pedals ticked against the frame as it came around, but otherwise it seemed to be undamaged.
“There’s probably a lot in some of the things you were saying,” Brannon went on. “I’m sure the inspector-”
“The inspector wouldn’t want to be disturbed,” Shayne said. “Nothing unusual has happened, after all, except that a man’s been murdered. You remind me more and more of that character I know in Miami Beach. He always begins to get reasonable when he realizes how dumb he’s going to look.”
He swung a long leg over the bike and settled down on the saddle. He hadn’t ridden one of these things in years, and he hoped he remembered how. He gave the group near the car a long, deadly look, ready to swing the spear around if they made any move. Then he dropped the spear into the basket and pedalled hard for the corner.
Before he was halfway there he heard someone running behind him. He glanced around. Sergeant Brannon had set out in pursuit, knees high, arms pumping. He called out something. Shayne bent low over the handlebars and drove forward. In that one rapid glance at Brannon’s straining face, he had seen that the sergeant was thinking of what his superiors would say when they found out that he had captured Shayne and let him get away. At that moment he was more afraid of ridicule than he was of being impaled on the spear.
For a moment, exerting himself to the utmost, Brannon gained on the American. Shayne knew there was a way to shift to a higher gear on these English bikes, but he couldn’t waste any time learning the technique. He spun around the corner, narrowly missing the curb. With a despairing burst of speed, Brannon narrowed the gap to five or six feet. It was downhill now, and as the grade increased, Shayne began to pull away. The sergeant kept it up for another fifty yards, falling farther and farther behind. In desperation he picked up a stone and hurled it at Shayne. The redhead heard it clatter on the road.
“I’ll get you-” Brannon shouted.
Shayne continued to pedal at top speed. When the grade levelled out he looked back, but the sergeant was no longer within sight. He switched on the headlamp, found the gearshift lever and changed sprockets. After that the pumping was easier.
He had already done all the thinking he had to do. It might have been an accident, that Powys, drunk, should wobble up on a bicycle at that precise moment, but it hadn’t been an accident that one of the tires on the cops’ car was flat. Someone had let out the air, and there was no doubt in Shayne’s mind that it was Powys. The redhead wanted to find out why; he needed all the help he could get.
When he came to a promising road on the outskirts of town he turned inland and began to climb. He shifted down into low again, and as the pitch increased he got off and pushed. Soon he was able to turn onto a dirt road parallelling the bay. He pedalled for five miles and turned back, taking the descent very fast. He came out on Bayview Road, only a few hundred yards from the Hibiscus Lodge. He approached carefully. Only one of the little cluster of cottages still had a light burning. Shayne switched off his headlamp.
As he glided to a stop at the gate, the front door opened and Powys looked out. “That you, Shayne?”
Shayne swung off the bike and propped it against the gate post. He was stiff and saddlesore.
“Make it a motorcycle next time. They’re noisier, but they go faster. Brannon damned near caught me.”
Powys laughed. Shayne limped up the path onto the porch. Powys was holding the door.
“You didn’t mislay my fish-sticker, I hope?”
“No, it’s out in the basket.”
“Right. They cost a goodish bit of money, actually. I’ll just put the bike undercover, in case we have a visitor in the shape of the good Sergeant Brannon. Make yourself a drink.”
“Thanks,” Shayne said. “I don’t know about you-you were pretty stoned the last time I saw you.”
“When I saw that spear pointed at my head I sobered up in a hurry.”
He went out. The furniture was arranged in much the same way as in Shayne’s own cottage. A bottle of Johnny Walker and several unopened splits of soda were set out on the coffee table beside the tape-recorder. Shayne poured some Scotch into a glass and sat down in an easy chair, stretching his legs.
When Powys came back Shayne said, “How about Brannon? Was it hard to persuade him the whole thing was a big mistake?”
