released her gently and pressed her back against the cushion. He stooped to pick up her glass and carried it across the table for a refill. He said cheerfully, “Drink that and then tell me about the girl. Everything you know about her.”
She took the glass from him, touching her eyes with a handkerchief. He deliberately turned his back on her while he poured another drink for himself and drank it, and then sank back into his chair and grinned across at her. “I’ll be able to listen better with a little distance between us.”
She said formally, “I am sorry that I gave way to emotion.”
“I’m not. It was damned pleasant while it lasted. Now, this Jane Smith. What do you know about her?”
“That is her name? Jane Smith?”
“That’s the name she gave me.”
“I did not know.” Hilda sipped her drink reflectively. “She came once to the town of Algonquin where we live. It was a week or two weeks after Harry first started to change and be angry about life and money. There was a long-distance call from a town near Chicago, fifty miles south from us. Denton, Illinois. It was for Harry and he listened and grunted yes and no, and I went to the kitchen, and at the end he said in a low voice, ‘I quit work at twelve at the Elite Bar. I’ll talk to you then.’ And he hung up and did not mention the conversation to me afterward.
“And a little before midnight I went to the bar where Harry worked and looked in the window. She was there on a stool. I did not know her, but I knew she was the one. I waited in the street shadow until midnight when the bar closed, and Harry came out with her. They got in a parked car and she drove away. Harry did not come home for two hours.”
Hilda emptied her glass and pursed her lips, looking down at it and continuing her recital in a monotone:
“There were no more calls and I did not see her after that. But Harry got worse. His irritation and his threatening of what he would do. I knew it was that girl. I knew she preyed on his mind and he was planning something bad, but I didn’t know what it was.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Four or five weeks ago.”
“Did Harry say anything about her to you?”
“Never a word. And I didn’t ask. I always believed a man had a right to his own secrets.”
“And he left home without telling you what he planned to do in Miami?”
“That’s right. With just a note for me when I got home from work.”
“How did you locate Jane Smith here?”
“That was purely fate. It was this afternoon on the street. I saw her getting on a Miami Beach bus and I knew her at once. So I suspected Harry had come here to meet her, and I got on the same bus and got off when she did and followed her to that expensive hotel. I stayed around the lobby a long time thinking maybe I’d see Harry, and went back this evening to wait some more. And when you came in the bar I recognized you right away and decided I’d ask you to help me. Then she came in and walked over and took you away from me. Who is she and what has she got to do with Harry?”
Shayne said, “I don’t know,” with real perplexity. “I met her for the first time tonight. In fact when you came over and sat at my table I thought you were Jane Smith.”
“Is it a detective case you’re working on?”
“Sort of.”
“Make her tell you where Harry is, Mr. Shayne. All I want is to see him and talk to him before he does something dreadful. I know I can persuade him to come back home with me. I don’t care what he’s done with her. I love him and I want him back.”
“I don’t even know that I’ll see Jane Smith again,” he told her cautiously.
“How else will I ever find him?”
Shayne shook his head slowly, tugging at his earlobe. What on earth had a girl from Miami Beach been doing out in a small town in Illinois a month ago meeting a married bartender after working hours? Had she already been started on her quest for a man to murder her stepfather? Had a certain Harry Gleason of Algonquin, Illinois, been suggested to her by someone as a likely prospect for the job? If she had made such an offer and he accepted, why had she sent that ad to the newspaper?
He said slowly, “One thing I think I can reassure you about, Mrs. Gleason. From things the girl told me this evening, I don’t believe your husband is having an affair with her.”
“Do you think I care about that?” she cried out scornfully. “He can have all the other women he wants if he just comes home to me afterward.”
“He’s a lucky man to be married to you. Describe him to me.”
“He’s tall and has blue eyes. Going a little bald in front, but not bad for a man of forty-six. Thin-faced, I think you would say. He’s been a good husband to me for ten years and I would do anything to get things back the way they were before.”
“Did you ask at the Palms Terrace Hotel if he is registered there?”
“At a high-class place like that?” she asked incredulously. “He wouldn’t be. He didn’t have more than a hundred dollars in cash when he left home. Even if he took a bus as I did he would not have money to afford a hotel like that.”
Shayne said, “It never pays to take anything for granted. Maybe he’s got hold of some extra money.” He reached for the telephone and gave Pete the number of the Beach hotel which he had called previously. He asked the girl if they had a Mr. Gleason registered, and shook his head at Hilda when he hung up. “Not there.” He sat back and drummed his fingertips on the table; “I wish you’d think back very carefully and try to remember any hints Harry dropped that might indicate how he hoped to get a lot of money in Miami. By a holdup, perhaps? Blackmail?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Shayne. I’ve thought and thought, and there was never anything I could put my finger on. I just know it was something crooked and dangerous. Else why wouldn’t he tell me? You must help me find him.”
Shayne said, “I’ll try, Mrs. Gleason. There’s another stinger, but I’m afraid it’ll be pretty weak.”
“No, I thank you. I don’t really drink very much. Bartenders and their wives don’t, you know. And it is terribly late to be here like this.”
“Where can I reach you?”
She gave him a street address in the downtown Northeast section of the city. “It’s room number five, up one flight. It isn’t fancy, but I don’t want to waste my money. And that reminds me, Mr. Shayne. What about paying you a retainer to look for Harry?”
Shayne said, “Let that go until I find him.” He stood up as she did, and again was pleased with her long free stride as they went out of the door and down the corridor together.
He took both her hands in his and faced her as they waited for the car to come up. “Keep on hoping, and I’ll do my level best to find your husband for you.”
She squeezed his fingers and told him, “I feel better right this minute than I have for a long time.” She hadn’t put her glasses back on and she looked up into his eyes with a look of honest gratitude that told him he could kiss her good night if he wished.
He decided he didn’t. He smiled down at her and continued to hold her hands until the elevator door opened behind her. Then he said gently, “Good night, Hilda,” and stepped back while the door shut. He frowned wryly as he walked back to his sitting room. This had certainly been an evening to try a man’s credulity. First, Jane Smith with her harrowing tale of sexual depravity, and then Mrs. Gleason with her even more difficult-to-believe story of a missing husband.
Right at the moment Shayne didn’t know which woman he had the more faith in. Connected as they both were with utter improbabilities, it was almost impossible to believe that both of them had been speaking the whole truth and nothing but the truth all the way through.
8
When Shayne entered his office the next morning, the anteroom was empty and Lucy Hamilton was not at her
