water. I’m a very poor swimmer and could not possibly have remained afloat more than a few minutes, so whoever planned it had the expectation that if the explosion did not kill me I would almost surely drown.”
“But you didn’t.”
“But I didn’t. By an absolute miracle there was a fishing boat not more than five hundred yards away. The only craft within miles of me. They rescued me and brought me in safely.”
“And the police think that was an accident too?”
“They insist that it could have been easily enough. A spark from the engine igniting the gasoline tank. I explained it wasn’t that sort of explosion. That it was definitely a bomb of some sort. But I haven’t any proof. Just my own positive impression of what happened. And there’s no chance of recovering the boat to ever find out what caused it.”
“But coupled with the bullet on Monday you’re convinced that someone is out to get you?”
“Aren’t you?”
Shayne shrugged his wide shoulders. “Not convinced. I certainly agree that the law of probabilities is being stretched pretty thin if we accept them both as coincidences. What does Petey Painter think?” he ended blandly.
“Painter!” Saul Henderson spat out the word as though he had bitten into a worm. “I talked to him all right. Insisted that he see me when they tried to put me off with an inspector or something. Well, you know Peter Painter better than I do. Strutting little nincompoop. He sat in his office and smirked and gloated. He knows, of course, that he’s one of the first men on the Beach slated to go when the Reform Administration takes over after the next election. His department is riddled with graft, and people are sick and tired of the highhanded way he runs things. You know yourself that Miami Beach has become a haven for well-known crooks. They’re infiltrating our businesses, crowding decent citizens off the streets. Oh, Painter sees the handwriting on the wall all right. It was perfectly evident from my interview with him.”
“And he knows you’re to be candidate for mayor on the ticket opposing the present administration?”
“It isn’t definite yet. I haven’t been offered the nomination.”
“But it’s generally known that you will be,” Shayne pressed him.
“It’s fairly common knowledge, yes.” Henderson compressed his thin lips and frowned across the desk at the redhead. “I hesitate to accuse him of lack of diligence in investigating the attempts on my life for political reasons,” he said sonorously. “But I can’t help feeling that Peter Painter wouldn’t have been at all unhappy if either of them had succeeded. Nor do I believe he intends to stir himself one bit to prevent further attempts.
“I demanded round-the-clock police protection,” he went on bitterly, “and he blandly refused. Had the audacity to sit there in his office and inform me that his men had more important duties to perform than the prevention of murder. I laughed in his face, Mr. Shayne, and asked him to please name those more important duties. Were they too busy collecting graft, I asked him. Or seeing to it that the gambling dens and whorehouses operated smoothly from dark to dawn without interference. We had quite a session,” he ended feelingly, “and that’s why I feel I need your help.”
“I can see why you might,” Shayne agreed dryly. He leaned forward to mash out his cigarette butt, lifted his empty glass hopefully. “I seem to have run out of my consultation fee.”
Henderson took the glass and got up with a wintry smile. “I’ll have to do something about that.”
Shayne leaned back and watched him go out the door with bleak eyes. For the first time in his life, the redhead had a warmly fraternal feeling for Peter Painter. Even without benefit of Shayne’s private knowledge of Henderson’s real character, the cocky little detective chief was right on the ball this time. And this was one time Shayne had no intention of getting into the act on the opposite side from Painter. Help Henderson stay alive so he could be elected mayor of Miami Beach? God forbid!
Nothing of this showed on Shayne’s face when his host re-entered with a brimming glass for him. Shayne accepted it with a grunt that might be construed as thanks, and took a careful sip while Henderson settled himself back into his chair.
Then he asked abruptly, “Who’s gunning for you, Henderson?”
He drew in a deep breath and held it for a long time. Then he expelled it unhappily and said, “So far as I know I haven’t an enemy in the world. That’s what makes all this so utterly fantastic. Throughout my entire life I’ve tried to be guided by the Golden Rule, and until day before yesterday I felt that I had succeeded. I’ve searched the innermost recesses of my soul and I just can’t come up with anything or anybody who might have a motive for harming me.”
Shayne refrained from asking him how he thought Muriel Graham felt about his treatment of her. Instead, he said, “What about a profit motive? You’re a fairly wealthy man, I believe.”
“I am, yes. But there’s nothing there. I have no relatives to inherit my own money, and my stepdaughter received half of her mother’s fortune which I hold in trust for her until she comes of age in a couple of years. No one would benefit financially by my death.”
“In that case, I don’t see what the hell I can do for you,” Shayne told him bluntly. “If some nut is determined to knock you off, all the police protection in the world won’t keep it from happening. Much as I dislike agreeing with Painter, I have to do it in this case. If you haven’t anything concrete to work on, you’ll just have to sit back and wait on the hot seat for the next time.” Shayne grinned wolfishly as he spoke, and there wasn’t the slightest trace of pity in his voice,
“Yes… I… I see your point. And that’s why I’m so glad to have this opportunity for a private discussion. There is one thing I haven’t told you, Mr. Shayne. One thing I didn’t tell Painter and couldn’t possibly tell him. But I feel I can confide in you. This talk has given me the utmost confidence that you are a man of discretion and honor. I told you in the beginning I was going to bare my soul to you. I know it must have sounded bombastic at the time, but I meant it seriously, Mr. Shayne. I meant it from the bottom of my heart.
“There is this letter, Mr. Shayne. I received it this morning from New York.” He reached down and pulled open a drawer of the desk, lifted out a red and white striped envelope which he looked down at with fear and loathing.
“I almost threw it away at the time. When you read it you’ll understand why. I still don’t believe a word of it,” he went on forcibly. “It is still utterly inconceivable to me how it came to be written. There cannot possibly be a word of truth in the filthy thing. And yet… and yet… after what happened yesterday I just don’t know. I just-don’t- know,” he repeated slowly and fearfully.
“Here.” He held it across the desk to Shayne as though it were a time bomb about to explode. “You’ll have to read it for yourself. There’s no other way. But as God is my judge, I swear there is no reason on earth why my stepdaughter should wish me dead.”
11
Shayne took the airmail envelope and looked at it. The address was a penciled scrawl: Mr. Saul Henderson, Palm Tree Drive, Miami Beach, Fla. It was postmarked New York the previous day.
Shayne opened the flap and took out a single sheet of folded cheap paper. The message was penciled in the same handwriting as the address:
Dear Sir,
This is a friendly warning to say that your stepdaughter is going around offering fifty Grand to get you bumped off. I ain’t a killer an turned her down cold but other guys wont. Watch your step.
A friend
Shayne sat looking down at the note for a long time after he finished reading it. No matter what she had promised Paul Winterbottom, her fiance, she hadn’t wasted any time getting in touch with the criminal element in the big city.
He carefully refolded the single sheet into its original creases and replaced it in the envelope. He dropped it on the desk in front of him and looked up to meet Henderson’s tortured eyes. He said, “You didn’t show this to Painter?”
