“How could I? My God, Shayne! Don’t you understand? My own stepdaughter threatening me. Don’t you see what a field day Painter would have with that? What political capital he could make out of it? Even though it’s base calumny without a word of truth in it, if even a rumor of it leaked out to a newspaper I’d be finished in Miami Beach.”
“Still,” said Shayne reasonably, “if you expected Painter to take the attempts against your life seriously and give you protection, you’d have to show him this.”
Henderson said fervently, “I’d rather die.”
Shayne shrugged and said, “Maybe that’s just what you’re going to do.” He leaned back and lit a cigarette, studying his host out of low-lidded eyes.
“Tell me about your stepdaughter. Muriel Graham? Is that her name?”
“Muriel, yes. A sweet and wonderful girl. Like my own daughter, Shayne. I always think of her that way. And I think she loves me as a father. Her mother was quite ill for years as you may know, and Muriel and I were extremely close.”
You don’t know that I know how close, Shayne said to himself sardonically, but aloud, he asked, “So what’s this about her trying to get a hired gun to kill you?”
“I don’t know, Shayne. I simply don’t believe it. Not for a moment. There’s some ghastly mistake. Someone passing herself off as Muriel. A case of mistaken identity. I just don’t know. I haven’t been able to think straight since reading that letter.”
“Why not ask her?” suggested Shayne.
“I would if it were possible. That’s exactly what I would like to do. But she’s in New York visiting friends. I don’t know which one of several she’s with.”
“And this letter is postmarked New York.”
“Yes. But even with that coincidence, I dismissed the whole thing as a hoax when I first read it. Then, that very afternoon the shot was fired at me. I still dismissed it as an impossible thing. And then there was the second attempt yesterday. I simply don’t know what to think.”
“You’re veering around to the idea that maybe Muriel has hired somebody to kill you?”
“No. No!” Henderson pounded the desk angrily with his fist. “Nothing on earth would ever make me believe that. But I am inclining to the belief that the letter isn’t a practical joke. That it has some basis, though what it is I can’t even imagine.”
“I’d still like to know more about your stepdaughter. Did you say she’s nineteen?”
“Yes. An extremely well-poised and attractive young lady. Not at all the neurotic type. The last person in the world to do anything to cause such a letter to be written to me.”
“Yet it was written to you.”
“That’s exactly why I showed it to and am asking you to take the case, Shayne. You can see why I can’t take Painter into my confidence. Yet someone is trying to kill me, and you’ve got to find out why.”
“Still going back to Muriel,” Shayne said placidly. “How old was she when you married her mother?”
“Four years ago. She was almost sixteen.”
“Was her mother an invalid at the time?”
“When we were married? No. She was in poor health, but… her ailment hadn’t been properly diagnosed. None of us guessed that it was… cancer.” Henderson lowered his voice in speaking the word, as so many people do even today. In the same hushed voice he went on: “I insisted that she see the best specialists, but by then it was too late to operate… hopeless. She took to her bed and… all of us did our poor best to see that she was comfortable and happy until the end.”
“About three years ago?” Shayne pushed him relentlessly.
“Three years ago… what?”
“When her illness was diagnosed as cancer and she became bedridden.”
“Yes. That’s right. Though I don’t see…”
“When your stepdaughter was sixteen.”
“Yes. Muriel would have been sixteen.”
“A beautiful girl. On the brink of maturity. Did it ever enter your thoughts, Henderson, that the daughter might become a substitute for the mother? There the two of you were, living together closely in the same house. You, a young man for your years, deprived of the companionship of a wife and the sexual use of her body… living on intimate terms with a young and unawakened girl…”
“Stop it, Shayne! Stop it this instant.” Henderson’s face was congested. His doubled fist pounded the desk loudly. “Of all the filthy ideas I ever heard in my life.” He paused, breathing loudly and hard, glaring across at the detective. “What sort of cesspool do you have for a mind?”
“Pretty damned cesspooly.” Shayne shrugged and stood up, placing a blunt forefinger hard on the anonymous letter from New York. “This is still unexplained. Yet there has to be an explanation of one sort or another. Anyone who hates you enough to hire some stranger to murder you… there has to be a reason for that sort of hatred.”
“But I don’t believe that letter for a moment.”
“You believe that someone has tried twice to kill you in the past two days,” Shayne reminded him pleasantly.
“Will you take the case, Shayne?”
“I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.”
“You wouldn’t… what?”
“I won’t waste time repeating myself,” said Shayne harshly. “Stew in your own damned juice. When you eat dinner tonight, start wondering if poison will be next. Every time you start to cross a street on foot remember how simple it is to commit homicide by automobile. Lock all the windows when you go to bed at night, and bar all the doors. Fire your present servants and hire some new ones whom you believe to be incorruptible. Change all of your regular habits of life and stay away from crowds and places where you’re known. Start running, Henderson. That’s my advice to you.” Shayne grinned down at him evilly. “Don’t trust anyone behind your back. Not ever again. It won’t do any good in the long run, but it’ll be something to occupy your mind while you’re still alive.”
He started to turn away, then swung back to demand, “How well do you know Hilda?”
“Hilda…?” The abrupt transition threw Henderson momentarily off balance. Then he cleared his throat. “You mean the last lady I introduced you to? Mrs. Moran?”
“I mean the gal in the cute glasses. Whatever her name is. How long have you known her?”
“What earthly affair is that of yours, Shayne?”
“I’m making it my affair. How well do you know her?”
“Not well at all. I met her only yesterday as a matter of fact.”
“How?”
“How what?”
“How did you meet her? What were the circumstances?”
“She came into my office to discuss a matter of disposing of some bonds. She is recently widowed, I believe, and not accustomed to dealing with financial matters.”
“So you invited her to drop in for cocktails today?” Shayne asked scathingly.
“I did, yes.”
“You don’t invite all your new clients in for cocktails, do you?”
“All of my new clients aren’t attractive widows alone in the city. I resent your questioning me, Shayne.”
Shayne said, “That makes me feel good,” and stalked out, closing the door firmly behind him. In the other room he found the party in the process of breaking up, and was unable to spot Hilda among those remaining. Lucy Hamilton and Timothy Rourke were together near the archway, and Lucy brightened up when he emerged. “We’re ready to leave, Michael. Is our host coming out so we can thank him?”
Shayne said, “I don’t know. What happened to the gal in the red dress and the cute glasses?”
Timothy Rourke said, “She beat it the moment you and Henderson went out. What did you say to frighten her, Mike? I saw you had her cornered for a time.”
Shayne said, “I’ll tell you about it later.” He took them both firmly by the arm. “Let’s go.”
“But shouldn’t we wait to say good-by to Mr. Henderson?” protested Lucy.
Shayne said, “I don’t think we need to bother,” and dragged them through the archway.
Driving back to Miami, Shayne remained silent and brooding behind the wheel while Lucy and Tim lightly
