at their impact.
“That was when I first came,” she faltered. “On Monday afternoon. He had written in his note the name of that bar where he had met an old friend, but I swear he would not tell me where he was staying here. And I did not see him again after ten o’clock that night when he walked out the door very angry because I had begged him to return with me and give up whatever crazy plan he had.”
“What time did you reach Miami Monday?”
“The bus arrived at four o’clock. I had only the name of the bar to find him and I went straight there. Harry was drinking beer and he was angry to see me… thinking me still at home. We sat in a booth until ten o’clock that night and he drank beer and was drunker than I have ever seen him.
“He would not tell me anything, Mr. Shayne, except that I must leave him alone and we would be rich. It was going just as he planned, he told me, and I must not interfere. I begged him and I cried, but it only made him angrier, and he stalked out cursing me.” There were tears streaming down her cheeks when she finished, and she put her hands over her face to hide them.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“What good was it to tell? I was so ashamed, and I still did not know how to find him in this city. I went to the bar again next day and afterward, but he did not come.”
“What was your husband wearing the last time you saw him? When he walked out of the Lucky Tiger Bar?”
“Just his everyday clothes. Harry is not a fancy dresser, but neat.”
“Did he have a green suede jacket?”
“He wore that, yes. It was new this fall.” Her eyes were unwaveringly fixed on his. “You have found Harry, Mr. Shayne?”
“I’m afraid I have, Hilda. I think he’s… dead.”
She didn’t cry out. She didn’t blink her eyes, and tears began silently rolling down her cheeks. She said, “I think I knew it would be. Inside me. I knew. Tell me, Mr. Shayne.”
Shayne told her as gently as he could. “I’m not positive, of course. You’ll have to make the identification.”
“But why, Mr. Shayne? At Mr. Henderson’s house with a pistol in the night?”
Shayne said, “First, he must be identified.” He stood up. “You’d better get dressed.” He looked about the room and saw there was no telephone. “Is there a pay phone?”
“In the hallway outside.” Still outwardly composed, Hilda threw the covers off her legs and stood up.
Shayne said, “I’ll use it while you dress. Open the door when you’re ready.”
He went out into the dimly lit hall and found a wall telephone. He dialed Miami Beach Police Headquarters, and after a little difficulty got Painter himself on the wire.
“Mike Shayne calling. Have you identified Henderson’s corpse yet?”
“How could we with nothing at all to work on? Nothing whatsoever.” Painter sounded personally aggrieved. “He’s one of those cheap bastards who even did his own washing… and dry-cleaning too, I guess. All we’ve got is his prints and the serial number on his pistol.”
“His prints on it?”
“His and no others. If you’re holding out any information, Shayne…”
“On the contrary. I think I’ve got him identified for you.”
He heard a swift intake of breath over the telephone. “So you did know something, Shayne. By God, I…”
“I followed up a hunch and I think it’s going to pay off for you,” Shayne told him smoothly. “A Mrs. Harry Gleason is coming over in a taxicab to the morgue to look at him. I think he’s her husband.”
“Gleason? What’s the full story, Shayne?”
“Mrs. Gleason will give it to you… if it is her Harry. Better meet her at the morgue in twenty minutes.”
Shayne hung up before Painter could say anything more. The door of Hilda’s room opened as he turned away from the phone, and she stood in the doorway wearing a dark two-piece suit with a white silk blouse, and she was settling her Harlequin glasses over her eyes.
She stepped aside as Shayne re-entered the room, and he told her, “We’ll go down and I’ll put you in a cab to go across to the morgue on the Beach. Chief Peter Painter will meet you there, and will want a statement from you, if you identify your husband. I don’t want to be there while you make it.” He took both her hands in his and looked down at the blue-tinted glasses. “Do you trust me, Hilda? Will you do exactly as I say?”
“I trust you.”
“Then tell Painter the truth as you told it to me just now. But leave out the girl, Hilda. Just don’t mention her being in Algonquin, or seeing her here. Tell Painter that you came to me for help in locating your husband, and all the rest of it. But leave Muriel Graham and Jane Smith out of it for the time being.”
“Why should I do that? I know that she is behind it all.”
“Probably. And if she is responsible for your husband’s death I promise you that she’ll pay for it. But you can help by not mentioning her to Painter.”
She said, “I will do what you say.”
Shayne went out and she followed him, turning off the light and locking the door. Downstairs, they got in Shayne’s car and he drove to Flagler where he found an empty cab and put her in it. He pressed her hand tightly and said, “I’ll see you later, Hilda. Right now I’ve got a lot of things to do.”
He stood and watched the cab pull away, and felt sorry as hell for the self-contained woman whose ten years of married happiness had ended so tragically. Then he drove to his hotel, where he had promised to meet Timothy Rourke.
14
The gangling reporter had had a key to Shayne’s second-floor suite for many years, and Shayne found him there when he arrived, comfortably ensconced in a deep chair with the dregs of a highball in his right hand.
“Any further developments?” Shayne asked as he strode in.
“Nothing new. I filed my story with only a passing mention of the stepdaughter in New York. I’m waiting for the low-down on her.”
Shayne passed him to pour a couple of ounces of cognac into a glass. Without bothering to get a chaser, he returned to his own chair and sank into it with a sigh. “I’ll be glad to spill it, Tim. Maybe talking out loud will clarify things in my own mind. Your Jane Smith of the newspaper ad was Muriel Graham, of course. She told me so that night when she explained why she was offering fifty grand to get him bumped off.”
“And why was she?” Rourke’s deep-set eyes were bright with eager curiosity.
Shayne told him. Starting from the beginning, he repeated the girl’s hysterical story in her own words as well as he could remember them.
He was striding up and down the room, running knobby fingers through his coarse red hair when he finished. “That’s why I refused to tell you the full truth that night, Tim. Damn it, I was sorry as hell for the kid, yet for Christ’s sake, I couldn’t help her with her crazy plan.”
“That brings us to when you shoved me down the stairs. Was your late visitor Jane Smith as you hoped?”
“No. Another woman entirely. Remember me describing the other two women in the Crystal Room who I thought might be Jane? One of them wore Harlequin glasses and had a faintly foreign accent and came to my table just as Jane came in.”
“Harlequin glasses?” Rourke did a fast double-take. “Tinted blue?”
Shayne dropped back into his chair and nodded. “The woman who arrived late at Henderson’s party yesterday afternoon, and whom I cornered briefly. Hilda Gleason is her name. She had a story of her own to tell.”
He briefly repeated the story Hilda had told him that first evening. “So you can see why I wasn’t too surprised to see her pop up at Henderson’s, but didn’t understand how she had got there. There was that past connection between the man’s stepdaughter and her husband.”
“What past connection?” asked Rourke, puzzled.
