“I just told you. About the phone call from Denton, Illinois. And Hilda going down to the saloon to watch her husband meet the girl and go off for a conference with her. That girl who met Gleason in Illinois was Muriel Graham… who called herself Jane Smith in the advertisement.”
“Yeh. I got that angle straight now. So, how did this Hilda Gleason manage to pop up at Henderson’s cocktail party?”
“By going to Henderson’s office the preceding day under an assumed name, and representing herself to be a lone widow who needed advice on her investments. She’s attractive enough so it wasn’t difficult for her to wangle an invitation from him. I just left her a few minutes ago,” he went on wearily. “And this time she told me the truth.” He filled the reporter in briefly on Hilda’s amended story. “So I just put her in a cab headed for the Beach morgue to see if the dead man is Harry Gleason.”
Timothy Rourke was sitting upright, scribbling notes furiously, his lean features avidly intent. “Will she be there yet?”
Shayne glanced at his watch. “Better give her another ten minutes.”
Rourke stopped scribbling and settled back with a frown. “This is one hell of a mixed-up mess. How did Muriel Graham and Gleason manage to make contact in Illinois a month ago? Here you’ve got two people who evidently hate the same man for different reasons, but how did they get to know each other?”
“Muriel is the only one who can tell us that now. Do you happen to know whether Henderson succeeded in contacting her?”
“Yeh,” Rourke said absently. “Our man phoned in from the Beach just before I left the office. Muriel Graham is due in on a jet flight at seven-ten this morning.”
“Good. I’ll damned well be at the airport to meet her.”
“Along with Painter and his boys.”
Shayne said, “I’m not so sure of that. Petey is more likely to be catching up on his beauty sleep. After all, he doesn’t know any of this background stuff on her.”
“He will if Mrs. Gleason identifies her husband and tells her story.”
“She promised me she’d keep Muriel out of it until I had a chance to check further.”
“What bothers hell out of me,” muttered Rourke, “is why Muriel was still trying to hire somebody to do the job on Henderson just a few days ago, if she had already hired Gleason a month ago.”
“We don’t know for sure that she did.”
“Then why did he pop up at Henderson’s house early this morning with a gun in his pocket?”
“Maybe he turned down her proposition that night in Algonquin, but kept on brooding about Henderson and finally decided to take a crack at the guy on his own.”
“Wouldn’t he have informed Muriel of his intention so he could collect the pay-off when he succeeded?” objected Rourke.
“She’s the only one who can answer any of these questions.” Shayne looked at his watch again. “You got a leg-man at Beach Headquarters?”
“Yeh, Jimmy Powell. Think he’ll have the identification by this time?”
“Try him.”
Shayne poured himself another very short drink of cognac while Rourke got the News reporter on the Beach covering the police beat.
“Jimmy? Tim Rourke. I got a tip the Henderson corpse might be identified.”
“We just got it. A bartender named Harry Gleason from some town in Illinois. His wife positively identified him and Painter is getting a statement from her right now. I’ll phone it in for the first edition.”
Rourke said, “Do that, Jimmy,” and hung up. He nodded to Shayne. “She identified him all right, and she’s giving her story to Painter.”
Shayne muttered, “Let’s hope she’ll keep it the way I told her to.”
“You can’t hold out much longer,” Rourke warned him.
“I know. But damn it, Tim! If there’s any way in the world to do so I want to avoid tossing Muriel to Painter and you boys. A story like that will hang over her head the rest of her life. Even her fiance who seems a nice enough kid, probably won’t be able to stomach the whole truth.”
“If she is responsible for Gleason’s death, you won’t be able to keep it hidden.”
“I know that as well as you do.” Shayne tossed off his drink savagely. “That’s why I’ve got a lot of things to do before her plane lands at seven.”
“Such as what?”
“Such as: Who is Saul Henderson? According to Mrs. Gleason, that isn’t his name. What’s the connection between Gleason and him, going back to the period before she and Gleason were married. Get your paper to work on Henderson’s background, Tim. Contact the News Services in New York and have them start some discreet digging. Get us some ammunition before seven o’clock.”
“I’ll try,” Rourke said doubtfully. “It’s pretty early in the morning to get any real action out of New York.” He yawned and got up. “What will you be doing?”
Shayne said, “I don’t know.”
“Sitting on your dead butt while I dig up information for you?” suggested Rourke good-humoredly.
Shayne said, “It’s your story you’re going after. Hell, I don’t even have a client or a retainer.”
“You meeting the seven-ten plane?” asked Rourke casually as he strolled toward the door.
“Let’s meet at the airport about six-forty-five to see if you’ve got anything. The coffee shop.”
Rourke said, “Fine,” and went out with a farewell wave of his hand.
Shayne paced the floor for a time after the reporter left, considering and discarding various plans for getting background information on Gleason and Henderson in a hurry. As Rourke had pointed out, it was an awkward hour to get anything definite done-and it was even an hour earlier in Illinois than in Miami. However, Shayne didn’t know how busy he would be later in the day, and he decided he might as well get a couple of angles started.
He consulted his old address book from the center drawer of the sitting-room table, and found a Chicago number which he called.
He sat and listened while the phone rang at least a dozen times in the Midwestern city, and he grinned happily when a surly and sleepy voice finally replied.
“That you, Bitsy?”
“Yeh. Who’s that sounding so happy to wake a guy up?”
“Gee, I’m sorry about that,” said Shayne with elaborate concern. “When I knew you, pal, you’d just about be ready for bed at this hour.”
“Then it was a hell of a lot of years ago,” yawned Bitsy Baker in Chicago. “Who is this?”
“Mike Shayne.”
“Mike… Shayne? I’ll be damned. You in town, Mike?”
“Nope. Miami.”
“What’s up?” The voice was suddenly wide-awake and businesslike.
“You free to take on a little job?”
“Soon as it gets daylight out here.”
“Write this down, Bitsy. Algonquin, Illinois. Know where it is?”
“Sure. Out in the country a little way.”
“Get out there by the time the farmers start waking up. There’s a Harry Gleason just been killed here tonight. Lived in Algonquin ten years. Bartender in some bar. Get every damned thing you can on Harry Gleason and his wife, Hilda, a native of the town. What I want mostly is background on Gleason. As far back as you can get. He may have had a different name in the past. Check the cops, newspapers and friends… you know.”
“Sure, I know.”
“Also, these last two months, Bitsy. Any strangers been in town to see him. Any talk he’s done around the bar about a trip to Miami or prospects for picking up some quick dough. Get whatever you can and call me collect at my office.” Shayne gave him the number. “Say, ten o’clock this morning, your time. I’ll know by then whether I want you to do any more.”
“Sure, Mike. How’re things otherwise?”
Shayne said, “Dull.”
“Same here. Ten o’clock. By.”
