beginning to wonder if she had missed the plane or had intentionally stayed away when he saw a very tall and slender, dark-haired girl at the end of the line stop in front of Henderson and say something to him, and then languidly accept his outstretched hand.
With a bleak look of questioning on his face, Shayne shoved forward just as Painter moved in officiously and took the tall girl’s arm.
“Miss Muriel Graham?” he demanded.
She looked sideways and down at his hand on her arm while Saul Henderson thrust his face close to Painter’s and grated, “This is my stepdaughter, yes. But she’s very tired from her trip and I’ll have to ask you to excuse us now. Later… after she’s rested…”
“I want to talk to her now, Henderson.” Painter kept his hand firmly on her arm and drew her away, nodding curtly to one of the uniformed policemen, who interposed his bulk between the girl and Henderson.
Shayne tapped Painter on the shoulder as the little man turned away with the girl, paying no heed to Henderson’s loudly voiced objections.
“You’re making a mistake, Petey. This girl is…”
“An important witness whom I’m taking into custody for questioning,” Painter told him officiously. “I don’t need any advice or interference from you, Shayne.”
The redhead shrugged and stepped back with a quizzical grin on his face while Painter triumphantly led the girl inside the terminal building with Henderson still being forcibly detained from following them by the policeman.
Timothy Rourke studied his friend’s face speculatively, and muttered, “You might have known Painter wouldn’t pass up a bet like this. Hell! You might as well quit covering for Henderson. Let the girl tell her story.”
“I’m not covering for Henderson. I was trying to tip Petey off. That girl isn’t Muriel Graham, Tim.”
“She isn’t? Didn’t you hear Henderson introduce her as his stepdaughter?”
“I heard him,” Shayne agreed grimly. “But she’s a ringer, Tim. That’s not my Jane Smith. Remember that Henderson made the contact in New York personally and arranged to have her fly down. God knows what sort of story this one will tell Painter.”
“Well, you hoped to keep Muriel out of it,” chuckled Rourke. “It’s not your fault that Painter wouldn’t listen when you tried to tell him the truth.”
Shayne muttered, “Yeh. You can be a witness that I tried to warn him, Tim. But he was so damned afraid that I would horn in…”
He grinned suddenly and delightedly, and moved toward the building entrance with long strides. “Maybe I’ve still got time to wrap this up while Painter is listening to whatever story Henderson wants him to hear.”
15
In the airport parking lot, Shayne paused beside the reporter’s car while Rourke got in. He said “I’m headed home for a cup of decent coffee and some heavy thinking. Keep in touch with Painter on the Beach for anything they turn up on Gleason… and push those New York inquiries on Henderson. Tim, I’m getting a stronger hunch all the time that this whole case had its beginnings ’way back in his past.”
“Who do you suppose the girl is that Henderson has brought in to impersonate his stepdaughter?”
The redhead shrugged. “He was really on the spot there. He must have sweated blood early this morning knowing Muriel would almost certainly break down and spill her guts if she were hauled back here to testify. Give the guy credit for thinking fast,” he went on angrily, “and arranging things neatly. She’ll load Painter with a story about what a wonderful father Henderson has been to her, and he’ll swallow it hook, line, and sinker.” He turned and strode off to his own car while Rourke lifted a hand in farewell and drove away.
Two hours and four mugs of coffee later, shaved and freshly dressed, Michael Shayne entered his office on Flagler Street and found Lucy already at her desk in the anteroom. She glanced at her watch meaningfully and said, “Practically the crack of dawn, Mr. Shayne. I don’t suppose you’ve even had time to glance at the morning paper?”
“As a matter of fact, I haven’t, angel. Anything important?”
She shrugged and pursed her lips. “A little matter of a midnight killing at your friend’s, Mr. Henderson, house on the Beach. I don’t suppose it interests you particularly.”
He paused with his back half to her, in the act of hanging his hat near the door, realizing suddenly that she was completely unaware that he had been mid-wifing the case since about two o’clock. He said, “You know how badly I need my beauty sleep in the morning. Got a copy of the paper?”
She held it out to him. “Peter Painter has it all solved anyhow. You’re to call Tim Rourke at his office.”
Shayne said, “Get him,” turning toward the open door of his private office and reading the headline: Prowler Shot By Householder.
In his office he tossed the paper down and sat wearily behind his bare, flat-topped desk. He slowly lit a cigarette and dropped the match into a tray as his phone buzzer sounded. He scooped it up and said, “Tim?”
Rourke’s voice said, “A couple of interesting things from Beach homicide. Item one: A fast report from Washington on Gleason’s fingerprints identify him as an ex-con. He did a ten-year stretch in the Colorado pen for arson. Released twelve years ago. Item two: Ballistics says that the twenty-two pistol Gleason carried is the same gun that fired the bullet into Henderson’s automobile in the first murder attempt against him a few days ago.”
Shayne said, “I didn’t know that was a twenty-two also.”
“It was. Until this comparison the Beach police had theorized it was fired from a rifle in the hands of some fool kid. That’s one reason they had written it off as probably accidental.”
“Anything else?”
“One more curious thing, Mike. Henderson called in to report another threat against his life early this morning. An anonymous telephone call from someone who claimed to be a friend of Gleason’s. Henderson swears he didn’t recognize the voice and has no idea who it was. But it scared him plenty.”
Shayne chuckled happily over the telephone. “Keep this under your hat, Tim, but don’t you waste any time chasing down that lead. The guy’s initials are M. S.”
There was a very brief silence over the wire. Then Rourke sighed, “Why, Mike?”
“Just trying to foul the waters a little,” Shayne told him cheerfully. “Anything else from your pipelines to Henderson’s past?”
“Nothing yet. And that’s sort of curious in itself. Right now it looks as though he appeared from nowhere a few years ago and feathered his nest with nice soft banknotes by marrying a wealthy widow.”
“With a nubile stepdaughter,” said Shayne grimly.
“With a nubile stepdaughter,” agreed Rourke no less grimly.
Shayne said, “Keep on digging,” and hung up.
He leaned back in his swivel chair and took a lazy drag on his cigarette as Lucy hurried into his office with color flaming in her cheeks.
“I heard everything Tim said, Michael.”
“No reason why you shouldn’t.”
“You are mixed up in the Henderson case, aren’t you?”
“Sort of.”
“Why didn’t you tell me… instead of pretending you didn’t know what I was talking about when you came in?”
He said mildly, “You went to some lengths to tell me Painter had it all solved while I was sleeping late.” He yawned wildly. “Get Will Gentry on the phone and ask him…”
His desk telephone interrupted him. Lucy compressed her lips firmly and reached for it. She said, “Michael Shayne’s office,” then nodded and said in a subdued voice, “He’s right here, Chief Gentry.”
Shayne took the instrument from her and said, “I was about to call you, Will.”
“Sure. Any time you want a job done for free, just call on the Miami Police Department, Mike.”
“That’s what I always figured,” said Shayne cheerfully. “Service with a smile. What you got this time, Will?”
