take the picture… as some sort of precaution or insurance against further blackmail… then the only reason I can see why it hasn’t been reported is that the man who paid Bayliss fifty bucks for the plateholder has some idea of cashing in on it. He might figure it’s worth a good hunk of that twenty grand to Crew-cut to keep the picture out of circulation.”
“Would he know how to reach him?” asked Rourke skeptically.
“Probably not. Any more than I do.” Shayne stood up carefully. “I guess that’s it, Will. Right now we’ve got five people mixed up in this thing one way or another… without knowing who they are or exactly how they tie in. I’ll stop for a talk with Sergeant Fillmore, huh, and give him all I’ve got on all five?”
Gentry said, “Do that, Mike. And don’t forget that I passed Painter’s message on to you.”
Shayne said, “I’ll be seeing him before he gets too impatient,” and went out of the chief’s office with Rourke on his heels. In the corridor, the reporter stopped him on his way to the Identification Department. “I’d better get in to the paper and write my story, Mike. Uh? You want anything in on the Bayside Hotel last night?”
“Christ, no! And nothing on Bayliss either… if he’ll keep his mouth shut.”
“He will. I think he’s scared right now… that it’s mixed up with a murder. There’s nothing really wrong with what he did, but the paper is going to take a dim view of the fact that he was on the spot to witness a blackmail pay-off that turned into murder and hasn’t even got a picture for us to print. He’s not going to boast about turning his plateholder over to a possible killer.”
Shayne grinned and agreed, “I guess not. Okay, Tim. Take it from there. I’ll be in touch the minute I’ve got something you can print.”
“Mike.” Rourke’s anxious voice stopped him as he started to move on.
“Yeh?”
“Last night… did you get any inkling of what Doc Ambrose was scared of… what he was being blackmailed about?”
“Not an inkle.”
“Because, damn it, I still say he was a swell guy,” declared Rourke fervently. “Whatever he’d done in the past, don’t forget…”
“I know,” Shayne cut in sardonically, “that he saved your worthless life a few years ago. I’m not forgetting that, Tim.”
He swung away down the corridor, and pushed open a frosted door marked IDENTIFICATION DEPT.
It took him fifteen minutes to give Sgt. Fillmore a careful description of the Boss and his two goons, Crew- cut, and George Bayliss’s rather vague description of the man he had encountered outside the Seacliff.
The Boss and Jud and Phil were the only ones Shayne had any hopes about. Crew-cut, although probably a member of the same group, was less likely to have a police record, and the buyer of the plateholder was a completely unknown quantity at present.
The sergeant promised to go through the M.O. files carefully and pull out anything he could find, which would go straight to Will Gentry’s desk, and Shayne left police headquarters feeling he had done everything he could in that direction.
Rourke had driven him from the hotel, so Shayne walked the short distance back to his office on Flagler Street.
Lucy Hamilton was at her desk behind the low railing across the reception room when he entered a few minutes after nine o’clock. She was reading the morning paper, and looked up with a frown at him.
“Is that what it says in the paper… that I got mixed up in a murder?”
“It says you were questioned by Chief Painter in connection with the murder of a Dr. Ambrose on the Beach… and were released until your story could be checked.”
She wrinkled her nice nose at him, and as he started to walk stiffly past her to the open door of his private office she suddenly caught sight of his head, and wailed, “What happened to your head, Michael? And why are you walking that way?”
Without breaking stride, he said, “That’s what comes of getting mixed up in murder. Come in, Angel. I want to talk to you.”
When she entered his office he was setting a bottle of cognac on his desk. He turned away to fit two sets of paper cups inside each other, and filled one pair from the water cooler. Turning back and setting the other two nested cups on the desk beside the bottle, he said cheerfully, “We haven’t got a damned thing on for today, have we?” He uncorked the bottle and poured out a couple of ounces of cognac.
“One telephone call this morning, Michael. A sweet little old lady who’s worried about her son, Cecil.” Lucy gave it the English pronunciation. “Cecil, to you,” she added, using the long “ee.” “Seems
“Uhn-uh.” Shayne shook his head decisively, forgetting to keep it easy, and winced with pain. He sat in the swivel chair behind his desk and took a drink and said judicially, “Let the Cecils of this world get out of their own jams. Besides,” he asked suspiciously, “how do you know she’s sweet or little or old?”
“Because she sounded that way. Mrs. Montgomery. I promised you’d call her as soon as you came in. She did sound worried, Michael.”
He said, “We’ve got other worries.” He leaned back and stretched out his long legs and contemplated the ceiling. “I want you to close up shop, Lucy. Go over to the Beach and check all the neighbors of the Ambroses. Make up some good cover story that’ll get you inside the houses, and get the inside dope on the doctor and his wife. You know… like you’re doing a survey for
“What sort of home-life. How much money they spent… on what. How often her neighbors ever see Celia Ambrose sober.” Shayne waved a big hand vaguely. “The good doctor was being blackmailed and I’d like to get some idea what for. The police have already questioned them, of course, but you know how people clam up for the police.” He grinned at her reassuringly. “The one thing they’ll be eager to talk about this morning is the Ambroses.”
“Michael. We can’t just close up shop. Mrs. Montgomery, for instance. I promised her you’d call.”
“All right, call her,” he said impatiently. “Tell her I’ve got a fractured skull and it’s going to stay fractured until I catch a murderer.” He drank some more cognac and washed it down with plain water.
“What are you going to be doing while I’m snooping into the private life of the Ambroses?”
“I’m going to visit his office and try to persuade his nurse to patch up my head and maybe put a fresh bandage on my broken ribs. Then I’ve got a date with Painter, and… Tell you what, Angel. You get cracking, and we’ll meet for lunch? At the Doubloon, huh? That’s where they make those…”
“I know perfectly well where the Doubloon is,” Lucy interrupted him icily. “What did you say about your ribs?”
“My ribs? Oh, I got kicked last night. Look, Angel.” His voice softened. “That’s why I’ve got to work on Ambrose. I don’t want my other side kicked in. Twelve-thirty at the Doubloon?”
Lucy Hamilton sighed and smoothed back the brown curls from her forehead with trembling fingertips. “Michael Shayne! You’re the most…” She paused and sighed again. “The Doubloon at twelve-thirty. But I will call Mrs. Montgomery first so she can get another detective, if she wants.”
Shayne said, “Fine. If she wants to tell me what the trouble is, I’ll recommend someone.”
He settled back to finish his drink while Lucy went out to her desk, and through the open door he could hear her dialling a number.
But he didn’t hear her talking on the telephone, and after a short time she reappeared in the connecting doorway and reported, “Mrs. Montgomery’s telephone doesn’t answer this time. As a matter of fact, I’ll confess to you now that I don’t believe it would be exactly up your alley, Michael. She was pretty vague about Cecil’s trouble when I tried to pin her down, but I rather gathered that he got caught in some sort of compromising situation with another man last night, and the dear old thing wants it hushed up.”
Shayne scarcely heard her. He said, “Then that’s allright. See you at twelve-thirty, Angel.” He finished his drink and swung his feet off the desk and prepared to follow his secretary out, leaving the office locked up behind
