on the Tamiami Trail, and observed you drive in and go directly into the carport attached to one of the cabins.
“You and she got out, and he was able to observe you unlock the door leading directly in from the carport, and both of you went inside.
“At that point he felt it would be wise to report to me and get further orders. After all, he felt it was quite safe to leave you together in the cabin for a time. A man doesn’t normally take his secretary directly from the office to a motel room, which he has already engaged in advance, without planning to spend, at least, a few minutes inside, alone with her. Not if the secretary is as attractive as yours, Mr. Shayne. Remember, I saw her in the morning.
“No, I don’t blame Brenner for seeking a telephone at that point even though it did prove a mistake. He had the taxi drive on to the motel office, where he found a telephone booth and called me here. I was annoyed that he had lost O’Keefe, but I suspected that he planned to meet you at the motel later, and instructed Brenner to remain unobtrusively in the cab and watch your cabin, with orders to follow you, if you left, or to telephone me immediately, if O’Keefe showed up.
“Five minutes later I received a second, disconsolate call from Brenner. By the time he returned to view of your cabin, your car was gone. He investigated and found both side and front doors locked, and he knocked loudly without getting any response whatsoever. It hadn’t been more than five minutes since you drove up, and both of you had vanished.”
Rexforth stopped talking and sighed deeply. “I assumed that Brenner had bungled the job of tailing you. That you had spotted his cab following you from town… which would not be unlikely for a man of your experience. That is when I made my first telephone call to your hotel, Mr. Shayne.”
Shayne’s cheeks were deeply trenched and his big hands were knotted into fists when Rexforth stopped talking. “What was the name of that motel?”
“The name… of the motel? Surely, you know that, Mr. Shayne. Much better than I. It wasn’t I who…”
“Goddamn it, Rexforth, stop stalling. Give me the name of the motel before I beat it out of you.”
Shayne was rising slowly as he spoke. Rexforth looked up into his implacably gaunt face in consternation, and protested, “I really don’t see…”
Shayne slapped him on the side of his face with his open palm in a swinging blow that knocked the bonding company executive flat on the unmade bed, where he cowered and made whimpering sounds.
Shayne leaned over him and got both big hands on the collarbone on either side of his neck and lifted him up in the air and shook him angrily.
“I don’t care what you see or don’t see,” he raged. “It’s my secretary you’re talking about. What motel was it?” He held the man’s scrawny body in front of him with his bare feet above the floor. “Tell me,” he grated, “or I’ll break your neck.”
“I don’t know the name,” wailed Rexforth. “Brenner didn’t say over the phone. It’ll all be down in his written report. You’re acting like a wild man.”
Shayne shook him in the air again. “Damn the written report. I want it… now. Where is Brenner?”
“He’s… here,” gasped Rexforth. “I had him stay over last night because I didn’t know…”
“In this hotel?”
“No. A cheaper one. The Royalton.”
Shayne threw him sprawling back on the bed. “Get him on the phone. Get the number of the cabin and the name of the motel.”
“Of course.” Rexforth scrabbled across the bed away from Shayne and trotted to the telephone across the room. There he hastily consulted a memorandum pad beside the instrument, then asked the hotel operator for a number in a quavering voice. When he got it, he gave an extension number, and Shayne moved over to stand close behind, as he said tremulously:
“That you, Brenner? Rexforth. I called to ask the name of the motel and the number of the cabin you tailed Shayne and his secretary to yesterday.”
He listened a moment and then wailed, “I
He turned his head and said unnecessarily, “He has to check his notes to be sure.”
Shayne waited on wide-spread feet, his nostrils still flaring angrily.
Rexforth finally said, “Thank you. No, that’s all for now,” and hung up.
He told Shayne resentfully: “It was the Orange Palms. On Southwest Eighth Street beyond Coral Gables. Cabin number Nineteen. I still don’t understand why on earth…”
Shayne had whirled away and was headed for the door on long legs. Rexforth scuttled after him, crying out in high-pitched exasperation, “Wait. We haven’t settled anything. You can’t just dodge out…”
Shayne was out the hotel door by that time, and he slammed it shut behind him. Rexforth reached it and jerked it open, thrust his tousled head out and called down the corridor at the redhead’s retreating back, “I’m taking this to the police, Shayne. I warn you. Straight to the police.”
Shayne kept on going around a corner to the elevators. He stopped and viciously punched the Down button. It wasn’t until this moment that he realized Rexforth apparently wasn’t aware that O’Keefe had been murdered the day before. He was due for a surprise, if he did go to the police.
15
Michael Shayne’s mind worked feverishly as he headed westward on the Trail at twenty miles above the speed limit on that crowded thoroughfare. It hadn’t been Lucy, of course, who went to the motel room from his office. Not at five o’clock. Not leaving a dead man lying on the floor behind her and in company with another man.
It was the same woman Brenner had seen sitting at Lucy’s desk through the open door when O’Keefe went in. That meant they had managed to replace Lucy with another woman by four o’clock.
How? What had they done with her?
They might have lured her out of the office by some ruse, although Lucy was very reluctant about leaving the office while Shayne was out. She even refused to take time off for lunch, had milk and sandwiches sent in from a nearby lunchroom that specialized in sending out office lunches.
So, even if they had succeeded in luring her away by some ruse, Lucy would not have stayed lured away very long. She could only have been prevented from returning to her post by physical force… held prisoner some place until their business with Julius O’Keefe in Shayne’s office was completed.
A secluded motel room would be a good place for that. You could leave her there bound and gagged, or thoroughly drugged, while you waited for the ex-convict to arrive and unsuspectingly lead you to the money which he and Robert Long had cached together years before.
But evidently O’Keefe had not been quite so obliging after he reached Shayne’s office. Something must have gone sour in the pitch. Shayne doubted that murder had been planned in the beginning. Not right there in his office, at least. They might have planned to dispose of the guy after the money was safely in their hands… or the passport to the money at least.
No. O’Keefe’s death by the filing spindle in front of Lucy’s desk had all the earmarks of hasty improvisation. Suppose something had occurred to make him suspect the impersonator was not actually Michael Shayne? He would have started out… and there would be one hundred grand going out the door with him.
All right. Suppose it had happened that way? There they’d be behind the closed door of another man’s office with a dead man on their hands. A hasty search to snatch his wallet… maybe find what they were after inside it. Maybe not. Either way, what came next?
The corpse on the floor would change everything. Now it wasn’t a simple impersonation and con game. Now it was murder.
Maybe they’d planned just to leave Lucy in the motel cabin to be found eventually… after they’d got the money and left town. But now, they’d panic. Unexpectedly turned into murderers, they’d panic fast.
Lucy must have seen them. At least one of them. They couldn’t afford to leave a witness around who might testify against them later.
