opened her shorthand pad.
“Hell,” said Shayne harshly, “we
CHAPTER FOUR
When Michael Shayne entered Will Gentry’s private office at police headquarters a short time later, the Miami Chief of Police was seated behind his desk with the well-chewed stub of a black cigar in his mouth, studying some typed reports in front of him. He was a burly, red-faced man, and he lifted a beefy hand to welcome the redhead, muttering absently, “Just a minute, Mike, while I finish this.”
He continued to scowl down at the sheet in front of him, working his lips to move the soggy cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.
Shayne pulled a straight chair a little closer to his desk and eased his rangy body down into it. He got out a cigarette and lit it in silence, leaned back comfortably to let thin, grayish smoke roil slowly out of both nostrils.
Will Gentry grunted and pushed the paper aside. “I see you were Johnny-On-The-Spot again last night, Mike. How the hell do you manage it?”
“I know the right people. Go visiting them at the right time.”
“Yeh,” snorted Gentry. “That apartment house of Lucy’s! What’s she got that attracts violence?”
Shayne grinned and said, “Don’t blame her. She doesn’t even know the guy.”
“Neither does anyone else it seems.” Gentry slammed the flat of a big hand down on the papers in front of him. “A name, that’s all we’ve got.”
Shayne looked at him alertly. “You haven’t been able to trace Robert Lambert at all?”
“Nary a trace. No wallet. No identification. No papers. Every stitch of clothes in the apartment is practically new, without a laundry mark or dry cleaner’s tag.”
“Fingerprints?”
“Nothing on file here. We’ve sent them to Washington… should have a preliminary report this afternoon. No Robert Lambert listed in the directories here and none in Jacksonville where he gave a phony street address when he rented the apartment.”
“And no bereaved wife turned up to claim the body?”
“That’s what we’re waiting for… if Lambert is his name. You interested, Mike?” Gentry asked the question casually, removing the cigar from his mouth and studying it intently as though he didn’t know how it had got there.
Shayne said, “I’m interested. To the extent of a whopping retainer.”
“Old Eli, huh? He threw his weight around here and threatened, by God, if the police force couldn’t do anything he’d go to the one man in Miami who could.” Gentry permitted himself a sour smile. “So it’s your headache, Mike.”
“The old man is dead-set on making out a case against his son-in-law.”
“He’s dead-set on hanging a frame around the poor guy’s neck,” Gentry retorted angrily. “You going to do his dirty work?”
Shayne leaned back and stretched his long legs out in front of him, tugging thoughtfully at his earlobe. “I’m in business for hire, Will. Right now I’ve been retained by Eli Armbruster to make a thorough, complete and unbiased investigation of the circumstances in which his daughter met her death last night. Any objection to that?” His voice was slightly edged, challenging.
“Hell, no. Go to it. The only thing that old Eli couldn’t get through his thick head is that this department has other things to occupy its time and attention. I’m treating it exactly as though Mrs. John Smith had died last night, and
“Then you’ll give me whatever you’ve got?”
“Sure I’ll give you everything we’ve got. Haven’t I always cooperated, Mike? But the truth is, you know more about it right now than I do. You saw the couple in that room. Read the suicide notes, didn’t you? I wasn’t visiting my pretty secretary on the floor below when it happened.”
“I got out as fast as I could,” Shayne soothed him, “and only know what I saw when I broke the door down.”
“That was enough, wasn’t it?”
“For me, yes. Until I got a sizable check from Eli this morning. Now I’ve got a job to do. What about fingerprints in the apartment?”
Gentry shuffled papers on his desk, picked one up to glance at it. “Pretty clean. The woman’s were on the empty cocktail glass beside her, Lambert’s on the other one. His were on the shotgun barrel in the right position for holding it up to put the muzzle in his mouth with his bare toe on the trigger.”
He paused and Shayne asked, “No other fingerprints turn up in the entire place?”
“Nothing mentioned here. Hell, I don’t suppose Deitch dusted the whole goddamn place. Why should he?”
“No reason,” agreed Shayne lightly. “Except maybe to prove that no one else had been around.”
“I know. Eli tried to feed me that theory too. That Paul Nathan was there at the time and engineered the whole thing and ducked down the fire escape while you were busting in. For God’s sake, Mike. You can’t buy
“I’m not buying anything. Mind if I borrow Deitch on his time off to give it a real going-over? He’s a good man.”
“I don’t care what he does in his spare time. Look, Mike, I’m not putting any roadblocks in your way. Go ahead and earn your fee. But I’m warning you right now, Eli Armbruster isn’t going to be satisfied with anything less than a murder rap against Paul Nathan. He hates that guy who married his only daughter.”
“I gathered that much,” Shayne agreed equably. “But I don’t hate him, Will.” He met the chief’s cold stare with equal coldness, and then relaxed with a shrug. “Know what killed her?”
“They did a simple stomach analysis. Potassium ferricyanide. Enough of it mixed with rum and creme de menthe to kill a couple of mules.”
“Potassium ferricyanide?”
“One of the fastest acting cyanides known,” Gentry informed him, “and one of the easiest to get hold of. Photographers use it for something.”
Shayne asked, “Was Lambert a photographer?”
“We don’t know what Lambert was.”
“Or Paul Nathan?” pursued Shayne.
Chief Gentry snorted eloquently.
“What do we know about Lambert?” persisted Shayne. “You say he gave a phony address in Jax when he rented the apartment?”
Gentry nodded, shuffling the papers and looking down. “A little less than a month ago. He came directly to the manager of the building in answer to a newspaper ad. Took a quick look at the apartment and rented it for a month. Cash in advance. Hundred forty bucks.” He read slowly from a typed report in front of him. “Quiet, pleasant type. Medium height. Medium weight. Medium everything. Small dark mustache and lightly tinted blue glasses. Left-handed, the manager recalls, but that’s about all he does recall. When he signed the lease.”
“Those suicide notes?”
Gentry looked up and nodded. “Written by a left-handed man according to our expert.”
“Did you compare the signatures with the lease?”
Gentry scowled and studied the report in front of him. “I guess not. Why in hell would they? It was open and shut. You saw it yourself.”
“That’s what Eli pointed out,” Shayne muttered, staring across the room. He turned his head to smile placatingly at Gentry. “Let’s not get off on that tangent again. What else did the manager remember about Lambert?”
“Not much. It was a month ago. Something about him being a salesman with his territory recently enlarged
