complete fool when Sergeant Griggs gets here to take over, this is Ralph Larson standing beside me. He’s a reporter on the News with Tim Rourke who is standing behind me. Tim and I got here about sixty seconds too late to prevent him from shooting Wesley Ames. Two of those men in the hallway will tell you the same thing. I don’t know who the other one is or how much he saw. Now, can we all go downstairs and rustle up a drink, maybe?”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this in the beginning?” demanded Griffin. “How was I supposed to know…?”
“You aren’t supposed to know anything,” Shayne told him disgustedly. “Come on Ralph, and Tim.” Still holding firmly to Larson’s arm he went toward the door that was sagging inward on its hinges, and Griffin moved aside uncertainly to let him pass.
In the hallway, Shayne nodded to the three men there who had drawn back in a huddle and told them, “We should all go downstairs and wait for the arrival of the Homicide Squad. They will want statements from all of you, but in the meantime I advise you to keep quiet. Mr. Ames is dead,” he went on with a shrug of his shoulders. “We can’t do anything for him up here.” He went toward the head of the stairs with Ralph wavering along beside him and Rourke on the other side of the reporter.
After a moment’s hesitation the three men followed along behind them, and Officer Griffin appeared in the doorway of Ames’ study to announce loudly, “I’ll stay on guard here to see that nothing’s disturbed. None of you are to leave the premises, do you understand?”
None of them bothered to reply to him as they went down the stairs. Suddenly, Michael Shayne had assumed control of the situation and was tacitly accepted as the one in authority despite his lack of uniform or badge.
Downstairs the silver tray, broken glasses and two bottles still lay on the floor where they had fallen. Shayne stopped beside them and looked down at the two corked bottles. One was Scotch and one was bourbon. The white-coated Puerto Rican knelt beside the tray and began picking up pieces of glass. Rourke went on across the room with Larson toward a settee, and the other two men hesitated at the foot of the stairs behind Shayne.
Shayne asked the houseman, “What’s your name?”
“Alfred, sir.”
“As soon as you pick up the bigger pieces of glass, do you suppose you could find us some fresh ones in the kitchen… with some ice?”
Looking past him at the two men to whom he hadn’t been introduced and to whom he hadn’t spoken previously, Shayne went on pleasantly, “I don’t see any reason we should stand on ceremony. We’ll all have to give statements to the police when they arrive, but I don’t think a drink will hurt any of us. I’m Michael Shayne, by the way.”
One of the men stepped forward with hand outstretched. He was tall and in his forties, with a deeply lined face and an engagingly diffident smile. He said, “I felt I recognized you when you sprinted past me while I was lying on the floor a few minutes ago. I’ve seen your pictures in the papers, Mr. Shayne. I’m Mark Ames. Wesley’s brother.” His handshake was surprisingly warm and strong. “If I had reacted more effectively, my brother would still be alive,” he said ruefully. “But I was bowled over, you might say, and I was that, literally, when that young man burst into the room waving a pistol in his hand and with murder in his eye. I tried to stop him, but…” He shrugged expressively. “I wasn’t very good at football even in college.”
“I’m completely in the dark about all this,” the pudgy, round-faced man standing behind Mark Ames declared unhappily. The strong odor of whiskey came from him and his eyes were bloodshot behind rimless glasses which were settled firmly on his bulbous nose. “I was upstairs resting in my room waiting for Alfred to bring me a drink when I heard all this commotion downstairs and then in the hallway. A shocking affair. Disgraceful,” he told Shayne firmly. “Citizens shot down in cold blood in the privacy of their own homes. A commonplace in Miami, no doubt. Certainly it would not be countenanced in a civilized community. I am told you are a detective, Mr. Shayne. Who is that vicious young murderer across the room?”
Shayne said gravely, “His name is Ralph Larson. What’s yours, by the way?”
“This is Mr. Sutter, Shayne,” interposed Mark Ames quickly. “An attorney from New York City. He flew down this afternoon to consult Wesley on some legal matter and I’m afraid he’s gotten a poor idea of our mores here in Miami.”
“There have been murders committed in New York, I believe,” Shayne commented drily. He turned away as Alfred got to his feet with his burden of broken glass and scurried toward the rear, presumably in the direction of the kitchen.
The outer door opened and Patrolman Powers stepped inside. He looked around the living room and at the five men in some surprise to see them there, and announced loudly, “The Homicide Squad is on the way. Everyone is to stay put until they get here.”
“You stay down there, Powers, and keep an eye on them and see that they don’t get their heads together and make up any stories,” came Griffin’s voice booming down from the head of the stairs. “I’m standing guard at the scene of the crime to see that nothing is touched… the way it says in Regulations.”
Powers called back loudly, “Yes, sir. I’ll see to it.” He stood with his back against the door and his thumbs hooked inside his pistol-belt, and looked them over sternly. “Just take it easy the way Officer Griffin says,” he advised them. “That way, everything will go smooth and we won’t have any trouble.”
Shayne grinned at him and then crossed the wide room to the settee where Timothy Rourke was seated beside Larson. The younger man sat bolt upright and defiant. He asked bitterly, “What’s all this silly rigmarole about? I killed Ames, goddamnit. He deserved killing and I’m glad he’s dead. So why in hell don’t they put the handcuffs on me and take me off to jail?”
“There’s a certain protocol to be followed,” Shayne told him. “Take it easy. You’ll end up in jail all right. In the meantime, relax. This is probably the last drink you’ll have for a good long time,” he added as Alfred reentered the room stiffly carrying his silver tray with a pitcher of ice cubes and a carafe of water and an assortment of unbroken glasses on it, in addition to the two bottles of liquor which Alfred had retrieved unharmed from the floor.
Shayne beckoned to the houseman, and asked over his shoulder, “Scotch or bourbon, Ralph? And how do you like it?”
The young man shuddered and shook his head. “I couldn’t touch a drop. I think I’d vomit.” He hesitated with his young face working queerly. “I keep seeing him sitting there grinning at me,” he burst out. “I wanted to kill him. I enjoyed pulling the trigger. But now…” He shook his head dazedly and buried his face in his hands.
Michael Shayne took two cubes of ice from Alfred’s proffered pitcher and dropped one of them in each of two tall glasses. He lavishly poured bourbon in one glass and Scotch in the other, added a dollop of water to each and took one glass in each hand, waving Alfred on to the others. He handed the bourbon highball to Rourke who continued to sit beside Larson, and muttered obliquely, “Don’t take it so hard, Tim. You did your best, damn it.”
“None of that whispering,” said Powers sternly from his military stance in front of the door. “I guess it’s all right for all of you to have drinks, but there’s to be no private communications between suspects until you’ve each made your statements.”
Shayne shrugged and turned away from the two reporters with a glass of watered Scotch in his hand. On the other side of the room Mark Ames had refused a drink, but the New York attorney was eagerly pouring Scotch with a shaking hand into a tall glass containing two ice cubes. He filled it nearly to the top and set the bottle back on Alfred’s tray, and lifted the glass to his mouth with both hands gripping it tightly.
Shayne grimly watched him lower the contents by a good two inches before he took it away from his mouth, and he wondered whether Lawyer Sutter was going to still be sober enough to make a statement when Homicide arrived. Not that it mattered much, he told himself. Nothing that Sutter had to tell them could possibly change anything.
Then he heard the low, discreet whine of a carefully controlled siren from the distance on Biscayne Boulevard and knew they hadn’t much longer to wait before the efficient technicians from Will Gentry’s Homicide Squad took over.
6
Sergeant Griggs was a short squarely-built man in plain clothes, but his driver who entered the doorway behind him was in uniform. Griggs had an intelligent, weathered face, shrewdly cold eyes, and a completely bald
