calls for him, which was all right. He was whistling unmelodiously when he got off the elevator and went down the corridor to his door.
He stopped whistling when he saw his door standing wide open. He hesitated and started to put down the food, then squared his shoulders and walked on in.
Passing through the doorway he noted that the lock had been jimmied to force the door open. He showed no surprise as he met the gaze of the two men awaiting him in easy chairs.
CHAPTER 7
Will Gentry took the cigar from his mouth and grinned mirthlessly at Shayne. Peter Painter didn’t grin. His face was flushed, his eyes angry. He was sitting stiffly erect and he didn’t move as Shayne entered.
Shayne said, “Hello,” as though it was the most natural thing in the world to find them there. The living-room showed no evidence of having been searched. The bedroom door was closed. Shayne circled the two men and went toward the kitchen with his paper bag.
Gentry asked, “How goes it, Mike?” Painter didn’t say anything. His hot eyes followed the detective’s lounging figure into the kitchen.
The breakfast dishes had been washed and neatly put away. Shayne set his bag down on the kitchen table. Without a glance behind him he put water on the electric stove to boil, measured coffee into the Dripolator.
“Where is she, Shayne?” The words came incisively, like small pellets flung from a tiny gun.
Shayne looked over his shoulder at the Miami Beach chief of detectives, standing spread-legged in the doorway. The smaller man’s body was tense with anger. Shayne turned away without answering, carefully fitting the top back on the coffee can.
“You’re going to talk or else.” Painter’s words came more softly but with an undertone of shrillness. “You can’t give me the run-around, Shayne!”
Shayne kept his back turned and began whistling softly, lifting down a long loaf of French bread and getting a knife from the drawer. The wooden-handled butcher knife came first to his hand, and his whistling lips twisted into an ironic grin as he began slicing bread with it under Painter’s gaze.
He heard a funny gurgling noise behind him. Then Gentry’s lumbering footsteps and his soothing voice.
“Getting apoplexy won’t help, Painter. Let me talk to Mike.”
The detective continued to slice bread with his back to them, cutting each slice uniform and thin, pleased with the razorlike edge on the knife.
Gentry spoke placatingly at his shoulder. “I’m trying to keep you out of trouble, you dope. But you’ve got to help a little. Mr. Painter’s not used to being treated like this.”
Shayne stopped slicing bread. He turned and scowled at Gentry. “Isn’t that just too bad?” he grunted sarcastically. “What am I supposed to do in order to please Mr. Painter? Want me to get down on my knees and apologize for leaving my door locked and causing you two imitation yeggs the trouble of using a jimmy to get it open?”
A puzzled expression came over Gentry’s beefy face. He sighed and spread out his hands. “Come into the living-room, for God’s sake, and let’s talk this over. There’s nothing for you to get humped up about, Mike. We didn’t jimmy your damned door.”
“No?” Shayne cut two more slices of bread. Then he laid the knife down and turned around. His eyes were bleak. Painter backed out stiffly, and Gentry took Shayne’s arm with a relieved sigh.
In the living-room, Shayne sat down and spoke to Gentry, disregarding Painter.
“What the hell’s it all about? If you didn’t jimmy my door, who did?”
Painter started a rush of words, but Will Gentry shut him off. “It’s this way, Mike. Somebody called Painter at eleven-forty-five, all excited, and said the Brighton girl was asleep in your apartment. He called me to meet him here and make the pinch official, and jumped in his car and rushed over from the Beach. We came up from the lobby together and found your door just like it is now. There wasn’t anybody here.”
Shayne’s gaze went to the closed bedroom door.
“No soap,” Gentry told him. “No sign of any girl in there. What sort of monkey business is it, Mike?”
Shayne turned his gaze to Painter. “Man or woman that telephoned the tip?”
“A man.”
“I suppose you didn’t think to have the call traced.”
Painter bristled up like a fighting cock. “Are you trying to teach me my business? Of course I had the call traced. It came from the public telephone booth in the lobby downstairs.”
“Which leaves it wide open,” Shayne muttered.
“Are you sure you didn’t make that phone call-just for a cover-up?”
“Sure,” Shayne grunted with withering scorn. “And I jimmied my own door-after drowning the girl in the bathtub and grinding her up into Bologna. That’s what I’m about to make sandwiches out of.”
Gentry groaned. “All right. Go on, you guys. I’ll stick around and gather up the pieces.”
Shayne turned toward his friend with hunched shoulders. “I’m sick of this half-wit jumping me.”
Painter got up, grating out an oath. He pushed himself in front of Shayne aggressively. “Where’s the girl?”
Shayne said to Gentry, “You tell him, Will. I think I hear my water boiling.” He got up and went into the kitchen. He could hear a subdued murmur in the living-room as he poured the coffee water and made sandwiches. Then he took the drip pot, a cup and saucer, and the plate of sandwiches in to the living-room table. Painter watched him in sulky silence.
Shayne poured himself a cup of coffee without offering either of them any, and bit into a sandwich.
“Why,” asked Gentry, “did you bring the girl here, Mike?”
“I didn’t bring her here,” Shayne denied wearily.
Painter reached into his coat pocket and brought out a girl’s handkerchief and lipstick with a dramatic flourish. He laid them on the table and demanded, “How did these get into your bedroom?”
Shayne’s bushy eyebrows curved upward. “Digging into my private life?”
“They’re not what one would naturally expect to find in a bachelor’s boudoir.”
“I don’t know,” countered Shayne. “If you make a thorough search you’re likely to turn up half a dozen assorted gewgaws like those. What the hell? Send your vice squad around if that’s what you’re after.”
“And I suppose you have dozens of lace handkerchiefs initialed ‘PB’?” suggested Painter.
“My memory isn’t so good,” Shayne told him amiably. “We’ll go in and check up if you’ll let me finish my coffee in peace.” He lifted his cup and drank heartily.
“You’re stalling,” Gentry said. “That won’t get you anywhere. If she was here and isn’t now-where is she, Mike?”
“I’m no good at guessing games.” Shayne grinned and bit into a second sandwich with gusto.
“You can’t deny that she was here,” Painter snarled.
“I can deny any damn thing I please. And get away with it as far as you’re concerned.” Shayne turned away from the angry little man and asked Gentry, “Did you pick up anything on the lead I gave you this morning?”
“Not a thing. We burned up the wires to New York for an hour. Pedique’s record is as clean as a hound’s tooth.”
“I could have told you that,” Painter put in. “I checked on him last night.”
“I’m not,” Shayne told him, “the slightest bit interested in anything you can tell me.”
“What about the Brighton girl?” Gentry interrupted. “Was she here last night?”
“You were here last night,” Shayne reminded him. “You didn’t see her, did you?”
“You’ll have to talk fast,” said Painter with an ugly twist to his mouth, “to explain away this initialed handkerchief.”
“I don’t intend to do any explaining. Make your own deductions and see what it gets you.” Shayne lumbered to his feet and carried the dishes into the kitchen where he rinsed them under the hot-water faucet and set them to drain. Whistling cheerfully, he brought out a fresh bottle of cognac and set it on the table.
Painter stared angrily at the floor, and his Miami colleague watched thoughtfully while Shayne got down two
