Shayne backed up to the window seat and lowered himself onto it carefully, placing his hands on his knees. He nodded. “It’s your party, Renslow, but you’d better go easy on that trigger. Remember you’ve already done one long stretch for murder.”
The change which came over the ex-convict’s face was sudden and terrifying. The prison gray appeared to cover the two months’ tan of Florida sunshine. There was a trapped-animal viciousness in his pale eyes, a dangerous red.
“I’m not forgetting,” he gritted. “No smart dick is hanging the rap on me this time. Not if I have to mess up Mona’s rug with your guts to stay in the clear.”
Chapter Eleven: PORTRAITS FOR A FRAME-UP
“Spilling my guts on Mona’s rug wouldn’t be such a smart way out for you,” Shayne told him. “Why don’t you put that gat away and start making sense?”
“This gat makes sense to me.” Buell Renslow sat down on a chair facing both of them, balancing the heavy weapon across his thigh so the big bore covered the detective. His features were no longer twisted with anger but his blue eyes were those of a man goaded to desperation.
Mona was rustling the late edition of the News which Renslow had tossed over to her. In a wondering voice she read aloud:
“Private Detective Denies Darnell Guilt. In an exclusive interview with a representative of the Miami daily news today, Michael Shayne, ace private investigator, struck back at his critics with a blanket denial that Joe Darnell was in any way responsible for the murder of Mrs. Leora Thrip early this morning.
“Under fire by police authorities and civic leaders, facing the loss of his license and the charge of accessory before the fact in the brutal strangulation slaying of a prominent Miami Beach matron, Shayne threw a bombshell by publicly branding the charge merely a frame-up to disgrace him and cover police inefficiency and inability to solve the case and turn up the actual murderer.
“‘The convenient death of Darnell at the hands of the outraged husband provided Peter Painter with a perfect victim and solution,’ the fiery detective Michael Shayne pointed out to this reporter today. ‘Peter Painter hasn’t looked further because he doesn’t want to turn up any evidence pointing to another murderer and absolving Darnell. For months he has been endeavoring to drive me out of Miami and he sees this case as the perfect setup to accomplish that purpose.
“‘Only the thinnest thread of circumstantial evidence actually links Darnell with the murder of Mrs. Thrip,’ Shayne points out. ‘Undoubtedly, Darnell heard something suspicious in the upstairs bedroom and crept up to investigate. By an unfortunate coincidence, Mr. Thrip heard the same sound and investigated at the same time. Coming suddenly upon an intruder in his wife’s bedroom and seeing her lying dead, Thrip’s immediate and natural reaction was to mistake Darnell for the killer and shoot first before asking any questions.’
“That, in substance, is Michael Shayne’s theory of what actually happened and he is determined to prove it by bringing the real murderer to justice.
“Editorially, we are taking no sides in this controversy, but the NEWS is inclined to caution those persons and organizations demanding the immediate revocation of Mr. Shayne’s license to withhold judgment for a time at least to see what new facts may be brought to light to substantiate either Mr. Shayne’s story or that of the Miami Beach police authorities.
“Michael Shayne holds an excellent record of solving difficult and tangled cases in the past and it appears that he may be in possession of clues overlooked by the police, who may, as Shayne bluntly charges, have been overwilling to call the case ‘closed’ without investigating closely.
“The NEWS, at least, promises to follow Shayne’s private investigation with sympathy and interest, and to report the results to its readers without fear or favor.”
Mona Tabor dropped the newspaper in her lap when she finished. She reached for her tiny glass of absinthe while her gaze went slowly to Shayne’s face. The passion behind her eyes had been replaced by a glint of fear.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded in a taut voice. “What did that stuff about Carl mean? Talk, damn you.”
“So you didn’t know he was a dick?” Renslow put in smoothly. “He pulled the wool over your eyes, eh? What about Carl? I wondered, by God-”
“Shut up,” Mona hissed in his direction. “Shayne doesn’t know anything. He’s only guessing.”
“Pretty good guessing,” Shayne put in lazily.
“Maybe you won’t think it’s so good before you get out of here,” Mona shrilled. For the moment she reverted to type. Anger and alarm stripped away the veneer of respectability from the real Mona Tabor, who wasn’t so many years removed from the gutter. She drained the last drop of her absinthe from a glass which shook in her hand. Then she sank back against the divan.
“Maybe you’re doing some damn good guessing,” Renslow amplified, his voice cold as ice. “Carl Meldrum’s been playing some screwy game of his own all this time. And don’t think I don’t know it. I never did quite figure that guy out, but when I first met him and he found out I was Leora’s brother and hated her, he got tight and spilled to me that he knew her and hated her too. That’s one reason I’ve been keeping track of him-one reason why I beat it up here today.”
“You damn lying stoolie!” Mona’s voice was acid. “I mighta known an ex-convict would try something like that.”
Shayne’s eyes had been shooting from Mona to Renslow as he maintained his position against the window, his big hands on his knees. He grinned inwardly and said, “Let’s get together on this.” His voice was cool, disinterested. “I don’t mind saying I’d like to know who really bumped your sister off. How about you, Renslow?”
A crafty look came over Renslow’s face. He said, “I’m willing to let it lie the way it is.”
“I’m not. I’m not letting Joe Darnell take the rap for it.” Shayne’s big shoulders rose, his body was hunched toward Renslow.
“Maybe you’ll decide to,” Renslow suggested softly. “Maybe after we talk it over you’ll get smart.”
“What’s eating you?” Shayne burst out. “I haven’t been barking up your tree. Suppose I do pin it on Carl Meldrum? What’s that to you? Nobody’s got anything to worry about,” he soothed, “except your sister’s murderer.”
The lines on Buell Renslow’s face deepened and he jerked out harshly, “Look, shamus, I know the way you John Laws figure, see? I did one long stretch finding out all right. So I’m an ex-convict and whoever squeezed Leora’s white neck last night did a job that was worth plenty to me. If you don’t know that already you’re smart enough to dope it out pretty quick. So where does that put me? Don’t think I’m dumb enough to expect the truth to do me any good. Even if I wasn’t within a mile of that house last night you can buy witnesses that saw me going in the front door.”
“You’re all fixed if you’ve got an alibi,” Shayne growled. “I’ve never railroaded a man in my life.”
“Nuts! I listened to that once before and it got me plenty of years in the big house to think it over. My old man and the D.A. both gave me the same song and dance. Be honest-come clean-and get off light.”
Buell Renslow was an embittered old man now, looking back over the wreckage which too many years behind bars had made of him. His hands shook and the cocked revolver shook with them. Shayne fervently hoped the gun had a strong trigger pull. He knew the symptoms of stir-fever and the lengths to which it will drive a man.
“Yeah. They patted me on the back and told me to face it out,” Renslow went on in a tone of bitter disillusionment. “It was an accident. We were all drinking. Sure, the only disgrace would be in running away. Pay your debt to society, my boy!”
He was deliberately reaching back to reopen the old wound, twisting the knife of recollection in his own bowels, bringing back into vivid focus those horror-filled days and endless nights which had seen him segregated from his fellow men like a beast behind bars. He spoke in a jerky monotone that was more terrible than a burst of violence:
“All right. So I was a damned fool. That was when every Colorado mining town had its Boot Hill. The trial was going to be a farce with maybe a suspended sentence or six months at worst. Sure, I stood up and told my story to
