corner. Matrix was not in the office, but an open door led back into a rear room through which light shone.
Shayne went to a north window and looked down across three vacant lots to the ground-floor Elite Printing Shop. He was standing at the window when he heard soft footsteps behind him. He turned slowly and saw Gil Matrix in the doorway regarding him with a twisted, unpleasant smile.
“What are you snooping around here for?”
“It’s a good place for snooping,” Shayne countered mildly. He turned away from the window and swung one leg over a corner of the editor’s desk. Matrix entered with short, jerky steps, his shoulders hunched slightly forward. “I thought you were in an all-fired hurry to have it out with Grant MacFarlane,” he said in a flat, grouchy tone.
Shayne moved his head slightly and negatively. He took a cigarette from a pack in his breast pocket, lit it, and flipped the match away. He grunted, “I didn’t want to surprise him. You can never tell what fool thing a man will do when he is surprised and on the defensive. If I give him time to get ready for me the results will be more predictable-and fewer people are likely to get hurt.”
“So that,” Matrix mused, “is why you spouted off to Chief Boyle and told him where you were headed. I confess I thought it was a dumb trick-at the time. I was beginning to wonder whether you were as smart as you were rated.”
Shayne smiled. “You think Boyle will warn MacFarlane I’m on my way out there?”
“I’m sure of it. One will get you a hundred that MacFarlane has already been told.”
“I never bet against a sure thing.” Shayne hesitated, drawing on his cigarette, his eyes slitted and inscrutable, then suddenly he asked, “What came between you and Mayme Martin a few months ago?”
Matrix swore softly and in complete surprise. His round eyes narrowed upon Shayne. “What do you know about Mayme Martin?”
“Not much. I understand you used to be quite intimate with her and broke off quite recently-and suddenly.”
“So-that’s where you were-getting acquainted with our pious psalmsingers here in Cocopalm,” Matrix snarled. His strange eyes were full of venom. “Because Miss Martin and I were old friends and lived in adjoining apartments the lecherous-minded citizens added up two and two and immediately put us in bed together.”
“Were you?” Shayne asked guilelessly.
“Why should I deny it? And why the inquisition? Are my morals involved in a counterfeiting case?”
“I don’t know,” Shayne answered truthfully. “I am interested in knowing why you broke off with Miss Martin.”
“Because she got to sopping up more gin than was good for her. She was pickling her brains and her intestines with the stuff and she got sore when I told her she was beginning to look like an old hag-which she was.”
“What happened to her after she moved away from next door to you?”
“She gravitated to the gutter,” Matrix said bitterly. “Last time I saw her she was cadging drinks out at the Rendezvous and had a grudge against the world in general and me in particular. I’d still like to know where the hell she fits in.”
Shayne sighed and carefully eased ashes from his cigarette onto the floor. “So would I.” He cocked his ear to the sound of firm, authoritative steps climbing the echoing wooden stairway. “You’re about to have another visitor,” Shayne pronounced. An interested gleam came to his gray eyes.
Matrix nodded sourly. He jammed his hands deep into his pockets and paced the narrow confines of the office and back. He shouted, “Come,” when the footsteps stopped outside and a knock sounded on the door.
A rotund, ruddy-featured man of medium height came in. He carried a stiff straw hat in his hand and had a rosy, perspiring bald head with a fringe of gray hair all the way around. He wore a Palm Beach suit with a gaudy shirt and gaudier tie. A round pot-bottom belly preceded him importantly into the newspaper office. He stopped, evidently abashed, and looked inquiringly at Shayne, then pursed his full pink lips and spoke in a rounded tone, “Ah-Mr. Matrix-I hoped to find you alone.”
Matrix said, “Come on in, Mr. Payson. I’ve just been having a few words with the detective. Mr. Payson, this is Mr. Shayne, from Miami.”
“The detective, eh?” Payson asked heartily. He followed his belly toward Shayne and held out a fat, perspiring palm. Shayne lounged to his feet and shook hands while Matrix explained:
“Mr. Payson is one of the largest stockholders of the dog track and chairman of the board. He has been having apoplexy since the counterfeiting, which accounts for his rosiness.”
Payson said, “Ahem,” with a deprecating sidelong glance at Matrix. “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Shayne. We depend upon you, sir, to diagnose this unusual case. I may say that the entire community is depending upon you to take immediate and drastic steps. I need hardly point out what a calamity it would be to Cocopalm if the track were forced to shut its gates. It’s one of our greatest tourist attractions, not to mention the hundreds of local families supported directly or indirectly by our payroll.”
“And not forgetting the dividends-which have been sadly curtailed,” Matrix put in with a sardonic grin.
Payson chuckled. “Ha ha. Amusing fellow, isn’t he, Mr. Shayne? He flaunts a determined cynicism while actually he’s one of our most aggressive civic boosters.”
Shayne said, “If you want to talk privately to Mr. Matrix, I’ll be going along.” He dragged his big frame up from the desk.
“No, don’t go,” Matrix interposed. “Payson and I can talk in the back room. There’s something else I want to take up with you before you go.”
“Don’t leave on my account,” Payson concurred. “My business with Gil will take only a moment. I don’t wish to slow the-er-wheels of justice, shall we say?”
He followed the editor through the door leading into the printing-shop and closed the door. Through the single wall Shayne could hear the older man talking at length in a low, guarded voice, but could distinguish no words.
At length Matrix said sharply and disagreeably, “All right, Payson, but it’s against the principle that has made the Voice what it is. You know our slogan-all the news without fear or favor.”
Payson’s voice droned again placatingly, until Matrix interrupted, “I told you I would-let it go at that,” and jerked the door open.
Payson came back into the office smiling in some constraint. He mumbled something to Shayne and went out the front door, closing it firmly behind him.
“The old goat,” said Matrix viciously. “A pillar of the church, by God, and he practically controls the bank that holds my mortgage.”
Shayne grinned at the dynamic little editor’s vitriolic emphasis. “Suppressing a juicy bit of scandal?”
“Exactly. The old so-and-so has a good wife and two fine kids here in town, but he has evidently got himself tangled up with a wench in Miami. I was in Miami on business this afternoon and saw him on the street. Now he’s in an uproar because I was going to print the news as a local item. Seems he told his wife he was making a business trip up the coast. If I had that mortgage paid off I’d print it whether or not. That’s the sort of small-town stuff I’m running up against all the time here.”
Shayne said, “This Payson-is he the brother of the proprietor of the other print shop in town?”
Matrix nodded and dropped into the chair before the desk. Shayne resumed his position, one hip on the corner of the littered desk.
“That relationship,” Matrix continued, “cost me a nice juicy contract for printing the dog-track tickets last fall. I’m morally certain they opened my bid first, then arranged that the Elite bid a few dollars under my price.”
Shayne said, “Hardeman told me that Payson and he divide the responsibility of getting the genuine tickets printed without a leak.”
“That’s right. If the old goat didn’t own stock at the track I’d suspect him of having counterfeits printed.”
“As it is,” said Shayne casually, “how do you think the counterfeiters get hold of the new design each day in time to get their forgeries out? Hardeman claims that Boyle guards the printed tickets personally until they’re delivered at the track.”
“Humph. Who guards Boyle?” Matrix asked cynically. “That’s the crux of the whole affair. Hardeman is just a trusting fool. He refuses to recognize the obvious fact that Boyle is only a tool for Grant MacFarlane.”
“You hate MacFarlane?” Shayne asked softly.
“I don’t deny it.” Matrix glared at him, his thin face working. “I hate what MacFarlane stands for-the
