Mr. Payson drew himself up frigidly. “I had not completed the list. There is also-”
“I heard you the first time,” Shayne said roughly and hastily. He began stuffing the papers back into the envelope, but Mr. Payson rescued them from him and retied the envelope in an orderly fashion. Shayne was waiting at the door for him when he emerged from the vault, locked it, and said good night to Jensen, whose eyes were inscrutable above his mop handle.
“I trust you are entirely satisfied,” Mr. Payson said as he hurried to keep pace with Shayne’s long strides.
Shayne didn’t reply until he was under the steering-wheel and had the roadster headed back toward the Payson mansion.
“I’m entirely satisfied,” he said. “Far beyond my expectations, Payson.” He had the accelerator on the floorboard.
Pulling up at the banker’s front gate, he waited for Payson to get out, then said, “Don’t worry about anything if your lady of light virtue in Miami alibis you.” He waved his hand and drove away while the banker scurried into the sanctity of his front yard and locked the gate securely behind him.
A satanic grin spread over Shayne’s gaunt face. The grin was brief, resolving into a scowl which set itself upon his features.
Chapter Sixteen: MIKE LOSES A ROUND
Heading back on Main street, Shayne’s attention was caught by a flicker of light from a rear window of the Voice office. He came to an abrupt stop and stared upward, but the beam of light had vanished. All the windows were dark.
He continued to sit immobile behind the wheel with his gaze slanted upward, fixed on that rear window. It had not been imagination. There had been a faint beam of light up there.
It came again. A sliver of light glancing momentarily against the dark windowpane.
He turned off his car lights and slithered to the curb, slid out of the car and walked up the sidewalk to the southeast corner of the two-story building, hesitated only a moment looking upward, then walked silently back along the side of the building. A gaunt shadow in the illusive starlight and reflected lights from the illumined district around him, Shayne circled the rear and the north side to assure himself there was no exit from the upstairs office except the front steps. No rear stairs or fire escape led downward. He stationed himself in the deep shadow of a doorway which was across the street from the Tropical Hotel, and waited.
Only a few cars were parked in front of the hotel at this hour in the evening before the races were over. He could see into the hotel lobby between looped-back silken draperies.
Chief Gentry and Chief Boyle were standing near the doorway. Boyle was talking excitedly, waving his arms. Will Gentry was listening with a dour expression, nodding now and then and rubbing his blunt chin.
Max Samuelson’s blue sedan, Shayne noticed, was nowhere in sight. He would have given a lot to know where it was-where Max and his two bodyguards were. The model camera and the plans were upstairs in the Voice safe. If Maxie was trying to play smart-
Shayne tensed as his quickened perceptions caught the sound of light footsteps stealing down from the newspaper office. He pressed his body back against the closed doors so that his rangy body blended completely with the shadow. He pulled the brim of his hat low over his face and turned his head slowly.
The door at the foot of the stairway squeaked as a hand pressed on it gently from the other side. It came open cautiously, inch by inch, not more than five feet from where Shayne stood, and his fingernails dug into calloused palms while he waited.
He almost jerked into betraying motion when the door came wide open suddenly. He held himself quiet when he saw Gil Matrix step out jauntily onto the sidewalk, letting the door go shut behind him with a little slam.
Matrix stood perfectly still for a moment, then he began whistling as he went down the street without a backward glance, his bare head giving the grotesque effect of an inflated balloon floating along above stout round shoulders which bent slightly forward as if he were pulling himself up a hill. A briefcase swung from his right hand and the sound of his heels on the sidewalk died away into the night stillness.
Shayne took off his hat and wiped his face all over with a soiled handkerchief, then stepped out of his hideaway and walked boldly across the street. His eyes darted up and down the street, then examined the cars parked in front of the hotel carefully.
It looked as though Maxie Samuelson, his burly getaway driver, and the sniveling Melvin with itching trigger fingers on both hands had got out of town.
Will Gentry met Shayne with a surly growl when he stepped into the hotel lobby. “Where the devil have you been?”
“Out,” Shayne returned almost happily.
“Every time you get out of my sight, by God, something bad happens,” Chief Boyle proclaimed loudly.
“What has happened this time?” Shayne asked.
“A ruckus down at the Ace-High picture studio. Jake Liverdink was in the dark room doing some developing work when a thug broke in and knocked him out cold. Smashed up some things and got out before Jake could get a look at him.”
“He couldn’t have seen much out cold,” Shayne parried.
“Damn you!” Chief Boyle snarled, but Will Gentry interrupted:
“We have it on good authority that you saw Jake Liverdink earlier in the evening, in a professional way. The way Chief Boyle looks at it-”
Shayne grunted. “If I hadn’t been busy doing something else I might have visited Jake later in the evening-in a professional way. I happened to be busy breaking and entering the bank, however, so you can’t hang Jake’s troubles around my neck.”
Boyle’s eyes started to pop out. “Breaking in the bank? Well, by God-”
“Aided by the president of the institution,” Shayne cut him off. He turned to Gentry and asked: “Any telegram from Illinois, Will?”
“Not yet.” Gentry chewed fiercely on the frayed butt of a cigar. He jerked it out of his mouth and sniffed it, then hurled it out the door. “I can’t stand around here all night,” he shot at Shayne. “I’m still working on the Martin murder and you haven’t given me a goddamn thing. You’re still the last man who saw her alive as far as I know.”
Shayne nodded absently. “I still think you’ll clear it up by staying here in Cocopalm faster than it can be done in Miami. If Maxie was telling me the truth-”
“Maxie? Samuelson? How does he fit in?” Gentry demanded irritably.
“I’ll tell you, Will. That’s what I held out on you up in my room,” Shayne said with unmistakable seriousness. “I didn’t know how much pressure I’d need to use on Maxie and I wanted to keep that for myself if I needed it. But Maxie seems to have faded out of the picture up here. This is straight. Max Samuelson was on his way up to see the Martin woman when I walked out of her apartment.”
Gentry’s beefy face grew slowly livid. “Then Samuelson saw her after you did. And he was here where I could get my hands on him and you didn’t tip me off.”
“I couldn’t, Will,” Shayne insisted. “Not then. What good would it have done you anyway?”
“What good?” Gentry was apoplectic with rage. “Hell, I would’ve put the screws on him. He would’ve talked plenty to me, he would.”
“You can pick him up in Miami any time you want him,” Shayne reminded his old friend mildly. “I don’t think you’ll get much except to set the time of her death closely. He swears and be damned that she was dead when he got there.”
“Oh, he does, does he? And you believed him?” Gentry’s heavy upper lip curled.
“I haven’t got any beliefs yet, Will. All I’ve got is a theory.”
“The hell you have.” Gentry’s sarcastic tone did not change. “Maybe you’d like to let us in on this theory. We are sort of interested too, you know. Maybe you don’t realize it, but we’ve both had a murder occur in our territory tonight. Of course, murders aren’t important to you while you’re chasing a fee, but they happen to be our job. Mike,
