anywhere.”
Shayne laughed happily. He asked, “Did Mr. Barton show you any credentials to prove he was Pearson of the FBI?”
“N-No. But I had that official wire from Hoover saying he was sending a special agent named Pearson.”
Shayne laughed again. He turned to Gentry. “Painter had a wire from Hoover,” he explained witheringly. “That is, he received a telegram from Washington signed J. Edgar Hoover. I admit I don’t know how Barton worked it, but he sent that telegram. And Painter fell for it. As if Hoover were sending personal wires around to punk detective chiefs. Hell, the FBI has a branch office in Miami. If they’d wanted Lacy picked up they would have communicated with their local office.”
Gentry’s face was purple. He demanded, “Is that right, Painter? Good God! Did you introduce him to me as a G-man with nothing more than such a telegram to go on?”
“But the telegram must have been authentic. It carried the official government designation-and you know no telegraph office in Washington would accept such a wire from just anyone.”
Shayne laughed at the plaintive note in Painter’s voice. Before Pearson could speak, he cut in. “You should have been an actor, Barton. You played your role so well I would have been taken in if I hadn’t known the telegram was a forgery.”
The Wall Street broker smiled with pleasure. “I’ve always had a desire to go on the stage.” He caught himself up with a jerk as he realized the admission his vanity had trapped him into making, then shrugged and continued urbanely. “It seems useless to deny it now. No, Mr. Painter, I filed that telegram myself. It cost me exactly one hundred dollars to convince the telegraph operator it was a harmless hoax and to have it sent as an official message. Though I must confess I expected I would be called upon to produce credentials when I reached Miami, but I had to take that chance and it was the only way I could think of to stop Lacy from getting this suitcase. When you took me at face value and vouched for me to Chief Gentry, I could do no less than take advantage of the situation. It was what I hoped for, of course.”
Painter started to say something but choked over the words. He turned abruptly and stamped away with his shoulders squared and his head high.
“You played the part damn well,” Shayne said to Barton. “Your story about the stolen military plans was a masterpiece and I would have believed it if I hadn’t known you were a phony.”
“For God’s sakes,” pleaded Gentry, “say something that makes sense, Mike. You mean there weren’t any stolen plans?”
“For all I know, government plans are being stolen every day. But not in this case. This is merely the hundred grand swag from a holdup that was supposed to be divided three ways. Barton did a magnificent job of mixing fact with fiction in a desperate attempt to get hold of that suitcase. His spy story contained just enough of the truth to make it plausible.”
Shayne paused and laughed at the bemused expressions on the faces of Gentry and Rourke. Rourke’s lips were swollen from the tape. He wet them and started to say something.
Shayne urged, “Don’t take it so hard. You both had two strikes on you because you accepted Barton as an FBI. I knew he wasn’t, because Painter had told me about the telegram which was supposedly sent by Hoover. I don’t get any credit for figuring it out on that basis.” He looked straight at Rourke and added, “Past records don’t seem to mean much around here, anyway.”
Rourke again moistened his sticky lips and started to say something. His face was very red.
Shayne shrugged and turned to J. Winthrop Barton. “I suppose you have a key to that suitcase. It has the appearance of belonging to a Wall Street broker.”
“Yes,” Barton admitted. He fumbled in his pocket, studying Shayne through narrowed eyes. His lips were compressed. He said, “Your guesses seem to be quite correct.”
“It wasn’t all guesswork. You caught a train from New York the afternoon of the holdup-the paper said the junior member of the firm was recalled from a vacation trip to the Caribbean-and you were the only one connected with the crime who did leave New York. The money had completely disappeared.” Shayne spread out his manacled hands. “When you told the story of the claim check torn into three pieces I knew you and Lacy and Morgan must have planned the holdup and got the money out of town that way.”
Barton knelt by the pigskin suitcase with a small flat key in his hand. He showed the same composure now that had aided his masquerade as a G-man. He sighed as the suitcase came open. “There you are, Mr. Shayne.”
Rourke’s eyes popped out on stems. He stooped down with Gentry and Shayne to look at the contents of the suitcase. Nestled among rumpled clothing, a short length of bright steel chain was attached to the money bag, and it was still locked with two heavy padlocks.
Shayne nodded and told Gentry, “There’s supposed to be over a hundred grand there.”
He turned to Barton. “There’s only one thing I don’t understand. Why in the name of God did you and Lacy and Helen and Morgan sit around two months without doing anything about claiming this?”
Barton smiled grimly. “I doubt whether you will believe my explanation, but it happens to be true.” He sighed, “You see, I have a conscience.”
“Not enough of one to prevent you from helping plan and carry out a fake holdup.”
The broker compressed his lips. “That was entirely different. The loss was covered by Lacy’s bond. And I was desperate for cash. When one has a wife who-but I need not go into that. No, Mr. Shayne. I did not balk at tipping off Lacy when he carried an exceptionally valuable load, and helping to dispose of the loot. But my conscience simply would not allow me to help steal the money again from one of my partners who was in jail for a crime of which I was equally guilty. I started plans at once to effect Morgan’s release from prison-hoping to accomplish that before the suitcase was sold at auction as unclaimed baggage.”
“Lacy and Helen Morgan tried to get you to throw in with them,” Shayne guessed. “But you refused to double-cross Mace Morgan.”
“That,” Barton told him, “is correct.”
“And you held the whip hand with your third of the claim check-until an ex-con named Harry Houseman held you up and got the piece of cardboard from your safe. You knew he and Lacy were getting together to cut both you and Morgan out. So you got in touch with Morgan, bribed a guard to help him escape, and gave him money to come to Florida. But you were afraid Morgan might fail to stop Houseman and Lacy, so you went to Washington and bribed a telegraph agent to send a fake wire over Hoover’s name-hoping it would serve to hold Lacy until you got here.”
“I still don’t get half this talk,” Gentry rumbled. “Here, let me unlock those cuffs, Mike. Who is Harry Houseman?”
Shayne held out his hands. “Horse-face, whom Barton gut-shot in the restroom just now to keep the beans from being spilled. He used the name of Gorstmann in Miami,” Shayne went on, “and he faked a story of Gestapo terrorism to force Otto Phleugar to give him the job of headwaiter at the Danube Restaurant. He had a good reason for doing that because the New York police wanted him for robbery and he knew about the close check we keep on criminal haunts here in Miami. By getting a legitimate job at the Danube he had a much better chance of avoiding arrest while he arranged to grab the loot. Had me fooled for a time,” Shayne said ruefully, “because it seemed to tie up with Barton’s concocted spy story.”
“Gorstmann? The fellow whose car was used yesterday?”
Shayne nodded. “His two torpedoes were driving it when they stopped Lacy on the causeway.”
Gentry transferred the handcuffs to the Wall Street broker, who held his wrists out to receive them. There was a look of acceptance on Barton’s face, as though he was glad the whole thing was over.
Tim Rourke grabbed Shayne’s arm as the redhead started to turn away. “You knew all along this guy’s spy story was a fairy tale,” he charged. “Why in hell didn’t you tip me off, Mike?”
“And have you spread it on the front page? In the first place I wanted Barton to play his string out. I didn’t actually know where all the pieces of the claim check were until early this morning. And by that time it was too late to tell you anything. Neither you nor Gentry would have believed a word I said.”
“If that bag is what you say it is,” Gentry interrupted gruffly, “there’ll be a nice reward from the bonding company for you, Mike.”
Shayne grinned. “I’ll have to admit that playing it this way to the end I won’t have to split the reward money half a dozen ways. That might have had something to do with me keeping my mouth shut all along.” He swung
