perspiring forehead.
Shayne said, “Make yourself at home, Will. I’m holding open house, as usual.”
“With a corpse in his bedroom, as usual,” snapped Painter. “This way, men,” he told Gentry’s squad of experts.
Gentry didn’t look toward his fellow official from the Beach. He thrust his hands deep in his pockets and said to Shayne, “I thought you were on a plane and halfway to New Orleans by now.”
“That’s what he wanted us to think,” Painter said, strutting back from the bedroom door after Gentry’s men had entered. “I told you I smelled something rotten about that fast take-off. He quit the plane at Palm Beach, hurried back here and bludgeoned a man to death.”
There was a thick silence in the room. Timothy Rourke’s voice broke it when he said quietly, “Last time I heard it, Painter, you had Mike mixed up in a kidnap killing.”
“Keep out of this,” Painter barked. “Shayne’s mixed up in that, too. I’m sure of it. But he hasn’t got an alibi for this one.” He jerked a forefinger toward the bedroom.
“What did Henry tell you?” Shayne demanded.
“Him?” Painter looked scornfully at the night clerk. “He’d lie for you any day.”
“Suppose someone tells me what this is all about,” Will Gentry rumbled mildly. “Who’s the stiff this time, anybody here know?”
Peter Painter pounced upon the question and said, “The night clerk here says it’s a man who rented this apartment this afternoon. He gave the name of Leonard Slocum-from Mobile. The clerk didn’t think he’d moved in yet, so he let Shayne in with a passkey to bathe and change clothes-according to his story.”
“What time?” Shayne asked quietly.
“He says it wasn’t more than fifteen minutes ago at the time I questioned him,” Painter admitted. “But-”
“You can check with Joe, the elevator boy,” said Shayne.
“I will. Perhaps it was just fifteen minutes, or they may both be lying. Here’s the way I see it, Will,” Painter went on pompously, turning his back on Shayne and Rourke. “Whoever killed that man must have gotten spattered with blood. What do you think we found Shayne doing when we came in here?”
“Taking a drink,” Gentry grunted sourly.
“He was stark naked and drying himself after a shower. Now, Henry admits he came into the lobby in his stocking feet and wearing a pair of coveralls. I’ve checked carefully and discovered that’s all he was wearing.” Painter pointed to the coveralls and socks still lying in the center of the floor. “Now, I ask you, why would a man dressed only in a pair of coveralls enter a sleeping man’s apartment at three in the morning?”
“You tell me,” Gentry said.
“A man like Shayne, remember. A man who has had a lot of close contact with murder and knows it’s likely to be a messy business. I’ll tell you why. Because coveralls are a one-piece garment that can be stepped out of in a moment. Not even any underwear, you understand. Does he mind a little blood from his victim? Why should he? He’s naked. It’ll wash off in the shower.”
“Astounding,” murmured Timothy Rourke, reaching over to pluck the bottle out of Shayne’s hands. “There you have it, Will. Premeditation and motive and everything. This guy had rented this apartment right out from under him. So, Mike strips to the skin and slips on a pair of coveralls-Oh, my sainted grandmother! Sometimes you make me so sick I need a drink, Petey.” He took a long one.
“I told you to keep out of this,” Painter said angrily, half turning to glare at Rourke. “We’ll find a motive, all right,” he continued tenaciously. “It’s quite evident that Shayne used the ticket to New Orleans as a ruse to fix up an alibi for slipping back and murdering Slocum. Why else did he jump the plane and rush back here?”
“Suppose you tell us, Mike.” Gentry removed the sodden cigar stub from his full lips, contemplated the full inch of dead ashes at one end of it, and laid it on an ash tray. When Shayne hesitated, Gentry looked at him solemnly from under the crinkled folds of his lids.
Shayne gestured impatiently. “There’s no mystery about it. You know all about the Belton case in New Orleans that I was in such a rush to get to after the Leslie Hudson case was solved-by me,” he looked sourly at Painter. “But Painter had me tied into another murder on the Beach less than twelve hours ago, so I had to stay over and solve it for him. Just before the plane left I had a phone call from my secretary in New Orleans. She told me I was too late. The Belton case had gone flooey. And that took the pressure off getting back to New Orleans.”
“You say you had that phone call before the plane took off?” Painter pounced on his story and began to worry it like a terrier worrying a bone.
“You can check with one of the clerks at the terminal,” Shayne told him.
“Then why did you take off at all?”
“My bag was already checked,” said Shayne lazily. “I didn’t have time to think things over. But I did have time to think on my way to Palm Beach, and I remembered some unfinished business in Miami. I wanted to know more about a certain girl, so I came back to find out,” he ended serenely.
“Was she-” Rourke began.
“I’ve never known Shayne to take off all his clothes to commit a murder,” Gentry interrupted, “but I’ve heard rumors to the effect that he does sometimes to go to bed.”
“How did you get back from Palm Beach?” demanded Painter.
“Has Petey started running your department?” Shayne asked Gentry.
“He’s interested in your movements tonight from another angle, Mike. Better give it to him straight.” He took out a fresh cigar, examined the wrapper carefully, then lit it.
Shayne said, “I hitchhiked back from Palm Beach. The plane was a few minutes late and it was almost one o’clock by the time I got my bag and got out of the terminal. Happened to be an old fellow there who was driving down here, and I hooked a ride with him. It was almost two when he dropped me off on the outskirts of town.”
Gentry nodded and told Painter, “I don’t believe Shayne need be any further concern of yours on the kidnaping. If you’ve checked with National Airlines and know he actually rode as far as Palm Beach, he couldn’t possibly have been in that wrecked car.” He gave Shayne a despairing look and puffed on his cigar.
“What kidnaping?” Shayne asked with innocent interest. “That’s the second time I’ve heard it mentioned. What wrecked car?”
“Painter has been sucking wind ever since an eyewitness testified he saw you crawl out of a wrecked car on Thirty-sixth Street and slip away at one o’clock,” Rourke broke in.
“Who was the witness?”
“A character named Chick Farrel,” Painter informed him.
“Oh, Chick?” Shayne lit a cigarette and looked at the reporter over the match flame. “I get it now. That’s why you asked a while ago if Chick had it in for me. Anyone can see he was lying. I was in Palm Beach at one o’clock; and thank you for establishing my alibi,” he ended mockingly to Painter.
“Farrel may have been mistaken,” Painter admitted unhappily. “But what about this job? Shayne certainly had time to pull it off just the way I described.”
Will Gentry turned to the Medical Examiner as he came from the death room carrying his satchel. “How about it, Doc? Give us the T.O.D.”
The M.E. was bald-headed and brisk. He said, “Not less than forty-five minutes nor more than an hour and a half.” He looked at his wrist watch. “Two o’clock is the best I can do.”
“Wait a minute, Doc,” Shayne said. “Will you testify that the man must have been dead by two-thirty?”
“Absolutely.”
Shayne said, “Thanks,” and turned to Painter. “What time does Henry say I came into the lobby?”
“He claims it was two-forty-five,” Painter admitted, “but if I were running this investigation I certainly wouldn’t accept that as gospel.”
“Since you’re not running the investigation,” Will Gentry rumbled, “hadn’t you better run along and look for some kidnapers?”
Rourke snickered. Peter Painter’s face flared red. A manicured forefinger shook with impotent rage when he pointed it at Gentry and said, “I acknowledged in the beginning that Farrel might be mistaken as to Shayne’s identity, but I’m convinced his reason for making such a mistake was that he confidently expected the man with Gerta Ross to be Shayne. I’m also convinced that Shayne’s shenanigans tie in with the Deland kidnap pay-off and I
