shan’t sleep until I prove it.” He went stiffly from the room and slammed the door behind him.
“Does he think Chick Farrel is mixed up in a kidnaping?” Shayne asked incredulously.
Rourke shook his head. “Chick happened to know the dame in the wreck. Painter knows it couldn’t have been you with her, but he’s grilling Farrel trying to establish some connection between you and the blonde kidnap- murderess.”
Shayne sighed and said, “I wish someone would bring me up to date.”
Will Gentry pursed his lips around the cigar and looked balefully at Shayne. He gave a grunt of disgust and disbelief, got up and started toward the death room with a firm stride. He stopped, turned, and said casually, “There was a big fire out on West Thirty-eighth Street a little after two o’clock. Two-story frame house burned down.”
“Anybody hurt?” asked Shayne with interest.
“Not by the fire. But there was a funny thing. A Negro’s body was found in the basement garage by firemen. Face was all torn up-like he’d tangled with a meat chopper.” Gentry hesitated, moving his cigar across his mouth to the other side, then added, “They found part of a whisky bottle with bloody, jagged edges lying close by.” He turned and went on to the bedroom.
“Whisky bottle?” Shayne called out. “It’s a good thing I’m a cognac drinker or they’d be hanging that on me, too.”
“Now why the hell,” asked Rourke when Gentry’s bulky body disappeared into the room, “did he take time out to tell us about that?”
Shayne said, “You never know about Will,” and reached for the bottle.
Chapter Nine
After Gentry’s men had taken pictures and measurements in the bedroom, fingerprinted the entire apartment, and carefully documented the possessions of the dead man, they departed, taking Slocum’s body with them.
Shayne and Timothy Rourke remained on the couch. When Gentry followed his men out of the bedroom he looked tired and harried. Shayne got up, went into the kitchen and put ice cubes and a small quantity of water in a tall glass. He returned and poured cognac in with the water and ice, sloshed it around to mix it, and handed it to Gentry.
He said, “Drink that down, Will, and tell us what you found out in there.”
“Not much of anything, Mike,” he said quietly, belching out a cloud of smoke from a freshly lit cigar. “The dead man appears to be Leonard Slocum, minor executive of an oil firm, recently transferred here from Mobile, Alabama. Contents of his wallet and suitcase are about what you’d expect from a man in his position. No fingerprints in the apartment except yours, his, and another set, probably the maid’s. The vase could be the death weapon. It’s heavy enough, and a man could get a pretty good grip on the neck of it, but the Doc doubts it. More likely the barrel of a heavy gun. Slocum’s prints are on the vase, but they could have been pressed there by the killer as a silly kind of blind after he’d wiped his own prints off. Doc is testing the blood on the vase to see if it’s Slocum’s-or yours, Mike,” he ended solemnly.
Shayne nodded. “What else?”
“Not much,” Gentry sighed. “A few drops of blood on the carpet in here leading to the front door. Didn’t that vase use to stand on the shelf by the door?”
“For years,” Shayne told him. “If someone knocked and Slocum answered the door and was attacked, he could’ve grabbed it to defend himself.”
“Or the killer could have grabbed it to use on him,” Gentry countered. “He may have been attacked right there in the bedroom, by someone who entered with a key and surprised him in bed.”
“What about the blood drops leading to the door?”
“If the killer got slugged he could have dropped those as he went out. Slocum’s about your size, Mike. How many people in Miami knew he’d be sleeping in that bed tonight and that you wouldn’t?”
“Not many.”
“Slocum isn’t the type of man to have many enemies here. Besides, he’s a stranger. On the other hand, Miami is lousy with mugs who’d like nothing better than to knock you off. By the time the killer swung a couple of times and bashed in Slocum’s face, he might not have known the difference.”
Shayne didn’t argue with him or point out several inconsistencies in this theory. At the moment he was quite happy to have the police go on thinking Slocum had been killed as a result of mistaken identity. He wished he could think so, but too many things pointed to Perry and Senator Irvin, with himself as the innocent instigator.
“Why did you come back to Miami so fast?” asked Gentry casually.
Shayne grinned and it hurt his swollen lip. “Didn’t you like the story I told Painter?”
Gentry set his glass down and got up to go over to the coveralls and socks which Shayne had discarded. He bent over them and studied them for a moment, then went back to his chair. “Some garage mechanic has been wearing those coveralls, and there’s old grease on the bottom of your socks.”
Shayne didn’t say anything. Rourke tried to help by remarking, “Some garage mechanics have good-looking wives and are jealous of them.”
Gentry paid no attention to the remark. He frowned and said, “I keep thinking about that dead Negro in the basement garage of the house that burned tonight. The boys found an open razor gripped in his right hand. He was about the size to have worn those coveralls.”
“How did the fire start?” Shayne asked blandly.
Rourke sat quietly, looking suspiciously from one to the other, trying to fathom the meaning of the seemingly irrelevant remarks.
“Short circuit in the electric wiring, apparently,” Gentry rumbled. “Fuses kept blowing out and when they had no more, some damn fool tried to make a connection by putting a penny in the fuse box socket. If it wasn’t for a telephone call I received I wouldn’t think so much about it,” he ended gently.
Shayne nodded. “I know what you mean. Have you picked up Irvin?”
“Not yet.” Gentry took a couple of swallows of his drink, then added, “I’ve got men asking questions.”
Shayne tugged absently at his ear lobe as the police chief got to his feet. He said, “Let me know as soon as you get any answers.”
Gentry stared for a moment at Shayne’s bland face and said, “It might help a lot if you’d tell me where you were between midnight and two-thirty.”
“Painter places me in Palm Beach at one o’clock,” Shayne reminded him lightly.
Gentry grunted. “I know.” He asked Rourke, “Coming along, Tim?”
The reporter squinted at the half-full bottle on the floor and shook his head. “Not for a while, Chief. I learned a long time ago to hang around Mike when I wanted a headline. And I like his drinking liquor.”
Gentry said, “There’s going to be an awful stink when the Deland kidnap story hits the morning papers. I’d hate to be involved in a deal like that.”
Rourke nodded soberly. “My story has already gone in to the local paper, and out over the wires. There’ll be a lot of tears mixed up in the stink all over the country. That’s one time Petey gave me a break. I guess I ought to’ve kissed him for it.”
Gentry gave a grunt of disgust and moved stolidly to the door, went out and closed it silently.
Shayne and Rourke sat quietly for a time, the latter’s deep-set eyes bright with excitement as he regarded Shayne hopefully.
When the detective said nothing, Rourke muttered, “Gentry made several queer cracks at you, Mike. I never knew him to be subtle before.”
Shayne made a violent gesture with his right hand. “Will knows I’m on the spot half a dozen ways, but he also knows I’ve never let him down.” He settled back in one corner of the couch and closed his eyes. “Give me everything on the kidnap story, Tim.”
“It’s nasty,” Rourke warned him. “It’s got all the elements of a cause celebre. Pathos, heartbreak, down-to-
