earth people. There’ll be a wave of popular indignation, sob stories, editorials, and sermons on the death of Kathleen Deland. For God’s sake, Mike,” Rourke went on shakily, “that wad of dough I saw in that Gladstone. If that’s what I think it is-”
“Don’t bother thinking about that now,” Shayne told him sharply. “Give me the kidnap dope.”
“I’ll give it to you straight,” Rourke growled. “After the wind-up at Leslie Hudson’s house last night I got a story off on the wires, and then beat it down to Beach headquarters to get a fill-in. I was with Painter in his office a little after twelve when he got the kidnap flash.
“I went with him to the home of Arthur Deland on Tenth Street. It’s a nice little white stucco cottage, on a modest street of other nice little cottages. A neat lawn and flowers and a white picket fence. One glance tells you it’s the home of a hard-working man who loves his family and takes pride in his property and-”
Shayne broke in impatiently. “Save the sob stuff for your copy. You’ve got soft since you got your guts nearly blasted out a couple of months ago.”
“Maybe,” said Rourke quietly. “But you’re going to get the picture the way I got it. I know you’re hard-boiled and you’d sell your grandmother’s soul to the devil for a Canadian dime, but I’ve got a hunch you don’t know what you’re in the middle of this time.”
Shayne lit a cigarette and said, “Go on.”
Rourke poured himself a drink. “There were lights on all over the place when we got there. Painter and I went in. We were met at the door by Arthur Deland. He’s a tall, gaunt-faced man with big knuckles and calloused hands that’ve done hard work for a lot of years. His eyes were sunken and tears were running down his cheeks. There were two other people in the living-room-Mrs. Deland, and her brother from New York. Mrs. Deland’s name is Minerva; she has white hair and a sweet face. I don’t suppose she’s more than forty, but years of poverty and the struggle to maintain a decent home for their only child are stamped in her face. There’s pride, too. Pride in her home and their way of life and in the beautiful child they’ve reared.”
Shayne groaned, reached for the bottle and tilted it, took a long drink, and said, “You’re breaking my heart.”
“I’m trying to,” Rourke assured him. “Mrs. Deland was slumped in a rocking chair. Probably the same one she rocked Kathleen to sleep in when she was a baby. She wasn’t crying. I think she was drained of tears. There was just an empty look on her face, as though she already knew the truth-and the futility of it all. I doubt whether she felt anything more when they brought the lifeless body of her daughter to her a couple of hours later.
“The rug on the living-room floor was faded and the furniture was worn. But it was clean and neat, and everywhere there were little touches of a woman’s loving care. Crocheted doilies, decent but cheap prints on the walls, fresh zinnias from her garden in a bowl, above the mantel a large picture of Kathleen at the age of ten. It was a tinted picture, Mike. She had laughing blue eyes and golden curls.
“That’s Miami’s house of sorrow tonight. A dead house, silent and cold. Life has gone out of it and all the meaning that life and drudgery and privation have been to that couple. No laughing young voice echoing through it and no sunlight glinting on golden curls. I tell you it got hold of me like nothing else in the world ever did. I’ve covered lots of stories in my time and I thought I was hardened to that sort of thing, but tonight I learned I wasn’t.”
“In the name of God, Tim, don’t switch off on your life story,” Shayne raged. “I’m still waiting to hear one single relevant fact about the kidnaping.”
“You’ll get the facts in good time.” Rourke lit a cigarette, took a deep puff on it, and continued. “The third person in that room was Minerva’s brother, Emory Hale. He’s a big, quiet man with shaggy eyebrows. He didn’t have much to say, but you could see how it was hitting him, too. You could see that he adored his sister and that Kathleen had been the one bright spot in his life. Just from little things he said, you could tell. He’s got a poker face and from the cut of his clothes I’d say he’s a rich man, but he was wilted when we got there. I had a feeling that he knew-just as Mrs. Deland knew-that they’d never see Kathleen alive again.
“I think I pitied the father most. He wouldn’t let himself give up hope. He was determined not to let it get him down. It was wonderful to see a man with such faith. He tried to know that no harm had come to his little girl, and in his own sorrow he tried to comfort the others. So I imagine it was hardest on him when they did bring Kathleen home.”
“How old was the girl?” Shayne asked sourly.
“Sixteen, Mike. Life must have looked pretty good to Kathleen Deland. She had everything before her. Honor student in the senior class at high school. Organist in the church, and a leader of a young people’s group. I swear to God, Mike, I’ll never get that girl’s picture out of my mind. I keep thinking of the thousands of sixteen-year-old floosies it might’ve been. Silly bobby-soxers and cocktail dopes strutting their adolescence-”
Shayne groaned loudly and reached for the bottle on the floor between them. Rourke’s skinny hand went out swiftly and closed talon-like fingers about his wrist.
“No, you don’t, Mike. I’m going to get around to asking some questions pretty soon, and I want straight answers.”
Shayne looked quizzically into Rourke’s dark gray eyes. They glittered with a feverish intensity and the left side of the reporter’s mouth jerked as he stared back at the redheaded detective.
Shayne relaxed and set the bottle down. He said mildly, “All right, Tim. I didn’t kill the girl, you know.”
“I know this,” Rourke told him in a tense and shaking voice. “Kathleen Deland was murdered by every rat that had a hand in her kidnaping. It was a composite job. The law may not say so, but I contend that every bastard who so much as dirtied the tips of his fingers by contact with the kidnaping is a murderer in fact.”
Shayne said, “I haven’t got all night.”
“That’s the background.” Rourke laced his fingers around one knee. “Arthur Deland was too upset to tell a coherent story when we got there, but his brother-in-law supplied the facts.
“It happened two days ago. Kathleen didn’t return from school in the afternoon. Her mother received a telephone call about four-thirty, before she’d had time to be worried about Kathleen not coming straight home from school. A man called her. He merely said that Kathleen had been kidnaped and was being held for fifty thousand dollars ransom. He warned the mother that if a word leaked out to anyone, the girl would be killed immediately. That was all. He told her he’d call later that night, that her telephone was tapped and the house was being watched. Then he hung up.
“Minerva Deland was frantic and called her husband immediately, afraid to tell him anything over the phone except to come home at once. He runs a small plumbing shop here in Miami. Not much business, I guess, and he and his partner have been doing most of the work themselves on account of labor shortage and lack of supplies. Just struggling along and keeping their heads above water and hoping for better days.
“That’s what I gathered, anyhow, because he said it was utterly impossible for him to raise as much as five grand, much less fifty. He got home as fast as he could and was just as paralyzed by fear for his daughter’s safety as his wife was. They knew they should call the police or the F.B.I., but they didn’t. They huddled together with their fear and waited for the telephone to ring.
“The second call was at ten-thirty. Mrs. Deland answered, and she thinks it was the same voice. Nothing particularly noticeable about it, just a voice over the telephone. He asked for her husband and repeated his threat of the afternoon, and told Deland to appoint a third party to act as intermediary in the negotiations. Someone whom Deland could trust and who could be trusted to keep his mouth shut. Deland immediately thought of Jim Dawson, his partner in the plumbing shop. He gave Dawson’s name and address, but protested that it would be utterly impossible to raise the ransom.
“The voice then told him that he had a rich brother-in-law in New York. ‘Midnight tomorrow is the limit if you ever want to see your girl alive again.’ The man hung up.
“Well, of course Deland and his wife had already thought of appealing to her brother, Emory Hale. Seems he’d helped them financially before, and is fixed so he might have that kind of money on tap.
“About midnight they phoned Hale in New York and laid their need before him. He argued at first that they should call in the F.B.I., but they were too frightened and made him promise not to. At least that’s what Hale said. He knew it was the right thing to do, but he loved Kathleen so much he was afraid to upset the negotiations. He promised to raise the money the next day and fly down with it at once.
“Neither of the Delands slept that night. They called Dawson and told him what was up, begged him to keep his mouth shut and follow instructions. Dawson agreed.
“They had a wire from Emory Hale the next day saying he would arrive with the cash at eight o’clock. They
