Rourke’s eyes blazed venomously into Shayne’s for a moment. He started to push himself up from the couch, but the bleakness in Shayne’s eyes and the muscles moving in his gaunt face brought back memories of times when the detective had bound and gagged him to force him to listen to reason before spouting off and rushing headlines to his newspaper.
He settled back wearily after pouring a drink. “Okay, Mike. But this time it’s got to be good. Understand?”
Shayne nodded. He gave a brief account of his experience at the airport, dwelling upon the meeting with Dawson.
“When the porter brought me a Gladstone from the plane I didn’t realize he’d brought me the wrong one,” he explained. “I didn’t know I had Dawson’s bag until I discovered it was locked. You were very helpful in opening it for me right in Painter’s presence,” he added with a dry grin.
“Then Dawson is using your ticket and your name,” he exclaimed. “It’s actually Dawson who jumped the plane in Palm Beach.”
Shayne nodded and then related the story of the lush blonde with much less enthusiasm than he had felt at the time it happened. “I trailed her out,” he resumed, “because I didn’t know whether to tell her the truth about her supposed husband or not. She got in a gray sedan with Fred Gurney.”
“Gurney? He’s one of the cons there was such a stink about a few years ago. I covered that story. Bought a pardon from Raiford. There was a state-wide scandal afterward, involving a lot of other high-ups.”
Shayne nodded. “Senator Irvin was the central figure. They hushed it up somehow.”
“Yeah, I remember,” said Rourke sadly.
“I trailed the blonde and Gurney to a joint on Thirty-sixth street,” Shayne continued. “The Fun Club. Run by a guy named Bates. Ever heard of him?”
Rourke shook his head.
Shayne then told him about trying to pay for some drinks with one of the bills given him by Dawson, of the phone call Bates had made, and of his escape with Gerta Ross in the sedan.
“My God,” breathed Rourke. “Then you were the passenger in the wreck. Chick Farrel did recognize you. Why did you run away, Mike?” he went on excitedly. “Did you know the girl was in the trunk?”
“I didn’t run away,” Shayne told him. “I walked away with a gun in my back.” He gave a quick summary of his interview with ex-Senator Irvin and his escape from the house on 38th Street. “I stopped in a joint on Miami Avenue and called Gentry,” he explained. “He told me Farrel had spotted me in the wreck. That was the first time I knew there had been a kidnaping. I asked him to pick up Irvin, and that’s why he told me about the fire and the dead Negro in the basement. A broken glass bottle is a hell of a thing to shove into anyone’s face,” he added.
“I don’t get that stuff about the bills.” Rourke picked up the ten-grand bundle he had discarded and studied one of the bills carefully. “I don’t see anything out of the way about this.”
“That’s why I asked whether the ransom money was marked. Don’t forget what Bates told Irvin over the phone-‘I got a C-note from that batch of fifty G’s you been hunting.’ That couldn’t have been later than twelve- forty-five, Tim. Even if the money was marked, how could Bates and Irvin know?”
“Emory Hale is the only one who could have known that,” Rourke agreed. “Maybe he told them.”
“Hale wouldn’t have turned that information over to a bunch of crooks,” Shayne protested. “There’s a possibility he may have lied to his brother-in-law and Painter. He might have played smart by having some secret marking on the bills, and he might even have turned that information over to the F.B.I., in New York and didn’t want to admit it after the pay-off went sour. But suppose he did? How did Irvin get it? And suppose Irvin did have a list he’d circulated to stooges like Bates? Would he gain anything by chasing down the ransom money after it had been paid?”
“Could Irvin be playing it straight?” asked Rourke doubtfully. “Undercovering for the F.B.I., down here?”
“Even undercover agents for the F.B.I., don’t go around murdering innocent bystanders like this fellow Slocum,” Shayne reminded him ruefully.
“God! Do you think Irvin-”
“Who else? I’m actually Slocum’s murderer,” Shayne went on, the trenches deepening in his gaunt cheeks, and his gray eyes bleak. “I put the finger on him with my story about where I got those two bills. It was a lousy story, but I couldn’t think of a better one with Perry’s gun on me. Of course it was Irvin, or one of his trigger-men. They had the address and the apartment number. They even had my key after they stripped me in the basement,” he ended savagely.
“It looks as though Dawson was trying to duck out of town with the ransom money,” muttered Rourke. “That makes him Kathleen Deland’s actual murderer, Mike. Do you realize that? She didn’t die until about twelve-thirty- after Gerta Ross had driven all over hell and gone to catch up with Dawson and deliver the girl. If he hadn’t skipped on your ticket, she would be alive right now.”
“It seems likely,” Shayne admitted.
“And you’re letting him get away with it,” Rourke told him harshly. “You’re covering up for him by not reporting him as the airplane passenger instead of yourself.” He got shakily to his feet and walked up and down before Shayne, on unsteady legs.
“What do you think Painter would do if I told him the truth?” Shayne grated.
“He’d get men in Palm Beach on Dawson’s trail, by God!”
“He might believe me enough to do that,” Shayne admitted. “A trail that’s at least two hours old, Tim. But don’t you see I’m placed right in the kidnap car if I kill my plane alibi by telling the truth?”
“You’re in the clear, Mike.” Rourke stopped before him, his talon-like fingers clenched tightly. “No one would blame you after hearing the whole story.”
“Not if they believed it,” Shayne said quietly.
“I believe it.”
“You’re not Painter. He won’t believe a damned word of it. Look,” he went on patiently, “what proof have I got? Irvin and Perry have skipped, and that leaves Bates. He’ll deny every word of it. Where does that leave me? With fifty grand ransom money, joy-riding in the kidnap car, and an unexplained corpse here in the apartment. Who but you would believe such a cockeyed story as that?”
“You’ve got to take a chance on it. Damn it, Mike, you can’t let a skunk like Dawson escape just to keep your own neck clear.”
“I’ll get Dawson.”
“How? By sitting here drinking cognac?”
“That’s the best way I know of. Don’t forget that I’ve got something Dawson wants pretty badly.”
“The money?”
Shayne nodded absently and was silent for a moment while Rourke prowled the room, plopping his fist into an open palm.
“See here,” Shayne resumed, “by this time Dawson must have discovered the switch in suitcases. But he doesn’t know if I’ve discovered it yet. He’ll be frantic when he finds out he has contributed to the death of his partner’s daughter for nothing. He doesn’t know what I’ll do with the money when I find it. Give him a chance to come to me.”
“But he may not do it. He may keep right on going.”
“He may,” Shayne admitted. He slumped to a more comfortable position, his long legs stretched out and his knobby hands folded over his flat stomach.
“You can’t take a chance on it by keeping quiet.” Rourke again stopped before him. “You’ve got to put the cops on him. I’m telling you he murdered Kathleen Deland just as surely as if he’d slit her throat.”
Shayne said wearily, “My going to jail won’t help catch Dawson. Damn it, Tim, don’t you see the interpretation Painter’ll put on my story? He’ll just believe what he wants to. He’ll see the whole thing as prearranged for Dawson to slip the money to me at the airport while I give him my seat on the plane to make his getaway. He’ll never believe a word of my story about Bates and Irvin-and they’re mixed up in it somehow. They have to be. What good will it do to catch Dawson? Maybe he did contribute to murder, but there are others mixed up in it. We’ve got to find out what Irvin’s interest in the ransom money is and pin the Slocum murder on him. For
