“By whom? And for what?”
Shayne worried his ear lobe with a thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know. How does Emory Hale strike you, Will?”
“I only saw him for a few minutes last night.”
“What time?”
“It must have been between two-thirty and three. After I talked to you on the phone, and before Tim called me about the body up in your apartment. He came into my office raving about wanting justice done and how he had put up reward money himself. He threatened to tear the town wide open with his bare hands if the kidnapers weren’t caught and properly dealt with. He’d been drinking some, but he isn’t the type that liquor affects much.”
Shayne nodded absently. “I understand both Hale and Deland left the house soon after they got the report on Kathleen’s death. Do you know where either of them went?”
“Damn it, Mike, how should I know? Why do you always get me involved in these Beach cases with Painter? Slocum and Gurney-and the Negro over here in my territory-and the kidnap-murder on Painter’s side of the causeway?”
“But you did see Hale,” Shayne said.
“I guess he was making the rounds with some fool idea of picking up a clue on his own. Maybe Deland was trying to catch up with him like the newspaper said-to keep him out of trouble.”
“What sort of trouble?”
“Hale didn’t talk much to me. But I got the impression he knows, or has known, his way around with the tough boys. Maybe not in Miami, but he knows the ropes.”
“Is he legitimate now?”
“That’s hard to say. He’s smooth. I’d guess he came up the hard way. I wouldn’t want to buck him in a business deal.”
“What is his business?” Shayne’s gray eyes were alert.
“I don’t know.” Gentry waved a pudgy hand vaguely. “The newspapers call him a financier and sportsman.”
“Sure,” Shayne scoffed. “Any punk who pays income tax and lays a few bucks on the fillies is a financier and sportsman. I’d like to know how he makes his money. The sort of gang he runs with. Everything about him.”
“You don’t think he engineered the kidnaping of his own niece?” protested Gentry.
“Somebody did. Have you a list of the serial numbers on the ransom money Hale gave Painter?”
“Right here.” Gentry produced a mimeographed list and handed it across the table. “Painter had hundreds of copies knocked out last night.”
Shayne took the list and scowled over it, running his gaze swiftly down the list of numbers. It looked exactly like what it was purported to be-a list of five hundred bills picked at random out of the vaults of any bank. He asked, “Do you know the name of Emory Hale’s New York bank?”
“No, I don’t. But what does it matter?”
Shayne said slowly, “I don’t know, Will. I wish you’d find out. Then wire the bank and learn whether they gave him the money and this list.”
Gentry leaned back unsmiling. He moved his head slowly from side to side. “I’m not stooging for you unless you come clean, Mike. How did you get in the middle of it?”
“Remember what I told you this morning on the phone?”
“You told me lots of things,” Gentry growled.
“One of them was that if I told you the truth you’d have no recourse except to turn me over to Painter for free lodging.”
Gentry leaned forward and asked, “Were you riding with Gerta Ross when she crashed her car last night?”
“Painter himself proved I was in Palm Beach while that was going on,” Shayne answered evenly.
Gentry nodded. “And while the black boy was getting himself killed in a basement garage on Thirty-eighth Street.”
“One piece of advice I’ll hand you on a platter,” Shayne told him, dragging himself to a straight position. “Don’t waste any time looking for the hijackers who held Dawson up.”
“Like that, huh? What would you advise me to concentrate on, Mike?”
“Checking any connection Dawson or Deland or Hale might ever have had with counterfeit money, with Fred Gurney, with the Fun Club on Thirty-sixth Street, or with ex-Senator Irvin, alias Greerson, who lived on Thirty-eighth Street until the house burned down last night.”
Gentry was jotting notations on a sheet of paper. “It would help a lot,” he complained, “if I knew why you want to know those things.”
Shayne said, “Fred Gurney didn’t plan and carry out that kidnaping all by himself.”
“There’s another queer angle to that kidnaping you haven’t mentioned,” grumbled Gentry.
“Do you mean why Kathleen Deland was chosen as the victim?”
“Sure. Anyone who knew anything about the Delands would know it was preposterous to expect them to pay a fifty grand ransom for the girl.”
“Unless it was someone who knew them intimately enough to know about the rich brother-in-law and uncle in New York.”
“Even a rich uncle,” Gentry dissented, “isn’t always the type to shell out that kind of money.”
“That’s right,” said Shayne blandly. “It must have been engineered by someone close enough to know about Hale’s love for his sister and her daughter, and the fact that he was the sort of uncle who had shelled out before.”
Gentry doodled on the sheet of paper. “Dawson?” he asked.
Shayne shrugged. “He’d be in a position to know those facts. Add that to his fake story of being hijacked last night and see if it doesn’t make it worth while to keep an eye on him.”
“That’s the second time you’ve spoken of fake hijackers. What gives you that idea?”
Shayne started to grin, but stopped in time to prevent splitting his lip wound. “It isn’t an idea. It’s not even a hunch. I know Dawson’s whole story was a lie.”
The horizontal creases in Gentry’s forehead deepened, the puffy flesh between the lines paling from their natural ruddiness. “According to Doc Thompson on the Beach, Dawson’s head injury wasn’t faked. He says it couldn’t possibly have been self-inflicted.”
Shayne thought that over for a moment, trying to fit it into the hazy picture his mind was forming. “Exactly what time did Dawson check in at the Beach?”
“Around three-thirty. I can find out, if it’s important.”
“It may not be. What’s the best you can do on Gurney’s death?”
“Between two and four-thirty. The call to Rourke came a few minutes before five o’clock.”
“It was four-twenty-eight when I found him dead. He hadn’t been dead more than an hour. I’d guess thirty minutes. Do you know of any other callers for him at the Tower Cottages except the big redheaded guy you mentioned?”
“Not in person. The old man out there says there was a phone call at about two-thirty. Someone asked if Fred Smith had checked in and what his cabin number was.”
“Whoever made that call was Gurney’s murderer,” Shayne declared. “Here’s what actually happened last night, Will. I’ll give it to you straight-as much of it as I can right now-if you won’t ask any questions.”
Gentry said, “Give it to me.”
“Gurney and the Ross woman were badly worried when the pay-off didn’t materialize. They hung around a joint between twelve-thirty and one while Gurney tried to reach someone by telephone. Gerta Ross left him there while she went out and smashed up her car. He received a call some time after one o’clock, then called her at home to tell her he was meeting someone at the Tower Cottages for the pay-off and that he would register as Fred Smith. Whoever made that date with him called up later to get his cabin number, went out and slid a bone-handled hunting knife in his back.
“The only person who had any motive for that,” Shayne went on slowly, thinking things out as he spoke, “is the unknown person who hired Gurney to pull the job. With the girl dead, he was in a very bad spot. Accused of
