“Tim!” Shayne’s eyes grew dangerously bright. “Where is he?” he demanded. “Where has he been the last half hour or so?”
“Right now he’s out in the press room. For the last half hour or so he has been out with me in a squad car chasing down a bum steer on Ralph Morton.”
Shayne straightened up, took off his hat, and clawed at his hair. He said slowly and absently, “Somebody has got her, Will. Somebody who wants her shut up permanently.”
Chapter Ten
“What the devil do you mean, Mike?”
“Just that. Somebody telephoned her at Lucy’s apartment about twelve-fifteen and pretended to be me and arranged to have her meet him some place. Whoever did it was cagey enough to warn her not to tell even Lucy where she was going.
“I thought, of course, it was you, Will,” he went on, his eyes bleak and a heavy scowl between them. “I knew you were sore about my keeping her away from you-and Rourke suspected where I had her. I was sure you’d suspect, too, when you started bearing down on finding her. I wasn’t too worried, except I was afraid my little game of hocus-pocus with a guy named Burton Harsh might be busted up. But if it wasn’t you or Rourke-”
“It wasn’t,” Gentry said gravely. “I was sore about your hiding her, but I trusted you to take care of her. Who else knew where she was?”
“That’s the hell of it, Will. No one knew. No one could possibly have known.” Shayne thrust his hands deep in his pockets and walked up and down in front of the desk.
Gentry creaked his swivel chair back and chewed savagely on his cigar. “Yet someone phoned her there,” he growled. “If you’ve let the killer get hold of her, Mike-”
“I know,” Shayne broke in harshly. “Don’t waste time throwing it up to me. She called one of Martin’s cabs to pick her up at Lucy’s place,” he went on swiftly. “About twelve-fifteen. I tried to find out from the cab company where she went but they refused to give me the dope. They’ll give it to you.”
Gentry had already creaked forward and was reaching for the telephone. He spoke into it tersely while Shayne straddled the chair again and lit a cigarette with shaking hands, puffed on it while he went over in swift sequence everything that had happened since he deposited Beatrice Lally at Lucy’s apartment. Who could possibly have guessed where she was?
Leo Gannet? He could have put a tail on his car when he left the Beach with the girl. Frowning in concentration, he went over every minute of the fast drive across the Venetian Causeway. He couldn’t swear there hadn’t been a car following him. He hadn’t thought much about it at the time. But he felt certain he would have noticed, instinctively, if there had been. He had worked at the business too long, developed a sort of sixth sense, and even when he wasn’t working and had no conscious realization that he was doing so, he always knew when a car was behind him-staying that certain distance behind.
If not Gannet, who else? Harsh, Garvin, Morton, Paisly? These were the only names that had entered into any phase of the murder investigation insofar as he knew, and two of them he hadn’t even met.
Edwin Paisly? He was apparently a newcomer in Miami and probably didn’t know he had a secretary.
Burton Harsh was not a newcomer. Harsh knew all about Michael Shayne, as did any constant newspaper reader in the city. He had known how to reach him at his hotel apartment, and had recognized him by sight at the Golden Cock. Also, Harsh had contacts in the city. It wouldn’t be difficult for him to learn that Lucy Hamilton was his secretary.
Did he have reason to suspect that was where Beatrice was hiding? Shayne’s clenched palms were wet and his eyes tightly shut as he went over his conversation with Harsh. Harsh had not once, that he recalled, named Miss Lally, but referred to her as that secretary. She was the person he feared most. Had he, in his distraught mind, figured it out and decided, after all, not to trust the arrangement they had made?
He had been careful to close the door of the telephone booth in the beer joint, and even interpose his body between Harsh and the phone when he dialed Lucy’s number. It was possible to hear the faintest whir of the dial, he knew, but he couldn’t accept the probability that Harsh could discern the number he dialed.
He had often heard rumors of smart operators who claimed to be able to recognize a number by counting the clicks, but he had yet to meet such a man. He had, in fact, wasted several weeks when he was much younger, trying to train himself to do the trick, and had given up in disgust.
No. Harsh could not have learned Lucy’s number that way. Then how else?
Shayne opened his eyes wide as one remote possibility came to him. He had swung back the booth door to admit Harsh as soon as he finished dialing. Lucy answered the phone. But he had not spoken her name. What he had done was possibly as bad. He had addressed her as “angel” in Harsh’s hearing. It was barely conceivable that Harsh might know this casual term of intimacy applied to Lucy, or guessed it, or contacted someone who knew.
On the other hand, what could Harsh gain by luring Beatrice away? He had already spilled his story back there in the car. Did Miss Lally know something he hadn’t told? Some positive bit of evidence Harsh couldn’t bring himself to tell that directly tied Sara Morton’s murder around his neck?
It was a possibility. Harsh had wanted to be assured repeatedly that Miss Lally hadn’t talked. He had been doubtful throughout that he, Shayne, could prevent her from talking. If he convinced himself that she hadn’t yet spilled the really damning evidence, he would have worked fast to make sure she didn’t have another chance.
Gentry broke into his bitter cogitations when he cradled the receiver and said:
“Got it, Mike, but I don’t know how much help it is. Miss Lally had the driver take her to the corner of Northeast Second Avenue and Twelfth Street. She got out on the southeast corner and tipped the driver a quarter. He saw her start walking back the other way, but drove on without seeing where she went.”
“Second and Twelfth,” Shayne muttered. “Whoever phoned her was smart enough to tell her to get off at the corner and walk to wherever she was to meet him. There are dozens of rooming-houses and small hotels within a few blocks. There’s the Edgemont Hotel on Eleventh-”
“The Edgemont!” Will Gentry pounded his fist on the table resoundingly. “That’s what I’ve been trying to get hold of ever since I heard where she went. Miss Morton has made quite a number of calls to the Edgemont from her hotel,” he went on in response to Shayne’s quirked and inquiring eyebrows. “One of the things we turned up in our investigation. We don’t know, of course, who she called-what room number.”
Shayne was already on his feet and yanking his hat brim down. “Get some men over there, Will. Fast. And spread others all over that neighborhood. It’s probably too late now, but make it quick,” he ended as he went out the door into the corridor.
Three minutes later Shayne’s brakes screamed as he jammed them on at the curb in front of the Edgemont. He flung himself out, noticed the three taxicabs parked up above, and rushed into the large, ornate lobby. It was empty except for the clerk at the desk and two dozing porters.
He strode to the desk and demanded, “Do you have a Ralph Morton registered here?”
“Morton, sir?” The clerk blinked and shook his head nervously. “Indeed not. I heard over the radio that he-”
“Paisly?” Shayne interrupted. “Edwin Paisly?” The moment he spoke the name he saw the answer in the clerk’s eyes. “What room number?”
“Why-I believe he’s in four-nineteen. If you’re from the police-”
“I am,” he cut in harshly, “and I’m on my way up to Paisly’s room. Send your house dick up after me, and any other cops that come in.”
“But I’m quite sure Mr. Paisly’s not been in all evening,” the clerk called after him as he started for the elevator. “His key is here.”
“How long have you been on the desk?” Shayne asked, turning back slowly.
“Since midnight. I noticed a message in his box with the key.”
“Let me have the message.” Shayne held out his hand.
