phone?'
'Not very much. Just that some awful man is chasing you with a gun, and you're frightened and I'm not to let anyone in. So you needn't be worried any more,' Lucy went on practically. 'I'm quite sure Michael will take care of everything.'
'Oh, I'm sure he will, too,' the girl agreed fervently. 'He's really wonderful, isn't he? Mr. Shayne? It must be marvelous to work for him. So exciting and interesting.'
'It's very seldom dull,' Lucy conceded dryly. 'Now look. I don't want to pry, and I know you're all upset and must be terribly worried about your brother.'
She had managed that very well, Lucy thought complacently. Whether the brother had been murdered as Shayne said the girl believed, or whether it was her brother who was chasing her-Lucy felt she had made the statement sufficiently ambiguous to cover either contingency.
'So if you just want to sit here quietly and not talk about it at all, it's perfectly all right with me,' Lucy went on evenly. 'And if you want to lie down after you've finished your drink, there's an extra bed all made up. The most important thing is to relax and try to forget all about it. We can just pretend we're old friends and you've dropped in for a chat, and talk about-well, ships and shoes and sealing wax and such.'
She received a humbly grateful look in return. 'And cabbages and kings, maybe? But-didn't he tell you anything about what happened at the Hibiscus Hotel tonight?'
'Not a single thing. You can, if you wish, but don't feel you have to. I'm not a detective and not a bit of good in the world at deductions.'
'I guess you're right. I guess I should just try to put it all out of my mind. Do you think Mr. Shayne will be back for his drink before midnight?'
'Not unless he finishes up whatever he's doing first. You know better than I what that is.'
Lucy sat erect suddenly as she finished speaking, and leaned forward to put her glass down. 'I forgot. I promised to call him as soon as you got here.'
She went to the telephone and dialed a number, and when a male voice replied, she said:
'I'd like Chief Gentry's office, please. If he's still at headquarters.'
TWELVE: 10:52 PM
From the yacht basin in Biscayne Bay, Miami's skyline at night is brilliantly lighted and imposing. Waterfront hotels rise sheerly and almost solidly from the western shore of the bay, their windows glittering with thousands of lights that are reflected from the placid surface of the water.
During the Season, the basin is crowded with hundreds of varied hulls anchored close together in serried ranks: from the huge luxury yachts of millionaires to sleek, twenty-foot launches sleeping two in cramped quarters.
At this period in early autumn, only a dozen or so craft were anchored in the basin. One of them was a slim forty-foot sailing vessel named the Marjie J. She rode silently at anchor with riding lights fore and aft, and in her bow there were also the companionable lights of two cigarettes gleaming on and off quite close together.
One of the cigarettes shone long and brightly and then described an arc over the side and died with a hiss in the water. Muriel stretched indolently in her deck chair, and her left hand gripped her companion's trailing fingers tightly.
'Darling,' she sighed, 'I must go back.'
'It's still early,' he protested, just as indolently. He held up a bare muscular forearm to study the radium dial of his watch. 'Not even eleven.' His hand tightened on hers between the two deck chairs. 'I thought we'd go down to the cabin again-before you took off.'
'Please, Norman.' She drew her hand from his and sat up, looking toward the magnificent sky-line of the Magic City, with furrowed forehead. 'You know John comes home early sometimes. I must get back.'
Norman said, 'Oh, damn John. Suppose he does come home and find you out? He won't know where you've! been.'
'He'd have his suspicions.' She kept her voice light, but there was an underlying note of gravity. 'We shouldn't do this, Norman. It isn't right.'
'But it's nice.' He sat up suddenly and showed white teeth in the faint moonlight. 'You won't deny that.'
'While it's happening,' she said flatly. She got to her feet, a tall, well-boned woman of thirty-five, wearing a thin skirt that whipped about her thighs in the light inshore breeze. 'Afterward, you don't have to lie in bed beside John and think how it would be if he ever found out.'
'No,' he agreed amiably. 'I'm spared that.' He swung to his feet beside her, bronzed body wearing only skintight bathing trunks. He put one arm about her tightly and nuzzled his lips in her hair, turning her slowly and tipping up her face for a long kiss.
Her arms went about him passionately, and sharp fingernails clawed at the flesh of his bare back, not hard enough to draw blood but leaving streaks of whiteness behind them when they fell away limply.
He lifted his head and smiled down at her upturned face and whispered huskily, 'Still want to go back?'
'No.' Her voice was as husky as his. 'But we must.' She turned away with determination and made her way back to the stern where a skiff's painter was looped about a cleat, and Norman followed her reluctantly.
'If we must, we must,' he said with as much cheeriness as he could muster, loosening the line and drawing the skiff close beneath the graceful, over-hung hull and helping her down into it.
She seated herself in the stem, and he leaped down lightly, settled oars in the locks and rowed toward the shore lights.
There was a faint phosphorescent gleam on the placid surface of the bay, and the only sound was a little sluffing of water against the bow, the occasional splash of an oar as he sent the boat skimming over the surface with powerful strokes.
Neither of them spoke until half the distance was covered. She was thinking of her husband and of their lost love with a sad sort of nostalgia, and he was thinking about the solid night's sleep he was going to enjoy alone aboard the Marjie J. after he dropped her at the dock and returned.
'Normanl Be careful.' Her voice was a sudden gasp and she half rose, pointing over his shoulder with a trembling forefinger.
He twisted his head to look just as the bow struck solidly against a floating object.
There was a dull, curiously sodden thud. The skiff lost way and floated aimlessly as they both stared in frightened fascination at the floating body of a dead man.
'My God,' said Norman, shipping an oar hastily to revolve the stem. 'It's a corpse, Muriel. A man. Here, take this other oar and bring me back close. I'll get in the bow and try to drag him in.'
'Do you have to, Norman?' Her voice was thin with terror. 'Can't we just-leave him? Someone else will find him. Why us? You'll have to report to the police. They'll take our names. No, Norman I We mustn't.'
'Cut it out, Muriel.' His voice was crisp with annoyance. 'Get that oar in the water. We're drifting away. Of course, we have to. But don't worry. You can get in your car and drive away before I report it. No one will know I wasn't taking a midnight row alone.'
He knelt in the bow and directed her efforts with the oar. 'A little more to my left-now forward. Hold it.' He leaned far over and got a grip of water-soaked coat, tugged and lifted and grunted, and gradually drew the dead weight upward and over the edge where it plopped to the bottom of the boat in a crumpled heap bearing little semblance to a human body.
'That does it.' Norman sank back on his knees, breathing hard. He leaned over the heap of water-logged flesh and muttered, 'Poor devil's throat is slashed wide open.'
He turned about to resume his rowing seat and take up the oars, looking on in silent commiseration while Muriel leaned over and retched agonizingly.
'Just don't think about it,' he counseled. 'It's nothing to do with us. We'll be at the pier in a jiJBEy, and you get in your car and drive straight home and forget this happened. I'll have to find some joint that's open where I can telephone from, and you'll be absolutely in the clear.'
