Though the guy said he just got in from Jacksonville, the elevator boy swears he's been around before. Either earlier in the evening or the last day or so.'
'Yeh, it adds up,' Shayne agreed. 'He was here about nine-thirty. Just when the body was doing its disappearing act.'
Patton had stopped in front of 316 and he knocked perfunctorily before fitting a key in the lock. He opened the door and reached inside to turn on the overhead light, then stepped back. 'There it is,' he muttered defensively. 'See if you can find a body.'
The three entered and stood staring at the smoothly made-up bed standing directly beneath two closed windows. The only way to reach the windows to open or close them was to get on the bed or move it from the wall. Gentry went to the rear and told Shayne, 'Take the front and let's move it out. None of you touch the bed. These windows closed when you looked in before, Ollie?'
'Yes. I remember noticing because it was hot. Most guests keep them open all the time.'
Gentry grunted as he and Shayne moved the bed two feet nearer the center of the room. He and Shayne circled from opposite ends of the bed and stood side by side studying the windows without touching them. Through the panes, they could see the riding lights of half a dozen yachts in the Municipal Basin not far distant. They were ordinary sash windows that could be raised or lowered, and they weren't latched. There were outside screens with hooks and eyes to hold them shut. Both screens were hooked now, but without closer examination it would be impossible to know whether either had been unhooked recently or not.
Looking downward as directly as they could without opening the windows, they could see tiny whitecaps rolling in from the bay, and could hear them breaking lightly on the stone wall directly below.
Gentry stepped back with a shrug, saying, 'Nobody touch anything. I want this room kept locked, Ollie, until my boys go over it. Did you touch anything at all when you were first up here? Smooth the bed or anything?'
'Nothing, Will. I just looked in the bathroom and closet and peeked under the bed to make sure there weren't any corpses.'
'Water directly below these windows?' pursued Gentry. 'No strip of sand to catch a body if it were shoved out?'
'Only at low tide. There's about ten feet of sand then. It was high tide about nine tonight. Going down now.'
Will Gentry nodded, moving toward the open door. 'About all we can do here. Lock the door, Ollie. I'll send a man up to guard it until the Identification Squad gets here. And for your information, there's an All Cars out on both Nellie Paulson and the lad with the scar who's carrying her brother's wallet around with him. I'll put a couple of men downstairs in case either of them show.'
'Sure. Whatever you say. Chief. Uh-you got reason to believe a man was killed in this room tonight? His body shoved out the window into the bay?'
'Right now, it's a good bet,' said Gentry placidly. 'I'm not blaming you for anything-yet. Just keep your nose clean and for God's sake don't try to cover up if anything else funny happens. Your job's one thing, but accessory- after-the-fact is something else again.'
Outside the hotel, Tim Rourke and Shayne got into Shayne's car while Gentry sent one of his men up to watch outside 316 and called headquarters over the two-way radio in the police car.
Halliday, Brett
The blonde cried murder
Shayne pulled away slowly, and Rourke slouched down beside him and lit a cigarette, speaking for the first time since they entered the hotel:
'What do you make of it now?'
Hunched over the wheel, Shayne growled, 'Let's take a look at what's waiting for us in the morgue before we do any more guessing. You know every damn bit as much about all of it as I do. I didn't hold out anything on Will.'
'Only difference is-you talked to the girl personally and we didn't. If she isn't nuts-'
'Doesn't it begin to look more and more as though she isn't?' demanded Shayne. 'It sounded hay-wire at first when she claimed she'd seen her dead brother and then scar-face claimed he was her brother. Now we know he isn't. And with this body picked up in the bay, there's a hell of a good chance we'll discover he was in three-six teen just as she said, and was shoved out the window while she was looking for a phone.'
'By scar-face?'
'It looks reasonable. Helll' said Shayne with irritation, 'I don't know. If he is the murderer and knows she's the only one who's actually seen the body in three-sixteen, it would give him a good motive for tracing her to my place and then trying so desperately first to make me think she's nuts and then to get his hands on her. Without her to testify about her brother's body, the corpse might well have drifted out to sea and never been found-or, at least, not until it was unrecognizable.'
'Yeh. And it would explain how he came by Bert Paulson's wallet. If he killed the guy. But what's the Roney Plaza angle she handed you? Why didn't she tell you she was staying at the Hibiscus?'
'That's one of several things,' said Shayne wearily, 'that I want to ask her the next time she and I have a tete-a-tete.'
He slowed his car as he approached a building with stone steps leading up from the sidewalk, twin lights burning at the top.
Will Gentry's official car wasn't in sight as they went up the steps to the morgue entrance.
The night attendant was a wizened man with a wide gap in his front teeth that showed when he grinned at the de tective and reporter from behind a scarred desk with a bright light overhead. Doctor Martin, the police surgeon, stood beside the desk as they entered, and he frowned, looking past them.
'Where's Will? I understood he was in on this personally.'
Shayne said, 'He'll be along. You looked over the stiflE they pulled out of the bay. Doc?', Martin nodded. 'Not much to look at.'
'Throat cut?'
'Like a stuck pig.' The doctor made a slashing motion with the side of his hand from left to right
'Any identification?'
'Plenty. Bill-fold in his hip pocket with cards and stuflE. No money.'
The doctor looked past Shayne as another car stopped in front. A door slammed and solid footsteps sounded on the stone steps. Will Gentry came in heavily, nodding to the police doctor and attendant. 'Been over him. Doc?'
'Superficially. Throat cut all the way across with a very sharp knife or razor. One to two hours ago. I'd say he went in the water quite soon after death.'
'Lots of blood?' asked Gentry matter-of-factly.
'Lots.'
'What Will wonders,' said Shayne, 'is whether the job could have been done in a hotel room, say, without leaving any traces of blood behind if he were shoved out a window fast.'
Martin's eyes were bright with speculation. 'It would have spurted,' he said doubtfully. 'If a pillow or blanket had been held ready and shoved over the wound fast, it might have soaked up the blood without leaving any around. That what you mean?'
'Or a man's coat?' Shayne asked sharply.
'Yes. A man's coat.' Martin shrugged. 'He's wearing no coat, by the way. In his shirt-sleeves.'
'Identification?' asked Gentry.
The attendant opened a desk drawer and drew out a manilla envelope. He handed it to the chief who tore it open and withdrew an obviously expensive sealskin billfold that was still heavy with water. There were two credit identification cards from well-known hotels in New York, an accident insurance identification card.
All gave the name of Charles Barnes, and the insurance card gave an address on East 63rd Street, New York City.
'That's everything we found on him,' said Martin. 'Not even a buck in the wallet. He's young. Twenty to twenty-five. Healthy. No distinguishing marks. Five-ten or eleven, at a guess. Around a hundred and fifty before the blood drained out of him. You want anything else from me tonight, Will?'
'What's that?' said Gentry absently. 'Five-ten and a hundred-fifty, huh? I guess not, Doc. Unless something
