'Sure. Dozens of them just about like that. He isn't one you'd pick out of a crowd.'
'I know. That's the hell of it. This is really very important, Salvadore. Take it around to the waiters and bus- boys, huh? Make everyone take a long look. If any of them think they saw him in here tonight, let me talk to them.'
'Sure, Mike.' Salvadore Rotiselli took the picture daintily between thumb and forefinger and minced away. Henry had moved down the bar to serve another customer, and Shayne glowered down at his drink.
He hadn't much hope of success with the picture. As Salvadore said, the face was too thoroughly ordinary, too completely undistinguished to give anyone reason for remembering it.
But it was all Shayne had left now. If he could prove the dead man had actually been in the Silver Glade after nine-thirty, it would be a cinch he hadn't gone into Bis-cayne Bay from room 316 of the Hibiscus.
But what would that prove? Shayne asked himself angrily. Nothing, really. He still wouldn't know the actual identity of the man with the scarred face-nor of the dead man.
Bert Paulson? Charles Barnes? A dead girl in the park. Until he looked at her face and at the receipted bill from the Hibiscus, he had been so dead certain she wasn't Nellie Paulson.
The other identity fitted her so much better. Mary Barnes from the Roney. Mary Barnes, who had caught a fleeting glimpse of her murdered brother after being summoned by him to the Hibiscus. Mary Barnes who had fled in terror from the man with the scarred face-who had sought refuge in his hotel room and then run out into the night still in terror because she did not trust him to protect her from the man she feared.
All those facts fitted what little he knew about Mary and Charles Barnes. They didn't fit what he knew about Nellie Paulson.
He drank his cognac morosely, washing it down with tiny sips of water from the glass while the questions ran around and around and around in his mind.
There was something eluding him. Something important. Perhaps a key to the entire puzzle. Some tiny bit of information he had that he didn't know he had.
That wasn't exactly it. He knew it was there. Somewhere in the maze of conflicting stories and reports he had listened to this evening. Something that had seemed wholly irrevelant at the time, yet which might be supremely important.
He doggedly went over and over again in his mind every single thing that had happened since the telephone call had taken him from Lucy's side.
It was there. He knew it was. Hidden away in his subconscious. He had no idea what it was nor how to go about searching among the half-truths and irrelevancies to dig it out.
Yet it had to come. He had a feeling that time was running out. He glanced down at his watch, wondering absently why he felt that way. While the girl had been missing from Lucy's-before her body had been found in the park — it was natural that he had felt fiercely he must find her before something happened.
But that was over now. The pressure was off. She was dead and no power on earth could make that part of it right again. He had let her slip away from his apartment-had stood supinely by while a man with a. 45 walked out to look for her-had cleverly concealed her whereabouts from Will Gentry because he had felt capable of handling the thing himself.
For those reasons, she was dead. Why did he feel time was running out now?
His watch said 11:46.
And then he knew suddenly. Fourteen minutes to midnight. He had promised Lucy, that was it. That he'd be back by midnight for the drink she had poured out for him.
Salvadore came up beside him and laid the photograph down with a sigh. 'No soap, Shamus. Not one of them will say positively yes or no.'
Shayne looked down at the picture wonderingly. As though he had never seen it before. Because now it didn't matter. Because now he knew what had been nagging at him.
He slid ofiE the stool without even thanking Salvadore, went toward the door in long strides, his face bleak with anger at his own stupidity.
He didn't hear the check girl call out to him as he stormed past her. He broke into a trot as he went out the door, ran to his parked car and jerked the door open. A moment later it was roaring away from the curb.
TWENTY-THREE: 11:47 P.M
The Tropical Arms Hotel on North Miami Avenue was located between a liquor shop and a delicatessen. The liquor store was still open when Shayne pulled up in front of the hotel and leaped out.
The Tropical Arms was an old hotel, very much gone to seed. There was a big, empty lobby with shabby, rococo decorations, yawning chairs and wilted potted palms.
A drop-light over the desk was the only illumination, and there was no one behind the desk.
A hand-printed card propped against a mechanical push-bell instructed Shayne to 'Ring for service.'
He hit the button sharply with his palm and a loud, metallic 'ping' echoed through the empty lobby. Nothing happened, and he kept on pinging until a door opened in a side wall behind the desk and a fat man in his shirt- sleeves emerged. He had pouting lips and he smelled strongly of gin as he waddled up to the desk and grunted, 'I heard you the first time. Mister. No need to wake up all the guests.'
Shayne skipped the obvious retort. He demanded, 'Do you have a Miss Paulson?'
'Miss Paulson?' The fat man belched as he shook his head. 'No siree, we sure don't.'
'Mr. Paulson? Bertr
'Well, yes, now. Mr. Paulson is with us for a fact.'
'Since when?'
'Just this evening checked in. Not more'n an hour ago.'
'What's his room number?'
'Well, I'll tell you, Mister. You wanta talk to Mr. Paulson, I reckon-'
'What number?' Shayne's voice rasped like a file on tempered steel.
'Two-ten. But I'm trying to tell you-'
Shayne turned away fast and went past the closed door of an elevator to stairs on one side. He climbed two flights and found 210. He knocked loudly and tried the door. It was locked and his knocking brought no response.
He cursed at the delay, studied the lock as he got a ring of keys from his pocket. The lock yielded to the first key he chose. Shayne flung the door open on a lighted bedroom. He stood glaring at the huddled figure of a man on the floor beside the bed. An Army automatic lay on the floor beside him. But there was no smell of gun-powder in the tightly closed room.
Shayne pulled the door shut and walked over to look down at the man with the scarred face. His cheeks were very red and his mouth was open and he breathed ster-torously. Just beyond his right hand lay a corked pint bottle of whisky about a quarter full.
Shayne leaned over and shook him roughly, calling, 'Paulsonl Wake up, Paulson,' in his ear. He got no response.
He stepped back with narrowed eyes and kicked the drunken man hard in the buttocks. There was still no response.
Sighing, Shayne went into the bathroom and turned on the light. There was a rust-stained tub with a shower apparatus on the wall at one end.
He went back and got a grip under Paulson's armpits, dragged him into the bathroom and tumbled him inside the tub. He lay there, an inert mass, still breathing loudly and steadily.
Shayne drew the tattered shower curtain to protect himself from the spray, reached a long arm past it and turned on the cold water.
The spray hit full on Paulson's legs, and Shayne reached up to the adjustable head and moved it so it hit him in the face.
Paulson moaned and feebly lifted one arm to ward off the cold water. Shayne turned it on full force and moved the head slowly, sending the stinging spray up and down the length of Paulson's body.
