Hamilton. What did Charles do to her? Where is she?”
“In the boathouse. She was in the boathouse last night. But he said…”
Shayne whirled away from her and shot out at Petrie and Donovan, “Hold everything as it is.” He pounded down the hallway and out through the kitchen door, across the parking lot and past the garage to the path leading to the boathouse at the foot of the cliff.
He plunged recklessly down the wooden stairs, taking them three at a time, and when he reached the wooden dock at the bottom where he and Rourke had disembarked the preceding night, he saw a padlock on the door of the boathouse.
It was a flimsy-looking door, and he paused in front of it only momentarily before drawing back and lowering his left shoulder, then driving forward with all his strength to hit the door just beside the padlocked hasp.
The weathered wood splintered and gave way, and Shayne stepped through a gaping hole to see a neat Chris-Craft tied fore and aft in front of him with enough slack in the ropes so it could rise and fall with the bay tide.
He found an electric switch beside the smashed door and thumbed it, and an overhead light came on and he saw the figure of a girl huddled forlornly in one corner with a ragged blanket thrown over her.
He took two strides and snatched the blanket away from Lucy Hamilton’s body, saw that she was fully clothed, lying on her side with her body drawn into a bow with wrists tied tightly to her ankles, wide strips of adhesive tape tightly over her mouth.
Her eyes were wide open and unblinking, staring up at him, and he dropped to his knees beside her, choking back an oath and telling her cheerfully, “The marines have landed, angel.”
He cut the rope binding her wrists to her ankles and eased her back gently onto the rough boards, rubbing the constricted leg muscles and straightening one and then the other slowly and gently so normal circulation would be restored.
Then he crouched over her and grinned down into the wide-open brown eyes while he worked a thumbnail carefully under one end of the overlapping strips of adhesive across her mouth and told her, “This is going to hurt, angel.” He placed the wide palm of his other hand firmly on her forehead to hold her head solidly against the floor, got a good grip on the loosened ends of tape and pulled it loose with one strong jerk.
She moaned agonizingly and he felt hot tears against his palm, and he gathered her up in his arms like a little child and pressed her face tightly against his chest and pressed his lips gently against her disarranged curls and murmured crazy things to her which both of them remembered a long time afterward.
When she was through trembling and through crying and was able to speak in a small voice that was still somewhat distorted by pain, he continued to hold her tightly in his arms and she answered the few questions he needed answers to.
“Are you all right, Lucy? You know what I mean?”
She whispered, “Yes.”
“Who put you here?”
“Charles. He telephoned…”
“I don’t care how he worked it,” Shayne told her brusquely. “Save your breath for important things. Did Charles kill Rogell?”
“I don’t think so. He and Marvin… talked. He told Marvin Anita did it, and he was doing this to save her.”
“Did Marvin believe it?”
“I… think so. He was good, Michael. Don’t blame Marvin. He was… drunk, but decent. He argued with Charles about me. He threatened to tell you. Even after… Charles offered me to him. Do you understand? My body. Charles said… it wouldn’t matter to me because I’d have to die anyway as soon as I’d served my purpose. Oh, my God, Michael!” She shuddered violently and gave way in the circle of his arms to the hysteria which she had been fighting back.
“I’ve been so frightened,” she moaned through strangled sobs against his chest. “Lying here hour after hour. Wondering and waiting…”
Shayne’s arms tightened around her so her voice was smothered against his body.
Still holding her closely, he got to his feet and carried her out through the smashed wooden door into the sunlight. One arm crept around his neck tightly as he carried her up the stairs and around to the front of the house and his parked car. He opened the rear door and slid her inside gently onto the cushion and said, “Stretch out and try to relax. I’ll send the maid out with a glass of water which you should sip on… and I’ll be ready to drive you home in a few minutes. Think you can hold out?”
She opened her eyes and smiled tremulously up into his concerned face. “I can stand anything now.” She let out a little sigh of contentment and her eyelids fluttered shut again.
19
The tableau hadn’t changed much when Shayne came back into the study. Petrie and Donovan stood on guard in the archway, Anita was still huddled in the same chair, and Charles sat on the floor with his wrists handcuffed behind him. Peabody had moved to the bar and was mixing a drink, and Henrietta had taken advantage of his absence to make herself a stiff highball. The lawyer still sat stiffly in his chair, looking as though he very much wished he were some place else.
No one spoke as Shayne walked in between Petrie and Donovan. The big redhead’s face was impassive as he strode across the room and stopped directly in front of Charles and looked down at him. The chauffeur tilted back his head to look up with a snarl of defiance, and Shayne leaned down slightly to hit him a full-swinging open-handed blow on the left cheek.
The sound of the impact was loud in the room, and the force of it knocked Charles sprawling onto his side. Still without speaking, Shayne leaned down farther and savagely jerked him back up to a sitting position, set himself solidly and swung another full-arm blow with his left hand. Charles went over in the other direction like a nine-pin and stayed there, and Anita began sobbing wildly in her chair.
Shayne jerked the chauffeur roughly erect again and said happily, “This is real good fun, Charles. I can keep it up all day without getting tired. You want to start talking?”
“I did it for her,” he mumbled. “I knew if you found the strychnine in Daffy you’d be onto her for feeding the same stuff to the old man. I wasn’t going to hurt the girl. All I wanted was to scare you off from an autopsy.”
“But Marvin messed things up by catching you with Lucy and threatening to turn you in for kidnapping,” said Shayne conversationally.
“Even when I told him it was just to protect his sister,” complained Charles with every appearance of righteous anger. “I couldn’t afford that… not right then… so I tried to scare him out of it. How was I to know the fool was drunk enough to kill himself?”
Shayne said, “I don’t believe he was. You had the strychnine. Remember? You admitted finding it in Anita’s pocketbook after you buried Daffy.”
“That’s a lousy lie,” cried out Anita viciously. “I didn’t either. I didn’t touch any strychnine. Why would I? If it was in my pocketbook, somebody put it there just to throw suspicion on me.”
Shayne paid no attention to her. “But you did have it,” he reminded Charles. “How did Marvin get hold of it to commit suicide?”
“I gave it to him, that’s why,” Charles glared up at him sullenly. “To prove to him that his own sister had tried to poison Henrietta to shut her up. So the fool would get some sense in his head and let me handle it my own way.”
Shayne said, “We won’t worry too much about whether you fed the stuff to Marvin or he took it himself. Kidnapping is a capital offense and they can only burn you once.” He turned away from Charles and went over to the bar where he was pleased to find a bottle of cognac. He poured two inches in a highball glass and drank half of it, smiled pleasantly at the lawyer and told him, “I know you’d like to read that will and get out of here. There’s just one small matter to clear up.”
He transferred his bland gaze to Henrietta who sat bolt upright in a straight chair, gripping her highball glass tightly in both bony hands.
