hung up before I could ask any questions. What could I do, Michael? I was worried, and all I could think of was that the call must be from you because this number is unlisted and you’re about the only one who knows it. So I called a taxi and kicked off my slippers and put on my shoes and hurried out.
“There was a car parked just beyond the office, but I didn’t notice it until a man got out as I started across the sidewalk. He called to me and I turned and saw it was Charles. The block was deserted and he grabbed me and dragged me over to his car and shoved me in the front seat and stuck that adhesive over my mouth so I couldn’t yell. Then he drove straight out to the house and carried me down to the boat-house and tied me up and left me. All that time he didn’t say a single word, Michael. I didn’t know what to think.
“It seemed like hours later when he came back. There’s a telephone extension in the boathouse, and he took the tape off my mouth and made me call you and told me exactly what to say to you or else he’d kill me right off, and so I said it and then tried to tell you not to pay any attention to me, but he broke the connection.
“And then Anita’s brother came stumbling into the boat-house.” Her voice trembled momentarily and she paused to take a long drink. “He was obviously drunk, and Charles was enraged when he saw him. Marvin was just drunk enough to exhibit some decent instincts, and he recognized me from yesterday and wanted to know what Charles was doing with me. So Charles told him. That he was doing it all for Anita… to prevent you from analyzing the dog and getting an autopsy on Mr. Rogell, which he told Marvin would probably send her to the electric chair.
“Marvin didn’t seem much surprised, but he drunkenly insisted that Charles had to let me go. And Charles argued with him. He even suggested that Marvin stay out in the boathouse alone with me all night and have all the fun he wanted because, Charles told him, he would have to kill me anyhow as soon as the funeral was over and the danger to Anita was past.
“But Marvin got very angry and swore he would notify you where I was, and Charles laughed at him and said he’d never get away from the grounds and threatened to kill him, if he didn’t keep his mouth shut. And they went away still arguing, and left me there, tied up and gagged for what seemed like days until you broke in the door.
“I was very glad to see you, Michael,” she ended sedately, her brown eyes dancing at him over the rim of her glass as she tilted it for another long drink.
He said gruffly, “The feeling was mutual.” He got out a cigarette and lit it very deliberately, stretched his long legs out in front of him and blew a streamer of blue smoke toward the ceiling.
“There’s just one other question, angel,” he told her in a deceptively mild voice.
“What is it?”
“You mentioned the fact that your phone is unlisted and you were thrown off-guard because only a few people know the number. How do you account for the fact that Charles knew it?”
“I was afraid you were going to ask me that, Michael,” she said in a very small voice.
He waited a long moment without looking at her. Then he said, “Well?”
“I gave it to him yesterday, Michael. When I… when he… was showing me Daffy’s grave.”
“During that ‘little moment out there alone under the cypress tree with Charles?’” Shayne quoted to her from her own words yesterday afternoon.
She wet her lips nervously. “Yes. That’s when. I don’t know what ever came over me.”
Shayne said, “Watch it in the future when you’re alone in the woods with a man and he makes you feel virginal.” He put down his glass and turned to her slowly and he wasn’t smiling. In a thick voice he said, “Honest to God, Lucy…”
There were tears in her eyes and her swiftly indrawn breath made a little whimpering sound, and then she was in his arms, and after that no word was spoken in the apartment for a long time.
