She stepped gladly out of the hot room into the dimly cool hall, and followed the chauffeur who stolidly led her to a narrow rear stairway that led out to the back of the house.
4
Michael Shayne was pacing back and forth between the waiting room and his inner office when Lucy Hamilton returned. He swung on her disappointedly and growled, “I’ve been waiting for a phone call to come and get the mutt. No soap?”
Lucy shook her head, lifting off her floppy hat and stripping off white gloves. “She wouldn’t buy it, Michael. She’s positive Daffy will be happier buried right there at home.”
“You did see her?”
“Oh, I saw her all right. And gave her the pitch. She just didn’t fall for it.”
“What’s she like, Lucy?”
Lucy Hamilton hesitated and took a deep breath before replying, “Like an angel infested with leprosy, Michael.” Her eyes were wide and troubled as they met his searching gaze candidly. “How can I say it? She’s devastatingly beautiful… with a diseased soul.”
Shayne said quietly, “You’re trying to say you wouldn’t put it past her to murder her husband and then try to murder Henrietta, if she decided the old gal was a nuisance.”
“I guess that is what I’m trying to say. Yet, I have nothing to go on… except for her mouth. And that, I’m not going to describe for you. I just hope I’m around the first time you see her.”
“Did you manage to see any of the others?”
“A maid named Maybelle who reluctantly let me in. Her charming brother, Marvin… and Charles.”
Shayne grinned slightly at the change in Lucy’s tone when she spoke the chauffeur’s name. “Tell me about Charles.”
“I got quite well acquainted with Charles in the space of about ten minutes,” Lucy said quietly. “He’s… got something, Michael. It’s so darned hard to describe…” Her voice trailed off as she turned toward the gate in the railing that led to her desk. With her profile to Shayne, she went on slowly, choosing her words carefully, “It’s a sort of aura about him. Almost a physical emanation. You feel he’s completely primitive. Animal-like.” She stopped at the railing and turned a flushed face to him.
“All right,” she said fiercely. “I’ll say it out loud. He makes a woman feel that loving him would be wild and free and wonderful. He makes you feel that he’s male and you’re female. Without touching me and almost without speaking, he managed to rouse instincts I didn’t even know I possessed. I didn’t lie with him there in the woods, but… for a moment I wanted to. And now…” Her voice sank. “I honestly don’t know whether I wish I had, or not.”
After this extraordinary outburst, Lucy dropped into her chair and covered her face with her hands, leaned forward while her shoulders shook violently.
Shayne stood very still and said, “Lucy.” When she didn’t lift her head, he turned into his office and reappeared in a few minutes with a half-and-half mixture of cognac and ice water in a paper cup. She was still leaned forward over her desk with her face in her hands, shoulders heaving.
His face was sombre as he went to her. He put a firm hand on her shoulder and tightened his fingers hurtingly. He said, “Sit up and drink this.”
She straightened slowly and took her hands away from tear-streaked cheeks. She looked up at him dully for a moment and then took the cup and obediently emptied it. She crumpled it with a long, shuddering sigh and said, “Now I know everything. I’m at least ten years older than Charles, yet he made me feel like a virgin maiden of sixteen.”
Shayne said quietly, “He must be quite a guy.”
“It isn’t anything he does or says, Michael,” she cried out despairingly. “It’s the way he is. You’ll never understand.”
“No,” said Shayne equably, “I don’t suppose I ever will.” He lowered one hip to the railing so he was close to Lucy, but he didn’t look at her. “You make it sound like a pretty explosive set-up, the way you describe the two of them.”
“Oh, I suppose I’m exaggerating horribly.” He heard Lucy blow her nose, and her voice became more normal. “Good heaven! How melodramatic can you get?”
“What about the brother?”
“Marvin? Oh, he’s a weak lush.”
Shayne tugged at his earlobe. “You make it seem more important than ever to get that dog’s stomach contents analyzed. Damn it, Lucy! Do you suppose she suspected what you were after?”
“No. I’m sure she didn’t.” Lucy was composed now, and when Shayne looked at her inquiringly she wrinkled her nose at him and smiled shyly. “I think I’ve made up my mind,” she announced. “I’ve been arguing with myself all the way back from the Rogell estate. Shall I tell Michael, or shan’t I? I know I shouldn’t, darn it. You’ll probably end up in a peck of trouble and it’ll all be my fault. On the other hand…” She paused disconcertingly and opened her leather handbag to rummage inside it.
“Should or shouldn’t tell me what?” demanded Shayne.
“Where Daffy is buried. If I do tell you, I know perfectly well you’ll be out there, as soon as it’s dark, digging her up. You’ll be trespassing and breaking I don’t know how many laws… and if Charles should catch you at it…” She shuddered and then looked down into her bag with a frown.
Shayne said roughly, “I think I can handle a chauffeur. Do you mean you think he’s suspicious?”
Lucy drew a folded sheet of paper from her bag and said composedly, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised. He didn’t say anything, But I could tell from the way he acted…”
“A sort of aura?” suggested Shayne. “Or more like a physical emanation?”
She hesitated with the paper unfolded in her hands. “Don’t tease me about it, Michael. I was honestly trying to analyze what happened while I was alone with Charles.”
Shayne set his teeth together hard, and a muscle quivered in his right cheek. “All right, angel. Tell me.”
“It came to me suddenly when Anita absolutely refused to have Daffy dug up and taken to Haven Eternal. I made up a wild story about us beautifying graves at home and putting up headstones and even providing individual perpetual care if it was desired. And she fell for it. She called Charles in and told him to show me where Daffy was buried, so I could give her an estimate of the cost. So Charles took me down a rear stairway and out the back and along a path leading to the boat-house.”
Lucy paused a moment, studying Shayne’s face doubtfully. “It’s beautifully landscaped right up to the low bluff overlooking the bay. In back there’s a four-car garage with a large apartment above. Charles lives there. The two maids and the housekeeper, Mrs. Blair, have rooms on the third floor of the house,” she interpolated. “Charles told me when I asked. And, for no reason at all, he volunteered the information that Mrs. Blair had always had her private suite on the second floor next to Henrietta until Mr. Rogell married Anita. Then she was moved up with the maids.”
Lucy paused a moment, eyes downcast. “That might be important… in the light of something Henrietta said this morning. I don’t know whether you noticed it or not, Michael, but she started to say something about her brother and Mrs. Blair, and then stopped abruptly.”
Shayne said, “I remember. So he led you down this path to the boathouse.”
Lucy nodded. “And about a hundred feet from the edge of the bluff, where there are wooden stairs leading down to a private dock and boathouse, there’s a huge, old, cypress tree on the right… on the left coming from the boathouse.” She unfolded her sheet of paper and studied it for a moment. “I stopped my car as soon as I drove outside, and jotted down some figures. Turning off from the path at right angles to the tree, it’s eighteen of my paces to Daffy’s grave, before you reach the trunk of the tree, but under the shade. And from the point where you turn off at right angles from the path toward the tree… from that point to the top of the stairs is fifty-eight paces. I counted them when I walked down the path pretending I had to get a good view of the bay in order to plan Daffy’s landscaping.”
Shayne nodded, his face inscrutable. “Is the grave easily distinguishable?”
