me.”
“Sorry. Then I don’t suppose you know the three men who have been chartering Sylvester’s boat.” Shayne sniffed the brandy. It was old and mellow.
“Are they worth knowing?”
“They killed Sylvester.”
The black eyes widened, the thick lips pursed in disapproval and, for the first time, the velvet voice was harsh. “Murderers! They should be apprehended and jailed.”
Shayne’s voice was hard, his eyes bleak. “They will be.”
D. L. regarded him thoughtfully. “This murder means something to you personally?”
“Sylvester was my friend.”
D. L. nodded gravely. “Let me ask you a question. He was not, as they crassly say, implicated in the rackets?”
“He was not.”
“Then why would they kill a charter-boat captain?”
“When I find that out for sure, I’ll have the rest of it. Let’s get back to Dan Milford. Henny tried to hire me for the same reason Dan Milford’s wife did. She received a voodoo doll like Henny’s. And I’ve been told that you, through Henny, threatened her with violence if her husband didn’t pay up.”
“That isn’t true,” D. L. said curtly. With a quick change of expression he smiled across at Shayne, showing a flash of gold teeth. He raised his glass. “To your success,” he said and drained the cognac.
“My success might mean your failure.” Shayne emptied his glass and set it on a corner of D. L.’s desk.
“Really, Mr. Shayne, I don’t understand your attitude,” D. L. said petulantly. “I’ve demonstrated to you that I am conducting a necessary service. When people are desperate for money, deserted by friends, coldly ignored by banks, I help them. My interest rates may be a trifle higher than the law allows, but everyone evades the law in some minor way.”
“If you’re so socially acceptable, why keep this stable of men with beautiful muscles?”
“They protect me. The best way to make an enemy is to do a favor for a friend, you know. People who can’t meet their obligations get vicious sometimes. And as I’ve told you, I have no muscles myself.”
Shayne rose and stood looking down at the squat gangster. “The ancient practice of money lending has prospered lately?”
D. L. nodded agreeably. “Business has prospered gratifyingly the last few months.”
“You’ve had more time to devote to the loan business then,” Shayne asked with deceptive quietness, “since the Feds came in and dried up Miami as an entry port for smuggled dope?”
De Luca’s eyes glowed with something close to menace. “If you read the newspapers, Mr. Shayne, you are aware that investigation failed to connect my offices in any way with dope running.”
“I’m aware that you beat the rap,” Shayne said brusquely and moved across the oriental rug to the door. “A final question. Where did Dan Milford expect to get the money by twelve o’clock tonight?”
D. L. got up and clumped after him. “It is not my practice to pry into the personal affairs of my clients. I do not ask how or where they get money-only that they do get it.”
“And by the hour agreed upon?”
“By the hour agreed upon, yes.”
“Before I go, De Luca,” Shayne’s voice was hard, “I want to say that if any violence comes to either Dan Milford or his wife you’ll answer personally for it.”
D. L. raised his eyebrows. “You’re threatening me, Mr. Shayne.”
“I’m threatening you! By the way, instruct your tail not to make himself so obvious. I might be tempted to work him over with a thoroughness even you will admire.”
Surprisingly, D. L. grinned. “Now that we’ve had our clarifying talk, I may pull him off entirely. Incidentally, he reports you have another tail.”
Shayne said dryly, “They’re practically scraping fenders.”
“The police, I presume?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Shayne opened the door. Max had revived enough to be standing guard again, but he showed the signs of Shayne’s rough handling.
Still in the velvet voice, but with a knife edge beneath it, D. L. said, “You’d better step around to McGloflin’s Gym, Max. Build yourself up. Mr. Shayne says you’re getting flabby.”
Shayne grinned, walked past the glowering guard and out to his car. Once in it he lit a cigarette and staring bleakly ahead, wondering if the visit had paid off. Shayne lifted one big hand and gently massaged his left earlobe between thumb and forefinger. Then abruptly he came to life and tromped on the starter.
Only one tail, the gray Buick, moved out behind him as he swung away from the curb. De Luca had lost no time in getting word to his man to give up the chase.
The lone tail stayed discreetly far behind, almost as if he missed his companion.
Shayne stopped in front of a drugstore, strode in and dialed his office number, making the call he had been dreading to make all morning.
Lucy said, “Michael Shayne’s office,” and he could tell from her voice what the answer was, but he had to ask anyway.
“I’ve been expecting a call from Beach police headquarters,” he said quietly. “Did Peter Painter call-about Sylvester?”
12
“Yes, Michael,” Lucy said softly.
Shayne drove the next question hard. “Was it the way I thought?”
“Yes, They grappled where you told them to, at the end of the wharf by the boat. The body was-Sylvester’s body was knifed and weighted down by the Santa Clara’s anchor, as you guessed.”
“Did Painter report on the three suspects I described to him?”
“Yes. They’ve all been questioned.”
“Did he hold them?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“‘No proof,’ he said. ‘No motive.’”
“What does he want? Has he got to see it happen?”
“Wait, darling,” Lucy said gently, “there’s more.”
“Let’s have it.”
“It’s interesting, and disturbing. When Painter checked on the three men he discovered they had all been under observation by his office. They’re criminals of record, and they’ve all served time, but they checked in at the police station like good boys when they arrived, the way the rules say. They’re here on a vacation, that’s all-”
“According to Painter!” Shayne put in angrily.
“I know. But this is what I thought so curious. They arrived in Miami at about the same time and from different parts of the U. S. Yet they’ve been inseparable since.”
“What criminal records do they have?”
“They’re all ‘syndicate’ men, but there’s nothing to show that they ever worked with each other before, or even knew each other.”
“What are they working at here?”
“Apparently nothing. Painter had them watched for a few days, thinking they had a job lined up. But they just go fishing, that’s all. Painter thinks they’re setting up a time-and-place alibi here for something that’s happened or is going to happen somewhere else.”
“Sylvester wasn’t somewhere else,” Shayne said bleakly. “Neither was Henny Henlein. And Clarissa and Dan Milford aren’t either.”
“You think it’s all connected?”
