can call him from there.’
“So he dragged me around back to where he had his car parked, still holding that shell up against me all the time, and he made me get in and he drove off, and I kept asking him what he meant by calling me Mrs. Shephard, and what money was he talking about, and then it came out in little bits and pieces which I didn’t understand and still don’t, but maybe it’ll make sense to you.”
Lucy Hamilton paused in her long recital to look anxiously at Shayne. “Does any of this make any sense at all to you, Michael?”
He nodded grimly. “Some of it. Go on and tell us what Ralph told you.”
“You know Sloe Burn told us Fred Tucker had been there and the two men came looking for him… Baron McTige was one of them, I think, Michael… and how she’d slipped him out the back and had Ralph take him away to the Pink Flamingo?”
Shayne nodded when she paused, and she took a deep breath and went on: “Well, Ralph did, I guess. Drive to the motel with him. And when they got there, he claims Fred Tucker offered him a whole fortune in money to take back to Sloe Burn, and there was something about it being hidden in a loaf of bread and Tucker gave it to him, and then those two men came in… the ones Sloe Burn described to us, Michael… and they saw the money and there was a big fight over it, I guess, during which Tucker… or Renshaw… or Shephard, as Ralph insisted was his real name… ducked out of the motel and got away.
“And McTige had a gun and the preacher-looking one got knocked down and hit his head on the leg of the refrigerator and got knocked unconscious, and then McTige told Ralph he was a detective from Chicago and that Tucker’s name was really Shephard, who had stolen the money from his wife and McTige was going to keep it and give it back to her. And he chased Ralph off with his gun, and Ralph had to walk back through the palmettos to the Bright Spot, and with him getting it thoroughly set in his mind that I was Mrs. Shephard, he said I had to call Baron McTige and make him bring the money to me… and then he was going to take it for himself. Except that he did have some other lovely ideas about how we might go off together and share the money… a whole hundred thousand dollars, he kept repeating, and so he drove to the Dolphin Bar and I tried to call Baron McTige from there.
“I tried his number three times without any answer… and the fourth time I called, you answered the phone, Michael. Ralph was standing right over me with that pointed shell in my side, listening to every word I said, and I had to go on and pretend I was talking to Mr. McTige even when I knew it was you after the first word you spoke.”
Lucy Hamilton stopped speaking suddenly, and the stenographer’s pencil ceased racing over his notebook.
Will Gentry was leaning back in his chair studying the tips of his blunt fingers which he had arched together in front of him, and when Lucy was finished, he sighed deeply and asked Shayne, “Any of this mean anything to you, Mike?”
“Some of it. If Ralph Billiter was telling Lucy the truth, it’s the first indication we’ve had of what happened at the Pink Flamingo before I got there. The money in the loaf of bread seems to tie in all right.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Gentry agreed mildly. “And it might, just possibly, tie in with the identity of the dead man, too.”
“Have you identified him, Will?” Shayne asked eagerly.
“Oh, sure. We stodgy police do have our own methods of turning up certain odd bits of information now and then.” He paused and got a cigar out of his pocket and sniffed it happily before biting off the end.
Shayne said resignedly. “All right. Who is he?”
“Name of Brannigan. We’ve got his fingerprints on file. Investigator for the Nationwide Bonding Company. Does that mean anything to you, Mike?”
16
Michael Shayne hesitated before answering the chief’s question. Then he replied carefully, “Not really. But if we put our heads together and add things up, we might make it mean something. Know what Brannigan was working on?”
“We have no idea. He’s the Miami representative for his company, but he hasn’t asked us for any help or information recently.”
Shayne said, “It could be the Steven Shephard case from Illinois.”
“Shephard?” Gentry’s voice was grim. “What might the Steven Shephard case from Illinois be, Mike?”
Shayne reached in his hip pocket and took out the photograph of Mrs. Shephard and her two children which he had removed from the frame so it would be easier to carry. With it, he had the folded newspaper clipping he had preempted from Rourke.
He held the picture out to Gentry and said, “This was on the bureau in the Pink Flamingo. Remember it?”
“What are you doing with it?”
Shayne was unfolding the clipping, and he spread it out in front of him, running his finger swiftly down the lines of newsprint.
“Tim Rourke thought it had a familiar look,” he mumbled. “So he took it back to his office to check it out. And sure enough it did check. And here’s our tie-up with Brannigan, Will.” He read aloud from the clipping: “It is stated that the loss is completely covered by a bond on Shephard issued by the Nationwide Bonding Company, and that depositors need have no fear…”
“Tim Rourke thought it looked familiar,” snarled Gentry. “Why didn’t he tell us? What in hell has been going on… give me that clipping, Mike!”
Shayne passed it over to him. “Tim and I did try to tell you as soon as he discovered he was right. I came straight to headquarters looking for you, Will, but you hadn’t got back yet. Then I went to my office for Mrs. Renshaw’s address, and have been on the go ever since.”
Will Gentry wasn’t listening to him. He was reading the story of Shephard’s embezzlement with a darkening scowl on his ruddy face.
“What is it about somebody named Shephard, Michael?” asked Lucy. “Why did Ralph insist that was my real name?”
“Because he thought you were the woman who told us she was Mrs. Renshaw. Her name is really Shephard, and her husband isn’t running away from Syndicate killers. He’s on the lam with two hundred thousand dollars of stolen money.”
“All right, Mike.” Gentry refolded the clipping carefully. “Where is the money?”
“According to the story Ralph Billiter told Lucy, McTige has it. Or had it,” he amended hastily. “All I’ve seen is one thousand-dollar bill clutched tightly in his dead hand.”
“Ralph said one hundred thousand, Michael,” Lucy reminded him hastily. “He seemed very positive about the amount. Kept repeating it. Said it was more money that he’d ever ‘knowed’ there was in the whole world.”
“Maybe Shephard had split it in half,” Shayne suggested to Gentry. “Hid one half in the hollowed out loaf of bread, and the other somewhere else.”
There was a knock on the door, and the patrolman they had left at the bar with Ralph stuck his head inside. “We got that conch happy guy out here, Chief. Want us to book him or what?”
“Take him next door, Baxter. He’s got a lot of talking to do.” Chief Gentry stood up slowly. “And you get out, Mike. From now on, I’ll do the talking. And if I find out, by God, that you’ve held out on me in any particular because you knew there was a couple hundred grand floating around that you wanted to get your hands on… you’ll be through in Miami, Mike. And you’ll never get another license anywhere in the United States.”
Shayne said coldly, “Fair enough, Will.” He got to his feet and pulled Lucy up with him. “Want Lucy and me to wait until our statements are typed so we can sign them?”
“No, get out. Take Lucy home and lock her up. And you stay put, young lady. Don’t move a foot out of your apartment until you hear from me. If Billiter doesn’t confirm every word of your story…”
“Come on, angel,” Shayne interrupted, drawing her toward the door. “Now that we’ve practically solved the case and tossed it in his lap, let’s see if Will can finish it up without any more help from us.”
