Shayne counted the names off on his fingers and frowned. “That gives us a total of seven people who might have had access to the safe in the past and been able to take the bracelet out for a substitute to be made.”
“That is true.” Peralta regarded him steadily. “But there is also the point you made about it being so very difficult to fool the owner with an imitation.”
“There is that point.”
Julio Peralta drew in a deep breath. “So what course of action do you advise me to take?”
Shayne hesitated. “Let’s face it on the assumption that your wife either pulled the switch or connived with someone who did.”
“Haven’t you made it clear that is almost a necessary assumption?”
“Almost,” Shayne agreed, tugging at the lobe of his left ear. “If it was an imitation that was stolen and your wife knows it, she must be on pins and needles waiting to see if it is recovered. How has she been acting?”
“Quite nonchalant about the whole matter. But my wife is an excellent actress, Mr. Shayne.”
“What does Chief Painter actually tell you about the progress of his investigation?” demanded Shayne.
“He was quite noncommittal until very recently. Yesterday, he volunteered the information that he was on a hot lead, as he called it, and today he insisted that we had nothing to worry about… that the bracelet would be recovered very soon.”
“Which is exactly what would worry your wife, if she knows the thing is an imitation. Do you know if she has had any private conferences with Painter?”
“I couldn’t say,” said Peralta, stiffly.
“Your man wants fifty-five grand in his letter,” Shayne pointed out. “As much as he could possibly get from a fence for the genuine bracelet, and twice what he could hope to pick up by making a deal with the insurance company.”
“And if I don’t pay his demand, he will brand me publicly as a crook trying to collect insurance on a worthless imitation. What am I to do?”
“You can’t pay him,” said Shayne, angrily. “Good God, man, that would just be tossing fifty-five grand down the sewer. You have no assurance he’ll return the bracelet after you pay him. Just his word for that. Naturally, he’d hold onto it and blackmail you further.”
“So what am I to do? If I don’t pay him, he will turn it over to a scandal-loving newspaper reporter and the whole unsavory story will come out.”
“How far will you go to protect your wife,” asked Shayne, harshly, “if she was in on the substitution?”
“I don’t know. She can’t have been. What madness it is to suspect Laura of that! There was no need,” Peralta cried out despairingly. “I am a wealthy man. She has all the money she could possibly need. Charge accounts in every store on Lincoln Road and in the best shops in New York. I never protest the size of the household accounts. It’s inconceivable that she should have ever wanted more money.”
It wasn’t inconceivable to Michael Shayne. Not as he recalled her tone when she mentioned the five hundred dollars she was allowed each evening for gambling. To the wife of a man worth many millions, that must seem like peanuts. But Peralta would never be able to understand that. He probably, Shayne thought pityingly, felt he was being wonderfully generous to provide that sum for her to squander at Miami’s gaming tables each night.
“Inconceivable or not,” Shayne said, wearily, “you’ve got to face facts. I’ll repeat my question: how far will you go to protect her in case the worst is true?”
“I suppose,” Julio Peralta said quietly, “I would do anything within reason. So long as it is honest and hurts no innocent person.”
“The man who wrote you that letter deserves no consideration. He is a blackmailer and almost surely a thief. Fix up an envelope for him as he directs and mail it to him tomorrow. Let’s see,” mused Shayne, “fifty bills to the thousand, times fifty-five.” He did the sum in his head. “Twenty-seven hundred and fifty bills in all. In a large manila envelope, they would fit in four packets. About seven hundred to each packet. Have them cut out of old newspapers to size,” he went on briskly, “so it looks and feels right. I’ll arrange to have the receiver of the envelope tailed when he calls for it at General Delivery.”
“But he warns me specifically,” reminded Peralta, “that the imitation bracelet will go to this man Rourke on the newspaper if we do anything like that.”
“We’ll try to prevent his carrying out that threat. If we fail, I think I can guarantee Rourke’s silence until we know exactly where we stand. In the meantime,” he added, recalling Rourke’s description of the governess, “I’d like to have a talk with Miss Briggs, if I may. And I’ll want the address of the maid, who was here the night of the theft.”
“Yes. Miss Briggs can give you that, I am sure. But I’m afraid she isn’t here just now. She mentioned at the dinner table that she was going out for the evening immediately after dinner.”
Shayne said with real regret, “That’s too bad. I look forward to interviewing Miss Briggs. I’ll be here to see her first thing in the morning.”
He got up and held out his hand to the millionaire. “Try not to worry too much about all this. And I advise you to tell no one about the letter. No even your alter ego, Freed.”
“I agree,” said Peralta, hastily. “Ah… about a retainer, Mr. Shayne?”
“We can discuss that in the morning… after I’ve a better idea what I may be able to do for you.” Shayne turned away, in a hurry to get back to Miami and to the Green Jungle before Laura Peralta lost all her money and got tired of waiting for him to show up.
The little maid popped up in the hallway as he strode from the library, and scurried ahead of him to open the front door. He thanked her and went out.
The cream convertible was gone from the driveway, but the dark limousine was still parked in front of Rourke’s old coupe.
Shayne went down the flagged walk and circled the limousine to open the left-hand door of the coupe. Cigarette smoke came out into the night air, and mingled with it was the delicate scent of a good perfume.
Shayne could see only a blurred outline of the occupant of the coupe as he slid under the wheel. She was far over on the right side of the seat, and when he slammed his door shut, she told him calmly, “I’ve been waiting long enough. Let’s get away from here before someone comes out and sees me.”
SIX
Shayne started his motor and backed a little so he could circle around the limousine and out the drive. The voice sounded young and cultured and calm. Looking straight ahead as he turned onto Alton Road, Shayne asked, “Why are you afraid someone will see you?”
“I prefer they don’t know I’m having this private talk with you, Mr. Shayne. You are Mr. Shayne, aren’t you?”
“Yes. And you’re Miss Briggs?”
“Marsha Briggs.” The governess sitting on the far side of the seat rolled down the window and spun her cigarette out. “Tell me one thing honestly.” There was a faint tremor in her nice voice. “Has Mr. Peralta retained you to recover the bracelet?”
“More or less. I’m looking into it before I decide to take the case or not.”
“Could we stop for a drink? I won’t detain you long, and will take a taxi back to the house.”
Shayne said, “Of course. A drink is exactly what I need.”
He slowed Timothy Rourke’s coupe as they approached the neon lights of a cocktail lounge, pulled into a parking spot and turned off the motor and lights. Only then did he turn to look at his passenger.
Marsha Briggs looked back at him searchingly. She wore a blue silk scarf over her head, tied tightly with a bow-knot beneath her firm chin. It framed a piquant, heart-shaped face with nice coloring and delicate bone structure. Her eyes were blue and probing. Her lips were lightly touched with red and slightly parted. She looked about twenty-five, and Shayne surmised she might be in her mid-thirties. His first impression was of a strong and self-reliant young woman who had been carefully reared but had learned to cope with life on its own terms.
She said, “I know. I don’t look like a governess. I’m much too pretty and too young and too sexy to spend the rest of my life cooped up in the Peralta house with a couple of brats. I should be eagerly grasping at life and love
