way a woman in love does trust a man, and I talked freely of my position and my employer and the household… and one night it happened.
“There was a jewel robbery at the house. It was the man I thought I loved,” she went on listlessly. “It became obvious that he had carefully planned it that way. He had selected me as a source of information, and made love to me only to accomplish the theft. The police soon discovered our intimacy and traced him to Chicago where he was arrested with the jewels in his possession.
“They believed and tried to prove that I was his willing accomplice,” she continued in the same dead tone. “But there was no proof. Legally, I was guilty of no more than a foolish indiscretion, though both my employer and the police persisted in believing I was as guilty as he. He was sentenced to twenty years in jail, and I was discharged under a cloud of suspicion.” She paused and viciously stabbed out her cigarette in an ashtray between them. Her blue eyes, still holding his steadily, had become pools of agony. Shayne asked gently, “Do the Peraltas know about this affair on Long Island?”
“Of course not. Who would employ Marsha Elitzen if they knew? Who would trust that woman in their home… to care for their child? I came to Miami and I chose the name of Briggs. It seemed to me solid and substantial… and far removed from Elitzen. I faked some references with two friends who knew the truth and felt sorry for me. It wasn’t difficult. Few people today check a servant’s references carefully. Particularly people like the Peraltas with two children like the twins to be looked after. They were happy to employ me… after a succession of four other governesses in less than a year. So I have been happy and thinking I could make a new life under a new name… until this. Until the bracelet was stolen. And then I saw it as a recurrence… as a judgment on me. I have been waiting for the police to check more carefully into my background… to learn the truth about me.”
Shayne thoughtfully pulled at his left earlobe between thumb and forefinger, and then finished his drink. He asked abruptly, “Is the situation today the same as it was on Long Island?”
The question appeared to take her completely by surprise. She put both hands up to her cheeks and opened her mouth into an O and inhaled deeply.
“You mean,” she faltered, “do I have another lover who may have betrayed me by stealing the bracelet? No! There is no one. I swear it. I have learned my lesson. I hate and despise all men.”
Her heaving bosom and flashing eyes attested this. “There has been no man in Miami,” she declared vehemently. “But would that matter to the police if they knew? You know I would be judged guilty without a trial. I would be arrested and tried in the newspapers. They would say it cannot be coincidence.”
Shayne looked down at the typewritten anonymous letter and tapped it with a blunt forefinger. “All right. I’ll take your word for that, Miss… Marsha. Now! Who wrote this letter to you?”
For answer, she silently lifted the bar-bill and looked at the total, then took a bill from her purse and laid it atop the check. “I have paid your retainer,” she said composedly. “You will find out for me?”
Shayne grinned at her spunk in so replying. He said, “With a little help from you, I’ll try. To begin with, how many people know who you are and that you have taken the name of Briggs?”
“Only two… and those two I will swear by. They helped with my references, as I told you. I trust them both as I would my own mother.”
Shayne said harshly, “That’s not good enough.” He tapped the letter again. “This wasn’t written by your mother.”
“No.” Color suffused her cheeks. “That much I do admit.”
“By whom?” urged Shayne. “You must have some idea. Some man who’s tried to make love to you and whom you’ve repulsed? Some man who knew you in the North and followed you down here? You must have some inkling to his identity.”
“There has been no man in Miami, Mr. Shayne. I swear it. Except Mr. Freed.” Her lips curved in a faint gamine smile and merriment danced in her eyes.
“Freed?” Shayne did a fast double-take, and shook his head flatly. “Even the twins have him tagged for a fairy. You’ll have to give me someone better than that.”
She shook her head and pursed her lips in a small moue. “It is simple for a man like yourself to have a positive opinion about one with Nat’s physical appearance. But I am not so sure.”
“You mean,” asked Shayne bluntly, “that he isn’t a homo?”
“He may have such tendencies, but I can assure you he is at the very least, ambivalent. No, that is not the word I mean,” Marsha hurried on in embarrassment. “Ambidextrous, perhaps? I know that he and Felice were… intimate. And he has said things to me… small innuendos, with a sly suggestiveness in his voice, which I have pretended not to understand.”
“Are you trying to tell me you think Nathaniel Freed may have written this note?”
“I am telling you he is the only man I have met in Miami who could have written it,” she responded with spirit.
“How about some man you knew in the North who has recognized you here?”
“I can’t think of anyone,” she cried, despairingly. “None who might write a letter like that. There have been men who made love to me in the past,” she went on reflectively, “but I can’t think of any who might know I’m working for the Peraltas and using the name of Marsha Briggs.”
“What do you intend to do about this telephone call at midnight?”
Marsha looked down at the change the waiter had left beside her, and pushed it away. “I am your client now,” she told him composedly.
“Make the phone call,” Shayne told her. “Say exactly what he says to say, and then hang up.” He made a mental note of the telephone number and shoved the letter back to her.
“And… the assignation?”
Shayne said, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Now, tell me where the twins got hold of the cyanide they fed the Boxers?”
The question took Marsha completely off base. She looked at him with round frightened eyes. “How do you know about the dogs?”
Shayne said, “I’m a detective. One who detects. What about the poison?”
“I don’t think the children did it, Mr. Shayne. Whoever told you they did, is…” She paused, searching for a word.
Shayne asked, gently, “Didn’t they admit it?”
“They boasted of it.” Her nice lips curved in a curious, contemplative smile. “They are queer ones, those twins. So old in some ways, and yet…” She paused, shaking her head earnestly. “Sometimes I think I will never understand them. Their rearing in a foreign country with no mother. Only nurses and native maids for companionship. And a father who is…” She paused again, compressing her lips.
“What sort of man is Julio Peralta?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Shayne. A curious mixture of soft idealism and harsh parental authority. It is all mixed up somehow with the political situation in Cuba. I don’t understand that. People coming and going at night, and secret conferences.”
“What’s that got to do with the poisoning of two dogs?”
“Nothing, probably. Yet, perhaps everything. They were Laura’s dogs,” she explained. “He hated them. I think she insisted on keeping them because he did hate them. I think the twins made up their story of poisoning them just to infuriate her more… and perhaps to please their father.”
“What sort of story did they tell?”
“That they got the cyanide from the house next door… where they are forbidden to go. It is closed for the season with only a caretaker. And yet I see lights sometimes late at night, and boats docking there from the Inland Waterway. This is a forbidden subject at the Peralta house. I think it has some connection with his political activities. He was furiously angry once when he learned that Felice had been seeing the caretaker at night. He would have discharged her, but Laura would not allow it.”
“Felice is the maid who was fired after the bracelet was stolen? I want her address from you, by the way. Mr. Peralta said you would have it.”
“Yes. It is here in my bag.” She started to open her handbag, but Shayne intervened. “What sort of investigation was made into the poisoning of the dogs?”
“None. Laura was furious and wanted to call the police, but Mr. Peralta refused. Perhaps he believed the twins did do it, and kept it quiet on that account.”
