Scotty’s Bar had been the last stop where he could hope to pick up any further information or verification of his several hunches. From now on, he was committed. If he had guessed wrong…!
Well, damn it! you had to guess sometimes in this business, he told himself savagely. You couldn’t just sit back and play it safe and wait it out.
Not if you were Mike Shayne, you couldn’t. Not if the stakes were big and you had used up your last lead.
He kept his big foot hard on the gas as he raced up the nearly deserted street. He had cut the time mighty damn thin for what was left to be done. By this time Will Gentry would be in telephone conference with Chief Painter about the Felice Perrin murder, and they would be arguing about procedure.
For once Shayne was glad Painter was such a stubborn bastard. He would require a lot of convincing before he took any action. At least, Shayne fervently hoped he would.
He turned a corner on protesting tires, and braked as he approached the Peralta residence. He slowed in front of the stone gateposts enough to note that dim light still showed through the ground and third-floor windows, but did not turn into the driveway. Instead, he cut his lights and pulled past, and off the pavement in front of the locked front gates next door.
The night was very still as he strode back to the Peralta driveway. There were no cars parked in front of the house this time, nor was there any welcoming front light on.
Shayne mounted the porch and put his finger hard on the electric button and held it there.
He didn’t release the button until the door opened a cautious crack and Nathaniel Freed peered out at him. He blinked disapprovingly and said, “Mr. Shayne. It’s very late and…”
Shayne said angrily, “It’s not too late for some talk, Freed,” pushed the door back and shoved by the secretary into the wide hallway. “Peralta in?”
“No. Mr. Peralta is… out. You are not welcome here, Shayne, and I don’t propose…”
“Where’s Marsha?” Shayne cut him off curtly.
“She… went up to her room a few minutes ago. I warn you, Mr. Shayne…”
“Did she make a telephone call before going up?”
“I really don’t know,” said Freed, sulkily. “I have been in the study for the last half hour. Really, Mr. Shayne…”
The detective swung away from the agitated man and went to the foot of the stairway. He lifted his voice so it vibrated through the three-story house, “Marsha! Marsha!”
“I shall call the police, Mr. Shayne,” said Freed in a nervous voice behind him. “I really cannot countenance…”
Shayne turned fiercely and held up a big hand to shut him up as Marsha’s voice responded faintly and fearfully from above them:
“Who is it?”
“Mike Shayne,” he bellowed back at the unseen governess. “Come down here as fast as you can.”
He whirled about again, and told Freed, “Keep your mouth shut. You can call the cops after I get through here… if you really want to,” he ended wolfishly.
He turned to look up at Marsha Elitzen hurrying down the stairs, a frightened look on her face. He said soothingly, “It’s all right, Marsha, except I’m in a hell of a hurry. Did you make that phone call?”
“Yes. I said it and hung up.”
“What phone did you use?”
“In the library.” She pressed her trembling body close against Shayne and pointed. “There is no upstairs extension I could use except in Laura’s sitting room.”
“And Freed was in the study when you called?” Shayne put his left arm about her shrinking body and held her comfortingly close to him while he looked down into her eyes. “With an extension telephone in there?” he ended grimly.
“Yes… there is an extension…” Marsha caught in her breath and her eyes rounded as they looked up into Shayne’s.
“I’ve had enough of this nonsense,” said Nathaniel Freed in a thin voice behind them. “For the last time, Mr. Shayne, I demand…”
Shayne smiled down at the governess and put her away from him gently. He turned on Freed and said in a curiously calm voice, “You stinking little hunk of pseudo-masculinity. Where is that clipping about Marsha?”
“What do you mean?” Freed shrank away from him. “I don’t understand…”
“You understand well enough,” growled Shayne. He took one step forward and struck the fat-butted secretary with a sweeping back-handed slap that sent him reeling across the hallway and crashing into the wall. “So you craved her fair, white, young body?” raged Shayne. He stood over Freed, glaring down at him implacably. “Where’d you get hold of the clipping from the New York Mirror?”
Freed cowered on the floor beneath him and began to sob. “When I checked her references. I knew there was something. And I checked back and I finally remembered. I didn’t mean to…”
Shayne swung away from him on his heel. He told Marsha, “You needn’t worry about the clipping. Everything is coming apart at the seams anyhow. The bracelet isn’t important any more. He didn’t steal it. He just seized the opportunity the theft presented.”
“When I made the telephone call…?” faltered Marsha.
“It was just the number of a bar he selected at random. All he had to do was pick up the extension a few seconds after midnight and hear you say ‘yes.’” Shayne looked at his watch. It was eighteen minutes past the hour. “Is Laura upstairs?”
“Yes. She’s… I’m afraid she’s not in very good condition to receive company.”
“She’ll receive me,” said Shayne grimly. He took a firm grip on Marsha’s elbow and started up the stairs with her, leaving Freed groveling in the hallway behind them. “Show me her room.”
Marsha climbed the stairs beside him, her cheeks flaming with embarrassment. “When I think about him writing that note…”
“Forget it,” Shayne advised her. “The twins are going to be needing you after tonight more than ever.”
They reached the second-floor landing and Marsha turned to the left and stopped in front of a closed door. “This is her sitting room. I’m afraid you’ll find her…”
“Passed out?” said Shayne cheerfully. “I hope not.” He pushed Marsha aside and knocked peremptorily on the door, and then opened it without waiting for a response.
It was a very feminine room, with two lighted boudoir lamps on either side of it. It was empty as Shayne strode in, but a door on the left was open into a dark room which he guessed was Laura’s bedchamber, and an alcohol-thickened voice came through it faintly, “Julio?”
Shayne walked to the threshold and felt inside the door for a wall switch. He didn’t find one, but as he groped, a pink-shaded bedlamp came on in the room, and he saw a bare, rounded arm and the lace of a black nightgown, and Laura Peralta’s face on a white pillow with her eyes burningly fixed on his.
She didn’t move as her eyes focused on his face and he knew she recognized him. The tip of her tongue came out to wet her lips, and she said wonderingly, “Mike Shayne. I thought you were… never coming to me.” She closed both her eyes and freed her other bare arm from beneath the cover and lifted them both toward him embracingly.
“You mean… you thought I was… dead,” said Shayne brutally. He walked into the room and stopped beside the bed and looked down at her outstretched arms and her closed eyes dispassionately. “You’re not that drunk, Laura. Cut it out.” His voice was savagely incisive.
Her eyes opened slowly and her bare arms dropped back to her sides. Two tears ran slowly down her cheeks. Her full lips opened and she pleaded in a blurred voice, “Kiss me, Mike.”
He said angrily, “I kissed you once before tonight. Tell me, Laura. Who told you to send me to Las Putas Buenas?”
She closed her eyes sadly before his intent gaze. “Mr. Tatum.”
“Who in hell is Mr. Tatum?” demanded Shayne fiercely.
She kept her eyes closed and moved her head slowly from side to side on the pillow. “Don’t you know Mr. Tatum, Mike? He’s Julio’s… friend. His… I don’t know, Michael. He frightens me. He came here tonight after you left.” Her voice rolled on like that of a mechanical doll that had been wound up and could not stop. Listless and
