devoid of emotion. As though she were in a mild state of hypnotism and knew not what she said.
“They had a terrible scene, he and Julio. And he came to my car as I was driving away… when I knew you would meet me at the Green Jungle, Mike. He frightened me. He said Julio had lost his senses and you must be… ‘taken care of.’ He said you would take me to a place called Las Putas Buenas if I told you the story about an anonymous letter. And so I did.” Her voice became low and dreamy and Shayne had to lower his ear close to her lips to make out the words. “But you went there alone, Mike. And I… got frightened and… came home. Now… kiss me again.” The final words were throaty and very low, and she turned her head slowly so her lips touched his and held hotly against them.
He didn’t think Laura Peralta was quite as drunk as she pretended to be. He straightened up and walked out of the bedroom, and didn’t look back as he strode through the sitting-room to the hallway where Marsha waited for him.
The front doorbell was ringing downstairs as he closed the door firmly behind him and Marsha seized his arm. He turned her toward the stairway and looked at his watch. It was just seven minutes since he had checked the time last. Five minutes until twelve-thirty. They started down the stairs and heard Nathaniel Freed’s voice saying petulantly at the front door, “Yes, I do remember you, but I don’t care whether you’re a reporter or not. Mr. Peralta is not at home, and it is far too late at night…”
“Tim!” shouted Shayne, going down the stairs two at a time and leaving Marsha behind him. “It isn’t too late at all. Just in time as a matter of fact.”
FIFTEEN
He ran through the hall and shoved Freed aside at the front door, pushing Timothy Rourke out onto the porch in front of him. His own car was parked there, but he led the reporter past it and down the driveway, saying urgently, “We’ve only got a few minutes, Tim. Talk while we’re moving.”
“That’s what I came out to tell you. There isn’t any rush. Painter refused to move until tomorrow morning.”
“Good for Painter.” Still holding Rourke’s arm tightly, Shayne pulled him impatiently down the street past the reporter’s own coupe parked in front of the iron gates.
“Will had quite an argument with him,” panted Rourke as he was rushed along, “but Painter absolutely refused to do anything until he could get hold of Erskine and give the State Department a chance to step in first if they want. Neither Will nor Painter knows you’re on the personal rampage, Mike. Though I think Will suspects it all right.”
They rounded the corner of the stone wall toward the service entrance, and Shayne looked at his watch. It was one minute until twelve-thirty. From the rear of the estate came the muffled sound of a gasoline-powered launch approaching on the canal.
“I don’t know what you’re up to, Mike,” Rourke said desperately as they stopped in front of the locked wooden gates under the archway, “but I wish to God you’d hold off.”
Shayne said, “It’s too late for that.” He let go of Rourke’s arm and said calmly, “I’m going over the gate and I’ll try to unlock it from the inside to let you in. Go back to your car and get out of here if you want,” he continued roughly, “but you’ll pass up a headline story if you do.”
He reached up with both hands and got a firm grip on the top of the gate, swung his body up and scrambled over, dropping to the ground on the inside.
He fumbled with the lock in the darkness, found a knurled knob which released the catch, and shoved the door outward just as the sounds of a melee came from the boathouse at the rear.
Rourke moved in, muttering hoarsely, “What the hell?” and lights came on in the rear and suddenly they were bathed in the beams of a bright searchlight mounted on the big house in front of them.
Shayne darted forward toward the dark hulk of the house with Rourke following a few paces behind. There were shouts from the rear and the loud sound of splintering wood, and they were suddenly at the kitchen door which opened when Shayne turned the knob.
The floodlight from outside gave enough light through the windows for Shayne to cross the floor and locate a switch on the opposite wall. He pushed it and ran through a butler’s pantry into a wide hallway beyond where he found another light switch that showed a curving stairway leading to the second floor.
Shayne pounded up the stairway with Rourke panting at his heels. From outside and to the rear there came the sound of a single pistol shot, no louder than the popping of a champagne cork inside the thick walls of the house.
At the top of the stairs, Shayne hesitated a moment, facing three closed doors on the side toward the Peralta house.
He tried the center door first and it was securely locked.
He drew back two steps and lunged forward, lowering his left shoulder and hitting the door like a battering ram. It crashed inward and Shayne went to his hands and knees on a thickly carpeted floor, dazed by the force of the impact.
A bright light came on over his head, and from the doorway behind him he vaguely heard a loud exclamation of astonishment from Rourke.
Then the reporter hurried past him and Shayne slowly pushed himself up and saw the big double bed in front of the windows with Rourke leaning over the figure of Lucy Hamilton securely bound and gagged on top of the bedspread.
Shayne swayed a little and shook his red head to clear it, and then stumbled forward to the side of the bed as Rourke released the gag.
There were tears in Lucy’s eyes as she stared up at him imploringly, and she cried out softly, “I thought you’d never come, Michael. It seemed like years and years…”
Shayne dropped to his knees beside the bed and put a big hand comfortingly on her face. Rourke had his pocket-knife out and was cutting through the strips of torn sheet which bound her wrists and her ankles tightly together behind her back.
Shayne said hoarsely, “It’s all right, Lucy. Just relax. Can you tell me who did it?”
A convulsive shudder traversed her body as her arms came free and she was able to straighten her cramped legs. In a blurred voice, she whispered, “I never saw him before, Michael. He came to the office with a gun. Thick glasses and a dark suit. He didn’t hurt me, Michael. Just brought me here and there was another man waiting inside the gate…”
Shayne pressed his fingertips against her bruised lips. Rourke had her ankles loosened and was gently kneading the muscles in her lower legs to restore circulation.
Shayne stood up and told Rourke, “Take care of her, Tim. As soon as she can walk, take her out the side way and put her in your car parked in front. Then come on back to the boathouse if you want to pick up the pieces.” Rourke straightened up and yelled, “Wait a minute, Mike!” but Shayne was already out of the bedroom and on his way down the stairs.
The floodlight still bathed the side of the house and the backyard with bright light as the detective ran out the kitchen door, and brilliant lights were shining from the upper and lower windows of the two-story boathouse at the rear. But there were no more sounds indicative of a struggle. He had heard the one shot and that was all.
He ran back along a concrete walk to a door leading into the boathouse, and jerked it open. The first person he saw was Alvarez standing in the middle of the floor with a pistol in his hand. The Cuban whirled and leveled the gun as Shayne came through the door, then lowered it and smiled pleasantly. Beyond him were twin slips opening out into the canal, and a power cruiser bobbed gently in each slip. At least one half of the interior of the boathouse was piled almost to the ceiling with stout wooden crates of various sizes and shapes, and half a dozen men were busily engaged in loading the crates into the two launches. There were two men on the other side of the boathouse against the wall, one seated on the floor and the other lying beside him.
The seated man was Mr. Erskine. His glasses were missing and his hands were handcuffed in front of him. He sat bolt upright, facing Alvarez’s pistol, and he glared malevolently at Michael Shayne, but did not speak.
Sprawled on his back on the floor beside him was Julio Peralta. There was an ugly wound on his forehead and
