incident, you know.”
“Why don’t you discuss it with Mr. Shayne?” Anita moved aside and Dr. Albert Evans stepped through the sliding doors. He was young for a practicing M.D. Not more than his early thirties, Shayne thought. He was slender and of medium-height, with slightly protuberant eyes behind gold-rimmed nose glasses attached to a black cord around his neck.
He stopped and looked severely at Shayne, but the detective could have sworn there was the suggestion of a twinkle in his eyes as he asked, “What did you hit Charles with? He insists you attacked him with a large rock.”
Shayne held out his right hand with the fist doubled. “If you’ve any adhesive left you might put a little on my knuckles.”
“It’s no joking matter,” the doctor told him. “It’s trespassing, Anita. And assault and battery at the very least. This man should be arrested.”
“He claims he lost his way on the bay in a rowboat and put ashore to get help when Charles mistook him for a vandal and threatened him with a shotgun.”
“Can you prove that?” demanded Dr. Evans of Shayne.
“Can you prove I didn’t?”
“There’s still assault with a deadly weapon.” The doctor glanced at Shayne’s fist and the suggestion of a twinkle was back in his eyes.
“Assault?” snorted Shayne. “While the idiot followed me at six feet with a cocked double-barrelled shotgun loaded with buckshot? The slightest misstep on his part would have blown me into two pieces. If anybody lays any charges around here, it’ll be me.”
“I think Mr. Shayne is right,” said Anita sweetly. “Let’s be happy no greater damage was done.”
“Yes… well…” The doctor took off his glasses, blinked rapidly and fiddled with them. “I’ve done all I can for Charles tonight.” He turned to go, but Shayne stopped him.
“If you’re going toward town, Doctor, could I bum a ride with you? I meant to call a cab, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
“Why, yes. Certainly, if you like. I go down the Avenue to Flagler.”
“Right past my place,” Shayne told him genially. He walked past Anita and her fingers swung out to catch his hand as he went by. He pressed her fingertips hard and said, “Thanks for everything, Mrs. Rogell. I hope we meet again.”
She dug her fingernails fiercely into the fleshy part of his palm and then released his hand. He followed Dr. Evans down the hall, glancing through portieres on the left as he went by and seeing Marvin across the library at the bar intent on mixing himself another drink.
Dr. Evans opened the door and held it for him, and they went across the wooden porch and down stone steps to a neat dark sedan under the porte-cochere.
The doctor put his bag in the back and went around to get under the wheel, and Shayne slid in beside him. He put the car in gear, and as it moved smoothly down the winding drive, he said quietly, “I take it you are a private detective, Mr. Shayne?”
“Yes.”
“And I also take it you were attempting to disinter Mrs. Rogell’s pet dog to have its stomach contents analyzed?”
Shayne said, “I have no intention of admitting that fact, Doctor.”
“Yes… well…” The sedan turned north on Brickel. “I can only wish you had been successful,” the doctor said fretfully. “I confess I’m dreadfully bothered.”
“You think the dog was poisoned?”
“I have no opinion in the matter… not being a veterinarian. I do wish Mrs. Rogell had not been so precipitate in having the little beast buried. But she has a dreadful complex about death in any form. The result of some childhood trauma, I daresay, though I’m not a psychiatrist either. And the death of her husband, just two days ago, left her dreadfully upset, of course. A remarkable woman, though. She’s bearing up exceedingly well.”
Shayne said, drily, “Yes. I imagine Anita Rogell will survive okay,” with the memory of that tempestuous embrace still rocketing through his body.
“I understand you signed the death certificate,” he added.
“Certainly, I did. I had been attending him for months and was called immediately after his death was discovered.”
“Is there any possibility whatsoever, Doctor, that he could have been poisoned?”
“You’ve been listening to Henrietta,” he said bitterly. “Spreading her spleen wherever anyone will listen. Mr. Shayne, if you are an experienced detective, you must know that no competent medical man in his right mind can absolutely rule out the possibility of some kind of poison in any death. No matter how normal it may appear on the surface. If we took that fact into consideration, perhaps we should have an autopsy on every cadaver… no matter what the circumstances of death.”
“Perhaps we should,” Shayne said equably.
“Yes… well…” The doctor slowed as he approached the bridge across the Miami River. “Since that is not accepted practice, I can only tell you there was no scintilla of evidence to give me the slightest doubt that John Rogell’s death was the normal and natural result of his heart condition. That is the statement I gave the police, and I stand behind it.”
“Right here, Doctor,” Shayne said hastily as they drew abreast of his apartment hotel. “Thanks for the lift… and for the information.” He got out at the curb and lifted a big hand in farewell, waited until the doctor drove on and then trudged across to the side entrance where he climbed one flight of stairs and went to his corner apartment to wait for Timothy Rourke to show up or telephone him.
7
It was almost two hours and three drinks later when the door opened and Timothy Rourke shambled inside with his trench-coat belted tightly about his thin waist, eyes glittering balefully at the tranquil picture Shayne made, sitting at ease in a deep chair with smoke curling up from a cigarette and a drink beside him.
He said, “By God, Mike! You’re one who’d come up covered with diamonds if you fell into a sewage pit.”
Shayne grinned amiably and asked, “Had rough going?”
“Look at my goddamned hands.” Rourke strode forward, holding the palms up for Shayne’s inspection. They were puffed with blisters, some of which had broken and the red flesh beneath was cracked and bleeding. “Been rowing around in circles on that lousy bay for two hours,” grated Rourke, turning aside to a wall liquor cabinet and lifting down a bottle of straight bourbon with the ease of long familiarity. He pulled the cork as he returned to the center table, tilted the bottle over a tumbler containing two half-melted ice cubes and a small quantity of water that Shayne had been using for a chaser. He poured four fingers into the glass, sloshed it about for a moment, and then drank it off in four gulps.
He smacked his lips expressively, draped his knobby body into a chair across the table and grated, “The things I do for you, Mike Shayne! By God, that dog had better have poison in her belly.”
“She has,” Shayne said flatly. “You got her, huh?”
“Sure I got her,” said Rourke belligerently. “While you were inside getting cozy with the widow. I got a peek through the bushes after the shotgun blasted. I figured I’d take one look at you with your fool head blown off so I could give Lucy the morbid details. And what did I see? You standing there under the floodlight with that unconscious lug in your arms, and that babe fawning up at you like she’d never seen a man before in her life.”
“It was a diversionary tactic,” said Shayne cheerfully, “to give you an opportunity to do your stuff with the shovel.” He reached in his pocket for a small address book and began thumbing through it.
“How was she, Mike? After you got her in the house and dumped the chauffeur?”
“There were too many people around to really find out. Some other time, maybe, I’ll give you a detailed report. Where’s the dog?”
“Downstairs in my car.” Rourke sighed and pulled himself to his feet with a grimace of pain from long unused muscles. He went out to the kitchen to get a fresh glass and more ice cubes for himself while Shayne found the
