Shayne awoke at eight o’clock the next morning. He lay blinking at the ceiling for a moment, then tossed the covers back and padded into the living-room in his pajamas. A stiff breeze blowing in the two open windows had a late November chill so early in the morning, and he stopped to close them on his way to the kitchen.
He set a pot of coffee on the stove to brew, then went into the bathroom where he hurriedly shaved and showered. Wrapping a towel about his middle, he went back to the kitchen, pulled the percolator off the fire, and returned to the bedroom to dress.
He drank a cup of black coffee, poured another and added a generous amount of cognac, and settled himself comfortably with a cigarette. This morning routine was accomplished with a minimum of movement and of effort, and without conscious thought
Now, he frowned meditatively as he took a deep pull on his cigarette and took a stiff drink of the coffee royal. The events of the previous afternoon and evening came to him in rapid succession. His visit from Christine Hudson, the securing of her IOU from Arnold Barbizon, Angus Browne loitering in the Play-Mor bar, the girl in the taxi, her companion, and Timothy Rourke’s connection with her.
He finished his cigarette and the coffee royal, sat for a moment looking at the Gladstone, sprang up and started packing. He had kept his promise to Christine Hudson. Her IOU was safely scrapped and in his pocket He decided that he was making a mountain out of a molehill, and that the only thing left for him to do now was to deliver the IOU and her pearls. He stopped packing to go in the kitchen and get the pearls from the hydrator and put them in his pocket.
He came back and packed the last of his things, snapped the bag shut, and went down to the lobby to arrange to have it delivered to the airport by 11:30. He then went out and found a taxi, got in and directed the driver to 139 Magnolia Lane on the Beach.
The Hudson residence was an imposing structure by daylight, of Moorish and Spanish architecture in high favor during the early period of Miami Beach’s development. A vast expanse of terraced lawn spread out to the water’s edge, bordered on two sides with coco palms and Australian pines, and dotted with fern-bedecked fish ponds over which tiny decorative coral bridges were fashioned.
Shayne told the driver to wait, and went briskly up the walk to the door. The same middle-aged woman answered his ring. She smiled and told him to step inside when he asked for Mrs. Hudson. She led him into a spacious living-room and asked him to sit down. Then she went out.
Christine hurried into the room a few minutes later, her dark eyes glowing eagerly. Her hair was brushed back from her face, and except for a little blue bow tucked on one side, she looked slim and boyishly youthful in white linen slacks. She caught both his hands in hers when he got up and went to her.
“Hurry and tell me, Michael,” she implored. “I’ve been so worried. Is everything all right?”
He grinned down at her. “Everything is fine,” he assured her. He took the torn shreds of the IOU from his pocket, took one of her hands and held it palm upward, and crushed the mass into it. “You’d better burn these. But I thought you’d like to see them first, just for your own peace of mind.”
Christine sat down and spread the bits of paper out. “Oh,” she breathed, “I can’t tell you how much I thank you, Michael. I feel free again-and alive!” She looked up at him with shining eyes and a smile parting her lips. She crushed the papers into a little ball and put them in the pocket of her slacks.
Shayne said, “I’ve got something else for you.” He took the pearls from his coat pocket and dangled them before her.
She drew in a sharp breath and cried, “Oh, no!” Her face went white and one hand went to her throat. “No!” She shrank back in the chair as though he had struck her.
“What the hell!” he exclaimed. “I’m not doing anything but returning your property. Take them-and consider the whole thing a bad dream. It’s all settled.”
“But I don’t understand,” she moaned. “If you didn’t-how did you get the IOU back?”
“I persuaded Barbizon to give it to me,” Shayne said cheerfully. “It wasn’t very difficult. He didn’t-”
“Oh, God!” Christine covered her eyes with her hands and an agonized moan came from her throat. “Oh, you’ve ruined everything! Now I’ll never-”
The sharp ringing of the front doorbell interrupted her. She took her hands from her eyes and there was a frantic, hunted look in them. She sprang up and ran to the front door.
Shayne stared down at the pearls still dangling from his knobby forefinger, then quickly put them in his pocket. He turned to the door and saw Christine admit a tall, lean man with finely chiseled features. His light brown hair was thinning in front, and he was heavily tanned. A man, Shayne guessed, in his early thirties; athletically trim, and he walked with a springy step and with complete self-assurance.
He didn’t look in Shayne’s direction, but put his arm around Christine, held her close, and said gently, “You mustn’t worry, dear. It’s just that they’ve found Natalie.”
A slow, sardonic smile twisted Michael Shayne’s wide mouth when he saw the man who entered the room behind Leslie Hudson.
Peter Painter, Chief of the Miami Beach Detective Bureau, strutted past Christine and Leslie Hudson. His black eyes darted around the room, and a manicured forefinger went up to caress a threadlike black mustache, but stopped in mid-air as he saw, then glared incredulously at the tall redhead who lounged against a chair. Painter drew in a sharp, audible breath and said, “Shayne! By God, if I ever walked in on a case without finding you, I’d-” He clenched his fists and took two angry steps forward.
Leslie Hudson turned with his arm around Christine. “This is Chief Painter,” he told her. “When I telephoned him from my office to report Natalie’s disappearance, he asked me to come right over.”
Shayne stepped forward and Christine said, “Leslie, this is Michael Shayne. You remember my telling you about Phyllis-”
Leslie Hudson held out his hand and said, “Of course. How do you do, Mr. Shayne.”
“I’m leaving town today,” said Shayne, taking the other’s hand, “and dropped in to say good-by and wish Christine luck.”
“You’re acquainted with Chief Painter, of course,” Hudson said.
“We’ve met.” He let go of Hudson’s hand and stepped back. “Don’t let me interrupt anything. I have to catch a plane for New Orleans at noon.” He glanced aside at Christine’s miserable face.
“We don’t want to prevent that,” said Chief Painter. “You haven’t too much time to get to the airport.”
“I’ve a taxi waiting,” Shayne assured him easily. “What’s this about someone being missing?”
“Natalie, our maid,” Hudson explained. “She didn’t come in last night and we became worried this morning. I phoned the police and Chief Painter tells me-” He broke off with an inquiring glance at the chief.
Christine stepped back from her husband, her dark eyes fearful. She caught Shayne’s eye and pressed a finger to her lips, motioning him frantically for silence.
Painter strutted to the center of the room and whirled to face the trio. “We already had her body. Found it early this morning in the bay less than three hundred yards from here.”
“Her-body?” Christine cried out sharply. “Drowned?”
“Not exactly, Mrs. Hudson,” Chief Painter said. “She’d been struck over the head-” he paused and delicately cleared his throat. “Her throat was slashed,” he ended quietly.
Christine caught her husband’s arm and began to sob. “Now, now, dear,” he comforted her. “You mustn’t take it too hard. We’ve only had her with us a short time.”
Shayne raised ragged brows, looking from the couple to Painter, then went over and sat down in a chair.
Chief Painter confronted him “I suppose you wouldn’t know a damned thing about this, Shayne? You just happened to drop in this morning?”
Shayne looked up at the dapper little man who stood before him, immaculately turned out in the latest style, and stiffly erect. He said, “That’s right.”
“Nuts!” The dynamic chief turned on the heel of one small shoe and snapped to Mr. and Mrs. Hudson, “Whichever one of you called Shayne in on this case, get this through your heads. I won’t have him interfering with police business. The woman was murdered, and I’m taking personal charge of the investigation.”
Shayne’s gray eyes shone with an angry and humid glow. “I told you I was catching the noon plane,” he said.
Painter disregarded him. He continued bitingly, “I’ve had experience with Shayne messing up cases before. I assure you that the Miami Beach officials are capable of handling this murder investigation.”
Leslie Hudson looked inquiringly at Shayne, then turned a puzzled glance on Painter. His right hand came up in a gesture of confusion and embarrassment. “I don’t quite understand,” he said, addressing Painter. “I’m sure it was a purely friendly gesture on Mr. Shayne’s part-dropping in to say good-by to Mrs. Hudson.”
Christine was still clinging to her husband’s arm. She dropped her hands to her side and stepped forward. “Of course it was,” she said, “but now that this terrible thing has come up about Natalie, I want him to find the guilty person. With your permission, of course, Chief Painter.” She appeared to have gained complete control of her emotions, and she flashed a smile at Painter.
Painter nervously fingered his mustache. He said, “But you heard Mr. Shayne say he was catching the noon plane.”
“Just a moment.” Shayne sprang from his chair. He said, “Mr. Hudson, will you describe the maid-Natalie-to me?”
“Of course. She was something under thirty, I suppose. Quite blond, and-” he twirled a hand above his baldish head “and frizzly.” He turned to his wife and asked, “Rather nice looking, wouldn’t you say?”
Christine laughed lightly. “Any maid would look good to us, Leslie,” she said. “She had a rather pleasant face and she liked to laugh and talk. I’d given her some of my old gowns and she looked very nice in them. And,” she added, turning to her husband, “she helped herself to the lovely perfume you gave me.”
Shayne was watching Christine. Her light laughter and her smile and the glow in her eyes went away when she turned away from Painter. He said, “My trip to New Orleans isn’t really important. I can easily put it off a day or so if you really want me to look into this.” He knew, suddenly, that there was more involved than the IOU which Barbizon held against Christine, and he deliberately shoved aside the urgent telegram from Lucy Hamilton and the thousand-dollar retainer in the Belton case.
Leslie Hudson was saying, cordially, “We’d appreciate that, Shayne. Natalie was a maid who’d been with us only a short time, but we owe her that much.”
Shayne scarcely heard him. When Christine’s husband stopped speaking, Shayne said to Painter, “You’re conducting an investigation?”
The chief raised his padded shoulders a trifle straighter and warned him bitingly, “Just try pulling a fast one, Shayne. Just one. That’s all I ask.” He turned his back on the redhead, whipped out a notebook and demanded, “The maid’s full name?”
“Natalie Briggs,” said Hudson.
“Age?”
“About-twenty-eight,” Christine answered when her husband looked at her inquiringly.
“Height and weight?”
Leslie Hudson’s eyes were a mixture of green and gray. He drew his brows together between them, but didn’t look at his wife. “I would say about five-feet-eight or nine inches. She was tall.” He thought for a moment, turned to Christine and said, “A hundred and thirty, wouldn’t you say, dear?”
“Fifty,” Christine murmured, her long lashes half-closed. Her tousled dark head was nestled against Leslie’s arm, and she didn’t look at Shayne.
“Any relatives? Close friends?” Painter asked officiously.
Hudson didn’t answer immediately. He looked down at Christine and said, “None that I know of. She was sent to us by an employment agency a few weeks ago. You know how it is these days. But she was perfectly satisfactory,” he maintained stoutly.
Painter’s small black eyes flashed. “H-m-m. So you don’t actually know anything about her.” His tone indicated that they knew everything about her and were directly responsible for her murder. “When was she last seen by any member of your household?”
Christine lifted her head and spoke in a steady voice. “I can answer that. It was right after dinner. Leslie had gone to the plant, and she had a date. She came in to show me how a green dinner dress looked on her-one I had given her. I was reading the evening paper in the living-room. She said there was something she had forgotten to do and went upstairs. When she came down, I could smell the perfume, but I didn’t care about that. Naturally,” she ended, “I didn’t ask her where she was going.”
“Did someone call for her?”
“I’m sure I don’t know.” Christine seemed to remember all of a sudden that she was a hostess. She moved wearily toward a chair and said, “Let’s all sit down.”
She sank down on a love seat and her husband sat beside her. Painter stood in his tracks, his notebook in his hand and his pencil poised above it. Shayne dropped into a chair and crossed his legs.
“When Natalie wasn’t here this morning, I asked Mrs. Morgan if she knew anything. Mrs. Morgan was in the kitchen just before Natalie left.”
“Who is Mrs. Morgan?” Painter asked.
“Our housekeeper,” said Christine.
Painter raised his right hand which held his pencil and ran a finger over his thin mustache. “Why didn’t you report the maid missing earlier?” he demanded. “Was she in the habit of spending her nights out?”
Leslie Hudson said, “The maid’s room is in the house. We naturally gave her a key to the back door so she could come in on her night out. I suppose she stays out quite late, which is none of our business as long as she does her work the next day. We didn’t know she hadn’t come in until just before I left for the office this morning.”
“There was no wind last night,” Painter asserted, “and your maid was found floating in the bay a short distance from here. It’s my guess she was killed right here and dumped in the bay. Where were you two all evening?”
“There was a pretty high wind this morning,” Shayne said.
Painter’s small black eyes darted to Shayne. “You keep out of this, Shamus,” he snapped. He turned back to the Hudsons. “Where were you last night?”
Leslie Hudson looked at his wife quickly, but she was staring at her pink fingernails. He said, steadily, “My wife and I were out.”
“Where?” Painter asked caustically.
Christine lifted her eyes and looked steadily at Painter. She did not smile. She asked, “Are Leslie and I suspects?”
Painter again cleared his throat delicately. “Not yet,” he admitted, “but it’s just as well to establish an alibi if you can.”
Hudson tightened his arm on his wife and said, “We will see to that when the necessity arises,” stiffly.
Painter said angrily, “If you’re not going to co-operate, that’s the way I’ll play it. Now, who else is in the house?”
“Mrs. Morgan,” said Leslie Hudson, “and my brother, Floyd.”
“Where are they? I want statements from them, and-”
The telephone rang in an adjoining room. Shayne saw Christine stiffen. Her dark, terrified eyes met his for an instant. It was as though she expected the ring and appealed to him for help.
“I want to inspect the girl’s room and her possessions,” Painter was saying, as Christine sat on the edge of the love seat, and they could all hear Mrs. Morgan answering the telephone.
A moment later Mrs. Morgan entered the spacious living-room and said, “It’s for you, Mrs. Hudson.”
As Christine dragged herself from the love seat and went slowly through the open doorway to the telephone, Peter Painter turned on one heel to face the middle-aged woman. “Are you Mrs. Morgan?”
“I am,” said the woman, her hands folded across her ample diaphragm. Her calm blue eyes ran the length of the chief’s short stature.
“You can come in right now,” Painter said. “I want you to give me everything you can about Natalie Briggs. Try to remember everything-”
All of them heard a stifled gasp from the adjoining room, and the faint sound of a body crumpling to the floor. Shayne and Hudson rushed into the room together.
Christine lay outstretched on the floor beside the telephone stand in a dead faint.