Shayne stepped over the threshold, moving with careful ease, taking extreme precaution to avoid any sudden gesture which might cause an instinctive reaction from Matrix’s trigger finger.
He frowned at the leveled pistol. “It’s too late for that, Matrix. Better put it down before it goes off.”
Midge rushed into the room, her face pale and pinched with terror. She stood close behind Matrix, her stark eyes looking at Shayne over the editor’s shoulder. She breathed:
“What is it, Gil?” Then, “Oh-no!” in a great sobbing breath when she saw the gun in his hand.
“Stand back out of the way,” he rasped over his shoulder. “Get your stuff ready. No one can stop me now.” Standing perfectly still he appeared to swagger and strut defiance.
Shayne saw Midge tense. Her stricken gaze was fixed on Gil’s pistol. She made a quick move with her right hand as if to grab the weapon.
Shayne said, “Don’t,” sharply.
When she drew back with an expression of disbelief, he explained, “It might go off if you reach for it. There has been enough murder in Cocopalm tonight.” He moved sideways, keeping his hands in plain sight, and sat down near the front window.
Matrix did not move. His head was hunched forward between shoulder blades that jutted up on each side. His round, owlish eyes held Shayne’s unblinkingly. He warned in a thin high voice of near-hysteria, “There’s likely to be one more killing, Shayne-unless you use your head.”
“No, Gil,” Midge begged. She pressed close against him. “I don’t understand,” she wailed. Her tongue came out to moisten her lips but left them dry. “You won’t tell me anything. What’s all this-talk about killing? Why should Mr. Shayne try to stop us from going?” She spoke with great effort and tried again to moisten her lips with a dry tongue.
“Because he’s too smart,” Matrix snarled. “Because he wasn’t satisfied with what was right before his eyes. He had to go digging into something else.” The little editor’s body began to tremble violently. The pistol was not cocked, but Shayne knew that it had a double-action mechanism and too much pressure on the trigger would fire it without cocking.
Midge put her arm around Matrix’s shoulders. Terror drove all youth and gaiety from her face and she looked as old as Gil Matrix. She crooned, “There now, Gil. There now, darling,” as a mother might croon to her baby.
She exerted gentle pressure on his shaking body, moving him slowly sideways to the couch. He let himself be pushed down to the cushions. The pistol wavered, then slid from his inert hand to the floor. He looked down at it in some surprise, slowly moved the fingers of his right hand as if testing their ability to move.
When he raised his eyes to Shayne’s the desperation had gone out of them and the pinched look had passed from his thin features. He nodded and essayed an odd little secretive smile.
“You win. You and Midge. It wouldn’t do for her to go away with me.”
“No,” Shayne agreed. “It wouldn’t do at all-Ross. You should have learned by now that nothing is ever gained by running away from things.”
The editor’s eyelids flickered at the name of Ross. That was the only evidence of surprise he allowed himself. He said, “So-you know all about that?”
Midge had curled herself up on the couch beside him. She had her arm around his neck and her finger tips caressed his cheek as she gazed at Shayne with bright, questioning eyes, trying desperately to understand without asking questions.
Shayne said, “Yes. I know all about that.” He paused, added casually, “I talked to the warden at Joliet long-distance this evening.” He took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered Matrix one.
The little editor said, “No, thanks. I don’t see how-” He stopped, chewed fiercely on his underlip.
Shayne lit his cigarette. “You don’t see how I found out-with Mayme Martin and Ben Edwards both dead-and with you grabbing off the anonymous note Hardeman sent to me at the hotel.”
“You-know about that too?”
Shayne shrugged. “I guessed it came from Hardeman. He seemed to be itching all along to tell me something without quite getting around to it. I can make a pretty good guess what was in it.”
“Go on,” Matrix probed. “Guess.”
“He doubtless mentioned your past penitentiary record-and Ben Edwards’s. And I imagine he pointed out the proximity of the Voice office to the ground-floor windows of the Elite Printing Shop, and mentioned the camera that Ben had invented. I understand the camera had a faculty for taking very clear pictures from a great distance-an invention which would undoubtedly enable you to get pictures of each new set of tickets as they were printed-to be reproduced by you. And I presume he did not neglect to point out the incriminating fact that Edwards had suddenly decided not to patent his invention-but was resolved to keep it a deep secret even though a patent might be worth a great deal of money.”
Matrix nodded his bushy head. “All that was in the message. I was a sap to think it would do any good to keep it out of your hands. I might have known you’d go right to him and get the same information.”
“Why, no,” Shayne answered placidly. “I admit I just came from the track, but Hardeman wasn’t talking.”
Matrix stiffened. His eyes were blank as they darted toward the pistol on the floor beside him.
Shayne said again, “It’s too late for that.”
“Yeh,” Matrix agreed in a dull voice. “Yeh. I guess you’re right.”
Shayne reached in his pocket and took out the old newspaper clipping. He handed it to Matrix, saying, “Here’s something you forgot to get from Hardeman the last time you saw him.”
Matrix took it from him and started to unfold it, then glanced quickly at Midge and stopped.
“Show it to her,” Shayne commanded evenly. “She has a right to see it. Trying to escape your past is what has put you in this trap.”
Matrix said, “I guess you’re right. I haven’t been very fair to Midge. But-hell, a man gets to thinking-” His voice was wooden, without inflection. He handed the clipping to the girl and leaned back against her arm. He closed his eyes while she opened the clipping with exaggerated care and stared at the picture, then swiftly read the text.
It fluttered from her fingers when she finished and both her arms tightened around Matrix’s neck. “Is that all it is?” she demanded. “Why, that was a long time ago. What do I care? It’s nothing-nothing! Every man makes mistakes. Everybody does.”
Gil Matrix sat up straight and disengaged her arms from around his neck. “No, that isn’t all. You don’t understand, honey.” He turned to Shayne. “How did you figure all this out?”
“It was easy-once I got on the right track. I expect I got my real clue from the same place Hardeman got his. That deed made out to Gil Matrix by Theodore Ross. It doesn’t take a handwriting expert to see the similarity in the signatures. As a director of the bank, Hardeman inspected the papers when you applied for your loan.”
Matrix said, “Yes. I guess that was it. I wondered-how he had found out. I’ve suspected he knew for some time but I was never sure until I intercepted that anonymous note he sent you tonight. As soon as I read it I knew it must be from him.”
“Mayme and Ben Edwards were already dead,” Shayne mused. “You thought they were the only ones who knew. It must have been a great shock to learn that their deaths hadn’t helped any-to know Hardeman also had you dead to rights on the counterfeiting deal.”
“I don’t know why he didn’t present the evidence against me sooner,” Matrix said helplessly. “He must have suspected me from the beginning. Anyone would,” he ended savagely.
“Your background made you the obvious suspect,” Shayne agreed tranquilly. “Taken in conjunction with Ben’s camera, which provided a means of keeping yourself informed of the changes made in the tickets each day, no jury would require much time to deliberate your guilt. You tried hard enough to steer me toward MacFarlane,” he added parenthetically.
“Sure I did. I knew if you nosed around long enough you’d start turning up the dope against me. That’s why I used all my influence to get you called on the case-because I figured you’d go after MacFarlane. God knows, Boyle wouldn’t take any action in that direction. I didn’t know, though, that Mac would be fool enough to send his boys after you the first thing. That was the tip-off.”
“I haven’t thanked you yet,” said Shayne, “for the picture you sent up to my wife’s room. We’ll frame it-as a fitting souvenir of one of the damnedest cases I ever worked on.”
A caustic smile illumined Matrix’s features. “I had to get to Jake and smash that plate. It leaves you in the clear to go on after MacFarlane-no matter what.”
“No matter what,” Shayne agreed gravely. His eyes stared dreamily at the whitewashed wall of the little cabin as his body relaxed in the wicker chair.
Midge had been listening in silence, pressed close to Matrix. Now she moved and asked nervously, “What picture? Do you mean-?”
“Yes, honey. That’s the one we mean. It wasn’t your fault,” Matrix went on swiftly, “that MacFarlane used you to get a lever on Shayne. You didn’t know the ins of it-the spot I was in unless Shayne hung the counterfeiting rap on MacFarlane in a hurry. That was my fault for keeping the truth from you.”
“But I still don’t understand,” Midge interposed. She frowned. “You weren’t counterfeiting the tickets, were you?”
Matrix said, “No,” hoarsely.
“Then what’s all this talk about you being in trouble? Why does Mr. Shayne look so grim and why were we packing up to leave in the middle of the night? Why did you threaten him with that gun when he came in?”
“Ask him.”
“Why, Mr. Shayne? Do you think Gil was printing the forged tickets?”
Shayne said, “No, Midge. I’m certain he wasn’t,” in a flat even voice.
Her face brightened and she was young again. “Then why-?”
Automobile brakes ground on the pebbled street and the trio instinctively turned their faces toward the door and listened. A car door slammed. Matrix’s eyes dilated. He glanced down at the pistol and his fingers curled toward it.
Shayne said, “No,” and shook his head as light footsteps sounded on the porch. He lounged to his feet when a knock sounded, saying, “That will be my wife.”
He opened the door and Phyllis entered the room hesitantly, her dark eyes softening as she looked past Shayne at the tableau on the couch. Midge clung to Gil’s right arm, pressing her cheek against his shoulder.
Shayne said, “You’ve both met my wife.” He looked directly at Matrix and added, “She has come to stay with Midge while you go to the police station with me.”
Midge uttered a little cry of terror. She threw herself across Matrix’s chest and clutched him tightly around the neck as though she would never let him go.
Phyllis turned tear-filled eyes away from them. She was trembling as she searched her husband’s gaunt face for some hint that it was not true.
His lined features were implacable. He waggled his head from side to side, looking straight into his wife’s eyes, then moved past her to stand in front of the pair strained together in an agonized embrace.
Shayne spoke in a curt tone that brought a smothered cry from Midge:
“Hand me that gun from the floor, Matrix, and let’s go”
Matrix put Midge from him. She fell back against the couch sobbing wildly, her eyes staring. Phyllis came to her and put both arms around the weeping girl and tried to comfort her. She gave her husband a quick I’ll-hate-you-forever-for-this look and did not glance at him again.
Shayne stood his ground with only the lines on his face deepening to give a hint of his true feelings. He said, “It’s now or never, Gil. If you love Midge the only thing you can do for her is to come along without a fuss.”
Matrix’s too-big shoulders were hunched forward, his round eyes staring bleakly down at the revolver on the floor. He reached to pick it up and Shayne made no move to interfere with his actions. Matrix got hold of the weapon with lax fingers, then stood up and handed it to the detective without a word.
Shayne took it and dropped it into his coat pocket. He swung on his heel and went out the door.
Gil Matrix joined him on the porch. They stood there for a moment and the sullen roar of the sea made a dirge-like background for the sobbing of the girl inside the cabin.
Matrix raised one hand in a savage gesture of renunciation. He muttered thickly, “What are we waiting for?” and plunged down the steps.
Shayne followed, saying, “We’d better take my car,” and Matrix went to it and got in without another word.
Sliding under the wheel, Shayne backed away. He drove to the business section and as he neared the hotel, Matrix said, “The police station is down this street half a block.”
Shayne turned a corner and drove half a block. A lot of cars lined the curb in front of the small police station. He parked beyond them and he and Matrix walked back together.
Shayne looked up to see Timothy Rourke lounging in the open doorway. “Hi, Mike,” he called out. “You’re holding up the proceedings.”
Shayne grinned and shook hands with Tim, introduced Matrix with a wave of his hand, “Mr. Matrix, editor of the Cocopalm Voice. Rourke from the Miami News.”
“What the hell?” Rourke demanded as he shook hands with the local editor. “I thought you had this story on ice for me.”
“Matrix is pretty much on the inside,” Shayne explained. “I couldn’t very well cut him out just to give you an exclusive story. But, where is everybody?” he added with a glance inside the front office, empty except for a uniformed man regarding them uneasily from behind a scarred pine desk.
“I haven’t been able to get past the sentinel in blue.” Tim Rourke ruefully jerked his thumb toward the local policeman. “The big shots are in back somewhere and my press card isn’t worth a damn up here.”
Shayne said, “Come on. Get hold of my coattail and we’ll crash the conference.”
He started toward the rear with Matrix and Rourke directly behind him. The policeman got up hastily, saying, “You can’t go back there. Chief Boyle said I wasn’t to let no one in his private office.”
“Two negatives,” Shayne pointed out, “make an affirmative. In his ungrammatical way, Boyle actually meant you were to admit anyone.” He kept moving and the policeman stood aside helplessly, knowing in his slow-acting brain that he was being circumvented, but not quite sure how much authority Shayne possessed.
A closed door at the rear had neat gold lettering on it: Chief of Police. Shayne turned the knob and walked into a smoke-filled private office and a confused murmur of voices. The voices stopped suddenly as he entered. Shayne nodded curtly to Chief Boyle, who sat behind an oak desk with a typewritten sheet of paper in his hands. He stood aside to let Tim Rourke and Matrix file in behind him, then closed the door in the midst of complete silence.