Gentry straightened up and directed two of his men. “Smith and Parks. Stay here and get a statement from this dying man. The rest of you fan out fast and surround the lodge. The real criminal is still inside, Sheriff. I don’t know how many men he may have, but if they’re armed with the same kind of weapons these two were shooting, we don’t want to take any chances.”
Shayne knelt down beside Pug as Gentry and the sheriff moved away to direct the placing of their men around the lodge. He leaned close to the dying man and demanded, “Where’s the girl, Pug? The girl! Where is she?”
“Inside,” muttered Pug without opening his eyes.
Rourke grabbed his arm as he got up and started toward the lodge, and exploded happily, “Sweet God, Mike. When you promise action, you sure deliver. But for God’s sake, tell me…”
Shayne pulled away from him and stalked up the road toward the fishing lodge. Rourke hurried after him, expostulating, “Hold it a minute, Mike. Didn’t you hear the man? Roy Enders is still inside. Let Gentry and the sheriff smoke him out.”
Shayne paid no attention to the reporter. Unarmed, his face set in hard lines, he strode on toward the lodge.
Gentry was spacing his men around to cover all exits, and he saw Shayne and called out gruffly, “No need for anybody else to get hurt, Mike. Stay back and we’ll use tear gas.”
Shayne went steadily forward in the hot sunlight and the silence. He mounted the wide stone steps to the front door, his heels pounding loudly on the flagstones, pushed a sagging screen door open and went in to a wide hallway. There was a stale odor inside the house, and it was cool and very still. A wide arched opening led into a huge living-room on the right with a row of plateglass windows looking out over the ocean.
Molly Morgan was bound rigidly upright in a heavy chair fashioned from mangrove roots across the room beside the ten-foot fireplace. Her legs and arms were fastened to the chair with copper wire, and her mouth was sealed with adhesive tape. Her eyes rolled toward the detective as he stood in the arched doorway.
Against the wall on his right Shayne saw a jumble of water-soaked equipment which he recognized as skin-diving appurtenances… flippers and masks and oxygen tanks. Ranged alongside were several rusted metal packing cases which appeared to be sealed tightly. Three of them were long and slender, about three feet in length by one foot in width and depth; two others were in the shape of two-foot cubes, and one of these had been ripped open and stood with the metal top turned back, exposing the contents to view.
Shayne grinned across the big room at Molly Morgan and waved to her and said, “Hi,” and then he stepped over and looked down at the metal container that had been opened.
There were orderly rows of Lenski pistols inside, each one surrounded by a thick layer of grease in which it had been packed at the factory.
He strode on across to Molly who was bound in the chair, and dropped down beside her and started untwisting the wires holding her wrists and ankles, and he talked to her quietly as he worked.
“It’s okay now, Molly. I’m going to get your arms and legs loose first. There’ll be time enough to talk later. Right now, we’ve got to get your circulation back… those bastards really did a job on you.”
He twisted off the last piece of wire and then stood up and leaned over her. He put his left hand hard against her forehead and forced her head back against the back of the chair, looked deep into her eyes and worked his fingernails underneath the edge of the wide strip of tape over her mouth.
“I’m going to pull it off,” he warned her quietly. “It’ll hurt like hell, but…” As he spoke, he jerked.
The adhesive tape came away from her mouth and she slumped forward against him, moaning softly. He got his arm around her and lifted her from the chair, holding her yielding body tightly against him. Her legs wouldn’t support her as she tried to stand, and he held her upright, rubbing her wrists briskly and telling her, “You’ve just got to get your circulation back. Try moving your legs. Make them move. You’ll be fine. It’s all over now.”
“It’s been so terrible,” she was sobbing with her face pressed tightly against his shoulder. “I sat here and heard them planning to kill you, Mike. And then I heard the shooting outside…”
Shayne continued to move her slowly across the room with one arm tightly about her waist, and she mechanically started to put her weight tentatively first on one foot and then the other and her fingers tightened convulsively and then loosened on his arms, and suddenly Chief Gentry’s voice boomed at them from the archway:
“What the devil is going on in here, Mike?”
Shayne turned his head and grinned over his shoulder at the police chief. “I’m giving a lady a dancing lesson, Will.”
The tall figure of the sheriff loomed in the opening behind Gentry, and Shayne continued pleasantly, “Why don’t you two go down in the cellar and look for Enders? That’s where Pug said he was.”
Will Gentry scowled and crossed the room purposefully. “What kind of run-around are you trying to give me, Mike?”
Shayne held Molly Morgan away from him gently, and smiled down into her face. “All right, now?” he asked her. “I think you can make it on your own.”
She nodded, biting her underlip and moving back from him under her own power. “I’m all right,” she murmured, and she held tightly to one of his hands while she manoeuvered herself around to a rustic bench against the wall where she sank down with a sigh of relief.
“This is Molly Morgan,” Shayne said, stepping back from her and turning to Gentry. “You remember? You were asking me about her last night.”
“I remember all right,” Gentry was beginning to breathe heavily. “What kind of run-around is this, Mike?”
Shayne said innocently, “It was supposed to be a private party, but you invited yourself.”
“Damned lucky for you,” fumed Gentry. “Did you think you could handle this gang by yourself?”
Shayne grinned at him disarmingly. “I’ve done all right thus far. I admit you caught me unawares, Will. Next time you decide I’m holding out on you and decide to monitor the switchboard in my hotel, don’t send a guy with d-i-c-k written all over him.”
Will Gentry swallowed hard. “I wondered who sent Tim Rourke to me with a tip there’d be fireworks out here this morning. All right. You knew I’d cover you. So, why did you bring along a couple of guns to do your shooting for you?”
“Dixie and Bull?” Shayne shrugged. “They were headed for the electric chair anyhow, for the murder of a Lithuanian pawnbroker last night. And they owed me something too,” he added harshly, his fingertips going up to touch the strips of adhesive on his face. He paused and glanced aside at the gun-cases and skin-diving equipment on the floor. “How much of this have you got figured, Will?” he asked quietly.
“Most of it, I think. From six years back, I figured that Cap Ruffer was running guns to Roy Enders, here, which he was sending on to Cuba by helicopters. Did you know those two dead men down the road were his pilots?”
Shayne nodded. His gray eyes were very alert. They shifted from Gentry to two of his men who came in excitedly, and he listened while they reported, “Nobody in the cellar, Chief. Not a living soul in the house, and we’ve had it covered ever since the shooting started.”
“So?” Gentry swung angrily on Shayne. “Roy Enders has got away. He’s the important one. Damn it, Mike. If you’d kept out of this…”
Shayne said, “I don’t think Roy Enders has got very far. Send your boys back down into the cellar to look for some freshly turned dirt, and have them try digging there.”
“What makes you think…?”
“That Enders is dead?” said Shayne impatiently. “Hell, he has to be, Will. Nothing else makes sense. He’s been dead for at least a week.”