“Pardon me. I was so taken up with… well, I forgot my manners. Mr. Seveir, meet Mr. Shayne. Mr. Seveir publishes the Gazette,” he explained, turning to Shayne again.
The publisher held out a bony hand. “Stranger in town, Mr. Shayne?” His pale eyes beamed behind his glasses. “The Gazette is always interested in visitors.”
“I’m a stranger,” Shayne admitted, crushing the publisher’s frail fingers in an iron grip, “but I’m getting acquainted fast.” He upquirked the corners of his wide mouth, carefully protecting the slit in his lip. “How would you like to run a story on how the local jail stinks?”
Mr. Seveir chuckled and caressed his aching hand. “I see you must have your little joke, Mr. Shayne.”
“I’m not joking,” Shayne said harshly. “Vomit on the floor, stale urine, clogged toilets, and men sleeping on concrete floors and iron bunks with no bedding, and denied the privilege of calling in a lawyer or friends.” He turned suddenly from Seveir’s bewildered and astonished eyes and asked Rexard, “What became of Lucy Hamilton and Titus Tatum?”
“They went out with Mr. Persona. He runs AMOK. A very important man from Lexington. He dropped in soon after you left.”
“So, she wasn’t concerned about what became of me?”
“I… don’t think she mentioned your name… after you left,” he stammered. “I gathered that… you all had a quarrel,” he ended, staring into Shayne’s cold gray eyes.
“Is Persona spending the night in town?”
“I don’t know.” Rexard glanced at the newspaper man. “You know, Frank?”
Seveir nodded. “He’s at the Moderne. With the strike fizzling out, he’s paying off the special deputies tomorrow.”
“Are your columns open to news?” Shayne asked abruptly, “or do you print what you’re told?”
“The press of the United States is free,” Seveir told him with stiff dignity.
“If I brought you proof that Seth Gerald murdered Charles Roche, would you print it?”
“What!” The exclamation came simultaneously from both men.
Shayne grinned crookedly. “You made several attempts to find out my business tonight,” he said to Rexard. “I’m in Centerville for just one purpose: To smash the town wide open and put a rope around the neck of the man who actually murdered Roche.”
“United States Marshal?” Seveir quavered, and mopped sweat from his face.
Shayne neither denied nor affirmed the conjecture. “Print that in your paper tomorrow,” he told the publisher grimly, “and you can quote me.” He got up and sauntered away from the table to the door, went down the street and found his car parked where he had left it.
He had left the keys with Lucy, but shorting a wire across the ignition switch was easily accomplished, and a few minutes later he was speeding toward the Moderne Hotel.
A light shone in the lobby of the hotel building as he swung past the cottages. He stopped in front of the cabin assigned to him. All the cabins were dark except the one at the end of the row. He turned off the headlights, left the motor idling, and went to the door he had left wide open earlier. It was cooler inside now, and everything seemed to be just as he had left it.
He went outside and crossed to Lucy’s cabin, rapped on the door several times, and receiving no answer he walked on toward the lighted cabin at the end.
The shades were not drawn and the windows were open. Shayne walked cautiously on the rocky ground, crept close enough to a window to look in. Lucy Hamilton reclined on the bed, propped up on one elbow. Mr. Persona sat in the only chair. He had removed his coat and loosened his collar, and his sleek black hair was disheveled. A bottle of whiskey was on the table beside him. He was talking and gesticulating and laughing heartily at his own wit. Lucy was laughing with him, her eyes very bright. Titus Tatum was not with them.
Shayne went back to his car, got in, and backed around, leaving the headlights off until he turned onto the highway. There were no cars on the road driving back to Centerville, and when he reached the heart of the village most of the night-life had died away. Only a few business places were lighted, and an occasional car was parked on the main street. He drove straight through, turned up Magnolia Avenue and parked in front of Ann Cornell’s house which was aglow with light.
He heard no sound from within until he was on the porch. Through the closed door, radio music could be faintly heard. He knocked and waited until Ann Cornell opened the door. She wore a blue flowered cotton dressing gown and blue bedroom slippers. Her face was flushed, and she lifted one hand to brush a strand of damp hair from her face. Her blue eyes held a fixed, drunken stare, but her voice was pleasant and slightly thick when she said, “I wondered when you’d be back.” She swayed a little as she stood aside for him to enter, closed the door firmly, and crossed the floor with careful exactitude to the chair beside the table where the jug of corn liquor stood. There were only about three inches left in the jug.
Shayne sat down, lifted his bushy red brows and asked, “Who’s been drinking your whiskey?”
She looked at the jug and said, “Nobody but me.” She picked up her glass and drank the half-inch of liquor remaining. “Been saving it for you.”
Shayne’s empty glass was on the end-table beside the chair where he had left it. He got up, poured it a quarter full and asked with a frown, “What are you afraid of, Ann?”
“Me?” She opened her eyes wide, then half-closed them. “I’m not afraid of Old Nick himself.”
“You’re afraid to be alone,” Shayne told her. “That’s why you keep a jerk like Angus around. Where is he now?”
“Back room. Sleeping off a load.”
“Like he was last night?” Shayne asked harshly.
She moved uneasily, ran her hand around the low-cut neck of her dressing gown nervously. Her chest and shoulders were firm and creamy where the flesh flowed away from her throat. She said, “Still harping on last night?”
Shayne nodded. “And I’m going to be from now on. Why don’t you get it off your mind? Drinking too much corn isn’t going to help.”
“What?” she asked indifferently.
“The truth.”
“What good’s the truth?” There was more of hysteria in her short laughter than drunkenness. She checked herself, took up the jug and half-filled her glass.
He was still standing beside her, and he bent over her, placing one hand on the arm of her chair, to say, “This is one time in the history of Centerville when the truth is worth something. Look at me, Ann.”
She lifted her head slowly and looked up at his angular face. His cheeks were deeply trenched, his mouth grim. She did not speak.
Shayne said quietly and with deep intensity, his eyes holding hers in a hypnotic gaze, “You know plenty about men. You know these punks in Centerville can’t stop me. You know that deep inside when you look at me. And you’re decent deep inside, Ann. You’ve always been decent and you’re proud of it.” His voice didn’t waver, didn’t rise or fall in tone. Her eyes were fixed on his and were becoming slightly glazed, as though she didn’t see his face, but something far beyond him.
“I’m getting hold of things,” he went on slowly, “and all I need is a hint. You can make it easy for me, or I can do it the tough way. Who was with you last night, Ann? Who saw Roche across the street and phoned Seth Gerald? Was it Angus?”
Speaking the name was a mistake. He knew it as soon as it left his lips. Ann Cornell’s eyes turned aside and the spell was broken. She lifted herself slightly and moved her hand upward toward his face. “Did you say your name was Michael?”
“That’s right.” He took her groping hand in his. It was moist and warm and firm. Her fingers gripped his with the strength of a man’s, and there was a look approaching panic in her eyes.