“It looks as though she had gone to her room and gotten ready for bed and then came back here for something-perhaps a book to read, or a magazine,” Shayne explained. “Or maybe she saw someone coming in my door and suddenly remembered she had left it unlatched, and hurried down here to put him out.”
“You think she was attacked in here-or in the bedroom?”
“We’ll have to get that from the doctor. I didn’t waste any time looking around the bedroom after I found her like that. It’s my impression, though, that there’d be blood on the floor if she was attacked in here.”
“Might as well go over the whole place for fingerprints, Richardson,” the sergeant said to the younger member of the trio. “What’ll be legitimate besides yours, Mike?”
“Lucy’s-she cooked dinner in here, as I told you. And Tim Rourke’s. No one else has been here the last few days except the maid who cleaned thoroughly yesterday.”
The sergeant nodded thoughtfully. “Sure you’re not leaving anything out, Mike? Sure you didn’t know she’d be waiting for you like that when you got here?”
“Slugged?” Shayne’s tone was outraged. “You think I knew she was lying in there slugged and didn’t call the doctor for half an hour?”
“Don’t get sore, Mike. I’m figuring all the angles. Seems funny your horsing around in here with Rourke when maybe calling the doc earlier would have-”
Shayne got to his feet slowly, his big hands flexed. “Go on. Say it out loud, you liver-hearted bastard.”
“What the sarge means,” said Richardson, “is that you must’ve known she wasn’t in good shape or you’d have been in there a lot faster.”
Shayne whirled on the fingerprint man, but Harvey’s voice brought him back to a sense of proportion. “Don’t be like a kid, Shayne. You’ve ribbed enough other guys in your time to take a little of it yourself.”
“One more crack about my secretary and I’ll tear you limb from limb,” Shayne growled.
“You got to admit that lump on your jaw isn’t more than a few hours old,” Sergeant Harvey said. “You’re not leveling with us, Mike.”
Shayne stood very still and his hands slowly unclenched. “Yeh,” he muttered. “I know the whole thing sounds screwy as hell. But I gave you the story straight.” He sank back and lit a cigarette.
Since finding Lucy on the bed slugged, he had wholly forgot his own disfigurement. Now he realized how things must look to the police.
“I got tight over on the Beach,” Shayne resumed, “and rammed a concrete culvert on Delaware Road about midnight and got this. You can check that with a Beach cop named Rawson. He found me passed out under the wheel, and my car’s in the hotel garage banged up right now.”
“What’re you working on now?” Harvey asked.
“I’m not. I haven’t decided whether to settle down in Miami again or not. I’m sort of on vacation.”
“For a guy who’s on vacation,” said the homicide man who stood beside the sergeant, “you’ve been sticking your nose into plenty of stuff the last few months. There was that deal Rourke was mixed in, and then the two stiffs in the Bay, and then just last week the Deland kidnap mess. And I heard down at headquarters that Painter was pulling you in tonight on the jewel theft at the Sunlux.”
“He’d like to tie me in on that,” Shayne snorted.
“There’ll be a nice reward for the man who gets his hands on those rubies,” Harvey commented placidly.
Shayne nodded. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t turn a deal if they dropped in my lap.” He sprang to his feet as the bedroom door opened and Dr. Price came out.
“She’ll pull through, I trust.” The doctor closed the door. “Concussion, all right. She’s still unconscious, but her pulse is stronger and I anticipate she’ll come out of it in fifteen or twenty minutes now.”
“Enough to be questioned?” asked the sergeant.
The physician frowned. “I don’t advise it. She must have absolute quiet. Recovery depends on mental as well as physical calm. Miss Naylor is preparing a hypodermic and watching her condition closely. I’ve instructed her to inject a strong sedative the moment she shows signs of returning consciousness.”
“If you want Lucy Hamilton to feel mentally at ease, you’ll let her answer a couple of questions before you put her out again, Doc,” Shayne told him strongly.
Dr. Price tugged at his goatee and studied the detective thoughtfully. They had known and respected each other a long time, though there were no close bonds between them. “It might not upset her so much if you asked her a couple of questions in strict privacy,” he offered after a moment. “But I wouldn’t advise-”
“You don’t quite get it, Doc,” Shayne said. “These cops think maybe I conked her. If they don’t hear the words from her, they’ll never believe I didn’t.”
The doctor’s expression cleared. “I see. You mean to say you don’t mind them hearing anything she may say?”
Shayne tugged at his earlobe and said softly, “I’ll be damned, Doc. I believe you were trying to cover up for me. Do you think I slugged her?”
“I confess the possibility did enter my mind,” said the doctor with dignity. “I find a young lady in night clothes in your bed, a pistol on the floor where she appears to have dropped it, and every indication that she was pushed or slapped and tripped on the carpet, falling backward and striking her head on the radiator.”
“Wait a minute.” Shayne advanced on him, his gray eyes glinting. “You say there’s a gun on the bedroom floor? And Lucy fell against the radiator after being shoved or slapped?”
“I am not a detective,” said the doctor dryly, “but that is what I infer from the nature of her wound and the bloodstains on the radiator. Naturally, I assumed you either knew what had taken place or had drawn the same obvious deduction as I.”
Shayne said, “I didn’t take time to look at anything in the bedroom. You got here so fast I didn’t even have time to go back in there to do any deducing.”
“Lucky I was dressed and could come at once. Another ten minutes might have been too late. If it hadn’t been for some practical joker, the young lady might have been dead by now.”
“What’s this about a practical joker,” asked Sergeant Harvey.
“Some fool who called me about twelve-thirty and got me out of bed and a sound sleep. He insisted there was an emergency in apartment six-oh-three, and I got dressed and hurried up there. I confess I was annoyed when I found the place dark and rang the bell several times before I got an answer. Though not so annoyed,” he went on with a faint chuckle, “as the man who finally answered the door bell. He insisted there was no emergency in that apartment and that he definitely had not telephoned for a physician. He was quite rude about refusing me entrance, and finally suggested we were both the victims of a practical joker. He gave the impression,” the doctor concluded sedately, “that it would be distinctly embarrassing for the lady occupying the apartment with him if I were to enter.”
“What kind of a joint is this?” demanded Sergeant Harvey of Shayne.
Shayne disregarded the sergeant’s coarse humor. He asked Dr. Price, “Do you honestly believe it might injure Miss Hamilton to answer just a couple of questions?”
“Probably not,” said the doctor frankly. “But I warn you she must talk very little and must not be excited. If she regains consciousness shortly, as I anticipate, I will withhold the injection until the moment she is able to talk. It will take possibly two minutes to take effect, and during those two minutes you may ask her any questions necessary.”
Miss Naylor appeared in the doorway as he finished speaking and said quietly, “She’s on the verge of consciousness, Doctor. Shall I give her the injection now?”
Chapter Ten
“I want to allow her about two minutes of full consciousness, Miss Naylor,” Dr. Price told his nurse. “Give her the injection the moment she is able to talk.”
The nurse went back into the bedroom and Shayne hurried to the door, followed by two of the police officers. Miss Naylor was seated beside the bed with Lucy’s wrist in one hand, the hypodermic ready on a tray beside her. Lucy’s head was bandaged and her eyes were closed. Her face was waxen white, but her features were composed and she appeared to be breathing normally.