“You can say I’m not at all satisfied with Shayne’s absurd story of somebody impersonating him over the telephone in his apartment and luring Mrs. Dustin down here to her death. I suspect him of prior knowledge of the murder and of giving out that yarn as a smoke-screen to cover himself when her body was discovered.”
“In other words,” said Shayne, “you’re publicly accusing me of murder as well as stealing the bracelet.”
“I’m accusing you of nothing-yet,” snapped the detective chief. “But I’m also not swallowing your hog-wash.” He turned and strutted through the sand toward the concrete walk.
A faint glow of dawn lighted the eastern horizon above the gray ocean. Rourke asked, as they followed Painter toward the hotel, “Want to come up with me and have a talk with Dustin?”
“Do your own ghouling,” said Shayne. “I’ve heard everything he has to say. I’ll be pushing along.”
Rourke gave him a quick, suspicious glance and asked, “Where to? If you’ve got some other angles-”
“Sleep appeals to me right now,” he said casually. “There’ll be plenty to keep us busy tomorrow morning.”
“You’re nuts. It’s tomorrow already.” Suspicion edged his voice. “Don’t run out on me, Mike. I’ve got a feeling things are going to break fast.”
“Go on and intrude on Mark Dustin’s private grief,” Shayne told him good-naturedly. “There’s nothing much we can do until we get answers to those telegrams.”
Shayne went on to his car and drove northward. He took it slow, making very certain that Painter had not put a tail on him, turning off Collins after a few blocks and winding around the palm-lined streets until he reached Sunset Drive. There was enough daylight now for him to see the house numbers, and he loitered along until he found the address the telephone operator had given him in Ben Corey’s office.
He drove past the house on the silent, deserted street, turned the corner and parked halfway down the block, got out and walked back. There was no sign of life in any of the dwellings on either side of the street, and the only sound to break the silence of dawn was a milk truck coming down the street, stopping in front of most of the houses while the driver hurried up the walk to deposit his full bottles on front porches and pick up the empties.
Shayne stopped in the deep shadows on the sidewalk opposite the big house he sought. He lit a cigarette and watched the driver stop across the street, get out and run up the walk.
Moving out of the shadows, he crossed the street to intercept the whitecoated deliveryman as he returned to the truck. His sudden and unexpected appearance startled the driver.
“What yuh wanta scare a guy like that for?” he demanded truculently. “If this is a stick-up-”
“It’s police business,” Shayne told him. “I’m interested in the house you just delivered to.”
“Police business? You don’t look like no cop to me. You tight?”
Shayne took a badge from his pocket and showed it to him. “Who lives there?”
“This house right here?” The driver scratched his head. “Bankhead. Feller by the name of Bankhead. That’s it. J. Donald Bankhead. I been deliverin’ here most a year now. What’s wrong? What you want-”
“Know anything about Bankhead?” Shayne interrupted. “What’s his business? How big a family?”
“Tell you the truth, I dunno much. You know how it is. These days a man hardly gets to know even his steady customers. I collect onct a week. Good pay. There’s a housekeeper pays off. I dunno ’bout any family. Six quarts a day regular an’ cream twict a week. Look-I got to cover my route and if I don’t get goin’ there’ll be complaints.”
Shayne said, “Go ahead. And keep your mouth buttoned up. This is a Secret Service investigation.”
“Secret Service? Jeez. Is he one of them communist spies or somethin’?”
“Something like that.” Shayne stepped back and waited until the milk truck had made one more stop, then turned the corner. When it was out of sight, he strolled forward and followed a wide gravel drive leading into a double garage about thirty feet to the right and at the rear of the house.
The double doors of the garage were padlocked. Shayne studied the locks in the reddening light of dawn, got out his keyring, and went to work on the simplest lock. It opened after a few trials, and he slid the door back enough to squeeze through. The door creaked on the metal runway, and he stepped inside the dark interior, stood there without moving for a full three minutes and listened intently.
When he heard no sound, he turned to the two cars inside the garage. On the right was a shiny Cadillac coupe. The other car was a black limousine. He struck a match to look at the license plate on the limousine, and wasn’t surprised to see a different set of numbers than those he had memorized in Mickey’s Garage. They would have been fools not to take the precaution of using stolen license plates for the job they had done the previous evening. He bent over and examined the bolts and nuts holding the plate. They were clean and not rusted, though the metal bar to which they were attached was streaked with mud.
He struck another match to examine the right front fender. It showed no sign of damage. The workmen in Mickey’s Garage knew their business.
He dropped the match on the concrete floor and stepped on it. Overhead lights flared, and an unpleasantly familiar voice said, “Looking for more trouble, shamus?”
Blackie was standing in the open portion of the doorway. He was bareheaded and his dark hair was tousled as though he had just awakened. He wore a sleeveless polo shirt, white trousers, and canvas sneakers. His bare arms were furred with thick black hair. He held a. 45 caliber revolver in his right hand and it was pointed at the exact center of Shayne’s belly.
Shayne said, “I didn’t mean to wake you up.” He stood very still beside the right front fender of the limousine.
“There’s a buzzer in my room upstairs.” Blackie scowled and took a step forward. “What you doing in here?”
“I heard you’d been trying to get in touch with me. I wasn’t sure I had the right address and was checking the car to make sure before I woke you.”
“I’ve been wanting to see you, for a fact.” Blackie’s scowl lightened, but the muzzle of his gun remained steady. “That was sort of a mistake tonight when I slugged you.”
“A bad mistake,” Shayne told him. He was relaxed, his right hand resting on the fender, inches from the automatic weighting his coat pocket.
“Yeh. No hard feelings, huh?”
“Is the bracelet for sale?”
“Look here-I didn’t say anything about a bracelet.” His scowl was replaced by a look of cunning. “You in the market for one?”
Shayne said, “I could be.” He kept his voice pleasant, and moved forward between the two cars toward Blackie. “That’s what you wanted to see me about, wasn’t it?”
“Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t. How’d you know to come snooping here?”
“Followed my nose.” Shayne was close to him now, ten feet away. The barrel of the. 45 was wavering. “You don’t have to keep that thing pointed at me. I don’t talk business over a gun barrel.”
Blackie looked down at the heavy weapon as though surprised to see it in his hand. Shayne’s thumbs were hooked inside his coat pockets. “I don’t figure you,” Blackie said in a worried tone. “If I’d got slugged like you did-”
“I never let a slugging interfere with profits.” Shayne was closer now. Six feet away. “Why did the Rajah change his mind about the bracelet after it was offered to him?”
Blackie looked up, surprised. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered. “I think you better go in the house-”
“Let’s settle this right here. Just between you and me.” Shayne’s right hand crept deeper into his pocket. He stood poised on the balls of his feet. He asked, “Why did you have to kill Mrs. Dustin?”
The. 45 was a double-action, uncocked, but Blackie’s forefinger was tight on the trigger. At Shayne’s words, he swung it up with an oath, but the detective leaped forward and closed his big hand over the top of the firing-chamber as the hammer came back. It snapped forward harmlessly on the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger at the same instant his right hand came out of his pocket and described a sweeping arc upward.