A door opened down the hall and a group of laughing people stepped out and came toward them. Shayne kicked his door open, thrust the girl inside his office, and slammed it shut. He was breathing heavily and sweat stood on his corrugated brow. Still holding the girl on her feet by a firm grip on her shoulder, he groped with his free hand for the half-filled glass of ice water, dashed it into her face.
The shock brought a momentary gleam of perception to her greenish eyes. She put a wondering hand to her slapped cheek where the marks were faintly tinged with pink.
“It’s—’bout — Burt Stallings,” she whispered. “He’s — I got something that — knock — props — out—” Gray lids closed involuntarily over eyes which had gone vacant and lifeless again. Her jaw worked convulsively and sagged open. She fell face forward on the carpet without putting out her hands to break the force of her fall.
Shayne swore and hurriedly kneeled beside her. He turned her over and pulled an eyelid back. She had gone out like a candle in a tropical hurricane.
Picking her up, he carried her into the small bedroom, dumped her onto the unused bed, and stood back for a moment staring down at her face. A Mickey Finn, he guessed. Perhaps a couple of them. There was no use hoping for an explanation until she slept it off.
He was turning away when he heard a hesitant rap on the outer door and Phyllis’s clear young voice calling, “Mike, may I come in?”
He reached the bedroom door in three long strides, went through, and closed it softly behind him. “Sure, Phyl,” he called cheerfully. “I was just coming.”
Phyllis entered and glanced around the office, then lifted dark, surprised eyes to his when she saw him alone. “Oh, there’s no one here. I thought perhaps—”
“My client just left.” Shayne grinned reassuringly. He saw her looking at the water glass and the wet splotch on the carpet near the desk. “The guy was drunk,” he explained hastily. “Knocked over my chaser as he was leaving.”
“Oh.” Anxiety gathered in her eyes as she watched him pick up the glass and remnants of ice cubes from the rug. “You took so long,” she said, “and the train leaves in twenty minutes.”
Shayne took the bottle of cognac from the desk and carried it to the wall cabinet. With his back turned toward her, he took a long time adjusting the bottle in the proper niche, then turned slowly, went to her, and put both hands on her shoulders. Looking into her upturned face he said, “As a matter of fact, angel, I can’t go with you. You’ll have to catch the train alone. Something has come up—” His gray eyes were bleak and there were deep hollows in his gaunt cheeks.
“Oh, no!” Tears covered her eyes and choked her voice. She clung to him, crying passionately, “I knew it would be like this. Why does our trip have to be spoiled?”
“God knows, I’m sorry, Phyl.” He held her tight against him, pressed his cheek against her smooth black hair while he spoke rapidly and persuasively. “It’ll only be for a couple of days. You go on. I should have known I couldn’t get away before election. Marsh is up against something that means defeat if I don’t pull him out.”
“Does the election matter so much?” Phyllis sobbed. “Suppose Marsh is defeated?”
Shayne made a wry face over her head. “If he’s defeated it means I’m through in Miami, Phyl. I’ve backed him publicly. Everybody realizes it’s a fight between Painter and me. If I let Marsh go under, it’ll be the end of a lot of things.”
Phyllis stiffened in his arms and lifted a tear-wet face to him. “Then I’ll stay, too. You can cancel the reservations.”
Shayne shook his head. “You’ll help more by going on. It’s going to be dirty below-the-belt fighting for the next two days. You’d only be in the way.”
She studied his face for a long moment, saw the grim look of determination she knew so well. She sighed and relaxed against him, knowing that this was something apart from their lives together, something she could never share with him, a part of Michael Shayne which he would not relinquish to marriage. She had secretly known it would be like this when she stubbornly pursued him and forced herself into his life.
Her eyes cleared and she stood on tiptoe to kiss him. She said, “We’d better get started. We haven’t much time.”
“You’re a nice person, angel,” he said gravely.
Phyllis laughed. That was the compliment she liked best from her husband. She checked the time on her tiny wrist watch and exclaimed, “Gracious! I’ve got to hurry. I came down here to get my gray hat, Mike. I can’t find it anywhere upstairs and thought I might have left it here.” She started for the bedroom.
Shayne’s nostrils flared with a sharp intake of breath. He was stricken with panic as she moved toward the bedroom door.
“Wait — Phyl!”
She half turned, poised to go on. “What?”
“That gray traveling-hat? You mean the dinky one with a bow on the side? The one that makes you look like a demure imp about to sprout wings?”
“That’s the one. It must be down here.”
“I know right where it is,” he lied hastily. “It’s way back on the shelf in the big closet upstairs.”
Phyllis’s eyes clouded with concentration. “I felt on that shelf and couldn’t find it. I’ll just take a peek in the bedroom to be sure.”
“Good Lord, Phyl, you’ll miss the train.” Sweat streamed from his face. He caught her when she was two feet from the bedroom door and urged her toward the outer door. “Come on — I’ll get that hat for you. I can see on that shelf.”
Phyllis’s reluctant feet stopped suddenly and she pulled back. “Why didn’t you want me to go in that room?”
He lifted her through the door and slammed it shut. Outside, he said, “If you must know, I had to put my client to bed. He passed out completely and I’m holding him until he comes to and spills his information. It’s important.”
“In that case, I might as well have looked for my hat,” she argued as his arm lifted her up the stairs. “It’s the one I wear with this suit.”
“You’ve six minutes to catch the train,” he reminded her when they entered the living-room. Shayne strode to the bedroom closet and returned triumphantly bearing the gray hat. Tossing it to her with a command to put it on in a hurry, he swept up the bags and preceded her to the waiting car.
Taking a back-street route to the station, Shayne sat moodily beside her. Presently he said, “This is the first time for us to be separated, angel.” He frowned, recalling many hilarious jokes about husbands getting rid of their wives and wondered if the time would come when he would feel that way.
“You’re to take the first train to New York when the election is over,” she said flatly. “If you don’t, I’ll take the first one out of New York.”
Shayne grinned widely and stepped on the accelerator. The train was ready to pull out when he rushed her up the steps and kissed her good-by. Stepping back on the cinder path he watched the long train roll slowly northward while a strange admixture of relief and desolation roiled through him.
He stood there for several minutes, until the train vanished from sight and the whistle sounded for a distant crossing. Unconsciously, the problem of the drugged girl in his office bedroom was a depressing one, while consciously he meditated on the ease with which a man succumbs to pleasant habits. A little more than a year ago he had not known that Phyllis existed, and now he was wholly dejected without her. The way he had rushed her off, one would think he was glad to be rid of her.
During his bachelor years he had taken his women in his stride. They had been a part of the bold, rough life he led. Was it possible that he was the victim of a subconscious urge which he wouldn’t even admit to himself, in spite of a year of marriage to a girl like Phyllis? He didn’t honestly think so. Yet, what man ever really knows his inward motivations?