“It was a good hunch, but no soap.” He told Rourke of his hurried trip to the morgue.
Rourke got up and said, “I’ll get over to the office and write this story. I’ll check on Lucile as soon as the agencies are open and let you know.”
Shayne went to the door with him. “I may not be around when this case starts to break. The boy at the desk will take any messages.”
He watched Rourke disappear down the hall, then closed the door and went back into the room. He methodically cleared up the disorder left in the wake of Marlow’s attack on the reporter and sat down by the center table with three objects laid out before him. They constituted the only actual clues he had in the case.
The small beaded bag found gripped in Helen Stallings’s hand, her wedding certificate, the water tumbler on which he had taken an impression of her fingerprints before definitely identifying the body.
Shayne sighed and pushed the glass aside. It had no bearing now. After a moment’s hesitation he also pushed the bag back. They had been important only when he was seeking to identify the corpse.
The wedding certificate was all that was left and it told its own story. He lit a cigarette and sat staring somberly at the embossed document which spoke of youthful passion, young love impatient of the restrictions set forth in a will executed by a father who sought to rule his daughter after death. Wealthy men often made that fatal mistake — and tragedy so often followed.
Wills like that of Mr. Devalon made work for private detectives, Shayne mused while a cynical glint shone in his gray eyes. He should be the last person to condemn the practice. He was still staring at the wedding certificate when sunlight slanted into the corner apartment. He roused himself with a tired oath and went to the east window to turn back the draperies and open it wide. Beyond the palms fringing Bayfront Park the shimmering surface of Biscayne Bay lay redly gold in the morning sunlight.
Householders would be stirring throughout the city, yawning and stretching, turning off insistent alarm clocks and slipping into robes to go out and bring in the morning paper.
A man would stop on his doorstep and blink stupidly at the still form of a young girl lying on his lawn. Perhaps he would go tentatively forward for a terrified look at the body and sprint wildly back into the house to convey the news of his appalling discovery to the police.
Shayne’s belly muscles tightened.
A stone cast upon the serene surface of a new day, and from the impact ever-widening ripples would spread swiftly to rock the foundations of various human lives. There was a feeling of tensity in the clean air of the new morning, as though it held its breath expectantly, waiting for the discovery which would set inexorable forces in motion.
Shayne turned from the window and went to the telephone. He called the telegraph office and directed a message to his wife on her train speeding northward. It read simply,
Everything under control at this end but I am like a rudderless ship without you. May be detained here another day. I love you. Mike.
He then called a rental agency and ordered a car sent around.
He broke that connection and called the Burt Stallings home on Swordfish Island. Mrs. Briggs’s militant voice answered the ring. He put his lips close to the mouthpiece and in a disguised voice said, “Federal bureau for the prevention of the spread of contagious diseases calling. We are conducting a statistical survey in this area and we have information concerning an unreported case of contagion at this address. We are sending an inspector out to investigate. We expect your full co-operation.”
“There’s some mistake,” Mrs. Briggs protested. “There is no case of contagious disease here.”
“We have to check up on all reports,” Shayne told her sternly. “However, if you’ll give me the name of the attending physician we might take the matter up with him directly.”
“I’m sure Doctor Patterson will give you all the information you require.” Mrs. Briggs’s sigh of relief was transmitted over the wire. “Doctor R. Lloyd Patterson of Miami Beach has been seeing Mrs. Stallings every day and I’m quite sure—”
“Thank you. It’s possible there has been some mistake.” Shayne hung up and looked in the telephone book for Patterson, R. Lloyd. He found two Miami Beach numbers listed under the doctor’s name. One said Sanitarium and the other Res. He tried the residence number first. After the phone had rung for a long time a feminine Swedish accent answered. Shayne asked for Dr. Patterson.
“The doctor is at the sanitarium and isn’t expected in this morning.”
“He gets out mighty early,” Shayne growled.
“He sleeps at the sanitarium mostly. The number is—”
“I know,” Shayne cut in. “I’ll call him there.”
He disconnected the residence number and called the sanitarium. A crisp voice told him that Dr. Patterson was asleep and offered him an appointment at eight o’clock. Shayne thanked her and went into the bathroom, took a long time shaving around the bruised place on his face, then took a stinging cold shower.
Downstairs in the lobby he spoke to the clerk. “I’m going out on business. I imagine there’ll be some cops dropping around after a while, and I won’t be coming back. Don’t tell them that. Ask them to wait for me.”
“Sure, I get it,” the clerk answered in a conspiratorial tone.
“And take any telephone messages that come in for me,” Shayne went on. “Don’t hand out any information to the cops. I’ll call in for any messages, and keep that under your hat, too.”
“You bet I will, Mr. Shayne. Say, there’s a car waiting for you outside. A rental agency said you ordered it.”
“That’s right. I wrapped the old car around a lamppost last night.” He nodded to the clerk and strolled out.
The rented automobile was a medium-priced coupé. He got in and drove out Biscayne Boulevard to an all-night restaurant where he stopped for a hearty breakfast and glanced over the morning Herald.
The finding of a girl’s nude corpse floating in the bay made the headline. The body had been discovered by two lads in a rowboat, and there was no clue to her identity. Police thought she had been dead for a couple of hours before her body was found.
The writer of the front-page item had ingeniously made up for the lack of facts concerning the crime by the use of inflammatory conjecture coupled with a glowing and adjective-laden description of her nude body and hints that the police expected important developments momentarily.
The story of Shayne’s automobile wreck was a four-line paragraph, the last of a dozen accidents reported during the night. It contained a brief statement that the hit-and-run driver had not been apprehended as the Herald went to press but that garages were being checked for a black limousine with a dented fender and radiator grill.
Shayne laid the paper aside and finished his breakfast. It was seven-thirty when he left the restaurant and started across the causeway to Miami Beach. Rourke’s extra of the finding of Helen Stallings’s body was not yet on the streets. Either the people in that part of town were late risers or strangely unobservant.
He would not let himself consider the unpleasant alternative that the body had been moved in the meantime. Even though this would take the pressure off him for a few hours, he had a feeling that he would start talking to himself if the body disappeared again. After all, there was little enough that one could bite into on this case, and access to the girl’s body was one of them. Without this evidence of a crime actually committed, Shayne decided he might as well grab a plane to New York and let the whole mess take care of itself.