In a small anteroom Painter explained the official nature of their call to a man wearing a frock coat and an air of deep melancholy.
“Here comes our man from Miami,” Painter ended, after glancing out the door. “We’ll all go in together.”
“The young lady, of course, is not — ah, they’re not quite through with her back there.” He inclined his head lugubriously toward the rear.
“That’s all right,” Painter said impatiently. “Better see her natural this way, before you birds get her all prettied up past recognition.”
A member of the Miami detective force entered the anteroom leading Whit Marlow by the arm. The young saxophone player’s face was ashen, his eyes looked sick. He glanced at Shayne, Rourke, and the others without recognition. Painter faced him and asked, “Marlow?”
“Yes. What’s this all about?” Marlow jerked his head up with a show of spirit.
“Are you the legal husband of a young lady generally known as Helen Stallings? Helen Devalon before her name was changed to Stallings?”
Marlow’s ashen features twitched. He started a denial, then his shoulders drooped dispiritedly. “All right. So it isn’t a secret any longer. But we had a right to get married. Suppose she does lose the money? Where’s Helen? That’s all I want to know. Where is she?”
Painter turned and nodded to the mortician. He led them back through the chapel to a tiled workroom that stank with the heavy odor of embalming fluids. Stallings dropped behind the Miami detective and Marlow. Rourke and Shayne came next, followed by the two Miami Beach officers.
The mortuary attendant whispered something in the ear of a tall man wearing white duck pants and a surgeon’s jacket.
Whit Marlow’s breath was coming jerkily between set teeth as his befuddled senses slowly began to catch the sinister meaning of the questions which had been thrown at him and this trip to the rear of the mortuary. An agonized look came into his young eyes and he trembled violently. The husky Miami detective supported his slight figure with a heavy arm.
The mortician went to a huge porcelain cabinet with a tier of long drawers. He touched the handle of one drawer and it slid out smoothly on oiled rollers. “We haven’t got started on her yet,” he said apologetically.
Painter stood back with a wave of his hand toward Marlow. “Do you know this woman?”
The young husband swayed forward, white-faced and shaken. He peered over the edge of the porcelain drawer and drew back with a tortured sob. “Helen! Oh, God! Helen!”
Painter and Stallings both nodded sagely and turned to Shayne, but Shayne disregarded them. He stepped forward angrily, grabbing Whit Marlow’s arm.
“Don’t be a fool,” he grated. “Take a good look at that girl’s face. Don’t let your imagination run away with you. You were convinced it was Helen before you looked. Look again.”
Stallings protested. “See here, now, you’re trying to influence him. Painter—”
Marlow shuddered, then gathering strength from Shayne’s assured words he steeled himself for a long and searching look at the waxen face of the corpse.
After a full minute he turned wildly upon Shayne. “What kind of games are you playing? Of course that’s Helen. Do you think I could be mistaken? She’s my wife. Do you hear? My wife.” He staggered back, pressing his hands against his eyeballs. The Miami officer caught him as he started to fall.
Shayne stood very still. An expression of utter disbelief contorted his gaunt features. Faintly, he heard Painter saying, “Very well. That settles it as far as I’m concerned, Mr. Stallings. Sorry to have caused you this trouble, but he won’t make any more after he’s locked up.”
Shayne whirled to see Painter and Stallings in a huddle with Rourke. The Miami Beach detectives were standing close to them, listening intently to the conversation.
Turning slowly, Shayne’s big feet glided toward an open window and stepped noiselessly to the mortuary grounds.
FOURTEEN
SHAYNE HIT THE THICK GREEN TURF, swerved sharply around a corner of the building as two shots blasted through the window. He zigzagged through clumps of shrubbery to a quiet side street, heard shouts and the sound of racing motors behind him.
A department store delivery truck was parked on the street with the back doors swinging open. Shayne sprinted toward it, saw the driver with a bundle in his hand ringing the doorbell of a house.
He stuck his head and shoulders inside the back of the truck, eased the doors forward to cover a part of his body. Leaning far inside with his rear end and long legs fully visible, he pretended to grope for a bundle.
He heard one car, then another race past him. Footsteps coming down the walk betokened the return of the driver. At the same time he heard Peter Painter cursing and panting behind him as he trotted to the sidewalk.
Shayne put his palms on the floor of the truck and lifted his body inside, crouched there in the semidarkness while the driver sauntered to the back and latched the swinging doors, then got under the wheel and the truck started forward with a lurch. It careened around the next corner and went west two blocks, stopped to make another delivery.
Shayne held himself as inconspicuously as possible against the front end while the driver swung from the seat and went to the back for another package. Luckily, he was a methodical sort and had his bundles placed in order for delivery. He reached in and took one out without looking toward the front.
When he left to make the delivery, Shayne eased the rear doors shut, went to the front of the truck and slid over the back of the seat under the wheel. The motor was purring softly. He started the vehicle and drove away at high speed with the driver’s shouts echoing through the street.
He drove on recklessly toward the bay shore, though he knew it would be insanity to attempt to cross either causeway to the mainland now. Painter wouldn’t lose any time throwing barricades across the only exits from Miami Beach, and the truck driver, too, would have officers searching for the stolen vehicle.
He stopped a few blocks from the east shore of Biscayne Bay and continued on foot, reaching the bay approximately halfway between the County and Venetian causeways, an area dotted with fishing-wharves and boathouses.
Strolling along the beach past picnicking parties and the swankier docks with their trim fishing-craft for hire, he came at last to an isolated and dilapidated wharf which was deserted except for a single Negro fisherman who was preparing to embark in a small rowboat tied to the end of the pier. The Negro was gnarled and old, wearing a battered straw hat and a dirty pair of too-large overalls.
Shayne strolled out to the end of the pier and looked down at the little boat with its cane pole and tin can filled with bait.
“I reckon,” drawled Shayne, “you-all’re goin’ fishin’.”
“Yassuh. Nothin’ else but.” The Negro flashed yellowed teeth at him as he stepped down into the rocking boat.
“I betcha catch mo’ fish with that outfit than a man can get goin’ out on one of them doggone fancy fishin’ boats,” Shayne said cheerfully.
The Negro chuckled. “Yassuh, boss. I kin fo’ a fac’. White fo’ks messes up dey fishin’ wid too much fancy trappin’s.”
“I’d give fifty dollahs to be in yo’ shoes right now,” Shayne said wishfully. “Ain’t had me no decent fishin’ since I left Geo’gia wheah a man can lay on his back an’ jerk out catfish when he’s a mind to pull ’em in.”
“Lawsy, man, you could sho’ nuff be in mah shoes fo’ less’n fifty dollahs.” The old Negro’s mouth spread in a happy smile. “This yere ol’ boat an’ all mah truck ain’ wuth mo’n fo’ty.”