Marge made a sudden move and her forehead struck the tender, bruised spot above his ear. Pain stabbed sharply through him like a flame, jerking him back to frightening reality and dispelling the passion that threatened to consume him.
He sat very still until the throbbing in his temple subsided. Wary and alert now, he resumed his probing thoughts, easing his head downward again to rest against her hair. She was quiet, the tension gone from her body.
Devlin’s thoughts raced on. Marge had said that Joey Jerome was her husband — or pretending to be. Or was she pretending — and why? She had said that he had been sleeping on the couch.
Yet he had radioed Tommy from aboard the Belle of the Caribbean. And the letter from Janet said he had met her aboard the ship as Arthur Devlin and reassured her about her sister’s death. If he had done all that—
But no! Tommy had explained that he could not have continued long in a state of amnesia on board the boat using his own name. Or, if that could have happened, why hadn’t he gone right on being Arthur Devlin if he had jumped ship in Havana and returned to Miami and gotten mixed up with Marge in a murder plot?
No. The man who sailed on the Belle had been someone else — an impostor and a shrewd one. Shrewd enough to pass himself off as Arthur Devlin to Janet who had never met him, and by cleverly drawing her out had kept up the pretense. Just as he was now trying to draw Marge out.
He started all over again, trying to straighten out the possibilities and look at them objectively. Suppose there had been an accident that night after he left Bert Masters’s party and before he went aboard the Belle. Suppose all his clothing and identification had been stolen. Suppose he had awakened in a stupor — in a dead blank — with no memory whatever of the past.
Suppose, then, he had chosen the name of Joe Jerome for some silly reason and met Marge and married her. That would add up. Though he didn’t suppose they were legally married. He tried to recall exactly what she had said a few minutes ago. “Let’s don’t make up the couch out here for you tonight, Joey. You’re okay now. We don’t have to keep that up any more. Do we, Joey?”
That was the only logical explanation. Amnesia was a form of sickness. He had been sick when they were married. So Marge had been making up the couch for him to sleep on and she had occupied the bedroom. But tonight he had murdered a man at her behest, so she thought him strong enough to sleep in the room with her.
He caught her by the shoulders and held her away from him. The pinpoints of light glittered in her smoky eyes. He couldn’t stay here. They were not legally married. Of that he was certain. He was a murderer and she was his accessory before the fact. It was all a horrible farce and he would be eternally damned forever and ever if he stayed a moment longer.
He heaved himself up, her arms clinging around him. He pulled them loose and flung her back on the couch. She lay with heaving breasts and ludicrously frightened eyes.
“I’ve got to get out,” Devlin told her thickly. “I meant to tell you when I came in, but I forgot about it. I think I was followed here. I’m not sure, but I’m afraid I was.”
“Followed here? You mean—?”
“I mean if I stay here they may search the place and then they’ll arrest you, too. You see,” he went on swiftly, striking out in the dark, but shrewdly taking his cue from her own words, “even though there’s no connection between Skid Munroe and me, they’ll soon find out that you knew him. Then — if they did trail me here—” He flung out his hand nervously. “So I’ll be going along,” he ended flatly and turned to pick up his hat from the floor near the door.
Marge lay on the couch staring at him from between fiercely drawn brows. She looked like a discarded doll, and she did not speak until Devlin had his hand on the knob. Then she didn’t move. She asked wearily, “What are you going to do, Joey? When’ll you be back?”
“I don’t know,” he told her truthfully. “Not until I’m sure it’s safe.”
He opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, and there was a stifled moan in the room as he pulled the door shut.
Chapter six
“Murder is my business.”
Michael Shayne was sound asleep. He roused when his phone rang in the outer room. He grunted and turned over on the second ring. On the fourth ring he swore under his breath and sat up. He had had an arrangement for several years with the night man on the switchboard in the apartment hotel. Three rings if the matter appeared to be trivial — a continuous assault on his eardrums if the night clerk deemed it important enough to waken him no matter how soundly he slept.
On the tenth ring Shayne yawned widely, switched on the light on his bedside table, and looked at his watch — 4:20 a.m. Not yet daylight, though there was a faint hint of dawn outside the bedroom window.
He lit a cigarette, and on the twelfth ring swung his long legs over the side of the bed and stood up, a bigboned, gaunt-faced man in tan cotton pajamas. He ran knobby fingers through his bristly red hair as he strode into the room which he maintained as an office and picked up the receiver.
The night clerk’s voice came immediately over the wire. “Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Shayne, but there’s a man here says he’s a friend of yours — in trouble.”
“What’s his name?”
“He doesn’t want to give me his name. You’d better talk to him, I reckon, Mr. Shayne. He’s got the look of a man in real trouble, I’d say.”
Shayne said, “All right, Ellis,” resignedly. “Put him on.” He puffed drowsily on his cigarette and waited.
“Michael Shayne? This is Arthur Devlin. I don’t know whether you remember me—”
“Devlin?” Shayne interrupted. “Insurance. Yeh. That Moody thing a couple of years ago. What’s the trouble this time?”
“It’s a personal matter. May I see you now?”
“Come on up.” He gave Devlin his apartment number and hung up, turned away tugging thoughtfully at his left earlobe. He remembered Arthur Devlin. During the Moody case he had judged him to be a clean-cut young fellow and a competent insurance adjuster. He had been very helpful on the case.
Shayne padded in bare feet to the front door and opened it wide, turned on the ceiling light on his way back to the bedroom to get a robe.
Devlin was standing in the doorway when he returned, the too-big felt hat pulled well down over his eyes. He stepped forward quickly, forcing a smile that quirked one side of his mouth upward. “I didn’t know where else to go, Shayne,” he said. “I didn’t know anyone else who might listen to me. I’m — afraid I killed a man last night.” Shayne’s gray eyes showed nothing of the shock he felt. He took Devlin’s outstretched hand in a firm clasp, keenly searching his face and noting the signs of near-hysteria in his whole expression. He said, “Murder is my business, Devlin. Have a seat.” He indicated a chair and pulled one up for himself.
“I didn’t want to disturb you at this hour of the morning,” Devlin began apologetically, “but—”
“Let’s have it,” Shayne interrupted. “What do you mean by saying you’re afraid you killed a man last night?”
“That’s it exactly.” Devlin’s voice was husky. He took off the felt hat and leaned forward to show Shayne the lump on his head. “I came to a little after midnight with this.” He touched the swelling gently. “I was alone in a furnished room with a dead man…”