Shayne’s wide mouth spread in a slow grin. “I always did like to solve a case the hard way. How about doing something for me, Will?”
“How about you doing something for me first,” Gentry parried.
“Have I ever refused?”
“Frankly,” said Gentry with a slow smile, “yes. I can think of at least half a dozen times offhand when you refused.”
“Only when I was over a barrel on something,” Shayne disclaimed hastily. “What do you want?”
“How did you know Skid was dead when you phoned me? And the dope on the taxi driver who had picked Devlin up outside?”
Shayne was silent for a moment. “Do you really want me to tell you?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because,” said Shayne wearily, “if I tell you the truth you’ll have to hold me on a charge of withholding vital information in a homicide case.” His hard gaze locked with Gentry’s through a cloud of intermingling cigarette and cigar smoke. “Then I wouldn’t be able to go up against Bert Masters and maybe show Peter Painter up for the part he played in covering up for Masters.”
“On the other hand,” said Gentry mildly, “I might keep you out of one hell of a mess of trouble by locking you up before you get to Masters.”
“Yeh. There’s that, too,” Shayne conceded ruefully.
Gentry hesitated, drumming his square finger tips on the desk. “I wouldn’t want Devlin to get away from me, Mike.”
“I wouldn’t want that either.”
“Painter is needling me pretty badly, as it is.”
Shayne grinned again. “You’ve never let Painter worry you very much.” He got up decisively as though to indicate that phase of the discussion was ended. “Now the thing you can do for me is this,” he said conversationally, picking up the bundle of clothing and placing it on the chief’s desk. “Here is everything Devlin was wearing when he came to in that room on Palmleaf Avenue.”
He unwrapped the bundle and spread the clothing out under Gentry’s gaze. “I wish you’d have your chemist go over it. The works. I don’t know what I expect him to turn up, but I’m hoping for a miracle. Maybe proof that Devlin has worn these same clothes previously — which would make him a liar. Or some dope on whoever has worn them previously — for it’s obvious they’re all a lot more than two weeks old. Get the blood type and so on. Try the hat particularly, Will. You know, by analyzing the sweat secretions. If your boys can come up with a physical description or name of the former owner, so much the better,” he ended optimistically.
“Can do.” Gentry stabbed the smoldering end of his cigar at the pile of clothing. “This wasn’t in Devlin’s apartment when we went through it.”
“Wasn’t it?” asked Shayne innocently. “One other little thing, Will. A matter of ninety-nine hundred bucks.” He dug into the clothing and brought out the roll of bills still held together with the same rubber band Devlin had found around them.
“You might take charge of these for the time being. They’re old bills — all hundreds — and if you can tell me where Skid got hold of them and why he took them to Palmleaf Avenue last night we might be on our way toward a lot of answers.”
“A payoff of some sort,” Gentry growled. “Maybe this Marge was putting the hooks to Skid and sent Devlin to make a collection — with a blackjack.”
“Maybe,” Shayne agreed. “But Skid Munroe isn’t the sort of lad to be carrying that sort of dough. It’s my guess he was in the middle on some deal.”
“Dope,” said Gentry. “We know he’s been peddling the stuff recently.”
“That’s probably the answer,” Shayne said without enthusiasm. “Well, that’s the size of it.”
“Where’ll you be if I need you, Mike?”
“On the Beach.” Shayne touched the lump on his face.
Gentry said solemnly, “Better be ready to turn the other cheek, Mike, if you insist on barging into Painter’s territory.”
“Yeh,” growled Shayne, “I’ll do that, Will,” and went out to his parked car.
Chapter twelve
No suicide note
Shayne’s next stop was in front of the Miami News Building on Biscayne Boulevard. He went up to the morgue and checked back through the files to the story of Lily Masters’s death. There were front-page headlines, a picture of the deceased and her husband standing together in an affectionate embrace, a picture of the maid who had summoned help after finding her mistress’s door bolted on the inside that fateful morning, and one of Bert Masters’s confidential secretary who had responded by breaking down the bedroom door and entering the room to find Mrs. Masters lying dead in her bed.
Shayne studied the three pictures carefully before reading the story. Knowing Masters, Shayne was positive the picture of the couple had been taken years before her death. They had evidently been in love with each other at the time. Lily Masters looked delicate, almost ethereal, with enormous eyes, turned-up nose and short upper lip, and a weak chin. Even at that age the fragile beauty of her features held a suggestion of petulance, a hint of childishness which had developed in later years into the hypochondria that Doctor Thompson had mentioned.
He passed over the likeness of the stout, dull-eyed maid, but the picture of Roger Morgan held Shayne’s interest for several moments. His was a broad, arrogant face, and Shayne wondered how a man like that had managed to hold his position as confidential secretary to Masters for so many years. Knowing Masters’s reputation as a domineering bully, it seemed reasonable to expect his secretary to be a weak-kneed yes-man, a sycophant.
Roger Morgan was certainly neither of these, judging from his looks and from Arthur Devlin’s own description of him. He wore rimless nose-glasses which gave a scholarly appearance to his blunt features. Even with the photographic handicap of the glasses his eyes were piercing and shrewd and fearless.
Here were two of the men who had attended Arthur Devlin’s farewell party, Shayne recalled as he studied the two faces, and he had an uneasy feeling of being on the verge of some important discovery. There was something queer about the set-up, he thought. It simply didn’t add up right. Now, if their roles were reversed—
He shrugged his wide shoulders and dismissed the thought, turned to the story of Lily Masters’s death, and skimmed through it swiftly.
She had her own suite in the seventeen-room Beach mansion, and had retired early the preceding night apparently in good spirits and giving no hint to anyone that she intended taking her own life during the night. Yet the evidence pointing to suicide appeared irrefutable.
The two doors entering her suite, one of which led into her husband’s bedroom, were found barred on the inside the next morning. The windows were of steel sash with built-in screens, making it impossible for anyone to enter without leaving incriminating evidence. She had visited Doctor Myron Spencer that afternoon and received from him a prescription for two dozen sleeping-capsules, a prescription which she was in the habit of having filled every thirty or forty days. The bottle was empty when Roger Morgan found her. There had been no autopsy, but Doctor Spencer had been called immediately, and stated that certain tests proved conclusively that she had swallowed the entire two dozen tablets shortly before midnight, an hour after retiring to her room.
The doctor stated further that since the contents of the capsules were extremely bitter it would have been impossible for anyone to have given her an overdose in any liquid without the drug being detected by her. He stated flatly that suicide was the only possible answer, and his professional standing was such that his statement was not seriously questioned by the authorities.