He didn’t have time to worry about the money now. He pushed it down under the neatly folded clothing out of sight, then pawed through Dawson’s belongings to find something he could put on without making it too apparent that the clothing was not his own.
The dough-faced man was a lot shorter than Shayne, and heavy around the waistline. The detective found a short-sleeved sports shirt that could remain open at the neck, with a short tail designed to hang outside the trousers. He pulled that on over his naked torso, selected a pair of light flannel trousers and stepped into them. Without a belt, they slid down on his hips so that the cuffs were low enough not to be conspicuous, and the sports shirt hid the fact that they weren’t up around his waist.
He knew that shoes would be hopeless, but was lucky enough to discover a pair of heelless beach sandals which clung to his toes and stayed on, though his heels extended a couple of inches beyond the soles.
Attired in this manner, he opened the bathroom door and scuffed out in time to see Henry back out of the bedroom. The night clerk’s face was white and he was wiping it with a handkerchief.
He said to Painter, “That’s Mr. Slocum. I certainly didn’t know he had come back to spend the night when I let Mr. Shayne come up, or I wouldn’t-”
“Or you wouldn’t have let Shayne come up to murder him,” Painter snapped.
“I didn’t mean that at all.” Henry glanced at Shayne. His answer to Peter Painter was voiced in a tone of hopelessness, but the sight of his friend gave him courage. He spoke out boldly when he said, “I’m positive Mr. Shayne didn’t do it. A burglar must have broken in, though I don’t see how.” He became the prim and efficient little man Shayne had known for many years. He examined the windows and the door to the fire escape outside the kitchenette, then came back to stand unobtrusively near the bathroom door.
Timothy Rourke was sitting at one end of the couch on the other side of the room, nursing the cognac bottle between his thin knees. He cocked his head and leered as Shayne came over to him.
“That’s a new outfit isn’t it, Mike? You know, I think I like it on you. Gives you a certain flair.”
Shayne said softly, “Shut up, you fool,” as he sank down beside the reporter. He took the bottle from Rourke, tilted it to his mouth and drank deeply just as the front door opened to admit Chief Will Gentry and members of the Miami homicide squad.
Gentry was a big, slow-moving man with a florid and honest face lined with worry. He looked at the two men sitting on the couch, then advanced stolidly, chewing on the soggy butt of a cigar and pushing his hat back from his perspiring forehead.
Shayne said, “Make yourself at home, Will. I’m holding open house, as usual.”
“With a corpse in his bedroom, as usual,” snapped Painter. “This way, men,” he told Gentry’s squad of experts.
Gentry didn’t look toward his fellow official from the Beach. He thrust his hands deep in his pockets and said to Shayne, “I thought you were on a plane and halfway to New Orleans by now.”
“That’s what he wanted us to think,” Painter said, strutting back from the bedroom door after Gentry’s men had entered. “I told you I smelled something rotten about that fast take-off. He quit the plane at Palm Beach, hurried back here and bludgeoned a man to death.”
There was a thick silence in the room. Timothy Rourke’s voice broke it when he said quietly, “Last time I heard it, Painter, you had Mike mixed up in a kidnap killing.”
“Keep out of this,” Painter barked. “Shayne’s mixed up in that, too. I’m sure of it. But he hasn’t got an alibi for this one.” He jerked a forefinger toward the bedroom.
“What did Henry tell you?” Shayne demanded.
“Him?” Painter looked scornfully at the night clerk. “He’d lie for you any day.”
“Suppose someone tells me what this is all about,” Will Gentry rumbled mildly. “Who’s the stiff this time, anybody here know?”
Peter Painter pounced upon the question and said, “The night clerk here says it’s a man who rented this apartment this afternoon. He gave the name of Leonard Slocum-from Mobile. The clerk didn’t think he’d moved in yet, so he let Shayne in with a passkey to bathe and change clothes-according to his story.”
“What time?” Shayne asked quietly.
“He says it wasn’t more than fifteen minutes ago at the time I questioned him,” Painter admitted. “But-”
“You can check with Joe, the elevator boy,” said Shayne.
“I will. Perhaps it was just fifteen minutes, or they may both be lying. Here’s the way I see it, Will,” Painter went on pompously, turning his back on Shayne and Rourke. “Whoever killed that man must have gotten spattered with blood. What do you think we found Shayne doing when we came in here?”
“Taking a drink,” Gentry grunted sourly.
“He was stark naked and drying himself after a shower. Now, Henry admits he came into the lobby in his stocking feet and wearing a pair of coveralls. I’ve checked carefully and discovered that’s all he was wearing.” Painter pointed to the coveralls and socks still lying in the center of the floor. “Now, I ask you, why would a man dressed only in a pair of coveralls enter a sleeping man’s apartment at three in the morning?”
“You tell me,” Gentry said.
“A man like Shayne, remember. A man who has had a lot of close contact with murder and knows it’s likely to be a messy business. I’ll tell you why. Because coveralls are a one-piece garment that can be stepped out of in a moment. Not even any underwear, you understand. Does he mind a little blood from his victim? Why should he? He’s naked. It’ll wash off in the shower.”
“Astounding,” murmured Timothy Rourke, reaching over to pluck the bottle out of Shayne’s hands. “There you have it, Will. Premeditation and motive and everything. This guy had rented this apartment right out from under him. So, Mike strips to the skin and slips on a pair of coveralls-Oh, my sainted grandmother! Sometimes you make me so sick I need a drink, Petey.” He took a long one.
“I told you to keep out of this,” Painter said angrily, half turning to glare at Rourke. “We’ll find a motive, all right,” he continued tenaciously. “It’s quite evident that Shayne used the ticket to New Orleans as a ruse to fix up an alibi for slipping back and murdering Slocum. Why else did he jump the plane and rush back here?”
“Suppose you tell us, Mike.” Gentry removed the sodden cigar stub from his full lips, contemplated the full inch of dead ashes at one end of it, and laid it on an ash tray. When Shayne hesitated, Gentry looked at him solemnly from under the crinkled folds of his lids.
Shayne gestured impatiently. “There’s no mystery about it. You know all about the Belton case in New Orleans that I was in such a rush to get to after the Leslie Hudson case was solved-by me,” he looked sourly at Painter. “But Painter had me tied into another murder on the Beach less than twelve hours ago, so I had to stay over and solve it for him. Just before the plane left I had a phone call from my secretary in New Orleans. She told me I was too late. The Belton case had gone flooey. And that took the pressure off getting back to New Orleans.”
“You say you had that phone call before the plane took off?” Painter pounced on his story and began to worry it like a terrier worrying a bone.
“You can check with one of the clerks at the terminal,” Shayne told him.
“Then why did you take off at all?”
“My bag was already checked,” said Shayne lazily. “I didn’t have time to think things over. But I did have time to think on my way to Palm Beach, and I remembered some unfinished business in Miami. I wanted to know more about a certain girl, so I came back to find out,” he ended serenely.
“Was she-” Rourke began.
“I’ve never known Shayne to take off all his clothes to commit a murder,” Gentry interrupted, “but I’ve heard rumors to the effect that he does sometimes to go to bed.”