An overstuffed young man lounged back on a horsehair sofa on her left with both arms spread away from him on the back of it and legs outstretched. He wore a velvet smoking jacket and dark trousers. He was partially bald and his lips pouted sullenly. He lowered his petulant gaze to the tips of his shoes after a brief glance at Shayne.
The third occupant of the room was lanky and shapeless in a dark chemise dress, slouched in a leather-upholstered chair opposite the fireplace. Her black hair was cut short with a fringe of bangs across her forehead. She had a short upper lip that showed slightly protruding front teeth, and her eyes remained half-closed as she indolently surveyed the detective.
Shayne shook off Hastings’ arm and stepped inside the room as the lawyer started to reply to Mrs. Hawley. He said, “I’m a detective with some questions to ask all of you.”
“He has no legal standing whatsoever, Mrs. Hawley,” Hastings interposed. “He forced his way into your home, and I suggest we should call the police to remove him.”
Mrs. Hawley lifted her cane and thumped it loudly on the hearth. “Don’t be an old fool, B.H. Who are you, young man, and what do you want?”
“My name is Michael Shayne, Mrs. Hawley. Did Jasper Groat come here last night?”
“You are not required to answer his questions,” Hastings put in swiftly. “I’ve explained…”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Hawley with another thump of her cane. “Why shouldn’t I answer him? I don’t know any Jasper Groat,” she told Shayne. “No one came here last night.”
“Did you expect him to come?” Shayne persisted. “Did you ask him to come and see you?”
“Why should I? I don’t know the man.”
“Do you read the newspapers, Mrs. Hawley?”
“I know who he means.” The girl in the leather chair spoke languidly with almost no movement of her lips. “Jasper Groat was one of the men on the life raft when Albert died.”
“Why should I ask a man like that to my house?” demanded the old lady.
“Most mothers would have been eager to see him under the circumstances,” Shayne pointed out. “It was reasonable to suppose he might bring a dying message from your son.”
“Nonsense,” the old lady said harshly with another emphatic thump of her cane. “No Hawley would make a confidant of such riffraff.”
The girl said lazily, “He did call here on the telephone late yesterday afternoon. I told him I’d see him if he came at eight last night.”
“Beatrice! After I expressly stated I wanted no contact with either of those ruffians who allowed Albert to die while saving their own skins.”
“I know, Mother.” Beatrice’s upper lip lifted in an unpleasant smile that gave her face a perverse look of childishness. “But Gerald and I had talked about Uncle Ezra’s will that we knew Mr. Hastings was going to read this morning, and I thought it might be smart to talk to Mr. Groat.” She paused, regarding her mother with unblinking animosity. “Don’t you wish now that I had?”
Hastings cleared his throat loudly. “Please be quiet, Beatrice. This man is a stranger.”
Shayne stepped past him to look down at the girl. “Are you saying that Groat didn’t come?”
“Don’t answer the man, Beatrice.” The cane thumped again. “Address your questions to me, young man.”
Shayne stood looking down at the girl and didn’t turn his head. Her lids opened, disclosing sooty black eyes, and she caught her underlip between her teeth and gnawed on it as though it tasted good.
Suddenly she giggled and pushed herself out of the chair. She walked past Shayne without looking at him, and went out of the room.
Shayne transferred his attention to the young man who had not moved on the sofa during the interchange between mother and daughter.
“Do you know anything about Groat coming here?”
He lifted his gaze to Shayne’s, and then his eyes flickered away evasively toward Mrs. Hawley. “I think your questions are insolent, old boy.”
“Here’s another one,” Shayne said flatly. He half turned to the matriarch. “Where is Leon Wallace?”
Her eyes glittered at him and her hands clutched the top of her cane fiercely. “Who is he?”
“A gardener whom you employed here about a year ago.”
She said, “I don’t make a practice of keeping track of the names of my servants. Gerald is right. You are insolent.” She thumped her cane commandingly. “Eject this young man, B.H.”
Shayne grinned bleakly at the lawyer as he stepped forward hesitantly. He said, “The police will be around asking the same questions,” and turned his back and stalked out through the curtains.
The Negro was waiting at the door and he drew it open as Shayne approached. There was a scurry of feet in the hallway behind him as Shayne stepped out onto the veranda and thankfully drew a deep breath of clean, sunladen air.
Hastings joined him as he started down the steps, clamping his panama tightly onto his head. “Mrs. Hawley is under a great strain,” he said nervously. “I… ah… think we had best discuss certain matters in the privacy of my office. Will you meet me there, Mr… ah… Shayne, isn’t it?”
Shayne said, “I’ll be glad to,” and the lawyer hurried down the steps ahead of him and got into the black sedan parked in front of Shayne’s car.
He started the motor and pulled away as Shayne circled around to the left side of his car and opened the door.
A shrill, penetrating, “Eeewee,” from the house made him pause and lift his gaze over the roof of his car. It was a sound he hadn’t heard since he’d played Indians as a child, and it was repeated as he stood there.
Then he saw Beatrice. She was leaning over the ornamental iron railing of a second-floor balcony, beckoning to him eagerly with one hand while she held her finger tightly against her pursed lips.
His ragged, red brows came down in a frown and he hesitated as she pointed to the outside stairway leading up to her balcony and beckoned urgently again.
He shrugged and closed the door of his car, crossed around to the iron stairs and climbed up to the balcony where Beatrice waited for him.
5
She caught hold of his hand excitedly as he reached the top, pulled him back with her through an open French door into a large bedroom that was childishly girlish in its appointments. It was all pink and white, with delicate rosebuds on the wallpaper, ruffled skirts on the vanity table matching the cretonne bedspread and window curtains.
Beatrice stopped in the center of the room and turned to look at him, cocking her head on one side and demurely inserting the tip of the little finger of her left hand into her mouth. She said, “You know what?”
Shayne asked gravely, “What?”
“You make me feel all gurgly inside.” She giggled naughtily and turned aside to a low bookcase where she pulled out two books and groped in the back to bring out a pint whisky bottle a little more than half full. She worried the cork out with her teeth and presented the bottle to Shayne in much the manner of a little girl offering a playmate her favorite doll.
“You’ll have to take it straight,” she told him matter-of-factly. “It’s too much trouble to sneak ice and mixers up here.”
Shayne put the bottle to his mouth and swallowed a couple of times without letting much liquor trickle down his throat. He passed it back to her and she drank deeply, wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and said delightedly, “More damn fun.”