He went in the side entrance and up to his apartment. A maid had cleaned up all the evidences of disorder left by Gordon when he searched the apartment.
Shayne went to the kitchen and crushed ice cubes into a pitcher which he filled with water. He set it on the table with a large glass and a wineglass. Then he opened a fresh bottle of Martell and set it beside the pitcher.
Drawing up a comfortable chair, he lit a cigarette and poured himself a drink. Sitting alone, he sipped the liquor and smoked meditatively while strength flowed back to his body.
The telephone rang as he finished a second glass. He answered it and heard Painter on the wire.
The chief of detectives’ voice was exultant. “Everything has worked out perfectly, Shayne. The reward will be paid to me personally. I’ll turn it over to you-privately-as soon as I receive it.”
“Two and a half G’s?” Shayne questioned laconically.
“That’s right. And thanks.”
Shayne said, “Money talks,” and hung up.
He went back to the table and finished his drink. He then took a sheet of paper out of the drawer and looked for a pencil. There wasn’t any. A lopsided grin spread over his face as he picked up the fountain pen which he had taken from the sickroom.
He sat down and wrote across the top of the sheet:
He nodded approvingly at the figures and poured himself another drink. Dusk was creeping in through the windows, but he didn’t turn on the lights. Suddenly he remembered something. He got up and went to the kitchen door. It was still bolted shut as he had left it the night of Charlotte’s visit. He unbolted it but left the night latch on. Then he went back to the living-room-to his cognac, his cigarettes, and his not unpleasant meditations. It grew darker in the room, then lighter as the street lamps came on. Shayne sat in a listening attitude.
He sat like that a long time before he heard the sound he was expecting. The faint click of a key in the lock on the kitchen door.
His back was toward the kitchen. He did not move except to reach out in the semidarkness and fold the sheet of paper upon which he had cast up his profits on the Brighton case. He heard the back door open softly, then light footsteps advancing hesitantly from the kitchen. He chose that moment to light a cigarette, still with his back turned, seemingly unaware of another presence in the room.
The intruder stole upon him as he blew out the match. Soft hands were clasped over his eyes, and a laughing voice exclaimed, “Guess who.”
Shayne did not move. He said lazily, “So it was you who stole the key to my kitchen door.”
Phyllis Brighton leaned her cheek down against his coarse red hair for just an instant. Then she took her hands from his eyes and came around from behind him.
“Pull the cord on the floor lamp,” Shayne suggested.
She did, and faced him accusingly in the soft light. “You’re not even surprised to see me.”
“Of course not. I expected you sooner. Sit down.” Shayne pointed to a chair and reached for his glass.
Phyllis drew the chair close and sat down. Her eyes were bright and unclouded.
“It’s a good thing I wasn’t sure it was you who had that key,” Shayne told her easily. “Else I would have known it was you who peeked in the other night-and I might have suspected you had killed Charlotte Hunt out of jealousy.”
Her eyes dropped before his. “I saw plenty-to make me jealous.”
“That’s what you get for sneaking in through kitchen doors at such an ungodly hour,” Shayne pointed out. “I was in a tough spot that night, but business is business. I got enough dope from her to solve the case.”
Phyllis shuddered and said, “Ugh! Let’s not talk about it.”
“I,” Shayne told her, “will be very happy to forget Miss Hunt. But where the hell have you been hiding?” He lifted his glass and took a long drink.
Phyllis laughed with carefree pleasure. “Right here in a downtown hotel. I’ve seen you on the street twice. And, oh!” she went on exultantly, “I’m all cured. Just getting away from that horrible house has made me well. I haven’t had another single one of those spells of forgetting.”
Shayne nodded. “That’s one thing that didn’t get into the papers. Pedique made a full confession just before he committed suicide. He was trying to drive you crazy, angel, with a mixture of drugs and hypnotism. I burned his confession.”
“Thank God.” Tears swam unashamed in the girl’s eyes. She reached out her hand, and Shayne gripped it tightly. “You’ve been-wonderful to me,” she breathed.
Shayne grinned, released her hand, and patted it. “You’re the kind of kid men like to be nice to.” He swung up awkwardly and went into the kitchen, saying, “By the way, I’ve got something here that belongs to you.”
He opened the refrigerator and took out the hydrator, brought it in to the table while Phyllis watched with wondering eyes.
“Don’t look,” Shayne said.
Phyllis obediently closed her eyes while Shayne dug under the lettuce with his left hand and brought out the shimmering pearl necklace.
Going around behind her chair, he dropped it down over her head. His hand strayed toward the curling tendrils of hair on her neck, but he jerked away before touching her, and his face was expressionless as he moved from behind her.
She opened her eyes wide, and her hand flew up to the necklace. “But these are yours,” she exclaimed. “They were your-what do you call it-your retainer.”
Shayne sat down and shook his head. “No, darling. Tough as I am, I can’t take a retainer from you.”
“But you’ve earned it,” she implored, lifting the pearls from her neck and thrusting them at him. “It’s little enough for what you’ve done. I know it was you who did all the work on the case.”
Shayne pushed the pearls back toward her. A diabolic grin lurked at the corners of his mouth. His fingers closed over the folded sheet of paper and crumpled it up. “I’ll get along,” he assured her.
Phyllis didn’t say anything. She stared at him bright-eyed, seemingly struggling with words which would not form themselves.
Shayne poured himself another small drink and said slowly, “You and the boy are the sole heirs, eh?”
“I-suppose so.”
Shayne toyed with his glass. “The estate isn’t very large. I imagine Montrose has been stealing from Brighton for years, getting even for the raw deal he felt Rufus handed Julius.”
She made a little gesture and said, “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I have enough money for the present.”
Shayne drank some cognac. He said, “I just wanted you to know-after all the ruckus is cleared up and forgotten, there’s a genuine Raphael in the possession of an artist friend of mine which belongs to the estate. It’ll be worth a pretty good pile of dough.”
“A Raphael? But the papers said-”
“The papers,” Shayne told her, “don’t know a hell of a lot of angles on this case. It’s genuine, all right. I had Pelham Joyce paint a bum ‘Raphael’ on top of the new signature Henderson had put on for smuggling purposes and then a second fake ‘Robertson’ on top of that. That made four signatures piled up on each other. Only two were scraped off by the time the shooting started. The bottom signature is authentic.”
Phyllis drew in her breath unevenly. “You’re a remarkable person-and I owe you a lot.” Her fingers crept out and touched Shayne’s hand.
Shayne drained his glass. He said, “It’s fun being nice to you, angel.” Then he patted her fingers and went on with a grin, “It’s been a good case. There’s only one thing I’ll always regret-that those two mugs busted in on us just when they did that first night.”
Phyllis stood up. There was something very close to adoration in her eyes. She said breathlessly, “You needn’t-regret it any longer.”
Shayne looked up at her for a long moment from beneath raggedly bushy brows. “What are you trying to say?”
She returned his gaze bravely, color flooding her cheeks. “Must I-draw you a blueprint?”