He heeled out to the car, slid behind the wheel and drove the short distance, stopping in front of a modern white stone and glass building. The tails drove past, averting their eyes with elaborate casualness.
The day was growing hotter. Sweat seeped down inside the redhead’s collar, wetting his shirt. It felt icy. He got out of the car and stalked up the walk into the building, went down the hall and through a door marked William Fox, Laboratories.
The blond receptionist, startled by his peremptory entrance, looked up from a roll and a paper container of coffee.
“I’d like this blood analyzed.” Shayne took the wadded handkerchief from his hip pocket.
“Certainly, sir. But no one’s in yet.”
“Get someone in! This is urgent!”
Shayne’s inner tension and barely-leashed fury, communicated itself to the girl. She stared hypnotized into his stark eyes and her own face whitened. Her fingers tightened on the paper coffee container and she half rose. “I think I just heard Mr. Fox come in. There’s a door to the laboratory from the other side.”
Before she could protest, Shayne strode past her, thrust open the door behind her desk and entered the laboratory. A stout, graying man, just struggling into a white coat, eyed him with acute disfavor.
“No one’s allowed back here. Please wait outside.”
Shayne dropped the wadded handkerchief on a bare, white table top. “I’ve no time for formalities. Analyze this blood.” While the man stammered, Shayne added, “I’m investigating a murder.”
The technician’s eyes bulged. “Are you from the police?”
“What difference does it make? No, I’m not. I’m a private detective.”
“I only asked.” Fox picked up the handkerchief gingerly and carried it to a laboratory table in front of a window, looking back uneasily. “I don’t want to get in any trouble.”
Shayne’s hands clenched. “What trouble could you get in? If I were the murderer I’d know whether my victim was a man or a fish. And that’s all I want you to tell me-whether that’s human or fish blood.”
Fox turned to the table and began working with tubes, liquids and eyedroppers.
Shayne lit a cigarette and blew smoke in a blue cloud toward the window. After working silently for a few minutes, Fox looked around. “There’s more than a trace of human blood mixed with the fish blood,” he said.
“Have you typed it?”
“From first examination, I’d say ‘O.’”
“That limits it, anyway. What do I owe you?”
“Ten dollars. Pay the girl, please.”
Shayne gave him a bleak nod, turned and went through the door, dropping a ten-dollar bill on the receptionist’s desk.
9
From the drugstore downstairs, Shayne called his office.
“I’m dreaming!” Lucy said. “Or are you? Talking in your sleep, I mean?”
“It’s the shank of the day, angel.”
Sensing the depression beneath his glib words, she asked anxiously, “What is it, Michael?”
“Phone Mrs. Santos and find out Sylvester’s doctor. Phone the doctor and see if he has Sylvester’s blood type and if he has, if it’s Rh. Then phone the information to Peter Painter’s office where I’ll go from here. Got it?”
“Got it. Michael, is something the matter with Sylvester?”
“I think he’s been murdered.”
She gasped. “Oh, Michael, I know how you-”
“One thing more,” he broke in, keeping his voice matter-of-fact, “has Bill Martin called in a report on Clarissa Milford?”
“Yes. Nothing’s happened. She hasn’t left the house and no one has gone in.”
“Not even her husband?”
“No one, he said.”
“Next time Bill phones in, tell him to hang on till I can get somebody to relieve him.”
“All right, Michael.” She paused. “Whatever it was with Sylvester, is it part of the voodoo doll business?”
“That’s something I have to find out. The only connection now is that one of the men I met on Sylvester’s boat turned up at Swoboda’s seance last night.”
“Then there might be-”
“Yes, there might be,” he said bleakly and hung up.
Peter Painter had just taken off his coat when Shayne burst into the office. The Detective Chief turned irritably at the early morning intrusion.
Shayne asked humorlessly, “Something bad you ate, Petey? Or is it me?”
Painter sat down behind his desk with bristling officiousness, lifted one hand and traced the thin line of his black mustache with his thumbnail. He did not invite Shayne to be seated. “It’s you,” he said.
Putting his knuckles on the desk, Shayne leaned toward Painter. “Did you get a phone call this morning that concerns me?”
“I think I’ve had two. One from your secretary, and one from a William Fox of the William Fox Medical Laboratories. I’m sure Mr. Fox was describing you. ‘Paranoiac type,’ he said. ‘Delusions of grandeur. Probably homicidal.’ In fact, he thinks you’ve already murdered somebody. So do I. Henry Henlein.”
“No, it would be William Fox,” Shayne said, “except that I didn’t have time. What did my secretary say?”
“She wanted me to report to you that Sylvester Santos’ blood type is Rh.”
Shayne said grimly, “Then I want to report to your office, Painter, what I believe to be the murder of Sylvester Santos. He’s been running the Santa Clara, a charter boat, for years.”
“I know who you mean.”
“If you work fast enough before they move it, I think you’ll find Sylvester’s knife-stabbed body on the harbor bottom, weighted down by his own boat anchor, at the slip where he rents mooring space.”
Painter made notes on a pad. “Would it be in order,” he asked sarcastically, “for the police department to inquire how citizen Shayne came by this rather precise information?”
“It would be in order,” Shayne said evenly, “but I haven’t time to tell you. Get going on this, will you?”
“I gather this is of close personal interest to you, shamus.” Painter’s thin lips stretched in an unctuous smile. “And inasmuch as you’re asking me to do something-there was a murder yesterday in which you also were involved…”
A muscle twitched in Shayne’s cheek. “I can’t help you on that one, Petey.”
“It’s just possible you won’t have to, hard as it will be for you to believe it. Ballistics has reported that he was shot by his own gun.”
“That. 32 Colt with the walnut handle that was lying beside him?”
Painter nodded.
“That’s funny. Henlein was a muscleman. I heard he didn’t usually carry a gun.”
“That was the rumor. Maybe he bought one and committed suicide.”
“Sure. And tied that noose around his own neck. Look, Painter, the one thing I can help you with-Sylvester-you don’t seem to want to listen to. If you find him murdered where I told you to look, I can name you three prime suspects.”
Painter reached for his pen with simulated weariness, holding it poised and waiting.
“Ed Woodbine, Blue Grotto,” Shayne said, “Slim Collins, Blue Grotto, Vince Becker, Mirador. I haven’t checked the addresses yet, but I think they’re right. These men are putting on a good, honest front.”
“What if they are on the up and up?”
“Then we look elsewhere. You might check back where they say they came from. They’re vacationists. Ed Woodbine’s in the insurance business in Detroit. He’s here with his wife. Slim Collins is a contractor with a hobby for working on internal-combustion engines. He’s from Philadelphia. Vince Becker owns a motel in Arizona. That’s what they told me, anyway. Their names may be phony. Becker looks Sicilian. In fact, none of them fit, but I’ll leave the checking to you.”
“Your trust is gratifying. However, how do I know all this isn’t a red herring you dreamed up to dilute our efforts to probe into the Henlein murder?”