He shook his head almost helplessly and sighed. “Deal me out, Gus.”
Leaving the few white chips lying on the table, he pushed back his chair and stood up clumsily. He was over six feet tall, his eyes on a level with Shayne’s. Like a man sleep-walking, he moved to a worn mohair davenport flanked by standing ash trays and spittoons, sat down without speaking and buried his face in his hands, the picture of a man in utter dejection and total defeat.
After a moment he raised his head slightly and looked through his fingers at Shayne. “What are you waiting for? Let’s get going.”
“Where?”
“Out to the alley. Or to the car. Or wherever you plan on doing it.”
Shayne said, “I have no plans. Who do you think I am?”
“You’re from D. L. I know.”
“No, I’m not. I came on my own to help you, or maybe to get you to help me. Someone has threatened to kill your wife.”
Milford stared. It took an instant for the words to penetrate. Shayne watched in cynical dispassion as fear and anger in slow succession, and lastly something that might have been remorse, filled the pale and red-veined eyes. Finally big tears squeezed from between his lids and rolled untended down his face.
“Oh, God!” Milford said.
10
Shayne sat down on the davenport as Milford rose and towered above him, clenching his big fists and beating them futilely against his thighs. “The bastards! I’ll kill them first!”
“One has been killed,” Shayne said evenly. “Henny Henlein.”
“Henny’s not enough. Kenny’s nothing. It’s the big ones-” Milford stopped suddenly, fighting for control.
“Did you kill Henlein?”
“No.” Sanity seemed to be returning. Milford blinked fiercely at the redhead, asking, “Who are you?”
“Mike Shayne. How long have you been sitting in this game?”
“Since before Henlein was murdered, if that’s what’s on your mind.”
“How do you know when Henlein was murdered?”
“I heard it on the radio here.”
“Can you prove it?”
Milford fastened raging eyes on Shayne, as though he were the source of all his misery. “I wish to God I had killed Henny. I wish I had, by God! He’s the one who threatened Clarissa-”
“Sending a voodoo doll doesn’t seem quite in line with Henny’s method of operation, or D. L.’s either.”
Milford stared in what seemed like genuine perplexity.
“Somebody left your wife one, stabbed through the heart with a black-headed pin.”
“God! She didn’t tell me.”
“Somebody sent Henlein a couple too-one stabbed and one strangled-and then followed it up by murdering him and leaving him with a hang-rope around his neck.”
Milford looked dazed. He rubbed his big hands over his face, pushing at his eyes, then said slowly, “De Luca told me something would happen to Clarissa if I didn’t get up the money by twelve tonight. I thought he was trying to scare me-”
“How much do you owe him?”
“Around four thousand.”
“Have you got it?”
“No, and I never will now. My luck’s gone bad.”
“You thought you’d get it here? In Harley’s rigged game?”
“I didn’t know any other way.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Shayne was watching Milford through lidded eyes. “Your wife’s life insurance would more than cover it.”
The big man eyed Shayne with such flaming rage that for a moment the redhead thought he was going to have a fight on his hands. “Isn’t your indignation a little forced,” he prodded. “I understand you wanted a divorce-”
Milford clenched his fists so tightly the veins bulged, then suddenly his body went limp. He dropped to the davenport and sagged forward, burying his face in his hands again and speaking in a muffled voice through his fingers. “I did it to protect her. I thought if D. L. got the idea she didn’t mean anything to me, she would be safe. I thought he wouldn’t try to get at me through her. I guess I was wrong.”
“What about Madame Swoboda?”
“What about her?”
“Your wife thinks you’re in love with her.”
“I let her think that.” Milford uncovered his face, looking at Shayne in undiluted misery. “I didn’t know what else to do. I had to make my wife break away from me for her own safety. You can see that, can’t you?”
“I suppose so.”
“But it isn’t true that I didn’t love her,” Milford cried. “I do love her. I always will. She’s the only one I’ll ever love.”
Despite the fact that Shayne had not expected to like Dan Milford, he was finding that he did. At least, he pitied him and pity was close to liking. Milford showed an unexpected honesty and, out of keeping with his size, a humbleness. It was easier now to understand Clarissa’s stubborn love, even though Milford had tried to make her think that he loved another woman.
However, emotions should not influence judgments. No matter how convincingly he might talk about his love for Clarissa, the hard fact remained that her insurance money would get him out of a bad spot and, apparently, it was the only thing that would.
To determine just how bad the spot was, Shayne asked, “What happens now that you can’t pay off D. L.?”
Milford said, almost inaudibly, “He’ll kill me, I think. He might have been contented with working me over for a long hospital stay, but now with his muscleman murdered-he’ll blame me for that-”
“Why not go to the police? Get protection?”
Milford faced the detective squarely, his jaws drooping, his mouth twisted. “What’s the use? They can’t watch over me all my life. Myself, I don’t deserve it anyway. But I’ll go to them for Clarissa, now that I know.”
“Don’t worry about Clarissa. She hired me to find out who sent her the voodoo doll, and I’m having her guarded.”
“Thanks, Mr. Shayne.”
“Do you think it’s possible,” the redhead asked, drawing out a cigarette and lighting it, “that your brother-in-law believes it was Clarissa who ran over his son?”
“Why would he think it was Clarissa?”
“It was Clarissa’s car. The hit-and-run driver hasn’t been identified. Why couldn’t it have been Clarissa?”
“I’ll tell you why it couldn’t. Clarissa had the set of keys she always uses in her purse. She always kept an extra set hidden in the car-ever since she got locked out of her car one time.”
“Where in the car?”
“I don’t know.”
“So when the car was found abandoned, it was the extra set of keys that was in it?”
Milford nodded.
“Did anyone tell that to the police who investigated the accident?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Anyway, it was obvious that the car thief found the hidden keys.”
Shayne said, “Let’s come back to Percy Thain. Wouldn’t you say sending a voodoo doll seems more characteristic of him than of D. L. or his muscle-men?”
“Yes. Only why would he stab Henlein? I don’t think he ever heard of Henny Henlein.”
“Who said Henlein was stabbed?” Shayne asked quietly.
“Didn’t you?”
“I said one of the voodoo dolls he received was stabbed, and one was strangled. Henny Henlein was shot-with his own gun.”
Milford’s face grayed. “With his own gun,” he repeated dully. “Was it a. 32 Colt with the corrugations on the walnut handle cut off on the lower side?”
Shayne’s gray eyes held on Milford with quickened interest. “I could find that out. At the police station they told me the gun had been positively identified as Henlein’s.”
“Mr. Shayne, I’m going to level with you. You say you’ve put protection on my wife and I’m grateful. And anyway, I’ve gambled and lost, and lied to Clarissa about Madame Swoboda, and I’m in debt to a loan-shark who is undoubtedly going to kill me, so what have I got to lose by a little involvement in Henny’s murder?”
“I thought you said you weren’t involved.”