Gentry looked with new interest at the slender woman sitting stiffly erect on the couch. She had changed to the gray tweed suit, and appeared composed with her hands folded in her lap. She nodded and said, “How do you do, Chief Gentry.”
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Taylor,” Gentry rumbled, and after a searching scrutiny he turned his attention to Shayne. “This time you’re going to put your cards on the table, Mike. Four men have died while you horsed around and acted mysterious.”
Shayne said, “Sit down, Will. I’m ready to do a lot of talking. How about pouring us a drink, Edna?”
She said, “Of course. I’ll mix some more,” and got up.
Gentry watched her admiringly as she swung out of the room. “She the one you figured was ready to go off like a firecracker?” A faint smile of amusement quirked his mouth.
“I forgot my matches,” Shayne grinned.
Gentry lowered his big body into a chair, stripped cellophane from a cigar and lit it, then said, “I’m listening.”
“I want Miss Taylor in on this,” Shayne told him.
She returned in a few moments with a fresh shaker of cocktails and an extra hammered copper bowl for Gentry. She poured three drinks and went back to the couch.
Shayne said, “Miss Taylor and I were having cocktails when this man came to the door. Perhaps you’d better give him your version first, Edna.”
In a calm voice she said, “I didn’t know who it could be. I have no friends here… very few acquaintances. I wasn’t expecting anyone. I asked Michael not to answer the door, but he insisted. He drew a gun from his pocket when he went to answer the door. I looked out and saw that man, a complete stranger, trying to force his way in. I could see he was horribly drunk, and he began cursing and threatening us. When he started in, I guess I was frantic with fear. I hardly know what I did, but I have a confused impression of grabbing Michael’s gun to defend myself and my home. There was a shot… and that’s all.”
Gentry looked at Shayne. “That’s the way of it?”
Shayne said gravely, “Miss Taylor would make a good witness. I have a couple of corrections. Eddie Seeney didn’t curse or threaten us, and he didn’t try to force his way in. He didn’t have time. He merely said, ‘I’m coming in,’ and started forward. Miss Taylor snatched my gun and shot him before I could stop her.”
Gentry rolled his cigar across his mouth and rubbed his blunt jaw. He did not see the flare of anger in Edna Taylor’s eyes before she swiftly lowered her lids.
He turned to her and asked slowly, “You’re sure you didn’t know Seeney?”
“I never saw him before,” she avowed.
“Ever hear of him?”
She hesitated for a moment, looking at Shayne, then said bitterly, “Mr. Shayne asked me if I knew him… a little while before it happened.”
“That right, Mike?”
“Sure.”
“How’d you come to ask her that?”
“I wanted to find out.”
Gentry spread out his broad hands and rumbled, “Quit playing hide and seek with me, Mike. Who was Seeney? Why did you ask me to pick him up a couple of hours ago?”
“He may very well be Clem Wilson’s murderer. Or one of the men at the filling station. That is, if there were two men.”
Gentry asked, “What do you mean…?”
“Seeney’s wife paid me a visit this afternoon,” Shayne interrupted. “I called you right after that. Now that list of names, with Clem Wilson’s crossed off, sounded like it might be the real thing,” he ended. “I’d give a lot to get the other names off it.”
“Seems to me like you’re doing a lot of guesswork,” Gentry growled. He got up with Shayne and they went to the pile of the dead man’s belongings. Gentry picked up a creased and worn sheet of Hammond Bond typewriter paper. He smoothed it out, explaining, “I noticed a bunch of names but didn’t look at them careful.”
“This is it.” Shayne pointed to the middle of the list. “Clem Wilson… with a pencil line drawn through it. And there’s the other one his wife mentioned… Felix Ponti. Several others with check marks and some not marked at all.”
“What do you make of it?” Gentry asked.
“I don’t know. I’d like to have this list.”
Gentry shook his head emphatically. “Not until you tell me a lot more than you have.”
“Then let me copy the names.” Before Gentry could remonstrate, Shayne got out a pencil and notebook and began jotting down the names on the list, noting the same check marks as were on Seeney’s list.
Gentry went back and sat down again. When Shayne finished, he growled, “All right for that. But why did you think Miss Taylor might know the guy?”
Shayne tucked his copied list in his pocket, returned to his chair and picked up his odd-looking cocktail bowl. Turning it around slowly in his hands, he confessed, “It was a shot in the dark.”
Gentry grunted. “Some more of your guesswork, huh?”
“Some things you find out, and some things you guess at,” Shayne said, aggrieved. “You know how that is, Will. But here’s the way things stack up.” He went into a full recital of all that had happened in Brannigan’s office that morning.
Edna Taylor sat quietly and listened without a change of expression as Shayne continued:
“Then she invited me over here. She did her best to pry some information out of me on the Wilson murder. Maybe the reason she and Brannigan gave is legitimate… maybe it isn’t. It’s not hard to figure that an organization like that could be on the racket side. Brannigan’s special services could mean furnishing certain monied members with bootleg gas and tires, while others who couldn’t afford to pay more than the nominal fee… or pay an abnormal price for gas and tires… would be no better off than before they joined up.”
Edna Taylor said, “You rat!” in a vicious undertone.
Chief Gentry glowered at the vice-president and asked, “What additional services can you render to the public that free Government agencies can’t give without charge?”
“I suppose you’ve never heard of Governmental red tape,” she said witheringly.
“That’s not much of an answer,” Gentry rumbled.
Edna Taylor bit her underlip and strove for calmness. “You’re not a private citizen trying to understand the new rationing regulations that come out of Washington every day. We have all the forms and regulations on hand. We furnish free assistance in filling out requests for B and C cards, for new tires and so forth.
“Not only that,” she went on sharply, “we maintain trained mechanics who have made a special study of gas-saving devices and methods of obtaining maximum efficiency from available fuels. This service is supplied at cost to our members. And one of our most popular services is the formation of share-the-ride clubs among our membership. By dividing the city into sections we are instantly able to furnish a list of other members living nearby who wish to ride to work together, go downtown shopping on appointed days, arrange beach parties and so forth. All in all, our swiftly expanding membership list proves the value of the services we offer.” She shot Shayne a venomous glance as she ended.
He grinned cheerfully. “You make it sound good,” he admitted. “On the other hand, it’s a nice spot for a racket. And if you and Brannigan are mixed up in bootleg stuff and if one of your men bumped off Clem Wilson because he refused to go along… then you’d have a mighty good reason for wanting to know how much Clem told me before he was killed.”
Edna got up and asked Gentry in a tone of icy anger, “Do I have to sit here and be insulted in my own house, Inspector?”
Chief Gentry said, “If you’re in the clear I’ll see that Mike gets down on his knees and apologizes. But you’d better tell us what Seeney was doing here.”
Her cheeks flamed and her hazel eyes flared angrily. “I’ve told you I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“You’re too good a lawyer to believe we’ll accept his coming as a coincidence,” Shayne stated flatly.
“Perhaps he followed you here,” she parried. “If he is Mr. Wilson’s murderer he was probably looking for a chance to kill you.”
“Seeney wasn’t packing a rod, was he, Will?”
“No. He wasn’t armed. We searched his car, too. No gun in it.”
Shayne spread out his hands and looked at Edna. “That doesn’t look as though he was trailing me.”
“I don’t know,” she cried, breaking down at last. “I don’t know anything about it. You both look at me as though I… as though I…” She began sobbing violently and sank back on the couch.
Gentry raised his bushy brows at Shayne. Shayne shrugged and finished off his drink. The sound of the vice-president’s sobbing was loud in the room.
“She did kill him,” Shayne reminded Gentry soberly. “You can lock her up on that.”
“What’s the use?” Gentry sighed heavily. “She’ll cop a self-defense plea and we’ll never make it stick.”
“I could testify that…”
Gentry interrupted with a derisive laugh. “After all that nice publicity you got I don’t think your testimony would hold water with judge or jury.”
Shayne’s gaunt face was bleak when he said, “You could keep her out of circulation for a while.”
He stood up and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. He paced impatiently around the room for a moment, stopping before the couch.
Edna Taylor lifted her head and stared at him with teary eyes, “And I thought you…”
“You thought you had me on the end of a string,” he grated. “Like most women you think you can shake your sex at a man and make him forget everything else. Sure, I liked kissing you,” he went on brutally. “What you dames don’t take into consideration is that most men have something decent to remember.
“I’m out to get Wilson’s murderer, and by God if you had a hand in it I’ll see that you hang with the rest of them.” He turned his back on her abruptly, strode to the fireplace, rested his elbow on the rustic rock and put his palm against his bony cheek.
Gentry’s shrewd eyes followed his movements. He turned to Edna Taylor and asked, “Have you got anything to say to that?”
“It’s a filthy accusation,” she said in a taut, angry tone. “The whole thing is an utterly fantastic hypothesis based on nothing more concrete than the wildest supposition.”
Gentry heaved a sigh. “Is this all you’ve got for me, Mike?”
“That’s all right now,” he answered without lifting his head. “I must congratulate Miss Taylor for taking your cue so well.”
Gentry frowned, his eyes puzzled. “Did Wilson say anything that pointed directly to this motorists’ organization? And what do you mean by a cue?”
Shayne’s broad shoulders drooped. “Forget it. Wilson didn’t say anything that directly connects Seeney with the case, but I suggest you make a careful investigation of Seeney’s connection with Brannigan and Miss Taylor.”
“I will.” The puzzled frown on Gentry’s brow stayed fixed as he finished his one drink and got up.
“Are you taking her in?” Shayne asked.
Gentry shook his head. “Not yet. As it stands now, according to your own story, Seeney was drunk and intent upon coming into Miss Taylor’s home, even if he didn’t use force. I want to do some more checking up.” He strode to the door, turning before he went out to say, “Keep your nose clean, Mike.”
Neither Shayne nor Edna moved until the sound of Gentry’s heavy footsteps faded from the pavement and his official car rolled away.
Then, she asked brokenly, “How could you have said all those things, Michael?” She came close to him and lifted her arms toward his neck. “What sort of a woman do you think I am?”
He turned away and tossed a cigarette butt into the fireplace. “I don’t know,” he said in a harsh, weary voice.
She shivered. “It’s getting chilly in here.” She bent forward and struck a match to a small portion of matted pine needles and resin. The flame leaped up and the smell of burning driftwood was pleasant in the big room.
“You’re a fool,” she said drearily. “We could have had so much, but you’re afraid to believe in anything. You’re cursed with the need always to look beneath the surface for a hidden motive. I’m sorry for you.”
Shayne’s laugh was sardonic. “Hidden motives are my meat,” he confessed.
She laughed and there was a queer haunting sadness in her laughter. “You don’t know very much about women. You won’t let yourself. You’re too busy being cynical.”
Shayne turned away and got his hat, saying, “You missed your calling, Edna. You should have been an actress instead of a lawyer.” He stepped over the bloody spot where Seeney’s body had fallen and closed the door firmly behind him.
The soft mantle of moonlight lay over Miami. Stars shone faintly, striving against the moon’s bright light to lend their luster to the beauty of the sky. Shayne stopped for a moment and drew in several short breaths of fresh air, wincing with the pain of taped and broken ribs, then got in his car and drove moodily away. He had a sour taste in his mouth.
Edna Taylor was right. He was a fool. There wasn’t a particle of real evidence against her. It was entirely possible that Eddie had trailed him to her house. Eddie’s wife could have changed her mind and tipped her husband off. Eddie could have brought her to his apartment and waited to follow him.
He could have kept his mouth shut in front of Gentry and let Edna Taylor’s story stand. But before God she was a murderess, and he intended to find out why she had shot Eddie Seeney.