He looked up at the officer and held up his hand, “Give me a lift, huh?”
The policeman took his hand and helped pull him to his feet, asking disbelievingly, “Is it a fact what she says… that you’re Mike Shayne?”
Lucy got up shakily to stand beside him, blinking back her tears and cutting in angrily, “Of course it’s true.” She stamped her foot. “Don’t just stand there like an oaf. Arrest that man who clubbed him from behind.”
Shayne looked past the cop into the booth where Lucy and Ralph had been sitting. Another policeman leaned over Ralph and was trying to pull him up. The younger man was still only half-conscious, with head lolling back and eyes closed.
Shayne turned his head slowly and looked toward the front of the room. All of the customers had mysteriously vanished, leaving only the two bartenders who stood behind the mahogany and surveyed the scene with stony gravity.
Shayne patted Lucy’s shoulder and said, “The bartender got me, huh? Don’t blame him, angel.” He told the officer, “We’re perfectly content to let it lie without preferring any charges.”
“He says it was you started the ruckus.” The policeman jerked his thumb back at the bartender. “Says this couple was sitting here having a quiet drink when you barged in and threw a mug of beer in his face. How about that?”
“I tried to tell you,” said Lucy angrily. “I’m Michael Shayne’s secretary, and he probably saved my life. That hoodlum was threatening to kill me with a conch shell in his pocket.”
The other policeman had Ralph Billiter sitting up at the table, slumped forward and still dazed and half-conscious. He was efficiently shaking him down, and he came up with the sharpened conch shell which he held up for his partner to see. “He’s loaded all right, like the lady says. I heard of these things, but it’s the first one I ever did see.”
“It’s a beaut,” the first officer agreed. “All right, Shayne. Let’s straighten this out at headquarters. Put the cuffs on that one,” he ordered his companion, “soon as you get him on his feet. You got a car here, Shayne?”
Shayne nodded.
“All right. I’ll ride along with you. Bring your man in, Baxter, soon as you can drag him out.”
He turned and stalked toward the door, and Shayne took Lucy’s arm and led her behind him. As they passed the two bartenders, the one who had slugged Shayne said with gruff cordiality, “Drop back some time, huh, and have a cognac on the house? If I’d known who you was…”
Shayne said, “I’ll wash my face next time.” He and Lucy went out through the swinging doors where the cop was leaning inside a patrol car at the curb, talking into his microphone.
Suddenly, hysterically, as the night air struck her, Lucy turned and buried her face against Shayne’s chest, and sobbed out almost incoherently, “Oh, God, Michael! I’ve been so frightened. It’s been like a nightmare. I’ve got to tell you…”
He shook her gently and led her to his car parked in front of the prowl car. “Save all the explanations until we get to headquarters. Will Gentry is going to want to hear it too, and there’s no use going over it twice.”
“I was such a fool, Michael. I walked right into it, thinking I was being so smart and helpful.”
“Relax now and save it till later.” Shayne put her in the front seat and turned to the officer who was coming up behind him. “You want me to drive?”
“Sure. I’ll get in the back.” There was belligerent respect tinged with awe in his voice as he opened the door and got in. “My God, I never thought I’d see Mike Shayne laid out on the floor like that. That’s why I couldn’t hardly believe the lady when she said who you was.”
Shayne said, “I hardly believed it myself when I first opened my eyes.” He put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb.
“Where did you get that awful costume so fast, Michael?” Lucy asked in a subdued voice. “It was such a short time after you answered McTige’s phone.”
“Passed a bum on the street and gave him ten bucks for his hat and coat. I didn’t want to cause too much notice when I walked into the Dolphin. But let’s save all this for Gentry,” he counseled her. “God knows I want to know what you’ve been up to, but I want this officer to be able to swear to Gentry that we didn’t fix up our stories on the way in.”
Miami’s chief of police sat solidly behind his desk and glared at the couple when they were ushered into his office. “What have you two been up to now? My God, Mike, what do you think you’re impersonating?”
Shayne looked down at the dirty, undersized corduroy jacket he was wearing as though he just recalled he had it on. He shrugged out of it and let it drop to the floor, squaring his wide shoulders in relief. He said, “You’d better get a stenographer in to take it all down, Will. I’m waiting to hear Lucy’s story myself. But before we get started… do you know about McTige yet?”
“What do you know about him?” demanded Gentry suspiciously.
“I know he’s dead, Will. I phoned in the report.”
“You phoned it in,” fumed Gentry, “Anonymously. And then ducked out before the cops got there. That’s enough for me to lift your license, and by God…”
Shayne held up a big hand, “The stenographer, Will. I want this down in black and white if I’m going to lose my license over it.”
He pulled up a chair and settled Lucy in it while Gentry pushed a button on his desk and growled, “Send Richardson in.” Shayne drew another chair close to Lucy’s and sat beside her, getting himself a cigarette lit while a young, smooth-faced plainclothesman came in and settled himself at a desk in the corner with a shorthand notebook open.
Shayne settled back and took a long drag on his cigarette and said evenly: “A brief statement from Michael Shayne. I went to my office after you left me at the Bright Spot, Will, and found Mrs. Renshaw’s address in Lucy’s notes. Her hotel room was empty when I entered it, but I found a telephone message beside her bed that she was to call McTige at the Yardley Hotel. I went there, and entered his room and found his dead body. Before I could report it, his phone rang and I answered. It was Mrs. Renshaw. She seemed to immediately realize it wasn’t McTige speaking, and hung up.
“A moment later the phone rang again. It was Lucy Hamilton, calling McTige. She gave her name as Mrs. Renshaw and instructed me to meet her at the Dolphin Bar with ‘the money’ at once. I had a feeling she had recognized my voice, and was carrying on her end of the conversation under duress. I went there and found Lucy seated in a booth with a man I had never seen before, but who looked dangerous to me. I played drunk and manoeuvered him far enough away from Lucy so I could slug him, and I got slugged from behind by the bartender. That’s all I know. Lucy, you take it from the time I dashed out of the Bright Spot leaving you and Tim behind.”
Lucy Hamilton said in a small voice, “It’s all going to sound terribly confused, because it’s still all very confusing to me. All right, Michael. Tim and I went right out behind you and Tim told the doorman I wanted a cab. He said there’d probably be one any minute discharging passengers, and he got Tim’s car for him while I waited. Tim refused to go off and leave me there until a cab came. It seemed a long wait, but probably wasn’t more than ten minutes. The minute a cab pulled in, Tim jumped in his car and took off. I got into the cab, and just as we were pulling away I saw a woman hurrying, almost running, around the side of the club from the rear. I recognized her under the floodlight as Mrs. Renshaw… the woman who came to our office today and begged Michael to find her husband in Miami before the Syndicate found him and killed him.”
She hesitated a moment, and turned her head to explain to Shayne: “I knew you’d gone off looking for her husband… the man Sloe Burn called Fred Tucker… and I jumped out of the cab and went over and intercepted Mrs. Renshaw just as she was starting in the front door. She recognized me from this afternoon at the office, and she was terribly distraught. She said she’d had a phone call from the Chicago detective, Baron McTige, saying that her husband was at the Bright Spot hiding in Sloe Burn’s dressing room.