Shayne grunted and said, “How many people in the bank knew he intended to call me in on the affair?”
“I imagine I’m the only one.”
“How about his secretary who typed the letter? I think the initials were H. B.”
“Yes. Harvey Barstow.”
Shayne said, “I’d like to be alone and undisturbed while I go through his files. His instructions were to keep things private.”
“Certainly,” said Barstow. He closed the filing-cabinet and went out of the private office.
It was nearing the bank’s closing time, two hours later, when Shayne dropped into the chair behind the bank president’s desk and gave a grunt of disgust. There was absolutely nothing of a personal nature in any of the desk drawers or the files. He lit a cigarette and sat puffing smoke toward the ceiling.
When the cigarette was half finished, he went out and found Barstow at one of the windows. “I’m through here,” said Shayne. “Carson’s train not in yet?”
“It’s due in about twenty minutes,” Barstow told him.
“The one that leaves New Orleans at eleven o’clock?” Shayne asked, surprised.
“Yes. It’s a local and makes very poor time.” Barstow stepped back and held the door open for Shayne to go out.
Back in his hotel room, Shayne opened his suitcase and took out a bottle of cognac. There was no comfortable chair in the room. He went to the bed and arranged the two pillows against the headboard and stretched out with the bottle in his hand.
He had been mulling over the case for thirty minutes when he heard footsteps coming down the hall. Then there was a knock on his door.
He got up and opened the door. The fat hotel manager stood there, panting. “Telephone call for you, Mr. Shayne.”
Shayne followed him down the stairs. The receiver of the old-fashioned wall phone dangled at the end of the cord. He put it to his ear and said, “Shayne talking.”
“Mr. Shayne — the detective?” The woman’s voice was low and secretive, as though she tried to keep someone from hearing her.
“That’s right.”
“This is Mrs. Harvey Barstow. I’ve got to see you right away.” She sounded excited and frightened.
“Where are you?”
“I don’t want you to come out here. That is, it’d be best if no one knew. Could you drive out the road a ways?”
“Which road?”
“Straight past the courthouse from the hotel. There’s a crossroad a mile out. Turn to the right a little distance and stop.”
She was frightened, Shayne decided. He said, “In five minutes?”
“Yes. I’ll be there.” She hung up.
When Shayne reached the appointed spot he pulled to the side of the narrow road and cut off his motor. Soon, in the intense woodland silence, he heard a car approaching. It came into view, and he saw a black coupe with a woman behind the wheel.
She parked a dozen yards away, got out, and ran swiftly to Shayne’s sedan. “I just had to see you,” she panted. “After Harvey told me about you, I phoned as soon as I could.”
Shayne opened the car door. “Won’t you get in and sit down, Mrs. Barstow?”
She looked furtively around, then said, “Just for a little while. I told Harvey I had to get some groceries. I don’t want him to know.” She got in beside Shayne and closed the door.
Shayne looked at her frightened indigo-blue eyes. Her cheeks were deeply suntanned and her flaxen hair clung damply to her high forehead. She was slim, and wore a clean house dress flowered in blue.
Shayne said quietly, “What did you want to see me about?”
“You’re a detective, and Mr. Carson hired you to come up here.” She was calmer now, and she turned sideways in the seat to look earnestly into Shayne’s eyes.
“That’s right.”
“Tell me — what are you after, Mr. Shayne? I’m afraid.”
“It’s a private matter,” Shayne told her.
“I knew it.” Her voice rose with an intonation of triumph. “Harvey doesn’t think so. He believes it’s just something about the bank’s business, but I know better. It’s about Mr. Carson’s wife, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think Mr. Carson would want me to discuss it with anyone else.”
“You can’t tell me anything I don’t know already,” she said earnestly. “You can see why I’m frightened for Harvey. It isn’t his fault. She went after him from the very beginning. He didn’t know what to do. He tried to be nice to her because she was Mr. Carson’s wife, and — well, you know how a woman like that operates, Mr. Shayne.
“I don’t know why she picked on Harvey. He never encouraged her. I know that. She deceived her husband from the very beginning of their marriage. It’s common knowledge, but Harvey doesn’t think Mr. Carson knows — yet. But I knew what had happened as soon as he told me about your being here. A man’s bound to find out sometime.”
Shayne lighted a cigarette and puffed on it and didn’t interrupt her. Mrs. Barstow put a work-roughened hand on his coat sleeve.
“You’ve got to tell me what Mr. Carson’s going to do. Is he going to divorce Belle when you get the evidence? Harvey will go off with her if he does. He’ll leave the children and me for her. She has completely bewitched him.”
Shayne sighed heavily. “I met your husband this afternoon, and he hardly seems the type to desert his wife and children,” he said.
“He isn’t, Mr. Shayne. He’s a good man. He never looked at a woman in the ten years we’ve been married until she came along.”
“How long has this affair been going on?”
“Over a year now.” She turned her anguished eyes away from him. “Harvey began driving out to meet her nights and going to her house when Mr. Carson wasn’t there. She drinks with him — and Harvey loses his wits when he drinks.”
“Why are you telling me this if you think I’m here to gather evidence against Mrs. Carson and your husband?”
“You could find it out from anyone in Cheepwee,” she told him. “She gloats about her influence over men.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I thought you might talk to Harvey. If he saw what a terrible mess it was going to be he might come back to his senses. I don’t know. It just seems that I’ve got to do something. I did try a few months ago.” She paused, turning her eyes upon him again. “Do you know the other private detectives in New Orleans?”
“Some of them.”
“Do you know Mr. Jones?”
Shayne frowned thoughtfully, shook his red head, and said, “There are a lot of private detectives in New Orleans.”
“I suppose so,” she said wistfully. “I just wondered. I don’t know what to do. Since you’re in the detective business, I thought maybe you could advise me.”
“I’ll try to if you’ll give me the facts,” he said gently.
“Well — I went to see Mr. Jones about five months ago in his office in the Downtown Building. I got his name from the telephone book. It said he specialized in divorce evidence and domestic difficulties.”
Shayne said, “Jones — in the Downtown Building?”
“Yes. His initials are S. G. He had a dinky little office and not even a stenographer that I could see, but he seemed smart enough. I was just about crazy with worry about Harvey. I’d tried to talk to Harvey about Belle Carson and Harvey had warned me to mind my own business.”
“Why did you go to a private detective?”
“To try to get something on her,” Mrs. Barstow said viciously. “Something I could hold over her to make her leave Harvey alone. I felt like there had to be something — if a detective would go to work and dig it up. Anybody can see she’s nothing but a hussy. Lord knows how many men she had before she popped up here and married Mr. Carson.