“It feels like picture wire,” Cal Harris said.
“Then you better work on me,” Shayne said. “If we could sit up back to back you can get your fingers on the cord around my hands.”
“I can do better than that,” Harris said. “I’m lying on top of what feels like a Coke bottle.”
“Good boy,” Shayne said.
With much difficulty they managed to get into a sitting position, back to back. Shayne took the Coke bottle and managed to break it on the cement floor. After that Harris sawed at the bonds around Shayne’s wrists with a piece of the broken glass.
It was slow and chancy work. Harris had to be very careful not to cut Mike Shayne’s wrists.
“How did he get you?” Shayne asked as he worked.
“He was waiting in the dining room by the door. When I came in he grabbed me. I tried to yell but there was a plane going over.”
“So there was. I couldn’t hear you. How did he get in there ahead of you from outside?”
“He didn’t,” Harris said. “He was there already. I remember I could still hear somebody moving outside the window. I think he could too and he didn’t like it.”
“That’s fine,” Shayne said, “at least two of them.”
“Yes. After he hit you I heard a noise like somebody calling out some place in the house. I think that’s why he was in a hurry and careless when he tied you up. He had to go see. Anyway, he had a knife and he knocked me down. He asked where the money was and hit me. Then he brought me here and tied me. He was going after you, but we heard you on the kitchen floor over us.”
“Wonderful,” Shayne said. “Just fine.”
“All the time I remembered the way you looked when I left the living room. Just a dark column,” Cal Harris said, “in front of the fireplace. It looked like the moose head was yours. It made me think of old John.”
“Careful with that broken glass,” Shayne said. “What about old John?”
“He stood like that times when he didn’t know I watched. I think he prayed to that moose.”
“Nobody prays to a stuffed moose head,” Shayne said. “You must have been mistaken.”
“Anyway, I sure caught him talking to it a couple of times. What are we gonig to do now, Mr. Shayne?”
The last cord around the detective’s wrists cut through and he began to untie his ankles and then take the wire bonds off Cal Harris.
“Somebody just about broke my head,” he said. “The first thing I’m going to do is find him and do a one hundred per cent job on his noggin. You better wait here where you’re safe.”
“I’m not safe except with you,” Harris said. “You know that. Sally said you promised no harm would come to me. Besides, I might be of help.”
Shayne thought that over. “I guess you might as well come along. If I leave you here he’d just as likely come back.”
They groped around on the floor and found the cane Cal Harris had brought and the other one Shayne had been holding when he was slugged. For himself the big man took the length of iron pipe that had been used on his head. His gun was gone, of course. Add that to the killer’s knife, he thought, but didn’t mention it to Harris.
“Did you recognize the killer?” he asked.
“No, I didn’t. It was dark and I was half stunned and scared of his knife. Besides, he had a stocking over his head for a mask. His voice was muffled like. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t anybody I know, though. Where are we going now, Mr. Shayne?”
“We’re going back to the living room,” Shayne said. “I think you’re right about the hiding place being there. Are you sure it wasn’t a woman caught you instead of a man? A woman pretending to be a man, I mean?”
“To tell you the truth I’m not real sure of anything. Like I said, it was all quick and dark and I was scared. I just don’t think it was anybody I know, though.”
They were both standing on the small landing at the top of the basement stairs. The kitchen door was locked, but that was no problem for Shayne. The killer had taken his gun, but in his haste and in the dark had left the key ring of passkeys and delicate lock-picks which the detective always carried.
Even in the pitch dark he had the door open in less than fifty seconds. After the cellar, the reflected night light through the windows made vision easy in the kitchen.
They didn’t have long to look about.
There came a sudden pound of running feet on the second floor above their heads and what sounded like the thud of blows. A voice or voices cried out. Then there was the thud of a heavy fall and feet on the stairs coming down.
Shayne bolted for the door to the hallway, hit a patch of grease on the dirty floor and felt his feet shoot out from under him. He lit all sprawled out and skidded into the side of the heavy old gas range, almost knocking himself out. The sound of running feet was drowned by the roar of jet engines coming in low overhead.
By the time Cal Harris had helped Shayne back onto his feet the house was once again silent.
“What’s going on?” Harris asked.
“I’m busy making a damn fool of myself,” the redhead said. “Just shut up and let me do it. I’m doing a real fine job so far.”
“It ain’t your fault,” Harris said. “Old John was a dirty old man.”
“Come on. Let’s go back to the living room. That’s where we were headed for. No reason to change our minds now.”
They went quietly and cautiously up the hall, not seeing or hearing anything out of the ordinary. The living room door was shut but not locked. Shayne eased it open very quietly.
At first the room seemed to be just as he had left it only a few long minutes before. Then he made out a deeper shadow where no shadow was supposed to be, and a very slight flicker of movement in the darkest part.
He was across the room with the speed and concentrated ferocity of a big jungle cat making its leap to kill. This time nothing tripped him or slowed him down. He was across the big room and had his hands on a wiry figure that twisted and fought under his grip. Fingernails raked his face and feet kicked viciously at his shins.
Then the sheer bulk and hard muscled in-fighting skill of the big man prevailed. The figure under his hands stopped its struggling.
“I’ve got him,” Shayne said. “Hurry up, Cal, and put on one of those lights. Let’s see what we got.”
“Cal?” said the figure in his grip. “Oh, help, Cal. Help me!”
Cal Harris jumped as if he’d been stabbed.
“Let her go,” he yelled, forgetting all about any need for silence. “Mr. Shayne, that’s my Sally you have there.”
“Oh, hell,” Shayne said. “Put on the light. Just one bulb now.” He didn’t let go of the figure which now felt strangely soft in his grip.
When Harris lit one of the small table lamps they could see that it was indeed Sally Harris in Mike Shayne’s grasp. In a man’s sport shirt and slacks and a pair of penny-loafers and with a kerchief she could easily have passed for a boy even on the street on a dark night. Shayne let go of her.
“What are you doing here?” he said in a weary tone.
“I told you today I wasn’t going to let Cal get hurt,” she said. “I followed along to see that no harm come to him and you didn’t get him arrested.”
“Right now I’d feel better if it was possible to get you both arrested, fast,” Shayne said. “Then I could get on with my job. Was that you fighting upstairs just now?”
“It was,” Sally said. “Some man jumped me. I think he wanted to kill me. He had a knife. Is he the one you’re after?”
“I think likely he is,” the redhead said. “That is, unless they just made this place into a motel for escaped lunatics. How did you get away from his knife?”
“I kicked him in the face,” Sally said simply. “He didn’t like it. Then I run down here.”