“How on earth can you say that, Mike?” Tim Rourke asked.
“He means a hand grenade couldn’t be an accident. Don’t you, Michael?” That was Lucy Hamilton speaking.
“That’s exactly what I do mean,” Shayne said. “Remember we agreed that if your sister is back of this — as I’m beginning to think she may be — then your death has to be accidental. A live hand grenade doesn’t spell accident, even to a cop like Petey Painter. It spells murder.”
“Then what was the reason—”
“For throwing the grenade at all? To scare you into losing your head. To frighten me away from the case. I can’t know for sure. I do know a grenade explodes at a definite second count after the pin is pulled. A skilled grenade man would have thrown it timed to let it go off in the air as it reached us. Then we’d all be dead now. This one threw too fast, giving me time to get rid of the thing.”
“I see. Anyway I know I have to trust you people, and you’re the experts in this sort of thing. I’ll feel safer with Tim and Miss Hamilton here though.”
“They’ll stay right with you,” Shayne promised. “Tim has a gun and knows how to use it, but I’m about one hundred and five percent sure he won’t have any need to.”
Later that evening Mike Shayne shared brandy and cigars with his friend Will Gentry in the Miami Police Chief’s office.
“You realize this whole thing isn’t in my jurisdiction,” Will Gentry said as he put a match to his cigar. “Not that I suppose it bothers you.”
“An attempted murder is in any cop’s jurisdiction,” Shayne said. “Throwing a hand grenade at an old friend puts this one in yours anyway. Besides all I want you to do is get me some information on these people.”
He took a sheet of paper out of his pocket and put it on the desk top. “Here are the names, last known outside addresses and supposed next of kin of the Barker servants,” he said. “Ellen gave them to me from her personnel records. The murderer may not be on that list, but somebody who knows him is. Somebody had to tip off whoever tossed that grenade.”
“Seems so,” Gentry agreed.
“I’ve also put down the name of the woman at the hairdresser’s place. Also the names of Ellen’s parents, the orphanage she was raised at, anything else that might help locate whoever adopted the girl.”
“I’ll get a request out to the police in Chicago and the town where the orphanage is,” Gentry said. “I don’t really expect much, but they might come up with something that could help. We’ll look at the servants’ records in our own files and then send them back as far as we can.”
He picked up the sheet and studied it. “Mike, you might have something here at that.”
“What?”
Before he answered his friend Will Gentry picked up his desk phone and spoke into it for a minute. He turned back to Shayne.
“I just talked to Records. I think we have something on this beauty operator Adele Miller. That name rings a bell. We’ll know in a few minutes.”
It was at least ten minutes before the night duty man in the Records Division brought up a thin Manila folder and put it on the Chief’s desk.
Gentry studied it for a moment, and then, his face impassive, passed it over to the big private detective.
Mike Shayne leafed through the few sheets in the folder. “I’d say that was an interesting background.”
“So would I,” Gentry agreed. “Busted once for possession of marijuana. Known to hang out at some pretty rough dives on both sides of Biscayne Bay. Arrested three times for disorderly conduct by taking part in wild parties, but turned loose the next day. Suspicion of being a call girl. Suspicion of taking a thousand dollars from a convention tourist, but the man wouldn’t press charges. No wonder the name registered.”
“Yeah,” Shayne said. “A pretty mod character all in all. Then the whole pattern changes five years back. None of these items are newer than that. About the time Ellen marries Barker and his millions, this Adele changes her pattern. She goes to beauty school and then gets a regular job. Maybe she still runs around some, but no rough stuff. Is the timing a coincidence?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Gentry said. “There’s nothing in here to really tie her to the Barkers. Adele was born and raised in New York according to our info. Moved down here ten years back. Nothing says she was adopted. I’ll try to run a check on that in the morning for you if you like.”
“I like,” Shayne said. “Meanwhile I think I’ll go have a chat with Adele. It’s still early enough so she should be up and around. You have her address here on her beauty operator license application. You check the servants for me too, Will. I’ll call you back in the morning.”
Adele Miller worked in a beauty shop on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach, but her home address was an apartment building in the close in North East section of Miami itself. The location was only a couple of miles from the downtown police headquarters in the sprawling city — county complex.
Mike Shayne drove slowly, turning over the facts of the case in his mind.
He became conscious then of a vague uneasiness, an almost physical sense of apprehension. He knew that feeling of old. There was a danger near which he did not consciously discern but which the finely honed senses of a man who lived much of his life in danger had detected anyway.
It wasn’t long before the big detective pinned down the cause of his uneasiness.
A small black foreign car of the type usually nicknamed “the bug” was following him and keeping about half a block back. Now that he noticed the little car he had a vague recollection of having seen one like it in his rear view mirror on his way over from the Beach to Gentry’s office. He couldn’t be sure about that of course, but he could make sure that the car he was watching now really was tailing him.
Mike Shayne drove about a mile out of his way, twisting and turning his route in an illogical pattern. The little black car stayed just a half block behind.
Shayne didn’t really try to duck the bug or shake it off. As long as he knew who was on his tail he could deal with the situation. He headed back to his original destination east of Biscayne Boulevard.
The building where Adele Miller lived was an old twenty unit apartment that had begun to show signs of age. The landlord was probably waiting to sell the ground as part of the site of a new luxury highrise and would keep his overhead low till that happy day arrived for him.
Mike Shayne put his car in one of the parking spaces by the building. As he parked the black bug drove by. Shayne tried to see who was driving but the street was tree shaded and dark and he couldn’t even make out whether the driver was a man or a woman.
“The way they wear their hair these days, it’s hard enough to tell even in daylight,” the big man thought wryly.
He figured whoever it was would park somewhere out of sight down the street towards the Bay and wait for him to come out of the building again.
He found the number of Adele Miller’s apartment on a door in the second floor hall. Light was coming through the transom over the door so the redhead pushed the bell. When it didn’t ring he lifted one big hand and knocked on the door. He waited and knocked again.
Finally he heard somebody coming to the door. It opened a crack and a woman’s face looked out. Shayne shifted so she could get a good look at him.