She was a very much made up blonde with a platinum dye job and dark, flashing eyes. She didn’t look like Ellen Barker for sure, but on the other hand she didn’t look totally unlike her. She was wearing a see-through blouse that did its job unashamedly and a pair of silver lame slacks.
“Adele Miller?” Shayne asked.
“Who wants to know?” said a man’s voice from somewhere in the room behind her.
Shayne put one big foot in the crack of the door so it couldn’t be shut. The woman saw him do it but made no move to stop him.
Mike Shayne looked directly at her and smiled.
“I’m a friend of one of your customers at the shop,” he said. “One of your best customers. Could be a lot better too.”
“Who does the bum think he is comin’ here this time of night?” the voice of the unseen man demanded. “Tell him to drag his tail out of here, Hon, before I bust him up.”
The woman continued to look at Shayne, appraising his big muscular frame with an appreciative eye.
“There could be a lot of money in it for you, Adele,” Shayne said. “A lot of money.”
“What makes you think I could be for sale, big man?” she said for the first time in a low, throaty voice.
“It’s not that kind of money,” Shayne said in an equally low tone. “This could be really big money. Bigger than you ever dreamed of.”
“I said throw that bum out,” said the man inside.
Adele Miller looked out of wide eyes at Shayne and the look was an invitation. Then she stepped back and opened the door wide.
“Throw him out yourself if you can.” she said over her shoulder.
The man inside came up off the couch and across the room in a lumbering rush. He was naked from the waist up and wore only sandals and a pair of widely flared, loud patterned knit slacks. As he came he got a switch blade knife with a six inch stilleto blade out of his back pocket and pushed the wicked blade out in front of him.
It didn’t do him any good.
The man had been smoking pot or taking some sort of upper or downer drug. His eyes were glazed and his movements lacked coordination. He never stood a chance against the big redheaded private detective.
Mike Shayne got his left hand clasped on the wrist of the hand holding the knife and twisted. The knife hit the floor point first and stuck there, quivering.
Then Shayne drove a hard right chop to the man’s jaw. The fellow lost all interest in any more fighting and hit the floor beside his weapon.
“Where do you want this put?” Shayne asked the woman.
She jerked a thumb towards the hall beyond the still open door.
Mike Shayne got the man by one arm and one leg and dragged him over the sill. Then he came back in and shut the door and saw that it was locked. He left the knife where it stood, still trembling slightly, in the floor.
Adele Miller gave the big redhead a long look.
“At least you’re all man,” she said. “Okay, lover. Suppose you tell me what this is all about.”
“I will,” Shayne said. “Who was that?”
“Nobody important,” Adele Miller said and shrugged. “I was tired of him a long time ago, but what can a girl do these days? So tell me all, lover. Mostly the part about the big, big money. That part I want to hear.”
“You’ve got a customer at your shop named Mrs. Ellen Barker.” Mike Shayne made it a statement.
“Okay. Yeah, I know her.”
The woman’s eyes were suddenly hooded and she moved a little away from Shayne. Something had put her on her guard.
“Did anyone ever tell you looked like her?” Shayne asked. “This Mrs. Barker, I mean? Do you think you look like her?”
He waited but Adele Miller was back to intently watching him again.
“This is where the money part comes in,” Shayne said.
The woman went and got a bottle of gin off the table and poured some in a clean glass and gave it to Shayne. She took a long pull of the stuff right out of the neck of the bottle for herself.
“Come off it,” she said. “I thought you had something new to talk about.”
“What does that mean?” Mike Shayne was genuinely surprised, but he was trying hard not to show it. “I wasn’t kidding you, Adele. You answer a couple of questions right, and there could be some really big money in it for you.”
“Sure,” she said. “I know, lover. Half of all them lovely Barker millions. That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it? Only I won’t do it.”
She paused.
“You won’t do what?”
“I won’t make out like I’m Ellen Barker’s long lost little sister, is what. It wouldn’t work anyway.”
VI
That one really did rock Mike Shayne back on his heels. For a minute he said nothing at all. Then: “Where did you get that idea? I didn’t say anything about any sister.”
Adele Miller drank some of her gin. “You didn’t, big man, but you were about to. You don’t think I couldn’t spot that routine.”
“What routine?”
“The same routine the other shamus — at least he said he was a shamus — give me. You was right at the point of telling me all I have to do is pretend to be her sister and get the big payoff. Only I know it won’t work.”
“You’re way ahead of yourself,” Shayne said. “I wasn’t going to suggest you claim to be anything you aren’t. You’re right I’m looking for Ellen Barker’s sister, but for me it’s got to be the real sister or nothing. Now who is this other man, and what makes you say he — or I for that matter — are private detectives?”
“I recognized you, Shayne,” she said. “I’ve seen your picture in the News plenty times. The other fellow says he’s a shamus. You can’t prove it by me. He says this Ellen is all set to give half her money to baby sister if sister shows up.”
“That’s not exactly right,” Shayne said when she paused, “but go on anyway.”
“He says I look like I could be the sister,” she went on. “What’s more, he says he can draw the picture for me with no problem at all.”
“Draw the picture?”
“Give me the dope to fill in the picture so Ellen will believe it. He says he has the dates and names and the proofs I can show her. It’ll be a lead pipe cinch he says. A walkaway from the field. Nothing to it.”
Shayne drank some of the gin. It was raw stuff and he didn’t like it but he needed something to soften the impact of what he was hearing. Right then he did believe that Ellen Barker’s life really was in danger.
“What I don’t get,” he said finally, “is that you say you didn’t buy all this. I don’t know about half of all the millions, but I can say it’s no secret Ellen’s sister stands to get plenty if she’s found. How come you turn down a chance like that?”
For a minute Adele Miller looked a lot older than her years. “I ain’t sayin’ I wasn’t tempted, lover. The only place a girl like me sees that kind of money is in the late-late teevy shows. Sure I’d like to be on the other side of the dryer at the shop with all them rich bitches that come in. Only it wouldn’t work. I couldn’t make it stick no matter what proof somebody handed me.”
She paused as if thinking over what to say next. Then: “I got a police record, lover.”
“So what?” Shayne asked. He didn’t show that he already knew about the woman’s record with the law.
“How could I make a phony story stick? They’ve got my prints. First time anybody investigated — and sweet Ellen would investigate unless she’s the world’s biggest chump for sure — they’d get the truth about me. The game would go zero then, zilch.”
“I’m afraid you’ve got a point,” Mike Shayne admitted.