“Hold it,” Tim Rourke said. His hand reached out and switched off the one lamp bulb burning in the room. “Hold it. I think somebody’s coming up the path from the water.”
Even as he spoke they could see a dim form approaching the house.
Then they noted that there were two figures walking close together.
“This is a corner lot,” Rourke whispered. “Whoever they are they’re coming in from the rear of the side street that deadends at the water.”
Shayne and Rourke moved quickly to the back of the house and out through the french doors leading to the lawn. They intercepted the two approaching figures before they reached the side door leading into the kitchen wing of the ground floor.
“Hold on a minute,” Shayne said brusquely.
Both figures were women. They had been talking together in low voices and hadn’t heard the two men approach. They jumped, and one cried out. The slighter, younger woman dropped her purse which flew open and the contents flew out and fell on to the gravel path.
“I’ll scream and wake them in the house,” said the older woman in a firm, if alarmed tone of voice. This one was taller and older than the other. Shayne could see a mass of dark hair coiled on her head. She spoke with an accent.
“Don’t bother,” Tim Rourke said. “We’re from the house. We saw you coming and didn’t recognize you at first. It’s the cook and one of the maids, Mike.”
“And you’re the two gentlemen were here for dinner,” the younger woman said “Remember, Dora, I described Mr. Shayne and Mr. Rourke to you.”
The speaker was young and good looking in a mod and flashy way. Her hair was piled up in an elaborate hairdo and her face heavily made up. Shayne recognized the maid who had brought out the food earlier in the evening, though now the trim uniform had been replaced by an outrageously mini-type skirt and a fringed frontier buckskin shirt.
“You’re a bit late coming in,” Shayne said.
“Been out with my boy friend,” the girl said with a toss of her head. “Not that it’s any of your business, mister. I work for Mrs. Barker, not you. The work’s all done for the day anyhow.”
“It’s all right, Millie,” the older woman said. “Mr. Shayne’s working for Mrs. Barker now too, and I suppose it’s his job to ask.”
“So he asked and I answered,” the girl snapped. She bent down and began to stuff its contents back into her purse. Tim Rourke squatted down on the walk to help her.
“Were you both out together?” Shayne started to ask the cook and then caught himself. “No, I don’t suppose you would be on a double date.”
The woman gave a warm and friendly laugh. “Oh no. I was visiting my old aunt. She lives in a room down on South Beach, and I make a point of dropping in on her two or three evenings a week. The old get lonely. The bus dropped me on the corner just as Millie got out of her friend’s car. Naturally we walked in together.”
“I see,” Mike Shayne said. From the way Dora spoke he was sure that the aunt would back up her statement. “How about you, Millie? Where did you and your friend go for the evening?”
The girl got up, stuffing the last of her possessions back into her purse.
“Now that really is none of your business,” she said. “We went out for a good time and we had it. That’s all I’m going to say. You want to make something out of it?”
She flounced into the house, followed a moment later by the cook.
Shayne and Rourke went back to the study.
“The girl’s got spirit,” Mike Shayne said as he picked up his brandy glass. “I’ve got to say that for her.”
“Sure,” Tim Rourke agreed. “Spirit isn’t all she has though, Mike. I think maybe you better move her up a notch on your list.”
“And what does that mean?”
“When I was picking up the stuff she spilled out of her purse,” Rourke said, “I picked up a wad of bills held together by a paper clip. I couldn’t count it of course without attracting her attention, but there were at least seven or eight bills in the wad. I could tell that much just by the feel of it.”
“So what does that mean?” Shayne asked. “I suppose Ellen Barker pays her help well. You have to get help these days. A kid like that wouldn’t trust her mattress or a bank. If she had some cash, she might as well carry it.”
“Mike,” Tim Rourke insisted, “I managed to give that stack a quick riff. I couldn’t see it all, but every bill I did get a gander at was a C note. What’s a housemaid doing with a roll of hundred dollar bills?”
VIII
The two men took turns dozing on the couch in the study for the rest of the night. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred so that each of them managed to get a couple of hours’ sleep.
Mike Shayne was awake at five-thirty when he heard the cook, Dora, come downstairs and begin moving about in the kitchen. When he smelled coffee he washed up in the downstairs lavatory and walked back to the kitchen.
Dora smiled at him and offered him a cup. It was hot and strong.
In the morning light the cook was a handsome woman. She didn’t resemble Ellen Barker particularly but bore herself with an air of dignity and intelligence that Shayne noted at once. He wondered if she did have a star tattoed on her hip, and then laughed at himself for the thought.
Dora gave him a slice of coffee ring and butter to go with the hot coffee, and the big man accepted it gratefully.
“You’re here about the business of Miss Ellen’s sister, aren’t you?” Dora asked.
Shayne was surprised. “I might as well admit it,” he said: “How did you know about that?”
“I’ve been working here since right after the Barker’s were married,” Dora said. “What with all the talking they did about it then among themselves and the man from the lawyer’s office in and out of the house all the time, it was impossible not to know what went on. Servants hear things, you know.”
“I know they do,” Shayne said. “Was Millie, the girl with you last night, here then too?”
“No, Millie’s only been here about four months. The only other servant here now who was at the house then is Roberts. He was Mr. Barker’s man from a long time back. This sister business was nothing to him.”
“I see. I understand they hired private detectives to look into it at the time.” Shayne held out his cup for more coffee. “You wouldn’t happen to remember who they were?”
“Not their names, no,” she said. “I never did know that. The detectives never came to the house here. Mr. Patterson, the lawyer, hired them over in town someplace. I don’t even know if they reported direct to Mr. Patterson or to Mr. Barker himself. I do know the family was real upset about their not finding the sister, though. If it’s important, I guess Miss Ellen might remember who they are.”
“I’ll ask her,” Shayne said. “By the way, who’s the boy friend Millie was out with last night?”
Dora laughed. “I can’t help you there either, I’m afraid. Like you said last night, the two of us don’t double date. I never even saw this one close up. A young fellow. I think she calls him Ricky or Nikky or something like that, but I can’t really be sure. Why don’t—”
“I ask her?” Shayne finished for her. “I’ll do that too later on when everyone’s up and about.”
The telephone rang then, and Dora answered it at the kitchen extension. She listened, then. “It’s for you, Mr. Shayne.”