Rourke obliged.
When Mike Shayne opened the napkin in the bread basket there weren’t any rolls inside, though.
There was a dead toad impaled on a razor sharp steak knife.
“Oh, crap!” Tim Rourke said.
III
Mike Shayne wrapped the napkin back around the gruesome little reptile and left it in the basket. Then he picked up the brandy bottle and filled his and Tim Rourke’s coffee cups with the fiery amber liquid.
“I think your friend means business,” he said.
“I guess so,” Rourke agreed. “First the note and then this for a warning. I’d better get down and tell Hill about this latest development. And after that, maybe I can get a little shut-eye. What do you plan to do?”
“You’ve worked with me enough times to know the answer to that,” Shayne said. “I want to meet the cast of characters. Who was here two nights ago that could have a reason to kill Harvey Peckinbaugh? Who do you think might have done it?”
“That won’t be easy to say,” Tim Rourke said. “There were about thirty people here. They still are, by special request of Sheriff Sam Hill. About half of that crowd are business or political pals of Peckinbaugh from his home State, and their wives or girl friends. I don’t really know any of them well enough to know how they feel about the late departed. You can ask Bill Buzby about them. He was Harvey’s secretary, confidential man and general right bower. He’d know the poop oh that crowd.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Shayne said. “Could he have done it himself?”
“Buzby? I haven’t the faintest idea. I don’t know of any motive on his part.”
“A confidential assistant could have one,” Shayne said. “How about the rest of your happy group?”
“Mostly just friends from Miami like me,” Rourke said. “Most of us didn’t really know Harvey very well, but his food and liquor was triple-A good so we came for the ride. Then of course there was Harvey’s harem.”
“His what?”
“That’s what we called them among ourselves. It was a funny grouping for a party. His wife, Della, is here of course. Or maybe ‘of course’ is the wrong way to put it because the big room with the king-size waterbed down at the end of the hall has his girl friend Dolly Dawn in it. We figure that’s where Harvey did most of his bouncing around. Then to top the whole thing off Slim and Sally Peters are in one of the guest cabins.”
“Slim Peters the gambler?” Shayne asked. “The one who owns the casino in Dominica?”
“That’s the one,” Rourke agreed. “Only what you probably don’t know is Slim’s wife Sally is also the ex Mrs. Harvey Peckinbaugh.”
“Whew,” Shayne whistled.
“That’s right,” Rourke confirmed. “Wife, ex-wife and current hotlips all at the same party. Now who had what motive to do which to who.”
The redhead sat back, looking out through the window at the rising sun in the east. One big hand reached up and the thumb and forefinger tugged at his ear-lobe. That was a sign Shayne was in deep thought, so Rourke sat quietly and did not interrupt.
After a while the newsman reached out for the bottle and started to refill the cup in front of him.
About that time they began to hear the sounds of plates clattering and of voices from the dining room on the ground floor under their windows.
“That will be breakfast,” Rourke said. “It’s served buffet style like in an English country house. I don’t suppose many of the guests got much sleep last night, what with one thing and another. They’ll be down early.”
“We’ll go down too, then,” Mike Shayne said. “We can make like we’re eating, and it’ll be a good chance for you to finger the suspects to me.”
The dining room was huge, at least thirty by sixty feet in dimension, with French windows opening out to the wide verandah and the sea along the front. The guests helped themselves from a variety of hot and cold dishes on a long sideboard, and ate either at the main table or at one of several smaller tables which had been set up on the porch just outside the dining room.
They looked nervous and tense and were eating lightly. A few, most of whom Shayne recognized as Miami socialites, ate with good appetite and were busy talking among themselves. Those were the people who obviously considered themselves above suspicion and who had little or nothing to gain or lose through the death of their quondam host. They tended to favor this outside tables.
Another group, mostly older men already wearing dark business suits suitable for a plane flight, were Harvey Peckinbaugh’s business and political associates.
These men ate little and talked Jess. They looked alert and harrassed. Shayne assumed that every one of them had something at stake as a result of the murder.
The servants, too, looked nervous and even frightened. They moved about quickly as if unsure of themselves, hesitated before touching anything, and tried to keep an eye at all times on a small group of men at the head of the big table.
Mike Shayne recognized these as Sheriff Sam Hill and some of his top grade plainclothes men. That was where the big private detective headed at once.
Sam Hill was busy eating and trying to talk with his mouth full. He didn’t see Shayne and Rourke coming at first. When he did he sat back in his chair and eyed them while his jaws worked on a mouthful of ham and biscuit.
“Hello Sam,” Shayne said. “You got this thing all wrapped up already?” He dropped the basket with its grisly contents on the table in front of the Sheriff.
Sam Hill took two swallows to get his mouth clear. When he did, he said, “What in the blazing noonday sun are you doing here, Shayne? And what’s this thing?”
“I just happened to be down this way,” Mike Shayne said easily, “so I stopped by to give Tim here a ride back to Miami. I figured after what happened the festivities would be fizzling out pretty quick down here. But then Rourke and I found this. Served up with breakfast.”
“Oh Lordy,” Sam Hill said. “I don’t know what we got here. Old Peckinbaugh didn’t die of no virus of course, but we don’t know even where he was killed. Now there’s a skiff missing. Was he killed here and did somebody row him out and tip him into the Gulf Stream? Or did he row out himself and meet somebody who knifed him? And now these threats. I got to question everybody on this place.”
“Speaking of that, Sam,” Shayne said, “when do you think you’ll be through with Tim?”
Sam Hill turned to Tim Rourke and said, “Okay, Shayne, you can have him any time you want. Don’t be in too much of a hurry though. We could maybe use your help.”
“Great,” said Rourke, “I’m only too glad to get off this place. I’ll leave my little friend in your hands. Glad it’s your job, not mine!”
“Yeah,” Sheriff Hill grunted.
At that moment a younger man came hurrying across the big room to where the sheriff sat. He was darkly handsome in a curiously stereotyped way. His sports jacket and slacks were casual, but his manner put him with the business-suit men rather than the Miami social set.
Mike Shayne’s hunch that this would be Bill Buzby, the late Mr. Peckinbaugh’s confidential man, was confirmed as soon as he spoke.
“Sheriff, when are you going to begin letting people out of here? Some of Mr. Peckinbaugh’s business associates are very important people. They want to get back west, you understand. Pick up the chips that the old man’s death has scattered.”
“I have to ask some questions before I let everybody go,” the Sheriff protested.
“Of course. Of course,” Buzby said. “We all understand that. On the other hand you can’t just hold all these people indefinitely as if they were ordinary joes. Why, one of them is Lieutenant Governor of our State. Another is the third or fourth biggest car dealer West of the Mississippi. That sort of people... Can’t you just take a brief statement from them and let them go? Men like that are easy enough to locate if you need them later on. You know that.”