Mike Shayne was genuinely startled.
“I came to see Dolly,” Sally Peters told him. She got up off the floor and went over to a portable bar near the window. There she poured a stiff three fingers of whiskey into a glass and tossed it down as a man would have done.
“The door was open when I got here, so I walked on in. A man, or maybe two men, I can’t be sure, came up the hall and pushed in behind me. One of them gave me a karate chop from behind and that was it. Lights out. The next thing I knew you were coming through the door. How did I know who you were?”
Shayne moved quickly about as she talked, checking the closets, bath and dressing room. There was no one else in the suite. “You didn’t recognize the men or see or hear anything more?” He asked her.
“Neither would you have if you’d been me,” she said bitterly. “Whoever it was who clipped me, he knew his business. A real pro that one.” She poured another drink and tossed it off like the first.
“Don’t you worry though, mister detective,” she said. “If I do figure out who it is, I’ll tell you. If Slim finds out first and locates him, all those fly cops downstairs will really have somebody to nail for murder one — and Slim’s too good a man to lose.”
“What did you want to see Dolly about?” Tim Rourke asked the woman.
“Are you kidding, buster?” she said. “The same thing you and the big shamus wanted to see her about. The same thing that hick sheriff downstairs wants to see her about. What else? I want to know what she knows about who wasted dear old Harve.”
“You don’t sound very sorry about his death,” Mike Shayne said.
“Sorry?” she smiled grimly. “Who’s to be sorry? Harvey was a louse. He lived a louse and he died a louse. All the sex appeal that big bum had was in his safety deposit vaults tied up with red ribbon. Not that it wasn’t enough to get me up to the altar for the everloving vows of course.”
“So.”
“So I don’t want to be blamed for knocking him off is what. I’m a practical gal if nothing else. Just my hard luck to be here when he died. I’ll be a number one suspect and I know it.”
She saw the puzzled look on their faces. She smiled and then continued.
“I’m in old Harvey’s last Will and Testament for a cool ten million clam slice of the estate, in case you didn’t know. It was part of the divorce settlement, and I had some, high priced lawyers write, it in so it would stick. So you see, I hated him and Slim hated him, and all we have to do is pull the lever to win the ten million dollar jackpot. Who else is gonna be the number one patsy around here today?”
“But you and Slim didn’t pull the lever?”
“Do you think we did?” she asked. “Why would we pull a dumb stunt like that when all we have to do is wait? Why risk a rap for murder one when the apples are gonna fall off the tree into our laps anyway?”
“Suppose I believe you?” he said to her. “What you’re saying makes a certain amount of sense. In that case who do you think arranged for your late ex-husband’s untimely departure from this world?”
She picked up the bottle as if to pour herself a third drink, but then shook her head and put it down again. “Two’s enough. I don’t want to look sozzled when the Law puts me on the grille. I’ll level with you, buster. I really will. I think his dear wife Della is the one you want.”
“Good God,” said Rourke.
“She’s got a better motive than anyone else,” Sally Peters said. “I get to inherit ten million, but she gets the whole kazoo. God knows how much. Besides she has to live with him, put up with him, let him wipe his feet on her every day. Maybe she couldn’t stand it any more than I could, only in her case she decided to take the fast way out. Why go through a divorce and get ten million when she can go the murder route and take the whole pot? You see what I mean, buster. I know you do.”
That was all they were going to get out of Sally Peters at the moment, and both of them knew it. Out on the big porch near the railing Sam Hill and two of his dark suited detective officers were talking to a red-haired woman.
Mike Shayne almost did a double-take when he spotted them. This wasn’t the woman he would have picked for Dolly Dawn. This one was small, below medium height and with a slender figure. Her face was an oval under a mass of soft auburn hair and she was small-boned and graceful.
“That’s Dolly?” Shayne said.
“Miss Dolly Dawn in person,” Rourke said with a laugh, “and miscast for the part if you must go by the looks. It’s really the body of Sally Peters that ought to be standing there if you ask me.”
Even as he spoke the woman finished talking to Sheriff Hill and came back into the house. She recognized Tim Rourke and smiled at him. The lanky feature writer took Shayne over and introduced him.
“Another detective?” she said in a soft voice. “I’ve already told all I know to the Sheriff. If you don’t mind... I’m afraid I’m quite upset this morning by all that’s happened.”
Shayne noted that she really did look rather pale and drawn, the first person he’d met yet who showed any feeling for the recently departed master of the house.
On the other hand, her feeling could actually just be fear that the Law might be closing in. It was impossible to tell.
“I don’t think you understand,” Shayne told her. “I’m sure Sam Hill has asked you all the proper questions, and that really wasn’t what we wanted to talk to you about. Actually we were looking for you because we were afraid you might be in some danger and we could help.”
“Danger?” she said with what seemed like honest surprise. “I’m not in any danger that I know of.”
“I’m surprised to hear you say that,” Shayne said. “Sally Peters was slugged in, your room only a little while back by two men. They might have been after you. Naturally we...”
“There’s something very wrong here,” Dolly Dawn said, and looked him right in the eyes. “Personally, she’s the kind who would fake such a scene. I wouldn’t put it past her to have killed Harvey herself.”
VII
Dolly Dawn must have seen the surprise in the faces of the two men, because she repeated what she’d just said. “I said goodnight to Sally and Slim Peters about two in the morning in the hallway outside my room door last night. I closed and locked the door when I went into the room. That is absolutely the last I’ve seen of either Sally or Slim. I don’t know what she may have said to you, and I don’t really care. What I just told you is the God’s truth.”
She said it with emphasis and with a ring of sincerity in her tones, so that Mike Shayne and Tim Rourke could only nod in agreement.
She turned away from the two men and started over to the stairway.
She didn’t quite reach, the landing before Sheriff Sam Hill came into the doorway from the porch and called out, “Attention everyone, please!”
Everyone on the ground floor stopped talking and turned towards the sheriff.
“As all of you know,” Sheriff Hill announced. “It’s been necessary to keep you here on Key Paradiso this long so that we could ask each of you a few questions. Most of you have been able to answer those questions to our satisfaction, so I’m not going to keep you here any longer. You are free to leave at any time. I only ask that you leave word with my men at the gate as to where you can be located in case of any new developments.”
Someone in the archway to the dining room spoke up. “Does that mean you’ve solved the case, Sheriff? Or that you’ve given up?” The speaker gave a sarcastic laugh.
“It doesn’t mean either thing,” the sheriff said. “Most certainly not that we’ve given up. We have certain leads to what took place here two nights ago. When we follow those up, there will be action taken. What I’m doing now only means that we are convinced most of you aren’t involved in any way — and I have neither the reason nor the authority to hold you here. Just leave word where you can be found.”