Most of the guests hurried to the stairs on their way up to pack their things.
“Go get your bag,” Shayne told Tim Rourke. “I’ll feel better about you when I get you out of this place and back to Miami.”
Shayne himself went over to talk to Sam Hill.
“Have you really got any leads?” he asked the Sheriff.
“Nothing I can take to a grand jury for indictment and that’s for sure,” the sheriff told him. “You know how it is late at night at a party like this. Everybody half drunk and wandering all over the place. Half the wives with the wrong husbands, and nobody really interested in anything except their own private bash. Nobody I’ve talked to has really had anything to say that they could testify to in court.”
“I know,” Shayne said. “I just wondered if you had even a list of possibles.”
“Oh, I’ve got plenty of possibles,” Hill said. “And after talking to Sally Peters just now, it looks like everybody’s a possible — but everybody. Even your pal Rourke was seen coming back from the direction of the boathouse way late at night.”
“Tim?” Mike Shayne laughed. “Probably just went down to spit in the ocean. Who saw him anyway?”
“That’s the funny part,” Hill said. “It was one of my other possibles. Slim Peters, no less.”
“Slim, eh. Why do you call him a possible? Because his wife is in for a slice of the estate? Or didn’t you know?”
“I knew. Both of them told me that. What they didn’t tell me, though — but I already knew — is that Slim’s casinos down in the islands are in a real bind of some sort. He’s in need of money right now. Lots and lots of money. Either the syndicate is fighting him or has cut itself in for most of the take. I don’t know for sure — but I did hear that the real reason Slim and Sally came to this party was to try and promote a stake out of old Harvey.”
When Tim Rourke left Shayne talking to the sheriff, the lanky newsman went straight up to his room where his bag was already packed and waiting for him.
He pushed the door open and stepped into the room.
A second later he felt the icy cold ring of a revolver muzzle touching his neck right at the top of the spine. Someone had been standing flat against the wall next to the door where he wouldn’t be seen by anyone walking in.
That someone kept the gun against Tim Rourke’s head and closed the door.
“Don’t turn around,” said a muffled and obviously disguised voice. “Don’t turn and don’t yell. Just listen.”
Tim Rourke stood as rigidly quiet as he could. “I don’t think you’re going to shoot me,” he said. “This place is crawling with cops.”
“They wouldn’t hear a shot through the door,” the muffled voice said, “and I’d be out of this place before you’re found. So don’t count on my not shooting. I’d rather than not.”
“Mike Shayne knows what I know,” Rourke said. He meant that if he was killed the secret knowledge of the killer that he was supposed to have wouldn’t die with him.
The gamble paid off.
“That’s what I thought,” the voice said. “Now listen. I can pay two hundred thousand dollars for your silence. That’s all I can raise. You and Shayne go back to Miami to your apartment and wait there. I’ll contact you tonight and set up the pay-off. No cops. If you talk to anyone before then or try anything funny I swear I’ll kill both of you before they get me.”
The muzzle of the gun came away from Rourke’s neck. A second later the butt of the gun crashed into his temple from behind. He went face down on the carpet and the world about him blacked out.
Mike Shayne found his friend there on the floor ten minutes later and the big man silently cursed himself for being so careless as to let Rourke go up to the room by himself.
When a fast application of cold water from the bathroom tap brought Tim Rourke around so that he could sit up on the floor and then in a chair and demand a glass of brandy, Shayne knew that no real damage had been done.
“Who was it?” he demanded then.
“He was behind me all the time,” Tim Rourke explained. “I never even got a look at him. Anyway I think from the way his voice sounded that he probably had either a mask or a stocking over his head. And no, I didn’t recognize the voice.”
“You keep saying ‘he’,” the big detective said.
“That’s right, I did. Funny. I suppose it might have been a woman disguising her voice, but I just don’t think so. It was a man, Mike. Don’t ask me why I’m so dead sure.”
Mike Shayne wasn’t that sure, but he listened while his friend went on to tell what the mail had said, and repeated the offer of the two hundred thousand dollars.
“That’s a lot of money to offer in such a hurry,” Rourke said. “Particularly when I’ve really got nothing at all to sell. I may have seen the killing, but I sure didn’t recognize the killer. He didn’t even ask me that. I’d have told him fast enough if I had the chance.”
“I don’t think you could have convinced him no matter how hard you tried.”
“I know that, Mike, but I’d have liked a crack at it anyway. He was in, an awful hurry to give away that two hundred grand though.”
“That’s what he wanted us to think,” Mike Shayne said. “I don’t think that whoever it is about pass out that much cash. But if he’s trying to trap us, maybe we can use it to our advantage. I’d like to try it Rourke — if you don’t mind joining me as bait.”
Rourke grimaced. “Well, I seem to be bait anyway. Might as well go along for the ride.”
On their way-out of the big house they encountered Della Peckinbaugh at the front door. She was looking regal and widowed at one time in a three thousand dollar Paris “creation” in black linen and pearls. Three servants were busy carrying bags out to the long black Rolls which waited, complete with chauffeur by the steps.
Sam Hill was with Mrs. Peckinbaugh, but he broke off his conversation to greet the two friends. “You boys on your way back to Miami?”
“That’s right,” Shayne greeted the Sheriff and Mrs. Peckinbaugh. “I figure if you haven’t found anything down here, then I won’t either.”
“I take that as a compliment — coming from you,” Sheriff Hill said. “Anyway there won’t be much action here after another hour. It looks like everybody’s clearing out all at once.”
“I see you’re going too, Della,” Rourke said to the widow. “Are you headed back to your home in the west?”
“Not right away, Tim,” she said. “Naturally I want to stay in touch with Sheriff Hill here until he finishes his investigation. After what happened the other night this place gives me the chills, so I’m going to Miami for a little while. The Peterses and Miss Dawn will be in Miami too. We have to have at least one business conference before we all separate.”
Shayne looked surprised.
“Bill Buzby insists on it,” Della Peckinbaugh explained. “We’re all in Harvey’s will you know, one way or the other. He says we should talk things over amicably instead of letting the lawyers mess it up. Besides, I think he wants me to authorize some sort of advance payment to Slim Peters.”
“That’s interesting,” Shayne said.
“Oh yes,” Della continued, “I suppose you know by now that’s the big reason Slim and Sally came to this party. They wanted to talk some sort of business deal with Harvey. Now I suppose it will be with me instead. Whatever it is, I think I’ll probably agree. I’ve always liked Slim.”
Shayne noticed that she didn’t say Sally or even Slim and Sally.