“I know,” Shayne said. “I’ll throw out the.380 Browning you have in your bag, and the shotgun — that should convince them. Now give me the gun out of your bag and get out of here with your hands up. Hurry! We’ve no time to lose.”
Sally did as he said.
It seemed like an hour, but she was actually back in less than ten minutes. Shayne tossed out the pistol and shotgun as he had promised. He still had the.357 magnum he had taken from Rocky the evening before tucked into his belt under his jacket where he could draw in a split second.
Sally Comfort had three men with her. As he had expected, they were the three they had met in the restaurant — Rocco Baldoni, Sam Smith and Pete Reilly. All of them had pistols hung from their broad leather belts.
Shayne met them one step outside the door of the cabin. What they did and said could be heard and seen by the riders hidden in the brush, but the three men and the woman were between him and them and shielded him against a shot from ambush. He wanted this little scene to be completely public.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Shayne said. “I’m glad you decided to accept my invitation to clean up this business once and for all.”
“We’ll clean it up,” Smith said. “Hold out your hands to be tied, and we’ll take it from there.”
“That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,” Shayne said. “The killer is going to go back to town with you today — but that doesn’t mean it’s me.”
He was watching them closely, praying none of the three would go for his own gun. He had to keep complete command of the situation or that would happen.
“Bear with me a minute more,” Shayne said as easily as if this were a social gathering, “and I’ll give you the killer.
“A few days back, somebody put out the word among all you riders that there was a big contract on Mike Shayne. It had to be somebody you knew and who knew you. A hint here and a word there would start it and gossip would pick it up. In hours, the word was all over town.
“It was put out by someone intelligent and careful — someone who had studied me and my habits down to my favorite fishing spot — someone able to guess correctly what I’d do next once the action began. It was someone who could ride with Harry Comfort’s gang without being noticed. There were eight men in the Big Frog Bar yesterday, but nine riders on the road to town.”
“What’s all this getting to?” Baldoni asked.
“Hear me out,” Shayne said. “Somebody took a shot at me yesterday. The gun was a.380 Browning like the one I tossed out to you. The shot hit my hat.
“That same somebody followed me to town and was watching when I went to dinner. He saw Harry Comfort talk to me. When Harry left, the killer walked him to my car and killed him there. Harry didn’t cry out or fight. It was someone from the riders that he knew and trusted. That someone wanted Harry killed in my car, so I’d be suspected by the rest of you.
“The killer tailed me from then on till I went after Rocky. I took Rocky into an alley and knocked him out. The killer saw me do that and cut Rocky’s throat after I was gone.”
“Why?” Baldoni asked. “Why?”
“I’m getting to that,” Shayne said. “I was tailed to Simon Kane’s place. The killer listened outside the screen. He was afraid that Kane would tell me his name, but before Kane could do that he was shot. Kane had a rider waiting down the street in case of trouble. The rider heard the shot, but then Sally here fired at him and chased him away.
“I had Sally bring me out here to wait for you. I knew who the killer was by then, and I wanted you to come so I could tell you fellows.”
“There’s one thing wrong with all that,” Rocco Baldoni said. “If the killer tailed you all that time, he must have had plenty of chances at you. So how come you’re still alive?”
“That bothered me, too, boys,” Mike Shayne said. “At least it did until I figured out the killer didn’t want me dead at all.
“This whole business of the phony price on my head was only to cover the real murder. The intended victim was Harry Comfort from the first.
“Consider that and everything else falls in line. Sally Comfort wanted her brother dead before he ran through all their money. I was to be the patsy for that. Who else could ride with his gang and know all of you?
“When I left Rocky in the alley, she got a bonus. Rocky must have been her lover and turned her down or I miss my guess. She could settle that score and blame it on me again.
“Simon Kane guessed it was her. He was about to tell me when she shot him with a second gun she had in her bag. She ran out to the front of the house and fired at Kane’s lookout but missed so he could get away and tell you I’d shot your Old Man.”
“It’s a pack of lies!” Sally Comfort cried. “Can’t you tell it’s all damn lies?”
“One of you go into the cabin and bring out her bag,” Mike Shayne said. “You’ll find a small-caliber gun with one shell fired. It’ll match the slug in Simon Kane’s head when the coroner digs it out.”
Baldoni found the gun as Mike Shayne had promised. It was curtains for the blonde killer.
A Piece of Rope
by Hal Ellson
Two bodies lay in the morgue — what could possibly link the housewife and the crook together?
The village of Rios was old and still beautiful, but it was dying and half its houses stood empty. Stopping his car, Detective Victor Fiala looked across the road at the abandoned house. A well stood beside it, while a dozen orange trees and a staggered column of slender pomegranates displayed their startling scarlet blossoms.
Beautiful and sad, he sighed, and, starting the car, looked at the house again. Was someone watching him from there? In spite of the heat, he felt a sudden chill and decided to get out of the car and investigate. Turning the key, he stopped the motor.
There was no sound now and he felt the weight of the noon heat, while the flaming blossoms of the pomegranates contrasted with the glaring white walls of the house and its empty windows.
He decided no one was inside, and his eyes dropped to the naked rock across the road. There was his watcher, a lizard splayed upon the stone, studying him with an unblinking gaze.
Another detective, Fiala laughed and, with a movement too quick for the eye, the lizard vanished. Now there was only the silence again, the noon-heat and the flame of the pomegranates. He started the car, drove off and minutes later entered the village proper. The stricken deserted plaza, with its iron benches and ancient salt-cedars, burned in the sun. There was no police station here. Sheriff Pincay stepped through the doorway of a cantina, a tall slender man with a face like old leather.
Fiala braked the car, and the sheriff acknowledged him with a nod, then climbed into the front seat, gave directions and fell silent. Turning about, Fiala took the same road out of the village, passing the abandoned house where he’d stopped and others along the way. It was a beautiful drive, then, abruptly, they entered open country, a wasteland where only goats could survive.
It was here that a boy herding a flock had found the body of the murdered woman. The sheriff pointed now, and Fiala braked the car. Fifty feet off the road two peons squatted, arms across their knees. They remained that way when Fiala and the sheriff approached: two silent figures, they were guarding the dead woman from the buzzards sailing overhead.
Gazing at the corpse, Fiala nodded. At least, the stinking carrion-eaters hadn’t got their beaks into the woman. Young, her pretty face was unmarked, but someone had bound her wrists behind her and shot her in back of the head. Squatting now, Fiala examined the rope, then searched the area around the corpse and shrugged.