The woman said, “Even if he didn’t find anything, he knows enough to put the police on our trail. We can’t risk even suspicion.”
Velk suggested reasonably, “Why don’t you check whatever you’ve got hidden here, Mabel, and see if it’s still there?”
The woman glanced at him, then curtly ordered, “Keep Shayne covered,” and turned to enter the study door. They could hear the key turn from inside.
Shayne said, “Mind if I put my arms down? I’m not armed.”
“Keep ’em up,” Tarbox snapped.
Shrugging, the redhead kept them elevated to shoulder height.
Moments passed in silence before the study door opened again and Mabel came out. Pointing her little nickle-plated automatic at Shayne, she said in a deadly whisper, “Turn around and put your hands against the wall.”
The redhead obeyed slowly. When he was in position, Mabel ordered, “Shake him down.”
Charlie Velk moved in behind Shayne, gave him a thorough shakedown and removed the three small notebooks from his pocket.
Mabel snapped, “Give me those!” and moved forward to jerk them from his hand.
Shayne glanced over his shoulder, found all three men staring at Mabel in surprise, and let his body tense. Instantly Velk’s gun jabbed his side.
“Don’t try it, shamus,” he said. “You can turn around slow now. Real slow.”
As he backed off, carefully covering the detective, Shayne turned around and dropped his hands to his sides.
Mabel said, “Just hold him,” crossed to the study door again, disappeared inside and locked the door behind her.
VI
Hank Goodrich thoughtfully rubbed his chin with the muzzle of his gun, glanced at his two companions to make sure both were covering Shayne, and put his own gun away.
He said to Shayne, “Looks like you found what you weren’t supposed to. I guess we got no choice now.”
Shayne said, “Aren’t you curious about what those books were?”
“Sure,” Goodrich said companionably. “Tell us.”
“Mabel’s records of the dream racket.”
Goodrich shrugged. “I figured it was something like that, or she wouldn’t have been so upset.”
“Very complete records,” Shayne said.
The nightclub manager frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve got a page all to yourself in one of them,” Shayne told him cheerfully. “Be too bad if the D.A. ever got a look at it.”
Goodrich’s eyes narrowed. He started toward the study door, but the lock turned and it opened before he got there. Mabel came out with her little automatic still in her hand.
“I want to see those books,” Goodrich demanded.
Mabel’s little automatic came up and centered on his stomach. “Bad enough to walk through a bullet?” she asked coldly.
Goodrich, his gun uselessly resting in its holster, took a defensive step backward. “Shayne says my name’s in one of them,” he complained.
“She has some even more interesting books in her bottom dresser drawer,” Shayne volunteered.
No one except the redhead was prepared for the woman’s reaction. He was gambling that the traditional rage of a woman scorned already had her on the verge of homicide. He hoped that the additional shame of knowing he had seen her secret library would push her over the brink.
It did. She swung her little gun toward Shayne and began firing as fast as she could pull the trigger.
Shayne swerved just as the gun muzzle began to move, though. Leaping to one side, he landed in a crouch in a position that put Hank Goodrich between him and the gun. After two shots that dug plaster from the wall where the redhead had been an instant before, Mabel swung the gun to follow Shayne and fired twice more.
Hank Goodrich took both in the stomach at point-blank range.
The other two men could have had clear shots at Shayne, but what he was banking on happened. Mabel’s sudden action had riveted their eyes on her, first in amazement, then in horror when her last two bullets slammed into Goodrich.
They were still standing bug-eyed when the redhead’s shoulder slammed into Goodrich’s back with the force of a football block. The drive carried Shayne, Goodrich and Mabel right through the open door of the study and halfway across the room.
Mabel hit the floor first, crushed under the combined weights of Goodrich and Shayne. The air whooshed out of her and the small automatic skittered across the floor toward the desk.
Shayne, on top of the pile, kept right on going over it. His hand closed over the gun’s butt and he swung on hands and knees to fire at the doorway just as Charlie Velk recovered his wits enough to start rushing into the room.
The bullet caught Velk high in the right shoulder. He staggered backward, dropping his gun, as Marshall Tarbox appeared in the doorway.
The thin man came in shooting. His heavy forty-five roared and the heat of a bullet seared the redhead’s left cheek as he squeezed his own trigger in answer three times.
The third time the gun clicked empty, because it was only a seven-shot automatic. But two shots had been enough. Tarbox slowly crumpled to his knees, then pitched forward on his face.
Coming erect, Shayne leaped over the body in the doorway and scooped up the gun Velk had dropped. He didn’t need it, because Velk had given up the fight. He crouched against the far wall, holding his right shoulder and making whimpering noises. Deciding he would keep for the moment, the detective stepped back over Tarbox’s body into the study again,
Mabel Lake was conscious, but with all the wind knocked out of her. Pinned beneath Goodrich’s inert two hundred pounds, she couldn’t even move.
“Get him off of me!” she gasped at Shayne.
“Why?” the redhead inquired. “He’ll keep you out of trouble.”
Reaching under Goodrich’s arm, he removed his gun before Mabel could get the idea of reaching for it. Before going back into the front room, he also took the precaution of capturing Tarbox’s gun. He distributed his collection of four guns in various pockets.
Back in the front room the detective found Charlie Velk still clutching his shoulder and whimpering. Shayne barely glanced at him as he picked up the phone and dialed Police Headquarters. He asked for Chief Will Gentry.
When the chief answered, Shayne said, “Mike, Will. I’ve got a lot of work for you. I’m out at the home of a Miss Mabel Lake.” He gave the address.
“What kind of work?” Gentry asked.
“Well, first we’ll need an ambulance. I’ve got three wounded guys. Two of them dead, maybe.”
Gentry squawked, “What’ve you got out there? A massacre?”
“Then you’ll need some Narcotics boys,” Shayne said cheerfully. “Plus a Homicide team. I guess that’s all. See you, Will.”
“Wait,” Gentry was sputtering when the detective hung up.
VII
An hour later most of the con-fusion was over. Goodrich, Tarbox and Velk had been carted off in an ambulance, all three still alive, but Goodrich and Tarbox in critical condition. A Narcotics team had departed with the heroin and records. Shayne had dictated and signed a statement of what had occurred. The only people left in the house were Shayne, Will Gentry, a Homicide sergeant named Dan Curry and Mabel Lake.
Mabel, looking both bedraggled and depressed, was seated in a front-room chair in handcuffs. Shayne and the two police officers stood in a semi-circle around her.
Sergeant Curry, who had been patiently waiting for the other activity to subside, said, “Now what’s the Homicide deal, Shayne? Just the woman’s accidental shooting of Goodrich?”
Shayne shook his head. “It’s another case altogether. A guy named William Whitney, who worked for Mabel here before he disappeared. In two jobs. He had a legitimate one at the Lake Travel Agency, and was leg man for her H racket on the side.”