“This bird just got home,” Greetin told him. “He’ll tell you himself.”
Shayne said, “That’s right, Inspector.”
“Better beat it, then, and get some sleep, Greetin,” the inspector snapped.
Shayne sat down across the desk and lit a cigarette. “How official is this?” he asked.
“Homicide,” Quinlan said curtly. “You can talk it over with me alone, or you can have a transcript made for the record. Or you can refuse to answer questions without the advice of counsel.”
“Who’s been bumped off?” Shayne blew a smoke cloud and looked up at it.
“Dan Trueman.”
Shayne met Quinlan’s stony eyes. He reached up and eased his hat from his head and said bluntly, “I’ll talk for the record.”
“Good enough.” The inspector pressed a button on his desk and presently a gray-haired man limped into the room carrying a notebook. He sat down beside the desk and took a pencil from behind his ear.
Shayne grinned at Quinlan and droned, “Michael Shayne-thirty-nine-occupation, private detective. Now, ask me some questions, Inspector.”
“Just this. Where were you last night and what did you do?”
“From when on?”
“Take it from dinner.”
Shayne studied another spiral of smoke, then began an easy recital of picking Lana Moore up at the Laurel Club.
“I walked into something, but I don’t know what,” he ended after several minutes. “I got socked and kicked around and I passed out without seeing the guy. I woke up half an hour ago in her apartment. Lana was passed out on the floor. I left her like that and went home.”
Quinlan had watched him closely during the recital but he picked up the fountain pen again and twiddled it. Shayne could tell nothing of his thoughts when he said, “You’ll take an oath-swear that’s the truth?”
“I’ll sign it when it’s typed.”
“All the truth?” Quinlan asked warningly. “You’ve nothing to add to it.”
Shayne’s fingertips ran around his injury. “Well-there was a little trouble at the club early in the evening. It ties in with a job I’m on and I’ll have to hold it out.”
“The Lomax job?” Quinlan asked too casually.
“That’s all for the record,” Shayne said, glancing at the man with the notebook. “Let’s just say one of my cases.”
Quinlan dismissed the court reporter and leaned back.
“Would you by any chance be referring to the little matter of getting thrown out of Dan Trueman’s office?”
“I walked out.”
“And threatened to come back while two of his boys hustled you away?”
“Maybe I said something like that. I was sore.”
Inspector Quinlan consulted a sheaf of data before him, then read from it: “‘Next time I come back there’ll be trouble.’ Did you tell Trueman that?”
“I might have. I was sore.”
“What about?”
Shayne shook his red head stubbornly. “I’ll have to protect my client.”
“Witnesses heard Trueman tell you to get out and quit beefing about your losses.”
“Trueman was covering up. Hell, I’d just won over a grand with Laurel dice. I’ve got it in my pocket. If you know so damned much you ought to know that, too.”
“I do. That’s what I couldn’t figure. I’ve been wondering why you went back and beat Dan Trueman to death.”
“So that’s the lay. I beat him to death.”
“You took the guns off the two bouncers when they threw you out. They were not armed when you came back later and you didn’t have much trouble. All I need is your motive, Shayne, and I think I’ve got that.”
“You’re forgetting my alibi,” Shayne ground out his cigarette and lit another.
Quinlan flipped a switch on his desk and picked up a telephone. Into the mouthpiece he gave Lana Moore’s address and said, “Bring her in. Don’t tell her anything, and look over her apartment carefully while you’re there.”
Shayne took a deep drag on his cigarette, exhaled slowly and said, “You know I didn’t kill Trueman.”
“I’ve practically got you sewed up on it.”
“But you know I didn’t kill him,” Shayne said curtly.
Inspector Quinlan considered for a moment, then said, “I’m going to be honest with you. It looks like the kind of job you might do, Shayne. This isn’t girl-murder like the Margo Macon case. Trueman was killed in a rough-and-tumble fight. He wasn’t a coward and he fought back. Maybe it wasn’t murder. Maybe you had a hell of a good reason for going back and tangling with him. If you give it to me straight, I’ll swing you all the breaks I can. If you can turn it into self-defense-” He shrugged and took a cigar from his breast pocket.
“I didn’t go back. The girl will alibi me.”
“I’ll still have to hold you,” Quinlan told him. “Look at it yourself, Shayne. You threatened him. You took his boys’ pistols-and they were legal, by the way. They had permits for those guns. Night watchmen. After pulling their teeth you waited until the joint was closed and went back. Why?”
“Any witnesses?”
“Sure. Plenty. And you admitted it.”
“Any witnesses to the killing? Anyone say I went back there later?”
“You know damned well you took care of that. When you went in the side entrance and knocked both the boys out.”
“I didn’t know there was a side entrance,” Shayne said patiently.
Quinlan had his cigar lit. He sat back, shaking his iron-gray head and puffing meditatively.
Shayne did a lot of fast thinking. He knew Quinlan to be honest and square, but he was a cop. He’d send his best friend to the chair if he believed justice would thus be done. Everything depended on Lana. If she hadn’t passed out too soon after he’d been slugged, her alibi would make it almost impossible to hold him. Quinlan might disbelieve her story; he might believe she was lying, but he couldn’t disregard it. He’d have to let him have time to crack Lana’s story concerning Katrin Moe and Lieutenant Drinkley. And in the meantime-
Shayne drew in a deep breath. It sounded loud in the silence that had come between the two men. He had an idea that all he needed was a few hours now. Dan Trueman’s death threw a new angle on the case. He was wasting time…
He was astounded at the length of time that had passed when a trim young detective came into the office and said, “We have Miss Lana Moore outside, sir.”
Quinlan took the cigar from between his teeth and said, “Bring her in.”
Shayne jerked himself to a straight position and his head throbbed with the sudden movement. He looked at Lana and was amazed at the transformation of a girl whom he had seen only a short time ago lying sprawled in a drunken stupor on her bedroom floor. Or-was she pretending to be in a stupor?
His bushy red brows drew together as she came toward Quinlan’s desk with the young officer beside her. She wore a plain sports dress of tan and a green hat with a soft, wide brim that reflected green in her eyes and accentuated the pallor of her unrouged cheeks. A green sports coat was around her shoulders, the sleeves falling empty against her sides. She clutched a tan bag in both hands.
She appeared entirely self-possessed, but Shayne watched her eyes. When she attempted to widen them in surprise they looked out of focus, and there was a slumbrous gaze in them, as though she had taken a strong sedative.
She asked slowly and carefully, “What’s this-all about?”
Quinlan arose and the young officer brought a chair to the desk and seated her with a gallant air.
“Do you know Mr. Shayne?” Quinlan asked.
“Oh-hello, Red. Sure I know him-” Her full lips curled in disdain. “What do you want to know?”
“Just a minute,” the inspector said. He pressed a button and the court reporter dragged himself in again, sat down and took his pencil from his ear and poised it over his notebook.
“Where,” Quinlan asked, “was Michael Shayne last night?”
“What time last night?” Lana countered.
“Between two and four this morning.”
Lana Moore’s eyes widened again in badly focused surprise. She lifted her long lashes and lowered them demurely, “I don’t know what kind of a girl you think I am, Inspector,” she said in her deep, husky voice. “I had a date with him last night, sure. But it wasn’t that kind of a date. He went home before midnight.”