Shayne glared at him angrily. “Now, by God, that’s sweet publicity. You had to run to the newspaper with it-try me there before I had a chance to tell my story.”
Inspector Quinlan compressed his lips. “I don’t hand out that sort of stuff. A reporter happened to be in the barroom last night and saw the whole thing. He recognized you and brought the story to me as soon as the murder broke. Hell, I couldn’t tell him not to print it.”
“Could be it wasn’t a cold frame,” Shayne muttered. “If Lana woke up right after I left and read the paper-she’s smart enough to have seen I was going to need her to alibi me. So she fixed things to make a liar out of me as soon as the checkup came.”
“Could be.” Quinlan was noncommittal. “But you still lack any proof, and you haven’t given me any reason to think she’s lying instead of you. Can you prove her connection with Drinkley?”
“I doubt it. She’s probably disposed of his photograph, and the clerk at the Dragoon would probably deny that she went to Drinkley’s room if she asked for him at the desk. Which she probably didn’t.”
“Dragoon Hotel?” Quinlan asked.
“I told you I was on a case,” Shayne said. He got up, wincing slightly, flexed his body and thrust his hands deep in his pockets. “So?”
“Unless you want to give out more than you have-I’m holding you on suspicion of murder.”
Shayne nodded. He hunched his head forward and prowled the length of the office and back, stopped beside the inspector’s desk and asked hoarsely, “Have you got a drink?”
The inspector went to a filing cabinet and from one of the drawers took a pint bottle with only a couple of drinks gone from it. Shayne pulled the cork with his teeth, tilted it and gurgled. It was half empty when he handed it back to Quinlan and said, “Thanks.”
His eyes were brighter. He started his restless prowling again while Quinlan sat down and waited in silence.
After a time Shayne muttered, “You’re putting the pressure on, aren’t you?”
Quinlan didn’t reply. He appeared to be preoccupied with the ease with which he ran a fountain pen through his folded hand.
“You’ve got me over a barrel,” Shayne stated with anger and disgust. “You and Lana Moore. You know me too well to believe I’d be crazy enough to hand you an alibi I knew couldn’t stick.”
“It is out of character,” he admitted. “But there it is.”
“Yeh. There it is. It’s fallen in your lap and who are you to question a gift from the gods? That the way you feel about it?”
“You’re my only suspect thus far.”
“You’re after something,” Shayne reasoned bitterly. “You’re using this thing as a lever to pry it out of me.”
“I’m still waiting to hear the truth about your argument with Dan Trueman.”
Shayne sat down and said, “Look, I’m trying to make a living. Recovery of the Lomax necklace means over twelve grand in my pocket-if I do the recovering. Where’d I be in my business if I came to you cops with all my dope?”
“Then you’re admitting that Trueman was tied in with the stolen necklace?”
“Sure. I’ll admit that much.”
“I’ve been waiting to hear you say that,” Quinlan said quietly, “because I’ve been wondering-” He laid the fountain pen aside and got an envelope from a desk drawer. He opened it and carefully emptied a single small emerald on the desk blotter. “This was found on the floor of Trueman’s office.”
The green gem blinked malignantly up at them.
Shayne’s eyes blazed. He leaned forward and poked the emerald with his forefinger. “One of the Lomax beads?”
Quinlan eased his stoic face with a slight smile. “It’s an emerald,” he corrected, “torn out of its setting.”
Shayne picked it up between thumb and forefinger and dropped it into the palm of his left hand. His eyes were fiercely questioning between shaggy red brows. He rolled it around in his cupped palm, held it up to the light and squinted at it as though fascinated by its polished green facets.
After a time he handed it back to Quinlan without comment.
Quinlan put the gem in the envelope and returned it to the drawer.
Shayne said with heavy meditation, “So the sonofabitch had it there in his office all the time,” and stared fixedly across the room.
The inspector cleared his throat and said, “That’s one thing that didn’t get in the paper. Don’t you think it’s time for you to start talking?”
“Sure. I’ll talk. I knew Trueman had the necklace-or was acting as go-between for somebody who had it. He telephoned me yesterday and offered to sell it back to the company for forty thousand. He didn’t tell me who he was, but I recognized his voice when I heard it in the Laurel Club last night. I went to his office to put it up to him straight that there’d be no fix on this one. He denied knowing anything about it, of course. The act he put on about me coming with a gambling beef was for the benefit of anyone listening in.”
“I guessed that much as soon as I learned the dice had been good to you.”
“You’ve got it,” Shayne said. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? I didn’t see Trueman again. I spent the rest of the night unconscious in Lana Moore’s apartment.”
“Which she denies.”
“But I told you she had it in for me.”
“You haven’t told me why.”
Shayne drew in a long breath and made a gesture of exasperation. The lines in his hollow cheeks deepened. “What are you going to do?”
“Hold you for Dan Trueman’s murder.”
Shayne said savagely, “And Trueman’s murderer will be laughing at you while you’ve got me locked up.”
“Maybe. I’ll take a chance on that.”
“Sure. You’re a cop.”
“That’s right,” Quinlan agreed amiably.
His insouciance drove the detective to snarl, “If you lock me up now you’ll end up with two unsolved murders on your hands.”
“Why two?”
“Count ’em.” Shayne held up two long bony fingers and folded them down. “Dan Trueman and Katrin Moe.”
“The Moe girl committed suicide.”
“Sure,” he jeered, “you’re a cop. Close up a case and keep the public satisfied no matter how many murderers walk your damned streets unhung.”
“I’ve been over all the evidence on that-and the coroner’s report. It can’t be anything but suicide.”
“It was murder,” Shayne insisted shortly.
“What the hell makes you think so?”
“All the evidence that’s worth a damn,” Shayne said slowly. “She was a virgin and in love with a guy she was going to marry the next day. Where’s the motive for suicide?”
“Where’s the motive for murder?”
Shayne was silent for a long time. Then he said quietly, “Will you make a deal with me, Quinlan?”
“I don’t know. Give it to me.”
“If I can give you a motive for Katrin Moe’s murder-if I can show you how she must have been murdered-and then show you that her killer is also the logical candidate for the Trueman job, will you forget this stuff you’ve got against me and give me a chance to prove I’m right?”
Inspector Quinlan studied him with a cold blue gaze as he silently considered the proposition.
“Hell, you’ve always got your case against me,” Shayne went on rapidly. “You’ve got the affidavits. I’m not going to run out on you. If I fail, you can slap me in jail so fast it’ll make my head swim.”
“I’ll still have you,” Quinlan agreed thoughtfully.
“What have you got to lose? I don’t want any of the credit on either of the killings. I’m after a fee.”
The inspector nodded slowly. “You’re on. But you’ll have to sell me.”
Shayne said, “I will,” with greater confidence than he felt. He lit a cigarette and settled back to a complete recital of all the pertinent facts he had unearthed since the beginning of his investigation, telling the story in sequence from Lieutenant Drinkley’s impassioned plea in his office to the moment when the inspector’s man picked him up at his apartment that morning.
Quinlan listened with concentrated attention. When Shayne finished he said, “Looks to me like you’ve dug up a lot of stuff that points to a motive for Katrin Moe’s suicide. What’s her connection with the escaped convict whom she visited day before yesterday? Did he steal the damned necklace? One of the pair was riding out a term for burglary and they both seem to have been in New Orleans the night it was stolen. She might have fingered the necklace for them, either intentionally or inadvertently, and later got an attack of conscience and killed herself in a fit of remorse.”