“Wait a minute.” Shayne’s shaggy brows came down in a fierce frown. “Do you mean it was never lit?”
“I mean exactly that.” Mrs. Lomax’s tone was acid. “The girl often became faint when she stayed too long in a room where gas was burning.”
Shayne drew in a long breath. This knocked hell out of the elaborate murder theory he had sold Quinlan on. He shook his head doggedly. It couldn’t be true.
“There’s no need to lie about a thing like that,” he warned gruffly. “I’ll find out the truth.”
“You’re insulting,” Mrs. Lomax said, her eyes flashing. “I don’t know why it matters, but anyone who knew Katrin will tell you that.”
“We all know that’s the truth,” said Clarice, nodding her head, and Eddie put in a curt, “Sure.”
Shayne caught his left ear lobe and massaged it gently between thumb and forefinger. The family watched him interestedly and there was perfect quiet in the room.
Abruptly Shayne asked, “How old is Neal Jordan?”
His question lashed into the silence, and the silence continued. Again Clarice and Eddie looked at their mother. Mrs. Lomax only stared at Shayne, an angry gleam in her black eyes.
Clarice burst out, “You wouldn’t believe it, but he’s thirty-three.”
Mrs. Lomax said quietly, “Neal is almost thirty-four.”
Shayne turned toward the door. Halfway across the room he stopped, turned to Mrs. Lomax and asked casually, “What hotel do you prefer in Baton Rouge?”
“Why-” Anger at his audacity overcame her. She clamped her lips and refused to answer.
“The Victoria, Mother,” Clarice said. “I’ve heard you say it’s the only really decent hotel there.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Lomax said firmly. “Of course, Clarice. The Victoria.”
“Is that where you stayed Tuesday night?”
“You’re taking advantage of us in Mr. Lomax’s absence,” Mrs. Lomax said, outraged. She arose from her chair with stiff dignity and faced him with blazing eyes. “It isn’t any of your-”
“Is it?” Shayne interrupted with quiet insistence.
“It was.”
Shayne nodded and left the room. In the hall he swore under his breath. He’d bought a few hours of freedom and all he’d found out was that he had a theory without any solid facts under it. If Quinlan knew-but he couldn’t tell Quinlan.
He shrugged off the thought on his way to the kitchen where he found Mrs. Brown cleaning out the enormous electric refrigerator.
The housekeeper faced him with arms akimbo and belligerent eyes. Her attitude changed quickly when she recognized Shayne. She smiled and said, “Why, it’s the detective again. And have you detected yet how the lass came to die?”
“Not quite,” Shayne confessed. “But I think you can help me. Who gets up first in the morning around here?”
“And who would that be but me?”
“How about Neal? Does he ever come in to make himself an early cup of coffee-or something?”
“In my kitchen?” She shook her head emphatically. “He’d never dare. And besides there’s no way for him to get in if he’d a mind to.”
Shayne murmured, “I thought perhaps he had an extra key to the back door.”
“Not him. And the door from the basement is always locked, too, it being Mr. Lomax’s idea it’s not seemly for a bachelor man to have the run of the house at night.” She sniffed with disdain and added, “Though he’d do better to lock his own son out, I’m thinkin’.”
Shayne passed over that angle. “Try to think back to the morning Katrin was found dead. Did you have any trouble with your gas range that morning?”
She thought for a moment, then shook her head decidedly.
“Are you certain the pilot light wasn’t out? There wasn’t any odor of escaping gas in the kitchen?”
She shook her head more vigorously than before. “Lord, no. I’d remember a thing like that.”
“All right,” Shayne said. “There’s just one more thing. Did Katrin Moe have her gas grate burning when you said good night that last night?”
He waited tensely for her reply.
Again he got a decided shake of her gray head, “That she didn’t, you may be sure. To my knowing she never had it lit. She hated the smell of burning gas, she did. Like poison it was to her. She’d complain of a headache, poor lass, if she stayed in my room long with it burning.”
Shayne said, “Hell!” He studied Mrs. Brown’s kindly, good-natured face for a long time, muttered, “You, too, eh?” Then he grinned ruefully and started to the door growling, “There goes a hell of a good theory. Thank God Quinlan isn’t here.”
All his plans seemed futile now, and he had been so sure in his own mind when he left Quinlan’s office. However, he thought he might as well push on with what he had planned. He might think of something. He wasn’t ready to accept Katrin Moe’s death as suicide.
Standing beside his car he looked cautiously around before going quietly up the steps to Neal Jordan’s apartment. He opened the door and stepped into a small well-ordered living-room with a well-filled bookcase and an easy chair and writing desk.
There was a lavatory and shower in a small bathroom and a bedroom beyond.
Shayne darted an inclusive glance around the living-room, and not finding what he wanted, went on to the bedroom.
There was a photograph in a cardboard frame on the dresser, a picture of Neal standing beside an elderly woman. Shayne judged the woman to be his mother. The likeness of Neal was extraordinarily good and was evidently taken only a couple of years previously.
Shayne slid it under his coat and went back to his car, shifting his eyes around the house and grounds as he went. He could hear Neal hammering in the basement. Apparently no one had noticed his foray. He got in and drove back to his office.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Lucy Hamilton looked up at her employer with an expression of petulant boredom when he strode briskly through the door. An amused smile started on her lips when she saw the ridiculous angle at which he wore his hat to protect the sore lump on his head.
The smile faded and she rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter as he stalked toward her with his jaw set in a grim line and his eyes preoccupied.
Shayne said, “Put in a call to the Victoria Hotel in Baton Rouge and find out whether Mrs. Nathan Lomax spent the night there last Tuesday night.”
She looked at him with sparkling interest as her fingers rapidly typed. “Have you learned something new?” she asked when the notes were finished.
“Nothing but dead-ends in this business,” he grumbled; and seeing the anxious look in her eyes he added, with a broad grin, “But I’ve always wanted to drive on through one of the damned things.”
“Mr. Lane is waiting for you,” she told him, and picked up the receiver to dial long distance.
Gabby Lane was waiting with his feet on Shayne’s desk. A wizened little man with big ears, he looked like a gnome. He wore an old, ill-fitting suit that enhanced the illusion. Shayne had known him well ten years before, and knew him to be one of the cleverest tails in the business.
Apparently feeling that a special greeting was in order after ten years, Lane said, “Hi,” as Shayne walked in.
Shayne grinned. “You’re as long-winded as ever, I see,” and held out his hand to grip Gabby Lane’s limp fingers. “How’s tricks?”
Lane’s feet remained on the desk. He lifted his thin shoulders and dropped them in answer to the question.
“Glad to hear it,” Shayne said. He sat down in his swivel chair and leaned forward. “Did you read the paper this morning?”
Gabby stifled a yawn and nodded.
Shayne said, “I need the man who killed Dan Trueman. You got any ideas?”
“Nope.”
“Have you any contacts around the Laurel Club? Anybody to help me pull a fast one-a frame?”
Gabby considered this for a moment. He finally nodded and said, “It’ll cost.”