Shayne said, “The kind of people I deal with these days haven’t got the sort of money to pay your rates, Bob.” He held the door open for Rourke to come in, then closed it and asked, “Do you know Tim Rourke? Robert Merrill, Tim.”
Merrill looked dispassionately at the slouching figure of the reporter in his baggy suit, and said, “The name is familiar. Byline on the News, isn’t it? With a particular pipeline to Miami’s most famous private detective. What can I do for you, gentlemen?” he made no motion to rise or offer his hand.
Shayne sat down in a chair at the end of the desk, and Rourke moved quietly and self-effacingly aside to sit in one against the wall. Shayne took one of the pictures of Ellen Harris from his pocket and placed it in front of Merrill. “Recognize her?”
Merrill stared at it and pursed his thin lips. “Is this blown up from a small snapshot I saw this morning?”
“That’s right,” Shayne told him equably. “The lady you seem to have misplaced last Monday.”
Merrill permitted himself a tired smile. “I’d like to have this, Mike. Harris refused to leave the snapshot with me so I could show it around to the members of the staff who actually saw Mrs. Harris when she checked in. He got up on his high-horse and stalked out of here, threatening to sue the hotel for criminal negligence and so forth, and I understood he was going direct to the police.”
Shayne said, “He did,” and grinned happily. “Petey Painter succeeded in rubbing him the wrong way just as you did, so he ended up in my office. My client,” he ended sternly, “feels that both you and Chief Painter are more concerned with covering up his wife’s disappearance than you are in finding her.”
“You know that isn’t so, Mike.” Some of the tension and strain inside Robert Merrill that had been building up since his interview with Herbert Harris early that morning showed through. “He’s her husband, damn it. And he’s nuts about her as far as I could tell. There were certain facts I didn’t wish to divulge…” He broke off, grinning ruefully at Shayne and suddenly becoming very warm and human. “Hell’s bells, Mike. I sound like a speaker at a Chamber of Commerce meeting, don’t I? Damn it all. That guy is due for a rude awakening. I’ve got a lot more dope now than I had when I talked to him this morning.” He dropped his gaze to the photograph in front of him, and said softly, “She’s pretty terrific, huh? If I were married to her, goddamnit…” He paused and wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Why’d you bring a reporter, Mike? I’d be glad to go over the evidence with you personally, but…”
Shayne said forcibly, “I brought a friend, first… a reporter, second. I promised Harris that I’d have this picture in the newspaper with a story about her disappearance this afternoon unless I was convinced it could not possibly be helpful. I don’t give one goddamn what you or Peter Painter or the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce think about it, I’ve been hired by Harris to find his wife. Tim Rourke is here with me to decide whether we print her picture and story… and just what sort of story we print, if any. I’m the one who’s going to decide what’s best. Rourke will abide by my decision. You’re lucky to have it handled this way,” he insisted. “If another paper gets onto it…”
Robert Merrill smiled mirthlessly. “The whole thing is dynamite, Mike.” He hesitated, frowning down at the picture of Ellen Harris on his desk. “I think you’d better hear what we’ve got. Without this picture, we haven’t even got a definite identification.”
He leaned over his desk and spoke into a concealed intercom built into the surface of it: “Have Lawford relieved at the desk and come in. And I’ll want that bellboy, Bill Thompson, after Lawford.” He leaned back in his chair and sighed deeply. “At a time like this I’m damned glad I’ve stayed a bachelor all my life.”
Michael Shayne didn’t reply to this. He knew that Timothy Rourke was watching him from the side, and he wondered if Tim was thinking about Phyllis. Merrill, of course, didn’t know about Phyllis. There was a knock on the door and Shayne was glad of a reason to stop thinking the way he was.
Merrill barked, “Come in,” and the door opened and Justus Lawford walked in. He glanced swiftly from Rourke to Shayne and then to Merrill, and if he recognized them as having stopped at the desk recently, he gave no sign of it.
He stopped in front of Merrill and asked, “What is it, Mr. Merrill?”
Merrill turned the picture around for him to look at. “Do you recognize her?”
Lawford said, “It’s the woman you were asking me about this morning, isn’t it? Mrs. Harris who registered last Monday?”
“Can you identify her positively?” demanded Merrill. Lawford hesitated and drew in a deep breath. “I wouldn’t want to take an oath on it. But… yes, Mr. Merrill. I remember her quite distinctly. So far as I can judge, that is Mrs. Harris.”
“All right,” grumbled Merrill. “Tell Mr. Shayne what you told me this morning. Why you remembered her particularly out of all the guests who registered that day.”
“It’s hard to put your finger on the exact reason,” Lawford began, fixing his gaze on the wall above Merrill’s head. “I’ve worked in lots of hotels… signed in hundreds of thousands of guests, I suppose. Mostly, it’s a mechanical process. But Mrs. Harris…!” He shook his head slowly. “You noticed her and you remembered her. I remember being surprised that she was checking in alone… for two weeks. And when I asked her… just to be sure… she vouchsafed the information that her husband had the modern idea that married couples should spend their vacations separately, and she asked me if I… approved.”
He stopped and gulped nervously and told Merrill, “I changed the subject at once, of course, sir. But she did mention her fear of being bored and lonely, and I assured her that we had a hostess and many social activities, and I recall that she didn’t seem interested. And… that’s about all, I think.”
“You did notice her go out later?” prompted Merrill.
“Yes. She had asked us to rent a car for her, and I advised the doorman to call her room when it was delivered. I saw her go by from the elevator to the door about half an hour later, and assumed she was going for her car. She had changed into a very noticeable red dress… cut quite low in front.”
“She didn’t leave her key as she went out?” prompted Merrill.
“No, sir. And I simply don’t recall seeing her again.” He dropped his gaze from the wall above Merrill’s head to the photograph on the desk, and shook his head slowly from side to side.
“All right, Lawford,” said Merrill briskly. “If the boy is waiting outside, send him in.”
As the clerk turned to go out, Merrill told Shayne, “Bill Thompson is the boy who took her bags up that first afternoon. I’m not absolutely sure…” He hesitated as the tall, rangy, good-looking young bellboy came in as Lawford went out. “I’ll let him tell it his own way,” he went on. “Nothing to be worried about, Thompson. Step up here and take a look at this picture.”
Bill Thompson threw a quick, frightened look at Rourke and at Shayne, then moved forward on stiff legs to the desk.
“Ever see this woman?” Merrill shoved the picture at him.
Bill Thompson stared down at it for at least thirty seconds. He put the palms of both hands flat on the desk to support his youthful weight, and his face began working queerly. There were actually tears in his eyes as he blubbered, “Honest to God, Mr. Merrill, I didn’t… do anything. Not after that first time at midnight. I swear I never did go back to her and I never did even see her after that first time.”