“No, no, no!” Harris cried out wildly against the flood of accusations. He jumped to his feet, dropping his glass on the rug. “This can’t be happening to me. It’s the most insane thing I ever heard. The autopsy showed that my wife’s body had been placed in the trunk of the convertible within a couple of hours after her death… not later than Tuesday night.”
Shayne said coldly, “The autopsy indicated that her body had been crammed into the trunk of some car within a couple of hours after her death. But it wasn’t the convertible, and it wasn’t in Miami, Harris. It was the trunk of your Buick right here in New York. The New York police have your car down at their chemical laboratory right now,” he ended disgustedly. “They’re making tests that will prove beyond a shadow of doubt that your secretary’s body spent four days in the back of your car before it was transferred to the convertible in Miami early Saturday morning.
“We’ve just come from Ruth Collins’ apartment where Fermi found dozens of fingerprints proving that the dead woman had lived there. Now, where is your wife hiding? We have to arrest her as an accessory before and after the fact, and a co-conspirator in the premeditated murder of Ruth Collins. If there’s any justice at all, she’ll go to the chair with you.”
“She’s… oh, my God, she’s…” Herbert Harris dropped into a chair and covered his face with his hands and began sobbing.
Shayne shrugged and told Fermi, “He’s all yours. Peter Painter isn’t going to like this one little bit, but the crime was committed in your jurisdiction. Come on, Jim, let’s find a bar where they stock Cordon Bleu.”