“Mike Shayne.” He pushed against the door, but a chain held it. Carmela said, “Michael!” sobbing out his name in three syllables, and the chain rattled free. He stepped inside, where the big hallway was dimly lit by a single bulb in a wall bracket.
Carmela’s arms were tightly around his neck before he could turn to look at her. She pressed her long body against him and pulled his face down to hers. Her body trembled and her lips were dry and cold, and a strong odor of whisky was on her breath. She wore a quilted dressing gown and her hair was brushed back from her face.
She pressed her lips against Shayne’s and they softened and became warm. He put his arms around her and his hands felt the hard outline of backbone and rib structure beneath the quilted robe.
When she took her arms from his neck she said, “I’ve been waiting for you to come, Michael.” She closed the door and threw the bolt, took Shayne’s hand, and led him along the hallway toward a wide stairway. “I’m all alone and was waiting for you,” she said again. “I gave the servants a night off after I found out — Father wouldn’t be home.”
She started up the stairway. She didn’t look at him again, but hurried up the steps as though there was little time.
Shayne hurried beside her, his big hand tightly clutched in hers. Here in her home, seeing her dressed as she was, he was more fully aware of the change ten years had made in her. She looked older than her years, and he wondered what she had been doing since she deserted the only man she would ever love.
They reached the top of the stairway, and she turned through curtained glass doors into a sitting room which was thickly carpeted from wall to wall and lighted with one tall floor lamp by the side of a silk-covered chaise longue. The room was done in pastel shades, cream and pink. It didn’t match Carmela’s temperament. It fitted the girl he had known ten years ago, before her father sent her off to Europe, a pathetic reminder of all the things Carmela Towne had been. He knew she had clung desperately to the soft beauty of her suite here on the second floor of the ugly stone house just as she had tried to cling to the love that had been denied her.
Shayne had a sour taste in his mouth as he looked around and let his gaze finally come to rest upon a low lacquered table beside the chaise longue gleaming in a circle of illumination from the floor lamp.
Hammered silver ice tongs lay beside a silver ice bucket. There was an uncorked bottle of Scotch and a silver siphon, and a tall glass held two inches of the amber liquid with three partially melted ice cubes floating in it. An ashtray was almost filled with halfsmoked cigarettes, and a second glass, unused, stood behind the ice bucket.
Carmela had stopped beside him just inside the doorway, her fingers still clutching his hand. She looked defiant and determined, as she said suddenly, “I need another drink — and you need one, too, Michael.” She let go of his hand and went to the low table beside the lounge.
Shayne stood where he was and watched her put ice cubes and whisky in the empty glass, then splash soda into it. He felt sorry as hell for Carmela Towne.
She had sent the servants away and settled herself here with whisky and cigarettes to wait. He didn’t think she had expected him. Now she was through waiting. Everything she did, every intonation of her voice, told of her defiant resolve to wait no longer for Lance Bayliss.
Yet he had just seen Lance drive away from the house. He remembered how Lance had looked at her in the hotel room that day, and he felt sorrier than ever for her.
She poured more whisky into her glass, sat down on the lounge, and beckoned to him, holding out the freshly filled glass. He went across and took it from her. She brushed her long hair back from her face and said, “I must look a perfect fright.”
Shayne said gravely, “You look very attractive.”
She trembled a little and put her hand on his arm. She said, “I’m glad — I want to look attractive for you, Michael. You see — I hoped you would — be nice — to me,” she ended in a nervous stammering voice.
She looked up at him and smiled, but her eyes were miserable. Shayne bent down and kissed her lips lightly, He said, “We’ve got all night. You’re not quite drunk yet.”
She said, “No,” and laughed. “Drinking does help, though, doesn’t it?”
Shayne took a long drink, set his glass on the table, and pulled up an ottoman and sat down. A silver cigarette box stood open on the table. He took two cigarettes from it and reached a long arm out to put one between her lips. She lay back and watched with halfclosed eyes as he struck a match. After he put the flame to her cigarette she said softly, “I’ve been lonely, Michael. So damned lonely.”
He asked abruptly, “How did your father take the news tonight?”
“I wasn’t here when they came for him.” She pushed herself up with both hands on the arms of the lounge. “Don’t tell me,” she said drearily, “you came here just to talk about Father and the case, Michael.”
“Was that all Lance wanted tonight?”
She winced, and her black eyes widened to stare at him. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean, Carmela.”
She said vehemently, “I haven’t seen Lance — since today in your hotel room. You saw how he looked at me then. He hates me. He thought he had caught us having an assignation.”
“I met Lance driving away as I came up.” She lowered her eyes until her long black lashes veiled them. “You’re mistaken,” she said. “Lance hasn’t been here. No one has been here. I waited-” She reached for her glass and emptied it without opening up her eyes, set it on the table, and folded her hands laxly in her lap.
“What do you think of Josiah Riley’s story?”
She twisted her mouth bitterly. “Do we have to talk about that?”
“I’ve got it on my mind,” Shayne confessed. “It’ll stay on my mind until you’ve answered a few questions — and I don’t want anything else on my mind when I kiss you again.”
“Are you going to kiss me?”
“Let’s talk about Josiah Riley first. Do you know him?”
She moved restively. “I used to know him quite well. Pour me another drink, Michael.”
He put ice and a lot of whisky in her glass, and a little soda. He put the glass in her outstretched hand.
“When he was working for your father?” he prompted.
“Yes. Just a little while before I went to Europe. I remember when he reported to Father that the vein had mined out, and how low Father was. And how angry he got when he investigated personally and discovered Joe Riley was mistaken.” She drank half the whisky from her glass and relaxed against the cushions.
“Do you think it was an honest mistake?”
“I think so. Father didn’t. He was convinced that Joe hoped he would abandon the property so he could later buy it cheaply and pretend to rediscover the vein.”
“That has been done,” Shayne agreed.
“But not by men like Joe Riley.” She opened her eyes wide, but her voice was thick and lifeless. “I’m sure he was honest in his report.”
“All the more reason for Joe to hate your father for ruining him in the mining business.”
“He does hate Father. He has never tried to hide that.”
“What about his accusation today?” Shayne persisted. “What do you make of it?”
Carmela mumbled, “I don’t know. What does it matter what I think?” She lifted her head and finished the last of the whisky, carefully set the glass on the table, and fell back inert. “I’m getting drunk. Really drunk, Michael. I’ve never done that with any man before. I’ve always been afraid I’d act awful. You won’t mind, will you? If I get drunk and awful?”
Shayne said, “I won’t mind.”
“It’s good to just — let go.” Her black eyes were wide and staring again, covered with a film of tears. “I’ve held in — too long. I’ve always thought-”
“That Lance might come back?” Shayne supplied.
She nodded, closing her eyes and forcing two tears onto her thin cheeks. “I’ve been an awful fool, Michael.”