“That was shortly after four o’clock, Mr. Shayne. I haven’t the exact time, but it will be carefully noted on Brenner’s written report when he submits it. He loitered on the second floor for a time, keeping the closed door of your office under observation with O’Keefe inside. Then, not wishing to become conspicuous, and quite properly in my opinion, he returned to the ground floor and took up a position where he could observe everyone who came out of either elevator.
“O’Keefe did not show up… nor did you or your secretary. He had a newspaper picture of you and a physical description, of course, which I had supplied him with before sending him on the assignment, and he had seen your secretary through the open door.
“At five o’clock, or shortly thereafter, when none of the three of you had shown in the lobby, he chose a moment when both elevators were going up empty, and rode up to the second floor again to see what the situation was. He had scarcely stepped out of the elevator when the door of your office opened and you emerged, Mr. Shayne, with your secretary directly behind you. He turned his back and pressed the Down button, and rode down in the elevator with the two of you.
“At that moment he didn’t know what had become of O’Keefe, but he knew there were stairs, of course, and he quickly assumed that you had cautiously sent your client down by those stairs before locking up for the night. It was the sort of precaution, he knew, that a smart detective like you might well insist on.
“At the moment, Brenner had no recourse except to follow you. He did so. Out the front door, in the stream of home-going office workers, and around the corner where you and the young lady got into a car that was parked there. Brenner was lucky enough to hail an empty taxi in time to follow you. He trailed you to a motel west of town on the Tamiami Trail, and observed you drive in and go directly into the carport attached to one of the cabins.
“You and she got out, and he was able to observe you unlock the door leading directly in from the carport, and both of you went inside.
“At that point he felt it would be wise to report to me and get further orders. After all, he felt it was quite safe to leave you together in the cabin for a time. A man doesn’t normally take his secretary directly from the office to a motel room, which he has already engaged in advance, without planning to spend, at least, a few minutes inside, alone with her. Not if the secretary is as attractive as yours, Mr. Shayne. Remember, I saw her in the morning.
“No, I don’t blame Brenner for seeking a telephone at that point even though it did prove a mistake. He had the taxi drive on to the motel office, where he found a telephone booth and called me here. I was annoyed that he had lost O’Keefe, but I suspected that he planned to meet you at the motel later, and instructed Brenner to remain unobtrusively in the cab and watch your cabin, with orders to follow you, if you left, or to telephone me immediately, if O’Keefe showed up.
“Five minutes later I received a second, disconsolate call from Brenner. By the time he returned to view of your cabin, your car was gone. He investigated and found both side and front doors locked, and he knocked loudly without getting any response whatsoever. It hadn’t been more than five minutes since you drove up, and both of you had vanished.”
Rexforth stopped talking and sighed deeply. “I assumed that Brenner had bungled the job of tailing you. That you had spotted his cab following you from town… which would not be unlikely for a man of your experience. That is when I made my first telephone call to your hotel, Mr. Shayne.”
Shayne’s cheeks were deeply trenched and his big hands were knotted into fists when Rexforth stopped talking. “What was the name of that motel?”
“The name… of the motel? Surely, you know that, Mr. Shayne. Much better than I. It wasn’t I who…”
“Goddamn it, Rexforth, stop stalling. Give me the name of the motel before I beat it out of you.”
Shayne was rising slowly as he spoke. Rexforth looked up into his implacably gaunt face in consternation, and protested, “I really don’t see…”
Shayne slapped him on the side of his face with his open palm in a swinging blow that knocked the bonding company executive flat on the unmade bed, where he cowered and made whimpering sounds.
Shayne leaned over him and got both big hands on the collarbone on either side of his neck and lifted him up in the air and shook him angrily.
“I don’t care what you see or don’t see,” he raged. “It’s my secretary you’re talking about. What motel was it?” He held the man’s scrawny body in front of him with his bare feet above the floor. “Tell me,” he grated, “or I’ll break your neck.”
“I don’t know the name,” wailed Rexforth. “Brenner didn’t say over the phone. It’ll all be down in his written report. You’re acting like a wild man.”
Shayne shook him in the air again. “Damn the written report. I want it… now. Where is Brenner?”
“He’s… here,” gasped Rexforth. “I had him stay over last night because I didn’t know…”
“In this hotel?”
“No. A cheaper one. The Royalton.”
Shayne threw him sprawling back on the bed. “Get him on the phone. Get the number of the cabin and the name of the motel.”
“Of course.” Rexforth scrabbled across the bed away from Shayne and trotted to the telephone across the room. There he hastily consulted a memorandum pad beside the instrument, then asked the hotel operator for a number in a quavering voice. When he got it, he gave an extension number, and Shayne moved over to stand close behind, as he said tremulously:
“That you, Brenner? Rexforth. I called to ask the name of the motel and the number of the cabin you tailed Shayne and his secretary to yesterday.”
He listened a moment and then wailed, “I know it will be in your report. But I want it now. All right, then, look up your notes. I’ll hold on.”
He turned his head and said unnecessarily, “He has to check his notes to be sure.”
Shayne waited on wide-spread feet, his nostrils still flaring angrily.
Rexforth finally said, “Thank you. No, that’s all for now,” and hung up.
He told Shayne resentfully: “It was the Orange Palms. On Southwest Eighth Street beyond Coral Gables. Cabin number Nineteen. I still don’t understand why on earth…”
Shayne had whirled away and was headed for the door on long legs. Rexforth scuttled after him, crying out in high-pitched exasperation, “Wait. We haven’t settled anything. You can’t just dodge out…”
Shayne was out the hotel door by that time, and he slammed it shut behind him. Rexforth reached it and jerked it open, thrust his tousled head out and called down the corridor at the redhead’s retreating back, “I’m taking this to the police, Shayne. I warn you. Straight to the police.”
Shayne kept on going around a corner to the elevators. He stopped and viciously punched the Down button. It wasn’t until this moment that he realized Rexforth apparently wasn’t aware that O’Keefe had been murdered the day before. He was due for a surprise, if he did go to the police.
15
Michael Shayne’s mind worked feverishly as he headed westward on the Trail at twenty miles above the speed limit on that crowded thoroughfare. It hadn’t been Lucy, of course, who went to the motel room from his office. Not at five o’clock. Not leaving a dead man lying on the floor behind her and in company with another man.
It was the same woman Brenner had seen sitting at Lucy’s desk through the open door when O’Keefe went in. That meant they had managed to replace Lucy with another woman by four o’clock.
How? What had they done with her?
They might have lured her out of the office by some ruse, although Lucy was very reluctant about leaving the office while Shayne was out. She even refused to take time off for lunch, had milk and sandwiches sent in from a nearby lunchroom that specialized in sending out office lunches.