“That’s right.”
“You sent me your own key!” she raged. “You tricked me into coming here to your room!”
“I didn’t send you my key,” Shayne returned savagely. “And I didn’t trick you into coming to my room.” He jerked his head around to face Gentry. “You know me better than that, Will.”
“She’s the one who’s accusing you,” said Gentry placidly. “Not I.”
“I suppose you both think I slipped upstairs and murdered her husband,” he went on with bitter irony, “as part of my little strategem to lure her into my bed.”
“What would you think if you heard the same story?” Gentry parried angrily.
Shayne hesitated and tugged at his ear lobe. Then he said, “I honestly don’t know. But if I’d known a guy as long as you’ve known me, I wouldn’t believe a thing like this.”
“All right,” growled Gentry. “I don’t think you murdered Carrol. Does that satisfy you?”
“No.” Shayne’s voice was cold and his eyes were bleak. He stood up impatiently, shoulders hunched, his angular jaw jutting. “Somebody has lied about this whole thing,” he stated flatly. “But I give you my word of honor, Will. I never heard the name Ralph Carrol until approximately two-thirty this morning, when this dame slipped into my apartment, took off her clothes, and crawled in bed with me. If that doesn’t satisfy you, you’d better lock me up.”
Will Gentry made a slight gesture and said, “That’s good enough for me, Mike.”
“Fair enough. Why don’t you relax with a drink while we try to get to the bottom of this mess?” He strode toward the liquor cabinet, saying, “Scotch?”
“About two fingers on the rocks.” The chief turned to the girl and said, “Now Mrs. Carrol, don’t you think you’d better start telling the whole truth?”
“I have,” she vowed. “Every word is the truth. If this man is really Michael Shayne and he didn’t send me the key, and telephone me to come here last night, who did?” Shayne came in from the kitchenette with Gentry’s drink and set it on the desk within easy reach.
“You still insist this man told you his name was Michael Shayne?” Gentry asked.
“Definitely.”
The chief’s deep sigh was expelled with a sound between a grunt and a weary groan. He took a long sip of the pale drink and said, “How do you read it, Mike?” Shayne sat down and leaned forward with his arms folded on the desk, his face a mask of concentration. “Accepting her story at face value for the moment, how and why would anyone impersonate me? Let’s work on the how first.” Turning to Nora, he continued, “You say your only contact with this detective was through a lawyer in Wilmington. That is, until you arrived in Miami yesterday and took over.”
“I’ve told you over and over that Mr. Bates handled everything from there,” she said irritably.
“This Bates is your lawyer?”
“Well, he’s actually Ralph’s lawyer. But he took my side against Ralph in the divorce action.”
“And you have no knowledge of the actual mechanics of how he contacted this detective in Miami who represented himself to be me?”
“No. I really don’t know.”
Shayne considered for a brief period, then concluded, “I think we should clear up the Wilmington end first, Will. Why don’t you call Bates right now?”
“But it’s three-thirty in the morning,” Nora protested. “He won’t be in his office.”
“Then give us his home telephone number, if you have it,” Shayne cut in tersely. “He should be notified of Carrol’s death, anyway.”
She opened her purse reluctantly and took out a small address book. “It’s just terrible to wake him up like this and tell him Ralph has been murdered. Could I talk to him, please. The shock will—”
“After I’ve asked a couple of questions,” Gentry promised. “Have you found the number?”
She nodded and read it from the book through blurred eyes.
Gentry got long-distance and gave the number in Wilmington, Delaware. Shayne moodily poured himself more brandy, took a fresh handkerchief from his pocket, pressed it into Nora’s hand.
Only a few seconds elapsed before he said, “Mr. Bates? Chief Gentry calling from Miami. A man who is registered in a hotel here as Ralph Carrol of Wilmington has been murdered. I understand he was a client of yours.” He waited placidly while an excited voice crackled into the receiver and mingled with Nora’s audible sobs.
“No, we haven’t any real clue as to the killer yet. But there are a couple of questions you can answer. Is it a fact that you advised and aided Mrs. Carrol in coming to Miami yesterday to attempt a reconciliation with her husband?”
He nodded his head while listening to the lawyer’s reply, then said, “I see. Yes, she’s right here and wants to speak to you as soon as I’ve finished. It appears right now that her husband was killed before she was able to see him. The important thing I need from you right now, Mr. Bates, is the name of the private detective in Miami who located Mr. Carrol for you, and made the arrangements for Mrs. Carrol to enter her husband’s suite in the middle of the night.”
Again he listened, then sent a sardonic glance toward Shayne as he said, “Shayne, eh? Michael Shayne. Yes. I do know him personally. That confirms Mrs. Carrol’s story, vehemently denied by Shayne.”
The redhead came to his feet, reached for the phone, and demanded angrily, “Let me talk to him, Will. I’ll cram that lie down his throat.”
Gentry fended him off with a curt gesture and a stony look. “That’s right,” he continued. “Shayne is here with me, too, and denies categorically ever hearing of you or the Carrols before tonight.”
He was listening again and shaking his head at Shayne’s impatient attempt to get hold of the phone. “I agree that it doesn’t seem to make sense either way, Mr. Bates.”
“Ask him,” Shayne demanded hoarsely, “how he claims to have contacted me. How, and to what extent he is supposed to have communicated with me and me with him.”
Gentry nodded and relayed the questions to the Wilmington lawyer. After a moment he covered the mouthpiece with his palm and said to Shayne, “He wrote to you a couple of weeks ago, briefly outlining what Mrs. Carrol planned, and you replied promptly offering to do the job for five hundred in cash, if he could fix it to get Carrol registered in this particular hotel. You claimed to know the layout of the apartments and the management here, and said you wouldn’t have too much trouble getting a key. As Carrol’s lawyer, Bates was in touch with him all the time, and he suggested that Carrol come here, giving some excuse that Carrol accepted.”
“Nice ethical lawyer,” Shayne grated, “setting his own client up for the kill.”
“That’s not true,” Nora protested. “Mr. Bates is nice. He was doing it for me — for both of us, really, because he felt that Ralph would regret the divorce later.”
Gentry gave not the slightest evidence that he had heard the woman. His rumpled lids were lowered at half-mast. “Bates’s story is that Michael Shayne steered Carrol to this hotel, got his five hundred cash in advance, then telephoned Bates two days ago to say that the key was ready for Mrs. Carrol when she arrived,” he reported solemnly, ruefully. “Also, he wired Michael Shayne to expect her at the Commodore yesterday and to take over from there. He sounds factual as hell, Mike, with all the data at his finger tips.”
“Every word of it is a goddamned lie,” Shayne burst out. “Good Lord, Will! You can go through my office files. Ask Lucy. I can prove I never wrote those letters or sent any wires. Lucy will verify that. Everything goes through her, as you know.”
Gentry shook his head slowly. “I just don’t get it,” he said in a low rumble. “If you’re lying—”