“Uhn-uh.” Shayne shook his head decisively, forgetting to keep it easy, and winced with pain. He sat in the swivel chair behind his desk and took a drink and said judicially, “Let the Cecils of this world get out of their own jams. Besides,” he asked suspiciously, “how do you know she’s sweet or little or old?”
“Because she sounded that way. Mrs. Montgomery. I promised you’d call her as soon as you came in. She did sound worried, Michael.”
He said, “We’ve got other worries.” He leaned back and stretched out his long legs and contemplated the ceiling. “I want you to close up shop, Lucy. Go over to the Beach and check all the neighbors of the Ambroses. Make up some good cover story that’ll get you inside the houses, and get the inside dope on the doctor and his wife. You know… like you’re doing a survey for Better Homes and Gardens
“What kind of inside dope am I supposed to get for you, Michael?”
“What sort of home-life. How much money they spent… on what. How often her neighbors ever see Celia Ambrose sober.” Shayne waved a big hand vaguely. “The good doctor was being blackmailed and I’d like to get some idea what for. The police have already questioned them, of course, but you know how people clam up for the police.” He grinned at her reassuringly. “The one thing they’ll be eager to talk about this morning is the Ambroses.”
“Michael. We can’t just close up shop. Mrs. Montgomery, for instance. I promised her you’d call.”
“All right, call her,” he said impatiently. “Tell her I’ve got a fractured skull and it’s going to stay fractured until I catch a murderer.” He drank some more cognac and washed it down with plain water.
“What are you going to be doing while I’m snooping into the private life of the Ambroses?”
“I’m going to visit his office and try to persuade his nurse to patch up my head and maybe put a fresh bandage on my broken ribs. Then I’ve got a date with Painter, and… Tell you what, Angel. You get cracking, and we’ll meet for lunch? At the Doubloon, huh? That’s where they make those…”
“I know perfectly well where the Doubloon is,” Lucy interrupted him icily. “What did you say about your ribs?”
“My ribs? Oh, I got kicked last night. Look, Angel.” His voice softened. “That’s why I’ve got to work on Ambrose. I don’t want my other side kicked in. Twelve-thirty at the Doubloon?”
Lucy Hamilton sighed and smoothed back the brown curls from her forehead with trembling fingertips. “Michael Shayne! You’re the most…” She paused and sighed again. “The Doubloon at twelve-thirty. But I will call Mrs. Montgomery first so she can get another detective, if she wants.”
Shayne said, “Fine. If she wants to tell me what the trouble is, I’ll recommend someone.”
He settled back to finish his drink while Lucy went out to her desk, and through the open door he could hear her dialling a number.
But he didn’t hear her talking on the telephone, and after a short time she reappeared in the connecting doorway and reported, “Mrs. Montgomery’s telephone doesn’t answer this time. As a matter of fact, I’ll confess to you now that I don’t believe it would be exactly up your alley, Michael. She was pretty vague about Cecil’s trouble when I tried to pin her down, but I rather gathered that he got caught in some sort of compromising situation with another man last night, and the dear old thing wants it hushed up.”
Shayne scarcely heard her. He said, “Then that’s allright. See you at twelve-thirty, Angel.” He finished his drink and swung his feet off the desk and prepared to follow his secretary out, leaving the office locked up behind him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
This morning, Shayne parked directly in front of the doctor’s office. He went briskly down the flagged walk and found the door closed. He turned the knob and discovered it was locked. There was an electric button beside the door, and he put his thumb on it. He could hear a buzzer sounding inside the office, but nothing happened.
While he stood there in the morning sunlight, a young and pretty girl in a nurse’s uniform looked out at him from the open door of the adjoining office. “They’re not open today. Didn’t you read in the paper about Dr. Ambrose?”
Shayne said, “Yes. But I thought his nurse would be here.” He turned away from the locked door toward her. “Do you know Belle? Miss Jackson?”
“Oh, yes. Quite well. Isn’t it terrible about the doctor? He was such a nice, gentle man. I don’t see why anyone would do a thing like that.”
“Do you happen to have Miss Jackson’s address?”
“No. But I know it’s here on the Beach. She always came to work by bus. It might be listed in the telephone book,” she offered helpfully.
Shayne asked, “Do you mind if I look?”
“Of course not.” She turned away from the open door to the interior of a reception room similar to the one next door Shayne had glimpsed briefly the preceding night. She went behind her desk and leafed through the directory, and looked up and nodded. “Belle Jackson.” She started to read off the street address, and Shayne said, “If I could borrow a piece of paper…”
She said, “I’ll write it down for you.” She did, and handed it to him, her eyes bright with curiosity. “You’re that famous detective from Miami, aren’t you? Michael Shayne?”
He said, “I’m Michael Shayne,” and accepted the slip of paper. “Thanks a lot.”
“Do you have any idea who did it? I remember I was still working when he left the office last night about seven. He smiled at me so nicely as he went past the door, and called out, ‘There are better things for a pretty girl like you to be doing of an evening.’ He was always kidding me about working so hard and not having dates.”
Shayne asked, “Why don’t you?” as he backed out of the door.
“Oh, I do. All I want. You tell Belle if there’s anything I can do, to just call me.”
Shayne said, “I will, and thanks again.” He walked back to his car, glancing down at Belle’s address. It wasn’t very far. South of Fifth Street near the bay side of the peninsula. He got in his car and circled back, threading his way among narrow streets until he found the address. He frowned incredulously, and checked the number on the paper again to be sure he had it right. It was one of the very old buildings of Miami Beach, that had been built long before the Beach became an exclusive and luxurious resort center. A two-story building of crumbling stucco built around a patio with outside iron stairways leading up to private little balconies by which the tenants could go to and from the beach in dripping bathing suits without discommoding their neighbors. There were beach towels and bathing suits displayed on most of the balconies, and a squad of small children playing in the patio.
It had been originally designed for cheap summer rentals where a family could come from the mainland and occupy cramped quarters near the Bay at weekly or monthly rates, and Shayne knew it was the sort of place now occupied mostly by permanent residents who worked on the Beach and could not afford the higher rentals farther north.
A professional woman like a registered nurse, he thought, should be able to afford better living quarters. What was it the doctor had said last night? Something about paying his nurse over six thousand dollars a year.
He shrugged and opened the door to get out. Maybe Belle Jackson had a pair of crippled parents and a couple of small children to support. Or maybe she was a miser and preferred to live like this and hoard her money.
He crossed the sidewalk to the main entrance, and went into a small, damp-smelling hallway that had rows of dingy mailboxes with names above them. He found one marked Miss B. Jackson, and the number I-F. He went out and started to circle the patio, finding, as he had guessed, that the first-floor apartments were numbered I and alphabetically.
I-F was halfway down on his right. The children stopped their noisy play and stared at the stranger with bright, inquisitive eyes, and there was a curious sort of silence in the sun-drenched courtyard as Shayne stopped in front of I-F and knocked on the door.