Shayne said, “You can get yourself in bad trouble with a thing like that in your hand. Put it away and let me explain…”
“Trouble, Mister? Me get in trouble? Unh-uh. You’re the one that’s in trouble. Real bad trouble.” Light glittered on the long blade of the knife as it weaved back and forth in front of him in an intricate pattern.
The girl was sobbing softly behind Shayne. He heard her slithering across the room toward the kitchen, but Gene’s gaze did not so much as flicker in her direction.
Shayne said, “I’m a detective.” He made his voice hard and measured to try and force the meaning of his words past the hysteria and into the mind of the knife-wielder. “A man was murdered last night and I came here…”
“So, you’re the Law?” snarled Gene. He lowered his body into more of a crouch and began to take short, mincing steps forward, holding the knife well in front of him, edge upward and slanting toward the floor in the best cutting style.
Out of the corner of his eye, Shayne saw the girl reappear in the kitchen doorway. Her eyes were wild and her features distorted with fear and he had the swift impression she was about to fling herself on the other man. He called out sharply, “No! Don’t try…”
Gene swung about at his words, and Shayne leaped forward to cover the distance between them, and Gene’s left hand flailed out in a vicious back hand swipe across the girl’s face at the same instant that Shayne’s fist reached his jaw.
They both went to the floor together and they both lay there quietly. Shayne halted his rush and looked down at them somberly. She shuddered and moaned a little, and looked up at him with lustreless eyes. He leaned down and took the knife from Gene’s lax hand, and straightened up, snapping it shut and dropping it into his pocket. Then he knelt and felt his pulse, found it full and strong and even.
The girl had straightened to a sitting position when he rocked back on his heels and said drily, “He’ll come around all right. Want me to call a doctor?”
She was abruptly sober. She said, “No, goddamn you. Get out, that’s all. Haven’t you caused enough trouble?”
Shayne said, “I guess I have at that.”
Gene’s body began to twitch slightly as Shayne stood up again. The girl crawled across the floor to him and lifted his head and cradled it in her lap, leaning forward so that her black hair obscured her face, and crooned over him.
Shayne left them like that. It was good to get out into the sunlight and the sanity of Flagler Street again.
Chapter nine
There was a police car parked up the street from the apartment house on Fortieth when Shayne stopped in front. He strode into the foyer and found the button above “James Wallace” and pressed it. There was a speaking tube near the inner door with a receiver on a hook, and Shayne took it down and put it to his ear. In a moment a gruff voice said: “Who is it?”
“Mike Shayne. I’d like a look around.”
“I dunno,” the voice said doubtfully. “Mike Shayne, huh?”
“Who’s speaking?”
“Ed Donovan up here.”
“Didn’t Chief Gentry tell you I’m working on the case?” asked Shayne impatiently.
“I heard you were, but he didn’t tell me to let you in.”
“Then call in and ask him. Try the brokerage firm of Martin, Wallace and Tompkins, if he isn’t at headquarters. I left him there a short time ago.”
There was a short pause and Shayne knew that Donovan was weighing the redhead’s known friendship with Chief Gentry against the fact that he hadn’t been issued direct orders to admit him. But the body had been removed and the Homicide Squad had been over the place with a finetooth comb and there was no real reason for refusing the private detective admittance, and Donovan said grudgingly, “I guess it’s all right.” The release buzzer sounded and Shayne opened the inner door and went up to the fourth floor.
The door of the Wallace apartment stood open and the bulky figure of the city detective was standing half out of it when Shayne got out of the elevator. They knew each other slightly, and there was a look of good-natured curiosity on Donovan’s broad face as he asked, “What you want in for, Mr. Shayne?”
Shayne said truthfully, “I don’t know. More a hunch than anything else. I was here last night after Will’s boys finished and I don’t suppose they missed anything, but it won’t hurt to look again.”
“I guess not.” Donovan stepped inside and Shayne followed him. A highball glass stood on a table in the entrance hall, and Donovan picked it up with a deprecatory cluck. “It’s a dry job sitting here to answer the phone if it rings… which it hasn’t. It’s a cinch Wallace won’t miss a little of that good scotch in the kitchen, but I just as soon you didn’t tell the chief.”
Shayne said, “I won’t, Ed. I may join you after I look around. Keep an eye on me, huh, so you can swear I didn’t plant anything or take anything away?”
Donovan said good-naturedly, “I’ll do that for sure.” He took a sip of his drink while Shayne opened the door of a hall closet and looked in.
A woman’s woolen coat and a topcoat, and two raincoats hung neatly on hangers, and there were rubbers on the floor and two umbrellas, and both male and female headgear on the upper shelf. Shayne moved the hats on the shelf and looked behind the coats on the floor to make certain there was no attaché case there, then lifted down the topcoat and searched the pockets while Donovan watched him idly.
The pockets were empty and Shayne replaced the coat on its hanger, passed Donovan into the living room and looked around with a frown.
It was just as it had been the preceding midnight and he didn’t see any hiding places that might have been overlooked. He started for the bedroom and Donovan said behind him, “Those two partners of Wallace’s were here earlier and they poked around a little. But when I told them they’d have to get an okay from the chief, they said to skip it and left without bothering much. Wouldn’t tell me what they were looking for.”
Shayne nodded and said over his shoulder, “I suppose they went through the bedroom?”
“Started opening drawers and such until I told them they’d have to get permission. One of them, the slim one, acted like he was going to offer me a pay-off, but I guess he got cold feet when he saw the way I looked when he reached for his wallet.” Donovan’s voice was thick with self-praise. “I didn’t say a word, mind you. I thought to myself, just let him try and see how fast I run him in for attempting to bribe an officer.”
Shayne muttered, “Very laudable.” He stood in the bedroom doorway and studied the room. There were chalk marks on the floor showing where the corpse had lain. The suitcase still lay empty on one bed, the piles of clothing on the other. The wallet was gone, of course.
He thought about the wallet for a moment, tugging at the lobe of his left ear. It would be at headquarters with an inventory of its contents. If Wallace had checked the loot before returning to pack his bag, the check or locker key would most likely be in the wallet, and Gentry would already have investigated anything like that. But he made a mental note that it was something to check with Will.
There were two bedroom closets, well-filled with dresses and with the broker’s suits, and Shayne looked cursorily in both for the attaché case while Donovan stood negligently in the doorway and watched him, sipping from his highball glass.
From the closets he moved to a chest of drawers with a man’s toilet articles on top, and began opening the drawers and making a superficial search through the contents, though he wasn’t exactly sure why he did so. Except that the two surviving partners had been so insistent that he promised to make a thorough search and he felt he had to go through the motions to earn the fat retainer he planned to charge them.