Shayne folded the paper thoughtfully, picked up the preceding issue that carried Amy Buttrell’s picture and the first story, and as an afterthought, also gathered up all the following issues so that he might go over them at his leisure to see if anything further had been learned about the girl and the accident that had brought on her attack of amnesia.
He paid for the papers at the Information desk and hurried back to his hotel room with them tucked under his arm. He dropped the pile of papers on the floor and strode directly to the telephone where he asked the hotel operator to connect him with the Roney Plaza hotel in Miami Beach.
After a brief wait, “The Roney Plaza, good morning,” came through the receiver, and he asked for Mr. Amos Buttrell.
There was a short wait while Shayne sank into a chair, worried a cigarette out of a limp package and got it lighted with his free hand. Then the voice said, “I’m sorry, sir. We don’t have any Mr. Buttrell. Did I get the name correctly?”
“B-u-t-t-r-e-l-l,” Shayne spelled it out for her patiently. “Amos Buttrell.”
“Yes, sir.” The voice was doubtful. “He isn’t registered, I’m afraid.”
“He was a few days ago. Last Friday or Saturday. If he’s checked out since, can you give me an address where he can be reached?”
“I’ll connect you with the office if you wish.”
Shayne said, “Please do.” A deep frown creased his forehead and his nostrils tightened as he drew a deep lungful of smoke. When a brisk male voice asked if he could be of service, Shayne explained tersely, adding, “This is long distance and very important police business. I’ll hold on.”
He held on until the cigarette was smoked down close to his fingertips. Then the brisk voice told him apologetically, “I’m afraid there is some mistake. Our records don’t show any Mr. Buttrell registered here at all during the past two weeks.”
“How about a Miss Buttrell?” Shayne asked harshly. “Amy.”
“No one by that name at all, sir.”
“You’re positive there’s no mistake?”
“Quite positive.” The voice was very firm and somewhat offended that anyone could dare challenge the accuracy of the Roney Plaza’s records.
Shayne hung up thoughtfully and reached a long arm for the open bottle of cognac. He took a short drink from the bottle, then got up abruptly to check the newspaper story on the chance he had misread the information it contained.
He hadn’t misread it. The Courier stated explicitly that Mr. Amos Buttrell was wintering at the Roney Plaza Hotel in Miami Beach.
Either the news story was in error, or Mr. Buttrell had lied for reasons best known to himself.
6
Michael Shayne strode up and down the length of the hotel sitting room, clawing at his coarse red hair with his right hand and tugging at his earlobe with his left.
What in hell did it all add up to? A beautiful victim of amnesia, supposedly the daughter of a wealthy New Yorker, walking into the bar last night and fingering him for a trio of murderers!
Yet she had never seen him before in his life. At least, he had never seen her. Could that be a quirk of an amnesiac, he wondered. If they couldn’t remember things back beyond a certain point, were they likely to have hallucinations and think they remembered someone?
But what was the girl doing in Brockton last night when she supposedly had been taken away by her father the preceding Saturday? Had she regained her memory in the meantime and come back to Brockton to identify the man or men who had attacked her in the first place? That was, supposing she had been attacked on the highway and a simple automobile accident wasn’t the reason for her appearance at the hospital in the condition she had been in.
Nothing made sense any way you looked at it. Shayne needed a lot more answers before he could possibly start theorizing. He stopped by the telephone stand and looked up the number of the Courier, called it and got the City Desk.
He asked, “Could you tell me the name of the reporter who covered the story of the identification of the girl-amnesia victim last week by her father?”
“Wait a minute.” The voice was brusque and disinterested. Shayne waited, listening to the typical background noises of a busy City Room over the wire as he did so.
“Yeh. That was Hy Brown. You got something new on it?”
“I might have,” said Shayne cautiously. “He around now?”
“Covering the police beat. Who’s calling?”
The redhead hesitated. Then he said firmly, “Michael Shayne. If Brown comes in…”
“Shayne? Hey, we got an item here…” There was a lengthy pause. Then a pleased chuckle. “Private detective from Miami, huh? How you like our hoosgow? Give us a quote, Mr. Shayne?”
“You couldn’t print it,” Shayne said amiably. “Yeh. Your alert police force protected Brockton’s innocent children from my reckless driving last night. Okay. If I could get in touch with Brown…”
“You still in town?” the voice demanded.
“At the Manor Hotel. I’d like…”
“Hy’d like too, I bet. An interview from you would make the front page, Shamus. You’re by way of being famous in Florida, you know.”
Shayne said, “I didn’t know, but swell. If you could…”
“You at the hotel now?”
“In my room.”
“I’ll have Hy around there in three shakes. Sit tight, huh?”
Shayne said he would and hung up. He took the pile of newspapers dating back to the morning after Amy Buttrell had turned up at the hospital, and started going through them carefully. There was no Sunday edition, but the Monday paper carried a short item on the front page stating that no progress had been made by the local police toward solving the mystery of what had happened to Amy.
Her missing automobile had not been located, and no one had come forward with any information about the girl at all. Not even the man who had picked her up on the highway late at night and then faded away without identifying himself. Locally, the case seemed to be at a dead-end and likely to remain there until the girl recovered her memory and was able to tell her own story.
Shayne was searching through the inner pages of the previous day’s paper for anything further on Amy Buttrell when there was a rap on his door.
He got up to open it and admit a wiry, eager young man who gripped Shayne’s hand enthusiastically in thin fingers and introduced himself as Hy Brown while his excited eyes danced happily as they studied the livid bruises on Shayne’s face.
“Holy cats! They did work you over, huh Mr. Shayne? Resisting arrest it says on the docket. Which one of the bastards you resist? Burke or Grimes?”
Shayne grinned briefly and his hand went up to his face. “Both, I guess. The younger one prodded me into it.”
“Yeh. He would. Grimes isn’t such a bad old guy. But that Burke!” The reporter whistled expressively. “Took both of them to handle you, I bet. From all the stuff we’ve read about you.” Brown perched himself on the edge of a straight chair expectantly and produced a wad of copy paper and pencil. “You here in Brockton on a case, Mr. Shayne?”
“No. Just stopped in unexpectedly on my way to Miami to sample your famous hospitality.” Shayne grinned wryly and went into the bathroom to get another glass. He brought it back and set it beside the pitcher of ice cubes with a wave of his big hand. “Help yourself.” He poured cognac in his own glass, added ice cubes and swished them around thoughtfully while the younger man poured a modest dollop in the bottom of his glass and settled back with a look of disappointment on his face.
He said, “I thought maybe… when I heard you were still here at the hotel and hadn’t gone on this morning… I hoped…”
“As a matter of fact,” said Shayne easily, “I did think that while I was here I’d check into that Buttrell girl’s case just out of curiosity.” He gestured toward the newspapers on the floor. “You folks at this end never did find out what happened to her that night?”