He slowed his pace sharply as he followed the heavily shrouded path. He hadn't learned yet to curb his pace so he would come out on time at the call-box. The beat had been laid out for older muscles than his, and he always started out taking it slow and deliberate, but, when his thoughts turned to Ann, his stride quickened unconsciously and he was always getting ahead of himself like this.
He was passing the bench without noticing the figure huddled on it when the toe of his shoe struck something in the path. There was a tinkling sound in the gravel off to the side where his foot had kicked the object, and he stopped and thumbed his flash on to turn a circle of light downward.
The beam first picked out a gold lipstick and then a small hand mirror. Beyond them lay a lady's handbag, gaping open. He swung the light back swiftly and something gleamed wetly on the edge of the path beneath the bench.
The beam came up and he saw the girl lying there. TTie pallid face and sightless eyes, the gaping wound in her soft throat from which the red wetness beneath the bench had come.
He stood stricken and unable to move for at least twenty seconds. Time enough for the thought to flash through his mind that the dead girl was no older than Ann, and might well have been as pretty as she before the deadly knife had done its work.
Then awareness came to him, and he plunged headlong toward the call-box under the street light.
TWENTY: 11:38 PM
The report reached Will Gentry in his office just as he concluded reminding Shayne that if anything happened to the girl he had sent to Lucy's, it would be the detective's fault because he hadn't mentioned her whereabouts in time.
The inter-com buzzed, and Gentry leaned forward to hear the voice issuing from it.
"Murdered girl in park near Second Street and Second Avenue. Reported by Cassiday on beat. Throat is cut."
Gentry jerked his head up to glare at Shayne. "So it wasn't a forty-five after all. Another knife job."
Shayne was already moving toward the door, and Gentry hurried after him. "You don't know it's the same girl," Shayne flung over his shoulder angrily.
"I'm betting," Gentry challenged him grimly. "You want to risk any dough on it?"
Shayne snorted loudly and went out the side door to his parked car.
He gunned it away fast, but by the time he reached the intersection an ambulance and two radio cars were already there. Spotlights made dazzling bright the cluster of men gathered about a park bench forty feet down the path.
Shayne pulled in behind the ambulance and got out. He stood for a moment beside his car as though nerving himself for the ordeal, then strode slowly down the path, his face set and expressionless.
Three policemen standing in front of the bench looked at him silently and drew back a little as he walked up. A white-coated ambulance attendant knelt beside the bench.
Shayne peered over his shoulder and saw the girl's face. He was steeled for the shock and there was only a faint grimace on his trenched face as he recognized her.
He stepped back and asked gruffly, "How long ago. Doc?"
The kneeling intern shrugged and answered without looking up. "An hour maybe."
"You got anything on it, Shayne?" one of the officers asked, but Shayne turned away without answering him as Gentry hurried up the path.
The police chief looked at him questioningly, and Shayne nodded and said stiffly, "I'm glad I didn't put up any money."
Gentry's eyes probed at his face for a moment, then he nodded and stepped past him to confer with the young patrolman who had discovered the body.
Shayne walked on a few feet and stopped to lean his right shoulder against the smooth round trunk of a palm. He got out a cigarette and lighted it, controlling the shaking of the match so it was hardly noticeable. He drew in a deep lungful of smoke and expelled it slowly, and his body seemed to slouch negligently against the palm as though he had no interest at all in the scene behind his back.
He stayed that way and didn't turn around until Gentry called to him sharply. "Shaynel Take a look at this."
He took a last drag of smoke and spun his cigarette away, turned to see the chief holding a sheet of paper in his hands.
"It is Nellie Paulson after all. Here's a receipted bill from the Hibiscus for last week's rent on room three-six-teen. And there's some other stuff in her handbag. It's Nellie all right."
Shayne strode back savagely. "It can't be. We had it worked out that it had to be the Barnes girl."
"Take another look at her," invited Gentry. "You sure she's the one that-"
"Good Christl Of course I'm sure," burst out Shayne. "I don't need another look. So she's Nellie Paulson. And the same job has been done on her as on the one that came out of the bay. Barnes or Paulson. God knows. Where does this leave us?"
"Pretty damn well up the creek without a paddle," said Gentry savagely. "Two in one night. Goddamn it, Shayne-"
Shayne was looking at him coldly, a muscle twitching in his tight jaw. "And this one right near my hotel, too?" he asked mockingly. "All right. I'd say it looks as though she tried to come back for some more protection from me.
"Yeh," grunted Gentry. "You took the words right out of my mouth. Getting so it's kind of risky being a client of yours, don't you think?"
Shayne said, "You can't say anything I'm not thinking, Will. So let's go on from there."
"Where?" asked the chief sarcastically.
"Well, now we know who she is anyhow. That gives us something more definite to work on."
"Tough way of getting a positive identification. If we wait long enough, maybe we'll stumble over a few more bodies and get them identified. Then we may be able to figure it out. That your idea of handling it?"
Strain deepened the trenches in Shayne's cheeks at the chief's tone of acid sarcasm. He said quietly, "Right now I'm wondering why an ex-G.I. with a forty-five under his belt uses a knife instead of the gun."
"For one thing it's a little bit quieter. Let's say he just carries the gun along to frighten private detectives with so they let him walk out into the night to kill off their clients."
"Let's say that," Shayne agreed flatly. He hesitated, rubbing his jaw, moving off the path to let stretcher-bearers from the ambulance go past. "I'd like to get the maid over from the Roney to look at both of them and see if either one are the persons who have been living there as Charles and Mary Barnes."
"Oh, we'll pin down an identification all right," said Gentry bitterly. "As fast as they get killed off, we'll find out who they are."
Shayne continued to disregard his tone. "One thing you didn't get around to telling me back in the office, Will. Did the dead man's fingerprints check with the set in three-sixteen?"
"What? Oh, that. Yes. He's definitely been in three-sixteen since the maid cleaned the room in the middle of the afternoon."
Shayne sighed and started down the path toward his car. Will Gentry clumped along silently behind him. At the sidewalk, Shayne stopped and said, "Let's save the hard feelings until this is over, huh?"
Gentry unexpectedly stuck out his hand. He said, "Sure. Then I'm going to pull your license."
"I think maybe I'll turn it in without waiting for you to pull it, Will." Shayne took his hand absently and without much vigor. "They found no weapon, huh?"
Gentry shook his grizzled head. "Almost exactly the same sort of wound as the other. One fast slash with a hell of a sharp knife. You got any ideas, Mike?" The question was almost an entreaty.
"Only one and it's not much good. Something I should have done before. You still got that picture I gave you at the morgue?"
"It's back in my office."
Shayne said, "If you're going back now, I'll pick it up."
TWENTY-ONE: 10:47 PM