“He’ll be questioning her in a few hours at any rate,” Shayne told him tonelessly.
“I understood she’s in New York.”
“I put a bug in his ear tonight, and he’s having her brought back pronto.”
“You’re tossing her to Painter?” Rourke asked incredulously.
“What else can I do?” grated Shayne. His voice softened. “Not exactly, Tim. And I’m not going to hold out on you much longer. I have one fast call to make over in Miami, and then I’ll have a pretty clear picture. Go back to the office and file your first story without pulling Muriel Graham into it,” he went on persuasively, leaning forward to switch on the ignition. “Then come straight to my place and I’ll meet you there and we’ll decide exactly where we’re going.”
“All right, Mike. I’ll wait another hour if you say so. But no more than that.”
Shayne said, “An hour will do me fine.” He leaned forward to switch on the motor, then hesitated and asked, “Any identification on the dead man?”
Rourke shook his head. “Not a damned thing. A few bucks in his pocket and a matchbook from the Lucky Tiger Bar on First Street in Miami.”
Shayne nodded and his motor roared to life. Rourke stepped back to let him swing the door shut, and Shayne cut his front wheels sharply to pull past the reporter’s car and the police vehicles in the driveway.
The first faint streaks of dawn were breaking in the sky behind him when Shayne pulled off the Causeway onto the mainland and drove directly to the same two-story stucco house he had visited earlier that same night. The street was deserted and no lights showed in any houses of the block as he pulled in to the curb.
He got out and went up the walk to the front door, found it unlocked and entered a small hall where he groped around and found a light switch. A forty-watt bulb overhead lighted the hallway and the flight of stairs leading up. He climbed the stairs quietly, not tiptoeing but avoiding unnecessary sound. The upper hall was faintly illuminated from the light below, and he went directly to number 5 where he knocked lightly. There was complete silence in the old house as he waited. He tried the doorknob when there was no response, and found it locked as he expected.
He knocked again, longer and more loudly, and was rewarded by the creak of bedsprings inside the room. Then Hilda’s voice, slurred with sleep, came from beyond the locked door, “Who is it?”
“Mike Shayne.” He kept his own voice low, but loud enough to penetrate the thin wooden panel. “Open up.”
He heard a click, and light showed around the door casing. There was silence and a momentary wait, and he could envision Hilda Gleason (or was it really Moran?) standing on the other side of the door trying to make up her mind whether to unlock it for him or not.
Then he heard the click of a latch, and the door opened inward a few inches and her composed voice came through the crack. “Please wait one moment, Mr. Shayne.”
He waited, and through the crack could hear her movement across the room. In a very brief time he heard her coming back, and the door swung wide to admit him. He stepped inside and faced her as she closed the door tightly.
Without make-up, her face was white and strained. Her light brown hair was straggly, and her eyes were round and frightened. She was barefooted and wore a shabby, light flannel robe which she clutched tightly together in front, and the two-inch hem of a white nylon nightgown showed around the bottom of it. There was a double bed with rumpled sheets and covers at Shayne’s right, beyond it a single window that was open all the way from the top.
She said, “What is it? I was sound asleep when you knocked. It must be very late indeed.”
“It’s practically morning.” There was one upholstered chair and one straight chair in the room. Her Angora jacket was draped carefully on the back of the big chair, and there was a brassiere and garter-belt on one arm of it. Shayne turned to gather them up and put them on the straight chair. With his back to her, he said casually, “Why don’t you get back into bed? We have a lot of talking to do.”
“Have we, Mr. Shayne?” He sank down into the chair while she settled herself near the head of the bed with both pillows propped up behind her, a sheet and coverlet modestly pulled up to her waist.
“Where have you been tonight?”
“Asleep.”
“I came by to see you after I left Henderson’s, but you weren’t in.”
“Then it was you my neighbor across the hall described so glowingly.” The hint of a smile dimpled her face, and then a faint blush crept over it and she dropped her eyes from his direct gaze. “I assure you I did not know exactly about the girls who live here when I took this room. But then it didn’t seem to matter because I didn’t expect visitors.”
Shayne lit a cigarette and settled back to watch her through hooded eyes. “Why were you at Henderson’s this afternoon?”
“But I have told you. To attend the party.”
“Is your name Gleason or Moran?”
She sighed. “It is Gleason.”
“Why did you go to Henderson’s office as Mrs. Moran and strike up an acquaintanceship with him?”
“I think… I will have to tell you the truth, Mr. Shayne.”
“I think you had better.”
“Would you tell me first why you think it is important? What you were doing at Henderson’s yourself?”
He said, “Don’t you know that Jane Smith is Henderson’s stepdaughter?”
“Jane Smith?” Somehow he couldn’t believe that her complete surprise could possibly be faked. She stared at him in utter astonishment. “You mean the one in the bar that night? The one I saw with Harry at home before he came here?”
Shayne nodded. “That same girl. Who called herself Jane Smith to me. You didn’t know?”
“That she was Mr. Henderson’s stepdaughter? But no. How could I guess that? Even though I did see her driving from that house…” She caught in her breath and her lower lip, and managed to look like a small and contritely guilty child. “I have lied to you, Mr. Shayne. I did not see her by accident on the street. I was in a taxicab going slowly past the Henderson house when she drove out from it. I had my taxi follow her to that hotel, and the rest is as I told you.”
“Why did you lie about that part of it?”
“Because I did not want… I did not think I should tell you I had been watching the Henderson house.”
Shayne said, “Start back at the beginning and tell me the truth this time.”
“Yes. I think I must do that now. It was only a little untruth I told. I thought perhaps… to protect Harry.”
“From what?”
“If… something should happen to Mr. Henderson. Nothing has happened to him, has it?”
Shayne said, “Nothing has happened to Henderson… yet. I’m waiting for the truth, Hilda.”
“Yes. It was when it first began with Harry. Two months ago. We were watching the television that evening on Harry’s night off. There was a program from Miami. Comedians and stars, and a lot of important people in Miami. And there was this one famous comedian who was getting the key to Miami Beach presented to him. I was not paying much attention when Harry sat up straight and said out loud, ‘That dirty son-of-a-bitch.’ Like that. And on the screen was Mr. Henderson making a speech. And I said to Harry, ‘Who? What do you mean?’ and he said, ‘I mean that bastard standing up in front of the camera shooting off his big mouth, that’s what. Henderson, hell!’ Harry went on, and I never saw him so angry. ‘His name isn’t Henderson any more than mine is. My God, what I know about that dirty skunk! Did you hear them say something about him getting elected mayor of Miami Beach, Hilda?’ he asked me. ‘My God, if that’s not something. Mayor, no less.’
“And I didn’t know what he was talking about, you understand, Mr. Shayne? And, by that time, there was a singer and an orchestra on the program and I asked him what he meant by it all, but he wouldn’t tell me. He just said it was better I didn’t know and he didn’t want to talk about it any more. But that was the beginning. Harry was changed after that night. He never mentioned Mr. Henderson’s name again and flew into a rage when I begged him to tell me. But he began brooding and talking about injustice and how life wasn’t fair to some people, and how terrible that we should be poor when others that deserved to be shot were living off the fat of the land.”