“Sit down,” Painter barked. “This pins it on you, Thomas. You forged that note to make it look like suicide when you pushed Miss Marco off the deck.”
“I didn’t,” Thomas cried in a choked voice. “Good God, I tell you I didn’t. Why should I?”
“You sonofabitch. You girl-murdering bastard.” Marco spoke in a low, deliberate tone, moving slowly away from Painter’s desk. “So that was your game. When I was playing ball-”
A bunched hand in his coat pocket swung up sharply. Shayne lunged forward, knocking him to one side, and the bullet went wild. The sergeant jumped in and wrested a revolver from Marco’s hand.
“That’s all right,” Shayne soothed the gambler. “He’ll burn for drowning Marsha, all right. We’ve got everything but the motive, and you can give us that.”
“You’re goddamn right I can. Marsha saw him kill Harry Grange. She ran down the beach, scared to death, and called me as soon as she got home. And I told her-”
“To keep quiet about it,” Shayne interrupted savagely. “You saw a chance to hang one on me and also have something you could blackmail Thomas with for the rest of his life.”
“But I didn’t. It’s all a mistake. I didn’t drown the girl, Marco,” Thomas protested once more.
“No,” Shayne agreed. “You didn’t. But that doesn’t help you a hell of a lot. You can burn for two murders in this state just as well as for three. Where did you ditch Larry Kincaid after killing him?”
“Kincaid? How-?” Thomas sank back into his chair laxly, his face white, an unclean drool oozing out of the corner of his mouth.
“How do I know you killed Kincaid?” Shayne laughed harshly. “I should have known from the beginning. That one bullet that had been fired from my jammed gun had to go some place. You didn’t know enough about guns to unjam it after killing Larry and use it on Grange, too. And you didn’t have brains enough to know a ballistic test would show my gun hadn’t killed Grange. It had to be you, Thomas. Marco knows more about guns. And he wouldn’t have sent his hoodlums after me to get that racetrack evidence if he hadn’t thought that first I’d killed Grange and gotten it. At first, he thought it would be a good stunt to get that evidence to blackmail you with, but later he found something better to hold over your head. You sent Chuck Evans to Jacksonville on the eleven o’clock train to send the message from Larry Kincaid to his wife. Larry had lost his nerve about meeting Grange himself, hadn’t he? He called you from my apartment and met you and told you he couldn’t go through with it. He had my gun and you figured out the whole plan in a flash. A perfect plant for a guy with my reputation.”
“All right, all right.” Thomas covered his face with his hands and rocked back and forth. “I did it. I killed them both. But I didn’t drown Marsha Marco. I swear to God-”
“Of course you didn’t. If I’m not mistaken, Marsha will be popping up out of hiding to refute the newspaper story being howled all over the city. And you might as well break that extra, too,” Shayne added, turning to Timothy Rourke.
“You bet.”
Rourke’s nostrils flared, his eyes stalking a window on the east side of the room. He leaned far out, thrust two fingers into his mouth and whistled two long blasts.
The sound was echoed down the street. The raucous shout of newsboys split the afternoon calm even as he pulled his head back in:
“EXTRA! EXTRA! MILLIONAIRE CONFESSES TWO MURDERS. EXTRA! THOMAS IS KILLER OF TWO. GET YOUR EXTRA HERE. MILLIONAIRE SPORTSMAN CONFESSES. PAINTER GETS FULL CONFESSION.”
“More newspaper history,” Shayne remarked gently to Peter Painter. “And I’ll take that thirty-two of mine back from you now, if you don’t mind. After Thomas takes you to Kincaid’s body and you get the bullet out of him, you’ll be interested to compare it with one shot from Marco’s gun.”
“But I thought-he said — your gun killed Kincaid.”
Painter was pulling a drawer open, taking out Shayne’s pistol.
Shayne reached over and took it from his nerveless fingers. “The Colt company really shouldn’t make their automatics with interchangeable barrels,” he said. “It makes it so confusing to detective chiefs. And you’ll enjoy knowing you had me plenty worried for a few hours about that ballistic test. Until I hit my stride on this thing, I was scared stiff that Marsha Marco had done the shooting and I had planted the evidence in my own gun. Drop around some day and I’ll show you how it’s done.”
While Painter gasped in astonishment, Shayne turned to Rourke and said, “Let’s go buy a paper, Tim. I have a burning desire to see my maiden literary effort in print.”
He linked arms with the newspaperman, and they walked out together.
Chapter Twenty: THE DETECTIVE’S PROFIT
Moonlight lay enchantingly upon the rippling surface of the Atlantic, made a path of molten gold leading out into the soft blue of early night where the running lights of a coastwise vessel rode the horizon. Tiny waves sluffed gently on the sandy shore, receded with soft, regretful sighs. Overhead, the lacy fronds of royal palms swayed in the faint breeze like giant feathers against the backdrop of night.
Dim globes high above the tables lining the boardwalk shone upon the diners, reflected a dancing glow from Phyllis Brighton’s eyes, lay softly upon her rounded cheeks.
Michael Shayne sat across from her, his angular features presenting a complex pattern of light and shadow. Hard, clean lines were accentuated by the lights.
Four sidecars were ranged in front of the detective. Phyllis’s fingers held the slender stem of a cocktail glass lightly. She lifted it and laughed.
“I know why you brought me here tonight, Michael Shayne.” Her voice was low, intimately challenging.
“You’re beautiful, Angel.” He lifted one of the four glasses and drank it with sincere approval.
“Don’t waste your blarney on me. I’ve been beautiful all this time and you haven’t given me a tumble. I’ve been studying your methods, Mr. Shayne, learning that things aren’t what they seem when your directing genius is behind them.”
“Can’t I take a girl out to dinner without an ulterior motive?” he protested.
“You could, but I seriously doubt whether you ever have.”
“You’ve got me all wrong, Angel. I’m still-practically twice your age.”
Laughter gurgled from her lips. “I don’t mean that way. I wish I could believe I was in danger of being seduced.”
Shayne shook his head sadly and reached for a second cocktail. “Such talk-from a mere infant. I’m-I’m appalled, Angel. Really I am.”
“The price of my silence,” Phyllis told him happily, “is a great deal more than just one dinner. You’re hooked, darling, and you might as well admit it.”
Shayne growled. “I don’t get it.”
He drank, looking broodingly over the rim of his glass at her loveliness and wondering what the devil he was going to do about it.
“I’ve got you in the palm of my hand,” she exulted. “Don’t forget I know all about the mysterious woman who went aboard Elliot’s yacht last night. One word from me, and you’ll be proved a liar and a cheat.”
“Oh, that!” Shayne laughed easily and finished his second drink. “I’ve been proved that often in the past.”
“But this is different,” Phyllis persisted. “You can’t spread lies all over the front page of a newspaper and get away with it.”
Shayne put a cigarette between his lips and the flame of a match lighted the shadows on his face.
“So, you’re going to blackmail me under the threat of telling all?”
“You catch on quick. Which is quite natural, with you being so well up on all phases of blackmail and assorted skullduggery.”
“This is a great relief to me,” Shayne assured her. “As a matter of fact, I did have an ulterior motive in asking you to dine with me tonight. I planned to ply you with wine and flattery, break down your resistance, and-”
“And-?” Phyllis leaned toward him hopefully.
“And induce you to swear to an affidavit that I planned that entire drowning hoax,” Shayne chuckled. “You save me a lot of trouble by threatening to do what I was afraid you wouldn’t do.”