Shayne read it twice, then put the note in the envelope and slid it into an inside pocket.
He took a last look in the bathroom and saw that Meldrum was inert in the tub. He shook his head, felt the man’s pulse to reassure himself, then shoved him down in the tub until his feet rested against the other end.
Shayne didn’t bother to lock the door when he went out of the room. He drove along Fifth Street, where newsboys were getting rid of their morning Heralds in a hurry. Their raucous calls reached his ears faintly but he drove on to the causeway without stopping to buy a paper.
In Miami he drove straight to the side entrance of his hotel, parked at the curb, and got out. He went in through a private entry and climbed the service stairway two flights to his old apartment, which had been retained as an office.
A thin-faced legman for the Herald was camped in front of his door. Shayne shouldered him aside and shook his head at the reporter’s questions. He put his key in the lock and went in, slamming the door shut behind him with unnecessary force. He went straight to the telephone and called Phyllis in their new apartment one flight up.
When Phyllis answered, he said, “Hello, darling, I’ve been up to my neck in work. I’ll be home pretty quick.”
“Thank goodness you still have a neck all in one piece,” she answered.
“You’re not worried?” His voice was anxious.
“Of course not. But hurry-I have breakfast ready.”
Shayne grinned and said, “Okay,” and hung up. He looked at his watch. It was nine o’clock. He lifted the receiver and called the hotel desk clerk and asked if there were any messages.
The clerk said, “A telegram came five minutes ago. I was just going to send it up.”
Shayne said, “Send it up to my third-floor apartment. I’ll wait for it. Don’t send any messages to my living-apartment.”
The clerk said, “Yes, Mr. Shayne,” and in two minutes a boy was at the door with the telegram.
Shayne stared at the yellow envelope quizzically, then ripped it open.
It was a telegram from Mr. Sorenson, an executive of a New York insurance firm which for three years had retained him on an annual basis as special investigator for their southern district. The message tersely quoted a clause in their contract and advised him that he was no longer connected with the firm as of that date.
Shayne crumpled the yellow paper in his big fist and tossed it into the front drawer of his desk. He went out and up the one flight of stairs to his living-apartment.
Chapter Seven: MARKED WITH MURDER
The aroma of hot coffee came from the kitchen and Phyllis hurried out to meet him with outstretched arms and a smile courageously fixed on her lips. She didn’t say anything and neither did Shayne while she clung to him. Over the top of her head he saw a Herald crumpled up in one corner where she had evidently thrown it.
A smell of burning accompanied by thin smoke poured from the kitchen. Phyllis let go of him with a little gasp. He watched her with somber eyes until she disappeared through the door, then he stalked to the liquor cabinet and poured a four-ounce drink. He was washing it down with a glass of sherry when he went into the kitchen.
Phyllis had a fresh linen cloth on the table in the breakfast nook. Sunshine streamed through the windows onto a platter of scrambled eggs. She was anxiously bending over an electric waffle iron when he passed her to sit down.
“Damn this thing,” she raged, “it’s overheating again. It’s all stuck on both sides.” Her voice was throaty with a suggestion of tears.
Shayne patted her shoulder and slid onto the built-in seat. He said, “Chuck it out the window and I’ll buy you a new one.”
She scraped out the remnants of a burned waffle and spread fresh batter on the grill. Shayne finished his sherry while she poured him a mug of coffee and silently set it before him.
He sat with elbows hunched on the table, staring fixedly at the opposite wall. Phyllis fussed with the waffle iron and the silence between them, continued until the pressure of unsaid things became more than Phyllis could endure. She said:
“A Mr. Gaston called just before you came in. He said you needn’t bother to keep your appointment with him today.”
Shayne said, “U-m-m.” He lit a cigarette and blew smoke into the stream of sunshine.
With a little gasp of triumph Phyllis slid a crisp brown waffle on a plate in front of Michael. “He was-Isn’t he the man who had that important assignment he wanted you to take?”
“U-m-m.” He spread butter on the hot waffle and watched it melt with outward symptoms of pleasure. He said, “I’ve had breakfast, angel, but I can’t resist this waffle. It’s perfect.” He dished fluffy scrambled eggs onto his plate. “It’s damned swell being married to you.”
A tear rolled down her cheek. She turned to the sink and wiped viciously at the wetness with a tea towel. A second waffle was ruined when she got back to look at the iron. She swore at it under her breath and unplugged the iron. Long black lashes trembled down over her eyes.
Shayne laughed suddenly, and it was real laughter. He set his plate over for her, caught her and pulled her down on the bench opposite him.
“How can you laugh, Michael? Do you know what they’re saying about you in the morning paper?”
“I imagine I’m thoroughly drawn and quartered, tossed to the wolves, as it were. Does it make any difference to you, Phyl?”
“Mike! You know it doesn’t!” She spilled coffee on the white cloth.
“You’re not ashamed of a husband who is a murderer to all intents and purposes?”
“Don’t, Michael.” Tears glistened in her wide dark eyes but she met his gaze frankly. “I called up the Herald and told them what I thought about their nasty, lying insinuations.”
Shayne chuckled, then soberly reminded her, “There’s always that log cabin waiting for us in Colorado if I get run out of town.”
“You won’t,” she cried intensely. “You’ll stay right here and clear yourself.”
“It looks bad for the shock troops. I did send Joe Darnell out there, you know.”
“Then he didn’t do what you told him to do-not if he killed Mrs. Thrip.”
“What makes you so positive?”
“Because I know you. You’re not-Oh, Michael! you don’t think he assaulted Mrs. Thrip, do you?”
“Of course not, angel. I know that Darnell didn’t for the same reason you know that I wouldn’t have sent a killer out there.” He paused to empty his coffee mug, then told her about Joe and Dora while she refilled it.
“Joe was on the level,” he went on with a grimace. “He played outside the law but I would trust him further than many men who hide behind legal technicalities instead of using a gun to take what they want. Any man who honestly plans to marry a girl like Dora doesn’t go out and deliberately attack a middle-aged woman.”
“I knew it.” Gladness radiated from Phyllis. “Now all you have to do is prove how wrong they are about Joe.”
“That’s all,” Shayne agreed grimly. “The worst hurdle is explaining why Joe was in the room masked at that ungodly hour of the morning.”
“I wondered about that.”
“I know why he was there,” Shayne told her. “But only one other man knows and I can’t expect Arnold Thrip to back up my story by admitting he was planning an insurance fraud.”
When Phyllis wrinkled her smooth brow in perplexity Shayne told her about his interview with the realtor the previous afternoon.
“He no doubt plans to use those threatening notes as his sole reason for asking me to assign a man to his house,” Shayne concluded. “Even his wife thought that’s what it was all about. He probably first got the idea from her insistence that she turn it over to a private detective. Now things have gone wrong and he has a perfect out.”
“Do you think he killed Joe?”
“I have no doubt of it, In perfect sincerity, probably. I’m willing to accept his story as the truth until it’s proved otherwise, but I question the conclusion he drew when he turned on the light and saw his wife strangled and Joe near her bed.”