“Who’s this dame, Eddie?” Paisly’s companion regarded Miss Lally haughtily with her hands on her skinny hips. “What kinda bum rap-?”
“I’ll ask the questions,” Gentry growled. “Where were you before seven o’clock last night, Paisly?”
“I was-at Ellie’s place,” he said sullenly, his breath coming in snorting anger. “She’ll tell you I was there.”
“What time did he come back to your place after failing to meet Miss Morton for his dinner date?” Shayne put in quickly to the girl.
She turned her head and looked him up and down coldly. “About ten o’clock. He’s been there ever since, and whaddaya want to make of it?”
“How many phone calls did he make after ten o’clock?”
“I didn’t make any,” Paisly said violently. “We were together all the time and Ellie can swear I didn’t.”
“And her testimony is worth about a dime a barrel,” grunted Gentry sourly. “This is no good, Mike. He has had hours to prime her to tell whatever story he wanted.”
Shayne nodded agreement and turned to look searchingly at Miss Lally, who was leaning forward intently. Her eyes were half closed and her head was turned sideways in a listening attitude.
He sauntered over to her. She motioned him to bend down, putting a finger to her lips to indicate she wanted to whisper something. “I just don’t know,” she told him. “I think it might be. But it’s so important I wouldn’t want to swear to it without-you know-”
“I see,” he whispered, then straightened up and raised his voice to Gentry. “She’d be much better able to tell by listening over the telephone, Will. Why not have her call you here after a while and you can try it out then.”
Paisly was twisting his head rapidly to look from one face to the other with complete bafflement. He appeared relieved when Gentry ordered, “Take these two out and keep them separated. I’ll have Harsh first, and then Garvin-and then I’ll be ready for Paisly.”
“May I go to my hotel now, Chief Gentry?” Miss Lally asked once more.
“But stay there,” the chief admonished. “I’ll want you again later.” He looked at Shayne, and again he nodded in agreement. When Shayne started toward the door with the girl, Gentry called out, “Don’t you want to sit in on questioning these birds, Mike?”
“I’ll be back,” Shayne answered blithely. “Beatrice and I have a date-remember? Don’t forget she’s going to call you to listen to Paisly’s voice on the phone. After that, if you don’t know who your murderer is, I’ll tell you. I’d tell you now,” he added with an infuriating grin, “except there’s something I need to pick up at the Tidehaven Hotel first.”
They went out and closed the door. Shayne hustled Beatrice down the corridor to a side exit and out to his car, got in and pulled away fast.
“Did you mean that, Mr. Shayne,” she asked anxiously, “or were you just fooling the chief?”
“I think I know,” he told her, “but I wanted to get away and go to your hotel room with you to pick up that story Miss Morton wrote about Harsh before the police get it. It’s worth money to me.”
“I don’t know about the carbon copy,” she said nervously. “Miss Morton kept it for some reason when she told me to file the original away.”
“The carbon is safe enough,” Shayne assured her.
Miss Lally shivered and sighed. She sat primly erect, as though too tired to relax, and they drove in silence to the Tidehaven Hotel.
The lobby was dimly lit and empty except for one clerk. They went to the elevator and up to the 14th floor without speaking. She led the way down the hall and unlocked the door of her bedroom, and Shayne stood back to let her precede him inside.
She went directly to the bureau and fumbled in the top drawer, sighed with relief as she lifted out a spectacle case and opened it.
With a duplicate pair of glasses on, Miss Lally became once more the epitome of a primly efficient and sexless secretary. She stooped to open the bottom drawer of the bureau and drew out a bulging cardboard folder, riffled through the papers inside, and handed Shayne a dozen typewritten sheets clipped together at the top.
He glanced at the first page and tucked the manuscript under his arm with a satisfied nod. She was facing the mirror, and she leaned forward to study her disheveled reflection with a rueful grimace. “I look and feel as though I’d been put through a meat chopper,” she murmured. “I hope you don’t mind if I just flop into bed.”
Shayne was standing very close to her. He reached his left hand around and covered the back of her hand gripping the edge of the bureau. “I have just one question, Beatrice.”
“What is it?”
“Why did you kill Ralph Morton?”
Chapter Fifteen
Her back was toward him, touching the front of his coat, his arm reaching around her side and his hand still covering hers. The top of her head was just under his chin. She didn’t move or breathe for a full minute.
Then she turned and lifted her face, sliding the glasses off, and looking up at him with round, sooty eyes that held only defeat.
“So-you know,” she breathed. She crumpled against him and pressed her face against his chest, sobbing like an exhausted child. “I’ve been so frightened-so alone-keeping it locked up inside me. I want to tell you, Mr. Shayne. It will be a relief. And you can tell me what to do.”
He put his arms around her and she clung to him until she stopped crying. When she drew away she asked tremulously, “Can we go-some place where it’s quiet and maybe-we could have a drink?”
“My place?” Shayne suggested.
“Oh, yes,” she breathed. “I’d like that.”
He said, “I know,” and withdrew the key from the lock.
They went in silence to the elevator and down to the car. Miss Lally sat self-consciously close to the door while Shayne drove slowly to a garage half a block from his hotel, left the car there, and they walked back together.
Neither of them spoke, but she put her hand in his as they neared the entrance. He squeezed it gently and held it as they went through the lobby and past the desk where he nodded casually to the clerk. In the elevator he spoke just as casually to the operator, asking, “Much going on tonight?”
“Not much, Mr. Shayne.” The operator didn’t look at Miss Lally as they rose to the third floor. He opened the door and said, “Good night, Mr. Shayne,” before closing the door.
Beatrice was gripping his hand. She said shakily, “They do this sort of thing very well at your hotel, Mr. Shayne. As though you often bring women to your room.”
He stopped in front of his door and said angrily, “I’m not bringing you to my room. We’ll go in and have a drink and I’ll listen to your story. Then you can trot back to your own bedroom if you’ve convinced me I can conscientiously decide not to turn you over to the police.”
He unlocked the door and strode inside, tossed his hat on a hook near the door, ruffled his red hair, and asked, “What do you want to drink?”
She had closed the door quietly and was leaning against it. “Do you have rum?”
“A daiquiri? Sit down and make yourself at home while I mix one.”
He stopped at the wall liquor cabinet and took out a bottle of light rum and carried it to the kitchen. He used bottled lemon juice, and returned shortly with her drink and a glass of ice water.
Beatrice was sitting on the couch. Her glasses lay on the serving-table, and she had removed the short jacket of her suit and fluffed her hair. She had turned out the top light, leaving only a shaded table lamp burning on a table against the wall.
Softly lighted, she looked young, defenseless, and she leaned eagerly forward when he set her drink before her. He poured himself a drink from the bottle of cognac he had left on his desk and sat down beside her. She picked up the glass that was full to the rim with rum, lemon juice, and ice and drank half of it, quickly covering her mouth to hide a sour grimace at the strong taste of rum. “I needed that,” she said when she could speak, and turned her body slightly toward him. “Please understand this, Mr. Shayne. I’m willing to do what is right. If telling my story to the police will help them catch Miss Morton’s murderer, I’m willing-more than willing to do so. I want you to decide.”