He said, “I’m willing to explain anything I can, but I swear to God, Will, I don’t know any more about the woman than you do.”
“Are you sure of that? Sure you never saw her before this evening?”
Shayne nodded and growled, “I’ve never had to prove a statement to you before.”
“You’ve never made the mistake of making one I think I can disprove,” Gentry told him.
Shayne’s wide mouth tightened. He started to say something, but restrained himself. Gentry was selecting an envelope from among several in his coat pocket. He opened it in his lap and selected a torn slip of paper. He held it toward Shayne and asked, “Ever see that before?”
Shayne looked down at his own name and Miami telephone number written in blue ink on the piece of paper. Below were the two words Thursday afternoon.
He wrinkled his forehead and shook his head. “Why should I have seen it before?”
“It was in Miss Martin’s purse. It isn’t her writing. There wasn’t any blue ink in her apartment. It looks more like the sort of thing a man would write and give a woman when he wanted her to call him on a certain day. This is Thursday.”
“Sure. And yesterday was Wednesday. Why does that mean I’ve seen it before?”
“Positive it isn’t your writing?” Gentry persisted. “It looks a hell of a lot like the way you write your name, Mike. Boyle and I compared it with your signature downstairs when you registered.”
“That’s right,” Boyle agreed.
Shayne snorted disgust through his nose. “It’s no more like my writing than that of a thousand other men. Give it to your handwriting expert and he’ll point out a thousand differences.”
“I’ll do that.” Gentry sighed and took the slip of paper from the detective, replaced it in its identifying envelope. “If that’s all you’ve got-” Shayne began angrily, but Gentry shook his head and held up his hand.
“On top of that,” he said, “and maybe it isn’t your writing, what happened here in the hotel tonight looks to me like pretty good proof that she did tell you something. Are you going to deny that you had advance information that you were going to be jumped by those two torpedoes when you arrived?”
Shayne’s gray eyes were frosty with suppressed anger. “Suppose I do deny it?”
“It’s going to be pretty hard for me to swallow, Mike. In the first place, why did you take a gun with you when you went to Hardeman’s room? I’ve never known you to carry a gun on a case before. From Hardeman’s story, they were all set and waiting for you the moment you stepped in. Yet you came out of it with nothing but a grazed side. Pretty damned lucky if you walked in there without knowing what was coming.”
“What are you trying to prove?” Shayne asked.
“That Mayme Martin talked to you this afternoon. She’s the only contact you had with the case before you arrived. It must have been her that tipped you off. And if she told you that much, she must have told you a lot more. Don’t hold out on us. I know how you are about suppressing information until you’re all ready to spring it and clean up-but three people are already dead. Don’t be stubborn and hold out until some more die.”
“You’ll be held accountable if you do,” Boyle warned him importantly.
Shayne didn’t pay any attention to Boyle. He spoke earnestly to Will Gentry: “Did they tell you that the guy in Hardeman’s room who answered the phone told me to knock in a peculiar way so he’d know for sure it was me when I came?”
“No,” Gentry admitted, “but-”
“But, hell!” Shayne interrupted impatiently. “Don’t you think that was enough to put me on my guard? It sounded phony as the devil-coming from a guy who had insisted on a seven-o’clock appointment on the dot. You know how it is in this work-one little thing will tip off your subconscious.”
Gentry studied his earnest face with a hard glance. “Are you trying to talk me off the track, Mike? Didn’t Mayme Martin tell you anything this afternoon?”
“Not one damned thing. Only that she could give me the lowdown on the Cocopalm case, and when I was talking to her I didn’t even know there was a Cocopalm case. It wasn’t until I got home after seeing Mayme that Phyl told me about Hardeman’s call. Naturally I was curious and tried to get it out of her, but she was set on having a thousand berries laid on the line before she talked. You know I’d never lay out a grand without knowing what I was paying for.”
“Damn you, Mike,” Gentry complained, “you fast-talk me out of every idea I get. I figured I’d have the answer on the Martin murder by finding out why you saw her this afternoon.”
“I don’t much doubt that the answer is right here in Cocopalm,” Shayne encouraged him. “Why not stick around here at least for the night and see what turns up? I may crack this counterfeiting case any minute.”
“Have you really got something,” Gentry queried dubiously, “or are you just talking through your hat?”
“I’ve really got something,” Shayne insisted with a wolfish grin. “I’ve just come from the Rendezvous, where I had a very illuminating interview with Grant MacFarlane.”
Chief Boyle appeared to shrivel a trifle in his chair. He hastily set down what was left of his drink and got to his feet, mumbling, “Well, I gotta be going. Can’t be sitting around here all night while there’s work to be done.”
He wandered out, looking thoroughly unhappy, and Gentry frowned after his hulking figure. “What happened to him all of a sudden?”
“MacFarlane is Boyle’s brother-in-law,” Shayne explained. “Among other iniquities, the proprietor of the Rendezvous is strongly suspected of complicity in the counterfeiting.”
“Any other suspects?”
“Plenty-including some of the village’s most prominent citizens.” Shayne grinned cheerfully and finished his drink. “All I have to do is sort out the right one-and stay alive while I’m doing it.”
He got up and stretched, suppressing a yawn. “I’ve got to look up a local man named Ben Edwards. Ever hear of him?”
Will Gentry stood up, shaking his head thoughtfully and negatively. “Should I have heard of him?”
“Damned if I know, Will. He fits in some place. Want to string along while I find him?”
“I guess not.” Gentry laid his hand on the detective’s arm. “About your information on the Martin killing-are you sure you don’t want to come across?”
“I can’t, Will. Not yet.”
“Don’t frame up anything while I’m waiting for it,” Gentry warned him steadily.
Shayne laughed aloud and slapped him on the back. “I’ll give it to you as soon as I know where I stand.”
They went out together and Shayne locked the door. Gentry went down in the elevator with him, and as they stepped into the lobby, Shayne nudged his stolid companion and whispered loudly, “Don’t look now, but do you see what I see?”
Gentry blinked at Hymie and Melvin sitting on the bench where Shayne had left them. Melvin dropped his lashes before Gentry’s hard gaze, but Hymie stared back blankly.
Shayne laughed again and took Gentry’s arm, led him past the two Miami hoodlums. “Don’t jump them,” he urged. “I want to see what they’re up to. You might get Boyle to put a tail on them, though.”
“I’ll see if it can be arranged,” Gentry promised, and Shayne went out to the street.
Chapter Ten: NO ACCIDENT
The hotel doorman gave Shayne precise directions for finding Ben Edwards’s house. It was an unimpressive frame structure on a wide corner lot two blocks from the ocean.
Shayne shut off his motor and sat slouched behind the wheel for a moment. Two front windows showed light behind drawn shades.
He swung his long body out to the sidewalk and opened a wire gate on a neatly painted picket fence. The lawn was smooth and freshly mown, and there was not much shrubbery, the net effect giving an atmosphere of quiet dignity to the small house.