Shayne put on enough speed to draw up within two blocks of the editor’s car and maintained that distance through the business section of Cocopalm.
Matrix swerved to the right on a residential street. Shayne followed, recognizing it as the street on which the Ben Edwards home was located.
The corner cottage was brilliantly lighted and there were three cars parked outside. Matrix sped by without slowing, drove on to a narrow paved road which paralleled the ocean shore, where he swung sharply to the left again.
Shayne slowed between rows of small beach cottages lining both sides of the road, with the surf rolling within a few feet of the foundations of the row to the east. He allowed Matrix to gain two more blocks while a deep frown of perplexity creased his forehead. The cottages became more straggling, and the pounding of surf on the shore was a low continuous rumble.
“Now, where would he be going?” Phyllis asked anxiously.
“I don’t know, but it’s important, angel.”
The Ford slowed, then stopped in front of a beach cottage where a porch light was burning. The light went off when the car stopped.
Shayne cut off his motor and his lights. He relaxed behind the wheel and crushed out his cigarette.
“So what?” Phyllis demanded in a taut voice. “Have you forgotten what to do when you park with me on the beach on a moonlight night?”
Shayne put his right arm around her and she relaxed with a brief sigh. While he continued to watch the cottage and the Ford, he muttered, “I don’t understand any of this any more than you do, angel.”
She shivered inside the circle of his arm. “Do you think Mr. Matrix is guilty?”
“Your guess is as good as mine right now,” he told her. “I’ll know more about that when I find out who lives in that cottage. I’ll give him a little more time-”
He swore softly when the lights of the editor’s Ford blinked on suddenly. Without turning on his own lights he stepped on the starter and pulled forward slowly. When the Ford’s taillight whisked around the first corner, back toward Cocopalm, Shayne stepped on the accelerator, then came to an abrupt stop in front of the cottage before which the Ford had been parked.
Phyllis put her hand on Shayne’s arm. “There’s a woman in that cottage,” she whispered. “I just saw her go past the window.”
“I suppose that means I’ll have to be chaperoned if I go in,” he said lightly. He opened the door and got out. Phyllis sat back against the seat pouting prettily.
“I mean it,” he urged. “I may need chaperoning if it’s who I think it is.”
Phyllis scrambled out and joined him on the shell walk leading up to the front door. “I’m so used to being left behind I didn’t suppose you’d want me along. I thought you were kidding me.” She gripped his arm with suppressed excitement as they stepped onto the porch. Shayne knocked when he couldn’t find an electric button to push.
Swift footsteps sounded inside. The door opened a crack and Shayne pushed it on open against Midge Taylor’s slight weight.
She exclaimed, “Oh! It’s you,” and stepped back, her wide blue eyes burning into his.
Shayne’s arm, to which Phyllis held tightly, pulled her forward. “I brought along my wife as a referee if you attack me again.” He laughed down into Phyllis’s surprised face. “This is Miss Taylor, Mrs. Shayne. Miss Taylor is responsible for these scratches on my cheek. She’ll tell you all about it.”
Midge stepped backward along the wall, groping with one hand like a drunkard searching for something to hold to. Her honey-colored hair was again coiled smoothly around her head in big braids. She was deathly pale. She had changed from the torn white silk dress to a clean wash frock with white ruffles on the sleeves and it made her look smaller and younger. The simple dress rid her of every hint of sophisticated poise and gave her an ingenuously domestic appearance.
Shayne tossed his hat on a chair and ruffled his red hair irritably. “Stop backing away as though you expect me to pounce on you.”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Phyllis reprimanded. She went to the girl’s side and took her unresisting arm. “Sit down here.” She drew Midge down beside her on an old rattan couch which was damp and sticky with salt air, demanding of her husband in an undertone, “Can’t you see you frightened her to death barging in like that? She’s about to faint.”
“No,” Midge protested. “I’m-all right. Really I am.” She drew her arm away from Phyllis, stared up at Shayne with taut defiance. “I should think you’d be ashamed to come here after what you did tonight. You-oh, you brute.” Tears gushed from her eyes and streamed down her pale cheeks. She slumped back, her mouth working convulsively, her hands balled into fists. Slowly she relaxed, gaining control of her tears.
Shayne watched her narrowly, his fingers touching the scratches her nails had left on his cheek. He stood in the center of the small room, and after a time he said harshly, “I suppose you had reference to what happened to your brother?”
“Yes-I-Oh, God! how can you stand there and gloat like that? Bud wasn’t bad-not really. I could have-I was trying so hard to make something of him.”
Shayne’s brows came together in an angry scowl.
Phyllis shook her head at him in an effort to stop his pitiless attitude toward the girl, but he disregarded her.
“How were you trying to help him?” he ground out. “By getting into the same mess yourself? By hanging out at the Rendezvous and tarring yourself with the same stick?”
Midge didn’t reply. Her head lolled back and tears again rolled unheeded from wide-open eyes.
“Your brother,” Shayne went on mercilessly, “deserved what he got tonight. I killed him-while he was trying to kill me. If that makes me a brute, all right.” He dropped into a chair and lit a cigarette.
Phyllis was beginning to understand dimly. She took a handkerchief from her purse and bent over Midge, wiping her cheeks and murmuring, “Please don’t. You’ve got to get hold of yourself. Mike is right. Your brother’s death was of his own making. I know just the way it happened.”
Midge took the handkerchief from Phyllis and dabbed at her eyes. She swallowed back some more tears and choked out, “I–I know. Bud wouldn’t listen to me. He was so headstrong. I was all he had and I–I failed somehow. I didn’t know about tonight until-until after-” She nodded toward Shayne and sucked in her lower lip, swallowing hard again.
“Until after you put on your act at the Rendezvous,” he supplied. “Who arranged that? Was Gil Matrix in on it?”
“No-oh, no. Of course he wasn’t.” Midge pushed herself up straight. “You’ve got to believe me,” she implored. “Gil and I had an argument this evening-about Bud. He told me Bud wasn’t worth trying to save. But I knew that Bud-for all his wildness-clung to me-loved me. Everything else had failed, so I decided to go out to the Rendezvous and-shame him into quitting that rough crowd. I meant to pretend I would hang around there-and make him quit to get me to quit.
“I had every intention of doing something sordid to show Bud how it felt to see his own sister do the things he thought were smart.” She paused, her eyes going from Phyllis to Shayne, pleading with them to believe her.
Shayne’s gray eyes were noncommittal through a cloud of smoke. He said, “Well?”
“Well, Mr. MacFarlane called me into his office and told me that Bud had done something terrible. He wouldn’t tell me what it was, except that he was in danger and a detective from Miami was after him. He suggested how I could-trap you-to make you leave Bud alone. He said he thought Bud would be willing to quit and go straight if he got out of this scrape. I believed him-and that’s why I did it.”
When she finished speaking her chin was tilted at a proud angle. Her shoulders were straight, her whole manner one of defiance, but her hands were clenched so tightly in her lap that the knuckles showed white against the suntanned skin.
Shayne nodded. “All right. I’m willing to believe what you say until I can prove something different. But I want to know this: Did Ben Edwards see you when Gil sent him out there just before you stopped me on the road?”