Albert Payson wore an elaborate black silk dressing-gown belted around his rotund figure with pants showing beneath it and a tieless shirt showing between the lapels. He looked worried and distracted. He held up his hand and glanced behind him uneasily, whispering:
“Please, Mr. Shayne, keep your voice down. Mrs. Payson will doubtless be listening at the head of the stairs.”
Shayne grinned at the elderly Lothario’s discomfiture. He asked, sotto voce, “Is there some place we can talk without being overheard?”
Payson cleared his throat gratefully. “Of course-in the library.” He scuttled before the rangy detective down a wide hall to French doors opening into a small room with uncomfortable-looking leather chairs and cases of books. He stood aside for Shayne to pass in, then closed the doors tightly. “After all, Mr. Shayne, one’s private affairs-it does seem to me-” He waved both plump hands to express disapproval, then lowered himself into a leather chair.
Shayne remained standing. He arched bushy red brows at the local banker. “That’s the trouble with a murder investigation. It doesn’t respect the privacy of individuals involved. You have no idea what stenches we unearth before we finally crack a case sometimes.”
Mr. Payson sat very still for a moment. He appeared thoroughly subdued and unhappy. “It will be terrible if Sarah learns of my-er-indiscretion, Mr. Shayne.”
Shayne said mildly “You middle-aged Don Juans ought to think about that and keep your mind above your waistline. But I’ll do what I can — if you’ll give me the name of the woman you visited in Miami this afternoon.”
Mr. Payson’s blobby nose quivered. “I see no necessity for that. None whatsoever.”
“Look,” said Shayne patiently, “you’re square in the middle of a counterfeiting mess and a couple of murders. A key witness was murdered in Miami this afternoon. You were in Miami at the time. You begged the man who saw you there not to make that fact public, professing your reason is to keep a moral indiscretion from your wife. Hell, I’m not interested in your morals. I am interested in checking your alibi for the time of Mayme Martin’s death.”
Mr. Payson stared at him in shocked amazement. “Surely you don’t suspect me?”
“I suspect everybody,” Shayne growled. “The more I can eliminate, the easier my job is. Do I get the woman’s name and address?”
The round-bellied little man squirmed and perspired under Shayne’s stalking gaze. Finally he recovered his poise and said with dignity, “It can’t possibly make any difference.” He gave Shayne a name and a hotel room number. Shayne wrote them down in a small notebook and nodded affably.
“All right,” he said. “That’s attended to. If you’ve given me a phony I’ll know it pretty quick, and it won’t help your case any.”
Albert Payson stood up.
Shayne sat down in one of the stiff leather chairs. “Our conference has only begun. Sit down, Mr. Payson. Getting the name and address was a sort of gesture-tying up a loose end. What do you know about Gil Matrix?”
“Mr. Matrix? Why-that his credit is above reproach. He meets his payments at the bank promptly.”
“What do you know about the man himself?” Shayne quizzed. “His background-his life before he came to Cocopalm and purchased the Voice?”
“Very little. He came to the bank with a business proposition. He had an opportunity to snap up the Voice at a low figure. He appeared an enterprising sort of man who would give our city the kind of newspaper it needed.”
“The bank lent him the money to buy the Voice?”
“Yes. We are always delighted to be of service to the community by advancing money to establish-”
“Sure. I know how banks are that way,” Shayne cut him off. “But what did he put up for collateral? In being of service to the community you’re not likely to overlook a little item like security.”
“Naturally not.”
“What collateral did Matrix put up to secure the loan?” Shayne tapped the end of a cigarette on the arm of his chair, glancing up at Payson as he reached for a match. The trend of the conversation toward banking matters appeared to ease his physical and mental tension.
“As I recall, the transaction went through on a deed to a printing plant in Illinois. In-ah-” Mr. Payson paused thoughtfully-“Fountain, Illinois, if my memory serves.”
Shayne leaned back and closed his eyes, drawing deeply on his cigarette. “I want to get this perfectly straight,” he said musingly. “Matrix put up another printing plant in the town of Fountain, Illinois, as security for a loan to buy out the local newspaper?”
“That is correct, and not at all surprising. A good many people have mortgaged their property in other parts of the country in order to re-establish themselves here on the southern tip of Florida. The deal with Matrix was legitimate in every respect. We took the precaution to investigate the Illinois property, naturally. It was appraised at more than twice the amount of our loan and was under capable management at the time. Our investment was safe in every respect.” Mr. Payson hesitated, then added, “In our investigation I recall that the previous owner, from whom Matrix had purchased the Fountain, Illinois, plant, was in prison at the time, though the details of the crime are somewhat hazy to me.”
Shayne glanced around the room at the tiers of bookshelves and asked suddenly, “Have you an atlas in your collection?”
Mr. Payson got up and went directly to a section, returning with the leather-bound atlas. Shayne turned to a map of Illinois and with a pencil located the towns of Urban and Fountain. They were very close together on the small-scale map.
Observing him impatiently, Mr. Payson kept murmuring, “I don’t understand. I don’t see what possible bearing this can have on either the murders or the counterfeiting.”
Shayne straightened up from his inspection of the map. He asked sharply, “Do you recall the name of the man who deeded the Illinois plant to Matrix?”
“No. I can’t say offhand.”
“I suppose the deed is at the bank?”
“Naturally. In the vault.”
Shayne said, “Get a coat and come with me. I’ve got to see that deed.”
“But, Mr. Shayne, at this hour?” Mr. Payson was outraged. “Really, this is going too far.”
“Hell, it isn’t eleven o’clock,” Shayne growled. “Come on, for God’s sake, man. There isn’t any time to waste.”
Mr. Payson became alarmed. “But why is it important to learn the name of an Illinois felon who previously owned a piece of property now held in Mr. Matrix’s name?”
Shayne growled, “Cut out your stalling,” and seized the chunky man firmly by the arm.
The banker subsided into frightened silence before the implacable look on the detective’s face. He let himself be pushed into the hall, where he drew away from Shayne’s grasp and went to the foot of the stairs, calling up in a quavering voice:
“Oh-Sarah! I am going out, my dear. On a matter of serious import which will brook no delay.”
Sarah called back some reply which sounded very much as if she refused him permission to go out, but Payson hurried toward Shayne, who waited with the front door open. Payson shucked off his robe and put on a coat which he secured from a small closet in the hallway. He buttoned the coat up tightly about his throat, then turned the collar up to hide his lack of a tie.
Shayne chuckled. Mr. Payson’s whole appearance was one of a man bent upon the commission of a crime against God and man.
“I dislike being rushed off in this manner,” Payson protested, but Shayne offered no comment. He hurried Payson to the front gate, waited impatiently while it was being unlocked, then rushed him to the roadster.
The banker sat huddled beside him while he backed away and turned to head south.
“The bank is on the corner this side of the hotel,” Payson told him after they had driven a block. “I’ll have to get the attention of the night watchman. This is most irregular, you understand. Strictly against the insurance regulations.”
Shayne drove silently. He pulled up in front of the brick corner structure and Payson got out. Plate-glass windows fronting on the street glowed with lights from within. When they peered in the window they saw an old man indolently swishing a mop back and forth on the tiled floor of the bank’s foyer.