Matrix said, “Yes. I guess that was it. I wondered-how he had found out. I’ve suspected he knew for some time but I was never sure until I intercepted that anonymous note he sent you tonight. As soon as I read it I knew it must be from him.”
“Mayme and Ben Edwards were already dead,” Shayne mused. “You thought they were the only ones who knew. It must have been a great shock to learn that their deaths hadn’t helped any-to know Hardeman also had you dead to rights on the counterfeiting deal.”
“I don’t know why he didn’t present the evidence against me sooner,” Matrix said helplessly. “He must have suspected me from the beginning. Anyone would,” he ended savagely.
“Your background made you the obvious suspect,” Shayne agreed tranquilly. “Taken in conjunction with Ben’s camera, which provided a means of keeping yourself informed of the changes made in the tickets each day, no jury would require much time to deliberate your guilt. You tried hard enough to steer me toward MacFarlane,” he added parenthetically.
“Sure I did. I knew if you nosed around long enough you’d start turning up the dope against me. That’s why I used all my influence to get you called on the case-because I figured you’d go after MacFarlane. God knows, Boyle wouldn’t take any action in that direction. I didn’t know, though, that Mac would be fool enough to send his boys after you the first thing. That was the tip-off.”
“I haven’t thanked you yet,” said Shayne, “for the picture you sent up to my wife’s room. We’ll frame it-as a fitting souvenir of one of the damnedest cases I ever worked on.”
A caustic smile illumined Matrix’s features. “I had to get to Jake and smash that plate. It leaves you in the clear to go on after MacFarlane-no matter what.”
“No matter what,” Shayne agreed gravely. His eyes stared dreamily at the whitewashed wall of the little cabin as his body relaxed in the wicker chair.
Midge had been listening in silence, pressed close to Matrix. Now she moved and asked nervously, “What picture? Do you mean-?”
“Yes, honey. That’s the one we mean. It wasn’t your fault,” Matrix went on swiftly, “that MacFarlane used you to get a lever on Shayne. You didn’t know the ins of it-the spot I was in unless Shayne hung the counterfeiting rap on MacFarlane in a hurry. That was my fault for keeping the truth from you.”
“But I still don’t understand,” Midge interposed. She frowned. “You weren’t counterfeiting the tickets, were you?”
Matrix said, “No,” hoarsely.
“Then what’s all this talk about you being in trouble? Why does Mr. Shayne look so grim and why were we packing up to leave in the middle of the night? Why did you threaten him with that gun when he came in?”
“Ask him.”
“Why, Mr. Shayne? Do you think Gil was printing the forged tickets?”
Shayne said, “No, Midge. I’m certain he wasn’t,” in a flat even voice.
Her face brightened and she was young again. “Then why-?”
Automobile brakes ground on the pebbled street and the trio instinctively turned their faces toward the door and listened. A car door slammed. Matrix’s eyes dilated. He glanced down at the pistol and his fingers curled toward it.
Shayne said, “No,” and shook his head as light footsteps sounded on the porch. He lounged to his feet when a knock sounded, saying, “That will be my wife.”
He opened the door and Phyllis entered the room hesitantly, her dark eyes softening as she looked past Shayne at the tableau on the couch. Midge clung to Gil’s right arm, pressing her cheek against his shoulder.
Shayne said, “You’ve both met my wife.” He looked directly at Matrix and added, “She has come to stay with Midge while you go to the police station with me.”
Midge uttered a little cry of terror. She threw herself across Matrix’s chest and clutched him tightly around the neck as though she would never let him go.
Phyllis turned tear-filled eyes away from them. She was trembling as she searched her husband’s gaunt face for some hint that it was not true.
His lined features were implacable. He waggled his head from side to side, looking straight into his wife’s eyes, then moved past her to stand in front of the pair strained together in an agonized embrace.
Shayne spoke in a curt tone that brought a smothered cry from Midge:
“Hand me that gun from the floor, Matrix, and let’s go”
Matrix put Midge from him. She fell back against the couch sobbing wildly, her eyes staring. Phyllis came to her and put both arms around the weeping girl and tried to comfort her. She gave her husband a quick I’ll-hate-you-forever-for-this look and did not glance at him again.
Shayne stood his ground with only the lines on his face deepening to give a hint of his true feelings. He said, “It’s now or never, Gil. If you love Midge the only thing you can do for her is to come along without a fuss.”
Matrix’s too-big shoulders were hunched forward, his round eyes staring bleakly down at the revolver on the floor. He reached to pick it up and Shayne made no move to interfere with his actions. Matrix got hold of the weapon with lax fingers, then stood up and handed it to the detective without a word.
Shayne took it and dropped it into his coat pocket. He swung on his heel and went out the door.
Gil Matrix joined him on the porch. They stood there for a moment and the sullen roar of the sea made a dirge-like background for the sobbing of the girl inside the cabin.
Matrix raised one hand in a savage gesture of renunciation. He muttered thickly, “What are we waiting for?” and plunged down the steps.
Shayne followed, saying, “We’d better take my car,” and Matrix went to it and got in without another word.
Sliding under the wheel, Shayne backed away. He drove to the business section and as he neared the hotel, Matrix said, “The police station is down this street half a block.”
Shayne turned a corner and drove half a block. A lot of cars lined the curb in front of the small police station. He parked beyond them and he and Matrix walked back together.
Shayne looked up to see Timothy Rourke lounging in the open doorway. “Hi, Mike,” he called out. “You’re holding up the proceedings.”
Shayne grinned and shook hands with Tim, introduced Matrix with a wave of his hand, “Mr. Matrix, editor of the Cocopalm Voice. Rourke from the Miami News.”
“What the hell?” Rourke demanded as he shook hands with the local editor. “I thought you had this story on ice for me.”
“Matrix is pretty much on the inside,” Shayne explained. “I couldn’t very well cut him out just to give you an exclusive story. But, where is everybody?” he added with a glance inside the front office, empty except for a uniformed man regarding them uneasily from behind a scarred pine desk.
“I haven’t been able to get past the sentinel in blue.” Tim Rourke ruefully jerked his thumb toward the local policeman. “The big shots are in back somewhere and my press card isn’t worth a damn up here.”
Shayne said, “Come on. Get hold of my coattail and we’ll crash the conference.”
He started toward the rear with Matrix and Rourke directly behind him. The policeman got up hastily, saying, “You can’t go back there. Chief Boyle said I wasn’t to let no one in his private office.”
“Two negatives,” Shayne pointed out, “make an affirmative. In his ungrammatical way, Boyle actually meant you were to admit anyone.” He kept moving and the policeman stood aside helplessly, knowing in his slow-acting brain that he was being circumvented, but not quite sure how much authority Shayne possessed.
A closed door at the rear had neat gold lettering on it: Chief of Police. Shayne turned the knob and walked into a smoke-filled private office and a confused murmur of voices. The voices stopped suddenly as he entered. Shayne nodded curtly to Chief Boyle, who sat behind an oak desk with a typewritten sheet of paper in his hands. He stood aside to let Tim Rourke and Matrix file in behind him, then closed the door in the midst of complete silence.