Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, May 1957 (British Edition)

Shayne didn’t want to take on the job of finding Homer Wilde’s vanishing business manager. But Lucy Hamilton was one of the great TV star’s adoring fans. So, within fourteen hours, the redheaded detective found himself winging his way to New York on a Super-Constellation. Assignment—

I

Michael Shayne had never seen his secretary look so happily flustered. She sat in her desk chair beyond the low railing, smiling at the telephone mouthpiece. She was saying, “But it’s too early. Mr. Shayne never gets in before ten in the morning and I—”

Her head was pulled sharply around at his abrupt entrance. She swallowed hard and stuttered, “Just a moment, please. Mr. Shayne just came in,” then cupped her hand over the phone and said in a small, awed voice, “It’s Homer Wilde, Michael. Take it in your office quick.”

Shayne crossed to the railing in two unhurried strides and leaned an elbow on it, grinning indulgently down at Lucy. “You talk to him, Angel. You seemed to be doing all right when I interrupted.”

“Please, Michael,” she begged. “Don’t you understand? It’s Homer Wilde himself. He wants to see you.”

“For what?” Shayne shook a cigarette from a crumpled pack and stuck it between his lips.

“I don’t know. But it must be awfully important for him to call you so early. He wants you over at his hotel on the Beach right after his broadcast tonight.”

Shayne yawned and put fire to his cigarette and said, “The hell he does. Tell him to hunt up another errand boy.”

Lucy Hamilton’s brown eyes blazed at Shayne. Gurgling sounds were coming from the phone, and she removed her hand to say in a dulcet tone, “Yes, Mr. Wilde. I’m terribly sorry, but Mr. Shayne is tied up just for the moment. I’ll have him call you right back, if you’ll give me your number.”

She listened to more gurgling sounds, biting her lower lip anxiously. “I see,” she said. “Of course. Just one second.”

Again she covered the mouthpiece and turned her head to glare up at her red-headed employer. “He doesn’t want you to call him. He just wants you to get over there before midnight.”

Smoke wreathed from Shayne’s nostrils and the irritating grin remained on his rugged face. “Tell him to go jump in the ocean,” he said pleasantly.

“Michael, if you don’t...” Lucy gritted her teeth and turned back, uncovered the phone to say, “Yes, Mr. Wilde. Mr. Shayne will be delighted. Suite Six forty-two? He’ll be there.” She slammed the instrument down and stood up to confront Shayne defiantly.

“Mike, I’ll never, never forgive you if you don’t even go over to see what Mr. Wilde wants. Maybe... I could even meet him in person, if he retains you.”

Shayne’s grin faded slowly, to be replaced by a baffled expression. “I never knew you were like that, Lucy. My God! Wilde is nothing but—”

“Nothing but the most important and best-loved television personality in the country,” she interrupted, bitingly. “That’s all he is. Every girl I know would gladly give her right arm to meet him. That’s all!”

Shayne said, “I’ll be triple-damned.” He clawed strong fingers through his coarse red hair, shaking his head in perplexity. “I never thought—”

“You just never think, period!” she interrupted again, more violently. “Well, I’m a female human being even if you don’t realize it, Michael Shayne. If you don’t go over to the White Sapphire Hotel tonight I’ll never speak to you again in my life.”

Shayne grinned again, this time with real mirth. He straightened his tall frame and leaned over the railing to crook his forefinger beneath Lucy’s firm chin.

“The White Sapphire it is, angel. Shall I bring you his autograph?”

“You can tell him I’m one of his greatest fans and am dying to meet him,” she responded promptly. “I do hope it’ll be a long assignment.”

Shayne shrugged and said, “Relax, Lucy. I’ll go. Now, let’s forget about Homer Wilde and get to work.” But strangely enough, as the day went on, the detective found it difficult to keep Wilde out of his thoughts. He had never seen the television performer because he didn’t even own a set, but he knew who Homer Wilde was, of course.

No one who read a newspaper could fail to know something about him — especially in Miami, where the star broadcast his nationwide shows several times during each winter season.

But he didn’t know what to expect when he entered the Miami Beach hotel suite at five minutes past midnight, though it certainly wasn’t what he found on the other side of the door — a short, slender, curly-haired man with an engaging awkwardness of gesture and a face whose normal night club pallor was masked by a blistering red sunburn.

He gripped Shayne’s hand firmly and lowered long lashes over his eyes with an odd, self-conscious coyness as he exclaimed. “This is simply great of you, Shayne. It’s Mike, isn’t it? I know all about you, Mike. Read every one of those excellent books your friend Halliday writes about your cases. Great stuff. Say, now...” Stepping back to look up appreciatively at the rangy redhead, “How’d you like to appear as a guest on my show next week in New York, Mike? You’d kill the people. You’d really be a natural. How about it?”

Shayne shook his head and said, “Sorry, fellow. You stick to your last, and I’ll stick to mine.” His voice hardened. “That isn’t why you got me over here, is it?”

“As a matter of fact — no. It struck me just now when I got a look at you.” Wilde turned and strode up and down the thick carpet, thrusting hands deep into the pockets of his cream-colored slacks.

“I’m in a jam, Mike. My business manager is missing. Ben Felton. Been with me for years. Just disappeared into the blue. You got to find him quick.”

Shayne shrugged and moved over to a deep chair and sank into it while Wilde continued to stride up and down nervously. “Better try the police. They’ve got the organization and it won’t cost you anything.”

“Damn the cost! No, I can’t have the police in this, Mike. No publicity, see? If a word of this leaked to wrong people all hell would be on fire. Maybe you’ve read about this dinosaur deal I’m working on to set up a hotel syndicate here in the Beach. There’s been a lot of stuff in the papers...” He removed one hand from his pocket and waved it vaguely, as a seal might wave a flipper.

Shayne shook his red head and said, “No. I carefully avoid reading any of that crap they print about TV big-shots. What’s a hotel deal got to do with it?”

Wilde stopped in mid-stride with a pained expression on his beet-red face. “You don’t read...?” Then he shrugged manfully.

“But I’m sure my secretary can fill me in. She’s a terrific fan of yours.”

“Is, eh?” Wilde looked deprecatorily pleased. “Perhaps she’d like a personally-autographed picture.”

“I’m sure she would,” Shayne said wearily. “Look. You were hot about me getting over here tonight. So I’m here. So what’s the pitch?”

“You’ve got to find Ben Felton. This twenty-million-dollar deal is hanging fire until I get his signature on some papers. And it won’t hang fire much longer. I think the bastard ran out just to queer the whole pitch. He doesn’t like it, see? He argued with me about going into it until I put my foot down and reminded him it was my own goddamned money. Then he disappeared. Find him.”

Shayne said mildly, “That’s not much to go on. If he’s hiding out...”

“I don’t know whether he is or isn’t,” Wilde snapped. “Frankly, I’d just as soon you turned up his corpse as not. But I’ve got to know, so I can get on with the deal one way or another. Cottrell’s pressing me hard to finalize the thing.”

Shayne sat up a little straighter and his left thumb and forefinger tugged at the lobe of his ear. “Would that be Copey Cottrell?”

“That’s right. The big hotel tycoon from Las Vegas.”

“Hotel tycoon” was a new way of describing Copey Cottrell, Shayne thought. In his book, Copey was a vicious racketeer who had victimized Nevada businessmen for too many years, and the thought of him infiltrating Miami Beach, with his pressure and trigger boys and his sleek, streamlined modern racketeering methods, was nauseating to the detective.

“Here’s a publicity still of Felton.” Wilde held out a glossy print. It showed a lean, lined, weary face beneath straight black hair lashed with grey at the temples. “All my people are good news copy. You can get the rest of the dope on Felton two doors down the hall. We’re using this whole half of the floor for office space during my broadcasts here at the Beach. Ask for Pinky Reach.” He paused, murmured, “Beach — Reach,” and chuckled to himself. “I’d take you down myself, but I’ve got to get out to Eglin Field early tomorrow a.m.”

As if on signal, an inner door opened into the large sitting room and one of Wilde’s myriad preoccupations strolled into the room. This one was a willowy brunette, wearing russet slacks and an eye-catching halter of the same color. She undulated languidly close to Homer, regarding the redhead with a speculative, heavy-lidded glance, and said throatily, “I’m sorry, Colonel — I didn’t know you had anyone here.”

“Colonel?” Shayne echoed in mild surprise. “Reserve?”

Homer Wilde flicked lint from his sleeve with a modesty as nonexistent as the imaginary speck of white on his clothing. “Oh,” he said, “the boys up in Washington threw me a bone for entertaining the fellows overseas.”

He chuckled again and reached lazily for the girl, drawing her casually into the circle of his arm. “Honey,” he said, “you better start watching your step. I just put Mike Shayne on the payroll. Mike, meet Monica Mallon, the purtiest little thrush this side of the Black Hills. You know, they always told me there was gold in them thar mountains.”

“Mike Shayne?” The girl’s lustrous dark eyes widened. “The famous private detective? Just to check up on me?”

Homer guffawed and squeezed Monica while he winked at Shayne. “Among other things, honey. Don’t worry, chick — I’ve hired Mike to find Ben.” And, his mirth falling away, “That reminds me, Mike — hadn’t you better get cracking?”

There was, to Shayne, a distinctly unhealthy aura about the whole Wilde setup as he had seen it thus far — a definite sense of wheels within wheels, of things-aren’t-what-they-seem. He said bluntly, “I’m not on your payroll yet, Wilde. I don’t like the smell of this job.”

Homer Wilde’s mouth opened. His expression moved swiftly from disbelief, to alarm, to entreaty. For a moment, the redhead feared he was going to burst into tears. “But, Mike,” he wailed, “I need you! I can give you more of my time as soon as I get my writers gassed up and going on next week’s show in New York. Tonight’s show really broke my blisters. These Miami broadcasts are always brutal. But if you’ll only start looking for Ben Felton now...”

He paused, then went on with, “It’s this way, Mike. Ben walked out of this hotel yesterday morning and vanished into thin air. He didn’t even leave a note, he hasn’t called, he hasn’t wired — and I’ve never been out of touch with the guy more than an hour or two at a time in over ten years. Now, of all times, when I need him more—”

Shayne grinned crookedly. “You really want him found?” he asked. “If you do, the police are your best bet. I’m not your boy.”

“But, Mike,” said Homer, “five hundred a day, plus expenses, and a bonus if—”

“Just about what you pay your office boys in TV, isn’t it?” said the redhead. “You can take your job and shove it!”

As Mike strode to the elevator, a pale, weedy young man passed him, going toward Wilde’s suite. Shayne, still amused at memory of Wilde’s astonishment, scarcely noticed the young man’s stare. He drove back to his apartment in a glow of smug self-satisfaction.

II

Upon Shayne’s arrival at his office the next morning, Lucy gave him one look and cried, almost tearfully, “Mike! You insulted him — I just know you did. I’ve seen that look in your eye before, and—”

“What’s it like, Angel?”

“It’s mean, and sort of conceited,” she said. “If I—”

Mercifully, the telephone rang. Lucy grabbed it and said, “Michael Shayne’s office. Just a moment, I’ll see.” She turned back to Shayne. “It’s a Mr. Harry Tyndale calling from New York. He says he—”

“Well, I’ll be...” Shayne cut her off and took the phone.

“Thank God I caught you!” came the hearty, familiar voice. “Mike, you’ve got to get up here right away. There’s a one-o’clock plane. I’ll have you met at La Guardia. I can’t talk over the phone, Mike, but it’s a real jam — a rough one.”

Shayne looked at the clock on the wall. It was ten twenty-eight. He said, “I’ll be on the one o’clock, Harry.”

Harry Tyndale was one of the nicest guys Shayne had ever met — and one of the richest. A rare combination. The redhead had pulled him out of an attempted shakedown the previous season in Miami and they had become firm friends after it was over. If Harry Tyndale said it was a “real jam,” Shayne knew it must be all of that.

Boarding the Super-Constellation two-and-a-half hours later, Shayne took a seat next to the window. Just before they took off, a pale, weedy young man slid into the seat beside him and said, “Mike Shayne, isn’t it? I’m Greg Jarvis, part of Homer Wilde’s zoo. Didn’t I see you leaving his suite last night?”

“Maybe.” Shayne was none too pleased. A private detective, unlike a TV star, is not pleased with a fame that makes his face known to too many people. But it took more than curtness to check Jarvis’ garrulity.

“I’m one of the writers,” he gabbled, “and, brother, is that a rugged assignment! Homer is Nero and Simon Legree rolled into one large, economy-sized package.”

He launched into an eloquent dissertation on the obnoxious professional character and obscene personal habits of his employer. Shayne listened fitfully, when he wasn’t almost dozing, until, without warning, something happened that caused him to forget Homer Wilde and his companion’s complaints alike.

A jet-plane came blasting out of a cloudbank, directly in front of them, less than a mile ahead. Shayne barely heard Jarvis stop in mid-sentence to utter a terrified, “Jesus Christ!”

With the planes approaching one another at a rate exceeding the speed of sound, there were but fractions of a second in which to prepare for the deadly collision that seemed inescapable. But somehow, in those fractions of splintered time, the jet slid downward, out of sight beneath them, and was gone.

Shayne slowly unclenched his fists and looked down at the red lines his nails had cut into his palms in so brief and deadly a moment. He again became conscious of Jarvis’ voice in his left ear.

“...people wonder why we have trouble putting together sensible material for TV. Well, that stupid jet’s the answer — just like this air-wagon we’re riding in. The unities have been kicked all to hell and gone.”

“What unities?” asked Shayne, wondering if Jarvis really had the faintest idea of how closely death had brushed them by.

“It goes back to the Greeks,” said Jarvis condescendingly. “The Ancient Greeks, you know. They devised the unities and made them work better than any dramatic formula since. The gist of them was that nothing could happen onstage that could not happen in real life in the same space or the same length of time that the play took. You see what I’m getting at?”

“And now they’re kicked all to hell and gone?” Shayne asked idly.

“You saw that jet-plane, didn’t you? Beyond the speed of sound! Time and space are telescoped like an accordion. Anything can happen anywhere, in any time,” the writer complained and paused to brood on the injustices of science toward art.

At La Guardia, Shayne bade him a brusque farewell as he was greeted by a liveried chauffeur. The redhead was frankly glad to have seen the last of Homer Wilde’s “zoo,” He was whisked into the city and up to an immense suite on the top floor of the Wallston Plaza Towers, where he was met by Harry Tyndale in the huge master bedroom.

“Thank God you’re here, Mike!” Tyndale was burly and grizzled, a deep-voiced bear of a man. At the moment, his heavy features showed unaccustomed lines of weariness and strain, and his voice throbbed with emotion and relief.

Shayne looked around the room and asked lightly, “What’s up, Harry — corpse under the bed?”

“Not quite, Mike,” Tyndale took him by the elbow and led him across the room to open a door leading into a bathroom — a silver-and-marble bathroom with a sunken tub big enough to float an outboard motorboat. Only there wasn’t a boat in the bathtub...

Instead, Shayne stood staring down at the fully-clothed body of a dead man. A small man, stretched out neatly in the tub with his left temple smashed. There was a livid bruise on his jaw, and a smear of blood on one of the silver fittings indicated that he might have been slugged on the chin and accidentally suffered the fatal wound in falling.

But what interested Shayne most at the moment was the dead man’s face. It was lined, well-worn by life, and his dead eyes stared up at the detective as though saying mockingly, “So you finally found me, eh? Even after turning down the job of looking for me.”

Shayne had found him. The dead man was Ben Felton, mysteriously missing from Miami.

Shayne straightened and backed out of the bathroom. Tyndale met him outside the doorway with a goblet half-full of Napoleon cognac.

Shayne drank half of it and demanded harshly, “How did he get there?”

Tyndale opened his manicured, muscular hands. “That’s the hell of it!” he said. “I don’t know.”

“Come off it, Harry,” Shayne told him. “You got me here. You know me. Now talk!” The last two words were a whiplash.

Harry Tyndale’s face reddened — he was not a man accustomed to taking orders from anyone. He said, “Goddam it, Mike, I don’t know! I’ve sunk a small mint in a new color photo-printing process that will revolutionize the field, but I’ve got other businesses to feed, and my hotels are in trouble. I need every bit of good will and publicity I can get. My public relations counsel said, ‘Toss a party... a big one.’

“So I did. Last night. I opened up the whole suite and had a hell of a mob milling around all night. In the middle of the morning I came in here and flopped on the bed and passed out. Never did such a thing before in my life. I have a good head for liquor. I woke with a lousy headache... just as if I’d had a Mickey Finn... and there he was. Some of the guests were still in the other rooms tanking up. I haven’t dared leave here after finding him. I phoned you, and I’ve been sweating it out every since.”

“What do you expect me to do, Harry?” Shayne asked quietly. He was convinced Harry Tyndale was telling the truth.

“I don’t know,” said Tyndale wearily, leaning against the foot of one of the twin beds. “If this gets out, and there’s a big smell, it will ruin me. I’m way overextended until this photo thing is launched. But get me out of this, and you can name your own ticket.”

“You should have called the cops and leveled,” the redhead told him somberly. “Now you’re in trouble anyway.”

“I’m not a complete idiot!” Tyndale’s nerves, close to the snapping point, caused him briefly to lose self-control. “Don’t you think I know that? But I didn’t dare. I thought, that is, I hoped...”

“You hoped a character named Shayne, who got a broad off your neck in Miami last winter, could get a corpse out of your bathtub today,” growled the detective. “Dammit, Harry, I wouldn’t even try to do a thing like this on my own home grounds. And here in New York...” He paused to tug at the lobe of his left ear. “Tell me something, Harry. Have there been any TV personalities here? Actors, actresses, anybody like that?”

“Not that I know of — I didn’t invite any,” said Tyndale, puzzled. “This was a business party. There are women, sure — what’s a party without ’em? You know the type — advertising girls, models, maybe an actress or two. This is a big wingding. But I wouldn’t know a TV personality if I saw one — unless it was a newscaster or sports commentator. They’re all I ever look at on TV.”

He was interrupted by the opening of the door that led to the rest of the suite. Sounds of music and laughter entered, as did a beautifully stacked blonde in a green suit that matched her eyes, a blonde who managed to be attractive even though she was obviously a bit unsteady on her feet.

“Hi, yuall,” she said in honeyed accents as Southern as fried chicken and hush-puppies.

“What do you want?” Tyndale snapped at her.

“Shugah, ah’m jus’ not sure.” Her green eyes ranged from Tyndale’s defiant bulk to the long lean, muscular detective. “It jus’ cood be, ah wan’ somethin’ lak him.” She pointed a vermillion-tipped forefinger directly at Shayne.

“Later, honey, I’ll buy you a dozen like him,” said Tyndale. Moving into action, he propelled her gallantly but firmly outside and closed the door behind her. Turning to the redhead, he mopped a suddenly streaming brow and said, “That’s about the sixth time she’s come barging in here since I found that — thing. You see why I don’t dare leave the room.”

Shayne suppressed a grin. But the girl bothered him almost as much as Ben Felton’s corpse, lying in the bathtub just beyond a thin wood door. Whatever Ben Felton had been, he was no longer. Whatever harm his body could do would be involuntary as far as he was concerned. But this green-eyed blonde — Shayne felt certain, from the wariness of her glance, that she had been sober. He doubted she was a genuine blonde. He was sure she was not a true Southerner. No Southerner ever said cood for could.

“Anybody else been in here today?” he asked.

“A few strays — but none as often as that one. What a mess!”

“How come your hotels are in trouble while you’re all tied up launching this new gizmo? I thought you, of all people, knew how to protect your rear.”

“I thought so, too,” said the millionaire wretchedly. “It wouldn’t have happened if a bunch of gang-backed sharks from Las Vegas hadn’t picked this moment to move in on me. When operations get as large as mine, there are bound to be leaks. You can’t count on one hundred percent loyalty — not from humans, anyway. The sharks have been giving me the full treatment, all the way from stock raids to bedbugs.”

“Who’s behind it?” Shayne asked warily.

“Ever hear of a smooth-talking, good-looking, dirty-minded, snake-moraled, twenty-nine karat rat name Copey Cottrell?” Tyndale asked. “He’s a no-good, underworld bastard, one of the Buggsy Siegal kind who can curl a pinkie around a teacup with an archduchess and beat up a hold-out whore on his string with a baseball bat half an hour later. Maybe you didn’t know this, Mike, but I picked up the White Sapphire, in Miami Beach, three months ago. Seems, by their lights, I made a mistake. Seems they’d set their sights on it. So...” Again he spread his arms.

Shayne nodded. “I had no idea you were in the White Sapphire mess,” he said. He was beginning to see why Ben Felton should have turned up in Harry Tyndale’s Suite. “Harry, if I were you, I’d go hunting for that leak with a monkey wrench.”

“Don’t worry,” said Tyndale. “I’m working on that. And don’t worry about my handling Copey Cottrell and all his nasty little men — I’ve been in dirty fights before. What worries me is that...” He nodded again toward the bathroom door.

“It damned well ought to worry you,” said Shayne. “It worries the hell out of me and I had nothing to do with it.”

“You never saw the guy before, did you?” It was a forlorn-hope question.

“Nope,” replied the redhead truthfully. He paused to glance at his watch as the last pieces of a hare-brained, impossible plan fell together. “Have somebody get a small trunk — one of those steel foot-lockers they use in the army, with a grip on it. Have him get it here quick. I’ve got to be on the dinner plane for Miami tonight.”

Harry Tyndale looked as if he couldn’t quite believe it. His deep voice was a whisper as he asked, “Mike, what are you going to do?”

“Harry,” the detective told him, “the less you know about it, the better. If I pull it off, you’ll be getting my bill — a whopper. If I don’t, it will cost you a lot more in lawyer’s fees. Now, get going, or we’re both up the creek without a paddle between us.”

Harry got going. The trunk was ordered, the reservations made, the chauffeur called for before Shayne had time to finish another drink. Shayne sipped it, rather than gulped it, wondering if he had gone out of his mind. He was used to taking long chances, to calculated risks. He was used to getting away with them. But to fly Ben Felton’s corpse back to Miami in a foot-locker and dump him in Homer Wilde’s lap...

He could still hear the television star’s musical voice saying, “I’d just as soon you’d turn up his corpse as not.”

If the redhead pulled it off, Homer was going to get his corpse.

When the locker arrived, Harry Tyndale locked the room doors. Then, for twelve minutes, he and Shayne were grimly busy. By the time they were through and had washed their hands, the redhead had acquired a sympathy for trunk murderers he had never thought would be his. If the deceased had not been such a small man... Shayne poured himself a drink, told Tyndale to have his men take the trunk down to the waiting car, then poured a half-tumbler for a newly grey-faced Tyndale.

“Okay, Harry, now take a reef in yourself and hope for the best.”

“Thanks, Mike.” Tyndale’s handclasp was fervent.

“It’s not over yet,” the redhead told him. “Keep your fingers crossed.”

III

Shayne made the waiting Super-Constellation with minutes to spare. He had to fork over an extra thirty dollars for overweight luggage and was again grateful that the late Ben Felton had been a small man. To say that he sweated the foot-locker through the weighing-in process was enormous understatement.

If anything went wrong — and he could think of half-a-hundred possibilities without stretching his imagination — it meant curtains for Michael Shayne, to say nothing of Harry Tyndale. But once Harry had called Shayne instead of the New York police, there was little else either of them could do.

Even if he got his strange cargo to Miami intact, there remained the little matter of arranging to plant it where it could do the most good for the team of Tyndale and Shayne — and the most damage to Copey Cottrell and his gangsters.

Why had Felton vanished? Why had he sought to contact Harry Tyndale? Had he been killed to prevent that contact? On the surface, the answers to all three questions lay in exactly two words — Copey Cottrell. Shayne had heard people call Cottrell good-looking. The detective found his eyes on his own right hand, which had, without conscious direction, balled itself into a fist. Perhaps, if Cottrell weren’t so pretty...

For the first time, the detective allowed himself to ponder the identity of Ben Felton’s killer. At a jamboree like the one Harry Tyndale was throwing, it could have been almost anyone. But for once, the identity of a murderer was not of supreme importance in a murder case. It was what was done with the corpse that mattered to Shayne now.

“Penny foah yuah thoughts,” said a rich, feminine Southern voice, almost in his ear.

Shayne’s self-possession was not merely a matter of pride — it had been, in hundreds of instances, a matter of life-and-death necessity. The redhead relied on his disciplined ability to withstand the most sudden shocks and never turn a hair. But this time, it took all his self command.

“You again?” He stared coldly at the beautifully stacked green-eyed blonde he had last seen in Harry’s bedroom.

“Yaaas, little ol’ me,” she replied, pouting prettily. “Ah tol’ yuah ah jess myught want something like li’l ol’ yuah. Ah think it was right ryude of yuah to take off without so much as sayin’ gude byah to li’l ol’ me.”

He grinned in spite of himself, just as the engines of the Super-Constellation cut in, one by one. He said, raising his voice above their roar, “Well, I don’t seem to have got away with it — you’re here.”

There was no more talk until the takeoff. Then she said, “What was that yuah were tryin’ to sayah?”

He said, amusement fading as he realized things had gone very wrong, “Cut the accent, honey-chil’. You’re no more Southern than you were drunk back in Harry Tyndale’s hotel room.”

“My best friends never told me I could act,” she said in a perfectly straight, rather pleasant Midwestern voice.

The damnable part of it, he thought, was that he rather liked this girl — or might have if she weren’t such a dangerous unknown. At least, she represented more attractive company than Greg Jarvis, the writer, on the trip up, with his prattle of unities. Shayne took his time studying her, and she returned his gaze, point for point.

She was not quite as pretty as he remembered her — evidently, she was a girl who could project beauty without actually having it. She was also a little older — there were tiny hints of wrinkles around mouth and eyes that told the story. But there was disarming good humor in her not unhandsome face, and then that figure...

“Well?” she said. “Satisfied?”

He shook his head. “Far from it...” He raised his shaggy red brows a notch.

“Oh...” She understood the unspoken question. “My name’s Carol Hale, and I’m not married.”

He put it to her bluntly. “Carol Hale, why did you follow me aboard this plane from the hotel?”

The good humor became an afterglow, a memory, as she said with quiet determination, “Because, Michael Shayne, I wanted to know what you were doing with poor Ben Felton’s body.”

Shayne was stopped cold — but not by so much as the flicker of an eyelid did he reveal the fact. He allowed a look of surprise, of bewilderment, to spread over his ruggedly cast features. Perhaps this girl was a poor actor, but the redhead was a good one when he had to be.

He said, “One of us must be crazy.”

Mercifully, Carol Hale kept her voice low. She said, “I went to Tyndale’s suite with Ben this morning. He went into that master bedroom and told me to wait for him, he had someone to see. I waited — the whole day, and I couldn’t find Ben. Then you came in, and hour or so ago, and went in there to talk with Tyndale. You won’t deny that, I hope.”

Shayne’s answer was a shrug — there seemed nothing to say. The girl went on evenly with, “I decided to watch. You see, I knew who you were, though I didn’t expect to see you in New York. I used to spend some of my winters in Miami. I wondered why you were there, and I got afraid. Then I decided to keep an eye on the hall. There was another door from the hall to that bedroom. I saw them bring in the trunk. Then I saw them bring it out. A moment later, you followed. I followed you.”

Shayne sighed and shook his head. “I’m afraid your imagination has caused you to take a trip for nothing — not that I’m not grateful for a charming, if somewhat zany, companion.”

She shook her head, and her green eyes were like twin jewels — hard and cold. She said, “It won’t do, Mike Shayne. Tyndale kept watch like a bulldog all morning on that room.”

“If you were in there, you must know there wasn’t a body there,” the redhead told her with an air of patience. “Tyndale was waiting for me on a matter of business. As for the trunk, I’m taking some valuable papers back to Miami for him.”

“Mike Shayne playing nursemaid to a bunch of documents!”

“Why couldn’t your friend — Ben What’s-his-name — simply have ducked out of the bedroom into the hall and gone down in the elevator? He’s probably back at the hotel right now, wondering what happened to you.”

She shook her head. “Not Ben Felton,” she said firmly. “Ben wasn’t that kind of a character. He’d have called me — if he was able to.”

“Maybe he wasn’t able to.” The redhead was sparring desperately. The girl didn’t know the corpse was in the foot-locker — but as long as she was with him, she was intensely dangerous. If she blew the whistle on him before he had a chance to reclaim the trunk...

“Maybe he wasn’t,” she said. “He told me the deal he was on could be dangerous — so dangerous he’d been keeping out of sight for seventy-two hours.”

“Quite a story,” said Shayne, feigning amusement. “And just what was your role in this dangerous deal, Miss Hale? You’re not going to tell me your friend brought you along merely as window dressing — not that you wouldn’t dress a window damned attractively.”

“My role was — or is — very important,” she replied serenely. “Incidentally, believe it or not, it was not the sort of part I enjoy playing. But when you set out to destroy a rat, you can’t always name your poison.”

Shayne shook his head, puzzled. “Somewhere away back there, you lost me. But, now that you’re here, what’s on the docket?”

Her eyes studied him again. “That,” she said, “depends...”

It was exasperating. For the time being, there was nothing Shayne could do. He jerked his head toward the window.

“Hell of a beautiful sunset out there,” he said.

Carol Hale said, “Isn’t it lovely!”

They dined on excellent fried chicken, placed before them on trays by the inevitable trim hostess. They talked — about plane travel, about Miami, about New York, about a score of irrelevant things. But they never returned to the subject of the late Ben Felton, and she never revealed the least thing about herself.

Whatever element she represented in the deadly business, she knew he had the foot-locker aboard the plane and she probably suspected what it contained. If she had actually been with Ben Felton at Tyndale’s suite, it was unlikely she was working for what Shayne was beginning to think of as the other side. But he had only her word for all that.

There was no sense in trying to ditch her, once they landed, and walk away from the airport, leaving the trunk to be picked up later, He couldn’t risk checking a murdered corpse in a trunk in the airport luggage room, and he felt certain Carol Hale would keep watch and discover any pickup he arranged. A girl who had come along this doggedly on a mere hunch wouldn’t give up at that stage of the game.

There was only one thing to do — play out the string, bluff all the way, and keep the girl with him. He shifted his head to look at her covertly. She was lying back in her seat now, eyes closed. She looked harmless and innocent as a — well, baby was not quite the word he had in mind. Quite unexpectedly, the redhead felt a pang of genuine regret that they had met under such circumstances. Otherwise...

The distant barricade of Miami Beach was ablaze with jewel-lights as the big Super-Constellation circled and came in for its landing. A glance at his watch told Shayne they were on time. He stirred, and she yawned dimpling prettily. He said, “Someone meeting you?”

She shook her head, warily.

He added, “I suppose you’ll want to stand by while I claim the foot-locker?”

Her answer was, “What else? And if you make one false step, Mike Shayne, I’ll call the cops so fast you’ll never know what—”

“You will?” Something in his voice checked her.

They were standing, side by side, at the luggage-claiming counter, when Shayne, after a quick glance around said, in a low voice, “Looks as if you won’t have to call the cops after all, you double-crossing little...”

She said, “What are you...?” And then quick comprehension flashed into her alert green eyes. “It wasn’t me,” she whispered. Then, more loudly, “Thanks, Mike, but I can manage by myself. There are plenty of porters here. It was really very kind of you.” Deftly, she took the claim-check from his fingers. “Good night, Mike, it’s been fun. Hope I see you around.”

“Lots of fun,” he said grimly. “And more to come. ’Night, Carol.”

The redhead tipped his hat and walked away — almost into the arms of an enormous plainclothes-man, who was making his way slowly, purposefully, toward them through the small press of porters and passengers and their welcoming friends.

Mike said, “Hello, Len — what are you doing here?”

Len Sturgis, one of the ablest as well as the largest detectives on Chief Will Gentry’s Miami Police Force, eyed Shayne distrustfully. “How about you?” he asked. “Why don’t you tell your friends when you take a trip to New York? We miss you around here, fellow.”

Shayne was in no mood to endure heavy-handed humor. He said, “Two reasons, Len. One, I’m a licensed private detective, and my business is strictly between my clients and me. Two, I don’t need to tell you characters what I do — you seem to find it out quick enough anyway. What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing special,” said Sturgis, looking hurt. “How was the big city, Mike?”

Shayne wanted nothing more at the moment than to get rid of the man. Out of the corner of one eye, he could see Carol Hale sailing serenely toward the cab-stand outside, following a porter who was trundling a pile of bags of various shapes and sizes, among them the brown steel foot-locker that contained the mortal remains of Ben Felton.

But Shayne couldn’t break away now. He knew Len Sturgis was at the airport in response to a tip, and he knew the detective knew Shayne knew it. Cursing Harry Tyndale and the leak in his inner staff, Shayne tried to think of a way out.

Sturgis prompted him, “No luggage, Mike?”

Shayne took the cue. “Just a one-day trip. I went up on the one o’clock. Friend of mine needed a little help.”

Sturgis regarded Shayne with an oh-yeah? look, but said, “Well, I guess there’s nothing much doing here. Care for a lift to town?”

“Thanks, Len, but I left my own car in the parking lot outside.” Shayne headed for the exit the girl had used.

But he was too late.

She had vanished...

IV

It was nearly four o’clock the next afternoon when Shayne reached his office. Lucy was in a state. “Mike!” she cried. “I’ve been half out of my mind! You never called me from New York, and I didn’t know what was going on. Homer Wilde has been going crazy, too. He’s been calling up, almost every since you left. He told me to have you call him the moment you got in.”

The redhead grinned as he skimmed his hat toward the rack. “Your idol will have to wait a few minutes longer,” he said. His grin faded as he briefed Lucy on the events of the past twenty-four hours. “So there it is.” He tugged at his left earlobe. “Somewhere in this city is a woman who calls herself Carol Hale. And with her, unless she’s got rid of it already, is a small trunk containing the body of Ben Felton. I’ve been knocking myself out all day trying to find her. Not a trace, not a clue...” He sighed.

There was a glint of wry amusement in Lucy’s brown eyes. “Mike, the damnedest things happen to you!” she said. Then, growing serious, “You say this woman — Carol Hill — was about my height, has a good figure, might be around thirty, with green eyes, and uses an atrocious Southern accent?” Lucy’s own soft Southern voice flowed smooth as com syrup.

“That’s about it. Why? Any ideas?” The redhead was pacing the floor.

“And she’s a blonde?” Lucy sounded disbelieving.

“She was blonde yesterday,” he replied.

“I’d give a dozen pairs of good nylons just to have one good look at her,” Lucy said meditatively.

Shayne stopped pacing. “What’s on your mind?”

She hesitated briefly. “In the early days, when he was building his popularity, Homer Wilde had a girl in his show called Jeanie Williams. She couldn’t sing very well, and she couldn’t dance a lick, and, of course, she didn’t have to act. She wasn’t exactly pretty, but she was nice looking and a marvelous figure.

“I liked her, and so did a lot of people. There used to be gossip about her being Homer’s girlfriend. Oh — I remember, he used to kid her about her green eyes. You know, Mike, jealous monster and all that. Then, about three years ago, he dropped her flat.”

“Not exactly a novelty where Homer’s concerned from what I’ve been hearing,” Shayne told her. “You think my Carol Hale sounds like Homer’s Jeanie Williams?”

“Except for the blonde hair,” said Lucy. “Listen, Mike, suppose she has something on Homer, and suppose Ben Felton went to New York and took her to Harry Tyndale so he could use her evidence, or whatever it is, against Copey Cottrell...”

“I’m way ahead of you, Lucy,” said Shayne, quietly. “Now all we have to do is find Carol-Jeanie and Ben’s body. And after that...”

The phone rang. Lucy’s brisk, “Michael Shayne’s office,” cut him short. “Just a moment, I’ll see.” She looked up at Shayne and whispered, “Homer Wilde, again.”

Shayne took the phone grimly and said, “Hello, Wilde, what’s on your mind?”

“I’ve got to see you, Shayne. You can write your own ticket. Any fee you name. Can you come over to the White Sapphire right away?”

“I’ll be there.” Shayne’s eyes were bleak as he put down the phone.

Driving over the Causeway to the Beach, Shayne wondered if Homer had any idea that Ben Felton was dead. Surely he couldn’t know that Shayne had found the body, brought it to Miami and lost it again...

Wilde was in his hotel bedroom, sitting beside the window looking out at the waters of the bay, silvered by the pre-twilight. The lush Monica Mallon was extended languorously on a chaise longue. She wore dinner pajamas of chartreuse satin, and flaunted a jade cigarette holder. Homer spoke as if she were not there.

“Look, Shayne,” he said wearily without rising. “You’ve got me over a barrel. We’re leaving for New York tonight at three A.M. I’ve got to find Ben before we go, and you’re the only man who can do it. He must be somewhere here in Miami. If you find him before we take off, I’ll give you a blank check. You can fill in the amount yourself.”

“Fair enough.” Shayne looked at his watch. “I’ll call you before midnight.”

“Great!” There was relief in Homer’s voice. “And I have a better idea. Come to our farewell party. It starts around midnight in the ballroom here and we leave for the airport at two-thirty a.m. Why don’t you bring the charming Miss Hamilton? You say she’s a fan of mine, and she certainly has a lovely telephone manner.” This with a wink at Shayne, obviously designed to be seen by Monica. There was frost in her glance as Shayne departed.

This time, the redhead stopped at the other suite on the same floor which had been turned into a temporary publicity office.

There, Pinky Reach, the little man with large ears, wrestled with heavy leather-bound pressbooks until Shayne found what he wanted in an old one — a picture of Jeanie Williams. Her hair was brown and clubbed back with a bow. She looked much younger than the body-snatching blonde who had come back from New York with him, but she was unquestionably the same girl.

“Score one for Lucy,” he told himself. Then, to Pinky Reach, “This girl — Jeanie Williams — looks like a nice kid.”

“The most,” was the prompt reply. “Though poor Jeanie’s not exactly a kid. She was around when I was breaking in four-five years ago. A sweetheart. We all used to get sore when we thought of her in the hay with his nibs. You know all about that, of course.” This with calm assumption that the redhead was up on all such gossip of the show.

“Homer used her — and I mean used her — for about seven years on his way up. Then he junked her like an old car.”

“Wonder what’s happened to her since,” mused Shayne.

“Who knows?” This with a shrug. “Jeanie dropped from sight. But the story goes that Ben Felton went to the mat with the boss and made him pay off big. That’s what started the trouble between them. Homer would have junked Ben, too, if he could, I’m told. Boy, did he boil!” A pause, then, “You picked up anything on Ben? It isn’t like him to run out this way.”

But Shayne was out of ear-shot by then. In the lobby, Shayne called his office. He told Lucy that she could go home now, and that she was invited to Homer Wilde’s party.

He interrupted her cry of, “Oh, Mike. What shall I wear?” to tell her, a little curtly, that he would pick her up some time before midnight, that by then, the case should be solved.

He drove back to his apartment, reasonably well satisfied. Lucy would be pleased at having guessed the identity of his plane companion correctly. And now, at least, Shayne knew whom he was looking for. Everything was neatly tied up except for three large questions. Where was Jeanie-Carol? Where was the body of Ben Felton? Who killed Ben?

He was humming, off-key, a little tune as he went up in the elevator to his apartment. The door was ajar. He paused on the threshold and saw two men sprawled comfortably in two of the easy chairs. They were obviously not the sort of persons to be stopped by a mere locked door.

One of them, a lean, young-old man with a violent sports shirt and a badly broken nose that marred a gutter-handsome face, rose languidly and said, “You Shayne? The boss wants to have a word with you.”

“By all means.” Shayne matched the mocking courtliness of the intruder. Then, turning to the other, a squat, ugly character with a prematurely bald head, “Are you the boss?”

“Is he kidding?” the squat one asked, getting to his feet. Like his taller companion, he wore a lightweight jacket over a loud, open-collar shirt. The looseness of the jacket’s fit did not conceal the pistol he carried in a shoulder-holster from Shayne’s trained eyes.

“Shall we go?” said the taller hood politely.

They drove him, in a cream-and-blue convertible, to a palmetto-ringed, ultra-modern house that hugged the ground well beyond the mountain-range of hotels that give Miami Beach its spectacular skyline. Shayne was escorted to a luxurious living room and left there, under the guard of the stockier and stupider of the two hoodlums.

He did not wait long before a compactly built, strong-featured man, who might have been a well-conditioned forty, entered the room. He wore bathing trunks and a brief towelling jacket, and, in spite of the lateness of the hour, there were traces of sand on his chest and stomach. He nodded at Shayne and went to a well-stocked bar.

“Martel, isn’t it, Mr. Shayne?” he asked.

“Right,” said Shayne, studying Copey Cottrell. The man was coarsely handsome and blandly corrupt. He poured himself a vodka highball and brought Shayne brandy. The two hoodlums had withdrawn to the far end of the long room.

“I’ve been wanting to meet you,” Cottrell said quietly, “ever since Homer tried to put you on his payroll. At first, it didn’t seem to me that you could do anything my boys couldn’t do. But since yesterday, I’ve had to upgrade you.”

“That’s nice,” said Shayne, amused by the affectation of urbanity.

“Mind you, Mr. Shayne,” went on his host, “I was not in favor of having Felton killed. I deplore violence — it’s much too costly a method of doing business. And Felton’s death was by way of being an accident. My — associate — in New York lost his temper, which is regrettable — but not as regrettable as the fact that you brought the body back here with you. Ben Felton, found dead in Tyndale’s hotel suite in New York is quite a different thing from Ben Felton liable to be found dead at any moment here in Miami. Under certain circumstances, it could be embarrassing. I’m sure you understand.”

“Pray elucidate further,” said the redhead.

For a moment, he thought Cottrell was going to blow his top. He reddened, all the way from his hair line to the top of his trunks, and his eyes flashed flame. But the flare was brief, and Cottrell did not speak until he had regained self-control. Then he said, in the same quiet tone, “It was my idea, when I was informed last night that you were flying south with the corpse, to have the police take care of it for me. As a taxpayer, I believe in using public servants wherever possible.”

He paused, a trifle smugly, then added, “But, in some way you managed to elude the excellent Chief Gentry’s detective. This is exceedingly inconvenient. Mr. Shayne, I want that body, and I want it now.”

“I’m sorry,” said Shayne. “You can’t have it.”

Cottrell rose from the chair in which he had been sitting while he talked. Jiggling the ice in his glass, he said, “Naturally, I expected that answer. I’m a businessman, and I’m used to making deals. As I told you just now, I sincerely deplore violence. And I’m willing to pay for what I get. Why not? You took some long chances yesterday, but you got away with them. You have something I want. Therefore, I’m willing to pay. And whatever figure we reach will be given you in this room, in cash, once you have given me the information I want. You need not appear in it at all. My boys will take care of the — merchandise.

“What’s more” — he paused again, delicately — “the Internal Revenue people won’t hear a whisper about the transaction from me. You’ll have five thousand dollars and be home free. How does it sound to you, Mr. Shayne?”

“It sounds absurd.” Shayne drained his glass. “Even if I wanted to accommodate you, I couldn’t.”

“Make it ten grand,” said Cottrell softly. “Will that do it?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Shayne. “You see — I haven’t got the body, and I don’t know where it is!”

“Harry Tyndale would be touched by your loyalty.” Cottrell was beginning to turn pink again under his tan. “But I have been told you are a man of such ethics as your profession permits. You’ve just been hired by Homer Wilde to find Ben Felton. Are you going to fulfill that contract?”

Shayne grinned. “Maybe. But when I found the police waiting for me at the airport, I lost my luggage check. By the time I managed to get Len Sturgis off my back, somebody else must have found it and claimed the trunk.”

“Who?”

Shayne shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Perhaps we can stir up your brain cells a trifle.” Cottrell looked past him and said, “All right, boys. But keep him alive.”

Shayne whirled as they came in behind him. The taller hood was swinging a sap lightly, and the half-bald one was drawing a shoulder-holstered gun.

Shayne dropped his shoulder and lunged as he whirled. He caught the squatty one in the belly before he got his gun out, and they went to the floor together.

The gun skidded out of reach, and the man was out cold on the floor. The sap caught Shayne a glancing blow on the side of the head as he came to his feet, and he closed in with the taller man, driving his knee upward into the groin.

The man went down with a thin scream, and Shayne whirled from him just in time to see Cottrell swinging the barrel of a gun viciously. It connected solidly with the base of Shayne’s skull, and he went down and out into blackness...

V

When Shayne returned to consciousness, his head throbbed with pain and the right side of his neck was stiff and sore. It was dark, and his hands were taped securely to his sides. His ankles, too, were tightly taped together.

He was lying on a bed, and there was a window through which he was able to see stars shining above the silhouettes of palmettoes. As memory came back to him, he became aware that he must have been stowed away in a bedroom of Copey Cottrell’s mansion. He lay there, waiting for his vision to improve, trying to figure some way out. On the side of the room away from the window, he could see a narrow line of light — a closed door with illumination beyond.

Shayne swung his legs over the edge of the bed and struggled to a sitting position. If it were a bedroom, he reasoned, there must be some sharp angle on which he could work the tape loose that bound his hands to his sides. Until he did that, he was helpless.

He had no way of measuring time, but it seemed to take hours before he finally located the corner of a dresser. It was too high, and he had to go down on his knees and work a drawer loose with his teeth. Then came the seemingly endless, task of working loose broad-banded adhesive tape, professionally applied. He could feel the skin of his right wrist give way before, at last, he managed to loosen the tape sufficiently to get his right hand free.

He was sitting on the floor, freeing his ankles, when he heard the sounds of footsteps approaching from beyond the door, then the remembered voice of the broken-nosed hood, saying, “...like tangling with a herd of elephants, Louis. My gut will be sore for a week. Better take a look and see if he’s croaked or come to. The son of a bitch can’t stay out forever.”

When he opened the door, inward, Shayne was waiting beside it. As the mobster appeared in the rectangle of light, the redhead moved swiftly, plucking a heavy automatic from the man’s shoulder holster before he could raise his arms to prevent the move. The man cried, “Louis! Look—”

He had no time to utter another sound. Shayne backhanded him full across the face with the gun and felt flesh and bone tear under the impact. Then he was in the hall, leaping over the falling body and laying the heavy pistol hard against the rocklike skull of the startled Louis. He paused only to strip Louis of his pistol before moving warily, angrily, along the corridor. He walked softly, on the balls of his feet, a gun in either hand, as he made his way out of the mansion. He did not see another living soul.

Outside, the cream-and-blue convertible still waited. The redhead slid behind the wheel, laying his arsenal on the seat beside him. He put the car in gear and got away from there fast. The rage within him was deep. By his watch, it was already past two in the morning, and he felt a sickening sense of time irreparably lost as he burned rubber toward the White Sapphire. He had to find Lucy, and he wanted to be in at the farewell party. There was a chance Lucy might have gone without him, and a possibility Copey Cottrell might be there.

He arrived as the party was breaking up. In one corner, an impromptu quartet was singing Tamiami Trail close to a long service bar, which gave evidence of having seen much service. Men and women, looking slightly the worse for wear, were gathered in groups and clusters about the large private ballroom. There was a lot of Air Force brass in evidence.

The little publicity man with the large ears, waylaid him as he moved toward the other end of the room, searching for Lucy. Pinky Reach was a trifle unsteady on his feet and grinning amiably. He said, “You must be a whiz, Shayne. How come you’re asking for Jeanie Williams’ picture this afternoon? I saw Jeanie in the city this evening.”

“Where?” the detective asked sharply.

“In town.” The publicity man waved his glass vaguely. “She was with another dame — a real looker. They were coming out of a beauty shop. Antonelli, my assistant, was with me — he can tell you. Hey, Sammy.”

Sam Antonelli ambled up and nodded when the publicity man repeated his question. “It was Jeanie, all right,” he said solemnly. “Good old Jeanie. Talk about your dames.”

“Some other time,” said Shayne. “What did the girl with her look like?” He was getting a hunch, and the lobe of his left ear was itching.

“Beautiful!” said Pinky Reach rhapsodically. But, under deft prodding from Shayne, he managed to give a fairly accurate description of Lucy Hamilton. Then he said, mournfully. “Party’s almost over. Got to get our bags if we’re gonna make Homer’s special plane at three.”

“That’s right,” said Antonelli solemnly. “S’long, Shayne.”

They wandered away, leaving Shayne frowning. So Lucy had found Jeanie-Carol — that was one load off his mind. But he’d have given a case of brandy to know where the women were at that moment. His speculations were broken when Homer Wilde came out of another room, surrounded by a coterie of Air Force and other brass, among whom Shayne spotted Cottrell. He lifted a hand in salute and had the pleasure of seeing the underworld boss look briefly distressed at sight of him. “But not as distressed as you’re going to look,” he told himself grimly.

Homer spotted Shayne and came over to him, hiding his displeasure behind a mask of geniality. “I’d about given you up, Mike,” he said. “And where’s that pretty secretary of yours?”

Monica Mallon, looking sleek and deadly beautiful in a strapless gown of black sequins, slithered through the crowd and slipped a shapely arm inside Homer’s elbow. “Perhaps your adoring little fan isn’t quite so adoring as you thought, darling,” she told Homer.

Homer ignored her and peered closely at the redhead. “Boy!” he said. “Whatever delayed you must have had claws. You look as if you’d been in a battle royal.”

“I was,” Shayne snapped. “Ask Cottrell to tell you about it.”

Homer, with a look of surprise, glanced at his partner, who shook his head slightly. Taking the cue, Homer raised his voice and said, “Come on! Everybody that’s still here, come on out to the airport and see us off. There’ll be champagne, and none of you free loaders will want to miss that.” He moved on toward the exit.

Shayne found himself standing beside a trim, young Air Force brigadier, who shook his head and said to the detective, “I never thought I’d hear old Farquar” — indicating an older man with the three stars of a lieutenant general on his shoulder straps — “called a free-loader and smile. Confidentially, sometimes I think Homer’s a bit rich for the Air Force’s blood. Still, you’ve got to hand it to a guy who can put on a show the way he did last night and log three thousand miles of jet-flying before a late lunch the next day.”

Following Homer, while the brigadier kept on talking, Shayne saw patterns resolve and reshape themselves in his mind’s eye. He thought of an Air Force jet blasting out of a cloud bank and all but crashing into a north-bound Constellation as it left Miami — of Jarvis, the writer, complaining that modern scientific development had shattered the unities of the ancient Greek drama. For the first time, what had been mere playwright’s patter, took on new meaning.

He said, to the brigadier, “I had an idea Homer’s reserve commission was strictly an honorary one.”

“That’s what we thought,” was the reply, “until old Homer decided to make it for real. And once Homer makes up his mind...”

Shayne lost the brigadier and got into the back seat of one of a line of rented cars. A man got in beside him and said, “I was hoping you’d show up tonight, Mike. I’ve been wanting to have a talk with you. What held you up? Wilde told me he was expecting you.”

It was Will Gentry, Miami Chief of Police, the redhead’s old friend and occasional antagonist. Shayne said, “A character named Cottrell wanted the same answers you do, Will. And I couldn’t give them to him because I didn’t have them.”

“So he held you?” Gentry asked the question lightly, but there was probing below the surface.

“He tried to,” Shayne told him.

Gentry said, as they swung for the drive to the airport, “Well, after all, Cottrell’s a newcomer around here... Those questions Cottrell asked you — think you’ve got the answers now?”

“Some of them,” the redhead replied slowly. “Not all — not yet.”

“You know, Mike,” Gentry mused, “you disappointed Len Sturgis last night at the airport. We didn’t expect you to come in alone.”

“I hated to disappoint Len,” said Shayne.

“I’m sure you did.”

A girl, in the front seat beside the driver, interrupted their colloquy by offering them drinks from a bottle she was carrying. Shayne was grateful for the interruption. It gave him a chance to work out his startling new theory of Ben Felton’s death.

The champagne send-off was in full cry when they reached the airport. Shayne got out of the car and moved to the fringe of the celebration, following the revelers through the buildings, out to the ramps, where a big plane waited. He lost Gentry in the process, but he had not gone far when his sleeve was plucked and Lucy’s voice said, “Mike! Thank God you’re here!”

Shayne gave her a hug and she put her arms around his neck. He winced as she touched a bruise.

“You’re hurt, Michael. What happened?”

“Not bad,” he replied. “Couple of other people got hurt a lot worse. I hear you ran down Jeanie.”

“She’s over there — waiting,” Lucy nodded toward a shadowy corner forty feet away.

“Waiting — for what?” asked Shayne.

“For Homer,” said Lucy. “Mike, you have no idea of the deal he gave her. Ben Felton protected her for years, but now Ben’s dead and...”

“I know,” said Shayne. “Where’s the trunk?”

“That’s what she’s waiting for,” said Lucy. “After what happened to Felton, she’s willing to confront Homer and implicate herself just to ruin him. She hates him, but she loves him. And she’s really nice. Mike, you’ve got to do something before she...”

“Maybe I can,” he said. “How’d you find her, Angel?”

Lucy’s eyes glowed in the darkness. “You know that old story about the man who found the lost mule by pretending he was a mule and going where a mule would go? Well, I tried to think what a girl like Jeanie Williams would do if she were planning to confront a man like Homer. The answer was — a beauty parlor. A brown-haired girl would never want to show herself to her old lover as a phoney blonde. So I just went to the beauty parlor show people use in Miami, and there she was. I’ve been trying everywhere to find you, Mike. How was the party?”

“It was over when I got there,” said Mike. “Look out!”

Homer Wilde had seen them. He was moving briskly toward them. Out of the building behind him came a string of porters pushing luggage toward the waiting plane. Homer was effusive to Shayne’s secretary.

“You let me down, baby,” he complained, holding her hand in both of his. “I had a lot of things planned for you.”

“I’ll just bet you did!” The ever-watchful Monica appeared at Homer’s side, breaking up the scene.

Homer laughed at her, and Lucy managed to get her hand free.

“There it is now, Mike!” she whispered, pointing at a load pushed by one of the porters. “She left it in the luggage room at the airport this evening, and got one of her old pals in the show to put it in with Homer’s luggage when it got here tonight.”

“Now I see what you mean by ‘confront’,” Shayne whispered in return. “Try to keep her out of this.”

“I will, Mike.” Lucy slipped away in the shadows.

Homer’s eyes were on Shayne. He said, “Well, what about Felton?”

“Your worries,” said Mike, “are just about over. Or maybe they’re just beginning.” He moved toward the plane, calling, “Will... Will Gentry. Something funny here.”

He reached the trunk and bent over it, as Will Gentry joined him. He pointed to a small spot of rust on the foot-locker. “Looks like blood to me, Will. Better open this one up.”

Gentry gave Shayne a long, level look. “I’d say it was rust,” he said quietly, “But — under the circumstances...” The chief of police gave the order to open the trunk.

Later, at Police Headquarters, Gentry said, “Hell, Mike, we’ve got Homer cold — motive, opportunity, even concealing and trying to remove the corpse. Cottrell is caught, too, as a material witness. He’ll be bailed out, of course, but he’ll have to testify or take a powder. You know how characters like him hate the limelight. Mike, you’ve done a good night’s work.”

He paused to fix the detective with a saturnine gaze, added, “Mind you, there are some elements I don’t yet understand in this business. But the Air Force has asked me to soft-pedal investigation in certain directions. I’m not even going to ask you how you knew there was a body in that foot-locker, Mike...”

“Thanks, Will,” said Shayne, reaching for his hat. “Maybe I’ll tell you when you’ve got Homer put away for keeps.”

Lucy and Jeanie Williams were waiting for Shayne at his apartment. Jeanie, much younger with brown hair, stood up with tears in her eyes. “You — did a wonderful thing, Mike Shayne, saving me from turning in a man I once loved. It would have exposed my whole sordid story to the tabloids.”

He grinned. “I ought to thank you, Jeanie Williams, for snatching that body for me. Did you know Ben Felton was planning to have it out with Homer Wilde in Tyndale’s suite yesterday morning?”

She shook her head. “Did Homer plan to kill Ben there?” Her anxiety was evident.

Shayne nodded. “That’s why Homer tried to hire me to find Felton the night before he took off in an Air Force jet-plane for Mitchel Field. I was part of his alibi. The Air Force brass thought he was just a reserve officer getting in some flying time when and where he could. Actually, he wanted to stop Ben before Ben got to Harry Tyndale, and he thought that I and the jet-flight together would give him an unbreakable alibi.

“Ben must have told Homer he was taking you to Tyndale’s. When you were separated from Ben in the crowd left over from Harry’s party, Ben met Homer and Homer took him into Harry’s bedroom, knowing Harry would be dead to the world until noon after that drugged drink. Wilde hit Ben and killed him. Then he went back to Mitchel, where his plane had been fueled and flew back to Eglin in time for a late lunch — and damned near hit the plane I was in, leaving Miami on my way to help Harry.

“That writer, Greg Jarvis, was right. Supersonic jet-planes have messed up all the unities, to say nothing of the alibis. It’s almost possible for a man to be in two places at once now, and that’s going to make life a lot harder for detectives.”

Shayne sighed and reached for the brandy.