Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 4, August 1957 (British Edition)

The red-headed detective should never have taken on the job of running down “Duke” Ferrell’s killer. But two of Miami’s most glamorous ladies were desperate to beat the police to the solution. So it was Shayne’s assignment to find out—

I

The lady on the telephone had a warm, pleasant, genteel-sexy voice, despite overtones of strain. Her name, she said, was Lois Malcolm, and Shayne didn’t know her from Eve. Then she added, “I used to be Lois Craig. Perhaps you remember me?”

Shayne remembered her. There had been a time, some years earlier, when Lois Craig was as well known around Miami as, say, Jinx Falkenberg in New York, or Marilyn Monroe in Hollywood. Not that Lois Craig was an actress or a radio-television commentator, though she had made her share of appearances, in various functions, before both live and living-room audiences.

Lois Craig was one of those comely, healthy American girls of good background who is universally liked and gets into every sort of social activity, from beauty contests and tennis tourneys, to amateur theatricals and benefit drives. During, and immediately after, the war, Lois Craig had been almost a Miami fixture. As such, Shayne had known her, as such, she had known him.

He said, “It s been quite a while. What can I do for you, Lo — Mrs. Malcolm?” Though they had moved through the same world for a while, their orbits were far different.

She said, “Mr. Shayne, I’m in momentary expectation of becoming involved in what I’m very much afraid is murder. And, right now, I simply can’t be mixed up in anything of the sort.”

Shayne whistled softly to himself. The idea of Lois Craig — even of a much older Lois Malcolm — getting mixed up in anything like murder was a little like learning that Princess Margaret of England had been arrested on a vagrancy charge.

He said, “Mrs. Malcolm, if the police are already at work, I don’t know that there’s much to be done. I assure you, the wisest course is to give them the fullest possible cooperation.”

“That’s just it, Mike,” said Lois Malcolm, the trouble deep in her voice. “I don’t know whether the police know about it yet. I had an appointment to go swimming with this — with a certain gentleman, at ten this morning. I was to pick him up at his cottage. But when I got there...” Shayne could almost visualise her shudder.

He looked up at brown-haired, warmly attractive Lucy Hamilton, who had wandered in from her monitor-board in the outer office. His heavy, red brows went up a notch, and he frowned briefly at the telephone in his hand, said, “Yes, Mrs. Malcolm...?” into the mouthpiece.

She said, “Sorry...” and laughed, nervously and without mirth. Then, “My — date was lying on the living-room carpet, shot through the head.”

“Could it have been suicide?” asked Shayne.

“I... didn’t... see... a... weapon,” she replied slowly, wretchedly.

“Hmmph!” Shayne’s thumb and forefinger tugged at the lobe of his left ear. “What do you want me to do?” he asked bluntly.

“I don’t know,” she said, a note of despair shaking the control of her voice. “My husband is in New York. If he finds out...”

“Did anyone see you enter or leave your friend’s apartment?” the redhead asked.

“I don’t know — I’ve been trying to remember,” said Lois Malcolm. “I wasn’t expecting to encounter anything like it when I went in, so I didn’t notice. Afterward, I was too upset, I’m afraid.”

“And you haven’t notified the police?” Shayne inquired. He didn’t like the sound of it — most of all, he found himself disliking the idea of the Lois Craig he remembered so pleasantly, and so vividly, being mixed up in such a mess. He added, “Let me have the name and address — I’d better get out there and see if there is anything I can do. Where can I reach you afterward?”

She told him, then said, simply and sincerely, “Thanks, Michael Shayne. You don’t know what this means to me. I’ll see to it that you’re well paid. It’s worth everything to me!”

“It may be worth exactly nothing,” the detective told her frankly. “I’ll try to see you within an hour. We can talk it over then. Until I get there, don’t talk to anyone — not even the police. Do you understand?”

“I understand — thanks again.” She hung up.

Shayne pushed the telephone away and said to Lucy, “Where have I heard the name Malcolm lately — any ideas, angel?”

She stood there in the doorway, a Christmas-calendar figure, and tapped a full lower lip with the eraser and a pencil. “It does sound familiar, Mike. Malcolm — something about a big business deal...”

The redhead snapped his fingers and got to his feet. He gave her a quick, grateful, half-embrace, then said, “It’s that big proxy fight for control of the Waldex Corporation, angel. A character named Malcolm — Donald Malcolm — is chairman of the board for Waldex. One of these corporation cannibals — name of Borden — is out to take it away from him through the stockholders. I read about it in the Sunday papers only last week.”

“I saw the headlines.” Lucy didn’t appear especially interested. Then, with a nod toward the ’phone, “What was that all about, Mike?”

“I don’t know — yet,” said the redhead, “but unless Lois Malcolm is a honey-voiced liar, she’s in a hell of a mess. She cut quite a swathe in Miami before you got here, angel. Used to be a swell kid. So hold the fort till I get back, okay?”

He reached for his hat.

Harlan Ferrell, known to intimates as “the Duke,” did not belie the èlegance of his nickname, even in death. His cottage over-looked a superb sweep of emerald palms, of coral-white winter mansions, silver beach and sapphire-blue water. His oriental, silk-brocaded dressing gown must have cost high in three figures. Even the bathing trunks worn underneath it were of some gaudy, de luxe material. He lay on his back on the softest of deep-blue Turkish carpets, and his head rested between an armchair and a sofa of oyster-white leather, held in place by nails with golden heads.

However, thanks to the hole in the middle of his forehead, Harlan “the Duke” Ferrell was no longer relishing his lush surroundings.

Shayne looked down at the corpse and thought, irrelevantly, of the little girl of the nursery rhyme who “had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead” — only this wasn’t a nursery rhyme, it wasn’t a little girl, and it wasn’t a curl. This was reality, it was a dark, handsome, very dead man, and the “curl” was a hole, made by a bullet.

Outside of corpse and redhead, there were four others in the room. Three of them were cops — the uniformed patrolman who had been first on the scene when the alarm went out, Len Sturgis, the hulking, immensely tall ace of Chief of Police Will Gentry’s Homicide Bureau, and Garrity, Sturgis’ partner and chauffeur. The other person present was a small, rather twitchy little man with double-bags under his eyes and an immense, corvine nose. He called himself Seton and said he was Mr. Ferrell’s manservant. It was he who had found the body and reported it to the police.

At the moment, however, while awaiting the arrival of the Medical Examiner’s crew and the fingerprint and photographic teams, Len Sturgis appeared more interested in Shayne and the reason for his presence so quickly on the scene, rather than in the witness. He asked, sharply, “Mike, how come you’re on this so fast?”

“I don’t even know that I am on it,” the redhead replied, lighting a cigarette. “How does it look to you, Len?”

“Too quick to tell,” was the equivocal reply. Then, “Who tipped you off, Mike? Seton, here, only reported finding the body twenty minutes ago.”

“For all I know,” said Shayne blandly, “it might have been the murderer.” Then, suppressing a grin, “Don’t get yourself all lathered up, Len — it’s not worth it. If it was the murderer, I promise you’ll be the very first to know — after me, of course.”

Sturgis growled and took two steps forward, his fists clenched so tightly against his sides that his knuckles showed custard yellow. He said, between his teeth, “Shayne, I ought to knock some sense into you — and some of the non-co-operation out! This is a murder, Mike, and I’m not standing for any of your monkey-shines.”

“Thank you, Len,” said the red-head with the sweetest smile he could muster on his craggy, deeply furrowed face. “Simmer down, man. At least, you had the kindness to tell me it’s not a suicide — which is what I really came over here to find out.” Shayne turned on his heel and began to march out of the room, to be halted briefly by Sturgis’ bellow. “Where in hell do you think you’re going, Shayne?” the Homicide sleuth roared.

“Oh!” the detective replied lightly. “I’m on my way to find out if my client is a murderer.”

“Your hat, sir,” said Seton, moving forward obsequiously.

Shayne was smiling to himself as he passed the fingerprint boys on their way to work. Sliding under the wheel of his sedan and putting it under way, he concentrated on the problem that lay ahead of him at Lois Craig Malcolm’s.

She received him at the door of a rambling, expensive-looking, pseudo-Italian villa. She wore a bright flowered print that italicised. the bright blue of her eyes and the softly glowing bronze tones of her skin. She was of medium height, and the years seemed, if anything, to have added to, rather than detracted from, the magnetic elements of a trim, yet wholly feminine, figure. Her face was alert with intelligence, and she looked hardly a day over twenty-five. Her comely features were framed by dark-blonde hair, cut in an artfully artless short-Italian style. Shayne would have recognised her anywhere as Lois Craig.

She said, extending a hand, “Hello, Mike — thank goodness you’re here!” Then she motioned him into the house.

She led the way to a large and comfortable living room and poured them both brandy from a portable bar. Handing him his glass, she said, “You see? I remembered.” Then, “I hope I did the right thing in calling you instead of the police, Mike Shayne.”

He put down his glass, half-empty, and said, “Amen to that, Mrs. Malcolm. You are Mrs. Donald Malcolm, aren’t you?”

“I am,” she told him. “I wish you’d call me Lois. The other sounds so formal.”

“Thank you,” he said, “but I wasn’t thinking of our relationship, Lois — I was wondering how your possible involvement in the murder of Harlan Ferrell might affect your husband’s chances in this proxy battle he has coming up.”

Lois Malcolm ran well-manicured fingers through her short hair. She said, “Mike, I just don’t dare think about that.” She paused, then lifted her head with a spark of defiant pride and added, “I know I’ve been a plain, idiotic, damned fool, and I’ve got no right to ask for help out of a situation I created for myself. If only I’d had sense enough to stay away from Duke Ferrell! I knew what he was, well enough.”

She got hold of herself and went on, her voice low, “At the very worst, though, I’ve been an idiot, not a criminal. It’s for Donald’s sake that I’m hoping against hope my name — and his — can be kept out of the newspapers. He’ll be crucified, if it gets out.”

Shayne studied her. It was difficult for him to envisage this suntanned, competent, obviously intelligent woman playing the fool with a character like Duke Ferrell. For his memory of Lois Craig, such a vision was sickening. He said, evading the issue for the moment, “One thing, before we go any further — if the answer is yes, it never will go any further. Did you shoot Duke Ferrell?”

“I did not,” she said firmly. “As I told you over the ’phone, somebody had already killed poor Duke when I got there this morning.”

“Any idea who might have done it?” he asked her.

Lois Malcolm shook her head. “A better question would be, do I have any idea who might not have done it?” she countered, a faint smile relieving the savage cynicism of her remark. “I know this sounds impossible, but I have a perfectly marvellous husband, even if he is in New York, and I’m here — and Duke Ferrell was undoubtedly the biggest heel I have ever met. Mind you, Mike, I’ve met some beauts. He was a man without honour, without principle, without a single thought or ambition or desire beyond the gratification of his own senses, and the filling of his own pocketbook.”

“Sounds like a real charm-boy,” said the redhead, putting down his glass, empty. “Just what was his attraction for a woman like you?”

“It’s hard to explain,” she said. “It was what he wasn’t, rather than what he was, I suppose. Now that Duke’s dead, I can’t even seem to explain it to myself. But a woman can grow awfully tired of nobility, Mike, especially when she has no children, and her husband’s business keeps him away from her a lot of the time. It can become quite a burden.”

“I suppose so,” said Shayne, not trying to mask his disappointment. He got to his feet, tugged his jacket into place, said, “What do you want me to do?”

“Mike,” she said, coming close to him and looking up at him appealingly, “try not to hate me, won’t you? I want you to do your best to keep my name out of the papers until Duke Ferrell’s murderer is found.” She moved toward a secretary, on which a tan leather handbag rested. “If I give you a thousand now...” she began, reaching for it.

“Not yet,” Shayne told her. “I don’t really know enough about this business to accept it as a case.”

“What you’re trying to tell me,” she said, confronting him again, “is that you don’t think I’m worth helping. In that case, Mike, I don’t blame you — but think of my husband.”

“Damn it!” he said. “I used to like you as a kid, Lois...”

“I’m not a kid any more, Mike,” she said quietly. “I’m a woman... a woman in a jam, and I need help.”

Reluctantly, he agreed to do what he could. Before leaving, he paid a visit to a small washroom, to which she directed him, immediately off the front hall. On the back of the basin was a cellophane cigar wrapper, bearing an orange-and-blue emblem. The detective flushed it down the toilet.

II

Shayne was frowning as he drove away from Lois Malcolm’s winter residence. The bathroom he had visited, like the front hall and the living room, showed every sign of spotless servicing — with fresh towels and soap, even a fresh flower in a tiny vase, set in a wall-niche. Somebody had unwrapped a cigar there that very morning. It seemed highly unlikely that Lois Malcolm smoked cigars — just as it seemed unlikely that she would often use a bathroom obviously designed for visitors to the pseudo-Spanish mansion. Her own bathroom would adjoin her bedroom, elsewhere in the house.

There was another element in the cellophane wrapper that troubled the detective. He knew that orange-and-blue label — one of his New York clients had smoked cigars bearing a similar device and had presented Mike with a box of them at the conclusion of a case. Cigars with that label were custom-made, of the finest Havana and Connecticut leaf, for the exclusive New York Racquets Club.

He stopped in one of the great, white, modern hotels that make a wedding-cake festival of Miami Beach in the sunshine and visited the office of the manager, whom he knew, for a look at a copy of the New York Social Register.

Donald Malcolm was listed, as was Lois Craig Malcolm. There were, he noted, no children of their marriage. Malcolm’s clubs included the University, the Metropolitan, the Union League, and the New York Racquets. The detective scowled and tugged at the lobe of his left ear.

Shayne had lunch with an old friend — long, lanky, sardonic Timothy Rourke, crack crime reporter for the Miami News. Over a fine mess of pompano at a restaurant across the Bay, he learned that the late Duke Ferrell had been, by repute, one of the most successful all-round ladies’ men, gigolos and heels to operate in Dade County of recent years.

“There won’t be many tears shed over his demise this morning,” said the reporter, “unless he’s still got some dames on the hook he didn’t finish milking. He could really turn it on when there was a buck in view. The word is, Duke Ferrell put his heart into his work.”

“What’s the latest on it from Headquarters?” the detective asked.

Tim Rourke shrugged. “Who knows?” he countered. “Probably nothing, since Sturgis isn’t issuing any statements yet. They gave that houseman of the Duke’s a sweating, I hear. Seems he had a record out West — petty larceny, a spot of blackmail. This was before he went to work for the Duke. They’re still working him over.”

“Thanks,” said Shayne. He was relieved to discover that, apparently, the reporter didn’t yet know he was professionally interested in the murder. Over the coffee, he said casually, “Tim, I’ve been reading about this proxy fight that’s coming up over Waldex. Can you fill me in on any of it?”

Rourke put down his coffee cup, mopped his lips, then cocked his long head on one side. “Mike,” he said, “it’s one of those things that happens in business ever so often — like the Robert R. Young-Grand Central thing a few years back, or the Louis Wolf son tussle with Montgomery-Ward. Waldex is a solid, established industrial complex of manufacturing concerns, dealing mostly with timber and plastic by-products. It has enough tax assets and goodwill, to say nothing of cash reserves, to make hungry people’s mouths water.”

“Hmmph!” said Shayne. “What about the management?”

Again Tim Rourke shrugged knobby shoulders. He said, “I don’t know why you’re interested, but it’s interesting stuff, all right. I’ve been boning up on it for a feature series on crimes in business. There have been no complaints against the Waldex management — at least, there were none I knew of until the Borden group opened fire last year and got the old propaganda mills grinding. The employees got regular raises and fat Christmas bonuses, and all the retirement and health benefits and services the law allows. The stock-holders got their dividends every quarter, like clockwork. So, no complaints.”

“Then what’s the beef now?” the redhead asked.

“The usual,” replied Rourke. “This mob that wants in claims the management is ‘unprogressive’ — whatever that means. They claim they’ll offer a stock split with no decrease in dividends per share, along with an efficiency programme that will cut costs and produce a higher corporative profit. It’s a straight play to win the stockholders’ support — ‘we’ll double your dough, kids’ — that’s all.”

“Have they got a chance?” Shayne inquired.

“A programme like that always has a chance, the mental processes of stockholders being what they are,” said the reporter. “I’d say it looked like a dead heat to date. Of course, the payoff won’t come until next month, when they hold the annual stockholders’ meeting.”

“Where are they holding it?” Shayne asked.

“You are a square!” said the reporter, shaking his head sadly. “They’re holding it right here in Miami, two days after Christmas. That’s when you’ll see the fireworks. But why the interest, Mike? I should think you’d be hotter on to-day’s corpse — this Duke Ferrell. There’s one that may blossom angles in all directions — to say nothing of curves.” He made the eternal, hour glass gesture. “Right down your alley, Mike, if you can latch on to a payday.”

“It sounds unsavoury,” said Shayne, beckoning the waiter for the check. Tim Rourke regarded him with open disbelief.

“I must have gone deaf,” said the reporter. “Anyway, my ears are deceiving me. Mike Shayne finds a murder unsavoury? It can’t be!”

“Shut up, you large goon,” said the redhead good-naturedly, as he opened his wallet to pay for the meal. “But keep me briefed on what happens.” He got rid of the reporter outside the restaurant. By his wristwatch, it was past two o’clock, and time to be on his own way.

For the pending stockholders’ meeting, the Waldex Corporation had reserved quarters on two floors of one of the larger and newer Miami Beach hotels. Shayne walked in, examined the panorama of dignified hustle in which he found himself and pushed his fedora, irreverently, far back on his red head. If he was thrown out, as he rather expected to be, there was a certain reassurance in the prospect of being given the heave in gentlemanly fashion.

Thus morally fortified, the detective approached a young goddess whose serene sunbronsed perfection was well revealed by her white sunback dress, whose hair was a dark blonde, streaked with gold.

He asked to see Donald Malcolm and was informed, charmingly, “Mr. Malcolm is in New York.”

Shayne said, leaning closer to her over the bloated wooden kidney that served the goddess as an altar, “Honey, you get word to him that Mr. Ferrell — Mr. Harlan Ferrell — wants to see him right away. I’ll wait.”

He sat down on a sofa and began whistling tunelessly through his bridgework. He knew he was taking the risk of making a fool of himself. The cigar wrapper on the basin in Lois Malcolm’s guest lavatory could have been left there in any number of ways. But the redhead felt certain Lois had lied to him lavishly — save in the matter of the Duke’s murder.

He had not been sure she was lying until he found the wrapper — when her whole story fell apart. He was willing to wager every bit of his hard-won experience in people that Lois Craig Malcolm had not been having an affair with the corpse. It was far more likely, to his present way of thinking, that she might have killed the Duke herself, given what she felt to be a sufficient motive.

When she spoke about her husband, Lois had not been lying — she had radiated an aura of affection. Shayne could think of only one motive sufficient to make Lois falsely confess herself to be an idiotic, faithless female — her love for her husband. This, coupled with the cigar wrapper, suggested to the redhead that Lois might have been lying about his being in New York.

Thus, Shayne wanted to see Donald Malcolm — and to do so, required blasting tactics, like his use of the dead man’s name. Malcolm might not yet know Ferrell was dead, but he must know his wife was dealing — had been dealing — with the Duke. He continued to wait — still whistling through his teeth.

He did not have to wait long. After eleven minutes, by his wristwatch, the detective was approached by a husky looking young man who bore the appearance of having played football in college and played it well. He regarded the red-head speculatively, then said, “Mr. Ferrell? Follow me, please...”

III

Shayne followed his large guide through a succession of corridors, down three flights in a private elevator, and was finally ushered into a suite overlooking the ocean. On carpet centre, stood a quietly handsome, compact-looking man, who appeared to be about the detective’s own age. He was clad in short-sleeved open shirt and dark-brown slacks. He said, “Beat it, Ben. If I want you, I’ll call.”

When Ben was gone, Malcolm pulled the wrapper of a fresh cigar, without offering Shayne a smoke — by its emblem, the perfecto came from the New York Racquets Club. He lit it deliberately, studying the detective over the flame of his lighter. Then he said, “All right, you swine, I don’t know how you found out I was here — Lois was supposed to take care of you this morning. But since you are here — state your demands and get out!”

Shayne picked up the cigar-wrapper the industrialist had just discarded. He said quietly, “Malcolm, I found one like this in your wife’s guest lavatory this morning. She had called me earlier, asking be to do what I could to keep her name clear of the murder of — Duke Ferrell. She told me you were in New York, but I decided she was lying and—”

“Duke Ferrell!” Malcolm exploded. “But — Duke Ferrell murdered? Then who in hell are you, and what do you want of me?” He looked close to the detonation point as he moved a step nearer the redhead.

“I’m Michael Shayne, private detective,” said Shayne. “I’m trying to help your wife — I used to know her slightly, just after the war. To help her, I’ve got to know more about the trouble she’s in. To do that, I’ve got to get the truth out of her — I think she’s fogging things up with the idea of saving your good name. So, I’ve come to you.”

Malcolm, his face white, sat down heavily on a sofa. He said, “Are you levelling about Ferrell being murdered? I haven’t seen a paper or listened to a news broadcast since...” He trailed off.

“Why don’t you call your wife and check with her?” the detective asked. “She’s been beating her brains out to protect you — she even tried to convince me she was having a romance with that gigolo.”

“Thanks,” said Malcolm, again studying the detective for a long moment. He reached for the telephone, got Lois, talked to her briefly, succinctly, then hung up and said, “You seem to be levelling, according to lists. Incidentally, your sleuthing is damned good if you ran me down here so quick. Not many people know where I am.” He paused, then added, frowning. “Do the police know who shot Ferrell?”

“Not unless they’ve moved faster than light,” Shayne told him. “Malcolm, I know you’re a busy man, but I’d like to know what lies behind your wife’s connection with the Duke. I think it may be important. I assure you, I shan’t talk.”

This time, the industrialist did offer Shayne a cigar, which the redhead refused in favour of a cigarette. Malcolm relighted his own perfecto and said, “All right, Shayne, I guess I owe you the truth — Lois tells me you’re one hundred percent — but it’s not going to be easy.”

He paused, but, when Shayne said nothing, went on with, “This is a battle to the death I’m involved in, Shayne. Control of more than a quarter of a billion dollars worth of business is at stake. I have given my life to Waldex, Shayne. Except during the war, when I was in the Navy, I never had a job with any other firm.

“For the last nine years, the directors have voted me their chairman,” he added with a trace of pride. “I believe I have been a good company leader. The figures bear me out. We have never missed a dividend or had a single serious labour dispute. Now the Borden interests are moving in, trying to take control away from my friends and myself and make a financier’s football out of Waldex. Naturally, I’m fighting.”

“Just what are these Borden interests?” the detective asked.

“In my book,” said Malcolm, “the Borden interests are a group of financial sharks and jackals, who use their resources to prey on established corporations. Once they have obtained control, they manipulate stock and lower production quality, make a killing and move on. They leave a corporation sucked hollow, like a fly in a spider’s web.”

“I see,” said Shayne. “What do they say about you?”

Malcolm made a wry face and said, “Well, I suppose ‘stick-in-the-mud’ or ‘fogie’ are about the two kindest things they are saying of me. But that’s only one angle of this situation.”

He paused, then said, “Shayne, I’m placing myself in your hands when I tell you this. Any whisper of scandal before the voting, no matter how unfounded, and I’m through. Unfortunately” — he made the wry face a second time — “this scandal is all too well founded. You see, Shayne, almost a dozen years ago, right after the war, I made use of the company’s reserve fund — quite illegally, I may add.

“I didn’t go to jail for it — on the contrary, the theft was the basis of such subsequent success as I have had. I was impelled to make use of the money because Henry Waldemar, the founder and then president of Waldex, absolutely refused to permit the reserve fund to be used for corporate expansion.

“It was my firm belief that, if we didn’t expand then, we were bound to go under. As it turned out, events proved me right.” He paused to frown and shake his head. “Within three or four years, I was chairman of the board and Henry Waldemar had been put out to stud.

“He never thought I was reliable, after my criminal career of one crime.” Malcolm made a deprecatory gesture. “So he had me write out a record of my technical felony. He never told anyone, but he used to warn me that, if I ever went against company policy, he’d not hesitate to use it.”

“What about the Statute of Limitations?” Shayne asked.

Malcolm shrugged. “Meaningless in this instance,” he said, “Granted, I’m no longer vulnerable to prosecution — but the effect of such a disclosure, coloured by the Borden propaganda machine, would be disastrous. I’d be out like the proverbial lamp. That I could take — what I don’t like is the idea of the Borden group being in.”

“What makes you think they don’t already have this paper?” the redhead asked, dousing his cigarette.

“If they’d had it, they’d have used it,” Malcolm said simply. “We’ve been showing real progress the last month or so. That’s why I agreed to let Lois handle things as soon as we got a tip that Ferrell was willing to market that damned document.”

Shayne said, frowning, “Here’s one of the several things that are bothering me — how did a gigolo like Duke Ferrell ever get his hooks on an item like this confession of yours?”

“A pure fluke!” exclaimed Malcolm, slapping the desk against which he was leaning. “A damned unlucky fluke for me. Ferrell was Henry Waldemar’s chauffeur, the last four years of his life. Like a number of lonely, wealthy old men, Waldemar grew to lean on him. He trusted him and evidently confided in him. In fact, it was the legacy the old man left him that enabled Duke to set himself up as a squire of dames.”

He paused, added unhappily, “Duke wasn’t quite as trustworthy as Henry Waldemar thought. Apparently, in the confusion following his death, Duke took the opportunity to go through the old man’s documents — for all I know, he might have been looking up the will, to see if he was mentioned. No matter — he got hold of my confession and hung on to it. When it didn’t turn up, I took it for granted Henry Waldemar had destroyed it, and heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn’t worth peanuts until this proxy fight came up. Now...” He shook his head slowly and looked out the window at the blue Atlantic.

“And now,” said Shayne drily, “Duke Ferrell has been murdered. Do you suppose this paper of yours lay behind that?”

“I don’t know — I just don’t know!” Malcolm exploded, betraying the nervousness that was consuming him. He began to pace the carpet, saying, “Who knows why a man like Ferrell is slain? He was asking for trouble.”

“And your wife,” the detective reminded him, “is in it up to her neck — on your behalf.”

“That’s the most sickening angle to the whole stinking mess!” said the industrialist, throwing his dead cigar into the wastebasket.

“It’s bad enough, my being in a jam like this — but to have Lois involved...” He stopped in front of the detective, his lips working. “Shayne, I’m glad Lois got you into this. I want you working for me, as well as for her. I’m all tied up with this proxy battle — it’s a madhouse around here, and will be until the stockholders’ meeting next month. I want you to protect Lois, where I can’t.”

He slammed his right fist into the palm of his left hand. “But that damned confession is still on the loose,” he added, “and, with a murder involved, it’s more dangerous than ever. It hasn’t turned up yet, but it will. And, Shayne, I want you to get it for me — otherwise, I’m a ruined man. You get it, and you can write your own ticket, understand? But I want you on the job!”

“You don’t know me,” said Shayne, smiling faintly.

“Maybe I don’t know you,” said Malcolm, extending a hand, “but I know men. And I’ve heard about you.”

“Okay,” The redhead took the proffered grip. “One question you haven’t answered, Malcolm — why all the secrecy about your being in Miami?”

“Just window-dressing,” said the tycoon. “Just watercress. My fellows seem to feel it’s sound tactics to keep the Borden bunch guessing. If they don’t know where I am, they may get worried that I’m somewhere else. What they don’t know won’t hurt you — that sort of thing.”

“Okay,” said the redhead. “Can I reach you here if I have to?”

Malcolm nodded. “I’ll tell Elsie, upstairs,” he said. Then, with rising eyebrows, “What are your plans, Shayne?”

“The way I look at this case,” the detective replied, “there are three items to concentrate on. One — keep your wife out of the murder. Two — keep the story of your felony out of the public prints. Three — find out who shot the Duke. Among other things, I’ll want to talk to your wife again, Malcolm.”

The industrialist nodded, then said, “Go as easy as you can on Lois, will you? I know this is murder, but I worship my wife. So...” He let it hang.

“I’ll go as easy as I can,” said Shayne.

His next step was a return visit to Lois Malcolm. Under the pressure of concealing so much of the truth, she might well have omitted, or failed to understand, some vital facet of her visit to the scene of the murder.

But, before he talked to her again, he decided on a trip back to the office, where he could check on Lucy and do some judicious telephoning, to find out the extent of police progress on the murder.

As he drove back over the Causeway, he thought again about the Malcolms. There was no denying the fact that he liked them both — superficially, at least. For this very reason, he bent over backwards, in order not to find himself playing the professional sucker because of an emotional attachment.

It was easy to understand why the Malcolms had been so pleasant to him — under the circumstances, neither of them could afford to be anything else. Lois could have called him in, as she claimed, to keep her own name out of the case or, as he suspected, to keep her husband clear of it.

But there remained two other possibilities where Lois Malcolm was concerned. She might have summoned him to protect her, because she had killed the Duke herself — or she might have called him, in a panic over the death and collapse of her deal for the record of her husband’s indiscretion, planning ultimately to use Shayne to renew the negotiations. All of these were possibilities.

Nor was Donald Malcolm himself above suspicion. Certainly, he had good motive for the murder of Duke Ferrell. Also, there was the matter of his pretense of being in New York, while he was really in Miami, plus the fact that he had visited Lois, shortly before the murder.

A totally alien factor remained — the thus-far mysterious Borden group. If Ferrell had been playing both ends against the middle, if Malcolm’s rivals had so much as sniffed out the existence of such a damaging record, the field was widened. The ramifications of the case were widening like ripples on the surface of a still pond, into which a stone had been thrown.

He walked into his office abstractedly, still seeking to sift and weigh the elements of the puzzling mystery Lois Malcolm’s phone call had plunged him into, nodded to Lucy and hung up his hat on the hanger. She had to rise and repeat, “Oh, Mr. Shayne, I’m so glad you got back early.”

That brought him out of it — Lucy hadn’t called him Mr. Shayne in years, unless there was a purpose behind it. He stopped and looked at her, wondering what she was trying to convey.

“I didn’t want to ask anyone to wait,” Lucy said, “since I knew your plans were indefinite.” Then, in a whisper, “Watch out, Mike, she looks dangerous.”

He was thus prepared to find someone in his inner office — though hardly prepared for the sort of danger Lucy was hinting at — flashing, brunette danger, with a magnificent willowy figure, simply and subtly set off by an ecru linen dress that hid nothing while deprecating all, topped by a large, green hat that brought out the soft gleam of pale emerald eyes.

Nor was he prepared for the greeting he received as his caller looked up at him directly and said in low, liquid tones, “Michael Shayne — my name is Borden — A. E. Borden. I have with me a cashier’s check made out in your name, for ten thousand dollars.”

IV

Shayne looked at his visitor with undisguised interest. It occurred to him that both sides in the proxy battle were not hesitating to employ attractive women in their efforts to obtain what was beginning to look like a decisive bit of paper — the record of Donald Malcolm’s daring and highly illegal move to save the Waldex Corporation from the postwar doldrums.

She was very attractive.

He said, “I take it you are representing the Borden group — a wife, or sister, perhaps?”

A faint smile gave mobility to the full but firmly cut mouth of the woman who held ten thousand dollars in her hand. She said, “From what I have heard of you, Michael Shayne, I thought you’d do better than that. I am the Borden group, lock, stock and barrel.”

The redhead almost said, “Unreliable locks, watered stocks and barrels as clothing for your well-plucked backers” — but he resisted the temptation and told her gravely, “My apologies, Miss Borden, but high finance is hardly my field.”

“Mrs. Borden,” she said, adding, “Divorced.”

“And just how am I supposed to earn this ten grand?” Shayne inquired.

She sighed softly, shook her lovely head and said, “Really, Shayne! Do I have to draw you a picture? After your discussions with both the Malcolms, I’m sure you know what I’m seeking.”

“Suppose I do,” said the detective, fencing. “What makes you think I have it?”

She replied, shifting her position ever so slightly in a fascinating display of planes and curves, “I don’t necessarily think you have it, Shayne — but I believe you can get it.”

“What about the police?” he asked, ignoring her implication. “What makes you think I’m ten grand better than they are?”

Again, the faint smile, accompanied by a slight withdrawal of the proffered donation to the Shayne bank account. “It would suit my interests very well to have your friend, Mr. Gentry, and his incorruptible Miami police force find what I am seeking. But” — she leaned forward — “they have not found it yet. Therefore, it seems unlikely, under the circumstances, that they will find it. You understand, Shayne?”

Shayne understood. Among other things, he understood that, perhaps, Will Gentry’s police force was not 100 per cent incorruptible under the pressures an organisation like the Borden group was undoubtedly bringing to bear upon its members. Otherwise, she could scarcely have known whether they had discovered the record or not. He found himself increasingly curious about this woman.

He said, “Tell me, Borden — what makes you tick?”

She allowed her lids to drop modestly over her green eyes, revealing incredibly long and genuine dark lashes in the process. “Shayne,” she said, looking up at him with almost hypnotic intensity, “I’m a businesswoman. A long time ago, I discovered where my true talents lay. I have been called a wrecker of corporations. This is not so. I have never liquidated by choice. Where I have done so, it has been because I have found certain sadly mismanaged corporations as useless to the structure I am creating as dead branches to a tree.

“No, Shayne, what I like to do it take prosperous, profitable businesses and make them more prosperous and more profitable...”

She paused, and Shayne said. “To A. E. Borden, no doubt. And what about power? I don’t suppose you enjoy ordering strong men about at your whim?”

“Let us say,” she said, again dropping her eyes briefly, “that I had to take orders from an awful lot of men before I attained my present position.” Then, again earnestly, “I know you have heard Malcolm’s side of this battle. Suppose you listen to mine...”

“I’m all ears,” he told her. In A. E. Borden, he sensed that he was facing an antagonist worthy of any man’s steel. Lucy, he realised, had been right in more ways than one, when she labelled this woman dangerous.

“I intend to make Waldex the finest corporation of its type in the world. I have the backing and the money to do so, also the contacts and techniques. But, to accomplish this, I must have control of the board of directors. Since there is no chance of gaining such control through negotiation, I have appealed to the stockholders. That’s all there is to it.”

“That’s all?” Shayne inquired, toying with a paper cutter on his desk.

“That’s all,” A. E. Borden replied firmly. “Shayne, there is a rotten apple right at the top of the Waldex barrel. You have met him — so have I. Therefore, you know that, like many rotten apples, the surface still looks rosy. But a man who would steal once, to save his job, should not be chairman of any board of directors.”

“Then why didn’t Waldemar toss him out at the time he discovered the — indiscretion?” the redhead asked.

“Because,” said A. E. Borden, again leaning forward in breath-taking fashion, “he trusted Donald Malcolm absolutely. When he learned what Malcolm had done, it broke him. He died within a few years. That’s why I want that record — that’s why I’m willing to pay for it.” The cheque was thrust toward him a second time.

Shayne arose and ran strong fingers through his red hair. “One question,” he said, not looking at her. “When did you first learn about the rottenness of this apple — before, or after you began your anti-Malcolm campaign?”

“Let’s say,” she conceded, “that I learned of it during the campaign. My research department is most efficient.”

“That I believe,” the redhead told her. “But what makes you think I can put my finger on it so easily?”

“Because I know your reputation for getting whatever you go after,” said A. E. Borden. “In more than ten years, you have never failed. Believe me, you would be both wise and just to accept my fee.”

He shook his head and said, “I’m sorry, Borden, but if you know my reputation so well, you know I never sell out a client.”

“In that case” — she shrugged prettily and opened her purse to return the check — “I suppose there is nothing else to be done.”

“Hardly...” the detective began, then stopped, as he found himself gating into the muzzle of a charming, but most efficient looking, gold-plated automatic. Something about the steadiness of the girl’s regard, as about the coolness of her handling of the weapon, told him she was as efficient with firearms as she appeared to be with everything else.

“Believe me,” she told him, rising gracefully, “I sincerely regret the employment of direct coercion — but I have to be sure.” She raised her voice slightly and said, “Young lady, will you please step in here a moment?”

Shayne said, “For Pete’s sake, Borden! You don’t expect to get away—”

“Quiet, please.” The threat was as naked as the gun in her hand.

Lucy appeared in the doorway — and Shayne’s caller at once applied the menace of the weapon to his brown-haired secretary. He said, his scalp suddenly crawling, even as his adrenals decanted cold fury through his veins, “Better not hurt that girl, Borden.”

The green eyes looked amused. “Ah — the Achilles heel of the mighty Shayne!” Then, “What happens to your little friend is entirely up to you. Come along now, like a nice, red-headed fury.”

V

In spite of his anger and sense of outrage, Shayne felt reluctant admiration for the cool efficiency with which A. E. Borden handled what could only be termed a double kidnapping in broad daylight. She had Lucy lock up the office, then herded her captives efficiently downstairs with a minimum of fuss. The redhead’s every nerve, every muscle, ached for explosive action, but he dared not make a move as long as Lucy was in peril.

Downsairs, it was quickly evident the green-eyed menace had not come alone on her errand. A pair of muscular young men wearing sports jackets and crew-cuts, who looked as if they might have played on the same football field with Malcolm’s guardian, Ben, quickly joined the party and led them to a large and gleaming Cadillac sedan. There, Shayne and Lucy were ensconced on the rear seat, while one of the young men sat on a little seat, after effectively checking the redhead for possible weapons. The other young man slid behind the wheel, and A. E. Borden joined him in front, looking over the back of the seat at the redhead and Lucy.

“I wish to stress again,” she told them, as the big car silently got under way, “that we mean no harm to either of you. But it is essential that we find a certain paper. Therefore, Shayne, it is equally essential we search you. And your office is hardly a convenient place. Some of your friends might drop in at an embarrassing moment.”

“What the devil makes you so sure I have it?” the redhead asked.

“Because it hasn’t been found elsewhere,” she replied quietly. “I assure you, our search has been thorough. Had the Malcolms found it, they would not have called you in to help. If Ferrell’s manservant had had it on him, the police would have found it. You were probably dickering over the price with Donald Malcolm when you saw him, a little while ago. Oh, yes, we know about that, too. You had no time to stash it in your office, since I was there. Your car was searched just now.”

“Even if I did have it in my possession,” said the detective, “why are you so sure I couldn’t have disposed of it elsewhere?”

“If you’re thinking of your friend Rourke,” was the devastating reply, “he was easy. I am not the only female member of my organisation.”

For the moment, the detective was stopped cold. He knew Tim’s weakness all too well where attractive women were concerned. No wonder the Malcolms were desperate, he thought. Fighting this woman was like fighting the G-Men and Gestapo combined.

They might have been coursing their way over the palm-lined boulevards of Miami Beach to any of the innumerable early-season cocktail routes just getting under way — pleasure seekers in a world dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure, at the highest possible prices. The chauffeur drove smoothly, elegantly, to match the elegance of his car. They entered the crushed shell driveway of a chateau whose neo-Norman magnificence made the luxury of the Malcolm’s pseudo-Italian villa look, relatively, like something from Tobacco Road.

“If you’re wondering about the servants,” said A. E. Borden, removing her smart green hat and dropping it casually on a mosaic-topped table, “it’s Thursday night.” Then, to Lucy, charmingly, “We might as well wait in here until the men have finished their business.” She added, with a grimace, as though this was a cocktail party, “Men...!”

The two huskies took the redhead into a sort of playroom. It was floored with linoleum in a flagstone design and remarkably free of furniture, save for low, detachable sofa-and-chair units and hassocks. Evidently, the centre of the chamber was reserved for a non-present ping pong table. A curved bar occupied a far corner, a bar well stocked with liquor and glasses.

For once, the detective felt out-flanked and outnumbered. The devil of it was, A. E. Borden — he wondered, briefly, what the initials stood for — had managed the entire affair with a competence that was almost stupefying. Even if he and Lucy — granted they got out of it — went to the police with kidnapping charges, they could never hope to make them stick. It would be their word against that of A. E. Borden and her two young men — and they’d be lucky to escape counter-charges of trying to prove a shakedown of some sort.

But Shayne wasn’t given much time to think. If he had thought, before entering the playroom, that his hostess’s two bully-boys looked like ex-athletes, he had no doubt of it once they went to work on him. There was no violence in their actions — save for the action itself. The redhead felt his fury mounting as, calmly, disinterestedly, they set about removing his clothes. His every muscle, every nerve-end, ached for violent action — but the thought of Lucy under the threat of A. E. Borden’s gold-plated pistol held him in tight rein.

When it was over, the larger of them said, “No hard feelings, Shayne. This was just another job that had to be done.”

“Too bad you went to the trouble,” said the redhead. “As you can see, I haven’t got what your mistress wants.”

“We just had to be sure,” said the other. “No offence.”

The casual, offhand attitude of his captors added the final bit of pressure that blew the cork from his self-control. By this time, he had struggled back into his shirt and trousers. He picked up his coat from the throw-together sofa where they had carefully laid it, then opened it as if to put it on — and threw it over the head of the shorter husky, leaving him temporarily blinded. With every ounce of muscle and anger he could command, he swung a savage one-two against the unprotected chin of the larger of his tormentors.

The big fellow staggered back two paces, a look of surprise on his thick features. The redhead ducked low, weaving under a barrage of counter-blows, and planted another combination, well below the belt. This time, his assailant doubled up, and Shayne swung quickly, just as his other foe, having tossed the jacket clear of his head, came in with both fists swinging.

Mike took a left to the side of the head that made him see lightning, managing to avoid a right hook that slipped past the back of his skull. Then he brought one of his own heels down hard on his attacker’s instep, had the satisfaction of hearing him cry out in pain and, momentarily, drop his guard. In a lightning judo blow, Shayne drove the edge of his right hand against the left side of this opponent’s neck, momentarily paralysing him. He planted a swinging straight left on the inner point of the other side of the man’s jaw, just below the ear, and watched him drop like a dead deer.

“That’s enough, Shayne — I think the boys have had their quota of exercise for the day,” said a low, amused contralto from the doorway. He looked around, to see A. E. Borden standing there, cigarette in hand, regarding him with a mixture of mockery and admiration in her pale green eyes. “Sometimes,” she added, “I believe I got into the wrong business — I should have been a prize-fight manager. I love to watch men knocking each other’s brains out.”

Shayne advanced on her grimly, keeping a wary eye out for his two defeated opponents. He said, “Now, Borden, if you have done anything to—”

“Your little lady is waiting in the living room,” said A. E. Borden, stepping back to let him pass. “I think you’ll find her comfortable.”

Seconds later, Lucy was in his arms, crying, “Mike, honey — are you all right?”

“You should see the two other guys,” said A. E. Borden drily. “That’s quite a man you’ve got there, my friend. Better take good care of him if you want to keep him.” Then, dropping mockery, to Shayne, “I’m sorry we couldn’t get together, Shayne, because I think we could do business. You’ll understand, I hope, that I had to be sure.” She frowned, her thoughts drifting elsewhere, then added, “By the way, I had your car brought over. You’ll find it waiting outside.”

Shayne didn’t bother saying farewell. He went out with Lucy fast.

VI

The darkness of a late November evening had already mantled the magic city, and the long row of luxury hotels was ablaze with its nocturnal jewellery of neon and electricity, as the detective drove Lucy back to her apartment. He could feel her trembling as she nestled close against him in the front of the sedan. He placed a reassuring hand on her thigh and said, “I’m sorry, angel, but it’s okay now.”

“That woman scares me to death,” Lucy told him.

“Me, too,” he admitted. “She’s the most cold-blooded, efficient human being I’ve ever met in my life — I’m not sure ‘human’ is the word for her.”

“That isn’t what scares me most about her,” Lucy told him in a very small voice. “It’s what she said about you. What if she should decide she wanted you?”

“That,” he told her grimly, “would be the second time I disappointed her. I’d as soon tangle with a queen cobra — if there is such an animal.”

“But she’s beautiful!” Lucy sounded close to tears.

“So is a cobra,” the redhead replied. “What did you two talk about while I was playing games in the rumpus room?”

“Mostly about you,” said Lucy. “She’s interested, Mike. That’s what scared me so when she made that last crack.”

“Well,” said Shayne, “perhaps she is human, if only because she can be wrong. She wasted a lot of effort to find out I don’t have that damned piece of paper.”

He dropped her off at her apartment and said, “Better stay put until you hear from me, Angel. This seems to be developing into quite an operation.”

“Mike,” she said, holding him close, “you’ll be careful, won’t you? After all, these people mean nothing to you.”

“Maybe not,” said the redhead, thinking of Lois Malcolm and the spot she was in. “Maybe not, but I’ve taken on a job.” He kissed her good night and waited, there in the car, until he saw her safely inside the building. Then he got the car going again.

The next step, he decided, was his office. He needed it as a head-quarters while he did some telephoning and decided upon the tactics best calculated to recover the missing document and bring the killer of Duke Ferrell into the open. Tim Rourke, he hoped, might have picked up something — and he wanted to see what he could dig out of Len Sturgis and Homicide. Then...

He took the stairs to his office two at a time, seeking physical release for the rage he still felt at the ease with which the green-eyed woman had handled him. Sooner or later, he told himself grimly, he was going to settle the score with A. E. Borden — and not merely by engaging in physical combat with her brood of huskies. The muscle-men involved in high finance might not be underworld types, but they packed plenty of punch.

To his surprise, he found a caller awaiting him in the corridor, outside his office door. It was Seton, the Duke’s manservant. The little man with the immense nose and the double-bags under his eyes looked considerably the worse for wear than he had in the morning. There were signs, evident to the detective’s practiced eye, that he had been given a rough time by the police.

Shayne walked up to him and said, “So they let you go — that’s good. I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Seton. Come on ins—”

He broke off. The odd little man was looking at him with an expression of sheer horror on his oddly-shaped, somewhat battered face. He said, “Mr. Shayne — your...” His eyes rolled upward under their lids, he uttered an odd little moaning sound and pitched forward into the detective’s arms.

The detective caught him, wondering briefly what to do with him. His first impulse was to take him into the office and bring him around. But Seton was light as a girl in his arms, and the detective had been planning a thorough look at the late Duke Ferrell’s apartment. Even though the police and A. E. Borden’s aides had already searched it, there was a chance...

He was beginning to wonder if the Borden group was as efficient as it seemed on the surface. After all, they had made one big mistake — in kidnapping Lucy and himself, under the impression that he had the vanished document on his person. They might have made other slipups as well — and the police had not known what to search for that morning.

He carried the little man downstairs and put him carefully in the front seat of his car. He went around it then, and drove him back across the Bay, to the beach cottage where Harlan Ferrell had lived out his last, misspent season. If the police still had a watch on the house, Seton’s condition gave the detective a perfect legitimate reason for returning to the scene of the crime. But there were no legal guardians in evidence when Shayne braked his sedan to a halt

The little man appeared to be in a state of shock — evidently, Shayne thought, Sturgis and his boys had given him quite a going over. From the fact they had let him go, however, it was apparent that Seton had not cracked under the pressure. Evidently, there had been a delayed reaction that sight of the redhead had brought on Shayne wondered why Seton had wanted to talk to him.

The cottage door was locked, and the detective felt around in Seton’s pockets until he found a bunch of keys. The little man stirred and uttered a few meaningless sounds, but did not recover consciousness. Shayne tried the keys until he found the proper one and got the door open. Then he went back to his sedan and carried the little manservant inside.

Not knowing the location of the light switches, but recalling a clear path from the front door to the oyster-white, leather sofa, beside which Duke Ferrell had fallen, the redhead carried his caller in and laid him out upon it, planning to hunt for illumination later.

It was just as he bent over that the blow, from some heavy object, hit the back of his head, well behind the ear, causing him almost to pitch forward on top of Seton. There was no sound of warning, and the detective was caught utterly off guard, absorbed as he was in the man he had been carrying.

But the frustration over his earlier mishandling was still strong, and he swung with a snarl, catching a view, in silhouette, of his attacker, whose arm was just moving upward to deliver a second blow. Shayne moved in quickly. His left arm came upward to fend off further attack, brushed a hat from his unknown assailant’s head, and he felt the man’s downward blow averted by the defensive action.

Before his ambusher could make another aggressive move, the detective was swarming all over him, pumping both fists into his belly. He felt flesh cave beneath the power of his attack. He heard the man grunt, gasp and gurgle, then go into retreat. Shayne lifted his attack, smashing at the man’s face, then crowding and tripping him rolling to the soft carpet with him.

Suddenly, he was caught in a circle of light as a powerful flash-beam discovered him in its glare. The soft, familiar voice of Lois Malcolm said, “All right, get up and put up your hands.” There was a gasp, then, “Mike Shayne!”

The redhead looked at the man he had been trying to batter to a pulp. It was Donald Malcolm, and he was shaking his head and saying, “Lemme up, you big ox, lemme up!”

VII

Shayne straightened and ran his fingers through his red hair, as Lois helped her husband to his feet. He found a wall-switch, flooded the cottage living room with light, then looked at the Malcolms with disgust.

It was Lois who spoke first. “I’m sorry, Mike,” she said. “I didn’t think...”

“You,” said the detective “didn’t think, period! Neither, it seems, did this high-powered genius of a husband of yours. What in hell did you believe you were trying to accomplish by coming here?”

“We had to do something,” said Malcolm, mopping blood from his face with a handkerchief. “We couldn’t just sit home and—”

“Isn’t that what your wife hired me to do?” Shayne asked dourly. “Take care of the action so you could sit home and keep your skirts clean?” The Malcolms were essentially nice people and, in the redheads lexicon, nice people should behave like nice people. He added, “What are you going to do when the company starts coming — because company’s coming, and don’t think it isn’t. You can’t go blundering around in a murder case, like a pair of blind giraffes and not expect to draw attention to yourselves.”

“Do you want us to get out of here, Shayne?” Malcolm asked shakily. His face had gone white under the impact of the redhead’s verbal whiplash.

“Suit yourself,” said the disgusted detective. He looked at the sofa, where Seton was sitting up, beginning to take an interest in the proceedings. Catching Shayne’s regard, the little man rose, unsteadily, and removed himself from the centre of the stage.

Again, it was Lois Malcolm who recovered her self-possession ahead of her husband. She said with a touch of dignity that wrung the redhead’s heart, “Come on, darling, I think we’d better keep out of Mike’s way from now on.”

Seton stepped forward, obsequiously, re-assuming his role of perfect manservant. With an, “Excuse me, Sir,” he crossed in front of the detective, stooped and picked up the hat that Shayne had knocked from Donald Malcolm’s head, picking it up, dusting it off and handing it to the Waldex board chairman.

“Your hat, Mr. Malcolm,” he said.

Malcolm took it automatically, offered Lois his arm and turned toward the doorway. It was then that the detective said, “You might as well stay here, both of you and sit in on the fun.”

“What fun, may I ask?” queried Seton, his eyebrows drawn together to meet in a near-perfect Gothic arch above the bridge of his large beak.

“Take it easy, Seton,” said Shayne, good-humouredly. “You’ve had a hard day, and the night isn’t over yet. There may be more hats to handle.”

Donald Malcolm, still hesitating, finally said, “Shayne, I know you and Lois didn’t discuss your fee this morning. But, if this business works out, you can rest assured of a five-figure cheque.” Even with an incipient black-eye beginning to show, Malcolm’s anxiety was pitiable.

“Thanks,” Shayne dismissed the remark almost curtly. To Seton, he said, “Are you feeling well enough to talk a little? I’ve got a hunch you may be able to help us clear this mess up.” His left thumb and forefinger tugged at the lobe of his ear.

“I was hoping to speak with you, Sir,” said Seton. “I thought perhaps we might...” He let it hang, looked meaningfully at the Malcolms.

“It’s all right,” said the detective. “I was just wondering if you were able to give any help to the police this afternoon.”

Sadly, the little man shook his head. “No sir,” he said. “I fear I proved a great disappointment to Mr. Sturgis. He and his assistants seemed to believe I had knowledge I fear I do not possess. I was very fond of Mr. Ferrell, and I only wish I could name the person who shot him.”

“Of course you do,” said Shayne sympathetically.

Lois Malcolm’s remarkable composure finally cracked. She said, “Mike, please! Don’t torment us. Can’t you see what this is doing to Donald? We can face whatever is going to happen, but we’ve got to know. This suspense...”

“I didn’t know myself,” said Shayne, looking at her intently, “until just a moment ago. Now...”

The soft chime of the doorbell interrupted him. He nodded to Seton, who padded across the thick carpet to open it. Moments later, A. E. Borden strode into the room alone, clad in a shimmering, skin-fitting, green gown that made her resemble a glittering butterfly. The twin wings of her black-ivory brows rose a trifle as she surveyed the company present.

“I hope,” she began quietly, “that this is not a private session.” Then, to Shayne, all business, “Mike, when I learned you and the Malcolms were headed this way, I thought little Alice Edwina had better hop over herself. Have you closed a deal with them yet?” The pronoun was emphasised scathingly.

“Alice Edwina,” mused the redhead. “I was wondering what the A. E. stood for.” Then, shaking his head, “Not yet, Borden. Not quite...”

“Then here’s my offer,” said A. E. Borden, quietly. “I have another cashier’s check here in my bag, made out to you, Shayne. The amount is fifty thousand dollars.” She waited quietly, watching him.

Malcolm, moved forward, pushing back his wife’s restraining hand. “I’ll meet that,” he said hoarsely, realised their importance.

The air was tense, weighted only with the disgust on the detective’s face. He looked from one to the other of them, finally settled on Seton, said, “All right, you — which offer do you prefer? As a man with an interest in his late master’s property?”

Seton met the redhead’s gaze, then his eyes fell away. He said, “I’ll leave that up to you, Sir, if you don’t mind.”

“Don’t be a fool, Shayne,” A. E. Borden said sharply. “I can offer you a lot more than cash. Once I have control of the corporation, I can make you a millionaire.” Then, to the Malcolms. “Try to meet that with your old-hat company methods!”

“Mike,” Lois Malcolm said, ah most pitifully, “Mike, don’t listen to her. She’ll promise you the moon and give you nothing. She’ll make a fool of you.”

“Something,” Shayne said acidly, “both you and your husband, as well as Alice Edwina, have been doing an excellent job of to-day.” Then, as all serenity fled her face, “Don’t worry, Lois. I’m not going to take it.”

Shayne turned toward the doorway and said, “For Pete’s sake, come in, Len. You’ve taken your own sweet time getting here. I was beginning to think you’d left the place unguarded.”

“The motor patrol had an eye on it,” the hulking detective growled as he moved into the room. “They only reported the lights on ten minutes ago.” He surveyed the assemblage and said, “What is this — a new hotel opening?”

Shayne said, “Len, for your own good, the less you know about it, the better.” He named the Malcolms and A. E. Borden, had the satisfaction of seeing the huge Homicide sleuth change colour as he realised their importance.

But Sturgis was dogged. He said, “They may be the royal family of England, but I’ve still got a shooting to solve. If they had anything to do with it...”

“They didn’t,” said the detective quietly. For the first time since he had been drawn into the case that morning, Shayne felt in command of the situation. “Take my word for it, they had nothing directly to do with it.”

“Then,” said a bewildered Sturgis, “what in hell are they all doing here — now? Having a camp meeting?”

“Their presence here, like mine, is largely accidental,” said Shayne.

“I’ve had about enough of this, Mike,” Sturgis big, homely face was beginning to darken with anger. “I’m looking for a killer. And, if I find out there’s one here...”

“There’s your killer,” said the redhead, nodding toward Seton. “Why don’t you take him away and dig up some proof?”

“Mr. Shayne...!” The manservant’s face turned ashen with panic. “Mr. Shayne, they’ve already questioned me. So help me, I’d rather have died myself than lay a hand on Mr. Ferrell.”

“You didn’t lay a hand on him,” said Shayne. “You didn’t dare — he’d have beaten you to a pulp. Maybe he did a few times. So you shot him instead.”

“But I didn’t have a weapon!” the manservant bleated. “How could I shoot him without a gun?” His eyes were moving back and forth, between Shayne and Len Sturgis, like the eyes of a man watching a tennis rally.

“You probably heaved it into the Bay,” said Shayne. “When you ran out after shooting him, before coming back to ‘discover’ the body. But I don’t think they’ll need a gun.” He swung on Sturgis, “When you had this little rat downtown to-day, I’ll lay odds you didn’t give him a paraffin test.”

“Hell! No!” said Sturgis. “But we can’t test everybody.”

“Not everybody — just him,” said Shayne, nodding at Seton. “You’ll find he had plenty of reason for hating the Duke. Hell, he must have had, living years with a crumb like that. He’s guilty, all right. Look at him!”

Seton cracked. With an odd little animal cry, he flung himself at the redhead, fingers clawed as if he wanted to scratch out his eyes. Shayne caught him easily, held him as he struggled in futility to damage his accuser.

The little man shouted, “All right, so I shot him. But they’re all guilty — every one of them! Why don’t you arrest them all, too? Why don’t you—”

Shayne shut him up with a ringing slap across the mouth, then pushed him into the arms of Len Sturgis. “Better get him out of here,” he said, “before he tries to get you to arrest yourself.”

VIII

When police and killer were gone, A. E. Borden stamped out her cigarette and said, “It might be wise if we pooled to get him a lawyer smart enough to make the little swine keep his trap shut.” Then, when no one else spoke, “Well, shall we start the bidding again?”

“Oh, no!” cried Lois Malcolm “Not after...”

“Why not?” drawled A. E. Borden. “In this instance, it seems to me there is no time like the present. How about it, Mike? You’ve done a good day’s work already. You ought to be paid for it.” She paused, added, “I’ll pay you an extra ten thousand just to learn what you did with that ever-loving document.”

“If you’ve really got it,” said Donald Malcolm, a mite doubtfully.

“I’ve got it, all right,” said Shayne, smiling faintly. “Don’t worry about that. But I have a question or two I’d like to ask.” He eyed the Malcolms, added: “Malcolm, when I crashed your office as Duke Ferrell, you made a remark that pulled me. You said that your wife was supposed to ‘take care’ of me this morning. Since you obviously didn’t know Ferrell was dead, I didn’t query you then...”

He paused to tug at his left ear, then said, “Lois, did you come here this morning to collect that damned paper and pay for it?” And, at her nod, “How much?”

She said, “Ten thousand dollars. Duke said he was letting it go cheap, because he had been fond of Henry Waldemar, and knew Waldemar had liked me.”

“I see,” said the detective. He swung on A. E. Borden and asked, “How much were you willing to pay for it?”

“Fifty grand,” the green-eyed woman said quietly. “Seventy-five if I had to. Our negotiations hadn’t progressed that far. Why? I just made you a better offer.”

“I think,” said Shayne, “that sixty-five grand difference is the reason Seton killed him. Lois, you were just a little too attractive. You charmed Ferrell into selling too cheaply for his health.”

Lois Malcolm’s hand flew to her mouth, and her eyes grew round with horror. But A. E. Borden said, “Who cares why the little beast killed him. Shayne, what about that paper? Are you ready to listen to reason — or money?”

Shayne took a walk around the oyster-white sofa, finally came to a halt in a spot where he could look at all three of them. “You,” he told them, “are all damned attractive people. Lois Craig, if I hadn’t half-fallen in love with you, years ago, I never would have taken the case on at all — and frankly, I wish to heaven I hadn’t. Malcolm, you’re a nice guy, a talented character, a man people like and trust instinctively. As for you, A. E.” — he paused and shook his head — “You made my girl jealous.”

“Thank you!” said A. E., her green eyes bright with speculation.

“Don’t bother,” said Shayne. He paused, went on with, “There’s just one thing wrong with all of you — for one reason or another, you all crave power the way a drunkard craves whisky. And wanting power has made all of you ugly. It has made Lois a conniving, truthless cheat, ostensibly on behalf of her husband’s career. It has made her husband a thief at least once, perhaps more — I wouldn’t know. And you, A. E. — your craving has turned you into a caricature of everything a man wants in a woman.”

“Just a minute, Shayne,” Malcolm rose from the sofa he was sharing with his wife. “Just because you hold the whip-hand, you can’t talk that way to—”

Shayne stared him down, then said wearily, “Do I have to knock some sense into you again, Malcolm — or can’t you face a truth? Anyway, the sermon’s over. Go ahead and have your proxy fight. I can’t stop you. But, if I took a dime from any of you over this mess, I’d be right down to your level — and I have no intention of sinking that far while I’m conscious. Yes, I have that damned paper — but I don’t intend to have it long.”

“Mike! You’re not going to—” Lois began.

“I’m going to destroy it,” the redhead told them.

There was a long, heavy silence. Then A. E. picked up her glittering green purse and stole, and rose grasefully from the chair she had been occupying. “In that case,” she said, “I’ll be going. I know when I’m licked.” She glanced at the Malcolms, added, “But I’ll have at least two seats, on your precious board of directors, come New Year’s Eve, and there’s always a next time.”

Passing Shayne en route to the door, she said, “Mike, you’re exciting when you’re angry. See you later.”

It was long after midnight when Shayne climbed out of his sedan in front of the dark business building where he had his office — but a slim, elegant figure detached itself from the shadows by the entrance and moved into the glow of the corner street lamp. It was A. E. Borden, still clad in the glittering, skin-fitting dress and stole.

“It’s all right, Mike,” she said, opening her evening bag. “See? No artillery.”

Hands on hips, he surveyed her magnificent body with a faint, sardonic smile. “Okay, so I won’t have to frisk you in that outfit. But what in hell are you here for?”

“Mike,” she said quietly, “when I’m outfoxed, I can’t sleep until I know how it was done. I told you I’d pay ten grand to find out what you did with that paper.” Reading his expression correctly, she added hastily, “I’m alone — this time.”

“How did you know I was coming here?” he asked sharply.

She smiled up at him enigmatically, said, “Because we searched your apartment, and it wasn’t there. So you had to come here, if you mean to destroy it. I’ve been waiting.” She nodded toward a Cadillac across the street.

“So I see,” he said. “Now run along home.”

“No, Mike,” she pleaded. “Please — I’ve got to know.”

If she had come close to him, if she had touched him, he would have sent her away. But she did none of these obvious, feminine things. She merely stood there and asked him. To his amazement, he heard himself growl, “Okay, then, come along — but no tricks.”

Not until the office door was safely locked behind him, did he permit himself to relax. Even then, he walked warily, with this glamorous peril so close at hand. He ushered her into the inner office, let her take his usual chair, behind his desk. He lit cigarettes for both of them, perched on the comer and looked down at her, thinking she looked absurdly elegant and feminine in such a spot, for all of her ruthless, executive genius.

She said, “Mike, I’m still waiting.”

“Okay, then,” he repeated, running a hand through his red hair. “You know, you were right about my having the paper on my person — up to a point. The damnedest part of the whole business is that I didn’t know where it was until about three minutes before you crashed the party at the Duke’s cottage.”

She looked at him, frowning slightly, her lips parted. “You didn’t know...? No wonder you were so convincing about not having it. You must have thought I was crazy.”

“I never thought that!” he told her drily. “The tip off came this evening, when I told the Malcolms to go home, and Seton, very much the butler, picked up Malcolm’s hat and handed it to him. You see, he handed me my hat this morning, when I first went to Ferrell’s cottage. He must have been scared the cops would find it on him and nail him as the Duke’s killer, so he took advantage of the opportunity to unload it on me. He planned to contact me later and make some sort of a deal.”

Shayne paused, but green eyes begged him silently to continue. He said, “When I got back from my visit to Malcolm, I hung my hat on the hanger in the outer office, came in here and found you. There was no opportunity to reclaim my hat when you ushered Lucy and me out to — tea.”

“I’m sorry about that,” she said but there was no apology in her manner.

Shayne said, “You aren’t the type to feel sorry for anything you do. You’re... but to hell with it! Anyway, when I got back here, Seton was waiting for me in the corridor. He’d been given a going over by the police, and, when he saw me come up without a hat, it was too much for him. He keeled over.”

Shayne paused, then added, “You know the rest. I made a crack to Seton, once I caught on, about his having other hats to take care of to-night, and he jumped — not much, just enough to show me I was right.”

“One thing I like about you, Mike,” said A. E., stirring lazily in the big chair, “is your assurance. You’re going to look pretty silly if that paper isn’t in the hat. Suppose my boys and I worked it out the same way. Suppose...”

“There’s one way to settle it,” said Shayne.

He strode into the outer office, took his hat from the rack, returned to the other room and opened up the band. It was there — in the form of a handwritten letter to Henry Waldemar from Donald Malcolm, written on thin paper and folded lengthwise, to slip under the hatband without notice.

Shayne read it, then looked down at A. E., who regarded him impassively, with the faintest of smiles. Then, deliberately, he turned his back on her, went to the window, lit a match, fired the letter and held it outside until it was consumed to fluttering ash in the night. When he turned around, he say that A. E. had risen and was standing over his steel waste container, performing a function similar to that he had just completed.

“What are you burning?” he asked suspiciously.

“Just a piece of paper,” she said, quite seriously. “A cheque for fifty thousand dollars.”

Shayne looked at A. E., then at the remains of the cheque, then at the window. “Move over,” he told her, “so I can get at the desk drawers. I think this calls for a drink.”