One Night with Nora Page 6

  It was all clear now. The young man, the supposedly innocent bystander who had met him at the filling-station, and told a glib story of being hired for the job of guiding him, had drawn a gun as Shayne drove up to park beside the waiting car, and fired it when he was looking to his left, expecting danger from that direction.

  It was a smart trick, he conceded grimly. Had he not turned his head leftward and lowered it a little he would probably still be lying in the front seat of his car with a bullet hole through his brain. As it was, the shot had barely grazed the bone, but the impact had rendered him unconscious.

  Again he swore at his stupidity, certain, now, that there had been no other man in the deal.

  He got in the car, opened the glove compartment, and took out a pint bottle half filled with cognac. He drew the cork and drank deeply. The warmth of the liquor cleared his mind. He started the motor and drove to the boulevard to join a stream of city-bound cars.

  He stopped at the first drive-in he came to, and he went into a small foyer, where a rack of morning papers caught his eye. A Herald extra was inked across the front page in huge letters, and beneath it a headline in bold black type read:

  Mike Shayne’s Girl Friday Jailed.

  Shayne glared at the headline, picked up the extra, and went into the restaurant with it tucked under his arm.

  He was spreading the paper out on the table when a shapely blonde clad in a yellow halter and sky-blue shorts came to his booth.

  “A pot of coffee to start with,” said Shayne tersely.

  “Coming up,” she said, and whirled away.

  It was air-conditioned in the roadside restaurant, but beads of sweat stood on Shayne’s forehead and trickled into the trenches of his cheeks as he began to read.

  Petite, brown-haired Lucy Hamilton, long-time secretary and confidant of Private Detective Michael Shayne, was jailed early this morning on orders from Chief of Police Will Gentry. Miss Hamilton was charged with common burglary.

  The arresting officer was Patrolman Mark Hanna Hagen, who was personally commended by Chief Gentry for apprehending Miss Hamilton and securing a full confession from her.

  According to an exclusive interview granted by Officer Hagen to a representative of this paper, he surprised the prisoner lurking in the bedroom of a local hotel which had been engaged the previous afternoon by another guest.

  “She claimed that it was just a natural mistake,” Officer Hagen stated. “That she was a guest in the hotel and the clerk had given her the wrong key. She also tried to cover up with a story of having been attacked by some man immediately upon entering the room, which prevented her from noticing her mistake until she was caught there.”

  The story went on to say that due to the early hour of the morning, and the fact that he had seen no one fleeing from the hotel, he correctly assessed Miss Hamilton’s story to be an outright falsehood.

  Miss Hamilton tearfully confessed to a long career of petty hotel-room thievery, aided by a male accomplice whose name she steadfastly refused to reveal.

  Shayne’s head ached and his nostrils flared with anger. He was interrupted by the waitress with a pot of coffee and cup and saucer which she set before him.

  “Three scrambled eggs with crisp bacon and buttered toast,” Shayne ordered curtly. He sipped his coffee as he resumed reading the Herald’s version of Lucy’s arrest.

  The next paragraph told of the modus operandi as set forth in Lucy’s confession, of Officer Hagen’s frank admission that he had no idea whatsoever of the real identity of Miss Hamilton, nor of the bombshell that would be exploded by her arrest. Thinking it merely a routine crime, the up-and-coming young officer immediately hustled her to headquarters and booked her on a Jane Doe warrant when she refused to give her name and the name of her accomplice.

  At police headquarters, however, she had the misfortune to be recognized by an eagle-eyed representative of the Herald as none other than Lucy Hamilton, secretary to the notorious and headline-grabbing crime-buster, Michael Shayne.

  As soon as her identity was established, Miss Hamilton was taken before Chief of Police Will Gentry for questioning where it is believed she refused to implicate her employer by naming him as her accomplice.

  When questioned on this point, Chief Gentry refused to give a statement to the press, stating only that Miss Hamilton had stood on her constitutional rights and refused to divulge further information without advice of counsel.

  Shayne folded the paper four ways, put it in his pocket, eased his chair back, got up, went to a telephone booth, and dialed a number.

  When a man’s voice answered, he grated, “Have you read the Herald extra?”

  “Mike!” the voice exploded. “Of course I’ve read it. What the devil is this all about?”

  “What have you done about it?”

  “Nothing yet. I’ve practically blasted the telephone system trying to reach you.”

  “Hell of a mouthpiece you are!” Shayne cut in bitterly. “Take your butt in both hands and get down there and release Lucy.”

  “Sure, Mike.” The voice was placating, but worried. “What’s it all about?”

  “What the hell do you care?” Shayne interrupted hotly. “Get her out of jail. I need her at the office.”

  “Right. Where’ll you be?”

  “At my office. I’ll expect her in half an hour.”

  Shayne hung up. All through the Herald article he had felt sick with a sense of guilt and responsibility for Lucy’s predicament. Now that he had unloaded part of it on his lawyer’s shoulders, he managed a semblance of a grin for his secretary’s determination not to involve him.

  “The crazy kid,” he muttered to himself as he returned to the table where the waitress had placed his breakfast.

  The pain in his head had subsided to a monotonous throb, and the aroma of bacon and eggs reminded him that he was very hungry. He poured another cup of coffee and attacked his breakfast with relish.

  The Herald’s story didn’t bother him. They had been sniping at him, ineffectually, for a long time.

  The important thing now was that Lucy had evidently been unable to get the letter he had hoped she would find in Mrs. Carrol’s room. So that angle was out. So what angle was left?

  One break for him, a lucky one, was that neither Gentry nor Officer Hagen had disclosed to the Herald reporter the name of the woman whose room Lucy was in at the Commodore. If they had hooked up Lucy’s arrest with Carrol’s murder, or had gotten to Nora Carrol, and been told by her that Michael Shayne had lured her into his bed at the time her husband was murdered; there would have been an entirely different story in the Herald.

  Shayne wiped sweat from his face as he considered this. It would be only a matter of time, of course, until the story did come out. A lot depended on Bates and what he did or did not bring with him from Wilmington in the way of documentary evidence.

  In the meantime, there were other angles screaming for investigation. A big clock above the counter told him the time was ten o’clock. He gulped the last of his coffee, put two one-dollar bills on the table, and went out to his car.

  Eight minutes later he parked his car near his office on Flagler Street.

  Two huge plain-clothes men stood in the corridor just outside his office door, and both appeared acutely uncomfortable at his approach.

  Controlling his anger, Shayne said, “Morning, boys,” pleasantly. “You here to drag me in for prowling hotel rooms in the wee small hours of the morning?” He recognized one of the men. Len Sturgis.

  Sturgis dragged a hat from his bald head and said, “Nothing like that, Shayne. You going to open up now?”

  “Sure. Sorry I’m late.” He unlocked the door, opened it, and asked, “Been waiting long?”

  “Not too long,” said Sturgis.

  They started to follow him inside, but Shayne blocked the doorway. “Only clients allowed inside.”

  “We got a search warrant,” Sturgis insisted. “Give us credit, Mike, for waiting instead of b
usting in before you got here.”

  Shayne hesitated, his lips flattening against his teeth. Then he stepped back. “All right. I give you credit for not breaking in. Let’s see your warrant.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sturgis, the senior detective, gravely unfolded a document he had taken from his pocket and handed it to the detective. Shayne read it through carefully, his rangy body still blocking the doorway.

  “All right. Come right in, the joint is yours.” He turned his back on them, crossed the reception room, and went into his private office, where he pulled out one of the steel drawers of a filing-cabinet and reached inside.

  “Hold it, Mike,” Sturgis said from the doorway. “You know I can’t let you destroy evidence.”

  “Evidence of what?” Shayne demanded.

  “What we’re looking for. Your file on Ralph Carrol.”

  Shayne’s hand came out holding a bottle of cognac. He said, “Everything in this cabinet is ancient history, including this cognac, I hope. You won’t mind if I destroy a little of it?” He carried it back to his desk and sat down. “Go right ahead and examine my files. If you find anything on the Carrol case I’ll be interested to see it.”

  “Where do you keep recent correspondence? No use tearing everything up.”

  Shayne poured cognac into a glass and took a drink. “You’ll have to ask Lucy about the current files,” he said. “I don’t know where she keeps things.”

  “You know she won’t be here today,” said Sturgis patiently.

  “All right. So you lock her up on a bum rap and then come crying around because she’s not here to help you go through my private papers. To hell with it.” He settled back and lit a cigarette.

  Sturgis’s partner came to the door and said, “Hey, Len, there’s a file out here at the reception desk marked ‘Current Correspondence.’ Nothing in it on Carrol.”

  The telephone on Lucy Hamilton’s desk rang. Shayne got up and trotted into the outer room. The other detective turned hastily toward the phone. Shayne slammed a big hand on his shoulder and jerked him back.

  “Keep your goddamned hand off my phone.” All the frustrated rage that had been boiling inside the redhead since early morning was in his voice.

  “Better be careful who you push around, shamus,” the big plain-clothes man growled while the phone continued to ring.

  “Hold it, Gene.” Len Sturgis spoke placidly from the inner doorway. “Let him answer his phone.”

  The detective stepped aside reluctantly. Shayne picked up the receiver and barked, “Hello,” but all he heard was the buzz of the dial tone. He slammed the instrument down and turned to face the detective. “Next time you get in my way like that, I’ll give you a hell of a good excuse for putting me in a cell with my secretary.”

  “You listen to me, shamus,” the man began belligerently, but Sturgis stopped him with a curt: “That’s plenty, Gene. A search warrant doesn’t give you the right to push anybody around. Get on with searching the files.”

  Shayne turned back to the desk, fumbled with the buttons, found and pushed the one that sent calls directly into his private office, then went back to his own desk.

  Len Sturgis was standing in front of the steel filing-cabinet with all the drawers pulled out. He said, “Don’t pay any attention to Gene. What does give on the Carrol murder, Mike? You holding out on the chief?”

  “I’m not holding out a damned thing,” Shayne said bitterly. “You tell me about Carrol.”

  “We got nothing,” Sturgis assured him. “The guy was found lying on his bed murdered, front and back doors locked tight. No visitors anybody knows about. No suspicious fingerprints in the joint. There’s his wife—the dame Will Gentry brought up to identify him. All I know is, the chief is plenty steamed up about catching Lucy Hamilton prowling Mrs. Carrol’s hotel room.”

  Shayne took another drink and, avoiding Sturgis’s eyes, asked, “How do you know it was Mrs. Carrol’s room? The newspapers missed that item.”

  “Yeh. But I was there when Gentry sent Mark Hagen to take her to her hotel. I heard him telling Hagen on the side to take a look around to see if he could find a letter from you in her room. So it’s easy to figure where Hagen found your secretary, and what she was looking for. Now there’s a gal for you!” he went on admiringly. “Damned if she’s not worth ten of the jerks, like Gene in there, that I got to work with. She sure took Hagen for a ride, and he don’t even know it yet. That story he gave the Herald!” Sturgis chuckled. “You mind too much if I lift a drink, Mike?”

  “Help yourself,” Shayne said absently.

  So, Gentry had caught it, too? Nora Carrol’s faint hesitancy before she declared she had destroyed her letter from Michael Shayne! Well, Gentry had been in the business as long, or longer, than he, himself. It wasn’t surprising that the police chief had been just as quick to check the possibility that she was lying about destroying the letter.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Timothy Rourke’s sanguine voice saying, “Hi there, Gene. You taking over Miss Hamilton’s job?”

  Then Shayne heard quick footsteps in the corridor. He shoved his chair back and stood up as Lucy Hamilton entered the outer office. She wore the light suit and yellow scarf, and looked trim and personable despite her incarceration.

  Shayne stepped around the desk, took her in his arms, and held her tightly, pressing her face against his chest.

  Timothy Rourke sauntered in. The hard-bitten reporter from the Daily News had a cynical smile on his cadaverous face. He stopped just inside the door and struck a melodramatic pose as he declaimed, “My kingdom for a camera! If only I could get a shot of this and print it with the caption, ‘All is Forgiven!’ I might get myself an extra, too.”

  Rourke was an old and privileged friend. Shayne grinned at him briefly over Lucy’s head, then slipped his fingers under her chin and tilted her face upward. “Was it tough, angel?”

  “Not so bad.” She was smiling now, and her eyes were luminous. “I wasn’t worried in jail. Not really. After all, Michael, it wasn’t the first time. Remember New Orleans?”

  Shayne nodded somberly. He remembered New Orleans. They had been arrested together that time. That was when he first met Lucy Hamilton. She hadn’t known him at all, but she had trusted him from the very beginning.

  He took his arm from around her waist and said, “Sturgis, here, and his pal out there, have a search warrant, angel. They’re looking for our file on the Carrol case. Can you help them find it?”

  Lucy shook her head and looked at Sturgis with astonishment. “Carrol? Carrol who?”

  “Ralph Carrol,” Sturgis supplied. “The guy who was bumped in the apartment right above Mike’s last night.”

  “Then you’re wasting your time,” Lucy told him. “We don’t have any file on any Carrol.”

  Shayne shrugged and said, “There you are, Len. Right from the horse’s mouth.” He patted Lucy’s’shoulder and added, “Show him where and how you file everything.” He turned to Rourke who was sitting on a corner of the desk swinging one thin leg back and forth.

  “Did you and Lucy come here together?” he asked.

  “Almost. She was delayed a minute in the corridor—ah—by a powder puff, I believe.”

  “Where did you find her?”

  “I’ve been hanging around waiting for you to spring her ever since I got the flash she was locked up. Where in hell have you been, Mike? And, for chrissake, what happened to your head? Nobody’s been able to locate hide or hair of you since you ducked out of your hotel about four o’clock. Will Gentry is fit to be tied.”

  “Gentry can go fly a kite,” said Shayne shortly, ignoring the reference to his wound. He glanced at Lucy and Sturgis who were busy at the filing-cabinet, then asked Rourke in a low voice, “What do you know about this whole thing?”

  “Only what I read in the Herald, and tidbits I’ve picked up here and there.” Rourke spread out his bony fingers and lowered his slaty eyes to examine them carefully. “The rumor
is floating around that you’re in the Carrol murder up to your neck. I’ve heard all sorts of stuff, including something about Carrol was suing his wife for divorce and naming you as corespondent.”

  Shayne grinned briefly, then said, “You can deny that one categorically.”

  “How do you fit into it, Mike? Can I also deny that Mrs. Carrol was sleeping with you last night while her husband was getting himself bumped off?”

  Shayne signaled for him to keep his voice low and glanced significantly at Lucy. “Are they saying that?”

  “And more,” Rourke assured him. “No one seems to know what any of it is about, and Gentry refuses to make any statement. I’ve got to have something, Mike, to combat the Herald’s extra.”

  “I’ll give you something just as soon as I get it myself,” Shayne promised. He paused abruptly and listened to heavy footsteps in the outer office.

  Will Gentry rumbled, “Making any headway, Benton?”

  “Not much, sir,” Detective Gene Benton replied. “Shayne has been throwing his weight around and refusing to help any.”

  The chief came stolidly through the inner doorway. His face was gray and rumpled, and his suit looked as though he had slept in it. “Where in hell have you been, Mike?” he demanded.

  “Places,” he replied.

  “You damned sure ducked out of sight in a hurry. You knew I’d be right back when I left your apartment, but you were gone when I got there.”

  Shayne shrugged and said, “Someone has to solve your murder cases for you.”

  “All right. So you’ve solved it. That’s just fine.” Gentry turned to Sturgis and asked, “You and Benton about through here?”

  “We haven’t found anything, Chief.”

  “I didn’t expect you to,” Gentry told him gruffly.

  “Just sent them here to needle me a little, eh?”

  Gentry looked at him with weary eyes and growled, “Why did you send Lucy to Mrs. Carrol’s hotel room last night?”

  “For the same reason you sent Hagen home with her, I guess. The way she acted I had a hunch that letter she said was signed by me might still be lying around. I wanted it.”