Bronson crunched noisily on a crisp slice of bacon and slid a quarter of the egg and toast into his mouth. He didn’t look up or say anything.
Shayne leaned back and crossed his legs, got a Picayune and lit it, and blew a puff of smoke toward the canary-yellow ceiling. He tossed the match into the big palm pot and said, “Michael Shayne.” He continued gravely, “I’m a detective, and I want to ask you some questions about Tim Rourke.”
Bronson chewed and swallowed, his triple chins quivering. He took a sip of coffee and said, “That’s preposterous. I’ve told Chief Painter everything I know.”
“Did you tell him you went to Tim’s apartment directly from your office Tuesday night?”
Bronson laid down his knife and fork. “I did no such thing.”
“I can prove you did.”
“You can prove nothing,” Bronson sputtered. “Confound it, man, you’ll give me indigestion, upsetting my breakfast this way. If Painter wants any further information why didn’t he come himself?”
“Did you find those murder affidavits in Rourke’s desk that night?”
“I did not,” said Bronson irritably, and filled his mouth again.
“What was in the Manila envelope you carried away with you?”
Bronson’s face reddened and he seemed about to choke with rage and improperly masticated food. He poured half a glass of water down his throat and said, “I’ve been over all that ground with Painter. He has the envelope intact. I explained to him that I brought them home with me, planning to see Rourke the next morning.”
“Was Tim already shot and nearly dead when you reached his apartment?”
Bronson stared icily at Shayne for a moment, picked up his knife and fork and started eating again, disregarding Shayne and his leading question.
The maid came in with some letters on a silver tray. She placed the tray beside Bronson’s plate and murmured, “Excuse me, the mail, sir,” and hurried away.
Bronson glanced aside at the tray and poked at the letters with a fat forefinger. He frowned at the one in a big square white envelope, studied it for a moment, and went on with his breakfast. He cleaned his plate, finished one cup of coffee, and poured another from the tall urn, added a liberal portion of thick cream, stirred in two heaping teaspoonfuls of sugar, then slit open three of the envelopes with the letter opener on the tray. He didn’t open the one Shayne was interested in. He ignored the detective’s presence in the room and glanced cursorily through the letters.
After laying the three aside, he opened Dilly Smith’s letter. Shayne leaned his head back and let smoke dribble from his nostrils, watching Bronson’s face with slitted eyes.
The editor took a long time reading it. His expression did not change. He refolded the letter and replaced it in the envelope, tucked it in his pocket. He leisurely sipped his coffee and looked at Shayne in the manner of one whose patience is entirely exhausted. He said gruffly, “Did you say you were a detective?”
Shayne nodded. “And a friend of Tim Rourke’s,” he amplified.
Bronson took a cigar from his vest pocket and lit it, pushed his chair back a little from the table, and turned to face Shayne. “I believe I’ve heard your name in connection with various unsavory exploits more or less outside the law here in Miami,” he said.
“More or less,” Shayne agreed quietly.
“I’m quite sure Chief Painter is doing everything that can be done to arrest the man who shot Rourke.”
“Why were you so hell-bent on keeping Rourke’s expose out of your paper?”
Bronson looked pained. “I don’t feel that my editorial policy is a matter for discussion.”
“The person who shot Rourke didn’t want that stuff printed either,” Shayne told him harshly.
“Are you insinuating that I-that I-?” Bronson choked over the enormity of the insinuation.
“You were sore as hell that night,” Shayne said coldly. “You got Rourke’s address from your office file and started out at nine-thirty with his pay check and personal belongings to give them to him. Why didn’t you?”
“I’ve explained to Chief Painter that I changed my mind and came directly home.”
“You didn’t reach here until after ten-thirty.” Shayne tried a shot in the dark, but it produced no effect.
Bronson waved his cigar and said, “I didn’t notice the exact time I arrived.”
“You left your office at nine-thirty.”
“Then I must have reached home not later than ten,” said Bronson. “I regret the attack on Rourke very deeply. If you can convince me that a private detective might prove useful in solving the case, I might consider retaining you.”
Shayne grinned and said lightly, “I’m on the trail of a few clues Painter has overlooked. One of them is a Colt automatic. Serial number four-two-one-eight-nine-three.”
Bronson’s expression did not change even so much as the flicker of an eyelash. He calmly drew on his cigar, then asked, “The-er-weapon that figured in the attack on Rourke?”
“We’ll know more about that after we make a ballistic test on a bullet fired from it.” Shayne shrugged and got up.
Mr. Bronson detained him by asking, “You say the police know nothing about this clue?”
“Not yet.”
Bronson was breathing heavily and his eyes were low-lidded. “Perhaps Chief Painter has been negligent,” he said with sudden friendliness. “Would you be interested in a retainer?”
“I’ll be frank with you, Bronson,” said Shayne grimly. “For once in my life I’m more interested in solving a case than in getting paid for it. I won’t work any harder for a fee than without one, so you might as well save your money. I’m out to get the guy who shot Tim Rourke.”
“Come now, Mr. Shayne. That doesn’t sound like the things I’ve heard about you. I may as well tell you I’ve been considering a public reward through the Courier. Quite a substantial reward, since the integrity of the press is involved. Perhaps twenty-five thousand.”
Shayne got it then. He got it very suddenly. He thought fast and played along in a hurry. “Why don’t you try an ad in the personal column?”
“Perhaps I will, Mr. Shayne.” He looked up at Shayne with a stony stare. “If that’s all you have to say to me now-”
“That’s all-right now,” Shayne said, and walked out through the living-room. He strode out rapidly and got in his car, frowning over the figure Bronson had offered. He didn’t know whether it was good or bad to have Walter Bronson think he was the originator of the note demanding 25 grand to keep still about a certain. 32 automatic. It opened up a lot of possibilities, but he couldn’t yet foresee where they might lead.
Chapter Thirteen: DOGGING SOME CLUES
Shayne was still sitting in his car parked outside the Bronson estate when a limousine rolled out of the driveway and turned in the opposite direction. The managing editor of the Courier was driving, and he didn’t appear to notice Shayne’s car.
Shayne sat on, undecided as to his next move, trying to straighten out some of the angles but not getting very far. Right now there were too damned many angles.
After several minutes he got out and walked back to the Bronson home and pushed the door button again. The same rosy-cheeked maid opened the door. She said, “Oh, it’s you again, sir.”
“I forgot something and came back. Mr. Bronson still here?”
“Oh, no, sir, he’s left for the office.”
Shayne scowled to show his irritation and disappointment. “He won’t be back until night, I suppose?”
“He doesn’t usually come back, but-”
“Mrs. Bronson will do just as well,” Shayne said and started forward. “Will you ask if she’ll see me for a moment?”
“Oh, no, sir,” the girl said in some alarm. “Mrs. Bronson is too ill to see anyone.”
“Ill?” Shayne stopped inside the door. “I didn’t know that. What’s the matter with her?”
“I’m not sure. Some sort of stroke, I guess,”
the girl said in a hushed voice. “She hasn’t been out of her room for two whole days. Mr. Bronson gave strict orders she wasn’t to be disturbed for anything.”
“That’s too bad.” Shayne tugged at his left ear lobe and stared absently at the maid. “Does she look really ill?”
“I haven’t seen her.”
“Who takes her meals up?”
“Mr. Bronson carries up a tray every morning and night. She must be quite sick because she doesn’t eat much.”
“But you must go in to make up her bed and clean up,” Shayne persisted.
“Oh, no, sir. Mr. Bronson said we weren’t to bother her at all.” Agnes hesitated, her eyes downcast, and then said swiftly, “Cook and I have been wondering. It seems very strange. We’ve been wondering if she has something bad-catching, you know. We thought maybe that’s why he waits on her himself and won’t let us go in.”
Shayne said, “H-m-m. Who’s her doctor?”
“That’s just it,” she told him, her blue eyes round and grave. “They haven’t had any doctor. Mr. Bronson says it’s just sort of a nervous breakdown and all she needs is rest, but-”
“When did this breakdown occur exactly?”
“It was Wednesday morning when he first told us we were to stay away from upstairs and not disturb her.”
“And you haven’t seen her since then?”
The maid shook her flaxen head earnestly. “He-locks the door when he leaves in the morning. I know because I forgot yesterday morning and tried to get in.”
Shayne said, “I guess it’s nothing to worry about if he hasn’t called in a doctor. Don’t tell him I came back. We’ve got a deal on and he wouldn’t like it if he knew I’d forgot something. You know how he is about things like that.”
“I certainly do,” she said unhappily, and looked up at him wistfully.
Shayne pinched her pointed chin and said, “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,” again, and went out. He didn’t waste any time sitting and thinking this time, but drove straight to police headquarters in Miami. Chief Will Gentry greeted him by announcing, “I just talked to the hospital. Rourke’s condition is encouraging. If he hangs on another twelve hours the crisis will be past.”
Shayne said, “Swell. That sounds better than the report I got at six-thirty this morning.” He sat down and ruffled his bristly red hair. “Seen anything of Jorgensen this morning?”
“Just long enough to find out you’re giving my men their orders,” Gentry answered with a grin. “He’s looking up some man named Dillingham Smith.”
“Here’s something else on Smith,” Shayne told him. “Though he’s kept his room at the Front Hotel, he’s been holed up at the LaCrosse Apartments on Fourteenth Street for the past couple of weeks. That’s another lead for Jorg to check. And I didn’t say anything last night about putting a tail on Smith, but I think you’d better. Particularly from two o’clock on. After the Courier Blue Flash is out. I want the exact time Smith makes any telephone calls after he reads the Blue Flash.”
Gentry was making notations on a sheet of paper as Shayne spoke. He nodded without looking up. “Anything else?”
“Not just now,” Shayne said after hesitating briefly.
Gentry shoved the sheet back and looked up, rolling the butt of his cigar from port to starboard in his mouth. “How does this Smith figure, Mike?”
“I don’t know,” Shayne told him honestly. “This is a blind case. I’m just following up anything and everything I come across. Smith is a friend of the woman found dead in her bedroom on the Beach last night.”
“Rankin?” Gentry scowled and demanded, “What did you and Painter tangle over?”
“I happened to be visiting the girl on the other side of the duplex when Petey’s men turned up. You know how he is. He wouldn’t believe my being there was just a coincidence.”
“Do you blame him?” Gentry asked gravely.
“No,” Shayne admitted with a grin. “It always did get Painter’s goat for me to be Johnny-on-the-spot like that. How’d you know we tangled?”
“I called him this morning to ask if he saw any hookup between the Rankin murder and the others, He started cussing and told me to ask you, and slammed up the receiver.”
“There is a hookup,” Shayne said tersely. “Madge Rankin had some information she wanted to sell Tim. She got bumped before she could spill it”
“Does Painter know that?”
“I didn’t tell him.”
“You’re playing with dynamite again,” Gentry said and sighed. “When you withhold pertinent information from the authorities you’re lighting a fuse.”
Shayne stood up and said harshly, “Painter had the same chance I did to pick up that dope. A letter from Madge Rankin was in Rourke’s apartment mailbox from Wednesday morning until last night and Painter was too dumb to think of looking for it. To hell with him. I don’t mind doing his work, but I intend to do it my way.”
“Yeh-I know, I know,” Gentry said heavily.
“You know how it is, Will,” Shayne said, softening his tone. “Painter’s likely to barge in if he has an extra scrap of information and spoil everything. I’ve had that trouble with him before.”
“Have it your own way,” the chief called to Shayne on his way out
“Be seeing you,” Shayne called back with a friendly wave of his big hand.
Shayne got in the police coupe and drove around to a small dairy lunch half a block from the Courier offices, went in and dialed the newspaper’s number from a telephone booth. When the switchboard operator answered, he said, “Mr. Bronson’s office,” and waited. In a moment Minerva Higgins’s prim voice came over the wire.
“Mr. Bronson’s office.”
“Mike Shayne, Minerva. I’m in the dairy lunch down the street. Can you slip away a minute? It’s important”
“I guess I can,” Minerva agreed reluctantly.
He hung up and went to a table in the corner and ordered a bottle of milk and two glasses. Minerva came hurrying in a few minutes later. She wore a dinky little hat perched askew the knot of gray hair and she took long, mannish steps in her low-heeled shoes.
Shayne jumped up and pulled a chair out for her and she sank into it. “I can’t be but a minute, Mr. Shayne. Mr. Bronson thinks I’ve just gone-out of the room.”
“It’ll take only a minute,” Shayne promised, pouring milk in her glass as he spoke. “I couldn’t afford to have Bronson see me talking to you up there. All his calls go through your desk, don’t they? You can listen in?”
“I can-but I have other things to do.”
“This is important,” Shayne said earnestly. “I need a record of every number he calls not definitely connected with business matters, and the exact time. And the exact time of every call he receives not definitely a business call. And a shorthand transcript of any conversations that sound screwy at all. Can you do it?”
Minerva drank a glass of milk while she listened. Her eyes were troubled. She asked tartly, “Why should I spy on Mr. Bronson?”
“To help me catch a murderer.”
“Mr. Shayne! Timothy’s not-dead!”
“Not quite-on the last report,” he said, “but four other people are.”
“But you can’t possibly think Mr. Bronson is-”
“I know he’s mixed up in it somehow,” Shayne told her placidly. He poured her glass full of milk. “I don’t know how deeply yet, but I give you my word that what I’m asking will help to get the lug who shot Rourke.”
Minerva’s thin lips tightened. “Mr. Rourke always said your word was good enough for him.” She nodded and asked matter-of-factly, “Is that all?”
“I’m particularly interested in a certain call that may come after the first edition is on the street. That is: if this advertisement is in the Personal column, Minerva. ‘Yes.’ Signed, ‘Colt.’ Just those two words. If that ad isn’t in the Personal column, incoming calls probably won’t be important.”
“Yes. Colt,” Mine
rva repeated wonderingly. She finished her second glass of milk and got up. “I’d better get back.”
Shayne said hastily, “Have dinner with me tonight and we can go over your notes.”
“Very well. I’ll be at home after five and until seven.” She gave him her address and hurried out.
Shayne downed a glass of milk and went out to his car. He drove to the LaCrosse Apartment Hotel on 14th Street. It was one of the better-class residential hotels in Miami, featuring two- and three-room suites with hotel service at exorbitant weekly and monthly rates.
The lobby was large and heavily carpeted, furnished with comfortable chairs and couches, many of them occupied by elderly people who drowsed or talked together in low tones.
A buxom woman was behind the desk. She wore a pince-nez and regarded the redheaded detective with cold disapproval as he came toward her, her eyes candidly observing his rumpled suit. She began shaking her head when he reached the desk and pulled off his hat.
“Do you have a Mr. Dillingham Smith here?” Shayne asked.
“I’m afraid we don’t. Mr. Smith checked out this morning.”
“Can you tell me where he went?”
“He may have left a forwarding-address,” she said, but made no motion to look it up.
Shayne flipped his wallet open and said, “It’s a police matter. Will you get his forwarding-address for me?”
She glanced at his credentials, said, “Hmph. The police? I’m not at all surprised.” She stepped aside and pulled out a drawer, glanced at a slip of paper, and said disapprovingly, “Mr. Smith asked that any mail be forwarded to the Front Hotel.”
“So you’re not surprised to have the police interested in Mr. Smith?” Shayne asked.
She said, “Hmph,” again, and tossed her head.
“Did his wife move with him to the Front Hotel?”
“Mrs. Smith left several days ago.”
“Can you describe Mrs. Smith?”
“She was a blonde,” said the woman, as though that was all that was necessary.
Shayne groaned, “Another damned blonde.” He put his hat on and yanked the brim low. “Where did she go?”
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