They were no more than four or five feet above the floor, directly in line with the chair in which he had been sitting and the point from which the man had fired through the open door.
Shayne winced as he leaned forward to examine them more closely, knowing the bullets could not have passed many inches above his head. The round holes looked awfully big to have been made by slugs fired from a handgun, and he recalled the impression of an almost continuous blast of explosions which had blurred together into what was practically a single loud and murderous roar just before he pressed the trigger of his own gun.
He shook his head angrily at the recollection. His memory and his imagination must be playing tricks on him. There was no automatic weapon on the market capable of throwing lead that fast.
Still frowning, he reached in his pocket and took out the weapon to study it again, more closely. It was some sort of foreign make, he guessed, though he couldn’t identify it by sight. There was a six-inch barrel mounted solidly on an oval-shaped metal frame which extended all the way from trigger-guard to muzzle. It was hammerless. The butt was solid metal and rectangular, slanting backward from the frame at an odd angle of ten or fifteen degrees which gave the weapon an ungainly appearance, but which contributed a wonderful feeling of balance as he hefted it curiously, and which, in turn, probably gave the illusion of weightlessness which he had noticed when he first picked it up from the floor.
He looked from the gun again to the row of even-spaced holes in the wall, and knew that whatever it was it was certainly the most dangerous and deadly hand-weapon ever devised by man. And he knew also that death had never brushed him more closely than it had tonight.
The airconditioner started to hum as he stood there. It was a welcome sound, meaning that power had now been restored to the building. He dropped the gun back into his side pocket and moved around the desk to switch on the office lights. Then he stepped outside and pressed another switch that lighted the truck entrance and loading platform, and stood there a moment looking somberly at the body of the man he had killed.
He felt no remorse or compunction, only an irrational sense of irritation at the dead man for having forced the issue as he had. Put a gun into the hands of a punk like that, and he felt invincible. Particularly a gun such as the one he had brought on this job tonight.
Shayne shrugged his broad shoulders and turned away, went to the corridor and turned on more lights, then down to the office which had been entered and saw broken glass on the floor and two panes knocked out. Luckily, the wind was from the other direction and no rain was blowing into the office. He went out and down the hall to the side door which Ericsson had mentioned, unlocked it and turned the knob, bracing himself against the force of the wind.
It wasn’t blowing nearly as hard as he expected, and he let the door slam back against the wall and stood in the doorway, looking out into the night appreciatively. The rain had also lessened perceptibly and the heavily overcast sky had lightened since he had entered the warehouse. Directly in front of him a row of palm trees was outlined against the sky, fronds slanting eastward with the prevailing wind, but with their trunks not bending before the gale and threatening to uproot as they would be if the wind was more than fifty or sixty miles an hour.
The night air, too, was fresh and crisp and cool, in direct contrast to the oppressive humidity which had marked the late afternoon and evening hours, and Shayne breathed it deeply and gratefully into his lungs knowing the satisfaction that only a long-time resident of Miami can know when another tropical storm has passed by with no more actual damage than had been caused by Fatima.
The lights of an automobile turned into the driveway as he stood there, and a sedan drew up in front of him and a raincoated man slid out of the front seat and hurried toward him.
It was John Ericsson, pudgy-faced and unsmiling, panting heavily as he ducked inside the corridor to stand beside Shayne, exclaiming contritely, “I suppose I should have congratulated you on the telephone, Shayne, instead of seeming to complain. But I was taken aback. Death seems so… final and unnecessary.”
“I agree to both those terms,” Shayne told him unsmiling. “But the guy gave me very little choice. He started shooting before we could discuss the situation.”
“I understand, of course.” Ericsson shuddered and pressed his lips together firmly. “Is he one of our men, do you suppose?”
“I have no way of knowing. Why not come back and take a look at him before the cops get here?”
Shayne turned away, leaving the door open to guide the police inside when they arrived, and strode down the corridor on long legs with Ericsson pattering along beside him and saying distractedly, “I was saying to my wife this evening, while we were sitting in our living room all safe and snug from the storm raging outside waiting to receive a report from you, I was saying to her: ‘Why do men persist in breaking the law in times of comparative economic ease such as our country is now enjoying? There are jobs for all. Well-paid jobs. I have difficulty keeping a full staff even in a small operation such as this. If this man is one of our own employees, I shall feel responsible somehow. I shall feel I have failed to understand…”
Striding ahead of him, Shayne rounded the corner into the truck entrance and drew aside with a wave of his hand. “There he is. Take a look and see if you identify him.”
Ericsson went forward slowly and looked down at the dead man’s waxlike features. He sighed deeply and turned back, shaking his head. “I’m glad to say he isn’t one of our men. However, from your viewpoint I suppose that makes it more difficult, doesn’t it? We still have to assume he had inside help and information. Dear me, I simply don’t see…”
“Not necessarily,” Shayne told him. “A well organized gang such as these liquor thieves seem to be would have means of getting information… even duplicate keys. One of your men may have been indiscreet… talked out of turn to the wrong man…”
He broke off as the dying wail of a police siren came to them from outside over the sound of the storm.
“That’ll be the police now. Remember that even I don’t know where you got the tip that this place might be knocked off tonight. Tell them if you like, or merely tell them that you had a hunch because of the coming storm and the other two warehouses being robbed recently under similar circumstances.”
“Yes… I…”
But Shayne was already striding away from him down the corridor toward the open side door which was now lighted by a police spotlight from outside.
Two burly, raincoated patrolmen stomped inside, and Shayne was glad to recognize the florid, good-natured face of Jim Hogan as one of the pair. That made everything easier and a lot less official because Hogan had known Shayne for many years and was perfectly willing to accept the redhead’s explanation for the manner in which the homicide had occurred without officiously taking him in to headquarters as another cop might have been inclined to do.
Besides it was still a rough night and the pair in the radio car already had a half dozen calls on their agenda, and it was no time for formalities that could be dispensed with.
Shayne greeted Hogan with a handshake, was properly introduced to his younger partner who knew the redhead by reputation, and the pair went back to view the body while Shayne swiftly explained the circumstances that had brought him to the warehouse that night.
“And here’s Mr. Ericsson, the manager, who will verify what I’ve told you, Jim,” Shayne ended. “There’s the guy on the floor who broke in a window and started shooting at me while I was sitting inside this office here. He put a row of bulletholes in the wall behind the desk there, if you need any proof that I shot him in self-defense.”