Flimsy wood splintered under the impact, and the door flew open. Lucy sat motionless on the divan, the back of her hand pressed tightly against her mouth when Shayne implacably stalked inside the dark bedroom. She realized now that she didn’t know whether Jack was armed or not.
She heard Shayne’s heavy footfalls inside the bedroom, then an exclamation and a leap forward. She sat scarcely breathing, waiting for the sound of a struggle, some word from Shayne or Jack.
There was nothing for the space of at least half a minute. Then the sound of Shayne’s measured tread returning across the bedroom. His features were set in an expressionless mask and his voice was toneless when he re-entered the room.
“So, you really pulled a fast one, Lucy. He’s gone. The window screen opening onto the fire escape is ripped open and I heard running footsteps in the alley below, but it was too dark to see anything. So we’ve sent a murderer out on the streets of Miami to kill again if he wants to just because I was fool enough to trust you.”
He strode past her to the telephone, lifted it, and dialed the number of Miami police headquarters.
Chapter Three
Lucy Hamilton sat frozen to the divan for a long moment while Shayne waited to be connected with the police. His back was toward her, shoulders squared and stiffly uncompromising.
He mustn’t, she thought suddenly. I mustn’t let him do that. Not for my sake, but for his.
She was on her feet with the thought, across the room and clawing at the hard-muscled arm holding the receiver while she cried out, “No, Michael. Not the police. You’ve got to listen to me. Don’t you see what it means?”
He remained unmoved and immobile, her voice and her clawing fingers having as little effect as the buzzing of a mosquito.
“Hello,” he barked into the phone. “Mike Shayne talking. Who’s handling—”
That was as far as he got. With strength and courage born of her desperate need, Lucy dropped to her haunches and seized the telephone cord with both hands, yanked back with all her weight, and jerked it loose from the box. She went sprawling on her back as the cord came free, and lay there looking up into Michael Shayne’s face with an expression of horror at her own temerity, mingled with grim determination.
“You have to listen to me, Michael,” she gasped, her pointed breasts rising and falling rapidly behind the tight bodice, the shimmery blue fullness of her skirt billowed up to expose bare knees and a brief expanse of thigh. “I won’t let you call the police. I won’t let you do it.”
Shayne looked down at her for a moment with an expression of icy detachment. He slowly replaced the disconnected receiver on its prongs and said wonderingly, “You’re being stupid, Lucy. A little delay won’t help him much.”
“You’re the one who’s being stupid, Michael Shayne.” Tears of rage and mortification ran down Lucy’s cheeks. She struggled up to a sitting position and tugged her skirt down to her ankles. “Just because you’re angry at me, you’re acting like a college boy. You just said a little delay won’t help much.” Her voice rose sharply, “Don’t you realize what the Tribune would do with a story like that? Mike Shayne’s secretary confesses hiding murderer with help of the detective who used his friendship with the Chief of Police to refuse admittance to local officers. Good heavens, Michael, they’d get your license. Drive you out of business in Miami.”
“Is my license more important than letting a killer escape?” His voice was remote and cold. He looked down at her with loathing which he made no effort to conceal.
“It’s not only you, Michael,” she wailed. “They’ll nail Chief Gentry to the cross, also, because you used his name to send those men away.”
She reached one hand up to him imploringly. “Stop a moment and think about it,” she pleaded. “Jack Bristow is shot in the stomach and certainly can’t get far from here. They had traced him here and must be searching near by for him. What help would your information be now? It would just verify what they already know.”
Shayne disregarded her outstretched hand. He turned on his heel without a word and went back to pick up his drink. Wearily, Lucy dragged herself to her feet and stood watching him, wondering what to say next, how to make him understand that she hadn’t really meant to harbor a fugitive, that she had believed Jack when he protested his innocence, that, if she’d had the slightest idea he was involved in anything as serious as murder, she certainly wouldn’t have—
Murder! For the first time in the hectic series of events, the word actually impinged on her consciousness.
“He isn’t, of course,” she cried out happily. “There’s some mistake. Not Jack. A purse-snatching or burglary, maybe. But not — murder.”
“This Jack,” he said slowly. “Bristow, was it? How long was he with you, Lucy?”
“Not long. Not more than half an hour before you came.”
“What did he tell you to get you to take him in?”
“That he was in trouble and needed time to stay free of the police to avoid being framed for something he hadn’t done. I wasn’t sure about his innocence at first when I thought it was something minor,” she hurried on ingenuously, “but I know he’d never kill anybody.”
“What makes you so positive?” Shayne drained his glass while he waited for her reply, his eyes cold and oddly speculative.
“He just isn’t the type.”
Shayne shook his head in sudden irritation while three deep creases formed between his eyes. He moved toward the kitchen and Lucy was forced to step aside out of his path. He muttered, “I think I’d like to hear a lot more about this Jack Bristow, but I also feel I’ll need another drink in order to take it.”
Lucy gazed after him despairingly, then took two tottering steps to let her trembling body sink onto the divan. She knew she was making a mess of everything. That she was saying exactly the wrong things to gain Shayne’s sympathy and understanding. Yet what, she wondered miserably, could she tell him to make him understand? The truth, of course. Yet the truth was so fantastic and unbelievable. How could she make him understand why she hadn’t told him about Jack the moment he arrived? By repeating his threat to lie to Shayne about her if she did? That would arouse only disbelief and contempt in her employer. Lucy was still casting about wildly for a lie that would be more believable than the truth when Shayne stalked back with another straight drink of cognac.
He looked at his watch as he settled himself, said quietly, “First, I want a complete physical description of Bristow, how badly he was wounded and any ideas you may have about where he might have gone.”
“Wait a minute,” he said sharply, when Lucy started to protest. “I admit you’ve got me in a hell of a spot, and that I pulled Will Gentry into it with me when I chased the sergeant and his men away. If I decide it will really accomplish anything to tell the exact truth about your pulling the wool over my eyes, I’ll do so. But if an anonymous phone call will bring the same results, I’ll try to keep you out of it. And myself and Gentry, incidentally. So don’t waste time with any explanations. Give me his description and what you know about him.”
Holding herself in check and keeping her voice as flatly unemotional as she could, Lucy complied. She heard a disbelieving grunt from Shayne when she explained that she hadn’t seen Jack for years — and then only once briefly in New Orleans, and had no idea where he might go to in Miami. She did explain that he claimed to have been shot by a dead man and had come to her for help because he knew no one else, and knew her address from his sister.
Shayne nodded curtly when she finished. He got up with a glance at her ruined phone and said, “I’ll go downstairs to call that information in. Don’t go in the bedroom. If they don’t pick him up fast, I’ll try to lift his prints from in there for the police to work on.”