“Mike thinks maybe she was the blond gun moll who killed those three guys,” Helen put in. “Maybe you helped her.”
The color went out of his face. He stopped moving his jaw and set it hard. He sat down in a chair across from the couch and twisted a soft hat around in his hands. He said slowly, “I haven’t seen Madge in two or three weeks,” staring at Helen with light-blue eyes that were wholly expressionless. “I don’t believe Madge ever had anything to do with gambling.”
“Can you give me a line on any other men that knew her?”
“No. Like I said, I didn’t know her so very well.”
“Why did she call you Tuesday afternoon?”
“To-well, to sort of make up.” Dilly Smith swallowed hard and looked at Shayne with appealing and youthful candor. “We sort of had a fight a few weeks ago and she was sore. But Tuesday she said she wanted to see me.” He frowned and looked like a petulant adolescent. “I wish I’d known about it. You mean she’s been there all that time and nobody found her?”
“And I didn’t know it,” Helen said. “I thought she was out having a good time. Isn’t it terrible?”
“It sure is,” Smith agreed. “I’m mighty sorry. I guess there’s nothing I can do.” He pulled himself up from the chair and plodded to the door.
When Smith closed the door on his way out Shayne asked Helen quickly, “Who is he? He looks like a kid-too young to be having a love affair with Madge.”
Helen laughed softly. “He certainly is the fair-haired boy, but Madge told me he was nearly thirty when I kidded her about him.” She shrugged eloquently, dismissing the matter, and said, “Come on and sit down. I’ll fix some more drinks.”
Shayne shook his red head and picked up his hat “I’d better not. Not this time. If I take another drink with you I won’t want to leave at all.”
“What of it? I told you nobody had any strings on me.”
“Another reason why I’d better beat it. Besides, you’ve got to realize the cops are keeping an eye on this place tonight. Watch your step.”
Helen got up and threw her arms around him and lifted her lips to be kissed. Shayne made it a fast one and hurried out to try to tail Dilly Smith. Helen ran after him and pressed a house key into his hand. “You said you wanted one,” she reminded him.
“Did I? Oh-you bet.” He pocketed the key and patted her cheek. “I’ll try to see you tomorrow.”
A car was pulling away from the curb near the end of the block. Shayne got in his car and started the motor just as Smith’s car swung around the next corner to the right. He didn’t see any of Painter’s men around, but was pretty sure the Beach chief had left a stake-out. He didn’t know whether they had orders to follow him or not.
He made a U-turn without turning on his lights, switched them on, and drove east to the next corner, then turned north. A car slid past the intersection in front of him, headed east on the next street north from Tempest. The timing was right for it to be Dilly Smith.
Shayne slowed to let the other car get a couple of blocks ahead before swinging around the corner in pursuit. There was nothing to indicate that either car was being trailed. He stayed well back until Smith’s car turned north on Ocean Boulevard, and he let two cars get ahead of him before turning onto the boulevard.
Increasing his speed gradually, he passed one of the cars and was pulling up on the tail light of the next one when his quarry turned to the left. He was close enough to pick up the Miami license number as he drove by, and to get a glimpse of Smith alone in the front seat.
Shayne raced on to the next corner before turning left, and as he neared the intersection he saw a sign reading Magnolia Avenue. Upon reaching the avenue he saw a car headed in his direction slow almost to a stop in the middle of the block. He turned boldly in that direction, pulling his hat brim low on his forehead.
Smith’s car picked up speed and began to move forward as Shayne came abreast of him. Smith’s head was turned toward a pair of stone gate posts in front of a three-story mansion at the end of a driveway flanked by tall royal palms. There was no light in the big house.
Shayne saw a house number on one of the gateposts as he drove by without slowing. The number of the big house at which Dilly Smith had hesitated was 1832. He remembered then that Minerva had told him Mr. Walter Bronson, managing editor of the Courier, lived at 1832 Magnolia Avenue.
In his rearview mirror he saw Dilly Smith swing around the corner toward Ocean Boulevard. Shayne speeded up for two more blocks, turned left, and pulled in to the curb near the boulevard, turned off his lights, and left his motor running.
A few minutes later, Smith passed on the boulevard headed toward the Miami Beach business section. Shayne let three cars pass before pulling onto the boulevard and following. He repeated his former tactic of speeding up to pass the intervening cars. By the time Smith neared Fifth Street, Shayne was directly behind him.
Smith signaled for a right-hand turn at Fifth. Shayne trailed him around the corner onto the brightly lighted street lined with business houses on both sides. Moving into the right-hand lane, Smith slid into a parking place in front of the first drugstore he came to.
Shayne drove to a parking-space in the next block, got out and walked swiftly to the drugstore, reached it just as Smith was going in. He loitered with other pedestrians on the sidewalk, looked through the display window, and caught a glimpse of Smith in the rear of the store making a purchase. It looked like a box of candy or stationery. He took the box, unwrapped, and went to a bare portion of the counter where he opened it.
It was stationery. Smith took out a sheet of paper and an envelope, got his fountain pen from his breast pocket, and began to write.
Shayne sauntered back to the curb and kept an eye on the entrance to the store. Smith came out after a couple of minutes with the box of stationery under his arm and a white envelope in his hand. Shayne walked on a few steps, turning his head enough to see Smith deposit the letter in the mailbox at the corner.
Smith then strode to his car and headed it toward Miami. Shayne waited a few minutes to be sure he was gone, then sauntered to the mailbox to check on the hours of collection. The last one of the day was 10:46 p.m. He looked at his watch. The time was 10:33.
He went in the drugstore and waited until the clerk who had sold Smith the stationery was unoccupied. He was a middle-aged man who looked dyspeptic and weary. Shayne approached him and said, “A friend of mine just bought a box of stationery in here. He showed it to me outside, and I’d like to get one like it.”
“You mean the fellow who was in a hurry to write a letter?” the clerk asked.
“That’s right.”
The clerk selected a box and said, “Forty-nine cents.”
Shayne spun a half-dollar on the counter. “Never mind wrapping it,” he said, “I’m in a hurry to write a letter, too.”
The clerk’s jaundiced eyes went over Shayne with surprise and some suspicion when the detective went to the same vacant spot on the counter and started writing a letter.
He wrote: Dearest Minerva: I’ve thought things over and I’m damned sick and tired of getting the run-around, so this means we’re through. Bill.
He addressed the envelope, Miss Minerva Higgins, 316 Larkspur, Miami Beach, Florida, folded the paper and slipped it into the envelope. He put a dime in a stamp machine near the front of the store and got three stamps, one of which he put on the envelope. He then went out and dropped it in the mailbox.
With the box of stationery under his arm, he leaned against the mailbox and waited. Within two minutes the mail truck pulled up and the driver leaped out.
Shayne said, “I’ve been waiting for you. Could you do a guy a hell of a favor?”
The man in gray was past middle-age, stooped and thin, with a network of crinkles around his eyes. He drawled, “I don’t know. What is it?”
“It’s this way,” said Shayne, grinning ruefully, “I dropped a letter in this box and-well, sort of changed my mind after mailing it a few minutes ago. I’ve cooled off, you might say, and decided it’d be foolish to hurt my girl’s feelings.”