Blood on the Stars (8 page)

“Because I know nothing on God’s earth will keep you out of it now,”
Rourke
explained. “And it looks like you’ve been leading with your chin, as usual.”

“
Knucks
,” Shayne told him. He hesitated,
then
added, “I’ve been out of circulation too long, Tim. Who could have pulled that job on Dustin?”

“I haven’t the ins I once had, either,”
Rourke
confessed. “You know how it’s always been here. They drift in and out from the north. Earl Randolph should know more about it than anyone else.”

“Ever hear of a couple of local boys called Blackie and the Kid?” Shayne described the two men he had encountered in Mickey’s Garage.

“I don’t think so.
They the ones that worked you over?”

Shayne
nodded,
his eyes bleak. “I left myself wide open,” he confessed. “I figured all I had to do was to make contact and sit back and wait for the approach. Things have changed since the old days. What in hell goes on? Both
Voorland
and Randolph say the rubies can’t possibly be cut up and fenced. How come I get slugged when I suggest a deal?” His tone was morose and aggrieved, like that of a lobbyist who unexpectedly encounters an honest congressman in Washington.

“Things must be getting tough,” was
Rourke’s
pleasant comment.  “Those
  lads
you propositioned—how’d you get a line on them?”

“I followed a hunch.”

“Sure it was a right hunch? Maybe they didn’t savvy the sort of fix you offered.”

“They understood, all right. There’s something damned screwy going on, Tim. Something I can’t put my finger on.”

Rourke
sat up straighter but masked his eagerness with a casual tone, though his eyes glowed brightly in their sockets and his nostrils twitched like a blood hound’s on the scent.
“Something phony about the heist itself?
Inside angles?”

“I don’t know. I’d take Walter
Voorland’s
word any time and any place on the value of the stuff. And Earl Randolph issued a policy on the full purchase price.” Shayne frowned deeply and drew on his cigarette.

“Dustin’s the only unknown factor,”
Rourke
pointed out. “From the west, isn’t he?”

“The west sticks out all over him. But he did get smashed up in the heist, and there’s no angle in it for him,” Shayne exploded. “He can’t recover
more
than he paid for the bracelet.”

“Sometimes a guy figures it’s nice to have the stones and the insurance money, too.”

“Only if the damned things will bring a fair sum under the counter,” Shayne reminded him. “That’s what makes this thing so crazy. Star rubies can’t be fenced like other stuff. And if there’s anything wrong about Dustin, he must know it’ll come out in the investigation that’s certain to be made. No insurance company is going to pay out a wad of dough like that without checking back on him closely, no matter where he lives. No, as near as I can see, Dustin is out.”

“Who does that leave?”

“No one.”

Rourke
emptied his glass and got up. He went across to the bathroom and inside, leaving the door ajar. From beyond the door he said, “I can ask around about the two boys who worked on you.
Might pick up a line on them some way.”

“I’ve got a lead of my own,” Shayne said, “but I can’t start on it until tomorrow.”

Rourke
came out of the bathroom, and watching him from beneath lowered lids, Shayne said, “Well, guess I’ll turn in.” He started to yawn, but his sore chin stopped it.

“I can take a hint,” said
Rourke
with a grin. He went out and closed the door.

Shayne stood for a long moment before the bedroom door before going in to get his pajamas. When he finally opened it, he stood with his hand on the knob staring at the bed. Moonlight came through the window and lay softly upon the form of the girl curled up under the sheet.

Lucy Hamilton lay on her side. Her dark hair was fluffed out on the pillow and her right arm was outside the covering, her fingers seemingly clutching the edge of the mattress.

Shayne closed the door and drew the sheet from the other side of the bed back a little to slide his body underneath. Lucy did not stir, and her breathing was so even and faint he could not hear a sound as he lowered his head to the pillow beside hers.

He lay like that for a moment, stiffly embarrassed and suddenly angry with her for going on sleeping.

His left hand touched her brown hair gently. He sat up quickly and looked at his fingers in the bright moonlight. Something thick and sticky clung to them. He dropped his other hand on her shoulder and called to her urgently. Her body was wholly lax under his touch like the body of a
jointless
rag doll.

TWO MINUTES FOR QUESTIONS

SHAYNE SPRANG FROM THE BED and switched on the light, caught Lucy’s limp wrist to feel for her pulse. He first thought there wasn’t any, and his blunt finger tip moved frenziedly around the spot where it had to be. He cursed himself for sitting outside drinking cognac and talking with
Rourke
while Lucy lay on the bed possibly with the life ebbing out of her.

Then he felt a faint beat, regular and reassuring, but scarcely discernible under his touch.

Racing to the telephone, he called the switchboard and asked for the house physician’s apartment. It seemed hours before the doctor in 482 answered.

“Mike Shayne—in three-oh-six,” he said rapidly. “I need you fast. Don’t bother to dress.
An accident-emergency.”

“I’m already dressed,” said Dr. Price peevishly. “I’ll be right down.”

Shayne was still barefooted, but he had got into his underwear and pants when he heard the elevator stop down the hall and brisk footsteps coming toward his door. He had the door open before the doctor reached it, caught him urgently by the arm and pulled him toward the bedroom, explaining swiftly:

“It’s my secretary. Back of her head is smashed, but I felt a pulse.” He held up his bloody finger that had touched Lucy’s hair. “I don’t know how long ago. I’ve been out all evening. She was here alone.”

Dr. Price was a bald-headed, dried-up little man with gentle blue eyes and a white goatee. He was fully dressed, except for coat and tie. He took in Shayne’s condition of partial undress and his explanation of the emergency with an expression of complete disinterest as he examined the patient.

“Hot water,” Dr. Price said.
“A large container.
Be sure it boils.”

Shayne whirled and trotted to the kitchen. He ran water from the faucet into a half-gallon boiler, the largest vessel the small kitchenette afforded, set it on the gas flame, then went back to stand in the bedroom doorway again.

Dr. Price had the blood wiped away and the brown hair parted to reveal an ugly wound just at the base of Lucy’s skull when Shayne returned. He was probing carefully, and without lifting his head said, “Concussion. Not dangerous, but quite serious.”

“How long ago, Doc?”

“Half an hour, maybe.
Watch that kettle and bring it in as soon as it boils. You can’t help by standing there gawking. And call my nurse in six-seventeen. I’ll need her in a few minutes.”

Shayne stopped at the telephone and called the nurse. She answered sleepily, but promised to come down at once. The kettle was boiling when he went back into the kitchen. He carried it into the bedroom and asked the doctor whether there was anything else he could do.

“A clean towel and washrag,” the doctor ordered.

Shayne sprinted into the bathroom and took a wash-rag, three linen face towels, and a large bath towel from the cabinet and raced to the bedroom with them, then went into the living-room with his shoes and shirt in his hand and put them on.

Pacing the room and tugging at his earlobe, he worried his mind for some clue as to what could have happened to Lucy. She was wearing a nightgown and a robe. Why were her bedroom slippers lying on the living-room floor instead of beside the bed, which would be the normal place for them to be? She had promised to wait in his apartment until he returned. Evidently she had gone to her room, undressed and made herself comfortable in the gown and robe and slippers, then returned to his living-room to wait for him. When he was so late coming home, maybe she had become anxious and decided to rest on his bed instead of going back to her own room so that she would know the minute he returned and find out whether anything had happened to him.

Miss Naylor’s knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. She was tall and austere-appearing without any make-up and with night cream still smeared on her face. Her hair was done up in metal curlers, but she wore a clean starched uniform and seemed completely self-possessed, competent, and unaware of her personal appearance.

Shayne took her to the bedroom. She went in and firmly closed the door. For a moment he glared at the door,
then
resumed his pacing.

Half an hour ago, Dr. Price had said. He himself had been in the apartment almost that long before going into the bedroom. He didn’t let himself think that things might have been different if he had gone directly to the bedroom when he saw her slippers on the floor. It was a sign he was getting old. Ten years ago he wouldn’t have fooled around with cigarettes and a drink under such conditions.

The door to the apartment had been unlocked, he recalled. Perhaps she had thought of something she wanted to get from her own room while she waited for him, had gone out and left the door on the latch. She didn’t have a key to the door. But why would she have gone into the bedroom, gone to bed, without locking the door?

The agony of trying to think without anything to begin with, with absolutely nothing that could give him any intimation of what had
happened,
was exhausting. He sank into a chair by the table. He poured half a water-glass of cognac and began sipping it slowly. He looked around the apartment with narrowed and speculative eyes. He knew every inch of it, every article of furniture and the exact position occupied by each one. He couldn’t see anything out of place—nothing whatsoever to indicate where the attack on Lucy had occurred.

Anger rolled over him like a tidal wave as he began to realize the actual import of what had occurred. Someone had come here, brutally slugged an innocent girl, and then walked calmly out again. And he, by God, was sitting around like a fool, straining his ears for a sound, a significant word, from the closed bedroom, and not doing one damned thing about what had happened.

He got up and stalked to the telephone, got police headquarters, and asked for Sergeant Harvey, who was in charge of the homicide squad.

“Speaking,” Sergeant Harvey said.

“Mike Shayne. There’s been an attempted murder in my apartment. Murder—maybe.”

“Which was it? Make up your mind.”

“The doctor will have to tell us that.” Shayne’s voice was edged with anger. “You got anybody around there sober enough to come over and dust for fingerprints—or
is
that too much trouble?”

“Keep your pants on,” said the sergeant wearily. “We’ll be right over. Who is it?”

“My secretary,” said Shayne shortly. “Miss Lucy Hamilton. I wish you’d bring Robertson if he’s on duty.” He hung up and again let his eyes roam slowly over every inch of the room, then strode out to the kitchen and tried the door leading onto the fire escape. It was locked, and the key hung in its accustomed place.

Back in the living-room, he got the night clerk on the wire. The man asked anxiously, “What’s the trouble, Mr. Shayne? Someone hurt up there?”

“My secretary.
I’m afraid she’s pretty badly hurt, Jim. Was there anyone asking to see me this evening?”

“Not a soul, Mr. Shayne. I haven’t seen Miss Hamilton go out or come in, either.”

“She didn’t,” Shayne told him. “We had dinner here, and she waited for me when I went out. Notice anything particular about
anyone
coming in or out of the hotel while I was gone?”

After a brief silence, the night clerk said, “Not a thing, Mr. Shayne.
Mostly just the regulars.
I’ll ask the elevator boy if you want.”

“I’ll talk to him myself. The cops are on their way over, Jim. Send them right up, will you?” He hung up and went to the closed bedroom door and bent his head to listen through the keyhole. He could hear the low murmuring of voices, but could distinguish no words.

He left the entrance door open when he went down the corridor to the elevator. When it stopped in response to his ring the door opened, the Negro boy asked excitedly,

“What’s up, Mist’ Shayne?
You all right?
When I
brung
Doctor Price down—”

“I’m all right. It’s Miss Hamilton. She was slugged in my apartment while I was out. Did you bring any strangers up here tonight?
Anybody who asked for my room?”

“Nobody that
ast
for you.
No-
suh
.
Coupla
strangers, maybe.
Nobody I noticed a-tall.”

“Any friends of mine, then,” said Shayne sharply. “Anybody you may have seen around here with me before.”

“Nobody ’
cept
that newspaper man.
The long thin un—”

“He came
after
I was back.”

“
Thass
right.
He
sho
did.” The elevator buzzer sounded. “
I’se
got somebody
waitin
’ at the bottom,” the boy said.

Shayne nodded and went slowly back to his open door. The elevator returned to the third floor and stopped before he had entered. He turned to see Sergeant Harvey and two of his men get off and come toward him. They greeted Shayne with grave cordiality when he invited them in.

“Well—let’s have it,” said Sergeant Harvey.

Shayne explained briefly what had happened to Lucy Hamilton, ending with: “Doctor Price and his nurse are in there with her now. I hope she’ll be able to tell us what happened.”

“You say she was dressed for bed?” the sergeant asked delicately.

“It looks as though she had gone to her room and gotten ready for bed and then came back here for something—perhaps a book to read, or a magazine,” Shayne explained. “Or maybe she saw someone coming in my door and suddenly remembered she had left it unlatched, and hurried down here to put him out.”

“You think she was attacked in here—or in the bedroom?”

“We’ll have to get that from the doctor. I didn’t waste any time looking around the bedroom after I found her like that. It’s my impression, though, that there’d be blood on the floor if she was attacked in here.”

“Might as well go over the whole place for fingerprints, Richardson,” the sergeant said to the younger member of the trio. “What’ll be legitimate besides yours, Mike?”

“Lucy’s—she cooked dinner in here, as I told you.
And Tim
Rourke’s
.
No one else has been here the last few days except the maid who cleaned thoroughly yesterday.”

The sergeant nodded thoughtfully. “Sure you’re not leaving anything out, Mike? Sure you didn’t know she’d be waiting for you like that when you got here?”

“Slugged?” Shayne’s tone was outraged. “You think I knew she was lying in there slugged and didn’t call the doctor for half an hour?”

“Don’t get sore, Mike. I’m figuring all the angles. Seems funny your horsing around in here with
Rourke
when maybe calling the doc earlier would have—”

Shayne got to his feet slowly, his big hands flexed. “Go on. Say it out loud, you liver-hearted bastard.”

“What the
sarge
means,” said Richardson, “is that you must’ve known she wasn’t in good shape or you’d have been in there a lot faster.”

Shayne whirled on the fingerprint man, but Harvey’s voice brought him back to a sense of proportion. “Don’t be like a kid, Shayne. You’ve ribbed enough other guys in your time to take a little of it yourself.”

“One more crack about my secretary and I’ll tear you limb from limb,” Shayne growled.

“You got to admit that lump on your jaw isn’t more than a few hours old,” Sergeant Harvey said. “You’re not leveling with us, Mike.”

Shayne stood very still and his hands slowly unclenched. “
Yeh
,” he muttered. “I know the whole thing sounds screwy as hell. But I gave you the story straight.” He sank back and lit a cigarette.

Since finding Lucy on the bed slugged, he had wholly
forgot
his own disfigurement. Now he realized how things must look to the police.

“I got tight over on the Beach,” Shayne resumed, “and rammed a concrete culvert on Delaware Road about midnight and got this. You can check that with a Beach cop named Rawson. He found me passed out under the wheel, and my
car’s
in the hotel garage banged up right now.”

“What’re you working on now?” Harvey asked.

“I’m not. I haven’t decided whether to settle down in Miami again or not. I’m sort of on vacation.”

“For a guy who’s on vacation,” said the homicide man who stood beside the sergeant, “you’ve been sticking your nose into plenty of stuff the last few months. There was that deal
Rourke
was mixed in, and then the two stiffs in the Bay, and then just last week the Deland kidnap mess. And I heard down at headquarters that Painter was pulling you in tonight on the jewel theft at the
Sunlux
.”

“He’d like to tie me in on that,” Shayne snorted.

“There’ll be a nice reward for the man who gets his hands on those rubies,” Harvey commented placidly.

Shayne nodded. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t turn a deal if they dropped in my lap.” He sprang to his feet as the bedroom door opened and Dr. Price came out.

“She’ll pull through, I trust.” The doctor closed the door.
“Concussion, all right.
She’s still unconscious, but her pulse is stronger and I anticipate she’ll come out of it in fifteen or twenty minutes now.”

“Enough to be questioned?” asked the sergeant.

The physician frowned. “I don’t advise it. She must have absolute quiet. Recovery depends on mental as well as physical calm. Miss Naylor is preparing a hypodermic and watching her condition closely. I’ve instructed her to inject a strong sedative the moment she shows signs of returning consciousness.”

“If you want Lucy Hamilton to feel mentally at ease, you’ll let her answer a couple of questions before you put her out again, Doc,” Shayne told him strongly.

Dr. Price tugged at his goatee and studied the detective thoughtfully. They had known and respected each other a long time, though there were no close bonds between them. “It might not upset her so much if you asked her a couple of questions in strict privacy,” he offered after a moment. “But I wouldn’t advise—”