Counterfeit Wife (21 page)

“And once again,” said Rourke reverently, “a hunch inherited from your Dutch grandmother brought home the bacon. All right You may not want to answer my next question on account of it might tend to incriminate you.”

“Then I won’t,” Shayne promised him as they got out of the elevator and strolled down the long, silent corridor.

“How does it feel to be responsible for the death of a fellow human being?”

“I’ve forgotten,” said Shayne. “What in hell are you talking about?”

“Deland. You deliberately put the idea of suicide in his mind, Mike. I realize now that’s what you did. When you pulled him back from the window and away from me you planted the idea in his mind so he’d react later when you drove him into a corner.”

Shayne rubbed his angular chin meditatively. “You told me a story last night. About a sweet-faced mother who was grieving over her daughter’s death, and had only her husband to cling to. That story stuck in my craw, Tim. Go home and write a follow-up that’ll give Minerva Deland a heroic memory to cling to.”

“I’m headed for a typewriter right now,” Rourke assured him. “What about you?”

“I,” said Michael Shayne with a grimace, “am headed for a long distance telephone and a talk with a certain gal in New Orleans. If she still insists on a vacation I’ll sell her the idea that Miami’s the place to take it.”