The Homicidal Virgin by Brett Halliday Page B

not more than five hundred yards away. The only craft within miles of me. They rescued me and brought me in safely.”
    “And the police think that was an accident too?”
    “They insist that it could have been easily enough. A spark from the engine igniting the gasoline tank. I explained it wasn’t that sort of explosion. That it was definitely a bomb of some sort. But I haven’t any proof. Just my own positive impression of what happened. And there’s no chance of recovering the boat to ever find out what caused it.”
    “But coupled with the bullet on Monday you’re convinced that someone is out to get you?”
    “Aren’t you?”
    Shayne shrugged his wide shoulders. “Not convinced. I certainly agree that the law of probabilities is being stretched pretty thin if we accept them both as coincidences. What does Petey Painter think?” he ended blandly.
    “Painter!” Saul Henderson spat out the word as though he had bitten into a worm. “I talked to him all right. Insisted that he see me when they tried to put me off with an inspector or something. Well, you know Peter Painter better than I do. Strutting little nincompoop. He sat in his office and smirked and gloated. He knows, of course, that he’s one of the first men on the Beach slated to go when the Reform Administration takes over after the next election. His department is riddled with graft, and people are sick and tired of the highhanded way he runs things. You know yourself that Miami Beach has become a haven for well-known crooks. They’re infiltrating our businesses, crowding decent citizens off the streets. Oh, Painter sees the handwriting on the wall all right. It was perfectly evident from my interview with him.”
    “And he knows you’re to be candidate for mayor on the ticket opposing the present administration?”
    “It isn’t definite yet. I haven’t been offered the nomination.”
    “But it’s generally known that you will be,” Shayne pressed him.
    “It’s fairly common knowledge, yes.” Henderson compressed his thin lips and frowned across the desk at the redhead. “I hesitate to accuse him of lack of diligence in investigating the attempts on my life for political reasons,” he said sonorously. “But I can’t help feeling that Peter Painter wouldn’t have been at all unhappy if either of them had succeeded. Nor do I believe he intends to stir himself one bit to prevent further attempts.
    “I demanded round-the-clock police protection,” he went on bitterly, “and he blandly refused. Had the audacity to sit there in his office and inform me that his men had more important duties to perform than the prevention of murder. I laughed in his face, Mr. Shayne, and asked him to please name those more important duties. Were they too busy collecting graft, I asked him. Or seeing to it that the gambling dens and whorehouses operated smoothly from dark to dawn without interference. We had quite a session,” he ended feelingly, “and that’s why I feel I need your help.”
    “I can see why you might,” Shayne agreed dryly. He leaned forward to mash out his cigarette butt, lifted his empty glass hopefully. “I seem to have run out of my consultation fee.”
    Henderson took the glass and got up with a wintry smile. “I’ll have to do something about that.”
    Shayne leaned back and watched him go out the door with bleak eyes. For the first time in his life, the redhead had a warmly fraternal feeling for Peter Painter. Even without benefit of Shayne’s private knowledge of Henderson’s real character, the cocky little detective chief was right on the ball this time. And this was one time Shayne had no intention of getting into the act on the opposite side from Painter. Help Henderson stay alive so he could be elected mayor of Miami Beach? God forbid!
    Nothing of this showed on Shayne’s face when his host re-entered with a brimming glass for him. Shayne accepted it with a grunt that might be construed as thanks, and took a