pronto.”
Chapter Eleven: THE RETAINER
SHAYNE STOPPED in front of the Miami News building on Biscayne Boulevard and went up to the city room. Amid the noise of clacking typewriters and through the acrid haze of tobacco smoke, he found Timothy Rourke hunched over a typewriter in one corner, pounding out copy with a rubber-tipped forefinger.
He looked up, and a delighted grin broke over his elongated face as Shayne drew up a chair and sat down.
“Hi there, Shamus,” Timothy said heartily. “Committed any murders since I saw you last?”
“No murders,” Shayne had to admit. He lit a cigarette. “Anything new on the Grange killing?”
“Not a damned thing. Petey Painter is running around hunting clues like a bantam with his neck wrung. I don’t think he’s looking very hard because he’s afraid he might turn up something that would point away from you.” Rourke’s wide grin moved his ears a trifle.
Shayne let out smoke to becloud the atmosphere further.
“He’s always picking a victim and trying to fit the crime on him. What sort of dope do you fellows have on Harry Grange, Tim?”
“Grange? Not much except the playboy angle. Wealthy socialite wintering at the beach.”
Shayne said drily, “Any fourflusher who can pay the tariff at a beach hotel is a playboy to you birds. What do you know about Elliot Thomas?”
“Now it’s Thomas, eh? What are you fishing for, Mike?”
“Damned if I know, Tim,” Shayne responded truthfully. “What am I going to catch?”
“I don’t know much about Grange, but Elliot Thomas isn’t any fourflusher. Not with a hundred-and-twenty-foot yacht riding in the bay, and running a string of bangtails at Hialeah. Those diversions spell ready money, my boy.”
“I didn’t know he raced horses.”
“Well, I’ll be damned! So, there are some things you don’t know?” Timothy Rourke stared at the detective in pretended amazement.
“What’s his stable?” Shayne asked without rancor.
“Um-m. I think he calls it the Masiot Stables. Last three letters of both names in reverse. He’s got old Jake Kilgore training for him. Quite a track character, old Jake is. I ran into him in Hialeah at a beer joint, drinking with Chuck Evans last week. The old boy was half-seas under and shooting off about a winner he had coming up.”
“That so? You don’t remember the name of the horse?”
“No. I bought the hot-bloods my last bale of hay years ago—betting on straight tips from the trainers.”
Shayne got up, letting smoke curl up past narrowed eyes.
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen Chuck lately?”
He spoke with offhand disinterest, but Tim Rourke knew him of old.
“What’s up, Mike?” he demanded. “You promised to let me in on anything when it breaks.”
“I will,” Shayne promised, “when it breaks.”
He sauntered out to his car and drove to police headquarters.
Will Gentry was out to lunch, and he left Marsha Marco’s handkerchief on Gentry’s desk with a note asking to have it compared with the one he had left to be analyzed that morning.
Arriving at his hotel, Shayne got the pistol he had taken from Marsha’s room and slid it into his hip pocket. He went in through the lobby and learned there had been no calls, went up to his apartment where he locked the door and settled in a chair before the center table. He took out both .32’s and laid them side by side: his pistol, and the one he had brought from Marsha Marco’s room.
He poured a drink and studied the two automatics. They were of the same manufacture, identical except for different serial numbers and the nick in the butt of his.
He released the magazine in the Marco gun and found it fully loaded. Picking up his own pistol he worked with the jammed carriage for a moment, exerting his strength to force it open, and turning it in his hands to let the unfired bullet which had caused the jam drop out on the table.
He then released the magazine catch, pulled it out, and saw by the
Chapter Eleven: THE RETAINER
SHAYNE STOPPED in front of the Miami News building on Biscayne Boulevard and went up to the city room. Amid the noise of clacking typewriters and through the acrid haze of tobacco smoke, he found Timothy Rourke hunched over a typewriter in one corner, pounding out copy with a rubber-tipped forefinger.
He looked up, and a delighted grin broke over his elongated face as Shayne drew up a chair and sat down.
“Hi there, Shamus,” Timothy said heartily. “Committed any murders since I saw you last?”
“No murders,” Shayne had to admit. He lit a cigarette. “Anything new on the Grange killing?”
“Not a damned thing. Petey Painter is running around hunting clues like a bantam with his neck wrung. I don’t think he’s looking very hard because he’s afraid he might turn up something that would point away from you.” Rourke’s wide grin moved his ears a trifle.
Shayne let out smoke to becloud the atmosphere further.
“He’s always picking a victim and trying to fit the crime on him. What sort of dope do you fellows have on Harry Grange, Tim?”
“Grange? Not much except the playboy angle. Wealthy socialite wintering at the beach.”
Shayne said drily, “Any fourflusher who can pay the tariff at a beach hotel is a playboy to you birds. What do you know about Elliot Thomas?”
“Now it’s Thomas, eh? What are you fishing for, Mike?”
“Damned if I know, Tim,” Shayne responded truthfully. “What am I going to catch?”
“I don’t know much about Grange, but Elliot Thomas isn’t any fourflusher. Not with a hundred-and-twenty-foot yacht riding in the bay, and running a string of bangtails at Hialeah. Those diversions spell ready money, my boy.”
“I didn’t know he raced horses.”
“Well, I’ll be damned! So, there are some things you don’t know?” Timothy Rourke stared at the detective in pretended amazement.
“What’s his stable?” Shayne asked without rancor.
“Um-m. I think he calls it the Masiot Stables. Last three letters of both names in reverse. He’s got old Jake Kilgore training for him. Quite a track character, old Jake is. I ran into him in Hialeah at a beer joint, drinking with Chuck Evans last week. The old boy was half-seas under and shooting off about a winner he had coming up.”
“That so? You don’t remember the name of the horse?”
“No. I bought the hot-bloods my last bale of hay years ago—betting on straight tips from the trainers.”
Shayne got up, letting smoke curl up past narrowed eyes.
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen Chuck lately?”
He spoke with offhand disinterest, but Tim Rourke knew him of old.
“What’s up, Mike?” he demanded. “You promised to let me in on anything when it breaks.”
“I will,” Shayne promised, “when it breaks.”
He sauntered out to his car and drove to police headquarters.
Will Gentry was out to lunch, and he left Marsha Marco’s handkerchief on Gentry’s desk with a note asking to have it compared with the one he had left to be analyzed that morning.
Arriving at his hotel, Shayne got the pistol he had taken from Marsha’s room and slid it into his hip pocket. He went in through the lobby and learned there had been no calls, went up to his apartment where he locked the door and settled in a chair before the center table. He took out both .32’s and laid them side by side: his pistol, and the one he had brought from Marsha Marco’s room.
He poured a drink and studied the two automatics. They were of the same manufacture, identical except for different serial numbers and the nick in the butt of his.
He released the magazine in the Marco gun and found it fully loaded. Picking up his own pistol he worked with the jammed carriage for a moment, exerting his strength to force it open, and turning it in his hands to let the unfired bullet which had caused the jam drop out on the table.
He then released the magazine catch, pulled it out, and saw by the
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