Tickets for Death (11 page)

The corner cottage was brilliantly lighted and there were three cars parked outside. Matrix sped by without slowing, drove on to a narrow paved road which paralleled the ocean shore, where he swung sharply to the left again.

Shayne slowed between rows of small beach cottages lining both sides of the road, with the surf rolling within a few feet of the foundations of the row to the east. He allowed Matrix to gain two more blocks while a deep frown of perplexity creased his forehead. The cottages became more straggling, and the pounding of surf on the shore was a low continuous rumble.

“Now, where would he be going?” Phyllis asked anxiously.

“I don’t know, but it’s important, angel.”

The Ford slowed, then stopped in front of a beach cottage where a porch light was burning. The light went off when the car stopped.

Shayne cut off his motor and his lights. He relaxed behind the wheel and crushed out his cigarette.

“So what?” Phyllis demanded in a taut voice. “Have you forgotten what to do when you park with me on the beach on a moonlight night?”

Shayne put his right arm around her and she relaxed with a brief sigh. While he continued to watch the cottage and the Ford, he muttered, “I don’t understand any of this any more than you do, angel.”

She shivered inside the circle of his arm. “Do you think Mr. Matrix is guilty?”

“Your guess is as good as mine right now,” he told her. “I’ll know more about that when I find out who lives in that cottage. I’ll give him a little more time—”

He swore softly when the lights of the editor’s Ford blinked on suddenly. Without turning on his own lights he stepped on the starter and pulled forward slowly. When the Ford’s taillight whisked around the first corner, back toward Cocopalm, Shayne stepped on the accelerator, then came to an abrupt stop in front of the cottage before which the Ford had been parked.

Phyllis put her hand on Shayne’s arm. “There’s a woman in that cottage,” she whispered. “I just saw her go past the window.”

“I suppose that means I’ll have to be chaperoned if I go in,” he said lightly. He opened the door and got out. Phyllis sat back against the seat pouting prettily.

“I mean it,” he urged. “I may need chaperoning if it’s who I think it is.”

Phyllis scrambled out and joined him on the shell walk leading up to the front door. “I’m so used to being left behind I didn’t suppose you’d want me along. I thought you were kidding me.” She gripped his arm with suppressed excitement as they stepped onto the porch. Shayne knocked when he couldn’t find an electric button to push.

Swift footsteps sounded inside. The door opened a crack and Shayne pushed it on open against Midge Taylor’s slight weight.

She exclaimed, “Oh! It’s you,” and stepped back, her wide blue eyes burning into his.

Shayne’s arm, to which Phyllis held tightly, pulled her forward. “I brought along my wife as a referee if you attack me again.” He laughed down into Phyllis’s surprised face. “This is Miss Taylor, Mrs. Shayne. Miss Taylor is responsible for these scratches on my cheek. She’ll tell you all about it.”

Midge stepped backward along the wall, groping with one hand like a drunkard searching for something to hold to. Her honey-colored hair was again coiled smoothly around her head in big braids. She was deathly pale. She had changed from the torn white silk dress to a clean wash frock with white ruffles on the sleeves and it made her look smaller and younger. The simple dress rid her of every hint of sophisticated poise and gave her an ingenuously domestic appearance.

Shayne tossed his hat on a chair and ruffled his red hair irritably. “Stop backing away as though you expect me to pounce on you.”

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Phyllis reprimanded. She went to the girl’s side and took her unresisting arm. “Sit down here.” She drew Midge down beside her on an old rattan couch which was damp and sticky with salt air, demanding of her husband in an undertone, “Can’t you see you frightened her to death barging in like that? She’s about to faint.”

“No,” Midge protested. “I’m—all right. Really I am.” She drew her arm away from Phyllis, stared up at Shayne with taut defiance. “I should think you’d be ashamed to come here after what you did tonight. You—oh, you
brute.”
Tears gushed from her eyes and streamed down her pale cheeks. She slumped back, her mouth working convulsively, her hands balled into fists. Slowly she relaxed, gaining control of her tears.

Shayne watched her narrowly, his fingers touching the scratches her nails had left on his cheek. He stood in the center of the small room, and after a time he said harshly, “I suppose you had reference to what happened to your brother?”

“Yes—I—Oh, God! how can you stand there and gloat like that? Bud wasn’t bad—not really. I could have—I was trying so hard to make something of him.”

Shayne’s brows came together in an angry scowl.

Phyllis shook her head at him in an effort to stop his pitiless attitude toward the girl, but he disregarded her.

“How were you trying to help him?” he ground out. “By getting into the same mess yourself? By hanging out at the Rendezvous and tarring yourself with the same stick?”

Midge didn’t reply. Her head lolled back and tears again rolled unheeded from wide-open eyes.

“Your brother,” Shayne went on mercilessly, “deserved what he got tonight. I killed him—while he was trying to kill me. If that makes me a brute, all right.” He dropped into a chair and lit a cigarette.

Phyllis was beginning to understand dimly. She took a handkerchief from her purse and bent over Midge, wiping her cheeks and murmuring, “Please don’t. You’ve got to get hold of yourself. Mike is right. Your brother’s death was of his own making. I know just the way it happened.”

Midge took the handkerchief from Phyllis and dabbed at her eyes. She swallowed back some more tears and choked out, “I—I know. Bud wouldn’t listen to me. He was so headstrong. I was all he had and I—I failed somehow. I didn’t know about tonight until—until after—” She nodded toward Shayne and sucked in her lower lip, swallowing hard again.

“Until after you put on your act at the Rendezvous,” he supplied. “Who arranged that? Was Gil Matrix in on it?”

“No—oh, no. Of course he wasn’t.” Midge pushed herself up straight. “You’ve got to believe me,” she implored. “Gil and I had an argument this evening—about Bud. He told me Bud wasn’t worth trying to save. But I knew that Bud—for all his wildness—clung to me—loved me. Everything else had failed, so I decided to go out to the Rendezvous and—shame him into quitting that rough crowd. I meant to pretend I would hang around there—and make him quit to get
me
to quit.

“I had every intention of doing something sordid to show Bud how it felt to see his own sister do the things he thought were smart.” She paused, her eyes going from Phyllis to Shayne, pleading with them to believe her.

Shayne’s gray eyes were noncommittal through a cloud of smoke. He said, “Well?”

“Well, Mr. MacFarlane called me into his office and told me that Bud had done something terrible. He wouldn’t tell me what it was, except that he was in danger and a detective from Miami was after him. He suggested how I could—trap you—to make you leave Bud alone. He said he thought Bud would be willing to quit and go straight if he got out of this scrape. I believed him—and that’s why I did it.”

When she finished speaking her chin was tilted at a proud angle. Her shoulders were straight, her whole manner one of defiance, but her hands were clenched so tightly in her lap that the knuckles showed white against the suntanned skin.

Shayne nodded. “All right. I’m willing to believe what you say until I can prove something different. But I want to know this: Did Ben Edwards see you when Gil sent him out there just before you stopped me on the road?”

“Why, no. I saw Ben pass—going both ways. I knew Gil was worried about me and wanted me to leave the Rendezvous.”

Shayne said, “At last I’m beginning to find out one or two things.” He paused, then the question jumped at her:

“What did Gil tell you a few minutes ago—when he stopped here?”

She recovered swiftly from her surprise. “Nothing, except to talk to me about Bud and tell me about Ben Edwards.”

Shayne got up abruptly. He rubbed his chin, darted a guilty glance at Phyllis, and asked, “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Straight back,” Midge told him. “At the end of the hall.”

Shayne strode away. When he returned, Phyllis had both Midge’s hands in hers and was talking to her in a low, sympathetic voice.

Catching his wife’s eye, Shayne suggested, “Suppose you stay here with Miss Taylor for a while. I’m going to be dashing around.”

Phyllis nodded happily. “Of course—” she began, but Midge interrupted swiftly:

“No, you mustn’t do that. I couldn’t let you.”

“But I’d love to,” Phyllis declared. “I’m sure it would be better than being alone at a time like this.”

“No,” said Midge flatly. “I want to be alone. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help thinking that—that you’re
his
wife.”

Phyllis said, “Oh,” disappointedly. She glanced at Shayne for guidance, but he had turned his back and walked to the door. “Well,” said Phyllis uncertainly, “well, then, I—I guess I won’t stay.”

Midge didn’t say anything. She averted her face from Phyllis’s reproachful eyes.

Phyllis caught up with her husband as he started down the steps. “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “I thought she had forgiven you. She seemed so friendly while we were alone in the room together. She changed all of a sudden when you came back from the bathroom and suggested that I stay with her.”

Shayne patted her hand, which rested in the crook of his arm. His low chuckle held no mirth. When they reached the roadster he opened the door, helped her in, saying, “I’ll write you a letter of explanation the first spare minute I have.”

He stalked around the car and got in. When they pulled away from the little beach cottage he muttered, “You’re entirely too trusting, angel. Too willing to believe what you want to believe. But don’t change—keep it up. It’s very becoming to your face.”

“But, Michael, she did like me. I’m not guessing about that,” Phyllis flared.

“Maybe she did. Under happier circumstances you two might be friends. But she was anxious to get rid of us just the same. I looked in the bedroom on my way to the end of the hall. She was just starting to pack her clothes. It looks as though Gil stopped by to tell her to get ready to skip out with him.”

Phyllis’s dark eyes glowed with curiosity and regret. “Then you think Gil committed the murders—and is trying to get away.”

“He won’t get away if I can prevent it,” Shayne said in a noncommittal tone. He pressed the roadster forward to greater speed, groped for one of Phyllis’s hands and squeezed it. “Life plays dirty tricks on people sometimes. If I were God I’d arrange things differently, but I’m not God. I’m just a private dick with a job to do.”

She sighed and moved close to his big shoulder. “Just the same, I feel terribly sorry for both of them. I don’t believe either of them has ever known peace or happiness.”

Chapter Fourteen:
TWO FROM THREE LEAVES ONE

SHAYNE MADE A WIDE SWING at the next intersection, and instead of following the direction Matrix had taken he drove back down the beach to the street on which the Edwards house was located.

As he approached from the east he saw that only one automobile now stood in front of the lighted house. It was a bright blue sedan. Two men lolled back against the cushion of the front seat.

Shayne drove past without slacking speed, swerved into the curb in the middle of the next block, and got out. Phyllis moved her lips to question him as he said:

“Take the car on back to the hotel. Park it in front and leave the key with the clerk.” His voice was harsh, and Phyllis saw that all at once his lips were tight.

She slid obediently under the wheel. “Well, you needn’t snap my head off,” she told him, half seriously. “Why are you getting out here?”

“Sorry, angel.” He patted her hand, then jerked his thumb toward the blue sedan. “I’m going back to see Mrs. Edwards. If you see Will Gentry or Chief Boyle around the hotel you might ask one of them to drive by and pick me up presently.”

“But I could wait for you, Michael. Honestly, I don’t mind waiting at all.”

He waggled a long forefinger at her. “Remember, you agreed to take orders when I’m working. Get going.”

Disappointment came into her face, but she drove slowly away. He waited to be sure she didn’t turn back, then thrust his hands deep in his pockets and strolled back to the palm-shaded sidewalk, whistling. Curiously enough, the tune was his own off-key version of “The Campbells Are Coming.”

He saw the flare of a match from the front seat of the sedan as he approached. He groped in his pocket for a cigarette and stuck it between his lips, then stepped to the curb side of the sedan and asked, “Got a match?”

Melvin’s young round face twitched. He half turned to Hymie, who sat under the wheel, and his hand dived toward Hymie’s left armpit.

Hymie knocked his hand away. “You wanta give him my rod too?” he growled.

Shayne laughed softly. “Why don’t you tell him a fairy story to keep him quiet?”

Melvin began to curse the detective in a high-pitched voice while tears of anger and mortification came into his eyes.

“Lay off him,” Hymie demanded. “Sweet mother, what’s it get you to keep him riled up? We’re not bothering you.”

Shayne said, “I get a kick out of making him cry.” He swung around and opened the gate leading onto the yard walk.

Mrs. Ben Edwards answered the door. Her eyes were red but she was not weeping. Her plump face was stiffly set in tragic lines of acceptance and Shayne divined that she was through with waiting; glad, perhaps, that the time of waiting was ended.

She nodded and said, “Come in, Mr. Shayne,” exactly as though he had kept an appointment.

He went into the living-room and said, “Hello,” to Mr. Max Samuelson, whose bald head glowed as smooth as a buttered billiard ball. He was seated in the chair which Tommy had occupied earlier in the evening.