Shayne drove out Biscayne Boulevard and turned right on Eighteenth Street. A thin crescent moon rode high in the cloudless sky overhead, and the night was humidly warm. He drove slowly to the end of the street and stopped his car against a low stone barrier overlooking the bay front, turned off his motor, and sat for a moment gripping the steering-wheel. Light glowed through two round and heavily glassed windows in a squatty, square, stone structure at his left. It perched boldly on the very edge of the bluff overlooking the bay, and a neat shell-lined walk led up to the front door. He got out and walked up the walk.
The little house was built solidly of porous limestone, and its only windows were round, metal-framed portholes that looked as though they had been taken from a ship. The door had a heavy bronze knocker and the hinges and lock were also of bronze.
He tried the knob and the door opened inward. The narrow hallway disclosed a ship’s lantern with an electric bulb hanging from a hand-hewn beam of cypress. An open door to the right showed the interior of a tidy and tiny kitchen.
Shayne went down the hall to another door opening off to the right. The room was dark, and he fumbled along the wall until he found a light switch. When he flipped the switch, it lighted two wrought-iron ship’s lanterns similar to the one in the hall. He stood in the doorway and tugged at his left earlobe, looking down at the man lying huddled in the middle of the bare floor.
He was dead.
A big-framed man, his face bony and emaciated. His eyes were wide open and glazed, bulging from deep sockets. He wore a double-breasted uniform of shiny blue serge. The buttons were of brass and recently polished. His ankles were wired together, and the wire had cut deeply into his bound wrists.
Shayne went in and knelt beside the body.
Three fingernails had been torn from his right hand. This appeared to be the only mark of violence on his body, which was warm enough to indicate that death had occurred only half an hour or so before. Shayne judged that shock and pain had brought on a heart attack, causing death. The man was about sixty, and there was no padding or flesh on his bony frame.
Rocking back on his heels and wiping sweat from his face, Shayne went through the dead man’s pockets. He found nothing but a newspaper clipping and the torn stub of a bus ticket. The ticket had been issued the previous day, round trip from Miami to Homestead, a small town on the Florida Keys.
The clipping was a week old, from the Miami Herald. It was headed: PAROLE GRANTED.
Before reading the clipping, he raised his eyes and looked around the room. It was bare of furniture except for a built-in padded settee along one wall. Bare, and scrupulously clean, the room had the appearance of a cell.
As he turned his eyes again to the newspaper clipping he stiffened. He heard a car stopping outside. He thrust the clipping and the ticket stub in his pocket and waited.
Footsteps sounded on the walk, and the voices of men outside. Shayne lit a cigarette and blew out the match, then turned to look up at the bulky figure of Detective Chief Will Gentry in the doorway.
Shayne grinned and said, “Doctor Livingstone?”
Gentry snorted. He was a big man with heavy features, a permanent worry frown between his eyes, and a solid, forthright manner. He was an old friend of Shayne’s, and he said scathingly, “I thought I smelled something.”
Gentry walked heavily forward and scowled down at the body. A tall, white-haired man hurried in behind Chief Gentry. He wore an immaculate white linen suit and his features were sharp and clear-cut. He stopped at sight of the body and groaned, “My God! Oh, my God! Is he—”
“Dead.” Gentry grunted as he kneeled beside the dead man and asked Shayne in a tone of casual interest, “Why’d you pull out his fingernails, Mike?”
The tall, white-haired man exclaimed in a choked voice, “Good God, has he been tortured!”
“Who is he?” Shayne interposed sharply, turning toward the tall man.
“Who is he?” the man said excitedly. “Why, that’s Captain Samuels! I knew something must have happened to him.” He turned to Chief Gentry. “I knew something must have happened to him,” he repeated, “when he wasn’t here to keep his appointment with me. If only I’d called earlier!”
Gentry apparently ignored the man’s excitement and turned to Shayne. He asked calmly, his rumpled eyelids half raised, “What are you doing here?”
“Nothing much. I was driving by and saw the lights. Something just smelled wrong. I stopped by to take a look, and that’s what I found.”
Gentry said, “I suppose you can prove all that?” in a scoffing tone.
“Can you disprove it?” asked Shayne.
“Maybe not, but you’re holding out plenty. Damn it, Mike, this is murder. What do you know about it?”
“Not a thing, Will. I’ve told you how I just drove by—”
Will Gentry raised his voice to call, “Jones… you and Rafferty bring in the cuffs.”
Jones’s voice rumbled, “Okay, Chief,” and heavy footsteps sounded in the hall.
At the same time there was the light click of heels outside and Myrna Hastings came in. She said, “You don’t need to cover for me, Mike,” and stopped to catch her breath. There was a sob in her voice as she cried out, “You don’t need to cover up for me. Go ahead and tell them I asked you to stop here.” She turned toward the stalwart chief of detectives, as though seeing him for the first time, and said, “Oh! This is Chief Gentry, isn’t it.”
Gentry rumbled, “I don’t think—”
“Don’t you remember me, Chief?” Myrna laughed uncertainly. “Timothy Rourke introduced me to you in your office today. I do feature stories for a New York syndicate. I’m to blame for Mike coming here tonight. I’d heard about Captain Samuels and about his shipwreck and all — years ago, so I thought he might be material for a story. I asked Mike to stop here for a minute tonight, and that’s how it was.”
Gentry turned his bulky body toward Shayne and asked gruffly, “Why didn’t you tell me that, Mike?”
Myrna laughed merrily. “He had some idea of protecting me, Chief. You see I didn’t want to tell why I wanted to stop here. Then, when he found the man dead — well — I guess maybe Mike thought I knew something about it. Wasn’t that it, Mike?” She whirled toward Shayne.
“Yeah. Something like that,” said Shayne stiffly.
Gentry turned away from them and said, “Put your bracelets away, Jones, and go over the place,” to one of the two dicks hovering in the doorway.
“Now that you’ve got me cleared up,” Shayne suggested, “why not tell me about it?”
“I don’t know any more than you do,” Gentry admitted. “Mr. Guildford called a while ago and asked me to come out here with him. Seems he had a hunch something had happened to Captain Samuels.”
“I felt sure of it after I had time to think things over,” the white-haired man said. “I had a definite appointment here with the captain for nine o’clock tonight and I waited almost half an hour for him.”
Shayne said, “It’s almost eleven now. Why did you wait so long before calling the police?”
“I had a flat tire just as I reached the boulevard driving away,” Guildford explained. “I had it changed at the filling station there and was delayed. I called as soon as I reached home.”
Shayne asked, “Were the lights burning while you waited?”
“No. I’m quite sure they weren’t. The house was dark and apparently empty.”
“What was your appointment for?” Shayne pressed him.
Guildford hesitated. He glanced at Will Gentry. “I don’t mind answering official questions, but what is this man’s connection with the case? And the young lady?”
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