"Save it until you get that tap fixed and get up here. She spilled the whole story to Lucy."
He hung up and turned to look at Lucy who had limped across the room and was now seated at the end of the sofa in front of the low table holding the liquor tray. Nellie Paulson still lay in an unconscious heap against the wall beyond the sofa. She hadn't stirred since she crumpled to the floor there.
The cognac bottle still stood on the tray, and the glass of brandy Lucy had poured out for Shayne two hours previously was still standing full to the brim.
He looked at his watch and grinned wryly as he went to the chair beside the sofa. "Sorry I didn't quite make it by midnight for that drink, angel."
She shuddered, but kept her tone as light as his. "What made you come at all? I knew she'd cut my throat happily if I said one word over the telephone to indicate what was going on."
"I came because it still lacked five minutes of midnight when you told me I shouldn't dare come here at that hour — that you wouldn't let me in if I did. I knew you too well to believe you wouldn't give me that last minute to keep my promise in-and suddenly everything clicked into place. I knew the murderer was Nellie Paulson and that she hadn't left your place at all. And I still needed this drink," he ended simply, reaching for it and lifting it in the air in a silent toast to his secretary.
Her aplomb exploded suddenly in great racking sobs. "It was terrible, Mike. Just horrible. She told me every single ghoulish detail after she got started. About killing a man named Charlie Barnes in her hotel room after he balked about being shaken down in the badger game she was working with Lanny who has been living with her in Jacksonville as her brother."
"Was she in the room when Barnes's sister looked in and saw Charles dead on the bed?"
"Yes. She hid in the bathroom. She told me all about it, giggling as though it was a big joke. How she wound his coat about his throat so the blood wouldn't spill out, and pushed him out the window into the bay and then ran out and up two flights of stairs and down the elevator without anyone noticing her."
"One of the things I don't get is how she came to be in my hotel lobby waiting for me with a picture of Barnes when I got there."
"She told me all that, too. After she left the hotel, she walked up the street looking for a cab. She found one two or three blocks away and got in and told him to drive by the Hibiscus, just out of curiosity to see if anything was happening. And just then the man's sister, Mary Barnes, came running out of an alley beside the hotel and stopped the cab to get away from a man who was chasing her. And Nellie looked back and saw it was her own brother who lives in Detroit. So she just stayed in the cab and heard the driver recommend you as a detective who might help Mary, and watched her get out at your hotel. She had the driver drop her a few blocks away, and she walked back. She would have gone up to your room and killed Mary right then to get rid of the only witness to the other murder, but the clerk refused to give her your room number."
"So she waited until I got there and gave me that story about Barnes being in the Silver Glade, along with his picture."
"She was furious, she said, when you refused to take her money, and went on upstairs. But she thought anyhow she had sort of fixed up an alibi by making you think Barnes was still alive at the Silver Glade at ten o'clock."
Shayne nodded somberly and refilled his glass. He glanced beyond Lucy and lifted one eyebrow as Nellie stirred slightly on the floor.
"I guess I didn't break her back after all. Did she know her brother also followed me to my place?"
"Yes. She kept hanging around outside in the shadows, hoping Mary would come out and she'd get a chance at her. She saw her brother go in, and later he rushed out and jumped in his car and drove away. Then she left, and Mary came up behind her on the sidewalk and recognized her as the girl who'd been in the cab before. Then she lured Mary into the park and got her to sit on a bench and — and cut her throat, too. And Mary had told her about your note and how she was coming here, so she left her bag in the park and took Mary's and caught a cab here and gave me the note. Later, after I'd phoned you to say she'd arrived, she suddenly seemed to realize you might be coming here any moment to talk to Mary.
"That's when she took the knife out of her purse and showed me the blood on it and gloated about how sharp it wa's and how it just slid through the soft flesh of a throat like a knife through warm butter.
"And she wanted to try it on me, Michael. Honestly, she was just dying to. But she wanted to stay here while she tried to locate her Lanny-who had gone out of the Hibiscus room before she killed Charlie Barnes and didn't even know she'd done it-and she knew that if I weren't here to answer the phone when you called, you might get suspicious and come up anyway. So then she tore up a sheet and tied me to the chair and told me she'd love to cut my throat and watch my blood spurt out if I didn't say exactly what she told me to over the phone."
As though the word were a signal, Lucy's telephone shrilled at that exact moment.
She got up, looking questioningly at Shayne, and he nodded. "Answer it. If it's Lanny, stall him as long as you can. Tell him Nellie's in the bathroom. Get him to hang on if you can. Will should have a tap on it by this time."
Lucy picked up the phone and said, "Yes?"
She listened a moment, then nodded to Shayne who was waiting intently. "Yes, she is here and she's been trying to call you. If you could hold on a minute? Well-she's in the bathroom right now. Hold on and I'll get her. I know she's awfully anxious to talk to you."
She put down the telephone, looking at Shayne anxiously.
As he nodded his approval, a scrabbling sound behind him made him swing on his heel.
Nellie Paulson had come back to consciousness enough to have gotten up on her hands and knees. She shrank back and opened her mouth to scream as Shayne turned toward her.
He leaped forward and drove the heel of his palm against her mouth before the sound came out.
Lucy watched transfixed, her own mouth wide open. Shayne whirled and saw her, gestured frantically to the telephone on the table.
She understood the gesture and picked it up, asked sweetly, "OhAre you still there? Nellie will be out in just a sec."
She continued to hold the receiver to her ear, and after another thirty seconds her eyes widened at sound of loud voices and a struggle at the other end of the wire.
Then a different voice came to her, "You there. Miss Hamilton? Good work. We got him all right. And tell Mike Shayne that Chief Gentry's on his way up and for him to stay put until the chief gets there."
Lucy replaced the phone and reported the conversation to Shayne. Nellie was sunk back on the floor and lay twisted there, moaning softly with her hands over her face.
Shayne grinned wryly at Gentry's order, and sank back into his chair. "Come over and sit in my lap, angel. I swear I'm never going to leave you alone again."
Lucy went to him slowly, and he caught her wrist and pulled her down onto his thighs. She flung her arms about his neck and pressed her face against his chest.
He held her quivering body tightly and said into the mass of brown curls beneath his chin:
"I mean it, Lucy. Right now I really mean it. Hurry up and kiss me before Will walks in and spoils everything."
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The blonde cried murder ms-28 Page 14