Shane was staring sleepily at Lorain Rigas.
She lifted her face, looked at him helplessly. “Somebody called up a little while after I talked to you,” she said — “said it was the night clerk — said you were waiting for me out in front of the hotel. I went down and they smacked me into a cab, brought me over here.”
Shane nodded slightly.
She turned her eyes towards the Eastman man on the floor. “He was here,” she went on, “an’ they were beating hell out of him. I don’t know where they picked him up.”
Shane said: “Probably at the Station, after he talked to me. They’ve been tailing me all night — since I left the hotel to go over an’ talk to the captain. That’s how they knew you were at the hotel — they saw you come in around nine — an’ they got the fake Johnson name from the register.”
Pedro Rigas was smiling coldly at Shane, swinging his feet back and forth nervously.
He said: “One of you two,” — he jerked his head towards the girl — “killed Charley. I find out pretty soon which one — or by God I kill you both.”
Shane had put his hands down. He held them in front of him and looked down at them, stroked the back of one with the palm of the other. Then he looked up at the rosy-cheeked young man, questioned Rigas: “Executioner?” He smiled slightly, sarcastically.
Lorain Rigas stood up suddenly, faced Pedro. She said: “You fool! Can’t you get it through that nut of yours that Del killed Charley? Dear God!” — she made a hopeless gesture. “Read the papers — the gun they found was the one Del swiped from Jack Kenny this afternoon. Jack’ll verify that.”
Pedro’s face was cold and hard and expressionless when he looked at her. “What were you doing up there?”