“That’s all right,” Painter said impatiently. “Better see her natural this way, before you birds get her all prettied up past recognition.”
A member of the Miami detective force entered the anteroom leading Whit Marlow by the arm. The young saxophone player’s face was ashen, his eyes looked sick. He glanced at Shayne, Rourke, and the others without recognition. Painter faced him and asked, “Marlow?”
“Yes. What’s this all about?” Marlow jerked his head up with a show of spirit.
“Are you the legal husband of a young lady generally known as Helen Stallings? Helen Devalon before her name was changed to Stallings?”
Marlow’s ashen features twitched. He started a denial, then his shoulders drooped dispiritedly. “All right. So it isn’t a secret any longer. But we had a right to get married. Suppose she does lose the money? Where’s Helen? That’s all I want to know. Where is she?”
Painter turned and nodded to the mortician. He led them back through the chapel to a tiled workroom that stank with the heavy odor of embalming fluids. Stallings dropped behind the Miami detective and Marlow. Rourke and Shayne came next, followed by the two Miami Beach officers.
The mortuary attendant whispered something in the ear of a tall man wearing white duck pants and a surgeon’s jacket.
Whit Marlow’s breath was coming jerkily between set teeth as his befuddled senses slowly began to catch the sinister meaning of the questions which had been thrown at him and this trip to the rear of the mortuary. An agonized look came into his young eyes and he trembled violently. The husky Miami detective supported his slight figure with a heavy arm.
The mortician went to a huge porcelain cabinet with a tier of long drawers. He touched the handle of one drawer and it slid out smoothly on oiled rollers. “We haven’t got started on her yet,” he said apologetically.
Painter stood back with a wave of his hand toward Marlow. “Do you know this woman?”