“He acts,” Shayne mused, “like a man that’s scared half out of his wits,” as the elevator reached the ground floor and they stepped into the foyer.
“That’s it. That’s exactly the impression I got,” Naylor agreed excitedly. He stretched his legs to keep pace with Shayne’s strides. “Do you suppose he has had some threat — something he hasn’t told us about?”
“I don’t know. Anyhow, I’ve bet two grand he’ll stay in line. Now it’s up to you to do your stuff.”
“You can depend on me,” Naylor assured him when they stood for a moment outside the apartment house. “I’ll have it tied up in a knot tomorrow night.”
Shayne nodded and crossed the sidewalk to his car. He got in and headed back across the County Causeway over Biscayne Bay, scowling angrily at the bright paths of moonlight on the rippling gray waters, cursing himself for letting anger get the best of him in Marsh’s apartment.
Making that bet had been a damn-fool trick. Why hadn’t he washed his hands of Marsh and let him quit? That would have fixed everything. He could have caught that midnight train for New York — and Phyllis.
No. He had to be a stubborn ass and stick his neck out and bray into a telephone. There couldn’t be any backing out now. Not with two thousand dollars on the line.
Even as he cursed himself, Shayne was conscious of a faint inward glow of satisfaction. The pressure was on, and that’s the way he worked best. A girl had been murdered in his apartment and a kidnap note sent implicating him. Painter and Stallings had promised him until noon tomorrow to see that Helen Stallings was returned. He had that much time in which to clear up the murder and the mystery surrounding it. And he didn’t even know where the body was.
He pressed down the accelerator and stuck his head out the window to let the cool bay breeze blow the muggles from his mind. His thoughts revolved around Arch Bugler, around the hot-lipped maid at the Stallings residence, around the young man whose name was Marlow, and the mysteriously missing body of a strangled young girl.
A few vagrant pieces of the larger puzzle — and none of them appeared to fit together. He had only a few hours in which to find enough more pieces to form some design. He forgot the discomfort of his swollen lips and puckered them to whistle a carefree tune. Inside him was a driving eagerness to begin the search for some of those missing pieces.