Arriving at his hotel, the clerk beckoned to him when he entered the lobby. “Telephone message, Mr. Shayne. A Mr. Rourke called from the Parkview Hotel. He’s waiting for you there and wants you to join him at once.” The clerk stopped abruptly, his eyes fixed on Shayne’s face. “Gosh,” he breathed, “what does the other fellow look like?”
“Better than I do,” Shayne admitted ruefully. “But I’m going to try out a pair of knucks next time I meet him. No other messages — or visitors?”
“Nothing else. Gee, I’ll bet it was a whale of a fight.”
“Practically a butchering.” Shayne grinned. “The Parkview?”
“Yes, sir.”
Shayne returned to his car and drove north through the center of town. Rourke, he mused, had worked fast and with luck to locate Marlow’s hotel so soon. Shayne wasn’t at all sure that it would be any help, but it was a good omen. If his Irish luck started working, things were bound to begin straightening out.
He passed the Thirteenth Street entrance to the causeway and continued north along the boulevard. There was little traffic. A heavy car which had loitered behind him for several blocks suddenly darted ahead with a full-throated roar of sixteen cylinders.
Subconsciously he stiffened when the big car whirled into a U turn at a street intersection a few blocks ahead and roared back at high speed. Shayne couldn’t remember whether the Parkview Hotel was in that block or the next, and turned his eyes to search for a sign. When he looked back at the street the heavy, speeding car swerved as it came abreast of him. Then it was a lunging projectile of steel that smashed his aged car as though it was made of papier-mâché, lifting and twisting it in the air, driving it sideways against a lamppost that crackled at the base under the terrific impact.
Shayne was thrown free. He crashed into a low Australian-pine hedge on the other side of the sidewalk.
The big car careened over the curb on screaming tires, bounced back into the street, miraculously retaining an upright position. It shuddered to a standstill and a figure leaped out, ran to Shayne’s smashed car carrying a burden in his arms. The figure darted back to the waiting car and it sped away as Shayne shook himself and got groggily to his feet.