It was exactly two-thirty when he crossed the bridge and walked cautiously toward the unlighted house on the island.
NINE
SHAYNE STRODE STEADILY along the winding road in the shadow of interlaced fronds. He came to an abrupt stop at a turn in the road that brought the estate into clear view. Every window was dark, and the island stillness was queerly magnified when the sound of his footsteps ceased. The moonlight and shadows played odd tricks on his alert perceptions as he hesitated.
An eerie atmosphere of desertion enveloped the silent mansion. The night air was humid and heavy with the scent of garden flowers. At the corner of the house he could see the spidery outline of the wrought-iron railing of the outside stairway down which Lucile had come to meet him earlier. The small balcony above was deserted, the French doors leading into the house were closed.
Shayne grinned at his indecision while he stood there. This was a hell of a time for him to start getting jumpy, just because the entire household was asleep at two-thirty in the morning, and because a girl had failed to keep her date.
He shrugged off his hesitation and went across the concrete drive to the corner stairway, climbed the stairway firmly, perversely pleased with the faint clang of iron beneath his feet.
He tried the French doors and found them locked from within. He hesitated once more, scowling at himself for the skulking method he was employing. This was not his way of doing things, but he had to find out what had happened to the maid. A man didn’t have to be a complacent ass to be positive that she would have met him at the bridge unless forces wholly beyond her control had prevented it.
He turned and went down the stairway, walked around to the front door and leaned on the electric button. He could hear the faint ringing of the bell inside. He kept his finger on the button for more than a minute, and his scowl deepened to one of anger. Stepping back a few feet he shouted, “Hello! What does it take to wake you up?”
After a brief wait lights glowed behind curtained windows upstairs. The curtains parted, and Burt Stallings’s resonant voice answered, “Who’s down there?”
“Mike Shayne.”