Rourke got up and said, “I’ll get over to the office and write this story. I’ll check on Lucile as soon as the agencies are open and let you know.”
Shayne went to the door with him. “I may not be around when this case starts to break. The boy at the desk will take any messages.”
He watched Rourke disappear down the hall, then closed the door and went back into the room. He methodically cleared up the disorder left in the wake of Marlow’s attack on the reporter and sat down by the center table with three objects laid out before him. They constituted the only actual clues he had in the case.
The small beaded bag found gripped in Helen Stallings’s hand, her wedding certificate, the water tumbler on which he had taken an impression of her fingerprints before definitely identifying the body.
Shayne sighed and pushed the glass aside. It had no bearing now. After a moment’s hesitation he also pushed the bag back. They had been important only when he was seeking to identify the corpse.
The wedding certificate was all that was left and it told its own story. He lit a cigarette and sat staring somberly at the embossed document which spoke of youthful passion, young love impatient of the restrictions set forth in a will executed by a father who sought to rule his daughter after death. Wealthy men often made that fatal mistake — and tragedy so often followed.
Wills like that of Mr. Devalon made work for private detectives, Shayne mused while a cynical glint shone in his gray eyes. He should be the last person to condemn the practice. He was still staring at the wedding certificate when sunlight slanted into the corner apartment. He roused himself with a tired oath and went to the east window to turn back the draperies and open it wide. Beyond the palms fringing Bayfront Park the shimmering surface of Biscayne Bay lay redly gold in the morning sunlight.
Householders would be stirring throughout the city, yawning and stretching, turning off insistent alarm clocks and slipping into robes to go out and bring in the morning paper.
A man would stop on his doorstep and blink stupidly at the still form of a young girl lying on his lawn. Perhaps he would go tentatively forward for a terrified look at the body and sprint wildly back into the house to convey the news of his appalling discovery to the police.
Shayne’s belly muscles tightened.