“You don’t have to know anything,” he said with rough tenderness. “I’m not saying another word.”
“Well, all right. I won’t ask you anything else.” The girl laughed briefly and recklessly, and their glasses clinked once more.
Shayne stood up and moved around the end of the wall, stopping two feet from the table where the couple were toasting Christine’s career. He looked down on them soberly. The girl’s dark head lay on Joe’s broad shoulder.
He said, “I’m sorry, Meade, but I’ll have to ask you to be a little more explicit about Nora Carson.”
The couple separated quickly. Christine looked up into Shayne’s gaunt face and gasped, dropping her glass to the stone flagging where it shattered loudly.
Joe Meade drew his big frame slowly from the chair. He scowled and asked, “Who the devil are you?”
“The name is Shayne. I’ve been eavesdropping behind the stone wall. I want to know where Nora Carson is.”
Meade snarled, “The hell you do.”
The patio was suddenly quiet as people began to notice the two men standing in the shadow.
Shayne nodded. “Why not step around here where we can be alone and talk it over? No use creating a scene that will involve Miss Forbes.”