The area had a different appearance in the daytime, but he finally came to a high iron fence around a substantial old house surrounded with spacious grounds. A side driveway leading in had a sign reading Club Daphne over the arched entrance. He went on to the front gate and down a path between neatly clipped box hedges on either side to massive white columns guarding the front door.
He rang the bell and waited for a long time. He had his finger on the bell a second time when a narrow slot opened in the door at shoulder level and a pair of eyes peered out at him. He said, “I want to see Rudy,” and added, “Captain Denton sent me.”
The eyes disappeared after scrutinizing Shayne, and the slot closed. The double doors opened with creaking reluctance, and Shayne pushed past a wizened little man who blinked watery blue eyes at him. “I dunno whether I’d ought to,” he grumbled. “You sure Cap’n Denton sent you?”
“You know Rudy wouldn’t want me kept waiting. Where is he?”
“Upstairs in his office, I reckon.”
Shayne said, “I’ve been there before.” He went up a magnificent curving staircase, his feet sinking into thick carpeting with each step. At the top he heard voices at the end of a narrow hall leading into the left wing. Following the sound, he walked into the office where he had been an unwilling guest the foregoing night.
Bart sat in a chair tilted against the wall. He was eating peanuts from a paper bag, smacking his lips and crunching loudly. Rudy Soule sat behind the desk and stopped talking in the middle of a sentence as Shayne walked in.
Bart’s chair dropped forward with a thud when he saw Shayne. He wiped his mouth with the back of a hairy hand and got up slowly, smiling with simple pleasure. “Look who’s here, Boss. The redhead, come back for more.”
Rudy Soule put both hands flat on his desk and half rose from his chair. His upper lip twitched impatiently and his low-lidded eyes looked dangerously sleepy. “What do you want here?”
“To talk to you.” Shayne sauntered in without glancing at Bart who was tugging at a blackjack in his hip pocket.