“I am Madame Legrand,” she answered, “and I know nothing. He called the police.” She nodded toward Shayne.
Denton turned slowly. He reached into his breast pocket for a cigar, bit off the end, and savagely spat a fragment of tobacco on the floor.
He said, “I might have known you’d be mixed up in this.”
Shayne shrugged and said, “I always like to get in on the ground floor.”
“Why did you bop her?” snarled Denton. “That the only way you can handle a dame in the Quarter?”
Shayne said, “That lacks a hell of a lot of being funny.”
“All right. Give.” Denton crossed the room and set himself solidly before the redhead and chewed his unlit cigar across his mouth.
“I had a date with Miss Macon. I was detained by a couple of your boys.” Shayne touched his bruised face tenderly with the tips of his fingers. “Before I could get back here to keep my date, somebody else had got to the girl.”
“Macon, eh? That her name?”
“Margo Macon.”