“Umm.” Her glazed eyes suddenly beamed with delight.
“Do you happen to know,” Shayne asked carefully, “exactly how far they went in the matter of hiring a detective to check up on who wrote the letters?”
“Don’t know. Pops knew I wrote them, of course, and he gave me hell. Made me promise to stop.” She lifted her highball glass with both hands and drank deeply. Then she slowly fell forward and dropped her head on her arm, spilling the remainder of the drink on the table.
Shayne’s gaze was bleak as it rested on her blue-black hair. Her eyes were closed and she breathed evenly. He tossed off his drink and called the waiter.
“Call a taxi to take Miss Margrave to the Roney Plaza,” he said, and laid a five-dollar bill on the table. “Give the driver whatever part of this you think he deserves, but you see that she gets to the hotel.”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter replied. “I’ll take care of it right away.”
Shayne’s steps were long and rapid and springy as he hurried out to his car to drive back to Miami. He was moving now. He had something. Not much, but it was definitely something. With one answer from Bates, the correct answer, he would really be ready to move.
Will Gentry had Margrave in his office when Shayne hurried in. The manufacturer looked sweaty, harried, and angry. Margrave leaped to his feet when the redhead entered, and leveled a forefinger at him. “What sort of games do you think you’re playing?” he snorted. “Chief Gentry says it was your idea to drag me in for interrogation — to be forced into a police line-up like a criminal. Damn it! I retained you to protect my interests. You’re fired, do you understand?”
Shayne ignored the pointed finger and Margrave’s angry outburst, but turned to Gentry and asked with interest, “Anything doing?”
Gentry shook his graying head wearily. “I’m afraid it’s a bust. None of the airport employees identified him. If you’ve got nothing else to go on—”