She jerked her head up, blinking tears from her eyes. “Wh-at? Who is whom?” she faltered.
“Who is the detective who located your husband in this hotel and told you he was in one-sixteen? Who furnished you with a key to my place, and telephoned you a little after one o’clock to say the coast was clear for you to attempt a reconciliation? What’s his name and where can we locate him?”
Nora Carrol’s damp brown eyes turned slowly from Shayne’s bleak and demanding gaze to Gentry’s set and uncompromising mouth.
“I think he’s quite well known in Miami,” she said. “His name is Shayne. Michael Shayne.”
Chapter three
Incredulous silence followed her quiet pronouncement of Michael Shayne’s name. Unaware of the bombshell she had exploded, she lowered her head to dab at her eyes.
Shayne recovered his speech first. “No, by God!” he began hotly.
“Hold it, Mike,” the chief interrupted with an angry bellow. “I don’t want a word from you. Drink your cognac and keep your mouth shut. If you say one word, and I mean it, Mike, one word, before I’m finished, I’ll have you taken in and locked up until I get to the bottom of this.”
Shayne nodded morosely. He took a long drink, lit a cigarette, and said quietly, “Go to it, Will. I’m just as curious as you are.”
The angry interchange between the two men brought Nora’s head up again. A frown creased her smooth forehead, and she appeared genuinely confused. “Isn’t Mr. Shayne a well-known detective?” she asked Gentry in a meek voice. “I understand he has a very good reputation.”