Gentry shook his head slowly. “I just don’t get it,” he said in a low rumble. “If you’re lying—”
A voice was rasping through the receiver, and he uncovered the mouthpiece to say, “Perhaps you’d like to speak to Mrs. Carrol now.” He held the instrument out to her.
She seized it eagerly and exclaimed, “It’s Nora, Mr. Bates. I just don’t know anything. I didn’t even see Ralph before they told me he was dead. It’s all so horrible!” She paused, listened, nodded her head, and continued. “Yes. Everything was fixed for me to go to his room. The key was at the hotel just as it was arranged, and the detective phoned me twice. Only—” Her voice faltered on a convulsive sob. “Only there was some awful mistake. It was the wrong apartment. I got into the detective’s room instead of Ralph’s. Yes,” she accented shrilly. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. He sent me the key to his own apartment here at the same hotel, and he was waiting for me — in bed. He pretended he was asleep when I slipped in, thinking it was Ralph. I don’t know, Mr. Bates. I think they’re all in it together. The Chief of Police is a crony of his, and you’d better come down here.”
The rangy redhead growled an angry expletive and snatched the instrument from Nora’s hand. “Michael Shayne speaking,” he rasped. “Mrs. Carrol is right. You’d better high-tail it down here fast. And bring all the evidence in your possession purporting to back up your story.”
“I will certainly do that, Mr. Shayne.” The lawyer’s voice was precise and icy. “If Mrs. Carrol is telling me the truth—”
“If she’s telling the truth,” Shayne broke in savagely, “then you’re lying your fool head off. I tell you—”
“I refuse to discuss the matter further over the phone with you, Shayne,” Bates cut in. “Please put your friend, the Chief of Police, on the wire again.”
Shayne snorted with disgust and handed the phone to Will Gentry who said curtly, “Gentry speaking.” He listened for a time, his face gradually turning the color of raw beef and his eyes narrowed to slits. Then he said, “That’s exactly what we want you to do, Bates. If you’re not in my office by one o’clock tomorrow — today, that is, I’ll have a warrant served on you in Wilmington.”
He slammed the receiver down and fixed his agate gaze on Shayne. “God help me if you’ve put me out on a limb this time, Mike. Mr. Bates is convinced that the Miami police force is in a dastardly plot with you to rape Mrs. Carrol and murder her husband. He’s flying down in the morning with documentary evidence and all the necessary legal writs to put us both in Raiford for life.”
Shayne managed a crooked grin. “That’s just fine, Will. There’s nothing I’d rather see right now than Lawyer Bates’s documentary evidence.”