The telephone rang when Gentry and Nora Carrol reached the door. Gentry stopped, turned, and listened when Shayne answered it. When a man’s high-pitched and excited voice came over the wire, the redhead pressed the receiver tight against his ear, hoping to keep the sound from Gentry’s range of hearing.
The man was saying, “Shayne? Am I glad to reach you! You’ve heard about Carrol, huh?”
Shayne arched his ragged brows at Gentry, groaned, and said into the mouthpiece, “For chrissake, honey, why don’t you go to bed and sleep it off? Do you know what time it is?”
Gentry hesitated briefly, then opened the door and went out with Nora, leaving it ajar. Shayne listened for the chief’s stolid footsteps in the corridor with one ear, and heard his caller’s plaintive words with the other.
The man said, “What’s the matter? Did I wake you up? This here is Ludlow talking. Don’t you know about Carrol?”
“What about him?” Shayne demanded cautiously as the footsteps outside died away.
“He’s dead. He was dead when I got there, Shayne. Look, I don’t know what this is all about or how much I’m on the spot, but I can’t afford any trouble. If there’s any chance of me being fingered in this, I want to get my story in first. I didn’t give my name when I reported to the cops. I don’t know how you figure in it, but I know your reputation, and I know you’ll give it to me straight. Can you keep me out of it? Or should I quick call headquarters again and say I was scared the first time and didn’t know what I was doing, and then give them all the dope?”
Shayne heard a wheezy, long-drawn breath over the wire, as though Ludlow had not taken time to breathe during his long, rapid recital. He asked sharply, “How did you get my phone number?”
“From Information. I didn’t think about it at first. I knew you wouldn’t be at your office. That’s why I didn’t call you before the police. But I got to worrying about them dragging you into it, and then you telling about me, and I’d be in a spot for not coming clean right away. How do we play now?”
Shayne was thinking fast. “Who did you say this is?” he asked in a low voice.