Shayne put a finger tip near the raw wound. “A bullet did this. A forty-five, I’d guess, from the size of the hole in the top of my car. Will it make things any better if I get a doctor’s affidavit that a wound like that could knock me out cold for five hours?”
Lucy Hamilton hurried to him. “Michael!” she cried out. “I thought you’d just been in a fight and somebody had hit you! What is this all about? Who’s the man in Wilmington, and who is the woman you say was in your room last night? Who shot you? And why, Michael?”
She examined the wound gravely and anxiously. “I’m going right out and get some bandage.”
“Sit down while I give this part of it to Will,” he told her gruffly. “I’ll fill you in on the rest of it later.”
Timothy Rourke, who had transferred his emaciated body from the edge of the desk to a chair, sprang up from his sprawled position, and dragged up a chair for Lucy. She sat down on the edge of it, and the reporter resumed his seat.
“There was that telephone call just as you were leaving my apartment with Mrs. Carrol,” Shayne reminded the chief. “The guy sounded drunk or frightened or both, and wanted to know if we could keep Mrs. Carrol’s name out of her husband’s murder investigation. I figured I’d learn more by playing him along, and agreed to meet him. I was in a hurry to keep the date. I called Lucy and told her to get over to the Commodore and find that alleged letter from me before Mrs. Carrol got there.” He paused, turned to Lucy, and suggested, “You give your end of it, angel. What was that junk in the Herald?”
Lucy Hamilton’s face flushed. “It wasn’t junk. It happened exactly the way I told Officer Hagen. Just as I opened the door and turned on the light. Somebody had evidently searched the room. Things from her suitcase were all scattered around. I just didn’t know what kind of trouble you were in and I tried to play it safe.” She looked at the chief, but his protuberant eyes were half hidden by a puff of smoke.
Shayne gave Lucy a crooked grin and said, “You get a whole row of A’s for effort, angel. And when we get this mess cleaned up, Tim’ll make you ‘Heroine for a Day’ in a Daily News scoop.”
Rourke stopped to pat her shoulder on his way back to his chair. “And we’ll have a celebration. Just you and me.”
Gentry interrupted him with an angry snort, and Shayne resumed. “This man on the phone wouldn’t give his name, but he offered me ten grand if I could make certain Mrs. Carrol’s name would be kept out of the investigation. You can’t blame me for rushing out to check on him, Will.”