“Very well, indeed. Nora’s a wonderful woman. Loyal to the core.”
Shayne turned his head at a curious sound from the divan across the room. He saw Ann Margrave set her glass down hastily and clamp a handkerchief to her mouth, coughing and sputtering as though a drink had gone down the wrong way. She stood up suddenly, and drew the robe tightly about her slim body, and started for one of the bedrooms. “You’ll have to excuse me,” she said in a muffled tone.
Margrave scarcely glanced at his daughter as she went out, but continued, “I realize you will want to check every possibility, and I expect you to do so. But I’m certain you’ll find nothing in Ralph’s private life that could possibly have led to murder. There’s only one answer and by god! I hope you are the man to come up with it, since the police refuse to listen to me.”
Shayne gently tugged at his left ear lobe. “I suppose you know that Nora Carrol was in Miami last night?”
“Indeed?” Margrave looked surprised, but not unduly so. “Poor child. I imagine she came down to plead with Ralph again not to go through with his contemplated divorce. He was making a grave mistake, as I told him more than once.”
“I have it on good authority that Carrol had unquestionable grounds for his divorce.”
Margrave’s heavy face clouded, and he made a gesture with a big hand, as though brushing aside an annoying insect. “Legally, yes,” he admitted with a sigh. “I believe Nora did — ah — commit an indiscretion. While under the influence, you understand. But who are we to sit in judgment on a fellow being? ‘Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.’ I said that to Ralph. I talked to him like a father about Nora. ‘How sinless are you?’ I asked him. ‘Did you come to marriage with clean hands? Have you never given way to temptation?’” He sighed again and shook his tousled head. “But Ralph was young and passionately jealous. He seemed determined to humiliate Nora publicly.”
“Who was the man in the case?” Shayne asked.
“Eh? Oh, I see. The entire subject is distasteful to me,” said Margrave reluctantly, “but it is a matter of public record. Young Ted Granger was named corespondent by Ralph. His own cousin, by the way. A harmless but foolish young man. It’s my impression that he was wholly to blame for the entire affair, and that he was hopelessly in love with Nora, and I think worked hard to break up her marriage with Ralph.”
Shayne took another long swallow of his drink and made a grimace of distaste. “Who recommended me to you, Mr. Margrave?” he demanded abruptly.