“Just what I told you. That it was Mike Shayne calling and he had this job for last night.”
“How were you supposed to contact him?”
“I wasn’t. He didn’t give me any number or any way to contact him. I asked him about it, and he said I wasn’t, on any account, to try and call him or anything. That his part in it was strictly on the Q.T.”
“Where were you to deliver your picture?”
“To a lawyer in Wilmington, Delaware. I’ve got the name and address written down.”
“Bates?”
“That’s it. Bates. He said the lawyer would pay me for the job. Most jobs like that I’d want cash before doing it, but knowing Mike Shayne’s reputation I wasn’t worried. You know who killed Carrol?”
“I don’t know one goddamned thing about it,” Shayne growled. He stood up and looked at his watch. It was noon. “Here’s what you’d better do,” he continued after a moment’s thought. “Relax for a while and get rid of that hang-over. Then go straight to police headquarters with your camera and the picture you got last night. See Will Gentry, the chief, and tell him exactly what you told me. Leave out the part about phoning me last night and about this talk we’ve had. Just tell him you got frightened and holed up with a quart of whisky and passed out. As soon as you woke up sober, you realized it was best to go to the police and get it off your chest. He’ll ask you if you can recognize my voice over the phone and stuff like that, and if he makes a test I hope you’ll tell him the other voice was different. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Ludlow weakly. “Say, how did you find me here?”
“Don’t blame your blonde at the studio,” Shayne told him pleasantly. “She did her best to cover up for you. I outsmarted her, that’s all.”