Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 6, May 1963

The man’s eyelids fluttered. He opened his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Norton asked.

The man made no reply. His eyes were dazed. His lips were bruised and swollen where Norton had hit him.

“Did you kill Diana Clark?”

Norton expected an indignant denial, but there was no response at all.

“Snap out of it or I’ll turn you over to the police!” The silence was getting Norton’s nerves.

The man opened his mouth, but no words came. Only that curious, animal grunting Norton had heard during their fight.

The man’s forefinger pointed toward his mouth. North realized the man was a mute. For a moment pity made Alec Norton forget everything else. A moment was all the man needed. His right shoulder rose and a blinding blow crashed against Norton’s jaw. Darkness was spangled with a rain of stars. Then there was only darkness...

Alec Norton seemed to be swimming through heavy seas. He could hear the pounding of the surf. His eyelids were made of lead. He was lying on the floor. The neon sign was turned off. A gray dawn lay beyond the window, but even that wan light seared his raw eyeballs. The pounding of the surf was the throbbing of his own pulse in his ears.

Gingerly, his fingertips explored his jaw. It was swollen and tender but not broken.

He got to his feet slowly. He looked about the room. No one else was there. The rug was still rolled and stacked in a corner. The furniture had been moved out from the walls as if the intruder had been searching the floor for some small object that might have-lodged under the rug or between wall and furniture.

Nothing else was disturbed. His belongings were ranged on the bureau just as he had left them. Bedclothes and mattress were intact. The cushions of the upholstered chairs were not even turned over.

Norton crossed the room and looked into the bathroom. Nothing disarranged. He tried the door into the hall. It was still locked. He tried the door that communicated with the next room. Also locked. The uninvited guest must have used a skeleton key — or the key that had been missing ever since the murder.

Norton picked up the phone. “Will you send some black coffee to eleven-o-five as soon as the restaurant opens? And a morning paper — the Star.”

He went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. The impact made him wince, but he forced his aching head under the stream of cold water with the rest of his body.

When he climbed out a few minutes later a blast of cold air from the open window in the next room shivered his wet body. He slammed the door, grabbed a rough towel and rubbed himself vigorously. A glow of warmth ran through his veins. He felt almost human again as he wrapped himself in a flannel dressing-gown and slid his feet into leather bedroom slippers. Hand on the doorknob, he paused.

There was a sound of movement in the room beyond. Was it the bellhop with coffee or the uninvited guest again? He balled his right hand and threw the door open with his left.

Abruptly he was conscious of bare shins and damp hair. A girl knelt in the middle of the room examining the floor.

“Oh.” She rose. “I’m sorry. I must’ve mistaken your room for mine.” Her startled eyes were a deeper brown than her hair. There was character in the firm line of her chin, tenderness in the soft curve of her mouth.

Norton appreciated her, but his eyes remained wary. “Looking for something?”

“No. I just dropped my... my handkerchief.”

He was sure she was lying. There was no handkerchief in her hand. Yet she didn’t look like a common sneak thief. Everything she wore was the best of its kind — dark brown to match her eyes except for a tweed coat that matched the light, tawny brown of her hair. She thrust one hand in a pocket of the coat and drew out a key with a hotel tag.

“This is my own key,” she said. “It must fit your lock as well as mine.” His unsmiling stare kindled a flush in her cheeks. “You don’t believe me!”

“No.” There was a ripple of amusement around his mouth.

“You’re insulting!” She was through the hall door in a flash. It slammed behind her.

Norton’s ripple became a grin. But only for a moment. His face was sober enough as he began to dress. In less than twenty-four hours two people had searched for something in this room. And both had searched the floor.

As soon as he was dressed, Norton went down on his hands and knees. Now that the rug was rolled aside, he could see a dark, irregular stain in the middle of the floor boards. It was streaky where a half-hearted attempt had been made to remove it with some solvent. But nothing else about the floor boards suggested murder. He was still studying them when someone tapped on the door.

“Coffee, sir!”

Norton scrambled to his feet. A bellhop came in with a tray balanced on one hand and set it down with a flourish. Then he pulled a folded newspaper from his pocket and laid it beside the tray. His blue eyes were bright as his brass buttons. He had sandy hair that curled close to his head. Norton fished a half-dollar out of his pocket and tossed it to him.