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

Jean Stacy released the clutch. The car swerved to avoid a delivery truck and bumped over the cobblestones. At the corner where Greenwood Lane emptied into Brickett Street, Jean slowed down. At this hour there was little traffic in the neighborhood. Its factories and warehouses were empty except for an occasional night watchman. Street lamps were the only source of light.

Again Jean released the clutch. The car had hardly moved a yard when she stamped on the brake. A big, black car without lights shot out of another side street parallel with Greenwood Lane. The car cut in front of Jean’s compact, so close it almost grazed her radiator. Its door swung open. Something long, inert and shapeless fell before Jean’s front wheels.

The black car gathered speed. Like a wraith it disappeared into the darkness without noise or lights. The license number was veiled in shadow. But Norton recognized the now familiar silhouette of the Cadillac.

He pushed open the door beside him and tumbled out. Jean was at his heels.

“Don’t come,” he warned her. “This is going to be ugly.”

She stammered. “It... it was a body, wasn’t it?”

The headlights of the car shone like twin spotlights on a woman huddled face down in the roadway. Gently, Norton turned her over. Dark hair framed a pale face, thin and worn as a profile on an old coin. The eyes were glazed and vacant, the lips slightly parted. But she was still breathing.

“W-who is she?” Jean’s shaking hand was on his shoulder.

“Marie Chester, the chambermaid whose story was suppressed.” Norton was so angry that he forgot to be afraid. He would have made a splendid target kneeling in that blaze of light. But he wasn’t thinking of that.

“Were we meant to find her?” whispered Jean, huskily.

“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Norton answered without looking up. Then he added, “Quick! We must drive to a hospital.”

At the hospital Jean waited in an anteroom while Norton interviewed the chief surgeon. When he returned his face was as bleak as granite.

“Marie Chester is dead. She was horribly tortured first. She insisted on leaving a written statement describing what she saw the night Diana Clark was murdered.”

Jean Stacy caught her breath. “It’s unbelievable that Benda would go to such extremes as to actually kill the girl.”

“Benda wanted to silence a witness,” Norton said. “He murdered in order to frighten other witnesses. These things do happen. Ask any police reporter. In the old days in New York she might have been sealed in a block of wet cement and dropped into the East River as soon as the cement had hardened. Its weight keeps a body from rising to the surface, so there’s no evidence of murder.

“Benda doesn’t care if there’s evidence or hot because the police department is under his thumb. There has to be a few honest cops or it wouldn’t function at all. But most of the top brass snaps to attention when he puts in a phone call. I’m sure of it.”

“He threatened you!” cried Jean. “You must leave Pearson City at once!”

Norton shook his head. “I thought I was pretty courageous defying Benda yesterday — the little tin hero! But now I see it differently. I was never really in danger. As I said this afternoon Benda would think twice before attacking an employee of the Syndicated Press. But my stubbornness put other people in danger — all the other obscure little people without pull or money who are involved in the case, people whom Benda is not afraid to attack.

“That’s what makes me angry! I’m responsible for what happened to Marie Chester. I’m going to get Benda if it’s the last thing I ever do and I’m going to get him quickly before he has time to hurt anyone else.”

Jean didn’t hesitate. “I’m with you. What can I do?”

“Too dangerous.”

“But—”

“No buts.” Norton rose.

“Won’t you tell me where you’re going?”

“I’m going to take you home first.”

“And then?”

“The less you know the safer you’ll be. I want you to go home and stay there, no matter what happens.”

“You’ll let me know what happens?”

“By eight p.m. at the latest.”

When Norton left Jean at her house his glance fell on the clock in the hall. It was just five fifty-four. Benda’s ultimatum had expired.

Norton walked to the nearest cigar store. In the telephone booth he found a classified directory and made a list of the companies listed under dies. Altogether there were eleven. He thought longingly of Jean’s little car, but it was too well-known to Benda’s men by this time. He hailed a taxi and set out to visit the die companies.

The first two were closed for the night. The third and fourth were still open but no one at either place recognized the black disc. The fifth was just closing as Norton reached the sales department.

“I need some information,” he explained to a clerk. “I want to know if this disc was cut by one of your dies?”