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

He spoke calmly, almost conversationally. “So your husband was the man who loved Diana Clark — the rich man she wanted to marry. And you shot her because you were jealous.”

“He never loved her!” Margaret Kimball’s voice sharpened shrewishly. “That Clark woman was a passing fancy — nothing more!”

“Then why did you kill her?”

“Because she wanted him to divorce me and marry her. And he was so weak he might have done it!”

“You call that a passing fancy?” Norton managed to laugh.

“Kim wouldn’t have protected me after I shot Diana Clark if he hadn’t loved me!”

“Kimball wanted to be a United States Senator,” said Norton. “The Star said so in its first story on Martin Stacy’s arrest. A man whose wife has murdered his lover hasn’t a ghost of a chance of getting into the Senate. But do you suppose Kimball loved you after your crime forced him to frame his junior partner, in order to save you and himself?

“Kimball no more loved you than Leo Benda who only protected you because his racket depended on your husband’s political machine for police protection. Your husband framed Stacy to save his career — not to save you! He must have hated you!”

“That’s a lie!” The diamond ring flashed like a tiny heliograph. Her hand was shaking uncontrollably.

All in one motion, Norton turned and crouched and dived at her knees. A second shot rang out, reverberating in the closed room. Something as biting as a whiplash stung Norton’s neck. She was struggling in his grasp, lithe and fierce as a snake. The hand that held the gun twisted toward him. He grabbed at it and missed. He saw the muzzle aimed at his forehead. It was so close now he could smell the acrid fumes of cordite.

He heard voices and footsteps. A woman’s foot in a high-heeled shoe streaked into his range of vision and kicked Margaret Kimball’s hand. She screamed. Her fingers relaxed. The gun skated across the rug beyond her reach.

“Alec!” It was Jean’s voice. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Norton struggled to his feet. “What are you doing here?”

There were three men with Jean. Two of them lifted Margaret Kimball to her feet and snapped cuffs on her wrists.

“You said you’d come at eight.” Jean’s voice was taut and brittle. “When you didn’t come, I got worried. I knew the city police were under Benda’s thumb, so I phoned the district attorney, and— Oh, Alec!” Tears were in her eyes, “It seems the district attorney suspected Aunt Margaret all along. So we came here.”

One of the men interrupted. “I’m John Bates, district attorney, Mr. Norton. It was Kimball, not Mrs. Kimball we suspected. We knew there was a man higher up in Benda’s racket — some solid citizen with political pull and no obvious underworld ties. We thought Kimball was the man but we couldn’t prove it. That’s why we didn’t arrest Benda. We wanted Kimball, too.”

“You’ll never get him!” Margaret Kimball stood between two county detectives, reckless and defiant.

“We have got him,” said the district attorney. “When I heard Miss Stacy’s story I sent men to patrol the highway where it crosses the border a few miles south of this house. I thought Kimball would try to escape that way if things got too tough for him — and he did. He talked plenty when we nabbed him. He hadn’t known that Benda planned to torture and then murder Marie Chester.”

John Bates turned to Mrs. Kimball. “When Norton told your husband, it broke his nerve. When Norton explained the significance of the button fastener, Mr. Kimball realized the jig was up. He phoned a warning to Benda and made for the Mexican border in his fastest car. We caught Benda on the same road and now we’re rounding up the rest of the gang.”

Margaret Kimball’s face worked wryly. “He warned Benda, but he left me to face all this alone — without warning me.” She lifted tragic eyes to Norton. “You were right. He hated me.”

Jean Stacy drew Norton out into the hall. The air was fresher there. “You’ve saved my brother,” she said simply.

“And you saved me.” He looked at her quizzically. “Didn’t I say something earlier this evening about your going home and staying there, no matter what happened?”

“But I couldn’t!” she said. “I felt you were in danger and I was afraid you’d be hurt!”

“Did that make so much difference to you?”

Jean colored. Her lips were trembling but she forced them to smile. “What do you think?” she asked Alec Norton.

The Girl on the Second Floor by Harry C. Robert

He got the job he coveted in an ugly way... and left Death to do the tidying up.

* * *

When my wife walked out on me I hit the sauce and went on a three-day bender. I must have made every cheap gin mill in Cleveland. I came to about nightfall the third day when I was thrown out of a joint down at the end of Euclid Avenue. That shook me up. I may not be Ivy League, but I’m not that far down either.

I turned out my pockets and after the price of a bus ticket to Buffalo I had about nineteen dollars left. So I took off.