Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 29, No. 4, September 1971

“I will get to the point,” Mike Shayne said. “We both know your husband’s in trouble. He had reason to hate Wingren and everybody knows it. The police want him. There’s an A.P.B. out for him right now. That means sooner or later they’ll find him. Then it’ll be all the tougher because he didn’t come in on his own. Hiding out always makes a man look guilty.”

“Well, suppose all that’s true? Then what can my Cal do?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. He can get in touch with me. I think he can help me.” Shayne gave her one of his business cards.

“When you talk to him tell him he can call me at these numbers. Or he can come see me. I’ll be at the Wingren house most of the evening. I’ll watch for him. And I promise not to turn him in to the police if he isn’t guilty of murder. I don’t think he is, but if I’m wrong he can just stay away from me.”

“Cal didn’t do murder, mister. Still, I don’t understand. Help you with what? What can the likes of him do for you?”

Shayne took a chance. “I’ve been hired to look for money the old man was supposed to have hid out in his house. Your man knows the house. He worked for the old man and maybe knows how he thought. He can help me find what I’m after. If we do find it, I’ll see that Cal gets a part of my share. If we don’t I’ll pay him wages.”

Sally Harris still hesitated.

“Look,” Shayne said, “if you’ve heard of me, you know I’m Will Gentry’s friend. I promise you as long as Cal’s working for me I won’t let him be arrested. How’s that?”

He could see that that brought her to some sort of a decision.

“Okay,” she said. “If Cal talks to me I’ll tell him what you said. What he does then is up to him. You understand that?”

“I understand. That is fair enough.”

“Okay, but one thing more.” Her low voice throbbed with the intensity of utter sincerity. “My Cal, he’s had enough bad breaks. Crippled and out of work like he is. You treat him right, Mr. Shayne. Because if you don’t — if you cheat him like old man John did, or sell him to the cops, or hurt him any way at all — I swear to God, mister, you won’t get away with it. I’ll watch and I’ll get you. I’ll kill you myself. I want you should know that right here and now. I’ll kill you myself.”

“I understand. You can trust me,” Shayne said.

“I better be able to trust you. Else I’ll kill you.”

VI

By now it was well along in the afternoon and Mike Shayne was hungry. He hadn’t really eaten since breakfast, and on this particular day breakfast had been mostly coffee and brandy.

He found a neighborhood restaurant and ordered a double order of pork chops and hashed brown potatoes and a half of an apple pie. The food wasn’t very good but it was hot and filling, and eating gave him time to think.

He knew this was going to be a difficult case. Instead of having to go out and hunt for a suspect, he already had an overload of them. Everybody he’d run into all day was a suspect except Anna Wingren and Will Gentry. Even Anna could have felt she stood to gain her inheritance when her grandfather was dead. That left Chief Gentry.

Worst of all, from the detective’s point of view, it was probable that most of the neighbors not only had motive but also opportunity to have committed the crime. Any one of them could have sneaked up and broken into the big house the night before.

On top of all that Shayne knew that his primary job of finding the old miser’s hidden treasure would be almost impossible to accomplish without help. The only right way to go about it would be to take every one of the thousands of items piled around the big house and examine it separately. That meant taking it apart. Old John might have bought diamonds and hid them one by one, or put thousand-dollar bills between the pages of books or magazines. Shayne had no way of knowing. After that the whole house would have to be dismantled. That would take months.

The only way to find the stuff was by just plain luck, or with the help of somebody who knew where to look.

That somebody had to be the killer.

Mike Shayne figured the murderer hadn’t got away with the treasure, at least not all of it. Otherwise why would he have tried to kill the detective that afternoon? If he had the money, he’d be long gone out of town.

On the other hand, why set a fire and leave the house the night before? Why not stay and search for the hoard?

Somebody knew the answers to all the difficult questions in this case. Shayne meant to make that someone come to him and then get the answers for himself. His next job was to set the trap and see that the killer smelled the bait.

When he left the restaurant Shayne went straight to Jane Mullen’s house. This time he had to really pound on the door before the old woman opened it about halfway.

“What do you want?” she said in a peevish tone. “I already talked to you once.”

Shayne gave the door a hard shove that opened it wide and stepped into the room.

“I know you talked to me,” he told her. “Now let’s do it all over again, only suppose this time you tell me the truth.”

“I told you the truth.”