Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 41, No. 4, October 1977

“I can tell you that,” Sanders said, ignoring an exclamation of protest from the girl. “It’s no use, honey. I told you not to come — that they’d find out sooner or later. It’s because she wanted to try to buy Willy off. She knew he was into me — though she doesn’t know why, thank God — and, well, we want to get married and knew we couldn’t swing it with his blood-sucking and his threats hanging over us, and... oh, hell!”

Dan Herndon, who had followed the policeman out of the room in response to the latter’s gesture, now returned, bearing a slip of paper. “This isn’t your first visit here, is it, Sanders?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Herndon tapped the paper. “Willy has neighbors who seem very much interested in his doings. One of them gave us the license numbers of three cars that stopped here for short periods last night. The third is the one you just drove up in and parked below.”

Anders gave Nicky Preston a despairing look. “I was here about eleven-thirty,” he admitted in a low voice. “I’d called Willy earlier.”

“When?”

“About ten-fifteen. Said I had to talk to him. He never liked to see his ‘clients’ face to face — always talked to ’em by phone unless he couldn’t get out of it — but I refused to be put off and he finally agreed. I pulled up here at exactly eleven-thirty by my car radio. I remember there was another car pulling away ahead of me, going pretty fast, and I wondered if someone else had been calling on him. Well, I rang the bell but no one answered, so I went in.”

“The door was open?” McKay interjected.

“Ajar,” said Sanders. “All the lights were on, but there was no sign of Willy — until I got to the kitchen. He was already dead, but only just. He was still warm. I tore out.”

“Did you notice that word he wrote on the floor?” Herndon asked.

“Yes.”

“Mean anything to you?”

“Nothing.” Sanders looked puzzled. “That is — at first I had some crazy idea he might’ve been referring to me.”

“Why?”

“Well, I’m in an amateur theater group that recently put on Man of La Mancha, and for a minute I thought perhaps Willy’d got wind of this somehow and was trying to write something about Don Quixote. But I couldn’t imagine why he’d spell it that way, and besides that wasn’t my part anyway. But I didn’t spend much time thinking about it. I just got out of there — fast!”

“You said there were two other visitors last night,” Nicky burst out. “Why don’t you ask them? Obviously one of them did it before Jim got here.”

“We intend to, Miss Preston.” McKay gave her a somber smile. “In fact, we’re picking up the owners of those cars right now. But meanwhile, since Mr. Sanders is the last person who admits seeing Willy last night, and since you were the first to see him this morning — and have evidently spent some time looking through his papers, to judge from the placement of this word-list book — we’ll have to hold you both for the time being.”

He signalled to a policeman, who led them away, hands locked tightly. “What do you think, Dan?”

Herndon grinned. “Well, Captain Shelby always used to say that a suspect in the hand was worth two in the bush, but if you ask me, those are a couple of bush-league suspects.”

McKay nodded. “I gather they haven’t had time to get together and compare notes, and right now he thinks she may have done it. That’s why he’s so willing to climb onto the platter and hand himself over to us, complete with motive and opportunity. But we can’t assume that the obvious answer isn’t the answer, either.”

Herndon’s expression was thoughtful. “They look like nice kids. Wonder how they got mixed up with Willy? And I wonder how quickly she’d have reported the murder if a prowl car hadn’t come by as she was leaving?” He looked again at McKay. “And what’s in that word book that you’ve been hanging onto like grim death ever since you took it from the shelf?”

McKay flipped to the end pages and handed the book to Herndon, who found himself staring at a list of seven-letter words:

YOBHOUT

BROXITY

LYGNITE

SPENDER

MONAMOR

KWIXOTE

“There’s Kwixote again,” he concluded, frowning. “Must be some kind of code.”

“Or else Willy was just working out another of his puzzles.” McKay glanced up as a policeman came to the doorway and said, “The first of those two license numbers is here, Lieutenant. Name of Roberson Garrick.”

Robertson Garrick was a large man with the heavy shoulders and forearms and the weathered face and neck of a golf pro. His blond hair was thinning on top and he had the look of an athlete gradually growing soft with self-indulgence. Still, his eyes seemed guileless and his manner candid as he responded to questions from Herndon and McKay.

He was in real estate — general sales manager of one of the city’s leading firms which, coincidentally, happened to belong to his father-in-law. Yes, he’d had business dealings with Willy. No, he wasn’t about to reveal any details of them. Yes, he’d had an appointment with Willy the night before...