Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 6, May 1961

The two men ran forward to the rim. The crevasse was not deep and it bellied out into a cavern not far below the surface. Grizzly Bill sprawled down there atop the grim evidence of the murder he had committed. One of his legs had a crooked look, as if broken. His roar had changed to a roar of sheer brute anger.

He was still roaring as the ice under their feet quivered and Cluny shoved the marshal back. The crevasse closed in front of them with a whoosh of disgorged air and a huge shower of ice particles.

Cluny looked at the position of the sun. He said, “I don’t figure it will open up again today. He’ll be froze stiff as a seal carcass by tomorrow. He musta knowed how long that crack stays open.”

The marshal looked at Cluny with grudging respect. “You had him figured to do just this.”

Cluny nodded. “If he had her buried out here. Just like a damned grizzly, marshal. And hell, that wild giant was just about half bear.”

Humor twinkled in the marshal’s eyes. He nodded at their feet. “Thought nothing this side of hell would get you out on a glacier in August, Cluny?”

“No sirree, nothing on earth would, marshal! But I just kind of got took with curiosity to see what one of these breathing cracks looks like.”

“Curious. Like a bear,” Waring grinned, but he said it to himself.

Pattern for a Crime by Brett Halliday

The murder evidence made the police very happy, for it all pointed strongly in one direction. But the redhead knew that there’s many a slip on Gallow’s Highway.

I

When Michael Shayne entered his Flagler Street office at nine fifteen A.M., there were two people waiting in chairs. The man was about forty, tall and good-looking in a theatrical sort of way, his dark hair worn a trifle long and his sideburns a bit thicker than most men wore them.

The woman, about five years younger, was a handsome platinum blonde with a remarkably youthful figure for her apparent age. There was something about her, too, possibly the way she wore her makeup, which made the detective think of show business.

They both looked at the detective expectantly as he hung his hat on the clothes tree near the door. Giving them a polite nod, he crossed to his private office, motioning Lucy Hamilton, who was seated at her typewriter beyond the wooden railing, to follow him as he went by her.

In the inner office Shayne seated himself behind his bare-topped desk and gave his secretary an inquiring look as she closed the door behind her.

“Don’t you recognize them, Michael?” Lucy asked.

He shook his head. “Should I, angel?”

“They’re television personalities, Michael. Breakfast with the Coles. They’re on from seven until eight every morning.”

“Oh, that!” Shayne said. “I’ve heard of it. A lot of sickeningly coy conversation over the breakfast table! I don’t get up that early.”

“You should,” Lucy said. “They’re really not bad. They have quite a local following among housewives.”

“I’m not a housewife,” the redhead growled. “What do they want?”

“They wouldn’t tell me, but one or both must be in some kind of danger. They asked if you ever hired out as a bodyguard.”

Shayne frowned. “You told them no?”

Lucy nodded. “They still want to see you, though. They obviously don’t want to tell me what it’s all about, so you’ll have to get it out of them.”

“Okay,” the redhead said. “Send them in.”

Lucy went out and a moment later the couple entered. Shayne rose to greet them, motioned them to chairs and reseated himself.

“Now which one of you is in danger?” he inquired.

Both looked surprised. The man asked, “How did you know one of us was in danger?”

Shayne said dryly, “You asked my secretary if I hired out as a bodyguard. It wasn’t much of a deduction.”

The woman said in a husky voice, “I’m the one who was threatened.”

“Oh? When did you receive this threat?”

“Five years ago yesterday.”

Shayne hiked shaggy eyebrows. With a thumb and forefinger he tugged at his left earlobe. “Maybe you’d better begin at the beginning,” he suggested.

Nervously she fumbled a silver cigarette case from her handbag. Her husband solicitously held the flame of a lighter to her cigarette. Snapping the lighter shut and dropping it into a pocket, he said in a rather precise, stage-manner voice, “It will take Marie forever to tell the story, Mr. Shayne. She’s so upset, she hardly knows what she’s doing. Her former husband was released from prison yesterday.”

Shayne gave a thoughtful nod. “I’m beginning to get it. The threat was five years ago, but until now he hasn’t been free to carry it out. Is that it?”

“That’s right He drew five to ten for aggravated assault with intent to kill. They hit him with the book because it was a second offense. He left Marie’s brother a permanent cripple.”

“Sounds like a pleasant character,” the redhead said. “What’s his name?”