Marked for Murder by Brett Halliday Read Free Book Online

pretty badly, Mike. Henty—that’s the manager—wanted to help him upstairs, but Rourke said he could make it. He had a black eye and a split lip that was bleeding. They found the bloody shirt and tie in his bedroom.
    “He had a visitor when he got home. A swell blond dish, according to Henty. She arrived about two-thirty and asked to be allowed to wait for Tim in his apartment. Henty claims he’d never seen this particular girl before. He didn’t see her leave, but from about ten-twenty to ten-forty Henty says he was in the back working on the air-conditioning unit. Anybody could have entered or left through the lobby during that time—and by the back stairs any time.”
    Shayne ground out his Picayune and lit another. He blew a puff of smoke toward Gentry. “That the only time she could have left the front way without him seeing her?”
    Gentry coughed into the puff of smoke, glared at the Picayune, and demanded, “What are they smoking in New Orleans these days?”
    Shayne grinned. “It’s only a Picayune. People down there like them better than tobacco. Was Henty in the lobby all the time from four until ten-twenty?”
    “Hell, no,” Gentry growled. “You know how it is with one man handling everything in a place like that. He admits to being in and out a dozen times—for periods varying from a couple to ten minutes.”
    “So the blonde could have left any time. On the other hand, Tim may have been beat up too badly to keep a blonde occupied long.”
    “He was pretty badly beaten,” Gentry said judicially, “but you know how Tim was about blondes.”
    “I know,” Shayne agreed. “Anything else?”
    “Not in the line of actual, known facts. Seems Rourke left the office about twelve-twenty after turning in his copy for the day. No one knows where he went or what he did between that time and four when he turned up at his place with a shiner and a bleeding lip. His heap is parked in front, but there are no bloodstains on it. Henty thinks he noticed Tim drive up and park about two o’clock, but when he didn’t come in, decided he must have been mistaken. Later, he decided it was Rourke’s roadster all the time.”
    Shayne dropped his cigarette butt on the floor and toed it out. His face was a grim, preoccupied mask. “If the blonde was a new number, who’s Tim been seeing lately?”
    “Another blonde,” Gentry told him with a grin. “He’s been living at the Blackstone about four months, and Henty says he has seen only one woman around 2-D all that time. He describes her as something of a looker, in her mid-twenties, and with plenty on the ball.”
    “No other dope on number-two blonde?”
    “No. Henty claims she hasn’t been around recently, or has been using the back stairway. That’s about all there is, Mike.”
    “It’s not a hell of a lot,” Shayne said shortly. “One blonde fixed his supper and drank coffee and whisky with him. Another blonde searched his room. Did the first one kill him and leave, and the other one arrive later and search the place? Or did she feed him and leave while he was still alive?”
    “That sounds best. Though the second one could have come in and found him shot, knew there’d be an uproar and an investigation, and searched the place in a hurry to get her letters or anything she didn’t want the police to find—and then put in the emergency call.”
    “It could add up that way,” Shayne agreed. “Damn it, Gentry, hasn’t Painter dug up any leads? The dispatch I read sounded as if Tim was putting on a one-man crusade to clean up the town and was shot on that account. And the telegram I had from him said there were three murders.”
    Gentry looked up, surprised. “Tim telegraphed you?”
    “Yeh. I got the message after I’d read about him being shot. He didn’t say anything about personal danger. I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t seen the newspaper item.”
    “I’m coming to that,” Gentry said patiently. “I wanted you to get the physical