Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 5, April 1974

“I couldn’t even see if it was men or women. I thought first it was a couple necking. Then they seemed to be wrestling. I thought: ‘she’s trying to break loose from him.’ I couldn’t really see enough to tell if it was a couple or a fight or what. Then one figure stepped back and it looked like that one was punching or poking the other.”

“Or sticking a knife into him?”

“Or knifing him. Only I didn’t see any knife. I didn’t care anyway. It was none of my business. I turned away. I thought somebody yelled at me, but I wasn’t sure. I walked off.”

“That must have been when he recognized you,” Shayne said. “Pass me that basket of rolls over there. I’m still hungry.”

Rourke obliged.

When Mike Shayne opened the napkin in the bread basket there weren’t any rolls inside, though.

There was a dead toad impaled on a razor sharp steak knife.

“Oh, crap!” Tim Rourke said.

III

Mike Shayne wrapped the napkin back around the gruesome little reptile and left it in the basket. Then he picked up the brandy bottle and filled his and Tim Rourke’s coffee cups with the fiery amber liquid.

“I think your friend means business,” he said.

“I guess so,” Rourke agreed. “First the note and then this for a warning. I’d better get down and tell Hill about this latest development. And after that, maybe I can get a little shut-eye. What do you plan to do?”

“You’ve worked with me enough times to know the answer to that,” Shayne said. “I want to meet the cast of characters. Who was here two nights ago that could have a reason to kill Harvey Peckinbaugh? Who do you think might have done it?”

“That won’t be easy to say,” Tim Rourke said. “There were about thirty people here. They still are, by special request of Sheriff Sam Hill. About half of that crowd are business or political pals of Peckinbaugh from his home State, and their wives or girl friends. I don’t really know any of them well enough to know how they feel about the late departed. You can ask Bill Buzby about them. He was Harvey’s secretary, confidential man and general right bower. He’d know the poop oh that crowd.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Shayne said. “Could he have done it himself?”

“Buzby? I haven’t the faintest idea. I don’t know of any motive on his part.”

“A confidential assistant could have one,” Shayne said. “How about the rest of your happy group?”

“Mostly just friends from Miami like me,” Rourke said. “Most of us didn’t really know Harvey very well, but his food and liquor was triple-A good so we came for the ride. Then of course there was Harvey’s harem.”

“His what?”

“That’s what we called them among ourselves. It was a funny grouping for a party. His wife, Della, is here of course. Or maybe ‘of course’ is the wrong way to put it because the big room with the king-size waterbed down at the end of the hall has his girl friend Dolly Dawn in it. We figure that’s where Harvey did most of his bouncing around. Then to top the whole thing off Slim and Sally Peters are in one of the guest cabins.”

“Slim Peters the gambler?” Shayne asked. “The one who owns the casino in Dominica?”

“That’s the one,” Rourke agreed. “Only what you probably don’t know is Slim’s wife Sally is also the ex Mrs. Harvey Peckinbaugh.”

“Whew,” Shayne whistled.

“That’s right,” Rourke confirmed. “Wife, ex-wife and current hotlips all at the same party. Now who had what motive to do which to who.”

The redhead sat back, looking out through the window at the rising sun in the east. One big hand reached up and the thumb and forefinger tugged at his ear-lobe. That was a sign Shayne was in deep thought, so Rourke sat quietly and did not interrupt.

After a while the newsman reached out for the bottle and started to refill the cup in front of him.

About that time they began to hear the sounds of plates clattering and of voices from the dining room on the ground floor under their windows.

“That will be breakfast,” Rourke said. “It’s served buffet style like in an English country house. I don’t suppose many of the guests got much sleep last night, what with one thing and another. They’ll be down early.”

“We’ll go down too, then,” Mike Shayne said. “We can make like we’re eating, and it’ll be a good chance for you to finger the suspects to me.”

The dining room was huge, at least thirty by sixty feet in dimension, with French windows opening out to the wide verandah and the sea along the front. The guests helped themselves from a variety of hot and cold dishes on a long sideboard, and ate either at the main table or at one of several smaller tables which had been set up on the porch just outside the dining room.

They looked nervous and tense and were eating lightly. A few, most of whom Shayne recognized as Miami socialites, ate with good appetite and were busy talking among themselves. Those were the people who obviously considered themselves above suspicion and who had little or nothing to gain or lose through the death of their quondam host. They tended to favor this outside tables.