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

She didn’t quite reach, the landing before Sheriff Sam Hill came into the doorway from the porch and called out, “Attention everyone, please!”

Everyone on the ground floor stopped talking and turned towards the sheriff.

“As all of you know,” Sheriff Hill announced. “It’s been necessary to keep you here on Key Paradiso this long so that we could ask each of you a few questions. Most of you have been able to answer those questions to our satisfaction, so I’m not going to keep you here any longer. You are free to leave at any time. I only ask that you leave word with my men at the gate as to where you can be located in case of any new developments.”

Someone in the archway to the dining room spoke up. “Does that mean you’ve solved the case, Sheriff? Or that you’ve given up?” The speaker gave a sarcastic laugh.

“It doesn’t mean either thing,” the sheriff said. “Most certainly not that we’ve given up. We have certain leads to what took place here two nights ago. When we follow those up, there will be action taken. What I’m doing now only means that we are convinced most of you aren’t involved in any way — and I have neither the reason nor the authority to hold you here. Just leave word where you can be found.”

Most of the guests hurried to the stairs on their way up to pack their things.

“Go get your bag,” Shayne told Tim Rourke. “I’ll feel better about you when I get you out of this place and back to Miami.”

Shayne himself went over to talk to Sam Hill.

“Have you really got any leads?” he asked the Sheriff.

“Nothing I can take to a grand jury for indictment and that’s for sure,” the sheriff told him. “You know how it is late at night at a party like this. Everybody half drunk and wandering all over the place. Half the wives with the wrong husbands, and nobody really interested in anything except their own private bash. Nobody I’ve talked to has really had anything to say that they could testify to in court.”

“I know,” Shayne said. “I just wondered if you had even a list of possibles.”

“Oh, I’ve got plenty of possibles,” Hill said. “And after talking to Sally Peters just now, it looks like everybody’s a possible — but everybody. Even your pal Rourke was seen coming back from the direction of the boathouse way late at night.”

“Tim?” Mike Shayne laughed. “Probably just went down to spit in the ocean. Who saw him anyway?”

“That’s the funny part,” Hill said. “It was one of my other possibles. Slim Peters, no less.”

“Slim, eh. Why do you call him a possible? Because his wife is in for a slice of the estate? Or didn’t you know?”

“I knew. Both of them told me that. What they didn’t tell me, though — but I already knew — is that Slim’s casinos down in the islands are in a real bind of some sort. He’s in need of money right now. Lots and lots of money. Either the syndicate is fighting him or has cut itself in for most of the take. I don’t know for sure — but I did hear that the real reason Slim and Sally came to this party was to try and promote a stake out of old Harvey.”

When Tim Rourke left Shayne talking to the sheriff, the lanky newsman went straight up to his room where his bag was already packed and waiting for him.

He pushed the door open and stepped into the room.

A second later he felt the icy cold ring of a revolver muzzle touching his neck right at the top of the spine. Someone had been standing flat against the wall next to the door where he wouldn’t be seen by anyone walking in.

That someone kept the gun against Tim Rourke’s head and closed the door.

“Don’t turn around,” said a muffled and obviously disguised voice. “Don’t turn and don’t yell. Just listen.”

Tim Rourke stood as rigidly quiet as he could. “I don’t think you’re going to shoot me,” he said. “This place is crawling with cops.”

“They wouldn’t hear a shot through the door,” the muffled voice said, “and I’d be out of this place before you’re found. So don’t count on my not shooting. I’d rather than not.”

“Mike Shayne knows what I know,” Rourke said. He meant that if he was killed the secret knowledge of the killer that he was supposed to have wouldn’t die with him.

The gamble paid off.

“That’s what I thought,” the voice said. “Now listen. I can pay two hundred thousand dollars for your silence. That’s all I can raise. You and Shayne go back to Miami to your apartment and wait there. I’ll contact you tonight and set up the pay-off. No cops. If you talk to anyone before then or try anything funny I swear I’ll kill both of you before they get me.”

The muzzle of the gun came away from Rourke’s neck. A second later the butt of the gun crashed into his temple from behind. He went face down on the carpet and the world about him blacked out.

Mike Shayne found his friend there on the floor ten minutes later and the big man silently cursed himself for being so careless as to let Rourke go up to the room by himself.