“I’m mortal sure Jasper did everything he could for the poor boy,” Mrs. Groat said heatedly. “You would think they’d have had the decency to call up and thank him and ask about their boy. He brooded about it when they didn’t.”

“The Hawleys live in Miami?” Shayne asked Lucy.

She nodded. “They’re an old pioneer family. Rich as all get-out, I guess. Refused to even see a reporter this morning after Mr. Groat and Mr. Cunningham were landed and the whole story came out about the Hawley boy dying at sea.”

“And you have no idea where your husband went this evening, Mrs. Groat?”

“Not an inkling. He acted queer, like I say, and I didn’t ask him when he went out. Bitter and withdrawn, he acted. I know he made a long-distance phone call late this afternoon, but I don’t know who to. I came in from the kitchen just as he was telling the operator to charge the call. Then later he seemed to make up his mind to something and went out, saying he’d be back in an hour.” She tightened her lips and looked at a clock on the mantel. “That was almost three hours ago.”

Shayne leaned forward to grind out the butt of his cigarette in a china ash tray. “Did he drive his car?”

“We don’t have a car. With Jasper just home between trips we don’t have much need for one.”

Shayne shrugged and said, “I’ll check with the police.” He got up and looked around for a telephone.

Mrs. Groat rose swiftly, her plump face contorted with fear. “The police? Do you think…?”

Shayne said carefully, “I don’t think anything, Mrs. Groat. They’ll have a record of any accidents.”

He saw the telephone on a stand near the door and went to it. As he lifted it and dialed a number, Cunningham said abruptly, “I know something bad’s happened to him. I told Mrs. Groat so when Jasper didn’t show up for dinner. We’d planned it, you see. Night and day, on the raft, we planned what we’d eat the first night we got ashore. You tell the police that.”