“But this was Mr. Peralta on the phone,” Lucy reminded him acidly. “He won’t be greeting you in a filmy negligee.”

“Probably not,” Shayne muttered. “But the bracelet was insured for a hundred and ten grand, angel. And there hasn’t been a single lead turned up in three weeks.”

“So you’re going to find it for him?”

Shayne shrugged. “If I just collect a retainer on a job like that, it won’t be chicken-feed.”

He turned away from the door, adding over his shoulder, “Get Miami Beach Headquarters on the line for me. Detective Division.”

When his desk phone rang a few minutes later, he picked it up and Lucy told him formally, “Detective Furness is on the wire, Mr. Shayne.”

He said, “Hello, Ed. How’re things?”

“As usual. How’s with you, Shamus?”

“I need a little information from you boys. Can you tell me who is handling the Julio Peralta robbery?”

“Just a minute, Mike.” Ed Furness sounded suddenly wary. “Hang on, will you?”

Shayne hung on. It was at least a full minute before a voice rasped over the wire, “That you, Shayne? What’s your interest in the Peralta case?”

Shayne winced at the voice of the chief of detectives in his ear. With assumed heartiness, he protested, “Furness needn’t have bothered you about this, Painter. I simply wanted to know…”

“It was his duty to bother me,” Peter Painter informed him. “I’m handling the Peralta case personally. What is it you want to know?”

“Just the low-down,” growled Shayne, knowing he wasn’t going to get it now. “What leads you’ve got thus far. What the chances are for…”

“And what is your interest, Shayne?”

“I thought I might take it on,” said Shayne, easily, “since you’re apparently not doing so well handling it personally.”

There were a few seconds of silence. Shayne grinned, imagining he could hear Painter grinding his teeth together in rage. When the chief’s voice did come over the wire again, it was a vicious snarl: