Phyllis breathed unevenly and watched with wide eyes while he went to the corpse and knelt down, began rifling the dead man’s pockets.

A tuneless whistle came from the detective’s lips as he made a little pile of personal belongings on the floor. Presently he squatted back on his haunches, examining and returning loose change, a key ring, and such trifles to the same pockets they had come from.

He retained a worn leather wallet which he went through carefully. He counted a sheaf of small bills, laying aside two hundred and putting a five and some ones back. He carefully examined all the papers in the wallet, refolded and replaced them, then put the wallet back in the dead man’s inside coat pocket.

Shayne frowned, ruffling the sheaf of bills, then placed them inside his own wallet and said over his shoulder to Phyllis, “You can make an entry in the ledger: ‘Two hundred dollar retainer from Jim Lacy.’”

A little gasp from her lips brought him around to look at her. He grinned when he saw her expression.

“Don’t look at me with such loathing, angel. How am I going to find out anything if I don’t do some snooping?”

“It’s ghoulish,” she burst out, “looting a dead man’s pockets.”

Shayne shrugged wide shoulders. “I left the cops a few dollars to fight over. Who’s going to pay my fee if Jim Lacy doesn’t?”

“Then it is Jim Lacy?”

“In person. Unless someone has gone to the trouble of planting Jim Lacy’s billfold on him.”

“Does that make it right to steal his money?”

“Steal isn’t a nice word,” Shayne complained. “I told you to enter it in the ledger to make it legal.”

“But how do you know there’s going to be any case? Your client’s already dead.”

“That,” Shayne told her, “is my case. I practically never let the murder of a prospective client pass unnoticed.” He got up and went toward Phyllis. She stood up, her young face strained and anxious.