Shayne put his arm about her shoulders. “You insisted on playing at being my secretary, Phyl. Part of that job is not asking questions and not passing judgments. You’re upset by having a dead man fall in the door. I didn’t arrange it, but hell! That’s the way things go in this business.” He put a forefinger under his wife’s firm chin and tipped her face up. “Are you going to take orders-or would you rather resign right now?”
The look of strain went away from Phyllis’s face. “I guess I am upset. I haven’t even drunk my wine.”
A twinkle came to Shayne’s gray eyes. He released her with a push toward her desk. “Now, you’re more like the gal I married. Drink your wine.” He hesitated, rubbing his bony chin, then muttered, “I still don’t know what they didn’t get.”
He studied Lacy’s body a moment, then knelt beside the dead man again. He gently withdrew the right hand from its coat pocket, frowned at the empty palm, and tried the other hand.
This time his eyes glistened with satisfaction. The fingers of Jim Lacy’s left hand were tightly clenched in death over a small piece of white cardboard. Shayne spread the fingers out one by one. He rocked back on his heels and turned the torn fragment over and over in his hands.
Watching him curiously, Phyllis asked, “What is it, Michael?”
“Damned if I know.” His frown deepened. “It looks like- something familiar. There’s printing on it-parts of words-it’s been torn on three sides-” He shook his head. “The only thing I’m certain of is that it’s what they didn’t get from Lacy.” He slipped the piece of cardboard in his pocket and stood up, reached for his hat.
“Get this straight, Phyl. Here’s what you’re to do. Call headquarters as soon as I get out. Get some excitement in your voice and report that a man just stumbled through the door and fell dead. You don’t know where I am.”
“Where will you be?”
“Out.” He stepped toward the door, paused. “You’d better tell them about the phone call from Jim Lacy-the truth. They might trace it. But forget that I was here when he dropped in-and you don’t know anything about the identity of our caller.”