Phyllis nodded, her lips tightly compressed. She kept her face averted from the corpse. “I understand.”

Shayne grinned reassuringly. “I’ll beat it. I think you’ll lie more convincingly without an audience.” He stepped over the dead man and started out.

The telephone on Phyllis’s desk shrilled as he went through the doorway. He stopped and looked back.

Phyllis lifted the receiver and said, “Yes?” She listened a moment, widening her eyes at her husband to let him know the call was for him.

“I don’t believe Mr. Shayne will be able to-” She paused, biting her lip and listening further. She put her hand over the mouthpiece and said:

“It’s the clerk downstairs. There’s a girl to see you.”

Shayne shook his head. “Tell her-”

“She says that Jim Lacy sent her,” Phyllis interrupted.

Shayne stopped shaking his head. He said, “That’s different. Have the clerk stall her a few minutes, then send her upstairs to the apartment. I’ll trot up there and see what she wants. You go ahead and call the cops. Don’t mention the girl. Tell them exactly what I told you to. And wash out that glass of mine and put it up.”

He hurried out, leaving the door standing open, went to the end of the corridor and up one flight of stairs. He hastily unlocked a spacious corner apartment and strode in, shucking off his coat. He tossed coat and hat into the bedroom and returned to the living-room, loosening his tie. Miami’s late-afternoon sunlight flooded the room warmly from an open west window.

He lit a cigarette as an elevator stopped and opened its doors down the hall. He swiftly stepped aside and manipulated a wall mirror so it swung about and revealed a compact assortment of liquors and glasses. He grabbed a bottle of cognac and poured a wineglass half full, carried it to a deep chair, and settled back just as a knock sounded on the door.