Shayne walked slowly to an east window and stared out upon the purple waters of the bay where sleek white yachts were moored near the shore or anchored in the channel. From the kitchen of his new apartment he heard the faint clinking of glass and Phyllis’s husky voice humming a popular tune. He planted his feet wide apart and grinned at his moodiness.

For two weeks and three days he had let himself forget that hoodlums and crooks and hardened criminals flocked to Miami for the winter season.

His mouth tightened grimly. His fingers contracted into big, hard fists. His honeymoon was over, and Thrip’s telephone call meant that he had to get back to work.

He moved hastily across the room, stopped abruptly beside the double bed with its handsome silk rose spread and fussy little pillows. His abstracted eyes sought out Phyllis’s small furred mules set sedately beside his own big kid slippers; turned to look at her toilet articles arrayed on the glass top of the blond dresser with its round mirror, and on to the open closet door disclosing his suits companionably rubbing shoulders with Phyllis’s sports frocks and evening gowns.

He looked up with a start to see Phyllis standing in the bedroom door with an expression of wifely solicitude on her young face. Her black eyes danced with excitement and curiosity.

“Are you going to stay in here all day and not tell me what the telephone call was? Is it a case?”

“Sounded like it, sweet. Very mysterious. Sinister, you might say.” He chuckled and crossed the rug to her. “Looks like vacation’s over.”