Sara Morton wore a green hostess gown with flowing skirt and plunging neckline. Blood was caked between her firm breasts and over the bodice. The gold belt circling the slender waistline was clean, and the green, red, and blue gems in the buckle twinkled in the light of the ceiling fixture. Below the short puffed sleeves her firm, shapely arms were clear of blood, up-flung in a gesture of defiance.

Following the tapering lines of her right arm he saw a small diamond-rimmed platinum watch circling her wrist. Carefully kneeling outside the circle of congealing blood, he examined it. The tiny hands pointed to two minutes after eight. He frowned and looked at his own watch. The time was 9:05. He bent his ear close to her watch and was surprised to hear the regular ticking.

The frown deepened to a heavy scowl as he tried to evaluate the significance of nearly an hour’s difference. If her watch was slow when she wrote the note it was actually 7:30 instead of 6:30. Could she write it, seal and stamp it, and get it to the post office so fast?

That would have to wait until later, he decided, and studied the wisp of green paper clutched in her hand. He easily read the numerals in the exposed corner, and without touching it to feel the texture, he knew it was the other half of the five-hundred-dollar bill.

He rocked back on his heels with sweat dripping from his face. In death she held out a challenge to him to match it with the half she had enclosed in the special-delivery letter. Sara Morton was speaking to him, and her words seemed to linger there in the silent room.

This is it, Michael Shayne. At the moment of my death this is my way of saying to you what I left unsaid in my hasty note.

He took his handkerchief out and mopped sweat from his eyes and face, then touched his knuckles to her cheek. The flesh was cool. Room temperature. He judged she had been dead at least an hour, probably much longer.