Free Blood on Biscayne Bay by Brett Halliday

the envelope a knock sounded on the door. Christine called, “Come,” and Mrs. Morgan entered.
    Shayne drew four stiff photostats from the envelope. The first one was inscribed, to, “My own dearest one.” Four sets of initials were scribbled across the left-hand margin. He studied them intently. The first was “B. J. H.”; followed by “T. R” “A. B.”; and “M. M.” The first set of initials was in bold and flowing script; the second shaky and almost unintelligible; the A and B were in small, neat letters, and the last painstakingly formed.
    He turned to Mrs. Morgan and asked, “Are these your initials on the bottom?”
    She moved over beside him and glanced at the note, then her calm eyes glanced aside inquiringly at Christine before she said, “Yes, sir,” when Christine nodded her approval.
    Christine said, “Tell Mr. Shayne everything he asks you, Maria. He’s going to help me.”
    An expression of stern apprehension crossed her placid face. She said, “I was that frightened when they made me sign them. I didn’t know what to do. The police,” she ended almost in a whisper.
    Shayne said, “Even if they were the police, Mrs. Morgan, they had no right at all to enter a private house without a search warrant. Remember that in the future. Now, I want you to describe the men to me as best you can. Do you remember which one signed his initials first?”
    “I do,” she said in her soft though solid voice. “He was the big one, and the best-dressed of the three. He was about fifty, I’d say, with gray hair and what you might call a ruddy complexion. He had broad shoulders and a bit of a stomach.”
    “And the second one—T. R.”
    “He’s the one who found the letters. As I told Christine, if I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes I’d never have believed it. He was almost as tall as you, Mr. Shayne, but he looked lean and sickly and had dark eyes that were away back in his head. He had been drinking and his hands shook. From things he said, I took him for a reporter. He said something about what a swell story the letters would make when they were printed.”
    Shayne nodded casually, but a smoldering fire ate at his tight belly muscles. As soon as he saw those initials he recognized them as Timothy Rourke’s, and Mrs. Morgan’s description confirmed the knowledge he had tried desperately to put away from him. He had known for many weeks that Tim was still very ill from the wounds he had received, but he could not believe Tim was mixed up in a blackmailing scheme. His gaunt face hardened. Tim had been one of the best friends Shayne had ever had in Miami. But there was no shadow of a doubt that Natalie Briggs had held an earnest, almost frantic conversation with Rourke at the Play-Mor Club last night.
    “And the third man?” Shayne asked Mrs. Morgan flatly.
    “He was the policeman—the one who showed me his badge and pushed in when I didn’t want them to come in the door. He was dressed very shabbily in a gray suit and a hat not fit for a fishing trip.”
    Shayne glanced at all four of the photostats to check the same sets of initials on the margins of each. He didn’t read them carefully, but a cursory glance assured him they were all written in the mushy style Christine had described. Replacing them in the envelope, he said, “Mrs. Morgan, you were not asleep last night when Natalie came in. I’m afraid your alibi of sound sleeping won’t work if the autopsy proves she was killed near the time I rang the doorbell and you answered.”
    Mrs. Morgan retained her calm, impassive manner. She said, “I heard nothing, Mr. Shayne, except the ringing of the doorbell. Natalie must have been murdered after I retired, or the commotion, if any, was far enough away so that I wouldn’t hear it.”
    The woman turned away and left the room.
    Christine gasped. “Surely you don’t think Mrs. Morgan—”
    Shayne said harshly, “I think Mrs. Morgan would protect you against anything and everything if she