Free Pay-Off in Blood by Brett Halliday Page A

front of a door numbered 430. Jud turned the knob and pushed the door open onto a lighted and luxuriously furnished sitting room, and his companion gave Shayne a little push forward over the threshold and he looked at the lone occupant of the room who sat back comfortably in a deep chair with a cigar in his left hand and a highball glass in his right.
    He was a complete stranger to Shayne. He was about forty, and very slender, but with the well-fed look of good living about him. He was bare-headed, with thinning black hair that was very carefully combed to conceal the bald spot on top, clean-shaven, with cold gray eyes and thin lips that were parted in a frosty smile.
    When he spoke, his voice was modulated and his words precise, though with a trace of midwestern nasal twang. “It was nice of you to accept my invitation, Shayne. No trouble, boys?” he asked the pair who had entered the room behind the redhead and closed the door.
    Jud responded affably, “Not at all, Boss. Acts like he knows what the score is.”
    “That’s what I’ve heard about you, Shayne, and it should make things easier. Why don’t you sit down?” He gestured toward a chair in front of him with his left hand, and a large diamond reflected brilliant fire from the third finger.
    Shayne said, “Thanks,” and sat down facing him.
    He took a thoughtful sip from his highball glass, and a thoughtful pull on his cigar. “How well do you know Dr. Ambrose?”
    “I met him for the first time tonight.”
    The slender man frowned down at his cigar. “In what capacity?”
    Shayne did not reply. He sat and looked steadily at his questioner, who raised his steely gaze to his for a long moment, and then sighed. “I think I should warn you that Phil and Jud have means to make you talk. I advise you not to be stubborn.”
    Shayne grinned slightly and said nothing.
    His host sighed again. “Perhaps I should make my position in this matter very clear.”
    Shayne said, “It might help.”
    “Dr. Ambrose owes… owed me a large sum of money which he had promised to deliver to me tonight. I have been sitting in this room since ten o’clock waiting for a telephone call from him advising me where we should meet for the pay-off. The deadline was midnight. I had the television set on while I waited, and on the eleven-thirty newscast I learned that Dr. Ambrose had been murdered. Your name was mentioned on the newscast, Mr. Shayne, as having been with him earlier in the evening and possibly having some knowledge of the events leading to his death. That’s why I asked you to come here.”
    Shayne said, “I see,” though he didn’t see at all. He got out a cigarette and lit it. “What sticks in my craw,” he said flatly, “is your word owes… owed. Not in a legal sense, certainly.”
    “We’ll dispense with legalities. Let us merely say that I am a collection agent. The sum was twenty thousand dollars, Mr. Shayne. I want it.”
    “Do you think I have it?”
    “I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I am positive he planned to have that sum in readiness… in cash… tonight. It now appears that he was murdered before he was able to turn it over to me. According to the newscast, no such sum was found on his person. Did he entrust it to you before he was shot?”
    Shayne said, “No.” He took another drag on his cigarette and did some very hard thinking. What was the angle? He had seen Dr. Ambrose turn the money over in the Seacliff Restaurant. And the doctor had made the phone call arranging the pay-off at nine o’clock from his hotel bedroom. What was this thing about a phone call at ten to arrange it? All he could do was to play it by ear and see what happened.
    He said, very slowly, “Someone must have pulled a fast one on you. Dr. Ambrose made the twenty grand pay-off, all right. At nine-thirty. I watched him do it. If you didn’t get your money, someone else sure as hell did.”
    The slender man stiffened perceptibly. He stretched out his left hand to