Murder Takes No Holiday Read Online Free PDF

right,” Shayne said, the corners of his mouth twitching. “People get murdered now and then in Miami. I’ll feel more at home.”
    She shot him a sharp look and said severely, “Now Mr. Shayne. You’re pulling my leg. It isn’t a joking matter for us, I can assure you. I wish there was some way it could have been kept out of the papers, but I suppose—freedom of the press and so on. Our economic health is so dependent on tourists that something like this can have an extremely deleterious effect. There’s been a terrific falling-off in the nightclub business. People are reluctant to go into the Old Town after dark, which is just plain ridiculous, in my opinion. You’re as safe there as in your own sitting room. I know you won’t have any such hesitation, Mr. Shayne,” she said, glancing at his rangy, powerfully built frame.
    “I came down for a rest,” Shayne said, “but I suppose I can always rest in the daytime. I hear you’ve got some night-spots that are well worth seeing.”
    “Oh, we do!” she assured him. She touched her back hair. “Not that I frequent them myself. My dancing days are long since over. But if I took it into my head to go dancing, I’d go, murder or no murder.”
    “And if your cops are anything like ours,” Shayne said, his face under control, “they’re probably thick as flies in that neighborhood, so how could anything happen?”
    “My point exactly!” Miss Trivers exclaimed. “I was saying precisely the same thing to some friends this afternoon. We don’t have an elaborate police establishment, never having had much call for one, but they’ve all been taken off traffic duty and put to work patrolling the native quarter. The old story of locking the barn after the pony has been stolen. But I’m standing here gabbling, and you must be dying for a wash and a change.”
    “No, I’m interested,” Shayne said. “This must have given people plenty to talk about.”
    “They can’t talk about anything else! It’s so unusual, you see. I think we must be one of the most peaceful spots on the face of the entire globe. Oh, I don’t say there isn’t a spot of trouble sometimes on Saturday nights, when our young people take on a bit too much rum and get to dancing those rather uninhibited native dances. But that’s a matter of sheer animal spirits, and I, for one, am all against bottling them up so they explode in other ways. Those who are complaining the most now never stop to think that the island would be a pretty tame place without our black people. I’ve heard some pretty drastic proposals in the past week, including a nine o’clock curfew, if you please. Well, do tourists come down here solely to enjoy our sun and our scenery? I beg leave to doubt it! They would leave us in droves.”
    “You think he was killed by the natives?”
    “There’s not much doubt about that, I’m afraid. But here is the question, if you really are interested—”
    Shayne assured her that he was, and she went on, “Some of the Britishers are saying that we must look on this senseless murder as the first outbreak of nationalist feeling, because why on earth would any native in his senses murder poor Albert Watts except inasmuch as he was a symbol of the ruling race? And if you knew Albert, incidentally, you’d realize that they picked themselves a pretty poor symbol.”
    “You knew him?”
    “Yes indeed. The Wattses live almost across the way, and we British tend to be somewhat clannish on foreign soil, I’m afraid. Daphne Watts, with all her faults, is a great friend of mine. Well, there’s talk in certain quarters that we ought to organize a citizens’ militia, and strap pistols around our waists, a la Kenya, when the Mau-Maus were on the rampage, otherwise we’ll all have our throats cut while we sleep. I say nonsense. Let’s keep our heads. Leave the matter to the police, and first and foremost, the native police. I’ve been on this earth long enough to know that the truth