The Corpse Came Calling Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Be sure you can this time, Mike.”
    Shayne said, “I’ll manage.” He turned back to sit by Phyllis again, put his arm around her waist. “Suppose you two birds get on about your detecting. My wife is still upset from having a corpse calling on her.”
    “Come on,” Gentry advised Painter. “We’ll get nothing more out of Mike right now.”
    Phyllis turned a frightened face to Shayne when the door closed behind the two detective chiefs. “Are you making a mistake, Michael? With the G-men coming—”
    He laughed and ruffled her lustrous black hair. “I’ve made mistakes before—and paid for them.” He went to the desk and rummaged in a drawer, drew out a small memorandum book and rifled through it.
    “Get long-distance, angel. I’ve got to talk to New York.”
    He found the number he wanted and gave it to her when she got the operator. He drew a chair up to the desk and took the telephone when the connection was ready. He said:
    “Hello… Murphy. How’s the boy? That’s good. This is Mike Shayne calling from Miami, Florida. I’ve got a couple of jobs for you and I want them fast. Get hold of a pencil and take this down: First, Jim Lacy. New York private license—in Miami at present on a job. Find out what job, his Miami address—anything else pertinent. Next: Check on one Mace Morgan. Sent up the river a few months ago from your town. I want Morgan’s present status—the dope on his conviction, whether he’s married, to whom, when, his wife, if any—her description, everything about her. That’s number two. Number three is Charles Worthing. Supposed to be wealthy, divorce action pending in New York. Get the facts on him and the divorce—corespondent if any; all the dope on her, any rumors about his present love life. That’s all, Murph… Sure, I know it’s a hell of a big order. Wire me on each one as you get anything. That’s it—and the bill comes to me. Start jumping.”
    He hung up and smiled when he saw the perplexed expression on Phyllis’s face. “Don’t ask me any questions, angel. I’ve got to move fast to stay ahead of Mr. Hoover’s lads.”
    “But I don’t understand any of it,” she wailed.
    “Neither do I—yet.” The grin faded from Shayne’s face. He reached in his pocket for the irregularly shaped piece of cardboard he had removed from Jim Lacy’s stiffening fingers. “This least of all,” he muttered, laying it on the desk. “Take a gander at it and see what you see.”
    It was little more than an inch square, with ragged edges showing it had been torn on both sides and the bottom.
    At the top of the strip, in printed letters, was part of a word without beginning or end: NSYLVA, and directly below was a W and YOR. Below that were rubber-stamped single letters and fragments of words which seemed completely meaningless. At the very bottom, just above where it had been torn, were two large figures, block-printed in red ink, an 8, and a 2.
    “It looks like—” Phyllis began, but broke off, shaking her head. “It looks like part of something, but I don’t know what. If there were only a little more of it I have a feeling I’d know.”
    Shayne nodded. “Exactly. It strikes some chord in my memory but doesn’t come clear. The other side isn’t any more helpful,” he added, turning the torn scrap over.
    He read fragments of printed words aloud:… ice to pa… o avoid pay… ge it shoul… tely on arr… all ord… He stopped, shaking his head. “To hell with it. If it’s a code, I still wouldn’t know. Maybe Lacy just collected such small items as a hobby, treasured them even in death. All we can do right now is to treasure this one as though we intended to start a screwy collection of our own.”
    He hesitated with the scrap of cardboard in his hand, frowning in deep concentration. “Wait a minute. I know what this thing is. It’s a piece torn from the middle of a baggage receipt—a railway or express claim check. Both sides and the bottom have been