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the way they were before.”
    “Did you ask at the Palms Terrace Hotel if he is registered there?”
    “At a high-class place like that?” she asked incredulously. “He wouldn’t be. He didn’t have more than a hundred dollars in cash when he left home. Even if he took a bus as I did he would not have money to afford a hotel like that.”
    Shayne said, “It never pays to take anything for granted. Maybe he’s got hold of some extra money.” He reached for the telephone and gave Pete the number of the Beach hotel which he had called previously. He asked the girl if they had a Mr. Gleason registered, and shook his head at Hilda when he hung up. “Not there.” He sat back and drummed his fingertips on the table; “I wish you’d think back very carefully and try to remember any hints Harry dropped that might indicate how he hoped to get a lot of money in Miami. By a holdup, perhaps? Blackmail?”
    “I don’t know, Mr. Shayne. I’ve thought and thought, and there was never anything I could put my finger on. I just know it was something crooked and dangerous. Else why wouldn’t he tell me? You must help me find him.”
    Shayne said, “I’ll try, Mrs. Gleason. There’s another stinger, but I’m afraid it’ll be pretty weak.”
    “No, I thank you. I don’t really drink very much. Bartenders and their wives don’t, you know. And it is terribly late to be here like this.”
    “Where can I reach you?”
    She gave him a street address in the downtown Northeast section of the city. “It’s room number five, up one flight. It isn’t fancy, but I don’t want to waste my money. And that reminds me, Mr. Shayne. What about paying you a retainer to look for Harry?”
    Shayne said, “Let that go until I find him.” He stood up as she did, and again was pleased with her long free stride as they went out of the door and down the corridor together.
    He took both her hands in his and faced her as they waited for the car to come up. “Keep on hoping, and I’ll do my level best to find your husband for you.”
    She squeezed his fingers and told him, “I feel better right this minute than I have for a long time.” She hadn’t put her glasses back on and she looked up into his eyes with a look of honest gratitude that told him he could kiss her good night if he wished.
    He decided he didn’t. He smiled down at her and continued to hold her hands until the elevator door opened behind her. Then he said gently, “Good night, Hilda,” and stepped back while the door shut. He frowned wryly as he walked back to his sitting room. This had certainly been an evening to try a man’s credulity. First, Jane Smith with her harrowing tale of sexual depravity, and then Mrs. Gleason with her even more difficult-to-believe story of a missing husband.
    Right at the moment Shayne didn’t know which woman he had the more faith in. Connected as they both were with utter improbabilities, it was almost impossible to believe that both of them had been speaking the whole truth and nothing but the truth all the way through.

 
8
     
    When Shayne entered his office the next morning, the anteroom was empty and Lucy Hamilton was not at her desk beyond the railing. But the door to the redhead’s inner office stood open, and through it he heard the lilting sound of Lucy’s laughter.
    He tossed his hat on a hook near the door and crossed toward the sound, halting on the threshold and lifting red eyebrows at the couple in his office.
    Neither of them noticed him for a long moment. Lucy was perched on one corner of the big desk in the center of the room, with one knee drawn up, leaning forward and hugging it with both forearms. She looked awfully young and vibrantly interested, Shayne thought, as she laughed delightedly again and said, “I don’t believe a single word of it.”
    “I swear it’s just the way it happened.” The man who was slouched back comfortably in one of the client’s chairs beside the desk had a pleasantly