Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 27, No. 2 — September 1945)

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Michael Shayne’s rangy body was comfortably settled on his living room couch. A glass of cognac and a tumbler of ice water were within easy reach on the end table. He was reading an early edition of the tabloid Morning Tribune which he had picked up on his way home. Has telephone rang.

He scowled at the instrument, ran knobby fingers through his unruly red hair, and wriggled to the other end of the couch to answer it.

The voice of Lucy Hamilton, his secretary, came over the wire. “Michael! Come over to my apartment right away. And no wise cracks. There’s a woman here who needs you desperately.”

“Fine time to be dragging a man out of bed,” he growled.

Lucy said, “I’ll expect you in fifteen minutes,” and hung up.

In twelve minutes Shayne strode into the small office of the apartment building on North Rampart Street bordering the French Quarter. A middle-aged woman sat near the switchboard, placidly knitting. She looked up at him incuriously as he went past her to the self-service elevator in the rear.

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