Never Kill a Client

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Michael Shayne was in a cheery frame of mind when he entered his office shortly after eleven o’clock that morning. He was clear-eyed and smiling, and Lucy Hamilton studied him with approval from the other side of the low railing separating her secretarial desk from the rest of the small anteroom.

She wrinkled her nice nose at him and made a production of consulting the watch on her wrist. “You don’t have any appointment until eleven-thirty. What brings you out at the crack of dawn?”

“Sheer zest of life, Angel.” He tossed his Panama on a hook near the door and rumpled coarse red hair with a big-knuckled hand. “It’s almost summer and the tourists are going home in droves, and crime is quiescent in Miami, and I’ve got a hunch the fish are biting down on the Keys. I just dropped by to tell you… hey! What do I think I heard you say about an eleven-thirty appointment?”

“Exactly what you think you heard. I told you yesterday afternoon, Michael, but you were sopping up cognac and probably didn’t listen.” She glanced down at an appointment pad beside her typewriter and read from it: “Mr. Reginald Dawes Rexforth, Third. Very important. Practically a matter of life and death if the third Mr. Reginald Dawes Rexforth can be believed.”

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