Marked for Murder by Brett Halliday

last Tuesday.”
    The dark-haired girl laughed softly. “Madge must have been drunk when she made it and forgot all about it.” She looked up at his face and studied it under the dim porch light. “I haven’t seen you here before, have I?”
    Shayne grinned and inserted a chosen key in the lock of 614. “I’m an old friend of Madge’s. Just got back in town. She gave me a key when I ran into her on Tuesday.” He turned it in the lock and hoped it would work. It did. It required a little pressure but it turned. He said over his shoulder as he opened the door, “I guess I’ll go in and wait a little while, anyhow.”
    “You can wait for her in my house and I’ll fix you a drink,” said the girl in a husky, persuasive voice. “I’m not doing a thing this evening.”
    “I’ll take you up on that if Madge doesn’t show up soon.” He went on in and closed the door.
    He could hear an electric clock purring on the mantel and an electric refrigerator running. He felt along the wall and found a light switch and looked around the small neat living-room furnished with wicker furniture upholstered in gay cretonne. He went on to the dinette and kitchen, turning on lights as he went. There was no sound except the humming refrigerator.
    Returning to the living-room he opened a door leading to a hall. The bathroom door was open, and to the left another door was partly open. There was a faint fragrance in his nostrils, mingled with the scent of another odor, an acrid odor that was almost imperceptible in the still, close air.
    Shayne’s wide nostrils flared and he felt a prickling at the back of his neck. He pushed the bedroom door wide open, turned on the light, and looked somberly down at the corpse of a girl lying half off the bed. She wore a pair of black net stockings, the tops rolled above her knees. The rest of her slim young body was nude. She lay on her stomach with her right arm and leg trailing off the bed, her left leg stretched straight and taut with the toes straining toward the footboard. Her left arm encircled a pillow, and there was dried blood on the pillow and on the sheet beside her breast.
    Shayne took two steps forward and touched her bare shoulder with the tip of his index finger. The flesh was cold and hard. He pressed down hard, and knew that she had been dead at least 24 hours.
    He straightened quickly when he heard the distant angry whine of a police siren shrilling through the quiet night. His gaunt features tightened as the sound came swiftly nearer. A flash of memory warned him that he hadn’t heard Henty click off the switchboard when he had put through his call to Information from Rourke’s telephone.
    There was a back door leading out of the bedroom. The key was in the inside lock. Shayne whipped out a handkerchief and dashed into the living-room, put out the lights, and hurried to the front door to scrub off any possible fingerprints of his own. He trotted back to the bedroom, opened the rear door with the handkerchief covering his hand, slid out and closed it.
    The door opened onto a flagstone walk hedged with artillery fern and leading to a small garden. Shayne dashed around the house and circled to the front entrance. He had his finger on the bell button of 616 when he heard the siren stop. He jabbed savagely at the button. The door opened and he pushed in, shoving the black-haired girl aside and slamming the door shut.
    She had changed from the housecoat to a sports dress of powder blue that accentuated her curves and softened her whole expression. She said, “You certainly changed your mind in a hurry, Redhead.”
    Shayne drew in a deep breath and said rapidly, “Madge is in there—dead. I think the police are coming. If you don’t want to get mixed up in this, let me out the back door in a hurry and forget I was here.”
    A car raced up outside and they heard it screech to a stop. The girl’s pupils dilated until they almost covered the iris. She wrung her hands and moaned,