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Item.
    Shayne’s gaze fell upon a boxed item on the front page. It was an announcement that feature writer Joel Cross of the Item’s staff was making arrangements with Mr. Jasper Groat for the exclusive publication of Groat’s journal kept during those harrowing days he had drifted at sea in an open lifeboat after his ship had been torpedoed. The announcement contained such phrases as: Authentic accounts of heroism on the high seas… vivid first-hand narrative of danger and suffering… what do men say and think as they live with Death all around them?… a record of the last words spoken by one who did not come back… the simple story of a burial at sea that will wring the heartstrings of every reader.
    He folded the paper and asked, “Anything new from Mrs. Groat?”
    “She called a few minutes ago. No word from her husband. She said Leslie Cunningham had just left her apartment. He persuaded her to go through Jasper’s things to try to find the diary, but it was fruitless.”
    Shayne thoughtfully massaged his left earlobe, then said, “Get Sergeant Pepper for me,” and went into his office.
    He got a pint bottle of brandy from the desk drawer, poured some in a glass, and walked around as he drank it. When his desk buzzer sounded, he picked up the telephone receiver. Lucy said, “Sergeant Pepper, Mr. Shayne.”
    “What’s on your mind, Sergeant?” Shayne asked.
    “That tip you gave me was all right, Mike. We picked up the cabbie who drove Groat out to that address on Labarre last night. He identified the photograph of Groat.”
    “And?” Shayne’s throat was dry. He wet it with a sip of brandy.
    “That’s all.”
    “Did you check with the Hawleys about his arrival?”
    “No soap. None of them admits seeing him. None of them admits knowing he was coming. They don’t know anything about a cab driving up at eight and letting a passenger out.” Deep disgust was added to the Sergeant’s normally moody tone.
    “How about the girl, Mrs. Beatrice Meany?”
    “Her? She was drunk as a coot when I got there. Passed out cold in bed.”
    Shayne took a long drink while the Sergeant was talking. A deep scowl trenched his forehead. He said, “You’d better start looking for Groat’s body,” and hung up.
    He sat down and his gray eyes brooded across the room. He sat for a long time without moving. Lucy came in and perched on a corner of the desk. She wrinkled her nose disapprovingly at the glass at his elbow. “I don’t see how you ever solve a case the way you stay tanked up all the time.”
    Shayne laughed shortly, picked up the glass, and emptied it. “Always glad to oblige by removing the offending article. I’m going to have to get awfully drunk to figure this one out.”
    “I listened in on your conversation with the Sergeant,” she admitted. “Do you think someone at the Hawleys’ killed Groat?”
    “I wouldn’t be at all surprised, angel.”
    She frowned, her eyes thoughtful. “I can’t understand why the Hawleys wouldn’t be eager to see Mr. Groat, and find out about Albert’s death. Most people would.”
    “The whole thing is screwy,” he told her moodily. He chucked the empty glass into a drawer. “I’m going out to lunch. Go out whenever you want to.” He got up and stalked to the door.
    Lucy intercepted him by saying, “Cunningham hasn’t called yet. Maybe I’d better stick around until you get back.”
    “Be sure to find out where he’s staying. I could use a line on him.”
    It was only a short walk from his office to that portion of Camp Street once known as “Newpaper Row,” where there were a number of small restaurants still frequented by members of the fourth estate.
    He tried Henri’s first, because he was fairly certain of finding Roger Deems there at noon. Henri was famous for a drink of his own concoction called a Lafitte, and long custom had conditioned Deems’s stomach to coping with a couple of them every day before lunch.
    Shayne went down three concrete