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remains the same today. But I’ve stumbled onto a murder, Carmela. Murder is my business. And I’ve got some money and time invested in this thing now. I’ve got to figure a way to collect a fee.”
    “I won’t help you exonerate Father!” Carmela cried shrilly. “I’ll see him in hell first. I hope whoever did it gets away with it and he doesn’t get a vote in the election.”
    Shayne said, “You should have exhibited some of this brave spirit ten years ago.”
    Carmela Towne put her fingers over her face and bowed her head and began to cry. Her weeping had an obscene sound. It was as though something had rotted away inside of her, and her tears were a suppurating excrement bubbling up under the pressure of long decay.
    Shayne got up and walked away from her. Thesound of her weeping followed him across the room. He clawed at his red hair and watched somberly, but made no move toward her and said nothing to halt the flow of tears.
    His telephone shrilled loudly. Carmela took her hands away from her tear-streaked face to look at him as he strode across to answer it. Shayne said, “Yes?” and listened. His eyes narrowed and his gaunt features hardened. He started to protest, “Not right now,” but he shrugged and replaced the instrument.
    “He hung up on me before I could stop him,” he told Carmela quietly. “It was Lance. He’s on his way up here.”
    She jumped up with an abject cry of fright.
    Shayne went to her swiftly and put his arm about her shoulders. He swung her toward the open bathroom door and gave her a little shove. “Go in there and lock the door. It might do you good to listen in at the keyhole and see what Lance has to say for himself.”
    She stumbled toward the door and went inside, pulled it shut behind her. Shayne waited until he heard the click of the lock from the inside, then went slowly across to open his door. He heard the elevator stop down the hall and let out a passenger, and waited to meet Lance Bayliss.

CHAPTER SIX
    Bayliss would have been almost as tall as Shayne had Bayliss stood erect. He didn’t. His shoulders drooped wearily, and his back appeared to be permanently bowed. His head was lowered, and he walked with a curious shuffle as though to balance his body with each step. Tendons stood out on each side of his neck, and he wore a shabby gray suit and a black bow tie about the frayed collar of a dingy white shirt. Ten years had thickened his torso and he looked well-fed, but his eyes held an expression of secretive wariness, and he seemed prepared to cringe should a hand suddenly be lifted against him.
    Shayne put out his hand and said heartily, “Lance Bayliss!” After a moment’s hesitation Lance put his hand in Shayne’s. He didn’t lift his head to look directly into the detective’s eyes when he muttered, “Hello, Shayne. I didn’t suppose I’d ever see you again.”
    Shayne kept hold of his hand and stepped back, urging him inside the room. “Come on in and have a drink.”
    He narrowed his eyes as he noted the manner in which Lance Bayliss entered the hotel room. It told him a lot about what had happened to the man during the past ten years. Lance came in with a sort of furtivestealth, darting his eyes around in all directions suspiciously, behind the door and under the bed, and at the open closet door and the closed bathroom door. He kept moving toward the center of the room, and then stopped to look back slyly over his shoulder while Shayne closed the door. He said, “I guess I could use a drink.”
    Shayne went past him and picked up Carmela’s glass and set it beside his own on the bedside table. He split the remainder of the cognac in the two glasses.
    When he turned to offer one to Lance, his guest said, “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything by coming up.”
    “Nothing important,” Shayne told him pleasantly.
    “I couldn’t help noticing the two glasses,” Lance apologized. “You’re not — married?”
    Shayne said, “No,” shortly.