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an urgent call wasn’t taking her husband into danger, while a private detective never knew.
    Shayne was saying, “Yep, Shayne talking,” then listened a full two minutes.
    Phyllis could faintly hear a rasping voice that sounded excited, but Shayne finally ended the conversation by growling, “All right. Sure, I’ll be out but I don’t see what good I can do.” He clicked the phone down and Phyllis grabbed his arm.
    “What is it, Michael? Do you have to go? It’s raining and you sounded hoarse this evening.”
    Shayne patted her hand, then pulled the cord on a bed lamp. “It’s nothing important, angel. Mr. Painter just hates to think of me sleeping soundly while he’s out chasing down clues.” He yawned and flexed the muscles of his arms, threw the covers back, and grinned down at the absurdly little-girl features of his wife. “Nice of you to remind me of the danger of catching cold. Shows the true wifely instinct. To keep you from worrying I’ll fortify myself against the rainy night.”
    He swung his pajama-clad legs over the edge of the bed and uncorked a cut-glass decanter by the telephone. He poured a glass full and half emptied it, filled it to the brim again, and got up to pad across the room in his bare feet and close the window. He turned back toward the bed and took another drink, set the glass down, and tugged at the lobe of his left ear with right thumb and forefinger.
    “It’s important, Michael, and you are worried,” Phyllis accused. “You always pull at your ear when—”
    Shayne took the glass up and emptied it, sat down on the edge of the bed, and shook a cigarette from a pack on the table. Phyllis lay back and snuggled under the covers, one hand reaching for a cigarette. Shayne lit both from the same match, stood up, and unbuttoned his pajama coat. Shrugging it from his big frame, he said over his shoulder, “Huh. Worried about going out in the cold and leaving my warm bed and ditto wife.”
    Phyllis said severely, “You’re just trying to put me off the track with your compliments. You can’t fool me, Michael Shayne. You are worried.”
    “You’ve got nutty ideas about the life of a private detective,” he growled as he got dressed. “We don’t deal exclusively in bloodshed and murder, you know. Nine-tenths of a private dick’s work is stuff like—well, checking on hubby to see if he’s stepping out, or finding out why little Johnny played hooky from school yesterday, or digging up sister’s suitor’s dead past.”
    “You’re not fooling me a bit, darling.” Phyllis’s voice was honeyed. “You know you turn down routine stuff like that.” She kicked back the covers. “I’m going with you and—”
    Shayne whirled away from the mirror where he was knotting his tie. “Get back in bed or get spanked, angel.”
    “I won’t sleep a wink,” she warned him defiantly. “I’ll be pacing the floor thinking about those times you got yourself all beaten to a pulp.”
    “Be sure to pace before the mirror,” he chuckled. “You look good enough to eat in those red pajamas. Besides, speaking as a bridegroom, I promise not to get my handsome face scarred.”
    He turned back to the mirror to finish knotting his tie and Phyllis wrinkled her nose at his reflection in the mirror. When he turned around she was out of bed and standing directly before him.
    “Is it a new case?” she wheedled. She touched his tie with a pretense of straightening it.
    “Sort of.” He kissed her black hair and put her aside and went to the bedside table for his watch. The time was 2:21.
    “It had better be a case,” she warned him. “It’s immoral for a married man to go out at two in the morning for anything except business.”
    He went to a closet for his hat and belted raincoat, grinning out of the side of his mouth at her. “You’ve got nothing to worry about, angel. What’s left of me after being married to you for two weeks couldn’t be anything but strictly business .”
    He