Murder for Two

by George Harmon Coxe

  “You used to work for Matt Lawson, didn’t you?” Logan said.

  “Lawson?” Byrkman let his brows come up but behind the rimless glasses something flickered and died.

  Logan smiled thinly and his jaw got hard. He leaned forward, dangling his hat between his hands. “Look,” he said patiently, “you’re going to save a lot of time and perhaps a little trouble for yourself by telling the truth. We didn’t ride all the way out here to put on a quiz program. You used to work for Matt Lawson.”

  “Yes, I did,” Byrkman said. “But”—he looked helplessly about—“I don’t understand this. I mean, why you’re here.”

  “You will,” Logan said. “Your name used to be Byrnes. What made you change it?”

  Byrkman’s shoulders seemed to sag at that. He ran his hand over his hair. He didn’t have much and what there was he had combed straight back.

  “No particular reason—except—well, you see, I do some painting and I got to using the name because it was different.”

  “You changed it all of a sudden, didn’t you? After you left Lawson’s office?”

  Casey had opened his camera and checked the focus. He screwed in a flashbulb and listened to Byrkman’s reply, forgetting now his previous annoyance at Logan in his interest at seeing him work. He always liked to watch Logan work—on somebody else—and now, knowing that the lieutenant had practically nothing to go on, he waited to see how far he would get.

  “Why did you leave?” he said now.

  “We—we had a disagreement.”

  Logan looked pointedly about the room. “You’ve got a nice place here. Where’re you working now?”

  “I’m not, at the moment.”

  “When did you work last? Or maybe you have an independent income?”

  “I have a small income,” Byrkman said.

  “Didn’t it start about the time you left Lawson?”

  “Why—shortly after that, I guess. An uncle died.”

  “Oh, yes,” Logan said, and Casey thought, Boy, how you guess ’em! “You know John Perry, don’t you?” Logan continued.

  Again Byrkman hesitated, but Logan’s steady gaze pinned him down. “Yes, I knew who he was.”

  “Lawson and Perry had some trouble, didn’t they? How long after that did you leave?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Well, what was the nature of that trouble?”

  “John Perry came to Mr. Lawson with some formula having to do with oil. Mr. Lawson paid him five thousand dollars for it and later when Mr. Lawson perfected it and began to license it, John Perry said he had been cheated.”

  “He hadn’t been, of course?”

  “No.”

  “Go on.”

  “Perry assaulted Mr. Lawson. He attacked him with a heavy ash tray and Mr. Lawson had him arrested.”

  “Did you know that John Perry is out of jail?”

  “N-o.”

  “Do you know Rosalind Taylor?”

  Byrkman swallowed visibly and beads of moisture stood out on his sallow forehead. “I know of her.”

  “How would you like to ride down to the station with me?”

  Byrkman drew back, jaw sagging. “You can’t do that.”

  “Can’t I?”

  “But I haven’t done anything.”

  Logan was relentless. He leaned forward, his eyes half closed. “You’d have a chance to think if I put you in a cell, and maybe you’d finally figure out that this runaround is getting nowhere. Now did you have a date with Rosalind Taylor tonight or not?”

  “Yes,” Byrkman said in a voice Casey could barely hear.

  “Here or at her place?”

  Byrkman wet his lips and took a breath. “Here.”

  “When?”

  “She—didn’t say. She said she wasn’t sure when she could come.”

  “Did she come?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know why? Did you know that she was shot to death tonight? In her car. And within a couple blocks of her apartment?”

  Byrkman took hold of the table. His cheeks were chalky now and the breath he had taken whistled out and just then Casey let go with the flashbulb. Byrkman jumped, almost knocking over his chair, then sank back and sort of caved in when he saw what Casey had done. Logan rose, glaring at Casey.

  “You couldn’t wait, huh?” he said disgustedly.

  “You said I could have a picture,” Casey said.

  “Well, you got it.” Logan put on his hat and Karen Harding got up and came across the room. “We’ve got some checking to do,” Logan told Byrkman. “You may have to tell some of that story to the D.A. So stick around; I’ll probably want you to come down and see me.”

  They went out. The porch light was extinguished and they stood a moment on the sidewalk. This time Logan took the bull by the horns.

  “We may be at this for some time yet, Miss Harding,” he said. “We can take you home—”

  Karen Harding said, “But—” and looked at Casey.

  “Or,” said Logan, “we can find you a cab.”

  Casey didn’t know what Logan had in mind, but he had an idea it might be worthwhile to find out. As for the girl, he decided enough was enough. To take her to dinner and maybe go some place and have a couple of drinks—well, that was one thing; this acting as nursemaid was something else.

  “All right,” the girl said, when she saw Casey wasn’t going to offer anything. “A cab would be fine.”

  They found one at a stand over on Commonwealth and put her in it and she gave Casey her hand. She said she was very grateful to him and hoped she would see him soon.

  “She’s a swell kid,” Casey said when the cab drove off.

  “She’s too nice for you,” Logan said. “I could appreciate a number like that—if I could ever find one on my day off. But no, I have to run into that kind when I’ve got a lousy murder on my hands. Of course,” he added when he shifted gears, “I might call her up some time.”

  “Sure,” Casey said. “You could tell her how a great detective cracks a murder case.”

  “This detective had better crack this one,” Logan said. “An ordinary reporter wouldn’t be tough enough; it has to be somebody like this Taylor woman.”

  In the taxi, Karen Harding told the driver to go slowly, and when the police car passed her, she waited until the tail light was two blocks ahead before she directed the driver back to Henry Byrkman’s place.

  Now, thinking it over, her conscience bothered her a little. She should, she supposed, have told the lieutenant. She would certainly have told Casey and she comforted herself by saying that it was Logan’s own fault. She really intended to tell him, and then before she had a chance he had practically told her she was in the way and had better go home like a good little girl.

  Of course, it was nothing but luck that gave her a chance to look into the bedroom. If Henry Byrkman hadn’t left the light on and the door part-way open, and if she hadn’t taken that chair in the corner where she could see a little piece of the bedroom, she would never have noticed the suitcase.

  It sat on the bed, its top back, and even from where she sat she could see that it was full. When she finally rose she had detoured slightly and taken a final peek and seen the second handbag on the floor.

  That certainly meant that Henry Byrkman had been interrupted in his packing. It would seem that Henry Byrkman was about to take a little trip or at least change his address. Now, thinking about it, she decided that even though Logan had ditched her, she should tell him what she’d seen. Suppose Henry Byrkman had murdered Rosalind Taylor—and he had a motive, didn’t he?—if Rosalind was about to expose something criminal in Byrkman’s past? Something, perhaps, that had to do with John Perry’s going to prison and the formula Matt Lawson had stolen.

  She sat up, seeing a lighted drugstore ahead, and told the driver to stop. She went in, found the telephone booth, and called Police Headquarters. When she could not locate Logan, she phoned the Express, asked for Casey. When told h
e was out, she got his home telephone number and called that.

  “Well,” she said half aloud when she hung up, “that’s that. And it’s your own fault.”

  In the taxi again she resumed her journey, knowing now that she had to do something, though not at all knowing what that something might be. The taxi rolled steadily on. A block from the intersecting street where Henry Byrkman lived, a car passed them, cut in, and then made the same turn. When the taxi followed, its lights dimmed because of the restrictions, the car was just pulling into the curb a block and a half ahead.

  Karen Harding, watching absently, suddenly gave the car her attention. She sat up and spoke to the driver and the cab slowed, creeping across the intersection and finally coming to a stop about a hundred feet behind the other car. The driver, a blue-chinned individual with glasses, looked back at her as though she might be a mental case.

  “Now what?” he wanted to know.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Just wait and—leave your motor on, please. Maybe you’d better turn off your lights too.”

  The driver obeyed and settled back on the cushions. Karen Harding sat on the edge of the seat, a strange excitement stirring her. If this car had come for Henry Byrkman it would explain his packed bags, she told herself. But if he came out, with whoever it was who had come for him, then what should she do?

  Round and round the question went and in the end she asked herself what Casey would do under the circumstances. Viewed in this manner, she could find two alternatives: she could try and find out where Henry Byrkman went, or she could take a chance with her blackout bulbs and hope to get a picture of whoever came for him.

  She opened her handbag and began to adjust her Leica before she made up her mind. Following the other car seemed like the best idea, but that depended on the skill of her driver. If she lost the car ahead she would have nothing and then she could never face Casey or the lieutenant—not that she owed him anything; whereas a picture—

  The door of Byrkman’s house opened as she debated and when she saw the three men silhouetted briefly before the light was turned out, she made up her mind, twisting a blackout bulb into the flashgun and speaking to the driver.

  “Pull up,” she said. “Not too fast. I want to get a picture of those three men.”

  “Then what?” the driver said dubiously.

  “Then we get away from here—fast.”

  He was in second when the trio came down the steps. The house was set back twenty or thirty feet and by the time the taxi was opposite the house the three men were not more than fifteen feet away and the other car was just ahead.

  Karen Harding had lowered a window. Now she leaned out, pointed the camera, and pressed the shutter release. There wasn’t much light and what there was came from the twin tail lights of the car ahead—enough only for impressions, to tell her that the little man in the middle was Henry Byrkman, that the other two carried two or three bags; then the taxi driver had cramped his wheel and gunned the engine, missing the fender ahead by inches as they shot down the street.

  Behind them there was a shout. The driver shifted into high and snapped on his lights. Then he glanced over his shoulder at Karen Harding.

  “Lady,” he said, “I only hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Chapter Six

  AT CLUB 17

  CASEY LEANED BACK ON THE SEAT and watched the darkened city slide by the car windows. There was no traffic now and store windows were black and vacant-looking. There were no illuminated advertising signs. Only the street lights, shielded on the tops and sides, projected small islands of light on the empty sidewalks and pavements.

  “Where we going?” Casey asked.

  “Club 17—if we make it before it closes.”

  “Dinah King?”

  “You know her?”

  “A little.”

  “I counted on that,” Logan said. “You introduce me. She’s the one with the chassis, isn’t she?”

  “She is,” Casey said. “And very nice.” He watched Logan swing into Boylston. “How does it look to you now?”

  “Tough. Plenty tough.”

  Casey had been thinking again of the scene in Lawson’s office and of the big blond who had wanted the picture. He told Logan about it now.

  “You got a picture of him? Well, that’s something—if he was one of the two that crashed in on the MacKay girl. Up to now I thought we’d have to start looking for two guys with dark glasses.”

  “It adds up, doesn’t it?” Casey said. “If Taylor really had something on Byrkman—and I said, if—she would have something on Lawson. If Lawson knew it he might have done something about it. That blond looked like a gunman to me—a chopper—and I doubt if he’s local talent. There could be another; that would make two.”

  “That would make two,” Logan said dryly. “Go ahead, keep figuring. I like to hear you talk.”

  Casey let the sarcasm ride because he knew how it was with the lieutenant. A newspaper woman—and an important one—had been murdered. The Express would scream and even its competitors would join in the chorus, Logan knew it. Also he had very little to go on at the moment; ideas, yes, but very little that amounted to tangible evidence. He knew that too, and he was worried.

  “They must have been waiting outside Taylor’s apartment,” Casey said. “If her car was parked out front—”

  “It was,” Logan said. “About a hundred feet up from the entrance.”

  “So maybe one hides in the back of the car? Why not? It’s a good idea, and when the other sees her come out, he ducks around back and up that way so the night operator can’t identify him. He crashes the apartment, holds Helen MacKay until his pal joins him. Five minutes or so, she said, and that fits because the guy in the car only makes Taylor drive a couple of blocks.”

  Casey paused, watching the intersection of Stuart and Dartmouth slip by, putting into words now the theory that had been growing in his mind ever since the murder.

  “It’s a cinch for the killer. He’s on his knees in the back of that sedan and he puts a gun against her head and tells her to drive down that side street and—” He stopped and pushed his hat back. “How the hell did you find her so soon?”

  “Now and then we get a break,” Logan said. “That was one. Callahan, out of Station Sixteen, is pounding his beat. The street is a no-parking one. The car isn’t there at nine-twenty. It’s there at nine-forty. But Callahan’s big-hearted so he lets it ride once, figuring maybe somebody just parked there for a few minutes. When he comes by the second time and it’s still there he has himself a look. But go ahead, don’t let me interrupt you.”

  Again Casey let the sarcasm ride, though it was beginning to annoy him. “If those two guys took the trouble to crash the apartment in order to look for something, I guess the one in the car would take a look at Taylor’s handbag. Helen MacKay said Taylor had a little automatic and unless you find it somewhere else it was probably in that handbag. So naturally the guy uses it instead of his own.”

  Speaking of the murder this way brought back vivid details for Casey—the still, lifeless figure on the front seat of the car, the dark stain on the collar of the tweed suit. “She never had a chance,” he said quietly, and now the resentment and bitterness toward the killer welled up in him and he knew that he had to do what he could to help find him.

  It had not occurred to him before. That all murder investigations were a headache he knew from experience. He did not like to get involved, and heretofore he had been listening to Logan and to others, and the stories he heard served to keep the murder at a distance. Now, in the slowly moving car, with the quiet, darkened city all about him, his thoughts had come back to the woman who was murdered, to that single, cowardly shot in the back of the head. It had made him a little sick when he saw it; it made him sick now.

  “You’re all right,” Logan said. “You always were.”

  “Well, you figure it then,” Casey growled, his mental turmoil detecting a sarcasm that did not exist. />
  “I have,” Logan said. “The same way you did. It’s good figuring. Ten’ll get you twenty that if Lawson’s behind it he’s got an air-tight alibi, and of course we’ve still got to pick up those two lads with the glasses. If we do, maybe we can crack them—and maybe not.”

  He swung off Stuart and presently turned into a parking-lot, staring morosely at the approaching attendant. “Of course, there’s a couple of other little things, just to make it easier for us. There’s a guy named Furness, an ex-husband who shows up from God knows where, and falls for his ex-wife’s secretary. And then there’s the husband who wants a divorce—and can’t get it—so he can marry a singer.”

  “You don’t like the two guys who broke into the apartment?”

  “Hell, yes, I like them. But until I get them I’ve got to remember that there are some other people who could have hidden in the back of that car just as well as they could. I’ll be right out,” he said to the attendant and headed for the dimly lighted marquee.

  Casey caught up with him at the door. “If I’m not too inquisitive,” he said, “maybe you could tell me what you expect to find out from Dinah King.”

  “Do I have to find out anything?” Logan said. “If she’s as nice as you say she is, I’d like to meet her.”

  Casey started to say something and thought better of it. A cute little brunette smiled at him from across the checkroom counter and he said he wasn’t going to sit down, and was Dinah King still here. The girl said she was and he thanked her and headed for the bar.

  He slid up on a stool, one eye on the clock which said it was twelve-thirty. The nearest bartender nodded and brought over a bottle of Old Overholt and some water. Casey poured a drink and took it neat; then poured another and dumped it in the water glass. He looked through the long glass partition separating the tables and dance floor from the bar. The orchestra was beating out a hackneyed arrangement of something by Grieg whose title escaped him and he listened and drank until Logan, who had gone on ahead, came barging back.