Murder for Two

by George Harmon Coxe

  “Inside, I hope,” Logan said, and a few seconds later they were. There was a hall doorway on the right, a swinging door to the dining-room just ahead. They went through this and on to the living-room, finding both empty; then Logan turned down the hall and started back, finding here two small bedrooms and a bath.

  “What’d I tell you?” Casey said.

  “Oh, you’re a wonder,” Logan said.

  He must have known, as Casey had, that Byrkman would not be here, but even so he sounded disappointed, and his gloom increased as he began to search the front bedroom and found the closet and dresser drawers empty.

  “It that damn girl had told me last night,” he said finally. “I don’t know what it is with button-pushers. You say she’s not a regular camera but by God she acts like one. Give one of you guys a camera and right off he starts holding out on me.”

  “Oh, sure,” Casey said. “I lay awake nights thinking up ways to outsmart you. That’s all I’ve got to do.”

  “Oh, quiet,” Logan said sourly and started for the back bedroom.

  Casey went the other way, wandering slowly through the living-room, glancing at the home-made water colors on the wall and thinking that it must have been something of a sacrifice for Byrkman to leave them. The paint-stained bench was still here but the easel was gone and when Casey saw that he came to the conclusion that the man planned an extended stay.

  There was a telephone stand in the dining-room and Casey stood staring at it for a few seconds. Not really looking for anything in particular, and more from idle curiosity than anything else, he pulled out the drawer and looked through it. There was a pad and pencil there, a classified directory; the regular book hung on a hook and he looked at it a moment until he thought of something and then he opened it to the last page.

  Here he found a ruled sheet on which was printed: Numbers Most Often Called. Under this were a dozen or so telephone numbers. Casey ripped it out, considered Logan, and then put it into his pocket. It was unlikely that it would yield anything of importance and he didn’t want the lieutenant making cracks about his acting the detective. If he really stumbled on to something, okay; if not, it was best not mentioned.

  In the living-room he sat down and lit a cigarette, thinking about Matt Lawson and Byrkman and John Perry, and then about the two men who had pushed him around the night before and ruined some of his plates. He was still there and getting nowhere fast with his thoughts when Logan came back.

  “Where’s that picture?”

  “What picture?” Casey said.

  “The one you took in here last night.”

  “Oh. I’ve got it some place. No dice here?”

  “Not even a lousy lead,” Logan said. “Get me the film. If it comes out—”

  “What do you mean, comes out?” Casey was indignant.

  “—we’ll have a good shot of Byrkman. I’ll get some readers out and maybe we can pick him up.”

  Casey said all right. He squinted one eye at Logan. “And now how about letting me in on what’s in that folder.” He indicated the manila folder in the lieutenant’s pocket. “Just how much did Rosalind Taylor know?”

  Logan said she knew a lot, and he looked worried when he said it. He took out the folder, opened it, finally sat down beside Casey.

  “I don’t know how these private dicks do it,” he said, “but they do. This guy Jarvison is all right.” He opened the folder and Casey saw a long report, similar in makeup to the one he had read on Dinah King, photostats and pictures of canceled checks, other photostats of signatures.

  “It’s all here,” Logan said. “That Jarvison,” he said, and there was a note of admiration in his voice. “Hell, he’s got stuff here we’d have to get a court order for.”

  “Well, what about it?” Casey asked impatiently. “Forget Jarvison. What goes?”

  “Henry Byrkman has been getting a monthly check tor three hundred bucks ever since he left Lawson, that’s what goes. They’re drawn on the Farmer’s National by a guy named Mathews—M. A. Mathews.”

  “And Mathews is Lawson,” Casey said.

  “You’re wonderful,” Logan said. “The only difference between you and Jarvison is that he proved it.” He tapped the folder. “He’s got a photo of Mathews’s signature and a handwriting expert says the writing is Lawson’s. But that’s all there is, the writing. Lawson hasn’t been identified by anyone as Mathews because Mathews made only two deposits, six months apart, for seventy-five hundred bucks each.”

  “Oh-oh.”

  “Yeah,” said Logan. “Lawson is paying Byrkman a nice little monthly income—for what? For that Perry business. Of course we haven’t got any proof yet, but I’ll ride along until we find out different.”

  “Were those the only checks drawn on Mathews’s account?” Casey asked. “The ones that went to Byrkman?”

  Logan said no and looked again at the records. “There were two others. One drawn six months ago for twenty-five hundred to a guy named Lloyd and cashed at the Exchange National in New York, and one a year ago for five thousand, payable to somebody named C. H. Manning.”

  “Who’s Manning?”

  “How the hell do I know,” Logan snapped. “How do I know who Lloyd is? All I know is Lawson has this Mathews account to pay out hush money in one form or another. Lloyd was a New York thing and Manning is local. Cashed at the Central Trust, Arlington Street branch.”

  “That’s my bank,” Casey said, half aloud.

  Logan gave a snort of impatience. “That’s swell,” he said. “That makes everything all right. You can probably fix everything up for us.”

  Casey flushed and stood up. Logan looked surprised.

  “Sit down. Where you going?”

  “Out,” said Casey. “Where the air is. Some day somebody is going to slap that sarcastic mouth of yours and I’m not sure it isn’t going to be me.”

  Logan was worried. He hadn’t meant to ride Casey and this flare-up surprised him, for he’d known the big photographer a long time and they got along because they understood each other. That Casey took offense at his sarcasm meant that Casey was worried and Logan wanted to know why.

  “Okay,” he said placatingly. “Be sensitive. Forgive me. I’m sorry. I forgot how thin your skin was.” He was grinning now and Casey saw the grin and couldn’t hold out against it.

  “This thing has got you down, huh?” he said.

  “You know it has.” Logan put the folder in his pocket and hauled out a pack of cigarettes. “By tomorrow morning, if we don’t turn up a killer for Taylor, the papers’ll have us on our way to a concentration camp. It couldn’t be just a clean-cut murder by those two hoods. Oh, no. It’s got to be tougher. Lawson’s got to be mixed up in it, and this Byrkman. And he has to disappear on us—along with your two hoods.”

  He broke off, went on grimly. “Of course there are a couple of other things. This Gifford, for instance. He wants to marry Dinah King. She wants to marry him. His wife says no soap. He inherits what she’s got—a few thousand in cash and an annuity for fifty thousand more—and now he can marry the King woman. She had a fight with Taylor last night less than an hour before she was killed. And this Furness. The ex-husband. What’s he hanging around for? And even this MacKay dame.”

  “Boy, are you reaching now.”

  “With my teeth,” Logan said. “Just the same, she could be figured; she might have had a motive.”

  “Anyone who ever had much to do with Rosalind Taylor would have a motive, one time or another. What about me—or John Perry? And those guys she was trying to have indicted for violation of the sugar-rationing act. The bottling-plant guy—or Conti.” Casey rose. “And while you’re at it, try and wrap two yards of adhesive tape around both wrists some day. Hell, I’ll bet you can’t even bandage a finger without getting it twisted.”

  Logan gave him a sour stare. “She could have had an accomplice.”

  “Okay,” Casey said resignedly. “You’re the detective. Find him. For me I want a big blond
guy and another one with greasy hair who answers to the name of Harry.”

  Logan looked up, his theorizing forgotten. “Yeah,” he said. “We’ll see what we can do with that picture of yours—and what about the one of Byrkman? I had a little talk with that kid, Edward, that runs the telephone at Taylor’s apartment house, and he says a strange guy came in the place about five or six minutes after Rosalind Taylor went out. This guy went up—the kid doesn’t know where—and came back three or four minutes later.”

  “You think he could be one of the hoods?”

  “Could be. Or if they went up the back way this stranger is somebody else—maybe Byrkman.—Anyway I want that picture too—and maybe you’d better stop in and give the gallery the once over. From what you say, those two pals of yours act like they’d done this sort of thing before.”

  “That I’ll guarantee,” said Casey. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  When John Perry opened the door of his room, Casey walked in without being asked, sitting down on the arm of the nearest chair and acting as if he were an acquaintance of long standing.

  “Hi,” he said. “I guess you read about Rosalind Taylor.”

  Perry closed the door, looking none too pleased with the intrusion. His dark hair was tousled; the sweater he wore was old and tight with washing, and it made him look even thinner than Casey had remembered him. The long, bony face still wore the shadow of prison pallor, and behind the tortoise-shell glasses the eyes were tired and disillusioned.

  “Yes,” he said finally. “I had an idea she’d never be able to help me, but I never expected that to happen.” He looked up quickly. “You don’t think I had anything to do with it, do you?”

  Casey said no, and kept talking. He wanted to put the other at his ease because there were some things he wanted to know and he told quite a little of what had happened in the hope of gaining Perry’s confidence.

  “According to what Rosalind Taylor told me yesterday afternoon,” he said finally, “and according to certain information she had, she felt pretty sure you had been framed. She felt sure that Byrkman—or Byrnes—was in on it.”

  “He was. He had to be.” Perry sat down, his stare remote. “I did a lot of thinking when I first went to prison and I know how Lawson did it. It’s the only way it could have happened. I was sitting at his desk and had his check for five thousand—I guess you know about that part, don’t you—when Byrkman came in with the contracts. Lawson handed me one of the carbons—there were three carbons and the original—and told me to read it.”

  “And it was okay?” Casey asked.

  “Perfectly. He told me to sign it while he signed the others and after I signed he passed the other three—and there were two carbons and an original, mind you—and I signed them, thinking they were identical with the first one. Maybe it sounds dumb now but when you see an original and three carbons and they are handed to you together and they all look alike—”

  Casey whistled softly. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “The one you read and signed was the contract you expected, and the other two carbons and the original were from a different contract.”

  “Yes,” John Perry said, and now there was a bitterness about his mouth that Casey had never seen in one so young. “Certainly. What he had was an original and two carbons of his contract. The other carbon, the one J read, was from an entirely different set. He kept that one naturally. He gave me one of his contracts, folded it and put it in an envelope for me. I didn’t even look at it for a day or two. When I did—”

  He stopped and Casey glanced away. It was a perfect scheme, depending for success on but one point—that Perry would not insist on reading all the copies.

  “Lawson had Byrkman make both sets of contracts, huh?” he said. “He destroyed the one you read and what he had left was an original and one carbon of his contract for the courts—and you had the other. Byrkman is your only chance then. Rosalind Taylor was right about him.”

  Perry wasn’t looking at him now, but the bitterness was still in his mouth and in his eyes. “Lawson even framed me on the assault. Naturally I Was furious. I called him some names, I guess, and he knocked me down twice and while I was on my knees he kicked me. But that time I caught his foot and he fell and when he started for me again I picked up the ash tray and crowned him. Byrkman was a witness against me in that too, though he knew the truth, and—” He paused, eyes narrowing. “Do you know where he is?”

  “I know where he lives, but he’s not there now. The cops are looking for him. I think you’ve still got a chance because Rosalind Taylor left behind some things that will help.”

  Casey stood up and looked about the cheaply furnished room with its lone window overlooking the fences and clotheslines and back windows of the houses on the next street.

  “I guess you’ve got a right to be bitter,” he said and then, taking a chance that he could needle this youth out of the morass of self-pity with which he had surrounded himself, he said, “But why do you have to take it out on a girl like Karen Harding?”

  That did it. John Perry jumped up. “What the hell do you mean? What has Karen—”

  “She was in love with you, wasn’t she? She still is, I guess—though damned if I can see why—but you won’t even—”

  “What do you expect? I’ve been in prison, haven’t I? I’ve got a record. How could I speak to a girl like that? Her old man never liked me and he made it pretty plain when I was in prison what he thought about it. He wrote me a letter.” Perry laughed, a harsh, unpleasant sound. “At that I guess he was right.”

  He came up to Casey and some of the vehemence went out of his voice. “That’s the trouble. The jail business. I’m on parole now. You know what that means. The formula Lawson stole—well, that’s gone. I can forget that, but until I can get clear of this other—”

  “How do you know you won’t?” Casey cut in. “You don’t have to mope while you’re waiting, do you? You’re a smart guy. You’re a chemist. You got one formula; get another.”

  “How do you know I haven’t?”

  Casey blinked. “Yeah? Is it any good? What’s it do?”

  “If it tests out the way I hope it will, it will make better retreads out of re-claimed rubber than anyone ever made before. They have things now like Dimethylamine to make rubber tougher and more resistant to heat and sub-zero cold. Well, this thing of mine is along that line but it’s especially for re-claimed rubber. I had it practically worked out before I went to jail.”

  “Then what’re you waiting for? It’s just what the country needs, ain’t it?”

  Perry’s enthusiasm flickered out. “Nobody is going to gyp me out of this,” he said. “I’ve got to get a little backing, but—”

  “Look,” Casey said bluntly, “act your age. Not everybody is a Matt Lawson. You can get backing. Go see the managing editor of the Express. His name’s MacGrath. Tell him what you’ve told me. He knows people and if anybody can do you some good, he can. I’ll tell him about you. I’ll tell him you’re coming down.”

  “Of course he’ll invite me right in,” Perry said.

  “He will if I ask him to,” Casey said. “And I’ll ask him.” He opened the door. “The only thing is, go in and see him like a man. He doesn’t like guys that cry on his desk.—As for Byrkman, we’ll get him. We might even get Lawson before we get through.”

  He slammed the door and went down the dingy stairs. When he got out on the sidewalk and saw the sunshine he decided he felt pretty good. He decided it was a half hour well spent. Not only did it look more and more as if Lawson was behind Rosalind Taylor’s murder, but there was also that business about the re-claimed rubber. Suppose the kid had something? “Would that be something,” he said, and started on down the street.

  Chapter Thirteen

  IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD

  CASEY STOPPED FOR LUNCH before he went back to the office and when he arrived, Finell was holding down the studio anteroom. He wanted to know if there was anything new on th
e Taylor murder and Casey remembered the picture of Byrkman he had taken the night before and had promised to Logan. He said there was nothing new on the murder as far as he was concerned and dug the film-holder out of his drawer.

  “Take this in and develop it, will you?” he said. “And make me an eight by ten.”

  Finell went into the darkroom corridor whistling and Casey slipped off his coat and hat and sat down. He looked through the assignment basket, found nothing that needed his attention and leaned back to smoke and think. It took about ten minutes of this before he remembered the page he had torn from Byrkman’s telephone book and when he pulled it out he drew the telephone to him and asked for the first number.

  “Hello,” he said when a woman answered, “is this Johnson’s Market?”

  “You must have the wrong number,” the woman said. “This is Hall’s Pharmacy.”

  Casey said, “Sorry,” and hung up.

  The next call gave him a tailoring establishment, the second a grocery store, the third a laundry. He was down to the last three numbers, having been in touch with the gas company, the electric company, and a milkman, when he heard a commotion and the sound of women’s voices in the corridor. By the time he could turn, they were upon him, three women in the uniforms of the American Women’s Voluntary Services. Oh, my God! he thought when he recognized them as members of his class in photography, and then he had stumbled to his feet and was backing away.

  “Oh, Mr. Casey,” they said.

  Casey swallowed, mumbled a good afternoon, and watched them stop in the center of the room. One of them was young and sort of cute. He remembered her name—Brown. He recalled that she was married and had two kids. The other two were merely familiar as to face, one being tall, with the build of a wrestler, and the other plump and middle-aged, with short bobbed hair and glasses.

  “Oh, isn’t this cute?” the tall one said, looking about. “I told you we’d find him, girls.”

  “I hope we’re not intruding,” the cute one said.

  “Oh, no,” Casey said, the perspiration beginning to itch along his hair line. He wondered if he could get away with the one about just going out and decided he couldn’t.