Murder for Two

by George Harmon Coxe

  “Oh,” Casey said.

  “Yep. There’s a little old guy that pushes a truck around the kitchen and through the back hall and out into the alley. He pushes whatever they put on the truck, laundry, garbage cans, groceries, anything. And he saw Mr. Lawson come in the back way. We haven’t got the time exact but as near as we can figure it this was about fifteen to twenty minutes after the bellboy had seen him go out.”

  “The guy is sure?”

  “He’s an Irishman,” Logan said. “And he’s old. He took a look at that picture of Lawson you took and he says yes. And when a guy like that once makes up his mind—or maybe you don’t know Irishmen.”

  Casey thought it over. It was at things like that that the police excelled. Logan’s men had spent hours and hours on routine investigation and now he had something.

  “Figure it for me.”

  “You’re sure it won’t bore you?”

  Casey grinned. Logan was feeling pretty good, wasn’t he? He looked at Perry and the girl and they were smiling too.

  “Sure it’ll bore me. Go ahead.”

  “Lawson sent Nossek and Harry to move Byrkman to the Walters Hotel because he was afraid he might crack. The next noon he went there to have it out with Byrkman. He didn’t go there to kill or he wouldn’t have taken a chance of going the front way. He went up to talk, to see just how tough it was. And I think Byrkman made the mistake of telling Lawson about us and what we knew. He may have made it clear that if he got in a jam he was going to make a deal to protect himself.

  “Whatever Byrkman said then was too much. Lawson went out. He was gone twenty minutes—long enough to get the gun that had killed Rosalind Taylor from the two guys that did it. Don’t ask me why he didn’t send them. That can be figured. Maybe he had another job for them—he knew about the envelope, didn’t he?—and he knew he had to have it, and they could get it better than he could. Anyway, I say that can be figured. He goes up the back way, does the job. It’s a small caliber gun remember, and trains are running every few minutes out front. He goes through Byrkman’s bags.”

  Logan leaned back against the table, his words taking on new emphasis. “Now I say a guy like Byrkman, alone and without friends, would have something either on him or in his effects that would give his lawyer’s name. We found nothing at all and that means Lawson got it. And the only thing that saved us”—he glanced at John Perry—“and you too, is that when his two gunmen got to Loeb, the guy was out of town.”

  “It’s a good start, anyway,” Casey said.

  “Start, he says. Listen. We’ve got Loeb pulling through and he identifies Harry. That takes care of Harry for fifteen or twenty years—assault with intent to kill. Harry’s tough, maybe he won’t talk. But Nossek’s hurt bad. Maybe he won’t die but I sure as hell am going to make him think he will. If I play my cards right he’ll talk. And if he talks—”

  Logan pushed away from the table and buttoned his coat. “Why should I be gabbing with you? I got work to do. I got plenty of work and for a change I think I’m going to enjoy it.”

  “Okay.” Casey got up and reached for his hat. “I’ll go with you.”

  “You’ll go where with me?”

  “Downtown.” Casey cocked a brow at him. “We’re supposed to be pooling transportation, aren’t we? Can’t the city give me a ride?”

  Logan grinned back at him. “Sure.—Well, I’ll take care of the envelope, Perry. You’d better figure on sticking around for a few days, but the way it looks, everything should work out all right for you.”

  “But, Flash,” Karen Harding said as Casey moved to the door. She came up to him, her glance reproachful, “Do you have to—”

  Casey knew what she meant. In her happiness she was deeply grateful and she wanted to thank him for this and that, and it made Casey feel good inside just looking at her and Perry; but he knew if he stayed he’d only be embarrassed and tongue-tied and he wanted to get out while he could.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I guess I’d better. I got a lot to do yet and you kids have got some things to talk about too, haven’t you? I’ll see you later, hunh.”

  Perry moved up beside the girl, his thin face grave and his eyes serious. “I wish there was some way I could—”

  “Oh, yeah,” Casey said quickly, cutting him off. “About that rubber thing you’re working on. Have you seen MacGrath? Well, how about this afternoon? I sort of promised him you’d be in. He wants to see you.”

  He was backing through the door now and Logan had already gone. Perry said he would see MacGrath that afternoon and Casey said that was swell. He made some crack to Karen Harding about not using up all of his bottle of rye; then he ducked down the stairs, sighing with relief.

  Casey had a steak sandwich and two glasses of beer in a tavern across from the Statler after he left Logan. The luncheon crowd had already gone and he had the place more or less to himself, which was the way he wanted it. With no interruptions he could think as he ate and when he finished he knew what he should do.

  He liked Logan’s theory about the murder of Henry Byrkman, except for one thing. That thing loomed larger and larger the more he thought of it, and one reason that Casey was such a good photographer was his stubbornness, his unwillingness to accept any solution just because it was easy. The persistence that rewarded him so often with exclusive pictures was at work now and by the time he had paid his bill he knew he could not be satisfied until he had checked up on one or two things that had not occurred to him until that morning.

  Without any great hope of success, but still knowing he had to try, he went first to the Arlington Street Branch of the Central Trust Company. He had banked there quite a while and he knew everyone and especially the manager.

  The manager said no.

  Casey sat down, fanning out his coat and leaning well back in the guest chair beside the manager’s desk. He lit a cigarette and grinned.

  “Why?” he said.

  The manager told him. The request was unthinkable, irregular, and impossible. So Casey went to work, and he was a hard guy to say no to, Casey was, because in his profession he had been rebuffed by experts and had long since learned that the first refusal was not necessarily final.

  Had it been money he was asking for he would have quit long ago. But this wasn’t money. It might be a lot more important than money. Of course it could be nothing at all too, but he kept at it, arguing, pleading, kidding, scoffing at the objections raised. Eventually he wore the man ager down as he had worn down others who argued against him, and by promising this and that, he walked out with the thing he had come to get.

  He went directly to the Express then, working for an hour or more before he sent a messenger back to the bank with the film he had borrowed.

  He wasn’t grinning any more when he left the studio shortly after four. In the darkrooms he’d had more time to think and once started, forgotten details loomed up to become part of his theory, nebulous as yet, but worth working on.

  It was raining when he got outside and he couldn’t find a taxi, so he slogged over to the subway entrance, rode to Copley, and trudged on home. Not even stopping for a drink, he went to his refrigerator and from behind it pulled out the folder that held Dinah King’s dossier. Glancing through it to make sure its contents were intact, he put it in the large envelope he had brought from the office, and sealed it.

  Edward, the operator at Rosalind Taylor’s apartment house, was reading the afternoon Standard when Casey came in dripping water on the lobby floor. Edward’s glance brightened with recognition and he indicated the paper.

  “Hey,” he said, “they got those guys, didn’t they?”

  “They sure did.” Casey removed his hat and shook the rain off. He took the paper, glanced at it only long enough to see that it was a carefully guarded account supplied by the police. “They sure did,” he said. “Have you got a key to Taylor’s apartment?”

  Edward said he had and looked doubtful.

  “The police are through with it,
aren’t they?” Casey asked. “What the hell. Who’s going to know? And if anybody does, I’m a prospective tenant.”

  Edward reached for the key. “All right, Mr. Casey, but—”

  Casey winked at him. “If you ever get Friday night off and could use a couple tickets for the fights, stop in and say so.”

  Rosalind Taylor’s apartment had that musty smell that comes from dead air and closed windows, and when Casey turned on the living-room lights it looked as though it had not been lived in in weeks. He left his plate-case there while he toured the rest of the apartment to get the layout in his mind, and then he came back, got rid of his trench coat and hat, and began a close inspection of the various pieces of furniture, tipping some of them on their sides and looking at chair legs and tables carefully.

  Satisfied at last that what he sought was not here, he took his case—the large one that held reflectors and stands—into the office and started in again. When he finally found it, his lips formed a silent whistle and he stopped to think and smoke a cigarette before opening the case and taking out the things he needed.

  He used two lights and took pains setting them up. His subject was a heavy leather chair and since he was focusing on the legs and needed a close shot, the lighting was a problem that took some time to solve. He used an exposure meter and a home-made viewing glass which gave him contrasts and values under artificial light, and finally he was satisfied.

  He made two exposures of varying lengths, shifted tripod and lights and went through the same lengthy routine on the second leg of the chair. When he finally straightened up he tripped on one of his light cords and knocked over a reflector stand, breaking the bulb. Ordinarily he would have been annoyed, but this time he was too preoccupied to bother. He had what he wanted, which was all that mattered now, and he had begun to pack his equipment when he heard a faint click in front of him and felt a tiny breeze along the floor.

  He glanced up as the door to Helen MacKay’s office and apartment opened and then Stanley Furness was standing there watching curiously. Peering over his shoulder was Helen MacKay.

  “Hi,” Casey said, continuing with his packing.

  “Oh,” Furness said. “We heard a noise in here and couldn’t imagine what—”

  “Why, Flash,” Helen MacKay said.

  “Hello, Mac,” Casey said. “I knocked over a lamp. As soon as the glass cools I’ll clean it up.”

  Furness moved in slowly, a look of puzzlement on his tanned face as his glance slid about the room and came back to Casey. Helen MacKay eased him out of the way from behind so she could get in.

  “For heaven’s sake, Flash.” She sounded annoyed and her dark eyes looked it as they met Casey’s. “What do you think you’re doing now?”

  “I’ve been taking pictures.”

  “Of that chair?” Furness glanced at the way it had been tipped over on its side.

  “Sure.” Casey began to pick up bits of broken glass. “For the lieutenant. I’m getting some evidence for him.” He dumped the glass in the wastebasket and righted the chair. “Sit down.—I guess you know what happened this morning.”

  They said they did. Helen moved up to the desk chair and sat down and Furness perched on the arm of the leather one. He was still perplexed, even as he spoke, and deep down in his brown eyes was some expression Casey couldn’t fathom from where he stood.

  “I had to go to the hospital,” the girl said. She took a cigarette from a silver cup on the desk and tapped it absently, her smooth skin laced with wrinkles at the angles of her eyes. She took a light from Furness, inhaled deeply. “I couldn’t swear they were the two men,” she said, still frowning. “How could I? The big one I hardly saw. The little one looks like the one but with those glasses—”

  “I don’t see how there could be any question,” Furness said.

  “It isn’t that,” Helen replied shortly. “It’s one thing to think you’re right and another to get up and swear to something you’re not absolutely positive about. Anyway, the lieutenant said it doesn’t matter.”

  “I don’t think it does,” Casey said.

  Furness was still watching him. He still kept that slow, quiet way of speaking but there was a metallic thinness to his words now that Casey hadn’t noticed before.

  “I still don’t see what this chair has to do with it,” he said.

  Casey was going around pulling out his light plugs and rolling up the cords. Helen moved up to the desk to get out of his way and in her black dress with its low V snuggling between her breasts, her dark beauty was vital and compelling in spite of her frown.

  “Logan’s got a theory,” Casey said, and went on to explain what the lieutenant had said about Lawson and Byrkman. He explained about the envelope and Helen MacKay came to attention.

  “But that’s marvelous,” she said. “For John Perry and the Harding girl, I mean. And Rosalind was right all along about Lawson too, wasn’t she?”

  Casey said it looked that way and Furness said, “What’s the rest of the theory?”

  Casey gave him a raking glance. The guy was going to stick to it until he got the answer; the set of his mouth and jaw, the inflection of his voice said so.

  Okay, Casey thought. Aloud he said, “Logan thinks Lawson murdered Byrkman—he’s not sure yet about Rosalind—and sent one of the gunmen to Morris Loeb for the envelope.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “No. I don’t think Matt Lawson would murder Byrkman until he actually had that envelope. It doesn’t make sense to me. Lawson was more interested in keeping Byrkman alive. If he knew he had to kill, he’d get that envelope first.”

  “How?” Furness asked.

  “You said Lawson made two trips to the hotel,” Helen added.

  “If Lawson thought he had to kill, it would be a cinch for him to tie up a little guy like Byrkman or knock him out long enough to search him and the room. He did search him because otherwise he couldn’t have known enough to send a man after Loeb and the letter. That much is fact. Lawson did know, finally, about Loeb. He did send Harry after the envelope.”

  Casey knelt to put away his light cord. “All right. If Lawson killed Byrkman, why didn’t he get this information first? It would be a cinch to hold up Byrkman while he sent his gunman to get the envelope. Hell, working in shifts, they could have kept Byrkman there for days—until Lawson actually had the envelope. Nobody knew where Byrkman was. Lawson didn’t have to kill then. To do so would be dumb—because he could not be absolutely sure the name and address of the man who had the envelope would be in the room. And whatever he is, Lawson is no dope.”

  Furness twisted his lips, let them go back in place. “How do you account for it then?”

  “I think Byrkman was dead when Lawson got there. That’s why Lawson came back. He couldn’t get in, and since Byrkman was supposed to stay in hiding, Lawson suspected something was wrong. He went out to get a skeleton key or something like that and he came back, because no matter what had happened to Byrkman, Lawson had to search the room. He had to find out who had the envelope. I think he came up the back way, found his man dead, searched until he found out about Loeb and ducked out the same way he came.”

  Furness thought it over. He came back to the subject he liked best. “And why should you be photographing this chair?”

  “Logan’s going to need help. Right now he’s all tied up with Lawson and Harry and that blond guy, Nossek. He’s got statements to take and things to run down, and he hasn’t had time to see that maybe his case isn’t so pat as it seems. He’s got enough to put Lawson and the other two away for a while but that doesn’t say he’s cracked these murders.”

  Helen MacKay ground out her cigarette and sat up. “You have me a little confused, Flash. Or maybe this isn’t one of my bright days. You don’t think Lawson murdered Rosalind and Byrkman? You don’t think those two gunmen did?”

  “No, I don’t. I did until this morning, but—”

  “Why should they break in here that night on Helen the
n?” Furness asked quickly.

  “They didn’t.” Casey moved away from the desk. He saw Furness’s tanned face tighten and get grim at the mouth. Helen leaned forward, watching him, her red lips parted.

  “She couldn’t identify them, could she?” Casey said, indicating the girl but watching Furness. “Her story about not being able to on account of the dark glasses is okay, but that’s not the only reason. She can’t identify them because they weren’t here.”

  Furness slid off the chair arm and stood up, his glance darting to the girl before he jerked it back. For a moment they stood that way, each one waiting and the silence closing down. Furness broke it.

  “Who did come here then?”

  “No one. There weren’t any two guys,” Casey said, “except in her imagination. Lawson’s men grabbed Byrkman and shot Loeb, but they didn’t kill Rosalind Taylor. Helen killed her and she killed Byrkman the next day.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  DEATH STARES AT CASEY

  THE TENSION that had been gathering ever so slowly in the room struck hard and for long seconds no one moved, no one seemed to breathe. Casey, feeling the stiffness slide up the backs of his legs, tried to keep his eyes on both Furness and the girl. The man moved first, shoving a step forward and flattening his lips.

  “You lie,” he said.

  “Do I?”

  “No one can talk that way about Helen.” Furness shoved ahead another step, his fists balling. “You’ll apologize for that and furthermore—”

  “You’d better sit down,” Casey said.

  “Stanley!”

  Furness stopped and looked at the girl. Casey looked at her and she was still beautiful. Her face was paler but even as he watched, spots of color touched her cheeks and spread so that presently it was smooth and olive again.

  “I mean it, Stanley,” she said. “Do sit down and let him talk.” She glanced at Casey, a half-smile on her mouth and bright scorn in her eyes.

  “But Helen—”