Silent Are the Dead (3 page)

Casey lowered the camera. He did not have much hope for that picture. It was too far away for one thing, and the face had been partly hidden by an upturned coat collar. If he couldn't identify that fragmentary glimpse, how could the camera capture it? He stood there disappointedly until he remembered his shoes; then he untied them and put them on.

Perry Austin was rocking gently in Endicott's high-back chair when Casey returned. He had a big cigar in his mouth and he removed it and flicked ashes on the rug before he spoke. “What happened?”

Casey told him.

Austin pursed his lips. “You crazy fool! That could have been the killer.”

“Looks like it was.” Casey reversed his film holder and got another flash bulb from his case.

“I've been looking around,” Austin said. “This is quite a layout. The guy must have really been in the chips.” He pushed a heavy humidor across the desk. “Have a cigar.”

“Leave it alone,” Casey growled. “You'll have your prints all over the joint.”

Austin raised his brows. “That's right, I will.” He looked down at the cigar, frowning. “How do you figure this, Flash?”

“I don't,” Casey said. “That's for the cops. All I want is a couple of pictures.”

“You going to call in?”

“Certainly.” He gave Austin an irritated glance. Something about the man's attitude nettled him and he could not forget the fact that they had nearly trapped the killer. Looking back, he realized that he had taken a fool chance in trying to follow the man. If the fellow had known about it in time Casey might be stretched out in the alley as Endicott was on the floor. He went over to the dead man, walked around him until he got an angle he liked. He took a picture.

“Look.” Austin had moved up to him. “This is your baby now. If I hang around I'll get tangled up with Homicide and maybe get stuck for a couple of hours here. If I'm going to get any shots at the Berkely I'd better shove off now.”

“Okay,” he said. “Stop at a drugstore and phone Lieutenant Logan; then I won't have to use this phone and maybe smudge up some prints for them. I'll tell him you were here with me, but Logan's all right, and he probably won't bother you until morning— And wait a minute,” he said as Austin started for the door. “Take this with you.” He handed over the exposed film holder. “You'll probably get back to the office before I do. But don't leave it around for somebody else I to develop.”

When the outer door closed and he heard the hum of the elevator he went to his plate case and got a fresh film holder and two more flash bulbs. He took two pictures of Endicott from different angles, put the film holder and burned-out bulbs in the case and got fresh ones. He looked about then, studying the furnishing of the room anew, and in, the end went back to the third room in the suite.

Here he turned on the light, noting that this room looked more like the library of some rich man's home than an office. There was a large fireplace, an oversized leather divan in front of it. Two of the walls were given over almost entirely to books. In addition to the hall door there were two others, one leading to a closet, the other to a private bath and dressing-room.

“Some layout,” he said softly and then, with the words on his lips, he stiffened, holding his breath, listening. When the faintly humming sound which had attracted him continued, he stepped quickly to the hall door, opened it a crack, and listened. Sure, now, that the elevator was moving, he stayed there until he saw the light in the car flash past the crack under the door.

Now what?
he thought, and closed the door. There was a chance that the passenger might be going to one of the offices across the hall. If not— He snapped off the room light as he heard the elevator door clang back. He went over to the door connecting with the center office, opened it a three-inch crack, and from the light that streaked in, looked again at the shutter and focus of the camera.

For the next second or two he could hear nothing at all. He waited. Presently a doorknob rattled. Then, too late, he realized that the crack he had opened would not permit him to view the opposite door, that he had better not risk further movement until he knew who was coming.

The quick, sharp gasp that followed was loud and startling. From where he stood he could see about one half of Endicott's body and for what seemed like minutes he saw nothing more. It was a temptation not to try and inch open the door a little farther, but he made himself wait, and presently a woman's white evening shoe came into view, and a long white dress—half of a dress, really—topped by a mink wrap.

He could not see her face, for when she moved again her back was toward him, and he realized suddenly that she had started away and was moving swiftly toward the door through which she had come. He stepped out just as that door opened, throwing up his, camera and calling, softly, “Hey.”

The woman jerked to immobility, freezing with her hand on the knob. He could see her shoulders stiffen under the mink wrap and he waited, knowing that she would turn her head. She did, giving him a quick, over-the-shoulder glance. That's when Casey let off the flash gun, getting a fleeting glimpse of the blond hair, the startled, frightened eyes, and smooth, high-cheek-boned face. Even then the sight of her struck some responsive chord in his memory, but there was no time for anything more, because she had opened the door and was running through and slamming it behind her.

Casey started an instant later, crossing the room in long strides, hearing something scrape across the floor of the adjoining office. He grabbed for the knob, jerked at it, and went through the opening, seeing the fleeing silhouette framed in the door ahead. Then, as he leaped forward in the darkness, something caught his shin, dipping him, and he fell heavily, clumsily, as he tried to save the camera, knowing now what the scraping sound had been, that the woman had had the sense to spin a chair in his path as she fled.

He rolled to his knees, still protecting the camera, and stood up. Pain clamped round his shin and he hobbled over to the hall door, cursing bitterly. He went into the hall. The elevator was still there but he knew he'd never catch her now.

“Okay, sister,” he said aloud. “But don't forget I got a picture, and this one's going to be good.”

Chapter Four:
CASEY GETS COOLED OFF

S
ERGEANT
M
ANAHAN SAT ON THE EDGE OF THE DESK
smoking one of Stanford Endicott's cigars and, from the look on his broad ruddy face, enjoying it. The fingerprint man was assiduously dusting everything in sight that might conceivably hold a latent print, and the photographer, who had already taken pictures of the body and outlined it in chalk on the rug, was waiting for its removal, a tape measure in his hand. Lieutenant Logan stood by the examiner's physician while he completed his preliminary inspection.

“So here's once,” the doctor said, “when I don't have to figure out the time of death for you.”

Logan glanced at Casey, who had slumped down on the divan, and shook his head. “Just give me the slugs this time, doc.”

The doctor stood up and packed his bag. “If they were all like this, life would be a lot simpler for me. I'll have him out of here in a few minutes.”

Logan strolled over to Casey. “You and Perry Austin came up here, found the door to the outer office unlocked. You came in and here he was. That all?”

“No. There are a couple more things. I saw Nat Garrison.”

Interest kindled in Logan's dark eyes. “Where?”

“Outside. Just coming out of the building.”

“The hell you did! When?”

“Just as we drove up.”

Logan put his hands on his hips and looked disgusted. “Well for— Why didn't you say so?”

“I just thought of it.”

“Austin see him?”

Casey said he didn't know; he didn't think so. Logan stepped to the desk and scooped up the telephone. While he rumbled out the orders that would start the search for Nat Garrison, Casey studied him.

Tall, straight, and good-looking in a lean, dark way, Logan looked more like a successful young business man than a lieutenant of detectives, and only around the corners of his eyes and mouth was there any reflection of the ten years he had spent in the Department. He liked good clothes and kept them well, his linen always looked fresh, his shoes polished. He had the faculty of being as tough and hard as the occasion demanded, but this acquired hardness was not a quality that he flaunted indiscriminately, and he tried to keep in mind the fact that he was a public servant and not a dictator. Now, coming back to Casey again, his gaze was narrowed in thought.

“Garrison got out last week,” he said. “He was one of the first guys Endicott defended after he left the D.A.”

Casey tried to remember the details of that trial but they escaped him. He asked Logan about it.

“He shot up a guy,” the lieutenant said. “He was collecting in the numbers racket and said the guy tried to hijack him. He had a previous conviction for assault, so the judge put him away. So he's our man, huh?”

“He's one of 'em.”

Logan stopped rubbing his palms. “Who's the other?”

“I told you there were a couple things,” Casey said. “Garrison was one, but there was another guy up here.” He went on to tell what had happened, explaining how he had tried to follow the man, but not mentioning the photograph he had taken because he didn't know if it would be any good or not, and he wanted to be sure of what he had before getting Logan all steamed up.

“You think he was the killer?” Logan said as Casey finished. “You think you walked in on him?”

“He was hiding in that room.”

“And you heard him go out and went out after him.”

Sergeant Manahan had been listening from his perch on the desk. He came over, trailing cigar smoke. “You didn't recognize him, huh?”

Casey said he didn't, thinking again about the picture he had taken. He didn't like to hold out on Logan. He had known the lieutenant a long time, had worked with him often enough to know that in the long run he rated more favors and co-operation by playing ball than by trying to outsmart him. But this time he wasn't trying to outsmart anybody. He wanted to be sure what he had on the film. If it was a bust he'd forget it; if it turned out to be something, he could hand it over.

The door opened and two interns came into the room with a stretcher. Casey got a picture as they started out with their burden, and put the film holder in the plate case along with the two he had taken before Logan arrived. That's when he really began to think about the other film holder he had tucked in an inside pocket—the one of the woman in the mink coat.

Ever since that minute he had been trying to place her. He was positive he had seen her before and yet, somehow, he could not remember where. It was not a face he had seen somewhere casually either; she was someone of importance, someone he should know.

The more he thought about her the more annoyed he became. That fleeting glimpse of her when the flash bulb went off remained indelibly imprinted in his mind, but this time there was no load on his conscience insofar as Logan was concerned. To hand such a picture over now would be to put the woman under immediate suspicion and this was a responsibility Casey did not want to take. True, she had been at the scene of the murder and had not knocked when she entered, but it was unlikely that she would have come back if she had killed Endicott. No, he couldn't see her as the killer, and until he knew more about it he wasn't going to put her on a spot.

“Harry Nye's out here, Lieutenant.”

“Nye?” Logan said.

“Yes, sir. He says Endicott asked him to stop by.”

“He did, huh? Well, tell him to come in, Carney. We'll be glad to see him.”

The officer opened the door and gave an order with a jerk of his head. A man loomed up behind him, hesitated, finally stepped past; then Casey put the name and face together and knew who the fellow was: Harry Nye, a private detective.

“I saw them carry that stretcher out,” he said, “and asked who it was. I thought I'd better come up.”

He had taken in the room with one swift glance as he spoke and now, as his gaze came to rest on Logan, Casey had a chance to size him up. He didn't know the man, although he'd heard of him, and what he'd heard had been neither good nor bad. Now he saw that he was a well-set-up fellow of 30 or so with close-cropped curly hair and a thin, pointed mustache. His face was big-boned, solid-looking, and his eyes seemed brown until, moving closer, Casey saw that they were like dark amber, flat, impersonal, revealing nothing.

“Any idea who did it?” Logan asked bluntly.

“Who did what?”

“Shot him. Twice. In the vest.”

“So that was it. When?”

“About nine or a little after. Casey just missed it.”

“Oh.” Nye looked at Casey and back at Logan. “No, Lieutenant, I haven't any ideas at all.”

“What did he want to see you about?”

“He didn't say.”

“But you had an appointment.”

“Not exactly. He called me up at dinner time and asked me to stop around ten if I wasn't busy.”

Logan's manner became very patient. “Look, Nye. You worked for Endicott, didn't you?”

“On and off.”

“Doing what?”

Nye shrugged and touched one side of his mustache with the knuckle of his index finger. “Lots of things. He needed an investigator and I guess he liked my work. When he told me to stop by, I thought maybe he had another job for me.”

“Oh, sure,” Logan said. “Sure. And when did you see him last?”

“About a week ago.”

“That long?”

“He's been out of town,” Nye said. “He didn't get back until late last night and then this morning they grabbed him on that bond rap.”

“That must have been a big surprise to you.”