Murder for Two (7 page)

“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

A
T
C
LUB
17

C
ASEY 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.

“Come on, will you?” he stormed. “It's late. We're liable to miss her. What're you sitting here for?”

“I'm getting a drink,” Casey said, “before the bar closes. And anyway,” he said, “I'm getting sick of your yapping. You know everything, go ahead. Introduce yourself. Show her your shield, that ought to help.”

Logan's face darkened. He opened his mouth, closed it. “All right,” he said. “I hurt your feelings. I apologize. Now get the hell off that stool and come on.”

Casey looked at him; then he grinned. He finished his drink, poured another, told the bartender he was taking it out back and paid him.

Dinah King's dressing-room was the best the Club 17 had to offer—it had a window. It also had two doors, one giving on the alley and one opening from the corridor along which Casey and Logan had just come.

“Oh, hello, Flash,” she said when she opened the door.

“Hi, Dinah. Can we come in a minute?”

“All right.”

She stepped away from the door, a full-blown woman in her late twenties with a show-girl figure, auburn hair, milk-white skin, and a red, mobile mouth. Apparently she was just going out, for she wore a dark blue dress and a hat, and her fur coat was tossed on the couch. She waited in the center of the room while Logan closed the door, smiling faintly at Casey and then looking questioningly at Logan.

“This is Lieutenant Logan,” Casey said.

“Oh.” The word came out on a rising inflection. “How do you do.”

“Hello, Miss King,” Logan said.

“Won't—you sit down?”

She backed to the couch and sat down, folding her hands on her knees. Logan took the rocker and that left the vanity bench for Casey.

“Is this a social call, Flash?” Dinah King said.

“He wanted to meet you,” Casey said. He felt a little awkward now and wished he hadn't come. “I said I'd introduce him, but he has to do his own talking.”

“Well, Lieutenant?” Dinah King said.

Logan had a time getting started. It was obvious that he was impressed with this woman, and that was natural. Her size was impressive to begin with and she had a fine figure, well-rounded, not fat—though she might be later—and her voice was warm and throaty and touched by the faintest of accents. It was both the warmness and the accent that gave that extra something to her singing, explaining in a large measure her popularity with the patrons of Club 17.

She had been singing here steadily for nearly two years—and that's a long stand in a night club. She did a local radio program once a week, nothing very pretentious but she had a sponsor, which was more than most of them have. Casey had met her a year ago, bought her a drink now and then when she wasn't busy elsewhere. There was nothing else. It was part of her job and she was pleasant about it and she was just as popular with the college boys as she was with the butter-and-egg men. Watching her now while Logan got out cigarettes and offered her one, Casey decided that Russell Gifford's infatuation—if that was what it was—was easily understandable.

“You're a friend of Russell Gifford's, aren't you?” Logan asked finally. “I suppose you know his wife.”

“Yes.” Dinah King's smile remained at the corners of her mouth but it died instantly in her eyes.

“Did you know—”

“That she was killed tonight? Yes, Lieutenant.”

“How?”

“Mr. Gifford phoned me.”

“Did he tell you how she was killed?”

“He said she was shot. In her car, wasn't it?”

Casey took some of his drink, admiring the woman's composure, liking that faintly accented tone. He watched Logan scowl at the end of his cigarette. Logan hadn't expected such forthrightness and it stumped him momentarily. He rose and moved to the window, turned and came back, a slender, black-eyed man with straight black hair. He did not, Casey realized, look much like the layman's idea of a lieutenant of detectives. His clothes were good and well-kept. He wore them well too, with occasionally a boutonniere and sometimes a dark Homburg. Good-looking in a lean dark way, there was an air of competence about him, a suggestion of hardness lurking in his make-up that, never flaunted unnecessarily, could be summoned instantly when needed. Now he came back, approaching his subject more directly.

“You called on Miss Taylor tonight.”

Dinah King considered this, as though trying to guess just how much Logan knew. “Yes,” she said finally.

“You left her apartment about nine. Mind telling me the reason for that call?”

Dinah King rose quickly and picked up her coat. “I'm afraid I do, Lieutenant. It was purely a personal matter and I don't care to discuss it.”

Logan looked at her and took his time doing it. He wasn't insolent in his inspection, just casual. A crooked smile slid across his mouth and vanished.

“All right, Miss King,” he said. “You see, we already know the reason for the call. Mr. Gifford was more frank with us.”

Dinah King's glance wavered and suddenly stopped wavering and her eyes took fire. Spots of color touched her cheekbones and when she answered her voice was not warm, but slow and deliberate.

“Then you know everything, don't you?”

“Nearly everything,” Logan said. “I just wanted to see if your reasons were the same as Mr. Gifford's. Oh, by the way, I suppose you came over here after you left Miss Taylor.”

Dinah King had turned away to slip on her coat. She felt her hair and wrapped the coat more snugly as she raced Logan.

“Yes,” she said. “I have a show here at ten-fifteen.”

Casey got up and drained his glass. From the way he felt he might as well have had a glass of water. He didn't like this scene and he thought Logan was cockeyed in assuming Dinah King had anything to do with the death of Rosalind Taylor. Furthermore he had an idea that no more would Dinah King sit at a table with him and talk and have a drink when he needed company.

He said good-night and she answered him, which was something, and he and Logan went down the corridor. Out in the main room tables were being shoved around with the chairs on top and the cleaning corps was getting down to business. The barmen had all gone and Casey left his glass on the counter and followed Logan out into the night.