Silent Are the Dead (10 page)

Thinking of these things, seeing the mean mouth and the glassy narrowness of the man's eyes, Casey began to sweat. He still couldn't believe the fellow would shoot, and yet he could not predict the course of safety. He took a chance at pretending the whole thing was ridiculous.

“You've been hittin' the weed again,” he jeered.

“Who?”

“You. Beat it, will you? I haven't had breakfast.”

“You think I'm kiddin'?” Garrison took a slow forward step. “You think I ain't got what it takes to make this talk?”

“Sure you have. But you got good sense too. If you could do it and get away, sure. But you can't. Not here. You can beat the Endicott thing but you couldn't beat this, Nat.”

He turned away as he spoke, turned back slowly as Garrison snapped, “Stand still, damn you!”

Casey took pains with his words. “I got to make a phone call.”

“No, you don't.”

“I have to call the office and tell them not to run the story.”

“What story?”

“The one I turned in about you.” Casey shrugged. He was still sweating but his voice was right. “I thought I'd give you a break and kill it. Of course if you don't care—” He broke off, shrugging.

Garrison squinted at him, suspicion filming his gaze. You could practically see his brain struggling. Finally he nodded. “Go ahead. I'll go with you.”

Casey went into the bedroom. He picked up the telephone, watching Garrison stop at the door. He gave the number of the
Express
and when he was connected he asked for the desk, leaning back against the wall as he Waited, reaching down with his right hand, shielding his hand with his body as he felt for a corner of the pillow. There were two of these and the one on this side was so close that he did not have to lean down to touch it. He got his hand on the corner as Bennett, the day man, answered.

“Casey. Yeah. You know that story on Nat Garrison?” He could bear Bennett asking what the hell he was talking about, but he winked at Garrison and went right ahead. “Well, Nat's here in my place now. He's got a gun on me and I wanted to tell you, so if I get knocked off this morning you'll be sure he burns for it.”

He held the telephone, hearing Bennett yelling at him. He kept grinning, watching only Garrison's gun hand, the pressure of the finger on the trigger. He started to hang up, still holding to the pillow, every muscle tensed so that he could throw it and duck if he had to.

For an interminable second he watched the gun; then his glance struck at the man's face and he saw the confusion and puzzlement there and knew somehow, that it was all right, that the crisis was past. He kept grinning, putting the telephone aside but making no other move. Finally Garrison added it all up.

“Why, you—” he snarled. “Why, you bastard! You double-crossing bastard!” His scarred face twisted and untwisted and his hand moved on the gun but his trigger finger did not tighten.

“You see?” Casey blew out his breath. He let go of the pillow. “It was a bad idea, Nat. Nobody's going to frame you for anything. I had to make sure you I wouldn't blaze away and burn for it.”

Garrison backed into the living-room. “All right,” he fumed. “But don't think it makes any difference. This morning. Tonight. What do I care. I got time. Those cops ain't gonna pick me up for a while.” He was at the door now, feeling behind him to open it, still clinging to the gun. “Tell the cops you made a mistake and have it in this afternoon's paper or else.”

Casey watched the door slam. He got out his handkerchief and mopped his face. He still didn't know whether Garrison had really intended to shoot or whether he'd come to throw a bluff; all he knew was that for a couple of minutes he'd been scared as hell.

Back in the bedroom, he called Bennett again and explained what had happened. Then he got his coat and hat and went down to the corner restaurant where he found he had an appetite and ate fruit and cereal, boiled eggs, muffins, and coffee. When he came out he felt a little better physically but this was offset by his sultry mood.

Ever since he'd started in Endicott's office he'd been pushed around—by the police and Blaine and the two gunmen and Nat Garrison and Grant Forrester. It wouldn't have seemed so bad if he had a few answers, if he was sure of the reason why all this was happening. That was the trouble. He had some hunches, nothing more, and as his thoughts flowed on he remembered something else and swung the convertible left at the next corner.

A three- or four-minute ride brought him to a solid row of brownstone fronts that, while old, managed to maintain a certain air of neatness and respectability.

Casey started to slow down in the middle of the block, and then he saw that by angling its nose to the curb and letting the rear stick put in the street, a taxi had hogged the space in front of the house he sought.

“Why don't you park double?” he growled.

The driver turned irritably on the seat but the crack he was about to make was left unsaid when he saw Casey. The irritation dissolved in a grin.

“Hyuh, Flash Gun. If I'd a known you was comin' I'd a run her up on the sidewalk.”

Casey went on by and wrenched the convertible into a parking-space. “You oughta be ashamed, Augie,” he said when he came back, but there was no sting in his admonishment.

“Sorry, pal,” Augie said. “I'm waitin' for a fare.”

Casey saw then that the cab's motor was running, and thought no more about it as he climbed the stone steps and walked through the open door to the vestibule. He went up the stairs along the wall as he had done the night before, turned right at the landing, and knocked at the door on the left, his thoughts returning once more to the grudge he had against the world.

Even Perry Austin had crossed him up the night before, not showing up with that film holder he was supposed to take to the office. He knocked again as he wondered if the fellow had returned to the
Express
after he, Casey, had gone in search of Bernie Dixon. In any event it did not look as if Austin was home this time either. He tried the door. It was unlocked.

He went in, through an entryway to the living-room that overlooked the street and smelled of staleness and cigarette smoke. Perry was here all right, and seeing him, Casey stopped cold and a sudden vacuum hit him in the pit of the stomach. For Austin lay on the floor.

He looked as if he had been there a long time. Except for the dinner jacket and the bloodstained shirt front, he looked almost like Stanford Endicott had looked the night before.

Chapter Ten:
COMPANY FOR THE CORPSE

C
ASEY STOOD THERE QUITE A WHILE
—until he remembered he had left the door open. By that time he felt he could move and went back and closed it. He returned to the living-room, glancing down at the body but not moving up to inspect it, and sat down in the nearest chair, feeling all weak and sick inside.

It was not the sight of death, as such, that brought the sickness, nor the fact that Austin, though not his friend, had worked beside him for two years; this alone was enough to sadden and dishearten him, but it was the frightful and inescapable explanation of the scene that left him crushed and defenseless before all that bitterness and nausea.

Perry Austin was dead and he, Casey, was responsible. He had taken a picture of the killer fleeing from Stanford Endicott's offices. He had given that picture to Austin. Somehow the killer had found out about it and Austin had been killed because of it. There was no other answer. That had to be it.

He stirred in his chair, his broad face slack and miserable and despondent. Unable to shake aside that awful feeling of guilt, he forced his glance slowly about the room. There was a plate case on the floor near one wall but Casey was so convinced of his solution that he could not bring himself to inspect it. The film holder he had given Austin would not be there. It would not be in his Chesterfield which lay across a chair back on the opposite side of the room.

In one corner was a kneehole desk. He could see from here that the middle drawer was part-way open. The film holder would not be in the desk either. That film holder was gone— He made himself get up and move to the body. He put the back of his hand to the blue-white cheek. It was stone cold. He picked up a wrist and found the arm stiff and inflexible.

“A long time,” he said bitterly. “Last night. That's why I couldn't find him.” He recalled his trip here. When was that? A little after 12:00. Had Austinbeen here then, or had he come back to meet his death at some later hour?

Casey did not know and realized that speculation did no good. There were a lot of whys and wherefores vortexing through his brain but no escaping the conclusion. He looked down at the body again. There was a lot of blood on the rug, dried now and making an ugly stain. There was a gun too, a foot or so to one side of the right hand. A .32 Colt Automatic.

Casey wondered if this was the same gun that had killed Endicott but he did not touch it. He unbuttoned the dinner jacket and lifted it back. There were two holes in that starched shirt front. He straightened, eyes going back to the plate case. He took a step toward it, felt something under his heel and stepped aside to look down and see what it was.

An empty shell. When he picked it up he saw that his weight had made an ellipse of the former roundness and left a sharp outline in the rug. Knowing there'd be another somewhere around, but not bothering to look for it, he tossed it on the desk and continued to the plate case.

It was closed but unfastened and he opened it. There were three film holders which had never been exposed but none that had been used. He went to the coat on the chair and slapped the pockets, knowing now that his original conviction had been right. There would be no exposed film holders. Whoever had murdered Austin had taken them all to make sure.

Habit was strong in Casey and without realizing it he took Austin's camera from the plate case, inserted a film holder and screwed a flash bulb into the synchronized gun. He checked the shutter speed and aperture, walking around the body as he did so, his photographer's eye searching for the best angle. When he had his picture he reversed the film holder, tossed the used bulb into the plate case and selected a fresh one. For this part was still a job, and pictures had to be taken when the opportunity presented itself, regardless of what went on inside you.

He felt for a cigarette as he visualized his next shot, lit it, and dropped the match in an ash tray on the table. That he saw the cigarette butt at all was one of those things that make subsequent explanation difficult. In spite of his preoccupation, in spite of the fact that he gave it but a passing glance, something about that cigarette butt rang a gong inside his head and, frowning, he looked again and picked it up.

It was about half-consumed and much bent from being crushed out. He held it at the bend, seeing the stain of red where lips had held it, seeing something more. He touched the stain lightly, then pressed it between thumb and finger. That told him what he had suspected when he first saw it. This butt was fresh; the end was still damp.

His eyes came up and began to circle the room while a tightness grew in his chest. He was looking for hiding-places now, not knowing whether the woman who had left the lipstick on that cigarette was still here or not. But there was no place of concealment in this room and the only doorway, other than the one through which he had entered, opened to an inner hall almost directly ahead.'

The tightness was still with him as he moved silently forward. He had smelled smoke when he entered, but it had seemed stale then and now he knew it wasn't. Somehow he had the feeling that the smoker was still in the apartment and, moving into the hall and seeing the closed door there, he decided he was about to get a few answers.

He took his time about it, seeing the open doorway leading to a bedroom, another doorway, and the kitchen beyond. He glanced into the bedroom but did not leave the hall. He looked into the kitchen. He came back to the closed door, deciding it was a closet, that if he was in a hurry to hide he might pick it as a likely place.

“Come on out!” he said abruptly, and reached for the knob. He yanked the door toward him, the camera still in his left hand. And then, drawn back against the coats that hung there, he saw her—the girl who had come to the studio looking for Perry Austin the evening before.

She wore a loose coat, a hat of dark green felt. Her face was white and set and that made her lipsticked mouth look scarlet; her eyes were wide and startled, but in their hazel depths was determination rather than fear. Under her left arm was an oversized handbag. In her right fist was a tiny automatic.

For a long moment the tight hard silence held them mute and immobile. She let her breath out slowly, waited, then caught it sharply. The silence fled and Casey's mouth tightened into a thin, hard line. He looked at the gun, let his narrowed stare come back to hers, and found it steady and defiant.

“Hello,” he said finally. “Remember me?”

Something flickered in the hazel eyes and died away. Her voice came cold and distant. “Please step away from that door!”

Casey sized her up again, measuring the gun, not knowing what this was all about but deciding not to grab for it. He grinned crookedly and backed slowly into the living-room. “All right,” he said. “You finally found him, didn't you?”

She followed silently, circling as he stood there, avoiding the symbol of death on the floor but not looking at it.

“What did you want with him last night? When I met you out in the hall you said he wasn't in.”

“He wasn't.”

“He's been dead quite a while.” He was moving slowly toward the door as he spoke, trying to work closer and cut her off. Suddenly she saw what he was doing and stopped.

“Stand right where you are, please.”

Casey took another slow step, his eyes smoldering, speculative.