Murder for Two (20 page)

“It's hard to say. He has a chance, of course. If that slug didn't smash up some bones—well, you never know. He's lost a lot of blood. We'll get him over to the hospital and then we can tell better.”

He went to the telephone and made a call and Casey told Wade to get back to the office.

“I could take a couple more,” Wade protested.

“You could have some cop take them away from you, too,” Casey said. “Go on, will you? You'd better use the stairs, and be damn careful going through the lobby.” He ushered Wade to the door and pushed him down the hall. “Make prints,” he said, “and hold them for me until I find out what the score is.”

Lieutenant Logan and Sergeant Manahan missed Tom Wade by perhaps two minutes, and while they were talking to the doctor the ambulance arrived and Loeb was carried away.

Logan didn't waste much time on the cleaning-woman, questioning her just enough to see that she knew nothing about the matter and then sending her about her business. When she had gone he looked up Loeb's home address in the telephone book and called it, asking if he was speaking to Mrs. Loeb, then telling her that her husband had met with an accident. He told her what hospital he had been taken to, said he didn't believe it would be too serious, and asked her if she knew the address of Loeb's secretary. When he had written this down he turned to Casey.

“Now what do you know about it?” he asked.

“Not much.”

“I expected that—but how much?”

Casey told how he had come over from the Club 17, how the cleaning-woman had screamed, and how he had come back and called the doctor when he found the lawyer was alive.

“How did you know he was Byrkman's lawyer?”

“I'm not sure he was,” Casey said. “I was here this afternoon but his secretary said he was out and she ducked the question when I asked her if Loeb handled Byrkman's affairs.”

Logan inhaled slowly and remained pointedly patient. “Okay, but why should you come here this afternoon at all?”

“Oh, that.”

“Yes, that.”

Casey took out the page from the back of Byrkman's telephone book and passed it to the lieutenant, explaining how he got it. He could see the storm clouds gathering and presently they broke. Logan's neck bulged in anger and his jaw got hard.

“God damn you, Casey,” he said. “Why didn't you say so?”

And then Casey got sore too. He hadn't meant to, but Logan's rage was so obvious and his voice so mean that Casey's anger flared, hot and unreasonable.

“Why the hell should I?” he said. “Did you think to look there? Do you call me up and say, ‘Hey, Flash, I've got an exclusive shot for you'? Like hell you do. Why should I—”

“Damned if I know,” Logan said and his anger went away as suddenly as it came. He glanced at Manahan and shrugged. “Who the hell am I,” he said wearily, “to look a gift horse in the mouth? You found the lead that I should have found and I crab. Of course you might have passed it along sooner—”

“All right,” Casey said, ashamed now of his own outburst. “I did try once. You think I tried to outsmart you this morning, but I didn't. That list didn't mean anything as it was and you had plenty to think about without that so I figured I could run it down and if anything happened I'd let you know.”

“Okay,” Logan said. “I'm through crabbing.”

“I got partway through the list before you found Byrkman. I didn't find out about Loeb until almost five. I came over here and talked to the girl and then I forgot about it. I remembered it again around seven and phoned but you were out and nobody knew where you were. It didn't bother me any. Hell, you had all of Byrkman's things to go through and I had an idea you'd probably find something that would tell you the same thing. If you had and I'd called up with my little find, do you know what you'd have done?”

“Yeah,” Logan said. “I'd probably have razzed you about being a detective.” He sighed. “I don't know what's the matter with me. Always a chump. Always knocking myself out.—As a matter of fact we found a safe-deposit key and we got a court order to open it. Only by then it was too late to do anything more about it until morning. There'll be a will in there probably, but if you hadn't found the guy tonight—”

“I didn't find him,” Casey said. “The cleaning-woman found him. You'd have heard about it just the same. I just happened to be here and—”

“You happen to be a lot of places at the right time,” Logan said, “because you never stop trying. Now if you could only give me some idea as to why Loeb was shot, I'd buy you a drink.”

Casey said he didn't know.

“Neither will we,” Logan said, “if that guy dies on us. That would be all I'd need. That would really be my sort of luck.”

Manahan had been rummaging in the wastebasket by the desk and now he came up with the two flashbulbs Tom Wade had used. Logan glanced at them. He looked at Casey from the corner of his eye.

“Put 'em back,” he said. “The guy has to take pictures, I guess. He found Loeb. Why shouldn't he have a couple?”

“Do you feel all right?” Manahan cracked.

“I feel awful,” Logan said. “Well, we'd better get somebody over here and fingerprint the joint. And that secretary—” He looked down at the address he had been given. “Where's Merrill Street?”

“I think there's one in Dorchester,” Manahan said.

“She'd have to live out there, I guess,” Logan said sardonically, and went to the telephone. He was put through to the Dorchester station and told them what he wanted. “If you can locate her,” he said, “tell her her boss was shot tonight and bring her into Berkeley Street if it isn't too late when you find her.… Yeah. Just an informal questioning to see if we can get some angle we can use.”

He returned to Manahan when he hung up. “You stay here. Get somebody on the fingerprinting and seal it up when you leave. I guess we might as well go along to the hospital,” he said to Casey. “Unless you've got something else to do. With your luck, maybe if you just hang around the place, the guy won't die.”

Morris Loeb was still unconscious when Casey and Logan arrived at the hospital. The house surgeon said they would have to operate but they had to wait until they found out how the man reacted to the transfusion. He had lost a lot of blood and his condition was grave but not hopeless.

“What are his chances?” Logan asked, and when the doctor thought it over and said sixty-forty, Logan said, “In whose favor?”

“Not the patient's, certainly.”

Mrs. Loeb had arrived by this time and while Logan talked to her, Casey went down the corridor, and out on the porch which was used for convalescents, and had a cigarette.

“Does she know anything?” he asked later, when Logan joined him.

“Some man phoned the house twice,” the lieutenant said. “The second time Loeb was home. His wife doesn't know what the conversation was about, but she does know Loeb agreed to go to his office and meet the guy at nine.”

They smoked awhile in silence. In spite of the dim-out regulations there was a faint sky glow over the city which made the tree tops on the grounds stand out against the night, and Casey wondered if this glow was visible at sea. He thought about this quite awhile but eventually his mind brought into focus the shooting and its connection with Henry Byrkman.

“You haven't picked up my two playmates yet, huh?”

“No.” Logan snapped his cigarette over the railing. “You think they did it?”

“If they didn't, I don't know who would. Find anything more about Lawson?”

“Yes,” Logan said. “And that's the one thing that makes me think I've got a chance. According to the medical examiner, Byrkman was probably shot between twelve and one. And there's a bellboy down there at the Walters who used to work in a joint out Revere way that Lawson had a piece of. He knows Lawson by sight and according to him Lawson was at the Walters at just about the right time today.”

“Oh-oh,” Casey said.

“Yes. The kid says Lawson came in somewhere around twelve-thirty—he's not sure of the time and it could be five or ten minutes later—and went out about five minutes or so after he came in.”

“You'd better take care of that kid,” Casey said.

“You can say that again. That kid is on a leave of absence. We got him a nice room and he's going to have free board until we find out where we stand.”

“You broke the alibi. You've got a motive.” Casey grunted softly. “Hell, if Lawson was just some ordinary guy without connections and a bankroll you'd have him indicted by now.”

“I know it, damn it,” Logan said. “But the way it is—well, I've got to take it easy. Don't think we're not still working on it. That picture you took of him is getting worked overtime. A couple of more breaks somewhere along the line—if this Loeb will only live, for instance—and we'll nail Lawson. We sure as hell will nail your two pals if we can ever find them.”

“You will.”

“And that reminds me,” Logan said. “You and I are going back to headquarters and you are going to spend some time looking at pictures—of faces and profiles.”

“Those two aren't local talent,” Casey said.

“So what? We've got a nice file of personalities from out of town too. Characters we never booked. Wait'll I have another talk with the doc.”

He went out and Casey waited in the darkness for perhaps ten minutes before the lieutenant returned.

“Okay,” he said, “let's go. They're going to operate in a few minutes but even if it's a success it'll be morning before we can talk to him—if then. I'll station a man here and later maybe I can talk to the secretary. If my luck holds she won't know a lousy thing about anything—except maybe the time of day.”

Chapter Eighteen

A F
ANCY
B
IT OF
N
EEDLING

I
T WAS AFTER TWELVE
when Casey got back to the
Express
Building. Fortunately Logan had not insisted that he go through the complete Rogue's Gallery on file, but only through that part which consisted of circulars and pictures from other police departments throughout the country, and from certain federal agencies.

By the time he had finished, he was batting .500. He was not able to identify Harry, but he did find Blondie. Nossek was the name, Carl Nossek, alias Norris. With a fifteen-year record behind him—mostly for various degrees of assault—he was just what Casey had suspected, a muscle-man and thug who could be hired for any crime associated with violence. He was from Jersey and at the moment—insofar as Logan knew—he was not a fugitive.

Thinking it over, Casey was sorry that he could not do something about the gunman named Harry. He was not so large or formidable as Nossek, but to Casey he seemed more dangerous. Something about his eyes and mouth suggested that whereas Nossek was just a first rate, odd-job thug, Harry was the killer of the pair. Casey had seen this type before. Seldom large, often superficially good-looking, generally pretty smooth, they were the kind who, in their warped and twisted brains, found a certain enjoyment in their work. The way Harry had slugged him from behind bore out this contention; just thinking of it started the resentment churning inside Casey and he brought it with him all the way back to the
Express
.

Al was on the elevator again and he said, “There's a guy up in the studio, Flash.”

“Waiting for me?”

“Yeah. I guess he's been there about an hour now.”

“He isn't one of those that came the other night, is he?” Casey asked hopefully.

“Nah,” Al said. “I never seen him before.”

Casey went down the corridor quietly. When he reached the doorway, he saw the figure sitting at his desk and he caught just enough of the profile to know who it was. He stepped inside. The man turned, obviously startled. Casey slid his coat off and tossed it on the rack.

“Hello, Gifford,” he said, “been waiting long?”

Russell Gifford stood up. He had put his hat and coat on the desk and he wore a nicely cut gray homespun and his sandy hair was neatly combed.

“Not so very,” he said.

Casey sat down at his desk and pulled open a drawer. His bottle was nearly empty but there was enough for two drinks. He took out the cork and offered it to Gifford.

“No, thanks.”

Casey took a long swallow. He put the bottle back and lit a cigarette, blowing smoke at Gifford and watching him through it. Gifford's mouth was set beneath the little mustache and he seemed to be making up his mind about something. Casey beat him to it.

“You used to be a lawyer. Ever know a guy named Loeb? Morris Loeb?”

“Vaguely. He's in the Bacon Building, isn't he?” Casey said he was, and what kind of a lawyer was he. Gifford spread his hands. “Oh—just run of the mill as far as I know.”

Casey regarded the end of his cigarette and waited. He had an idea of what was coming but he wasn't going to help Gifford get around to it. Presently it came out.

“You went to see Dinah tonight.”

“That's right.”

“Why?”

“Oh—just to ask a couple of questions.”

“What did you want a specimen of her handwriting for?”

“I'm collecting autographs,” Casey said, still casual.

“What did you want it for?”

Casey sat up. He took off his hat and scratched the nape of his neck where the hair was shaggy. He put the hat back on and his rugged face got sultry.

“I'm a tired guy, Gifford,” he said. “Last night Rosalind Taylor was murdered and this noon a guy named Byrkman—you know the name, huh? And tonight this Loeb I asked about, and who was Byrkman's lawyer, was shot. I've sort of got tangled up in all three of those things, Gifford, and you come around asking me silly questions. Go away, will you?”