Murder for Two (27 page)

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

D
EATH
S
TARES AT
C
ASEY

T
HE 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—”

“I want to hear him,” she cut in. “Well, Flash. If you
are
serious and I'm beginning to think you are, shouldn't I be told about it? I mean, I'd like to know how I killed Rosalind and Byrkman, and how my wrists were taped. And after that I'd like to know why. That's always important, isn't it?”

The stiffness went out of Casey's legs and he shifted his weight, pulling a straight-backed chair around and straddling it. He hadn't figured on this; he hadn't figured on it at all. He'd wanted to take these pictures—if he was right—and go into a huddle with Logan and argue out his theory. Now he was afraid to pull the lieutenant into it, because if Logan came officially and the theory didn't pan out, Logan would be in a spot.

“All right,” he said.

“I
have
a right to know, haven't I?” Helen said.

“I guess you have. Of course this isn't official. I'll have to guess about some things, but others I know. And if I make any sense we'll get Logan over here and see how it strikes him.—You came here at nine the other night. Rosalind sent for you that afternoon, probably right after Kay Harding and I left. She didn't send for you to do any copying, she sent for you to have it out with you about something—and I'll come to that later.

“You left ahead of her that night, with a gun, and went down the backstairs. You knew she'd be leaving shortly before nine-thirty because you knew she had a date with me and John Perry. You hid in the car the same way we figured and when she drove off you put the gun against her head and directed her down the side street so the car wouldn't be found immediately.”

He reached for a cigarette and his lids came down a little as he watched her. “You're a smart girl, Helen. You always were. You had already figured what you were going to do, I guess, and you wanted an alibi, but you also knew Rosalind carried that little .25. And since you'd decided to have a story about two men breaking in to search the apartment it would be reasonable for the one who did the killing to search her handbag and find that .25. That's what you did. And you shot her—in the back of the head—and you came back with the .25. Byrkman wasn't in the picture then, but you were going to be sure the gun was found to corroborate your story and you could find a place to hide it overnight.”

“All that would fit any other killer,” Furness said.

“Please, Stanley,” Helen MacKay said.

“It was not more than a four- or five-minute trip back here if you hurried,” Casey said. “And it was the back way again, and then you had a tough break—and so did Henry Byrkman. He came up to see Rosalind—and the time checks—and instead he saw you, probably coming along the hall or perhaps just going in.”

He took a breath, went on slowly. “That was the end of Byrkman. Instead of murder for one it became murder for two. When he learned about Rosalind he'd think of you—unless there was some explanation and you had brains enough to give him one. I don't know what you said, but it must have gone something like this: You must have told him Rosalind had gone out and that she had left word that she would telephone him later; you must also have asked him for his address and phone number so he would be sure to get the message. Naturally the guy would give it to you.”

“Naturally,” Helen said.

Casey let his lids come down a little more. “Do you want me to follow Byrkman or stay with you?”

“Let's go with Byrkman. It's very interesting.”

“Byrkman went home. He got a call later from Lawson, who knew of the murder and wanted to play safe and get Byrkman out of the way. Logan and I called on him and Logan threatened just enough to throw some fear into him. And you called him too. You had to call him. You knew he was going to remember you and you thought of a way to keep him quiet. I think you told him Rosalind had been murdered. I think you said you had discovered a folder with all the dope on him in it—the one you let Logan find the next day—and that you knew he wasn't mixed up in the murder—”

Casey broke off, grunted softly. “I have to guess about that part, but I don't have to guess about your convincing him. You could convince almost anyone, Mac, and especially a guy like Byrkman who was already scared and who knew Rosalind had been piling up evidence against him. Whatever line you took, he agreed to say nothing of his call on Rosalind that night. And you, being big-hearted, said you'd phone him the next day and bring him the folder—possibly for a price, I don't know. And that was lucky for you.

“You didn't know then that Lawson was going to move Byrkman. You would have been in a spot if you hadn't promised that folder. As it was, Byrkman phoned you, told you where he was. You went there yesterday around noon, with the same little gun and a phony folder. You didn't have to be so careful then because you had an air-tight alibi for the first murder and by leaving the gun behind you made sure that the two killings would be hooked up; that whoever had done the first job—and it couldn't have been you—had done the second. You walked out with your phony folder and that was that. Lawson had the bad luck to come right after that, and he had the further bad luck to be seen on both of his trips.”

“Well.” Helen MacKay sighed. She took another cigarette from the silver cup and when no one offered a light she opened the desk drawer and took out a paper of matches. “You really have been thinking, haven't you? I'm almost convinced myself. Aren't you, Stanley?”

Furness kept on watching Casey. His face was flushed his eyes almost hidden by his brows. His voice was still quiet but now it was unpleasant.

“The whole thing is a series of guesses. There isn't a shred of proof or evidence—”

“Sure they're guesses,” Casey said. “And most of them I can support—just like I can bust her alibi.”

“Oh,” Helen MacKay said, a note of mockery in her tone, “can you?”

“Not because you weren't clever about it,” Casey said. “Your story wasn't that the two guys came at once; it was better. You had one come up first, the one who was out Waiting for Rosalind to show up; and then, just long enough for the other one to ride those two or three blocks, do the shooting, and hustle back, you had the second guy show up. You even had the buzzer sounding the right number of times so that if anyone identified Byrkman and wondered what apartment he came to that night you could have an answer. It was a swell story. Anybody'd believe that—with all that tape around your wrists.” He looked at Furness. “Stand up if you want to know how
that
was done.”

The man hesitated, glanced at Helen, rose slowly.

“Put your hands above your head, wrists together.”

Still bewildered, Furness obeyed.

“Now,” Casey said, “if you could get someone to hold a spool of adhesive for you about as high as your wrists, and if they kept the pressure tight, you could start the tape on one wrist and by turning around with your hands still held that way you could begin to wind that tape around your wrists. If you kept on turning, and moving up to the held roll as you did so, you could wind the whole damned roll on your wrists.” He paused, waiting, seeing a slow widening of Furness's eyes. “Well, couldn't you?”

Furness looked at Helen MacKay. He swallowed, but he didn't say anything.

“Only Mac didn't have anyone to hold the roll of tape,” Casey said. “So here's what she did. She cut off a two-yard strip, laid in flat on the floor. She had to anchor one end and she put one leg of that heavy chair on it. Know what she did then?—I see you do. She got flat on the floor, put her hands above her head, fastened the tape on one wrist to hold it tight, and then rolled right up to that chair leg, a little at a time, carefully, not worrying whether the bandage would be neat but only that it be tight.”

Furness still had his hands above his head. Now he put them down and looked at them curiously.

“That brings us to that question of yours,” Casey said. “If I was right—and I'm damned if I could think of any other way—the end of that tape had to be anchored. So I started looking around here for things to anchor it and I found what I wanted. That chair leg. It's a heavy chair, it would hold that tape. Helen rolled up to within a few inches of it, jerked it free—or tipped the chair a little with her arms and pulled it free—and smoothed down the last couple of inches, with her teeth and chin probably.—Up to then I was guessing; now I know. You can't put adhesive tape on anything without leaving it sticky when you take the tape off. Whatever she used for an anchor had to be sticky and the bottom of the chair leg
is
sticky. Some of the nap of the rug is still there.”

He took a breath. “It won't take a laboratory man long to prove adhesive tape has been on that leg, but for now I've got a couple of pictures; one of that leg and one of another that's clean. What else do you want to know, Furness?”

“Well, at least you've got a chair leg with something sticky on the bottom,” Helen said.

“She had no reason to murder Rosalind,” Furness said. He was looking at the girl now, his face strained, his eyes pleading for her to defend herself. “She had no reason.”

“Oh, yes, she did,” Casey said. “Just about the best one in the book. At least for her it was the best,” He looked at Helen MacKay. She was watching him guardedly now. “You always knew what you wanted, didn't you, Mac? And in Furness you finally got it. You wanted a man but not any man. You wanted one you could handle, and depend on, but he had to have plenty of money and position too, if possible. Well, Furness has them all. Money for everything you could ever need, security, maybe a seat in Congress. A lot for any woman but even more to you, because you knew what it was to get things the hard way. And Rosalind was going to wipe out the whole thing and she told you so.”

Casey thought of something else and turned to Furness. “Did you call Mac yesterday morning about—oh, about nine or a little after?”

Furness gave him a blank look. “I don't think so. No, I'm sure I didn't.”

“Hah!” Casey said. “You just wanted me to think so, huh, Mac?”

He remembered what she had said while he sat in her office with his coffee and he thought of something else. “Wait a second,” he said and went into the adjoining room. In Helen MacKay's desk he found the scratch pad she had used and brought it back.

“It was Byrkman who called, wasn't it?” he said to her.

“No, damn you.” She was sitting up now and she wasn't sarcastic, nor mocking any more. Her eyes snapped dark flame at him and her mouth was tight.

“It was Byrkman,” Casey said, “telling you where he was. You think I've been doing a lot of guessing? Well, this should prove some of it.” He held up the pad. “If you wrote down Byrkman's address and room number at the Walters the police'll know it. You used a sharp-pointed pencil from that glassful on the desk in there, and a photograph with the right kind of side lighting will show up the impression on the next couple of sheets as though you'd used ink.”

He knelt to put the pad in his plate-case and glanced at Furness.

“You want a motive, huh? Well, Matt Lawson had a bank account he used to pay off Byrkman and a couple of others. He used the name of Mathews for that account and one of the checks—for five grand—went to someone named Manning. It was cashed at the Central Trust and this afternoon—”

Right there he cut it off. Furness, on the far side of the desk and not knowing what had happened, waited for him to go on.

Helen MacKay had moved one hand slightly as Casey spoke. She had been leaning on the desk with her elbows wide and her hands hidden by the angle of her body. Now she was sitting up and the hand that moved pointed a .32 short-barreled revolver right at Casey's head.

Furness, seeing the stiffness hit the big photographer's face, stood up and saw the gun. “Helen,” he said, his voice a husky whisper. “For God's sake, Helen!”

Casey didn't move a muscle for that first long moment and his stomach was cold and twisting. He saw flame brighten in her eyes and the mouth go rigid. His face was no more than a foot or two from the muzzle of the gun and as he stared at it Death stared back at him.

Slowly a crooked grin formed at the corners of his mouth. Kneeling as he was at the side of the desk, he could not make a grab for the gun and he stayed where he was while Helen MacKay rose and backed from the desk.