Silent Are the Dead (25 page)

He took it away from Logan and drank half of it, spilling a little on his chin. He saw a near-by chair and it looked awfully good to him. He sat down.

“How'd he get in?” Manahan asked.

Casey told him. “And what was your trouble?” he added when he finished. “You were supposed to have a guy call me—”

Logan began to curse and out of the profanity Casey got the explanation. The man watching the rear door had seen Dixon, but when he picked up the telephone the operator had delayed him just long enough to give Dixon his chance.

“A fine thing,” Casey said. “I oughta sue the company.”

Logan went to the telephone and began to rumble orders into it. Manahan looked at Casey's drink and pointedly licked his lips. “Any more of that?”

Casey sighed and got up. He went into the kitchen and got a bottle and glasses. Logan hung up and watched the sergeant and plain-clothes man pour drinks.

“Just one now,” he said, “and then put that bottle away. It don't look good.”

Casey emptied his glass and picked up the telephone.

“Who you calling?” Logan asked.

“The
Express.”

Logan opened his mouth as though to protest, thought better of it and closed it again. Casey asked for MacGrath and got him. “We got Dixon,” he said. “Yeah. Right here in my apartment.… Dead.… Logan …” and for the next five minutes he answered the questions MacGrath asked. When he hung up he went to the entryway closet and took out his plate case.

“Now wait a minute,” Logan said irritably.

Casey gave him a long hard look.

“You know what the regulations are, Flash.”

Casey kept looking and pulled out the camera.

“I ain't kiddin'.”

“Neither am I,” said Casey. “You got Dixon, didn't you?”

“Sure, but—”

“That cleans up three murders, don't it?”

“Yeah, but—”

“And it's a lot better than trying to convict him in court, ain't it?”

“Sure, but—”

“You sound like Jack Benny,” Casey said. “I'll answer my own questions. Did I help you? Yes. Could you have got Dixon without me?”

“We refuse to answer,” Manahan said.

“I promised MacGrath some pictures,” Casey said. “And he's going to get them. What do you think of that?”

Logan checked his reply and watched Casey open a tripod. He glanced over at Manahan and shrugged.

Chapter Twenty-Three:
AMONG FRIENDS

T
HERE WAS A CRACK OF LIGHT
showing under the door and Casey knocked, and that started a wheezing and grunting that was loud enough to filter though the panel. A chair creaked and presently the floorboards took up the sound and he glanced down, half-expecting to feel the actual vibration. He did not hear the Capehart, so low was it turned, until Jim Bishop opened the door.

“Hello, Jim.”

Bishop just stared at him for a moment, hanging onto the doorknob, the other arm propped against the jamb. He was wearing slippers and a shirt open at the throat. His fat face looked puzzled. “Well,” he said finally, “Casey.”

“I was coming by,” Casey said. “I thought I'd see if you were up.”

“Come in.” Bishop walked away from the door and lowered himself laboriously into the chair, sighing loudly when he made it. Casey closed the door and tossed his hat onto the table. He unbuttoned his balmacaan and fanned it out as he sat down.

“I just finished up a three-hour session with Logan. They got Bernie Dixon tonight. I thought you'd like to know.”

A second or two ticked by before Bishop replied. He slid his hands along the chair arms, his eyes intent but lost in shadow. “They did, huh?” he said at last. “Alive?”

“Logan got him,” Casey said, and went on to explain what had happened at his apartment and how Dixon had died.

Bishop listened without interruption, nothing moving in his face. Finally he said, the old familiar hoarseness in his voice, “You took an awful chance, didn't you? You knew Dixon would gun you out if he could. Why should you do a thing like that?”

“I had a reason.” Casey took a folded envelope from his coat pocket and balanced it on his knee. “It all goes back to Perry Austin. He was a blackmailer, Jim. He and Harry Nye were shaking down people all over town. I couldn't let anybody find out about it.” He looked down at the envelope, picked it up. “This is something you'll probably want.”

Bishop sat up and took the envelope, not looking at it but watching Casey and opening it by touch. He took out four photographs but it seemed to require quite an effort on his part to pull his gaze from Casey and look at them.

“Where did you get these, Flash?”

“I have to go back a couple of days,” Casey, said. “That morning when we were in Logan's office, he wanted to know why your niece went to see Endicott in the first place, and she told him about this friend of hers who had been in a jam years ago. She said this friend was married now and going to have a baby. She said this friend was afraid of an old sentence hanging over her and that she—your niece—had gone to Endicott to see if he could get a pardon and close the case.”

“Oh,” Bishop said, his voice curiously soft.

“But Lyda Hoyt didn't get that envelope that night Endicott was killed because I scared her off. And it couldn't have been there, anyway, because Austin had already picked it up—while I was out chasing Dixon. He took it back to the
Express
and made these copies. The trouble is, the film holders got lost—I don't have to tell you how—and I didn't get ahold of them until today. When I developed them this afternoon I thought you'd want them.”

“God, yes.” Bishop tucked the photographs and negatives back into the envelope with fat, trembling hands. “These could make a lot of trouble for that girl.”

Casey reached for a cigarette. He tapped it thoroughly, rolled it gently between thumb and fingers, and pulled a flake of tobacco from one end. “Is that all, Jim?” he asked, not looking up.

“All?”

“Don't you care about the original envelope? The one Austin photographed?”

“Why—why, yes,” Bishop stammered. “Of course, but—”

Casey looked up, seeing the shiny, twisted face, the silent working of the lips. He spoke quietly. “No, Jim. You're not worrying about the original. What did you do with it? Burn it?” He waited a moment. Bishop's eyes came into sharp focus and his mouth grew keen and hard. “And the key, Jim. You brought that away with you, didn't you?”

“The key?”

“Yes. To Austin's apartment.” Casey stood up. He walked across the room and came back, stealing a glance at Bishop and finding the heavy face set and impassive, the eyes watching every move he made. The reply was a while in coming, but in the end it came on the heels of a flat and scornful laugh.

“By God, you are serious, aren't you? Maybe you'd better let me in on it.”

“It's going to take a while.”

“All right.” The chair creaked and Bishop hoisted himself erect. “Then I'd better get me a beer,” he said. “You?”

Casey said he guessed not and watched Bishop waddle through a doorway. He walked over to the chessboard that was laid out as it had been the other night, and picked up one of the figures. He took it with him to his chair and sat down, waiting until Bishop returned with his beer and settled himself.

“There were things that should have made me think of you a long time ago, Jim,” Casey said. “Little things, but I guess a good detective would have been able to use them. Only I'm just a dumb camera. Until Austin was found I didn't care much about the murder of Endicott one way or the other. I thought I might have a picture of the killer but I didn't think it would be good enough to count, and I couldn't find it anyway. I had a picture of Lyda Hoyt, too, but that only complicated things and made more grief for me. But when I found Austin I jumped to conclusions because I thought he'd been killed for the picture I took of the killer in the sedan.”

He went on to explain what had happened to the film holder, and how Finell had kept it in his coat pocket. “Then, a little later,” he said, “I got the dope on Austin. I got some films—how I got them doesn't matter—that proved Austin had been blackmailing ever since he'd been in town. Not big stuff, but he'd apparently hooked up with Harry Nye, and they did some framing and made quite a thing out of it.” He spread his hands. “But even then I figured Dixon had killed him. I figured he'd got some dope on Dixon from Endicott's office and tried to collect. When Harry Nye was found that was all right too, because Logan had a sound theory about Endicott and Dixon and Nye.”

He explained this theory, told of the stolen-property racket that had made so much money for Endicott, and how Endicott, finding out about Dixon and his wife, had apparently decided to turn State's evidence and send Dixon to prison.

“Endicott was caught on the bond charge,” he said, “and he could help himself and make it worse for Dixon by singing. That's why he was killed. And Nye was the last link with Endicott and the racket and he had to go too. He may even have known that Dixon murdered Endicott. Anyway, it all fitted in and Logan accepted my motive for Austin's murder—that he had been killed because Dixon thought he had the photograph I took.”

Casey took a deep breath and grunted softly. “Not until I began to see your motive and suspect you, did I think of things I should have remembered before. First, you had the opportunity. Austin was killed between twelve and twelve-thirty. You left my office that first night in plenty of time. You went directly there, didn't you?”

Bishop sipped beer and said nothing.

“The next morning,” Casey said, “two empty shells were found by Austin's body. I stepped on one and bent it out of shape. I didn't tell Logan that when he showed the two of them to me because the other shell was bent
practically flat.
I weigh two-fifteen, Jim, but I didn't bend my shell flat. You must weigh two-seventy—”

“Eighty,” Bishop added.

“—and when you step on something you really flatten it. There it was if a guy could see it. Nothing conclusive, you understand, but just a suggestion that maybe the reason one shell was flat was because a heavier guy than I had stepped on it. So I muffed it. And I muffed something else. So did Logan, but he didn't have all the facts and I did.”

Casey thought a moment and continued. “Bernie Dixon could not possibly have killed Perry Austin. Because from twelve to twelve-thirty that night Dixon was on the air, acting as a master of ceremonies at that model contest he was running. I knew that. So did Logan, I think. With me it meant nothing because when Dixon mentioned that, I didn't know
when
Austin had died, I didn't know until a day or two later. I didn't even remember it until late this afternoon. With Logan—if he knew about Dixon—there was an excuse because he could think the two hoods Dixon hired to put me away could have done the job. But me—I knew better.”

His laugh came harsh and abrupt. “This'll give you an idea of why I'm a camera and not a detective. Those two hoods could not have killed Austin because at the time he died they were up searching my desk and the studio and slugging Finell. Not all that time, maybe, but they must have been there awhile before Finell arrived, and that was at twelve-fifteen. They couldn't have been two places at once, but Casey couldn't figure that one out. Casey was too busy worrying about what Austin had been doing, too busy trying to cover up.” He paused, scowling. “And I'm glad I did,” he said. “Not till this afternoon when I began to think about you could I see the facts.”

Bishop put his beer glass aside. “You haven't told me yet why you should be figuring it was me.”

Casey opened his hand, disclosing the chessman he had been holding. “What's this, Jim?”

Bishop looked at it quite a while. Finally he sighed ponderously. “A bishop,” he said.

“What's the shape of the head?”

“Miter-shaped, like a bishop is.”

Casey tossed it in the fat man's lap. “Now you know,” he said. “When I read the pardon and saw those clippings, I knew. Lucille Miter, the girl's name was—the one that was sentenced.” He paused. When Bishop remained silent, he continued. “Did you ever notice how people almost always use the same initials or a name that is similar in some way to their own name when they pick an alias?
Lucille Miter
—
Lucille Bishop.
She played chess, even as a kid, didn't she, Jim? She got pinched and wouldn't give her right name. The Lyda Hoyt came later. She isn't your niece, Jim, she's your daughter.”

Bishop just looked at him, nothing changing in his face, his eyes still in shadow. Casey waited and the silence began to pile up. After what seemed like a long, long time, Bishop stirred. “A hunch, Flash,” he said. “That's all you've got.”

“No,” Casey said. “I haven't finished. The guy Lucille Miter ran away with—she did run away, didn't she?—was named Frank Sanger according to those clippings.
The man you killed in the back room of a saloon a few years ago, in what was supposed to be a drunken brawl, was Frank Sanger.
The night you came to see me I remembered the case but I couldn't think of the name. I thought it was Sanford or Sanburn or something like that. It was Sanger, Jim. I remembered when I saw it in black and white.”

Jim Bishop derricked himself slowly from the chair. He produced a handkerchief and mopped his pale, moist face. He put the chessman on the board and went to the desk and opened a drawer. When he turned he had a piece of paper in his hand—and a gun.

Casey sat very still, feeling the blood drain from his face and a slackness come over it. There might have been a moment, at the very first, when he could have jumped for that gun, but he had not figured on this and surprise robbed him of that moment, and now it was too late. He knew Bishop was moving back to the chair but he did not see him; all he saw was the gun.