Silent Are the Dead (6 page)

He kept on going this time, detouring past the studio to get his hat and coat and then tramping down the street two blocks to a bar that charged ten cents more a drink and gave you atmosphere for it. Andre's, it was called. There were lots of carpet and chromium and red-leather stools and black-topped tables. There were not more than a half-dozen customers about and Casey took a stool at the bar, ordering rye and soda.

When the drink came he poured the rye, tasted the mixture. He lit a cigarette and emptied his glass. He was just about to order a refill when there was a flurry of movement around the entrance and three men came in. Casey saw that much, but there was no recognition in his glance until he heard the major domo greet them.

“Good evening, Mr. Forrester, good evening.”

Casey's head came round. They were marching toward him now, three stalwart-looking fellows in top hats and tails, looking neither right nor left but at him.

The two bartenders took up the chant. “Good evening, Mr. Forrester. Good evening, Mr. Forrester. Good evening, Mr. Van Doren.”

Casey pegged the three of them then. The big fellow in the center he recognized as Grant Forrester, the fiancé of Lyda Hoyt. The blond on his right was his younger brother, Russ, and the third man was a cousin, Bill Van Doren. The way they carried themselves, the way they wore those rich man's clothes told you they'd been doing it a long time.

Opposite him they broke ranks, Van Doren going to the stool beyond and the two Forresters flanking Casey on the other side. The bartender flipped paper serviettes down in front of them and said, “Yes, sir. What will it be, gentlemen?”

“Black Label,” Van Doren said, “and Perrier.”

“Three,” Grant Forrester said. He looked at Casey. “You're Casey, aren't you? Yes. And give Mr. Casey another—whatever it is he's having.”

Casey looked one way and then the other, adding things up fast and getting only one answer: Lyda Hoyt had not only telephoned her uncle, but she had tipped off Grant Forrester as well.

“We'd like to see you,” Grant Forrester said.

“Swell,” said Casey. He looked the other in the eye. “And now what?”

“Oh, I mean outside. After you've finished your drink.”

“Drinks. I may be here quite a while.”

“You can come back—I think.”

“I like it here,” Casey said.

Forrester shrugged and nodded to Van Doren. “All right. If that's the way you want it.”

“You're going to drag me out, huh?”

“Don't you think we can?”

“Yeah,” Casey said, “I think you can. Starting even, I might give you an argument, but we're not starting even. If you start something everybody in the place will swear I slugged you first. You're Mr. Forrester. You carry weight. People believe you and even if they don't they'll say they do.”

“That's one way of looking at it,” Forrester said.

“It's the only sensible way of adding it up and you know it. Because after the brawl I wind up in the can with a few lumps and all you'll get is the lumps. Still,”—he watched the bartender put down his drink and drank some of it—“I might take you on just for the hell of it. What do you want?”

“The picture you took of Miss Hoyt,” Forrester said.

Casey looked at the bartenders. They were giving him the worried eye and he knew they could hear what was being said. Well, that's what happened when you gave pictures away. He couldn't tell Forrester the truth now. He couldn't tell him about Bishop because he didn't dare betray the secret that Lyda Hoyt and her uncle had kept. And if he couldn't tell about Bishop he couldn't tell' Forrester what he'd done with the print and negative. He glanced at the bartenders again; they still looked worried in an expectant sort of way.

“All right,” Casey said, “I'll go out with you.”

“Splendid. Shall we drink up?”

“By all means. Then we can have another.”

“But—”

Casey turned on the innocent eye, the candid manner. “You bought. Shouldn't I have the privilege of returning the compliment?”

“Well—” Forrester cocked an eye at his brother, looked back at Casey, and a gleam of humor fought its way through the disturbed darkness of his eyes. “You win,” he said and ordered again.

From then on Casey liked him, and, studying him covertly, he quickly decided that Forrester would be no bargain even without the support of his brother and cousin. About 35, Casey thought; as tall as he was and weighing about 190. His hair was a medium brown, his eyes gray-blue and clear and direct. He played six-goal polo, had boxed in college, and once went three rounds in a charity exhibition with Braddock. It wasn't just his rich man's clothes and manners, either, that impressed; it was something in his eye, something about the cut of his jaw that told you that although he was accustomed to the best he could battle the worst down to the finish without saying uncle.

He shifted his gaze to Van Doren. Solid, dark, not so tall. And the brother, Russ—he was not more than 26 or 27, blonder, engaged to Senator Waverly's daughter. Casey shook his head absently. What a spot Lyda Hoyt had picked to have her picture taken—

The sedan at the curb, its bumper practically touching a fire plug, looked 25 feet long. Van Doren got in behind the wheel and Casey climbed in between the two brothers, wondering what he was going to say.

He couldn't say a word about Bishop. He had no intention of telling about the one print in his desk; to do so would only make Forrester demand the negative. There wasn't much use in stalling or saying that the film didn't come out.

“Where is it?” Forrester asked as the car got under way.

“I haven't got it.”

“Oh?” Forrester's voice got polite but thin. “What happened to it?”

“Nothing.”

“I thought you were going to be reasonable,” Forrester said. “What is it you want, money?”

Casey felt the surge of hot anger in his neck. He sat up. Then he got an idea and cooled off again.

“Look,” he said. “I saw Lyda Hoyt tonight. All I had to do was tell the police—and Lieutenant Logan who was detailed to the case is a friend of mine. Did I tell him?”

“Why—I don't know.”

“The hell you don't. If I had you'd have heard about it hours ago. Logan would have been waiting for her when she walked off the stage.”

“Yes. I suppose that's true.” Forrester flexed his lips. “But just the same. That photograph—”

“It's like this,” Casey said, liking his idea better all the time. “I haven't got it. It hasn't been developed. I gave it to a fellow named Perry Austin. Because I knew I'd be tied up with the police. He didn't know what was in the film holder but I told him to hang on to it and not develop it or hand it over to anyone but me. I haven't seen him since. For all I know he's out on some assignment.”

“You say he works with you?”

“Sure. And I'm sort of the boss in the studio. He'll do what I tell him. So why don't you forget it? Nobody's going to get that picture but me and if I wanted to throw any curves I'd have done it before now. Forget it. Don't worry about it.”

When Casey talked like that, you believed him and Forrester said so. “I believe you,” he said. “After all you
could
have told the police, as you say. I'm very grateful that you didn't and I—well, I apologize for dragging you around this way. It was a crazy idea but I didn't know what else to do— Well, thanks a lot, old man. I shan't forget it. Is there any place you'd like to go? Back to Andre's?”

Casey glanced out the window as the car sped along, saw that they were within a block of Austin's apartment, and decided to stop and see if he was home. “This'll do,” he said. “Right here on the corner. I want to see a fellow.”

Van Doren pulled up at the curb and Casey got out. Grant Forrester leaned forward, offering his hand. “Thanks again—and when can you give me the picture?”

“By tomorrow afternoon,” Casey said. “Call me some time after noon.”

He watched the sedan roll away and started down the street, well pleased with his subterfuge. Some time during the morning he'd make a copy of that picture he had in his desk. When he developed the negative of that copy, Forrester probably wouldn't be able to tell it from the original.

Casey played with these thoughts as he glanced at the row of brownstone fronts that marched along with him in the darkness. He had never been in Austin's apartment, but he had dropped him off here several times and when he entered the building he found the entryway lighted and got the apartment number from name cards along the wall.

Beyond the inner door, the interior had been modernized, but long old-fashioned stairs hugged one wall, and he went up whistling softly, his hand trailing on the polished bannister. Then, just as he turned the corner at the second floor, he saw the girl.

She was coming toward him from an angle, as if she had just stepped from one of the apartments ahead. He had only a fleeting glimpse of her face before she started to pass him, and although the light was bad, there was something familiar about the tweed suit and the angle of the tapered face that made him move in front of her so that she had to stop or bump into him.

“Hello,” he said, and then she looked up and he knew he had been right, that this was the girl who had come to the studio asking for Austin. “Isn't he in?”

For one brief instant her face seemed white and startled, but she composed it quickly and said, “Oh, I didn't recognize you— No, he didn't answer,” she said, and stepped past. Then she was going down the stairs and he stood there, grunting softly, wondering who she was and why she was so interested in Austin.

The apartment he sought was one of the two at the front and he knocked at the door, waited, knocked again. The lock, he saw, was of the old-fashioned type and he stooped and put his eye to the keyhole. When he found nothing but blackness beyond he sighed and went back downstairs, a little annoyed with himself for not taking the girl's word. In the foyer he glanced at his wrist watch. It was just 12:20. He went out on the sidewalk, glancing up at the apartment again as he tramped off down the street.

It was a seven- or eight-minute walk to the
Express
and Casey went directly to the studio. The anteroom was empty and he slid out of his coat and tossed it on the desk; then, as he pulled out his chair to sit down, he saw the plate case.

At first he didn't believe it and stood staring, a frown biting into his brow and his eyes puzzled. Finally he realized he was staring and, with mounting incredulity, lifted it to the desk, fumbled with the straps, opened it. Then he was sure it was his and quickly yanked out the camera, inspecting it to be sure it was all right. It was. But there was no film holder in it; no exposed film holders in the case itself. “What the hell!” he said.

He looked across the room, brows still warped but seeing nothing. Presently his gaze came back to the camera and case. He kicked the chair out a little farther and sat down. That's when he noticed the center drawer of his desk. It was open about an inch. The wood around the lock was chewed and the lock itself was bent.

The impact of this discovery was like a physical jolt and he grabbed for the drawer and pulled it open. He pawed through it again and again with sweaty hands.

He searched the other drawers but even as he did so he knew it was no use. He had put that picture of Lyda Hoyt in the center drawer. It was gone. Whoever had stolen his plate case had found out the picture was not in that case and had come back with it to resume the search.

Casey sat back and the stiffness went out of him. His face was dark and brooding under its film of moisture. He thought of Jim Bishop and the things he had told Grant Forrester, and a bitterness was in his mouth and throat as he tried to think and then tried not to, when he found the result so discouraging.

He was still sitting there, a burly grim-faced man, when the sound of whistling came along the hall and Tom Wade swung into the room. “Hi, big shoot,” he said airily. He slid his plate case along the floor. “Boy, did I have an assignment tonight. The West Roxbury Players—and not bad either. There was a dame there —” He broke off and walked round to look at Casey. “What's
your
trouble?”

“Go 'way,” said Casey, not looking up.

Wade shrugged and began whistling again. He opened his plate case, took out a couple of film holders and started toward the darkroom corridor, his heels rapping on the composition floor. He went through the doorway. Suddenly the rap of his heels stopped and Casey heard what sounded like a gasp. Then Wade yelled. “Flash!”

An icicle ripped along Casey's spine and he jumped up, knocking over the chair. There was something in that yell he had never heard before and he leaped for the doorway, his throat dry and heart pounding.

Wade stood stock-still on the threshold of the printing-room and Casey couldn't stop in time and slammed into him, knocking him aside. Wade never said a word; he just stood there looking ahead of him at the floor. Then Casey saw why. Crumpled there in the semi-darkness of the room lay a man, his topcoat bunched about his waist, his hat half on and half off his head.

Casey sucked in his breath and stepped forward, going to one knee. The man was on his side, his head on one outstretched arm. “Finell!” he breathed.

“Good God!” Wade said. “What—is he—”

He didn't finish the question but Casey knew what he meant and got the hat off and felt a wrist and said, “No. He's alive.”

“What's the matter with him?”

Worry and anxiety made Casey's voice ragged and stiff. “How the hell do I know?” He got his arms under Finell's knees and shoulder, lifted him easily. “Get his coat off.”

The man's arms hung limp and it was a simple matter for Wade to slip off the topcoat; then Casey carried Finell into the lighted anteroom, ordered Wade to make a bundle of the coat, and stretched out the inert form on the floor, the coat under his head. That was when he saw the ugly bruise near the top of the skull and knew that Finell, the redheaded photographer that everybody liked, had been slugged.