“What’s the matter?”
She did not answer. Instead she got up, said, “Wait a minute,” and went into the bedroom. When she returned she had a manila folder in her hand. She held it out to him, a curious look of guilt upon her face.
Casey watched her, scowling. Now what the hell has she done? he thought, and was afraid for a moment to look inside the folder. While he was making up his mind, she said:
“Russell Gifford was here tonight.”
“Gifford?” Casey’s scowl bit deeper and his brows were twisted. “When? What for?”
“He left ten or fifteen minutes before you came. He—he came to get that.” She pointed at the folder. “It’s something I took from Rosalind Taylor’s apartment. I—maybe I shouldn’t have done it.”
“That I guarantee,” Casey said dryly. “How come he didn’t get it—if that’s what he came for?”
“I”—Karen Harding bent her head and looked up at him like a twelve-year-old—“I told him you had it.”
Chapter Ten
A LONG WALK HOME
CASEY LET HIS HANDS swing down to his sides. If it had been a man he would have been sore, just on general principles. With this girl he was exasperated until he realized how young she was and how lovely.
“You stuck your nose in a lot of things tonight, I guess,” he said. “And after that promise you made in front of MacGrath, too.”
“I know,” Karen Harding said. “I am rather a brat, aren’t I?”
Casey cocked a brow at her and opened the folder.
“Do you know what’s in here?”
“A little. I’d started to read it when you rang.”
Casey went back to his chair and sat down. Inside the folder was a long typewritten report, a series of reports, really, under the letterhead of the Northeast Detective Agency. In addition there were copies of affidavits, a photostat or two, miscellaneous papers.
Casey didn’t go over these thoroughly, but he read enough to know the reason for them, and the knowledge left him deeply worried. For these reports had to do with Dinah King and they said in fact that Dinah King had entered the country illegally in 1937 from Austria via Mexico, and that in 1939, when she had gone to South America on a three months’ singing contract, she had falsified passport statements.
“I guess you know Dinah King,” Casey said quietly.
“I know who she is.”
“And you know what Gifford said about her to Logan—that he had wanted to marry her.” Karen Harding nodded, avoiding Casey’s narrowed gaze now as he continued. “How did you get this? How did you know anything about it?”
“I didn’t.”
“I suppose somebody hid it in your coat,” he said, his concern expressing itself in bluntness and irritation. “You must know something, damn it.”
“I didn’t know what it was though. I just saw Mr. Gifford put it under his own coat and—”
“Where?”
“In the library—the office, rather. Just before Lieutenant Logan arrived. Mr. Gifford went into the office and I was sitting where I could look in there if I wanted to. Someone else was talking but I did look in and I saw him get the folder from a filing-cabinet and slip it under his coat. He came into the living-room and went to the magazine table and when the police came I watched him and he slipped the folder between two magazines.”
Casey recalled the scene and tried to figure the sequence as it happened. He remembered Gifford at the magazine table; he remembered Gifford coming back as Logan and Casey were about to leave and saying he wanted to take some magazines upstairs. And then he knew when Karen Harding had taken the folder.
“You went over to that table when we came back from looking at Taylor’s car. You slipped it in your bag. Gifford saw you over there and when he found it was gone—” Casey leaned forward, his rugged face a little grim, his jaw tight, because he was worried and because he knew this girl didn’t realize what this folder meant.
It meant more than the probability that Dinah King faced arrest. It meant a lot more. The information in that folder had taken time to collect. It was a good job and Northeast was a good Agency and Rosalind Taylor had spent a lot of money for the work that had been done.
It was important enough to her for that, and either Gilford or Dinah King—or both—knew of this folder and knew what would happen if Rosalind Taylor chose to expose the woman who wanted to marry her husband. Casey thought of all this now, and when he continued to Karen Harding he wasn’t thinking about how young and lovely she was but only that she had done some foolish things without regard for the consequences.
“What the hell did you mess around with this for?”
“Why I thought—that is, no one was sure who had murdered Miss Taylor and—”
“Then why didn’t you tell Logan if you thought Gilford was involved?”
“But I didn’t know that he was. I didn’t know what was in the folder. I didn’t want to make trouble for him if he was innocent and yet if he wasn’t, and I didn’t take the folder, why then he’d have it and it would be too late.”
Casey thought it over. He didn’t want to believe it because he was still annoyed at her, but he had to admit that her reasons made sense. He had, he realized, been guilty of the same sort of thing himself in times past and further, now that he had the folder, he had the same choice. He could go to Logan or he could keep his mouth shut and wait. The thing was he didn’t like the alternative; he didn’t like anything about it. He folded the folder and stuffed it in an inside pocket.
“I’m tired,” he said. “I’ll take this along. I still say you did a crazy thing but it could be the right thing at that. What did Gifford do when he came?”
“He scared me,” Karen Harding said. “I thought it might be you or I wouldn’t have opened the door. He came in and he stood there with his hand in his pocket—I’m sure he had a gun—and looked at me until my knees were jelly. I asked him what he wanted and he told me. He said he knew I was the one who had taken it and he had to have it.”
Casey went to the door. “Damned if I know how you do it,” he said, “but you do. You told him the one story he could accept and then made him believe it.”
“I had to,” Karen Harding said. “I told him I didn’t know what was in the folder, that I’d taken it on impulse and that I’d given it to you because you’d know better what it meant and what should be done. I told him he could search the place if he didn’t believe me, but I was petrified all the time. I kept thinking about the gun—and if you could have seen his face, all white and stiff, with eyes that stared and stared—” She broke off and shivered, clasping her elbows across her breasts.
“It serves you right,” Casey said. “You ought to be scared. And listen,” he said as he opened the door, “if anybody asks you about this folder, or what’s in it, you don’t know a damned thing about it. Understand?”
She said she did in a small, hushed voice and when he started down the stairs he could hear her bolting the door.
Casey had to walk home and for a time he wondered if he ought to keep trying or whether it wouldn’t be better to lie down in the gutter with the plate-case for a pillow until a police car came along and picked him up.
He’d know he’d never find a cab on the Hill at that hour but the first few blocks were downgrade so that wasn’t too bad. The trouble was he hadn’t reckoned with the dim-out, rationed gas, and non-cruising taxis. When he could find nothing on Charles he started along Beacon, turned left, and finally reached Marlborough.
It was the thought of the bottles in his apartment that really kept him going and when he paused at the bottom of the stone steps to gather his strength he knew how the guys that were always trying to climb Mt. Everest must feel when they got near that top they never quite reached.
Thankful that he lived on the second floor of this old brownstone instead of the third, he reeled upward, pulling himself along by the creaky banister and keeping his eyes fixed on the night-light on the landing. There
were only two apartments to the floor, a short hall separating the flights of stairs that went up and down, and he fumbled for his keys as he headed for his door. He stopped in front of it when he heard the faint, brushing sound and knew he was not alone in the hall.
Instantly his weariness slipped from his shoulders and a cold breeze blew from somewhere. He got the plate-case from his shoulder, turned toward the stairs to the floor above. It was from here that the man appeared, a shapeless, indistinct figure in the half-light of the hall.
Casey waited, wondering, the tension still with him. He saw the upturned coat collar, the snapped-down brim of the hat, the hands thrust deep in the trousers pockets. Still not knowing who it was, but only that the man did not belong in this house, he said:
“Looking for someone?”
“You.”
Then Casey knew who it was.
The face between the hat and coat took shape. “Oh, hello, Gifford,” he said, and, remembering what Karen Harding had said about a gun, kept one eye on the righthand coat pocket. “Out late, aren’t you?”
“Am I?”
Casey unlocked the door, deciding to keep everything casual. He went in, snapped on the light. He said he was sorry he was so late and hoped Gifford hadn’t had to wait too long. He got out of his coat, shoved the plate-case into the corner, watching Gifford move slowly into the room, not seeing much of his face yet, but still concentrating on the gun.
He went over and shut the door. “What’s on your mind?” he said and then, though there was tautness at his nerve-ends, he knew he was too tired to be further intimidated that night. So when he walked past the other, he pivoted sharply, grabbed the left wrist, grabbed the right, and pinioned the hand and gun in the pocket and swung Gifford back against the wall, holding him there with his hip.
Gifford never had a chance. A couple of inches shorter and thirty pounds lighter, he was no physical match for Casey, not even a tired Casey; caught by surprise this way, his struggles were futile. Casey held him, spoke wearily.
“Let go of the gun. Come on, be a nice guy, will you? Or do I have to break your arm?”
“All right,” he said. “Give me a chance.”
Casey relaxed his grip, feeling Gifford’s fingers loosen, letting him pull the hand from the pocket, then holding the wrist until it was out of the way. He put his hand in and got the gun, a short-barreled .32 with a pearl handle. He let go and stepped back.
Gifford stayed right where he was, his mustache trembling and his lower jaw slack. He watched Casey smell the muzzle of the gun and finally pushed away from the wall, removing his hat and passing the back of his hand across his forehead.
“Where’d you get it?” Casey wanted to know.
“From Rosalind’s desk. It was hers.”
“And you were going to plug me with it, huh? If I didn’t hand over that folder on Dinah King.”
“You’ve got it.”
“Sure I’ve got it,” Casey said. “Sit down. I’ll be right back.”
He went into his combination kitchen- darkroom and got a bottle of rye, two glasses, and a pitcher of water. When he returned to the living-room, Russell Gifford was sitting on the edge of a chair, elbows on knees and head hanging.
“Here,” Casey said and gave him a drink.
Gifford looked at him strangely, finally reached out and took the glass. “Thanks,” he said.
For himself Casey mixed half rye and half water. He drank deeply and sat down on the davenport. He flipped out the cylinder of the gun and tipped the six shells into his hand; then put both gun and shells on the table behind him.
“What’re you going to do with that folder?” Gifford asked.
“You must have wanted it pretty bad to go hunting for it with a gun.”
“I—I didn’t know what else to do. I knew the police didn’t have it or I would have heard.”
“You scared hell out of Karen Harding,” Casey said.
“I’m sorry.” Gifford took some of his drink and Casey wondered how far the man would have gone if he’d been sure that Karen had the folder. “I’ve got to have it,” Gifford went on. “If you know what’s in it, you know that.”
“Suppose you had it,” Casey said. “Miss Harding doesn’t know what was in it, but I do. I could tell quite a story.”
“That’s not the same—an unverified story—as the proof.” He put his glass down. “What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know,” Casey said, which was the truth. “All I know is that with what’s in the folder you and Dinah King have one sweet motive for the murder of your wife. Even without this—”
“What about the two men who searched the apartment and tied up Helen MacKay. I suppose I hired them too.”
“Somebody did. They wanted something in that apartment. How do I know it wasn’t your folder. They could have missed it, you know.”
Gifford took a swallow of his drink and put the glass back, saying nothing.
“You wanted to marry Dinah King,” Casey said. “She wanted to marry you. Your wife wouldn’t let you. When you rate murder motives that one is close to the top.” He paused. When he got no answer, he said, “Why wouldn’t Rosalind let you go?”
Gifford looked down at his hands and began to worry them. “I don’t know. Spite, I guess. She said she didn’t like Dinah, she said she was cheap. She said I’d lost my head and she would not release me until I’d come to my senses.”
He made a throaty, bitter noise and his mouth hardened beneath the blond mustache. “There’d been nothing between Rosalind and me in over a year. She asked me to move out. I didn’t start it. I handled her business affairs and she insisted I take an apartment close by so I’d be around when she needed me. I told her finally that I’d go to Reno on my own. I guess that’s when she started to find out about Dinah.”
“You were her manager,” Casey said. “What did that mean? Did she pay you?”
“She gave me a quarter of what she earned. She would have had to pay an agent ten percent anyway and she gave me more because I did more for her and because at first it seemed a good arrangement. I gave up my start in law and she expected to pay for my services. We split household expenses. It worked out all right.”
Casey thought it over. His head ached from the lump Harry had given him, his body ached from weariness. Until now he had thought only of the two men who’d searched the dead woman’s apartment as the murderers. But he could not quite overlook the motive that now reared its head.
“What do you intend to do?” Gifford said.
“I’ll tell you,” Casey said. “I had a run-in with a couple of guys tonight. Maybe you know them and maybe you don’t. Maybe they’re the ones Logan is looking for. I don’t know. I do know that they ransacked my desk and broke some of my plates. I know one of them slugged me with a gun.”
He felt the lump gingerly and turned his head so Gifford could see its location.
“If I can get those two—or the man behind them—I’m going to do it. But maybe the murder is something else. I don’t know. I’m no detective and even if I were I wouldn’t kid myself that I could do a better job than Logan with all his specialists, men, and equipment. If I can help, okay. I don’t know anything about this eye for an eye stuff. I’m not equipped to say whether murder is ever justified or not and I’m not sure the moral issues bother me much. Mostly it’s none of my business and I want no part of it. But this is a little different, Gifford. For two reasons—and I’m speaking only of myself now. One, Rosalind was shot in the back of the head; two, I knew her and that makes it a little personal.”
Casey hesitated. He wasn’t looking at Gifford now, but at his empty glass.
“I thought she was all right. We were never buddies, understand? We used to scrap plenty when she first came to the Express—until she found out that with me it didn’t do her any good. She wasn’t hard to figure. She was resourceful and she had drive and ambition and she was out for Rosalind from the word go.”
�
��I know,” Gifford said.
“And that was okay, once you understood why. Married to her I probably would have cut her throat inside a month. But I wasn’t married to her. To me she was a damn good newspaper woman and she didn’t scare. She wasn’t one of those big-name publicity seekers that go around covering sensational trials and write emotional slop for moron readers; she wrote about things that were important. She didn’t care who you were or what your name was if you were promoting anything that she thought was bad for the people or the country. She went after big shots and racketeers and politicians, both shady and misguided, and especially she went after those union thugs who cheated and looted treasuries and bullied and held up the common members they were supposed to serve. She was a damned good American too, and if you weren’t—brother, look out.”
He put more whisky and water in his glass. “That’s a lot of talk,” he said and laughed without amusement. “But what I’m getting at is this. I don’t go around making trouble for people if I can help it. I don’t want to make trouble for you, and I’ll tell you this: I’m not going to turn that folder in to the police—though if Logan ever finds it out he’ll probably charge me as an accessory—until I’m sure. Detective work is for cops and if they crack this murder you’ll get the folder. But right now you could have killed your wife. So could Dinah King—”
“She didn’t.”
“So you say. And if you’re right you’ve got nothing to worry about from me. If you’re not—” He tossed off the drink and stood up. “Well, if you’re not and it begins to look that way, and Logan needs a clincher—why, then he gets this folder and I take my chances he’ll be grateful enough not to knock my ears off. I guess that’s how it is.”
Gifford rose. He put on his hat and went to the door where he turned, his hand on the knob. Casey came up and handed him the gun and the bullets. Gifford looked at them, then spoke past stiff lips, his voice so quiet Casey could hardly hear him.
“Dinah King had nothing to do with this. If you turn her in I shall probably kill you, Casey.”
Murder for Two Page 9