Murder with Pictures

by George Harmon Coxe

  She asked, simply: “Do you still feel the same as you did last night?”

  “If you mean do I love you,” Murdock said, “I do.”

  “That’s what I meant.”

  She looked at him a moment longer. This time there was respect and admiration and love in her glance, but these were deep down and Murdock had no time to speculate about it. He was at once aware of something else: the suddenness with which she had entered.

  “What is it?” he said. She hesitated and he guessed: “Have you heard something about—”

  “Yes.” She put a gloved hand in the pocket of the camel’s-hair coat and took out a yellow folded sheet, passing it to him.

  The color identified the telegram and he shook out the folds.

  MARRIED HERE YESTERDAY STOP WILL CABLE LATER LOVE HOWARD.

  He looked at the top line to find out where the message had been dispatched. “Miami,” he said slowly, not looking at the girl. “And ‘cable you’. He’s going down to Trinidad or South America.”

  He looked up. She returned his look without speaking. He passed back the message and smiled. “Well, it could be worse. They must believe in each other to get married.”

  “Yes, but—” She hesitated, her eyes anxious. “I read about that man who was murdered in the alley, that Tripp. It says the police want Howard for questioning.”

  “Routine,” Murdock assured her.

  “But you called me and asked me to find out where Howard was yesterday noon. Does that mean you—”

  “It doesn’t mean a thing. I just thought—”

  “You don’t think he killed him?”

  “No. I think Sam Cusick killed Tripp. I’ve got a hunch the police think so too.” Murdock grunted softly. “Will you stop worrying about it?” He smiled, put out a hand to take her arm; too late he realized he had put out the wrong hand.

  Joyce Archer saw the gun immediately; her glance seemed to freeze on its shining blue surface. She looked up.

  “What’s that for?” Twice her eyes darted to the gun and she jerked them back. “Why do you need it?”

  “Well—” Murdock glanced down at the gun, shoved it into his coat pocket with an awkward gesture. His tone was sheepish. “Sometimes I carry it.”

  “Why do you have it now?”

  “I’m going out,” Murdock said. “I’m on my way to a job, and I stopped here to get my other camera. I just happened to think of the gun and—well, it’s sort of a tough job.”

  “It’s dangerous or you wouldn’t even think of it.”

  “Now wait,” Murdock said, again reaching for her arm. “It’s not dangerous, but there might be trouble. And trouble’s part of my job. I’m used to it. Sometimes I need a little persuader and—”

  She moved out of his reach and began to pace the floor. He watched her, realizing he liked to see her walk for the pleasure it gave him, she was so well put together. His smile was tolerant, amused.

  He said: “Really, I’ve got to run.”

  Joyce Archer opened the comfortable-looking camel’s-hair polo coat, pulled it together absently, and held to the lapels. Then she stopped and faced him.

  “Is it this Tripp thing?”

  Murdock nodded.

  “Are you going with the police?”

  “No,” he said flatly and his smile faded.

  “Why?”

  “Because my idea is so wild they’d probably laugh me out of headquarters.”

  “Then why do you bother?”

  “Because it is the only chance I’ve got.” He took a breath and his facial muscles seemed to tense under the skin. “I talked with Hestor last night. She wasn’t encouraging. But I’ve got a chance to work the thing out by myself. Even if it was a good idea, I wouldn’t dare go to Bacon until I found out for sure just what the set-up was.” He grunted bitterly. “So you see the sort of double-crossing heel I can be when it comes to the show down. I’ve got to try it—alone. I can’t explain it, but if I win I think I can be free of Hestor. It’s worth it, isn’t it?”

  She did not answer and he forced a short laugh, concentrated in the levity in his tone. “I’ve got to keep you respectable, haven’t I?”

  That did it. Joyce Archer shrugged and a faint smile played at the corner of her eyes, although there was anxiety in her voice. “When will you know?”

  “In another hour or two. You go home and I’ll call you—”

  “I’ll wait here,” Joyce Archer said, and shrugged out of her coat.

  “Well—”

  “They’ve put a man to watch the house. I loathe the feeling it gives me.” She stepped over to the davenport, tossed her coat on the back, took off her tight-fitting hat, and dropped it beside the coat. She put both hands to the side of her head in a supporting movement which fluffed out the ash-blond hair; then she came over to Murdock, stopped in front of him, a lithe, firmly rounded figure in a snug-fitting red dress.

  She said: “I’m sorry.”

  “About what?” Murdock’s grin was puzzled.

  “For butting in—about your job.” She came close. “Whatever it is, I know you can do it.”

  She lifted her arms, clung to him a moment, and stepped back smiling. She spoke again as Murdock opened the door. “Only let me know as soon as you can.”

  20

  PHIL DOANE BLEW out a sigh of relief. “Jeeze, I thought you’d gone dumb on me or something.”

  Murdock sank down on the seat beside him. “You’re not supposed to think. And don’t start counting on any story, either.”

  “Anyway,” Doane said, “I get a ride out of it.”

  Murdock gave the driver an address on Mt. Vernon Street and fell silent. Doane sat erect on his side of the seat and the intermittent flashes of street lights filtering through the cab windows picked out a round boyish face that was eager, expectant.

  Charles Street forms one boundary of Beacon Hill. A main thoroughfare in the daytime and an outlet for much commercial traffic, it was, at this hour, strangely quiet; a gently curving street walled in with ancient two- and three-storied structures that seemed drab and decadent in spite of an occasional shop or drug-store which spilled light on the sidewalks. The upper stories, offices, and lofts were dark; traffic was moving with the detached remoteness of a suburb.

  The taxi-driver swung right into Mt. Vernon Street and shifted into second for the climb. The hill was dark, steep, deserted except for one or two vague-figured pedestrians coming down a half-block away. The houses here, narrow, outmoded structures remodeled into more modern apartments, made a staggered silhouette against the sky so that they seemed to climb the hill in huge, blackened steps.

  The whining protest of the car’s gears stopped abruptly as the driver angled in to the curb, stopped, then cramped his wheels to snub them into the curbing and take the strain off his brakes. Murdock got out in front of a thin four-story building with a severe brick façade built flush with the sidewalk. When he began to haul out his camera and plate-case Doane said:

  “How about me?”

  “Stay in the cab.” Murdock glanced up and down the still deserted street, finally spoke to the driver. “Pull up a ways, clear of this entrance, and wait for me.”

  Doane said: “Who lives here?”

  “Nate Girard.”

  Doane whistled. “You mean—”

  “I don’t mean a damn thing,” rapped Murdock irritably. “I told you this was personal. I’m going in and talk to him—if he’s there.”

  “What’re you lugging the box for?”

  “How would you like to go back to the office?”

  “I didn’t say a word,” Doane added hastily.

  “I’m taking it,” Murdock said, somewhat mollified, “because only a sap leaves his camera around for guys like you to play with. I may be out in five minutes, I may be there for a half-hour. So stick around and if there’s no story—and there won’t be—you can have another ride.”

  “Don’t forget,” Doane said. “If anything should happen.”


  The taxi bucked up the hill. Murdock shouldered his plate-case and stepped to a doorway which was merely a hole in the wall and made an inclined, tunneled entrance to an all-wood door at the top of the steps. There was a row of mail-boxes on the right wall, but Murdock did not refer to them, continuing to the door, which was unlocked.

  There was no foyer, no waste space. A hall stretched straight ahead of the door and disappeared in a semi-darkness beyond; adjoining this was a narrow staircase; the single bulb at the landing above apparently only served to make the interior more obscure. Murdock wrinkled his nose at stale, dusty-smelling air and started up on uneven steps that creaked protestingly under their carpeted covering.

  At the third-floor landing Murdock turned right. There were only two apartments to a floor and he knocked at the door on his left. It opened almost immediately, swung back to a ten-inch crack, making a vertical frame for a thick swart face. Deep-set eyes that looked black in the shadows peered through the opening, which remained fixed.

  Murdock said: “Girard in?”

  “What do you want him for?”

  “Is he in?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “The name,” Murdock said irritably, “is Murdock—M-u-r—”

  A well-modulated baritone called: “Come on in, Murdock.”

  The thick face moved back and the door opened slowly, as though resenting the intrusion. Murdock stepped inside. The thick face became part of an equally thick body that would not have been out of place in a wrestling ring. Then Murdock saw Nate Girard in the cushion-back chair under a parchment-shaded floor lamp; and across the room, his hand in his coat pocket, a tall, stooped man who was well dressed, but whose hard thin face did not seem to belong to the clothes.

  The door closed behind him, and Murdock glanced about. The room was large, high-ceilinged, and, in comparison with the building, singularly well furnished. The thick oriental rug was enormous; the furniture was heavy-looking, with coverings that appeared expensive. The half-dozen prints were good and there was a well-filled bookcase between the two windows. If the effect as a whole gave a slight impression of overcrowding, it did not disguise the good taste which had accumulated the furnishings.

  Nate Girard watched Murdock push magazines to one end of a rectangular mahogany table and put his plate-case and camera on the cleared space; then he put aside the book he had been reading, a weighty-looking volume, and took a cigar from a silver humidor.

  He said: “Sit down. What’ll you have to drink?”

  Murdock unstrapped his plate-case, opened the lid. He turned, saw the hard, suspicious eyes of the thickset man upon him. “I thought I might get a picture of you,” he said easily, “at home. And I want to talk to you.”

  He stepped away from the table, surveyed the thickset man, then the tall one, with a sardonic, faintly amused smile. “Can you get rid of the gorillas, or—”

  “Who’s a gorilla?” The thickset man took a step forward, his face out-thrust and mostly jaw.

  Murdock’s brows lifted. “What do you call yourselves nowadays, synthetic gentlemen?”

  The thickset man was instantly mollified; it seemed he understood the word gentlemen. He said: “That’s better.”

  Girard watched the byplay with amusement. He said: “I was about to let them go for the day anyway.” He nodded towards the door. “Run along.”

  “You sure?” the tall man began suspiciously.

  “I know Murdock, if that’s what you mean.”

  The two men took coats and hats from the steam radiator behind the door. The tall one said: “Tomorrow morning?”

  “About ten,” Girard replied.

  Murdock moved over to the reading-stand beside Girard as the door closed. Picking up the volume which had been placed, cover up and opened, upon the stand, he said:

  “Ulysses, huh?” He cocked one brow, and the little smile narrowed his eyes and lifted two-thirds of his mouth. “Because you like it or—”

  “I started it,” Girard said, “out of curiosity. I keep going because I like to see how many pages there are between the parts I understand.” He bit off the end of his cigar with firm white teeth, rolled it between his lips before he lighted it. Still holding the burning match, he surveyed the lighted end, seemed satisfied, and blew out the match. He looked up at Murdock.

  “Sit down.” He indicated an arm-chair opposite. “You didn’t come here to take pictures. What’s on your mind?”

  Murdock took the proffered chair, placed his hat on the floor beside him.

  Girard said: “There’s some cigarettes in that box.” He nodded towards the hammered bronze affair on the top of a magazine-rack next to Murdock’s chair.

  Murdock took a cigarette, lit it, sucked on it thoughtfully for a moment, and watched Girard. The handsome face was friendly, but the dark-eyed gaze was steady, scrutinizing.

  For a fleeting instant Murdock remembered that, as a man, he liked Girard. He had never been bothered by his past. Their acquaintanceship had been on the best of terms, founded on a mutual respect for personality. Then the instant was over and he concentrated on the idea which had brought him here.

  He said: “I want to talk about Hestor.”

  Girard’s eyes reflected a sudden inner reaction which it was impossible to diagnose. For a second or two his lean face was impassive; then he smiled and the clipped mustache moved laterally on his lip.

  “It’s not exactly a surprise, although—” He broke off, took the cigar from his mouth, and studied it. “I didn’t think you were interested; I didn’t think you gave a damn one way or the other.”

  He looked up, but Murdock did not answer. Girard put the cigar in his mouth and eased farther down in the chair, folding his hands across his waistcoat and crossing one leg.

  “I like a good time,” he said finally. “I went without that sort of thing for a hell of a long while. Even when I was bootlegging, I stuck pretty close to business. It’s not until the past two or three years that I’ve stepped out. I’m making up for lost time. I’ve got enough money, so that it’s not hard to get about what I want. And I can get it without stepping on anybody’s toes, because there’s no lack of material. I’ve never married, for obvious reasons. The sort of girl I wanted couldn’t care for a bootlegger, wouldn’t take the chance. I’m beginning to live some of that down and”—his voice took on an undercurrent of bitterness—“if I can steer clear of any more murder charges, I might get really respectable in a few years. Of course, I’m not getting any younger.”

  Girard took out his cigar, studied the inch of gray ash on the end, and gently tipped it off into an ash-tray.

  “And meanwhile it’s like I said. I’m going to enjoy life. I can do it without breaking up homes.” His eyes swept back to Murdock, narrowed slightly. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not Sunday-school about it. If I was in love with a woman I’d go after her whether she was married or not. And if she felt the same way about me and I could get her, I’d take her.”

  His manner relaxed and again the mustache moved with his grin. “But I’m not that way about Hestor. She’s all right. She’s good company, she’s good-looking, and she can dance. For a good time I like her. But even if I was crazy about her, I didn’t think you’d be interested. I thought you two had called it off, had agreed to—”

  “We have,” Murdock said, sitting up and grinding out his cigarette.

  “Then what’s the kick?” Girard asked crisply. His tone got sardonic. “You don’t want her and you don’t want anybody else to have her. That it?”

  Murdock shook his head. He straightened out in the chair, crossed his ankles, stared at them with sultry eyes. “We’re through, definitely.”

  “But you don’t want her running around?”

  “For a while I didn’t care. Right now, the more she runs around, the better I like it.”

  Girard scowled. “I don’t get it. You say you’re not interested and yet—”

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t intereste
d.”

  Girard flipped his hands up, let them flop back to his waistcoat. His voice was annoyed. “All right. You’re interested. Cut out the fencing. In what?”

  “In a divorce.”

  “Oh—” Girard’s eyes widened.

  “She won’t give me one,” Murdock said grimly. “I was a big disappointment to her. We agreed to separate and I’m paying her. I don’t mind that. But I want a divorce—I’m going to get one.”

  “I see.” Girard’s shoulder moved in a shrug. “But why pick on me?”

  “For one thing,” Murdock said slowly, “I wasn’t sure just how you rated her. I wanted to find out if you had any idea at all of marrying—”

  “None,” Girard said shortly. “None.”

  “And for another thing,” Murdock went on as though he had not heard, “you’ve been attentive. I know there have been others, but at the time I wasn’t interested enough to check up. I am now. And I’m tired of getting the short end of the stick.”

  Girard flushed, seemed about to speak. Murdock jerked up in his chair and continued in sharp, aggressive sentences. “You played around with her before the trial. You were out with her last night. You took her home the night of your party and—”

  “You don’t expect to make a divorce action out of that, do you?” Girard snapped.

  “I’ve got a chance.” Murdock lowered his tone, tried to speak reasonably. “There’s nothing personal in it, Girard. I’ve got nothing against you. But I’m going to get a divorce; if you’ve played around and get hooked for—”

  Girard’s laugh was mirthless, sharp. “Talk sense.”

  “I am,” Murdock flared. “And you’re not quite as clear as you thought. I had you followed the night of your party. You took Hestor home, and you went in with her. You were still in there at five-thirty in the morning. Does that make sense?”

  Girard came erect in his chair with a slow, studied movement. For some moments he did not speak, and the two men stared at each other silently, immobile. Girard moved first—his hands. When he spoke, his voice was casual—deliberately so.