“Do you paint, Mr. Casey?” one of them asked.
Casey said he didn’t and for a moment that killed further conversation.
“Or sculpt?” an efficient-looking person with horn-rimmed glasses ventured hopefully.
“I’m a photographer,” Casey said.
“Oh.” The three exchanged glances and one of them tried again. “Portraits?”
“Newspaper.”
That fixed everything up. “How interesting,” they said and drifted off.
It was nearly dark when the last guest had gone and Nancy Jamison closed the door. The maid had started to clean up the room, but Nancy told her to forget it for now and get things in order in the kitchen. Casey, standing wearily by the big easel in the corner, watched her go to the table and pour herself a short drink. She came over to him, glass in hand. “Have a good time?”
He looked at her and grinned, studying the clean young line of her mouth, the smooth skin at her throat. She wore a simple black dress with a touch of white at the neckline and cuffs. Her hair, he saw, was parted at the side and falling softly nearly to her shoulders. She looked tired, and he thought about how he had come here and how expertly she had passed him off as a guest. He found himself admiring her spirit and ready self-reliance and knew that no matter what her story was, he was for her.
“Swell time,” he said. “Only these kind of things are hard on your feet.”
“Yes,” she said, and motioned him to a chair while she sank down on the studio couch. She looked at him, her glance appraising. After a few seconds she said, “How did you find me?”
He told her.
“I see,” she said. “Well—”
“I wanted to find out what you were doing in Perry Austin’s apartment.”
“You’re not a policeman?”
“No. But Perry worked on the Express with me. I think he was killed because he was doing something for me. I want to find out who did it.”
“And you think I did?”
“No, I don’t. But you were at his place last night. You were there this morning. That sort of indicates you know something about him.”
“Does it?”
He made no answer, but waited, knowing she would speak again.
“I wasn’t at his place last night,” she said. “I went there and knocked. I had already turned away when you came up the stairs.”
“How’d you get in this morning?”
She was inspecting her drink. He thought she smiled. “I was very nice to the janitor. I said Mr. Austin had asked me to wait for him. I smiled and fluttered my eyes. He unlocked the door for me.”
“Why?” Casey asked. “Why did you want to get in?”
“I wanted to search it.”
“For what?”
She finished her drink and put the glass aside. She asked if he had a cigarette and he gave her one. She inhaled and picked a piece of tobacco from her tongue before she said, “Was Mr. Austin a friend of yours? I mean, did you think a great deal of him?”
“No,” Casey said. “Why?”
“Because,” Nancy Jamison said, and now her voice was clipped and cold, “Mr. Austin was blackmailing my brother.”
Casey sat up, his face stiffening, incredulous. For a moment he could only stare and then his brows screwed down and he tried to laugh. It didn’t come off because something in the girl’s tone killed it, froze it in his throat.
“You’re crazy,” he said finally.
“No.”
“Not Austin,” Casey said. “Austin was no blackmailer.”
“He blackmailed my brother—or tried to,” Nancy Jamison said flatly.
Casey stood up. He walked round the room and sat down again. It couldn’t be. Nobody on the Express would blackmail anyone. Every news-photographer had plenty of opportunities but—
“I think you’re wrong,” he said, his voice quiet now, measured, serious. “I wish you’d tell me about it.”
“My brother’s in the army. He hasn’t had his commission long,” Nancy Jamison said, and as she went on, Casey realized he had heard the story before. Not exactly this way, not with the same characters, but fundamentally there was nothing new about it.
Her brother, Fred, had been home on leave, had been one of a party of five that had gone night-clubbing. He was an odd man, his own girl having been asked out to dinner with her parents, and he’d been pretty glum about it so he had taken more to drink than he should. Later he had left the party and disappeared, and although he was not quite sure what had happened, he had apparently been picked up by some girl at the bar and had taken her home.
“He remembered that part,” Nancy Jamison said, “but he didn’t know about anything else until he saw the picture.” She hesitated, continued with an effort. “A picture of a girl in negligee sitting on his lap with her arms around his neck. And Fred with his hair tousled and his coat open and— Oh!” She shuddered, clenching her teeth. “You could see he was drunk and didn’t know what he was doing.”
“A frame, huh?” Casey’s voice was sullen. He had known that was coming by the time she was halfway through. But Austin? No. He couldn’t swallow it. “What’s the rest of it?” he said.
“A few days later a man came around to see Fred and showed him the picture.”
“Austin?”
“Yes. That is, I think so.”
Casey’s face lit up. “Hah! You think so.”
“Please,” Nancy Jamison said. “Let me finish. This man came to Fred. I never saw him. He said Fred could have the negative and print for a thousand dollars. Fred came to me because it was the last day of his leave. He had no thousand dollars; neither did I, but I told Fred to tell the man I could get it.
“When me man called up, Fred said he had to return to camp, but that I would pay. He left a number for me to call and I did. Yesterday afternoon late. The man who answered understood the whole business. He said he wasn’t the one who took the picture but that it had been given to him, and if I’d bring the money he’d hand over the negative and print. I wanted to do it then, but he said he was busy and that I should come around twelve or a little after. I told him that was awfully late but he said it was that or nothing— Well, he gave me the address and so I went right out there and asked the lady about him.”
“What lady?”
“Oh—I forgot. The one who has the apartment opposite him. She told me his name was Austin and that she thought he worked for the Express. That’s why I went there, why I was waiting when you saw me. I tried to phone him again later but he wasn’t in that time either.”
For a moment Casey forgot Austin and remembered only his admiration for this girl and her spirit and nerve. “And you went? With that little gun in your pocket?”
“What else could I do?” There was no answer to this and she continued. “But no one answered when I knocked and then I heard you coming up the stairs and—I guess you frightened me off. So I went back this morning. When I couldn’t get in I thought he was out. That’s why I got the janitor to let me in. I thought I could find the picture myself and not have to pay. And when I went in he—he was there on the floor.”
Casey started to interrupt and thought better of it.
“I started to look. I made myself search the room. When I found the desk was locked I—I took his keys from his pocket.”
Casey just stared at her.
“And I’m glad I did,” she said, a sudden defiance in her tone. “Because I found them.”
“Found what?”
“Pictures. A whole stack of them.”
“Wait a minute.” Just thinking of what this slip of a girl had done made Casey a little groggy. He felt as though someone had clipped him on the chin and that these things he was hearing were part of a dream. He went over to the table and poured a swallow of Scotch and downed it. “What kind of pictures?”
“All kinds. My brother’s was there. There were a few more quite like it and others I didn’t understand.”
“What did you do
with them?”
“I took them. I had them in my bag when you came. That’s why I was so afraid.”
“I’ll be damned. I’ll bet you’d have plugged me too.”
“Yes, I think I would have,” Nancy Jamison said.
Casey ran his fingers through his hair. He went over to the mantelpiece and propped an elbow there. He was thinking about Austin now and finding that he could not yet accept that blackmailing theory. There was still no proof but this girl’s word. He found himself studying her aslant, weighing the things she had said. He liked her. Her personality did things to him. And yet—
“Where are those prints now?” he asked.
“In there.” She pointed at the fireplace.
He looked down at the ashes, finding traces of paper ash among the lighter gray of the wood. “All of them?”
“All of them.”
“What about the negative?”
“That’s there too.” She tipped her head and a frown bit into her forehead. “But that was the only one. There weren’t any negatives for the other pictures. There was a print and a negative of my brother in an envelope, and there was an elastic around this and the other pictures, and when I looked through them I found another print of my brother.”
“Just in case, huh?” Casey said disgustedly. “Holding out an extra print.” And then he stared over her head, thinking about that stack of pictures she had mentioned, wondering about the negatives. Suppose they had not all been destroyed, those negatives? What about the pictures that didn’t sell? Not even that racket was a hundred percenter—
Suddenly he straightened. He stared hard at the girl, not seeing her, but something else a long way off. Then he asked for the telephone, a snap in his voice.
Nancy Jamison eyed him curiously, pointing toward an inner hall. He went to a table there and asked for the Express number. When he was connected, he demanded the studio. “Hello,” he said, when Tom Wade’s voice came back to him.
“Hey,” Wade said breezily. “Where are you? Logan’s on his way down. Said he wanted to go over Austin’s desk in case—”
“Austin’s desk?” Casey yelled. He was squeezing the telephone now and his throat was hard and dry. “Are you alone? Then listen. There’s a steel box in that desk. In the right-hand lower drawer. Get it out.… Yes, now. Put it in my desk. Shove it back behind something.… No, not there. That’s where my bottle is. In another drawer. Go on now. Put it away. I’ll hang on.” He waited, realized his hand was sweaty and loosened his grip. When he heard Wade’s voice again some of the stiffness went out of his neck.
“Okay,” he said. “And get this. You’ve never seen that box. You don’t know anything about it, or what he kept in his desk, or how the lock got broke.… Never mind. Just remember what I said … I’ll call back.” He hung up and went into the front room.
Nancy Jamison was standing by the fireplace now, a certain breathlessness in her voice as she spoke. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” Casey said. “A hunch. Have you still got those keys?”
“Why—yes.”
“I’d like to borrow them. I think it’s about time I took my coat and hat too.”
She was smiling a little when she came back with his things. She handed him the keys and he shrugged into his coat.
“Thanks,” he said and saw she was offering her hand, and took it. “I still don’t think you’re right about Austin but I’m going to find out. And anyway, I had a nice time at your party.”
She still held his hand. She looked right into his eyes and he could see how deep and clear and compelling were her own. “I’m glad you came,” she said finally. “I like you.” She walked with him to the door and held it open. “No matter what you find out, I hope you’ll come again,” she said.
Chapter Fifteen: THAT SICKLY FEELING
THERE WAS A RESTAURANT on the corner. It wasn’t much of a restaurant, but it was a place to eat and there was a telephone booth by the cashier’s desk. Casey went in and was waved to a table at the wall by a waiter.
He ordered Scotch and when the drink came, asked for chops and baked potatoes. He drank the Scotch slowly, glancing at the clock over the door. He kept thinking about the steel box in Perry Austin’s desk, and Austin, and the things Nancy Jamison had told him. He kept telling himself she was wrong, yet all the time he knew how very real were the opportunities for blackmail among news-photographers.
The waiter came with the chops and Casey looked at the clock again and went into the telephone booth. He waited impatiently for his connection, a nervousness striking through him until he heard Wade’s voice.
“Has he gone? What about the box?”
“It’s okay,” Wade said. “He wanted to know who busted the desk and I told him I didn’t know. He said maybe it was the guys that busted yours. He searched hell out of it but he’s gone.”
“Good,” said Casey, and relief flowed into the words.
“What’s in it?”
“What’s in what?”
“The box.”
“How the hell do I know?” Casey said. “And listen. Keep your hands off it, understand? I’ll see you later.”
The marceled young man who sat behind the quarter-circle of desk in the dimly lighted lobby still smelled of hair tonic. He took one look at Casey, apparently remembered him from last night and, though his mouth bunched in distaste, said nothing. Casey stepped into the elevator. “Four, Sam,” he said to the Negro operator. “Mrs. Endicott in?”
“Yes, sir,” Sam said. “Yes, sir.”
“Company?”
“No, sir. Least I don’t think so, sir.”
When Louise Endicott opened her apartment door, Casey was standing close. “Hello, Louise,” he said, and moved in, slowly, but wedging himself in the opening so that she had to step back or get pushed.
“Just a minute,” she said coldly.
By that time Casey was already in. He grinned at her. “You remember me, don’t you?” he said, and walked past, leaving her to close the door. He waited for her at the entrance to the living-room.
She came up to him, eyeing him sullenly. She wore a black crepe dress. It had a high neckline but it wasn’t especially modest because it was so tight and sleek around the waist and hips, and bias-cut above for extra room. He didn’t think she wore a brassiere and decided she didn’t need one.
“You’ve got a nerve,” she said.
“You know I have.” He glanced over the living-room and found it enormous. Most of the furniture was oversized; it had to be to keep the scale right. “This is what you had in mind when you used to go out with me, isn’t it?”
“I only went out with you twice,” she said.
“My, how things have changed.”
“What do you want?”
“Five minutes of intimate conversation. And look.” He let one lid come down and his grin was amused but sardonic. “We’re alone. Just skip the grand manner and be yourself, will you? This is old Casey speaking.”
She didn’t want to smile but traces of it appeared in the corners of her eyes. She shrugged and Casey thought she did it well. “All right,” she said, and went over to the divan.
“Was Bernie Dixon here last night?” he asked casually.
She blinked once. “What a question.”
“Was he?”
“Well, really—” She drew herself up.
Casey sighed. “Listen,” he said patiently. “You can’t get haughty with Casey. I knew you when. I’m proud of you. You knew what you wanted and you got it. I’m sorry about your husband and I don’t want to intrude upon your sorrow any more than I have to. All I want to know is—was Bernie Dixon here last night between eight and ten?”
“Does he say he was?”
“He says he was with a woman.”
“Oh.”
Casey sensed the change in her. She wasn’t looking at him, but at something beyond, and now her eyes seemed very wise and thoughtful.
“Was it you?”
“You know Harry Nye?”
“Y-e-s,” she said, and suddenly her mouth was tight and straight.
“Know Perry Austin?”
“I’ve heard of him. I think I may have met him at the Berkely.”
“Okay. Now was Dixon really here? And remember you can always deny it. All I want—”
“Excuse me.” The door buzzer had interrupted Casey and Louise Endicott smiled and rose.
Casey rose with her, stared glumly at her symmetrical back and swinging hips. He walked across the room and came back. He heard the door close and then the voices, Louise’s and a man’s. He was too annoyed at the interruption to listen closely and presently they stopped. When he finally turned and saw Louise she was backing slowly into the room.
Something about the way she moved brought a sudden quickening of his pulse and he started toward her. Then he saw Nat Garrison and Garrison saw him. There was a gun in his hand.
“Well!” Garrison stopped, and a grin twisted his punch-scarred face. “Back up,” he said to Louise. “Ain’t this ducky?”
Louise Endicott stopped a few feet from Casey. Garrison looked from one to the other. He pointed the gun at Casey and his grin went away.
“You don’t care what you do, do you?” Casey said.
“I want my dough,” Garrison said.
“But I don’t know anything about it,” Louise protested.
“I’m telling you. I got five grand coming. I want it.”
“Where do you think she’s going to get it?” Casey said. “Out of her stocking?”
“Shut up, you,” Garrison said. “I’ll get you later.” He paused but his scrambled mind could accommodate but one thought at a time and remained with the one that came last. “They’re still looking for me,” he said.
“Sure,” Casey said. “Why don’t you give yourself up and tell your story?” He heard Garrison make some reply, but only with his ears; his brain was thinking of other things. And the more he thought the more annoyed he became. Who did Garrison think he was, going around with that gun? You couldn’t argue with him. You couldn’t tell what he’d do. It was like talking to a half-wit. He was just as likely to start pulling the trigger as not.
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