Silent Are the Dead

by George Harmon Coxe

  Casey took a photograph from his pocket, unrolled it, and laid it on the desk. It was the picture he had taken that first night of the killer in the car, the one he had got from Finell’s coat pocket.

  Logan took one look at it and his neck bulged with anger. “Why, damn you!” he snarled.

  “What is it?” MacGrath asked.

  “You had it all the time,” Logan said.

  “No.” Casey shook his head. “What I told you was right—at the time. It’s the shot I took after the first murder.” He told Logan the same story he had told MacGrath earlier, and then went on to explain what had happened to the film holder and how he eventually got it back from Finell.

  MacGrath took the cigar from his mouth and squinted both eyes. “I’ve been thinking about that since you told me,” he said. “Austin never had that picture—except to bring it here and give it to Finell. He was murdered for nothing.”

  Casey did not deny this, but it wasn’t what he thought. It wasn’t his opinion at all. All that morning he had been sitting in the studio, brooding.

  There was a great loyalty in Casey, not only to the Express, but to his profession. He had been a photographer a long time and for all his crabbing and profanity, his clashes with Blaine, his grumbling over the injustices he suffered, he would not have changed jobs with the President. He could never have explained why, of course, because almost everything seemed to be on the debit side of the ledger. Backbreaking work much of the time and often routine, it meant being out in all kinds of weather, crawling out of bed in the middle of the night; it meant lugging a plate case wherever you went and taking chances that even reporters did not have to take.

  That’s how it was. Day after day. Picturing the contemporary drama of life but never thinking of it that way; thinking of it only as a job you liked and always knowing one thing: if you got a picture, no one could ever deny it. Stories could be faked but to get a picture you had to be there. There was no glory, other than this, but there was a kick in walking up to Blaine’s desk once in a while when he had a tough assignment and everyone thought it couldn’t be done—a kick in walking up and slapping down that picture and saying, “What the hell do you care how I got it? This is it, isn’t it?”

  He’d watched the others while he had been sitting there brooding and he knew they all felt the same way. O’Hearn, tough, dependable, a veteran at 30; Klous, the sports man for 20 years, who made $50 a week and was sending his daughter through college; Wade, cocky and irrepressible; Finell, Naherny, Potchek, and Austin—

  Always now there was that faint nausea in his stomach when Casey thought about Austin. He didn’t want these other men who had worked with him to know; he didn’t even want MacGrath to know. What had MacGradi said? That Austin wasn’t his kind of man? How well MacGrath had sized him up. But no one was going to know the truth; no one was going to point a finger at the Express or its photographers and say they’d worked with a blackmailer. Casey was pretty sure now that Austin had not been killed because of that picture which now lay on MacGrath’s desk. He had no proof, but he was convinced that Austin had found something in Endicott’s office and had been killed by Dixon because of it. He looked at MacGrath and answered his statement, not believing what he said but making it sound convincing.

  “How was he murdered for nothing? Once the killer had made his move, he had to put Austin away. He’d committed himself, hadn’t he? He’d made the threat to get the film holder. Austin said he didn’t have it. Would Dixon believe him? Whether he did or not, Dixon was cornered. What could he do? Shove the gun in his pocket and say he was sorry? He’d made his move and he was stuck with it.”

  He watched Logan as he finished to see if the explanation was going over, but he could find no clue in the lean, sober face. MacGrath cleared his throat. “All right,” he said. “What’re you getting at? What’re we here for?”

  “I think I can get Dixon,” Casey said.

  Logan said, “Nuts,” and looked annoyed.

  “Dixon—if your theory is right—hired those two hoods to put me away the night Endicott was killed,” Casey said evenly. “Why? Because he recognized me on the street, thought I may have recognized him, and knew I took a picture.”

  “So what?” Logan said.

  “Why hasn’t he tried to put me away since? It’s over two days now.”

  Logan tilted his head and frowned. MacGrath spoke quietly. “Because nothing happened.”

  “Sure,” Casey said. “He has to figure I didn’t recognize him or I’d have spilled it to Logan. He has to figure that either the picture was no good or something happened to it.”

  “So?” Logan said.

  “So now we’re going to let him find out different.”

  “That thing”—Logan tapped the photograph—“isn’t worth a damn.”

  “But Dixon doesn’t know it. He doesn’t know what’s on that film because he never got his hands on it.”

  MacGrath leaned back and chewed his cigar. Presently he looked down his nose at Casey. “You’re a big guy, Flash. You’d make a good target.”

  Casey grinned because he knew MacGrath was ’way ahead of him; MacGrath was that kind. Logan was still struggling.

  “Can I get in on this?” he asked.

  “The afternoon sheets are carrying the story that you’re looking for Dixon, that you want him for questioning. The city editions will carry something more.” He looked at MacGrath. “You can get the word around—if Logan can’t. Get over the idea that a new witness has been found in connection with the murder of Endicott, new evidence has come to light—I don’t know how you’re going to word it, but just get the story out and make it look like there can only be one answer to Dixon. You can say it’s evidence that has been with-held by a local newspaperman. He’ll know who you’re talking about.”

  “You’re crazy,” Logan said.

  “You think he won’t?”

  “Sure he will. He’ll figure you had the picture all the time but were afraid to produce it. And then he’ll come looking for you because the picture won’t be worth a damn—I mean even if it was a good one—without your testimony. All the picture—the picture Dixon thinks you got—would show is him in a car at night. Not worth a damn. Because it doesn’t prove when it was taken or where.”

  “That’s what I’m telling you,” Casey said. “That’s why I told you I could give you Dixon. He’s got to come looking for me.”

  “He could send somebody else.”

  “I doubt it. You don’t pick up guys for that kind of a job in this town very often. He had two from Jersey and you got them. He did the Nye job himself, didn’t he? He’ll tackle me the same way.”

  “No dice,” MacGrath said. “No. It’s too risky. Why should you stick out your neck?”

  Casey told his lie deliberately and convincingly. “Because it’s my fault Austin’s dead. If I’d had that film holder in my plate case when those hoods stole it from Logan’s car, Austin would still be alive.”

  “That still doesn’t make it your fault. You didn’t know that.” MacGrath threw his cigar away. “No,” he said, and they argued some more.

  But not for long. Logan was half convinced before they started, because Logan was a cop and he knew Casey made sense, that the plan presented the only chance he had of getting his man. “We’ll keep someone with you from now on,” he said.

  “Like hell you will,” Casey said. “And tip our mit that we’re waiting for him? He won’t try it on the street, anyway. He’ll probably try to get me in my rooms.”

  “All right,” Logan said. “We can fix that. Give me a couple of hours to get a telephone or two put in. You got a gun?”

  “Several.”

  “Okay.”

  “No.” MacGrath slapped the desk. “Damned if I’ll let you take that chance.”

  Casey stood up. He leaned stiff-armed over the desk.

  “You’re always yelling about pictures.”

  “No.”

  “You’ll get pictu
res if this works. You’ll get an exclusive story.” His smile remained, watching the reflection of MacGrath’s struggle on his face. “Come on, humor me. You and Logan think up that story.” He glanced at his watch. “It ought to be on the street by four-thirty, hadn’t it?”

  He went out before MacGrath could think of an answer.

  Nancy Jamison had on slacks and a dirty, paint-smeared smock. Her pert young face was free of makeup and smudged on one cheek and the tip of her nose.

  “Hy,” she said cheerfully.

  “Am I disturbing genius?” Casey asked.

  “Genius welcomes the interruption.” She waved him to a chair and he saw the canvas she was working on and her still-life group posed on the table. He cocked his head at the painting.

  “Horrible, isn’t it?” she said, looking for cigarettes.

  “It won’t be when it’s done.”

  She drew a stool over to his chair and sat down, hugging her knees and brushing the lock of hair back again. There were a lot of things Casey wanted to say as he looked down into the warmth and friendliness in her hazel eyes, but he couldn’t seem to get started, so he took out the envelope he’d been carrying since the day before.

  “I’ve got a present.”

  “Oh—how nice.” She opened the envelope and took out the negative and print of her brother. Her smile went away then and her eyes were troubled. “Where did you get them?”

  Casey told her about Austin’s steel box and the negatives;

  “But I got one negative and a print from his desk.”

  “Yes,” Casey said. “You got the original. But from that print he made this negative and this print. Just in case.”

  “Oh. You mean he might have tried to—get more money?” Casey did not answer her and presently she reached behind her and found matches and an ash tray on a coffee table. She burned the picture and dropped the negative in the flames. “Thank you,” she said.

  He said it wasn’t anything, and she looked up at him, for several seconds, steadily, searching his face. “You’re bitter, aren’t you?” she said.

  “Bitter?”

  “About this Perry Austin. He worked with you. You feel it keenly, the things he did.”

  “Yeah,” Casey said finally. “I guess I do. We’ve got seven cameras on the paper and any one of them could have the same opportunity. Most of them make less than Austin did, but you couldn’t buy a picture from them, nor pay them to hold out one.”

  “Did anyone ever tell you what a grand person you are?”

  Casey blinked and then began to blush. “Who?” he said defensively.

  “You,” Nancy Jamison laughed.

  “Ahh—”

  She jumped up. “Would you like a drink?”

  Casey said he would, relieved at the digression. He said he was dying for a drink, and while she was gone a thing that had been in the back of his mind a long time burrowed to the surface and began to irritate him anew. It came from a thing Finell had said—that Perry Austin had come back to the studio that night and done some work with the copying camera. Those films, whatever they were, must have been in Austin’s plate case, since he had not developed them at the studio. He had also taken a few pictures at the Club Berkely. Yet none of these film holders had been in that plate case when Casey had found him dead the following morning.

  At the time, believing that Austin had been murdered because of the film holder containing the picture of Dixon in the car, Casey had assumed that the killer had taken all of those exposed film holders. However, if Dixon had not killed Austin for that, but for some other reason—

  He got up as Nancy Jamison came back with his drink. When he had thanked her he said, “Do you know what a film holder looks like? Did you take any from Perry Austin’s plate case after you had searched his desk?”

  He felt the jolt of her answer before she spoke, because he saw that answer in the recoil of her eyes, the sudden deepening of the color in her throat. “Why—yes,” she said weakly.

  Casey took a long drink and sat down heavily. He put the glass aside and ran his fingers through his hair. He tried to keep his voice matter of fact. “Why?”

  “When I found all those other pictures in the desk, when I realized what sort of person this man was—well, I noticed the plate case and opened it. I know something about cameras. I could tell some of the film holders were exposed and I—I just took them. I didn’t know what they were but I didn’t want the police to come and perhaps find another sordid picture like the one of my brother. I suppose it was some silly impulse but—”

  “What did you do with them?”

  “I still have them. I was going to develop them some time just to see—”

  “Get them.”

  She turned and left the room. When she came back she had four film holders in her hand and a guilty look on her face.

  Casey exhaled noisily. He couldn’t be angry with her, nor was there any point in telling her that if she’d left them alone he could have developed them two days ago. He just bunched his lips and said, “When you search a guy’s apartment you don’t miss a thing, do you?”

  “I’m sorry. It does sound rather silly now. Have I—made more trouble for you?”

  “No,” Casey said. “They probably don’t amount to anything, anyway.” And even as he spoke he thought, This does it. If Dixon had killed Austin for the picture he would have searched that plate case. He didn’t. He didn’t even know he had it. “I was just worried about what happened to them,” he said, and finished his drink quickly.

  Nancy Jamison went to the door with him. “Do they know who killed him yet?”

  “No.”

  “Will you come back again—if you find out anything more?”

  Casey smiled down at her. “You’ve got paint on your nose,” he said. “I’ll probably come back whether I find out anything or not.”

  Her “don’t forget,” followed him down the stairs.

  The afternoon city editions were on the street when Casey got back to the Express. He picked up a News and glanced at a two-column head with satisfaction. It said, Police Seek Dixon, Arrest In Endicott Murder Near.

  He read on until he saw the sentence he was looking for: According to the police, a new witness, thought to be a local newspaperman, has come forward with clear-cut evidence— He folded the paper and went upstairs.

  He tapped the four film holders in his coat pocket, answering Tom Wade’s idle comments without knowing what he said, knowing that he could not develop the films here, that he must wait until he was home. As he got up to leave he told Wade he had an assignment and might not get back. He was at the door when the telephone rang. He waited for Wade to answer it.

  “Just a minute,” he said. “For you, Flash.”

  The voice that came to Casey was low and measured. “Casey? I’ve been reading the papers. Can you talk?”

  Casey said to wait a minute, and motioned Wade from the room, cursing bluntly to make him hurry. “Okay,” he said.

  “Know who this is?” Casey said he could guess. “So you saw me, huh?” Dixon continued. “What were you waiting for?”

  “The picture. I didn’t find it until this morning.”

  “No?”

  “I gave it to Austin that night in Endicott’s office. He brought it over and put it in his desk. You didn’t know about that, huh? Neither did I. I thought you copped it when you knocked him off, only it was in his desk. Tough, huh?”

  “It’s no good without you. It’s only a picture. You have to be around to say where and when you got it. And you’re not going to be around.”

  “Like Harry Nye?”

  “And letting you know in advance.”

  “You scare me,” Casey said. “I took care of your other two boys, I’ll take care of any more you can find.”

  “I’m doing this personally,” Dixon said. “This time it’ll be me, Casey.”

  “Okay,” said Casey. “It’s a date.”

  Chapter Twenty-One: WITH FROZEN NERVES


  THE FOUR FILM HOLDERS that Perry Austin had taken home with him the night of his death yielded eight good negatives. Four of these Casey identified at once as the shots Austin had taken on assignment during the short time he was at the Club Berkely; the other four were of an entirely different nature.

  All four of them were copies of some clippings or, papers, and in negative form Casey could not tell what they meant. The four of the girls at the Club he put aside, and as soon as the others were dry he adjusted the enlarger, took out some 11-by-14 paper and started to work, thinking about his plan and the arrangements Lieutenant Logan had made.

  The plant would be about as foolproof as it could be made. Across the street, in the front room of a boarding-house, there would be a headquarters detective. He’d have a telephone at his elbow and a pair of night glasses within reach. There was no one hiding on the street. The street was open to Bernie Dixon whenever he wanted to come, and it was the same way in the back.

  There was an alley behind the house Casey lived in and this alley was lighted at either end and also in the middle of the block, the back door of Casey’s place being but 30 or 40 feet from this light. There was a fence behind the alley, a small back yard and an old apartment house. On the second floor rear would be another headquarters detective with telephone and glasses. Two blocks away Logan and Manahan would be waiting in a squad car.

  Casey was satisfied. Bernie Dixon would not be scared off by running into anyone on the street. He could enter this house either by the front or back door, but not without being seen by one of the two detectives. The minute he entered, a phone call would warn Casey—an operator at the main office had been assigned to put the call through at once—and Casey would give headquarters a flash to be relayed by radio to Logan. Within two minutes of the time Dixon entered the house Logan, Manahan, and two plain-clothes men would be there. All that was needed now was a final call from Logan to tell him the trap was ready—