Murder for Two by George Harmon Coxe

wouldn’t break things, he’d search quickly and run.
    That damn Logan , he thought. If it hadn’t been for him I would have been here .
    Then he thought of something else and strode from the room, annoyed that he hadn’t thought of it before. At the elevators he pushed the button, held it with his thumb, pushed it twice more.
    â€œI heard you the first time,” Al said, and yawned in Casey’s face.
    â€œWho’s been up in the studio?”
    â€œWhat do you mean, who’s been up?” Al said. “Wade was here until—”
    â€œWho else? Who that you know didn’t belong?”
    â€œOh,” Al said, eyes brightening at last, “a dame was up. She asked for you and—”
    â€œA blonde? Young, with a camel’s-hair coat.”
    â€œYeah.”
    Casey took a breath. Things were slightly mixed up inside his head and he wanted to get them straight.
    â€œWhen? What did she say?”
    â€œShe asked were you here—that was around a quarter of one or so, I guess—and I said you weren’t and she said could she go in the studio and wait.”
    â€œWhen did she leave?”
    â€œShe left with Wade. About a half hour ago.”
    For a second or two Casey felt better. The first quick thrust of apprehension went away. If Karen Harding was with Wade she’d be all right.
    â€œThere must’ve been somebody else,” he said. “Think, damn it!”
    â€œI don’t have to think,” Al said and yawned again. “Two guys.”
    Casey said, “Oh,” slowly, ominously.
    Two men had tied up Helen MacKay and searched Rosalind Taylor’s apartment. One of those was probably a murderer. If Lawson had anything to do with it, and if there was some good reason why Henry Byrkman did not want to have his picture taken, he could have phoned Lawson. That much could be figured. And that scene in Lawson’s office—
    â€œWas one of them a big blond guy?” he asked.
    â€œOne of ’em was big,” Al said. “Seems like he could’ve been blond. He had his hat on but—yeah, maybe he was.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œAbout twenty minutes ago.”
    â€œWhen’d they leave?”
    â€œJust a little bit ago. You couldn’t have missed them by more’n three or four minutes.”
    â€œDid they ask for me?”
    â€œYeah. I told ’em you weren’t in. I told them there was nobody in the studio but they said they’d wait. And then they didn’t.”
    Casey went back down the corridor, his head bent and brow corrugated. He sat down at his desk, his rage at the desecration of his property still smoldering, but tempered now with doubt. There was, he saw, a reason for the searching of his desk since there were two pictures—the one of Byrkman and the one of the blond bruiser—that might be wanted. He could not, however, find any reason why Karen Harding should have come here at that hour.
    Presently he gave up trying to find a reason and looked once more through his desk. He found nothing missing. He glanced at the wastebasket and the fragments of his ruined plates. There was a crumpled piece of paper on the floor near by and he retrieved this and opened it idly, seeing the writing on it, turning it around so he could read it. When he saw it started Mr. Casey , he sat up fast.
    I waited until one-forty but you didn’t come, so I put a picture in the center drawer. If it’s not too late, will you phone me at Center 9862—Kay Harding .
    Casey spread the paper on the desk and read it again, knowing now that this had been left for him. In a prominent place, probably, and that meant the two men who had come later had read it.
    So what? he thought.
    Suppose they had. They didn’t know who Kay Harding was, did they? Only—he opened the drawer—where the hell was the picture she’d left? What picture? She hadn’t taken any pictures except the one of