Read Online Silent Are the Dead by George Harmon Coxe - Free Book Online

semi-darkness of the room lay a man, his topcoat bunched about his waist, his hat half on and half off his head.
    Casey sucked in his breath and stepped forward, going to one knee. The man was on his side, his head on one outstretched arm. “Finell!” he breathed.
    â€œGood God!” Wade said. “What—is he—”
    He didn’t finish the question but Casey knew what he meant and got the hat off and felt a wrist and said, “No. He’s alive.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter with him?”
    Worry and anxiety made Casey’s voice ragged and stiff. “How the hell do I know?” He got his arms under Finell’s knees and shoulder, lifted him easily. “Get his coat off.”
    The man’s arms hung limp and it was a simple matter for Wade to slip off the topcoat; then Casey carried Finell into the lighted anteroom, ordered Wade to make a bundle of the coat, and stretched out the inert form on the floor, the coat under his head. That was when he saw the ugly bruise near the top of the skull and knew that Finell, the redheaded photographer that everybody liked, had been slugged.
    â€œGet on the phone,” he said. “Get a doctor up here.”
    And even as he spoke he knew that this thing that had happened to Finell was tied up with him—with his stolen plate case, and jimmied desk, and the picture he had kept because he thought he was being so smart.

Chapter Seven: A COUPLE OF HOODS
    T HEY WATCHED THE DOCTOR examine Finell—Casey and Wade and Blaine and the two ambulance men who stood in the doorway. Wade was hunched over in a chair, his elbows on his knees, his round face still pale and miserable. Blaine paced the floor in tight little circles, his hands behind his back and his thin, angular features tight and hard. Casey stood over the doctor, legs spread, fists thrust deep in his coat pocket. No one said anything; no one had said anything in the past three or four minutes.
    â€œI think he’ll be all right, but we never know about head injuries until we get some X-rays. Probably only a concussion—you say he had his hat on and that may have saved him from a fracture—but I can’t be sure.”
    â€œHow long will he be our?” Casey said.
    â€œI can’t tell that either. Five minutes, five hours, a day.” He shrugged and put on his coat, nodding to the ambulance men who came forward and lifted Finell gently to the stretcher.
    â€œWe’ll go with him,” Casey said. He looked at Wade. “You take my car and I’ll go along in the ambulance.”
    He started for his coat and Blaine took his arm. “Why would anyone slug him?”
    Casey looked down into the narrowed gray eyes. “He must have walked in on somebody who didn’t belong here.”
    Blaine watched the stretcher being carried out. He told the doctor to see that Finell had the best of every-thing, but he still held to Casey’s arm. “Let Wade ride the ambulance,” he said. “You can go along in a few minutes.”
    Casey thought it over and nodded to Wade. “Okay. Take his coat with you. I’ll be out.”
    Blaine waited until they were alone. “What would anybody want to slug him for?” he asked again.
    Casey thought he knew but he couldn’t tell Blaine the whole story and there was another possibility. He asked about it. “What was his assignment? When did he leave here?”
    â€œI called him about ten-forty. A fire in the South End.”
    Casey went to Finell’s plate case—they had found it in the printing-room—and opened it. There were two film holders exposed, indicating Finell had taken four pictures. That they were here proved that Casey’s alter native was wrong; Finell had not been slugged because of them.
    â€œSomebody broke into my desk tonight,” he said, and showed Blaine the damaged lock. “I think Finell walked in on the guy—or guys—that did