Jade Venus

by George Harmon Coxe

  Bacon was immediately interested. He got corroboration from Murdock. He said, “Hmm. In that case you’re invited.”

  “Oh, fine,” the others said. “Two guys from the Courier get front seats and the rest of us get the brush-off.”

  Bacon ignored them and kept walking and Murdock and Gould followed along. Sergeant Keogh was waiting at the door. He was a blocky, blunt-jawed man with a thick, hoarse voice and when he had shaken hands with Murdock he told Bacon the housekeeper and maid were waiting in the kitchen. “The other two dames are in there,” he said, and nodded toward the drawing-room.

  Bacon thought it over and told Murdock and Gould to wait in the other room. “Where’s the kitchen?” he said, and followed Keogh through the dining-room.

  Louise Andrada was sitting on the divan having coffee and a cigarette, and when she saw Murdock and Gould she came to meet them. She wore a dark-blue house coat that trailed behind her and her voice sounded nervous and upset when she said how glad she was they had come. Murdock’s glance went beyond her to Gail Roberts.

  Gail was sitting in a straight-backed chair, staring out the window. She wore a tailored black dress and held a wadded handkerchief in her hand and when he went to her he saw that her eyes were red-rimmed, the long lashes still wet. She looked up at him and then away but she did not speak. When he realized it might be kinder to leave her alone, he squeezed her shoulders gently and stood there a moment.

  “I came out with Lieutenant Bacon,” he said. “He’ll have to ask some questions but I don’t think it will be bad.”

  He went over to Louise and Barry Gould. There was a tray with a coffee urn and covered plates of rolls and toast on the coffee table and he let Louise pour him a cup. He took it black and had a piece of toast and listened absently while Louise asked questions in low tones and Gould tried to answer them. When she turned to Murdock he told her of the telephone call from Bacon and what had happened since.

  The lieutenant came in about fifteen minutes later and was introduced. When he had been properly apologetic he said that Murdock had told him what had happened at the house last night and asked where he could locate Roger Carroll and Carl Watrous. Sergeant Keogh took down the addresses and went away without being told. Presently he could be heard talking on the telephone.

  Bacon sat down and went over in detail the events of the night before, letting the two women tell the story and making notes from time to time. When he was satisfied he said there were some other things he’d like to know. They might not seem relevant but he hoped that they would co-operate so that he might have the proper picture of the background. He turned to Gail and asked whether she was related to the professor.

  Murdock did not listen closely because he was aware of most of the answers. Gail had, he knew, been like a daughter to Professor Andrada since she was fourteen. For Andrada, the fiery, brilliant oracle of Renaissance painting, and Doctor Roberts had been brother professors at the University and the closest of friends. They had named each other in their wills as executors and after the automobile accident which had cost Doctor Roberts and his wife their lives, Gail came to live with Andrada, and Murdock knew how he had come to depend on her.

  Using his own money and keeping what had been left to her intact, Andrada had sent her to finishing school and to Smith, though he was unable to make her go back after the first year. Instead she took a business course and bullied him into making her his secretary. It was about that time that Murdock first met her and though they had never been intimate friends he had run into her from time to time and now, remembering how close she had always been to Andrada, he realized how serious the break over Roger Carroll must have been to make her decide to leave the house for an apartment of her own.

  “I see,” Bacon said when he had his story. “And Mrs. Andrada”—he looked at Louise—“you were living here too?”

  “Temporarily,” Louise said. “I have no near relatives and no place particularly to go, so when I got back from Italy I wrote Uncle Albert from New York. I’d heard a lot about him from my husband and I thought it would be nice to meet him and tell him—well, about things in Italy and what had happened. He asked me to come and stay with him and—”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Oh, I’ve been here a month or so,” Louise said. “I hadn’t planned to stay so long but I hadn’t been able to find anything definite I could do. For a living I mean. I haven’t any income, you see. I did manage to save a few pieces of jewelry and I thought I might try my hand at show business again. Carl Watrous thought he might have a part for me.”

  “Watrous?” Bacon’s tone made it clear the name meant nothing to him. “An actor, is he?”

  “A producer,” Louise said. “He did The Gay Buccaneer and Thursday Nights Off.”

  Bacon said, “Umm,” but remained unimpressed. He shifted in his chair and watched Gould a moment. “How’d you happen to be here last night? Friend of the family, are you?”

  “Well—not exactly.” Gould hesitated. “I came here first to see Professor Andrada when I got back from Italy. I’m doing a book on my experiences in the concentration camp and my escape, and I wanted his opinion on some things and also I had some news about one of his nephews who was in a concentration camp up near Milan. At Binofro.”

  Murdock was familiar with part of the story and as he listened he filled in his background from memory. Gould had worked for the Courier for about a year before the war and Murdock had known him as an experienced, self-assured reporter who dressed well, liked a good time, and usually had one even if he had to borrow here and there to do it.

  He was a gregarious sort and more popular with women than men, possibly because he was good-looking, possibly because he dressed better than most of his associates, possibly because he did things in a grand manner that impressed women more than men, as grand manners always do. He was a brilliant writer when he put his mind to it, but he was not above faking a story when he could get away with it and for that reason he was not as dependable as some of his less-gifted colleagues. But there was nothing wrong with his courage and determination. He was one of the first to get into the war as a correspondent, as a freelance first and later with Mutual Press. He was in on the African show and later, while acting as an observer on a bombing raid, he had been shot down over Northern Italy, and had languished in a concentration camp until the Allied invasion. At that time some Italians had revolted and during the uprising many prisoners had been released. Gould happened to be one of the lucky ones and his accounts of his escape had been given considerable publicity.

  “So you’ve been back about six weeks,” Bacon said. “You didn’t come over with Mrs. Andrada?”

  Gould glanced at Louise and shook his head. “I flew back from England. I got out through France and the underground. After that I spent a couple of months in London.”

  “You’re working for the Courier now?”

  “Not on salary. I do some special stuff—features.” He grinned. “I’m the Courier’s Italian expert.”

  “You’re working on this or you wouldn’t have been out front with those other reporters.”

  “Because I was assigned to it. Because I knew Andrada.”

  A door opened somewhere as Gould spoke and in a moment Sergeant Keogh appeared. “Carl Watrous is out here,” he said, and when he got a nod from Bacon he called down the hall, “In here.”

  Carl Watrous wore another of his hundred-and-fifty dollar suits, a chalk-striped number in dark gray, and double-breasted so that his husky torso seemed even more formidable. His thin hair was brushed straight back and his blue eyes, pale and troubled against the craggy framework of his face, took in all the room in that first glance and then went to Louise. He walked over and held her hand a moment.

  “I just found out,” he said. “What a terrible thing to have happen. Is there anything I can do?”

  Louise shook her head. “Thanks, Carl,” she said. “There isn’t anything now. I just can’t seem to realize—
” She broke off as Bacon cleared his throat and then she said, “Oh, this is Lieutenant Bacon—Mr. Watrous. The lieutenant’s been asking us about last night.”

  Watrous nodded to Bacon and looked for a place to sit down. There was room on the divan next to Louise and he took it. He nodded to Murdock and Barry Gould and gave a worried glance at Gail Roberts; then he reached for a piece of toast and broke it.

  “You were here,” Bacon said, “when this fellow that impersonated Murdock came. What did he look like?”

  It was strictly a throw-away question. Bacon knew all about Erloff from Murdock but he listened while Watrous gave a vague description of the man.

  “You came to see Mrs. Andrada?” he said when Watrous finished.

  “Yes,” Carl Watrous said. “Also I wanted to make an offer for three funny-looking pictures that came with the Andrada collection.”

  “How’d you know they were in the collection?”

  A faint flush crept up from Watrous’s collar. He popped a piece of toast in his mouth. “I didn’t when I left New York. I saw a thing in the paper about the collection and I was coming up to see Mrs. Andrada anyway so I thought I’d like to see the collection. I didn’t know about the three surrealist pictures until I got here.”

  He went on to explain the offer and it was the same story Louise had told Murdock the night before. Bacon’s lids came down and his gaze was bright and direct.

  “You offered him a thousand for the three, huh? I thought they were worthless.”

  “To Andrada maybe.” Watrous sat up and brushed crumbs from his fingers. He met Bacon’s gaze with steady eyes and his voice was flat. “I’m doing a musical. I have to have sets. I spend a lot of money on smart ones. I saw where I could use these three wild pictures in one of those sets. The cost would be an expense of the production and chargeable on my income tax. Also I have a very modern rumpus room and bar in my house in Westchester and I figured those pictures would look very nice in that particular setting when I finished with them in the musical. I figured on killing two birds with one stone and charging it all off on my income tax. I offered him a thousand for the three and when one was stolen I would have bought the other two. I told him so but he wouldn’t sell.”

  It was Bacon’s turn to get a little red around the neck. Watrous’s tone was impatient and curt and it was the A plus B plus C explanation one would give to a child. Furthermore it sounded convincing. Bacon grunted and got ready to say something more but the ringing of the doorbell stopped him. He glanced round, waiting. Presently Keogh appeared. “Roger Carroll,” he said.

  Murdock’s first impression of Roger Carroll was that he was about twenty-eight, around six feet tall and too thin for his height, as though he hadn’t had enough to eat or was not too well. His hair was thick and brown, his nose thin and high-bridged, and his glance was indifferent and hostile as it swept the room—until it found Gail Roberts; then his whole face seemed to soften and he walked quickly to her chair.

  She looked at him and then away and he said, “I’m sorry, Gail. Terribly sorry.” He turned and stepped toward Bacon. “You wanted to see me?”

  Bacon said to sit down and did Carroll know what had happened?

  “I know Professor Andrada was found murdered this morning,” Carroll said.

  “That’s right,” Bacon said. “In his car. In an alley where someone else had driven it.… Where were you last night?”

  “I was at a movie until nearly ten-thirty.”

  “Alone?”

  “With me,” Gail Roberts said.

  Bacon turned in his chair. He looked at her a moment and she looked right back at him and finally he turned and asked Carroll a few more routine questions. Then he said, “You had trouble with Andrada.”

  Carroll hesitated. “Not trouble, really.”

  “The maid says different. He practically threw you out of the house and told you not to come back. He told you to stay away from Miss Roberts but you didn’t.” Bacon hesitated and when Carroll made no reply he continued. “It got so bad that Miss Roberts was going to leave. She was fixing up an apartment. Where, Miss Roberts?”

  “On Blake Street.”

  “Why did he have it in for you, Mr. Carroll?”

  Roger Carroll’s brown eyes were sullen and his mouth, twisted now, was bitter. “He didn’t like the way I painted for one thing.”

  “He used to,” Bacon said and Murdock, listening, once again was impressed by the lieutenant’s ability to get so much pertinent information in such short space of time. “The housekeeper, Mrs. Higgins, says you used to be one of Andrada’s favorites when you were in college. You used to be around here a lot. That’s how you got to know Miss Roberts so well.”

  “I thought we were talking about now,” Carroll said. “Since I’ve been back I did a little commercial stuff for an advertising agency and I’ve been doing a little sketching nights in a place called the Silver Door—for whatever a customer would pay.” Carroll’s mouth dipped a little more. “Andrada thought I was a prime example of a weak-kneed wastrel. He didn’t like anything I did.… Also, I got in a little trouble in Italy, which I don’t imagine helped.”

  Remembering what Louise had said the night before, Murdock sat up and waited for Bacon. The lieutenant came through. “What kind of trouble?”

  Roger Carroll shrugged and reached for a cigarette. “I imagine you could find out, so I might as well tell you. A little black-market trouble. In Rome. In the fall of ’41. A black market in lira. A lot of people did it only I happened to get caught.”

  The scratch of Carroll’s match was loud against the sudden silence. He blew out the flame with smoke and gave Bacon the twisted, humorless smile.

  “They sentenced me to ten years, possibly to make an example and possibly because they did not care for Americans at the time. Anyway, the consul went to bat for me and they reduced the sentence to two years. I had just about finished when the Salerno landings were made. The Germans opened the prisons, some of them at least, and I guess they didn’t know I was an American. I looked up Lou—Mrs. Andrada. I’d known her before and she helped me. I passed as an Italian because no one seemed to give a damn at the time. We made our way to Naples, and her husband was killed there and we stuck it out until the Allies came.”

  Bacon seemed about to say something and changed his mind. He scratched his head and looked at Gail Roberts. “Who inherits Andrada’s estate?”

  Gail said she didn’t know. “You’ll have to ask his attorney,” she said and mentioned the name and address.

  “What about that shipment of paintings, the genuine ones? Must’ve been pretty valuable.” Bacon glanced at Louise. “Were they the professor’s? Where’d he get ’em?”

  “They belonged to the Andrada estate,” Louise said. “Since 1939 when his brother died—my husband’s father—Uncle Albert was really Count Andrada. The whole estate was his to do with as he pleased. It always has been that way—like the title. The art collection was handed down from generation to generation and if the owner needed money he would sell something from the collection. Later he might buy other things when times were good. Apparently Uncle Albert decided to take it all himself.”

  “Because he didn’t want anyone else to have it?” Bacon asked.

  “Because he was an American.”

  The voice was cold and curt and Murdock looked round to see Gail Roberts sitting straight and defiant. “Because he was disgusted with the things his country had done. He didn’t care what happened to the land and buildings that belonged to him, but he wanted the paintings preserved for Americans to look at and enjoy.”

  For a long moment no one said anything. Bacon cleared his throat and eyed Murdock aslant. “I didn’t know they allowed stuff like that to be shipped out of Europe.”

  “They don’t ordinarily,” Murdock said. “But in this case the title was clear and Andrada had already asked us to be on the lookout for the collection and he requested that it be shipped to him so that he could turn it ove
r to the museum if we found it. We were indebted to him anyway for the help he had given us. Ordinarily we move any art objects to a safe place and if we have any cases to open we like to wait and open them in front of the man who originally had charge of the museum or monastery or whatever it is—if we can locate him. Our job is simply to preserve and restore but in this case the rightful owner was here and got an okay from Washington, and since the acting Italian Government—under Badoglio—gave permission, the cases were shipped.”

  “Umm,” Bacon said and stood up. “And now everything is safe in the museum except three phonies that you”—he looked at Watrous deliberately—“wanted to pay a thousand dollars for.”

  Watrous gave him a long, indifferent stare. “They were worth that to me.”

  “One of them—a thing called the Jade Venus—must have been worth more than that. A lot more.”

  The telephone rang in the hall and Keogh went out and answered it. “For you,” he said, and nodded to Bacon. It was a one-sided conversation, what Murdock heard of it, with Bacon’s end consisting mostly of yes and no. When he came back he said he guessed that would be all. He was sorry he had to intrude at such a time but he was sure Gail and Louise would understand. There were a few more questions he wanted to ask Roger Carroll and if Carroll didn’t mind riding downtown with him—

  “Not at all,” Carroll said.

  Bacon started off, then stopped. “Oh, by the way. How do you fellows stand on the draft?”

  They looked at him, everyone in the room. The three men in question exchanged glances, started to speak at the same time and then Carroll got the floor. He was a little red in the face.

  “I’m 4-F,” he said. “Just temporarily, I hope.”

  “I’m still deferred,” Gould said. “I expect to get across again when I finish the book.”

  Watrous cleared his throat and his voice came out sardonic. “I got tossed out. An honorable discharge.”

  “Oh?” Bacon’s brows climbed.

  “I had six months as a private,” Watrous said. “We didn’t get along. Me and the Army. On my thirty-eighth birthday—that was two months ago—they brushed me off. Couldn’t get rid of me fast enough.”