Jade Venus

by George Harmon Coxe

  Murdock was supposed to look impressed at this announcement and he did, for Neil Briscoe was one of the best—and most highly paid—lawyers in town.

  “Carroll didn’t hire him,” he said.

  “The Roberts girl probably. Briscoe didn’t say.”

  “You haven’t got enough to hold him, have you?”

  “It’s for the D.A. to say, but I doubt it. We’ve got the shell. If we could get the gun we could tell if the firing-pin was the one that exploded the shell. We haven’t had a report on those rugs yet.”

  Murdock waited. He lit a cigarette and watched Bacon through the smoke. Finally he gave him a wry grin.

  “And what’re you doing?”

  Bacon snorted and his lips dipped. “I’m doing my daily master-minding. I go out and do the leg work and bring these guys in,” he said sourly, “and the D.A.’s staff do the brain work. On important cases, you understand. Let some drunken stevedore brain his wife or knife her lover and old Bacon can handle it but—”

  “You’re jealous,” Murdock said.

  Bacon did not bother to answer and Murdock was not particularly proud of the crack. They sat like that awhile, Murdock staring somberly at the floor and Bacon at his desk; finally the lieutenant fell back on his one and only stimulant. He opened a drawer and took out a stogie. When he had it going he cleared his throat.

  “If you weren’t so damned stubborn,”he growled, “we might get somewhere.” He rolled the cigar between his lips and inspected it carefully and with respect. “I get a murder tossed in my lap and I don’t know anything except a guy was shot and where he was found and about when. I got an empty shell and the usual mess of fingerprints and an idea where the killing was done. But you”—he pointed with the cigar—“why, damn it, you know more about the motive than I do.”

  “How?”

  “How, he says.” Bacon snorted disdainfully. “If the murder ties in with that picture of Venus, why then it looks to me like that’s where we’ve got to start, sooner or later. With your Jade Venus, and the picture or what the hell ever it is you think is underneath it.”

  Murdock thought it over. He’d had that idea in the back of his mind for quite a while. It wasn’t so much that Bacon could help him with the picture as it was the opportunity of talking to someone he could trust, of hearing his words, of having a chance to examine them with his ears instead of only his mind. He slumped a little lower in the chair. He sighed.

  “All right,” he said.

  “Ahh.”

  “Just between the two of us—for now. And only because if anything comes out of it you’ll probably be the one that has to do most of the work.”

  “Don’t I always?” Bacon said.

  Murdock went back to the things he had told the lieutenant that morning about his idea of an international market in stolen art treasures. “Those things the Germans have taken are going to turn up in Spain and Portugal and Switzerland—places like that—and a lot of them will stay there for good. Those we can’t do anything about. We do hope to do something about things that are brought into this country and we want to grab as much as we can before it leaves Europe.”

  He pulled up a little in his chair and chose his words carefully.

  “The thing is, not all of this black market in art will be done by Germans. In any country there are those who put material gain above the national interest and right now I’m talking about Italy. There were three Andrada brothers. They were the sons of Professor Andrada’s brother who died in ’39. Angelo was the oldest. He was as anti-Fascist as he could openly be and when we landed in Africa he could begin to see the handwriting on the wall, and he must have known, from the way the Nazis had looted other countries, that they would do the same to his country when they finally retreated.

  “The Andrada brothers had a stake in the paintings from their place at Venatra—the shipment that came the other day. But Angelo wanted also to protect the treasures in some of the museums and monasteries. He didn’t dare fool with the bigger and better known places, but he did start going around the countryside and talking to the various directors and curators of these smaller collections. I don’t know what he told them but it isn’t hard to guess. They respected Angelo Andrada. They knew that if we landed in Italy the Nazis would rob them before they left and I think Angelo Andrada and his brothers convinced these people that the thing to do was hide their treasures while they could—until we could come and recover them and restore them to the rightful owners.”

  He continued thoughtfully: “I began to hear things as we moved up in Italy, a statement here and there, a piece of a story, that told me what had happened. You see, we had lists of paintings and art objects in many of the museums and monasteries and private collections—a thing that Professor Andrada helped us with—and at first when we found them gone we thought the Germans had taken them.”

  He glanced at Bacon. “Of course, in many places that was really what had happened. But there were enough bits of rumor going around to make me wonder about some of the others. Some of the places were destroyed; many of the men originally in charge were gone or dead. But I heard about the Andrada brothers. A villager would remember helping the brothers carry stuff out of a monastery or a private house, another helped build cases and waterproof them, another dug holes at night and could not remember where. Finally we found a man who had a private collection and he told us of entrusting the whole thing to Angelo Andrada. He had no idea where it was because Andrada’s theory was that once the Nazis learned what had been done, they would try to locate the hiding-places and therefore a man who knew nothing could tell nothing.”

  Murdock got out a cigarette and turned it in his fingers. “Well, somehow the Germans found out that Andrada was the key to these missing collections. He must have known the risk he took, but he took it. That’s why they put him in a concentration camp; that’s why he died there—because he wouldn’t talk.”

  Bacon’s cigar had gone out. He said, “Then no one else knows where this stuff is buried?”

  Murdock shook his head. “Angelo had to make some other provision. Here’s what I think happened. A badly wounded Italian was brought to a field hospital one day. He’d been hit by shell fragments and was dying and it was hard to tell when he was delirious and when he wasn’t from the things he said. The point is, he kept talking about some painting and so the doctor finally sent for me. I talked with him. He kept speaking about three paintings he had made, but mostly he talked about one of these. He repeated one thing more than anything else, a story of some maps he had made and a picture called the Jade Venus which he had painted over them. That’s about all I got from him except his name and where he lived. It didn’t mean too much then but I checked up and found he really was a painter and came from the village of Venatra.”

  “I’m listening,” Bacon said.

  Murdock had paused; now his voice was morose. “The next day I stopped one,” he said. “Not too bad. A hole in my thigh and a clip on the head that put me out for twenty-four hours. I didn’t come to until I was on my way to Sicily and it was six weeks before I got out of the hospital. I had a leave coming but I wanted to get back to Italy. I’d had a lot of time to think, to put together the scattered things I’d heard until they made a proper pattern. When I got back I found that Bruno Andrada—the youngest brother—had turned up.”

  He said, “I didn’t see him. They didn’t know where he was then, but he had come forward with the hiding-place of the Andrada collection. The professor had already been asking for it, as I told you before, and when our men found it and checked it, Bruno got busy and got the necessary permission from the acting government. The shipment was made two weeks before I got there. That’s when I found out that in the collection were three obviously cheap oils which Bruno said one of his brothers had bought. He said they might as well remain in the collection.” Murdock paused, continued deliberately: “The description of those three that I got from men who saw them convinced me that these were the pi
ctures the dying painter had told me about. One of them was a modernistic painting of a jade Venus.”

  Bacon had heard a lot of stories in his thirty years with the police department. Those stories had to do with murder and sudden death and intrigue and passion and the plans of men no longer sane. Many of those stories were wild but few impressed him any more. This time he was impressed. He was sitting up, leaning slightly forward, his stogie forgotten. He was intent on every word and when Murdock finished he swallowed and blinked. He said:

  “You think Bruno knew about that map?”

  “I think all three brothers knew. Angelo may have been the only one to know the locations of the places where the other stuff was hidden—the things that had been collected from museums and monasteries—but even he would have to have maps of some sort. He couldn’t carry them on him because if he was searched—and he must have expected to be eventually—they would be found. So I think he hit upon the idea of having them drawn on canvas and painted over. I think he had three paintings made, two of them blinds for the third so that it would not look too funny if some outsider discovered the collection. And I think the reason those paintings were put in the Andrada collection was because all three brothers would know where to find the Jade Venus and the maps. If one died or was killed the others could come forward at the proper time, and we’d dig up the stuff and return it.”

  “Then why didn’t Bruno—”

  “Because I think Bruno turned rat. Angelo died in a concentration camp. Donoto was killed in Naples. Bruno had the key to everything—and yet the Andrada collection was not even his. By laws of inheritance it came to his uncle, the professor, leaving Bruno nothing, and when he realized that by playing cozy he could have a share in the millions of dollars’ worth of art work that had been hidden away—well, it was too good a chance to pass up. All he had to do was figure the best way to cash in.”

  Bacon put his stogie on the edge of the desk. His brows were bunched now and his gray eyes were perplexed.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “You’re going a little fast for me. If your theory is right about the painting—and it looks like it is from what’s happened since last night—then Bruno knew it was in the cases with the Andrada collection. Then why the hell didn’t he get this Venus thing and keep it?”

  “Two reasons,” Murdock said. “First, the picture was not his but Professor Andrada’s. He couldn’t ask us for one picture out of the collection; it would look suspicious and we wouldn’t have allowed it anyway. Second, he couldn’t know the artist who painted it was dead. If the guy turned up with his story of the maps and the picture and Bruno had it, it would be too bad. In fact, Bruno’s best bet until the war was over was to get that picture safely to this country, and the best way of all was to let it come as part of the collection.”

  “Okay,” Bacon said. “I’ll buy that. And I’m beginning to see why you’re so sold on George Damon. Damon was in Italy before the war. I knew he was collecting paintings and I knew he got some valuable ones somehow because he had a little show once and asked for a man to guard the place—imagine the nerve of that bastard.”

  “He bought art in Italy,” Murdock said, “and it’s reasonable to assume that Bruno met him there or knew about him and how he worked. And Bruno also must have known that disposing of the treasures represented by that map would be no one-man job—even years after the war. He could get to the buried things represented by the maps but how could he dispose of them without money and backing and someone on the outside who could line up an organization to peddle the loot. He had no money—he wasn’t expecting the professor to die and leave him the estate—and he could not send the Jade Venus directly to Damon—”

  “So he sent him a letter,” Bacon said. “How?”

  Murdock put out his cigarette and thought a moment, his dark gaze remote. “There was no mail going out of Southern Italy at the time and if there was he wouldn’t trust a thing like that to a censor, even with invisible ink between the lines. But there are other ways. A personal messenger—a soldier who didn’t know what the score was, a merchant seaman, plenty of ways for a smart man to figure. All he had to do was get the letter off and give it time to get here before he came to us and told us about the Andrada collection.”

  “Damon was waiting for it,” Bacon said thoughtfully. “Yeah. It makes sense. All he had to do was get the Venus picture with its secret maps, wait until a couple of years after the war, and then get to work with Bruno. If there was millions at stake, like you say, Damon is a lad who would know what to do.”

  “He went to Professor Andrada’s the other morning and made sure the picture was there,” Murdock said. “He lined up Erloff and Leo and, when the maid tipped him off about the telegram I sent, figured the simplest way to steal the picture without any trouble. The thing was, he didn’t know Andrada knew me.”

  “And he didn’t know he was grabbing a copy—if it was a copy.”

  Murdock thought of something else. “What about that maid?”

  Bacon spread his hands. “Nothing about her. She hasn’t left the house. Or hadn’t, the last I heard.”

  Murdock rose and picked up the telephone. He gave the number of the Andrada house and after a wait, Mrs. Higgins answered.

  “Gail?” she said. “Why—yes, but she’s gone to her room. She—she was all in, poor dear, and the funeral is tomorrow and—”

  “Never mind,” Murdock said. “I just thought if—” He hesitated. “Is Mrs. Andrada in?”

  Mrs. Andrada was out. She had gone out around six-thirty. No, she hadn’t said where she was going.

  Bacon was watching Murdock when he hung up. He waited until the photographer straightened his cap and began to button his coat. “Now what?” he said.

  Murdock said he didn’t know and his glance was darkly brooding. “You wanted the story and you got it. And you’re a detective, aren’t you? Go ahead, solve something for me.”

  Bacon retrieved his cigar and gave Murdock a sardonic, weary smile. “We will,” he said. “I hope. Keep thinking. I’ll let you know if anything happens with the maid.”

  Murdock went downstairs and got Barry Gould out of the penny-ante game in the press room and told him about calling the house.

  “I thought I’d stop by and see if Carl Watrous was in,” he said.

  Gould said fine. He said Watrous was quite a guy and maybe he’d give them a drink.

  Chapter Eight

  THE LURE OF FINE ART

  THE RALEIGH was a small, but expensive apartment hotel near the river and when Murdock called Watrous on the house phone Watrous told them to come up. He was waiting for them at the door as they came along the fourth-floor hall, and he shook hands and said he was glad they stopped by.

  “Louise is here,” he said. “Maybe you can cheer her up.”

  It was a corner suite, the furniture modern but comfortable-looking, with big windows in the living-room that overlooked the river. Louise was sitting on a maroon divan with straight wooden sides and deep cushions three feet square, and in her plain black dress her blond beauty seemed even more striking than Murdock remembered.

  “Hello,” she said and lifted a hand in salute. “Surprised, aren’t you? I suppose I am a callous hussy, really.”

  “We had dinner here,” Watrous said. “I talked her into it.… Here, just chuck your coats over there. Sit down. You’ll have a drink, won’t you?”

  He stepped to the doorway and pushed a mother-of-pearl button. “I told her it was no good staying in that house and moping. After all, Andrada wasn’t her father and she’ll do herself more good getting out for a few hours than any other way.”

  “Sure,” Barry Gould said. “Why not?” He went over and sat down beside Louise and selected a cigarette from a pack on the coffee table. “Murdock phoned the house. Mrs. Higgins said Gail had gone to bed and you were out.”

  Watrous pushed a chair up for Murdock and told him to sit down. “What about that Venus picture? Get what you wanted?”


  Murdock took a breath. The question was beginning to gall him because always he had to say the same thing. He managed a faint grin and shook his head.

  “Apparently it was a copy.”

  “Oh?” Watrous pushed up his brows. “You figure it had been painted over an old master or something? And it hadn’t.”

  “Something like that,” Murdock said, and was glad the arrival of a waiter forestalled further speculation.

  “You know where the liquor is,” Watrous said. “Bring it in but first get us some glasses and soda and ice—plenty of ice.”

  The waiter went out. Watrous walked over to the windows and looked out at the lights across the river. He still wore his gray chalk-striped number and he was still a big man. His hair was long in back to make up for the scarcity on top and when he turned Murdock noticed he wore a plain white shirt with a big knot in his cravat.

  “What about the murder?” he asked. “There’s not much in the papers.”

  “I don’t think they know much,” Gould said. “I understand they’re holding Roger Carroll—temporarily.”

  “Well,” Louise said, “I’m sure he didn’t do it.”

  Gould gave her a sidewise glance. “You heard Murdock say the picture we got at the Art Mart was a copy.”

  Louise, in the act of reaching for a cigarette, hesitated, then continued reaching until she had one.

  “What has that to do with Roger?”

  “He’s a painter, isn’t he?”

  “Nonsense.” Louise tapped her cigarette vigorously on the back of her hand. “If you’re suggesting that Roger made a copy of the painting Uncle Albert had in his studio, I think you’re slightly cracked.” She put the cigarette in her mouth and waited for Gould to offer a light.

  “How could Roger copy it when Uncle Albert wouldn’t even let him in the house?… Thanks,” she said when she had the light. She picked a speck of tobacco from her tongue. “You know, I feel terribly sorry for Roger. He had a rotten time of it in Italy, actually. I suppose it was his own fault, but he really had talent.”