Jade Venus

by George Harmon Coxe

  KENT MURDOCK PAID OFF THE CAB at one end of Scollay Square and stood for a moment trying to recapture a mental map of the myriads of streets, and alleys that passed for streets, that made up the back of the Hill where Tony Lorello lived.

  Off to the left the Square was almost dark but not empty. Light from a corner drugstore spilled across the sidewalk to the pavement and farther down on the opposite side was an all-night restaurant and two cubbyholes that passed for sandwich bars. Wherever there was light, men stood on the curb in little clusters, poorly dressed, dirty- necked men, mostly, though here and there he saw someone in uniform.

  Behind him a woman hurried by, walking close to the buildings, and a small sedan, rolling slowly in the rear, picked up speed when it passed him. He saw it slow down opposite the woman and could hear, distantly, a voice hail her. The car kept pace with her a half block, then picked up speed noisily and was gone.

  He walked back to the corner and glanced at the street sign. Ahead of him, cobblestone paving scarcely the width of a car and flanked on each side by a narrow walk, mounted stiffly in the darkness. He turned his back on the Square and started up.

  The slope was immediately steep. The buildings were narrow and the rooftops made jagged steps against the sky. He passed blackened doors and narrow windows, darkly empty now, where garlic and dried vegetables and advertising cut-outs were displayed and he read the names painted on the glass— Zucchi and D’Andrisso and one that simply said, Groceries.

  At a corner halfway to the top he found another sign and peered up at it until he could make out the white letters against the blue metal background. He could see, now, the dome of the State House and it was lighter up there so that it made a golden gleam in the sky. He turned right and now the slope was gentle for a little way; then he found the number he wanted, tacked to a wooden door.

  The knob turned easily and he found himself in a tiny vestibule and when the door closed he was in utter blackness and had to strike a match to see the mailboxes on the wall. He found Lorello’s name on one but there was no number on the box. Only its position, the last on the left, suggested that the rooms were either on the ground floor or the third.

  He stepped on the match as he opened the inner door and there was light here, from a bulb on the second-floor landing, so that he could see the layout of the hall. The stairs lay against the right wall and were by-passed by a narrow corridor that lost itself in darkness somewhere beyond. There was a door on the left and one on the right in front of the stairs and when he had glanced at the cards he started up.

  The steps were bare. The hollows were even and rounded and the ancient bannister was scarred and blistered. The air was stale and close and smelled of fried onions until he reached the second floor and then the odor of something like cabbage or cauliflower took over.

  There was no light on the third floor but the two facing doors were so close to the stairs that Murdock could read the printing on the cards. Lorello’s was on the right and he knocked as loud as he dared.

  He had seen, climbing the stairs, that there had been no light under the door and now, when he had knocked again, he studied the lock. The door itself looked sturdy but the frame and casing were more modern and flimsy and he saw that it would be a simple matter to slide a strip of celluloid into the crack adjacent to the lock and wedge the spring bolt back—if he had the celluloid. He took out his pocket knife. The blade was long enough and he knew it would work. It would leave a scar in the woodwork, but he did not worry about that; what made him hesitate was the uniform he wore.

  It was not, he realized, like being a civilian and working for a newspaper. He had, in the past, taken chances like this at times but usually with the knowledge that if he got in a jam he had T. A. Wyman and the Courier’s influence to back him up. It was different now. The uniform meant something more. It was not a question of being on his own, of taking chances that would not ordinarily bother him.

  He bottled up his worries and put them behind him. He slipped the knife-blade in the crack and pried and pushed until he felt the sloping bolt; then he eased it back until he could turn the knob with his free hand and enter.

  When he had the door closed he felt along the wall and found a switch. A floor lamp near an inner doorway exploded light into the room when he flipped the switch, and without waiting to inspect this room he headed for the doorway.

  There was a short hall here, with a small bedroom opening off one side. At the end was a larger room and without turning on the light he could see the outlines of the stove and sink and kitchen table. There were two doors in the opposite wall. One gave on a closet and the other opened on a small landing big enough for an icebox and a garbage can. From the landing narrow steps, walled in and with no handrail, wound tightly down into darkness. Murdock stepped back and left the kitchen door unlocked before he went back to the front room.

  Two windows overlooked the narrow street and he pulled the curtains down and drew the monk’s cloth drapes in front of them; only then did he look about.

  He stood in a good-sized room with painted blue walls and ivory trim. There was a studio couch along one wall, two worn, over-stuffed chairs and a console radio; there was an upright piano in the corner with a lot of music sheets on the rack and stacks of others on a gate-legged table which stood open. There was also a cheap, flat-topped desk and it was to this that Murdock turned.

  What he found in the drawers was disappointing. Mostly they were filled with orchestrations, and old copies and tear-sheets from Variety and some of the newer swing magazines. There was one drawer that held letters and old bills and receipts but none of these interested Murdock and he finally stood up.

  “You’re probably nuts,” he said, half aloud. He stood that way for a minute or so, his hands deep in his trench coat pockets and his cap pushed back. There was a film of moisture on his forehead. “Even if he brought a letter to Damon he—”

  He wheeled abruptly and went into the bedroom. There was a chest of drawers here, a small table beside the ancient brass bed, a single straight-backed chair. Murdock went to the chest and started pawing through the drawers. Under the shirts in the second one his fingers touched paper, folded paper. He took this out and carried it back to the lighted living-room.

  He saw then that there were two sheets of plain, bond writing-paper. When he unfolded them he saw that the top one was a letter, neatly written in ink. The sheet beneath this was also covered with writing, but this bore no salutation and the words were smaller and more cramped, though the spaces between the lines were the same width as the larger writing on the top sheet. He saw this much; he saw that the top sheet said: Dear George Damon. He got that far before he heard the sound of steps upon the wooden stairs.

  For an instant he stiffened, listening hard and holding his breath. The steps came steadily on, louder now and more distinct, the progression so uneven that he could not tell whether one person was climbing upward in the hall or two.

  Then he moved, quickly, softly, not to the lightswitch which would make a noise, but to the floor lamp. He took a last look down the hall to the kitchen, took hold of the hot bulb and unscrewed it until darkness engulfed him. He tiptoed swiftly down the hall and through the kitchen, feeling his way past the stove and sink. He got the backdoor open and then turned. He waited until he heard a key scratch in the front lock; then he stepped out on the landing and pulled the door behind him.

  It took him a long time to reach the ground floor. The stairwell was pitch black, the steps narrow and steep. He had, literally, to feel his way down and when he finally unlocked the back door and stepped out into the night he was breathing hard and his heart was pounding.

  There were bricks under his feet now but he did not know where he was until he put his hands out and stepped directly forward and found a brick wall ahead of him. He felt along this and found a window; then he knew he was in some sort of alley about the width of a pushcart.

  He started along this to the right. He could see the vague r
ectangle that marked the end of it, but only near the top. The bottom where he was remained lost in blackness, and he stumbled over a barrel and scraped his shin on a box while behind an unseen window a dog barked at his clumsiness. By keeping to the middle of the passageway he had no more trouble and found the gate at the end and stepped out on the street that he had climbed a half hour before.

  Down at the edge of the Square a car went silently past the entrance of the street. Somewhere off to the left he could hear the sound of a car in gear as it labored up the hill. Then there was silence and he grinned at himself in the darkness and wiped the perspiration from his sweat-band—until he remembered the letter in his pocket. He put his cap on and walked up the hill to the corner, swung right, and came again to the house where Tony Lorello lived.

  He’ll talk now, he thought. Either to me or to Lieutenant Bacon.

  He was sure-footed as he went through the darkened vestibule this time. He climbed the stairs without hesitation and knocked on Tony Lorello’s door, leaning close to see if he could hear anyone moving inside.

  For just an instant he thought he could pick out some faint sound, but was not sure and knocked again. Then he thought of something else. Suppose Tony had not come alone? Suppose he’d brought a girl with him?

  He leaned close to the door again and called out. He tried the knob again. Finally he turned and went down the stairs and out on the street. Stubbornly he made his way back to the wooden gate that shut out the alley. He pulled it open and started along the inky canyon. He covered perhaps twenty or thirty feet and then, unaccountably, he stopped.

  One instant he had been intent upon just one thing: going back to Tony Lorello’s place and having his say; the next brought doubt and indecision and he stood near the brick wall and argued with himself. Again it was the thought of the uniform that decided him.

  He had taken a chance once and gotten away with it. He thought he had what he wanted in his pocket. In any case he had no business climbing those stairs at this hour and sneaking in Tony’s back door, not when Tony had already refused to answer his front door. No matter what was in those sheets he now had, Tony could make it unpleasant for a uniformed officer and—

  The sound was sharp, not loud but somewhere close by, a clicking sound that came again as Murdock listened. It came from his right and he peered that way and felt the wall against his back and flattened against it, the sudden premonition of danger an actual, physical force that held him motionless and rigid.

  It was nothing that he saw; it was the way he felt: coldly tense, with every nerve straining. He stood that way two seconds and thought what he had heard was some sound that came not from the alley but inside some house. Then he heard it again. Not that first noise, another, the quick light tap of leather on stone, the steps of someone in the alley.

  He stood quite still, feeling the stiffness in his thighs and the sudden prickling of his scalp. He knew now that the sound he had first heard had been the furtive opening of a door. He nearly called out. He started to and some instinctive power he could not ignore would not let him. He listened and waited for the unseen one to pass before he realized that the steps were getting fainter.

  For another moment he considered following those steps. When he realized he could not do it silently, he discarded the idea. Almost at once he started to relax, and when he did, when he had a chance to think, he felt sheepish and ashamed, a little annoyed that his instincts had so aroused him.

  He turned and started back the way he had come, aware now that there was still a faint tremor in his legs. “Brother,” he muttered under his breath, “you were scared.”

  And he could not understand why. Not from the blackness nor the alley nor an unseen character and steps that moved away from him. He did not know whether the man had come from the door he was about to use, nor even if it was a man.

  He opened the gate and stepped out on the sidewalk. Behind him, in the distance, he heard a car start and far away there was a rumble of trucks across the bridge. He lit a cigarette and was still annoyed at his imagination and his fears. He started down the street toward the Square.

  Chapter Eleven

  THE RELUCTANT ARTIST

  LIEUTENANT BACON TELEPHONED MURDOCK the next morning while he was having breakfast in his room.

  “It looks like one of your hunches paid off,” Bacon said. “We followed that maid at the Andrada house.”

  Somewhere inside him a nerve tingled sharply and Murdock was instantly attentive.

  “Within a block or so of the elevated?”

  “Yep.” Bacon said and mentioned the address.

  Murdock visualized the location and hope galloped along with his thoughts. “Brick sidewalk out front?”

  “Red brick. Five wooden steps, a porch, another step, and a vestibule. You want to come along?”

  “Sure.” Murdock started to hang up and then a new and disturbing thought struck him. “Hello,” he yelled. “Wait.”

  “Yeah,” Bacon said. “Now what?”

  Murdock examined the thought with thoroughness and was convinced.

  “You’d better go without me.”

  “What?” Bacon’s indignation vibrated in the receiver. “Well, how do you like that? It’s your story and your complaint and now—”

  “But look—”

  “You used to fight for a chance like this,” Bacon said. “You used to wear me down.”

  “I can’t identify the man who was in the house,” Murdock said, “but if you find the room I told you about, take the glass out of that window. It’ll have my fingerprints on it and prove I was there.” He told how he had pressed his hand against the pane and then he listened and Bacon was silent.

  “It’s the only evidence we’ll have that I was there,” Murdock said. “It’ll stand up in court. If I go with you and you make a haul, this guy may say we planted those prints today. If I don’t go, you’ve got him.”

  Bacon remained silent for another few seconds; then he sighed loud enough for Murdock to hear.

  “You always did think of things,” he said, respect in his tone. “Did I ever tell you, you might even get to be a better detective than a camera? Okay, I’ll let you know.”

  Murdock hung up. He rolled the breakfast table over by the door and got the sheets of paper he had taken from Tony Lorello’s bedroom chest from his coat pocket. He went over to the chair by the window and sat down.

  Lines of worry grew along the angles of his dark eyes as he looked at the writing on those two pages. He had known last night after he got back to the hotel what they meant. He had thought first of telephoning Bacon at home and telling him, even though it was then two-thirty. Then he had decided against it. That was what troubled him now: Lieutenant Bacon.

  The first of the two pages was a letter from Bruno Andrada to George Damon. It was innocuous enough on the surface and showed the amount of distress and emotion about what had happened in Italy that one might expect in a letter from one friend to another. There was only one part that held a hint of anything more, and this would not have been unduly suspicious to an outsider. The sentence read: The family art collection is safe and intact and will soon be in the hands of the Allied Military Government. If you can read between the lines you will know what this means to all of us here as well as to my uncle in the States …

  The second sheet, the one with the crowded words, was less innocent and Murdock scanned it now, his glance picking out certain sentences that in his mind stood out beyond the others.

  … With the collection which I will turn over to the A.M.G. are three modern paintings and of the three the one with the figure of the jade-green Venus is the one we must have.… It was decided that there must be but one map of the treasures we buried.… It would not be safe for me to keep this painting and its maps with me.… You, my friend, will know how to act and what to do.… I do not pretend to know the total value represented in these cases but I can promise you there will be millions to divide between us.…

&nbs
p; Murdock lowered the letter and stared out the window and put himself in Bruno Andrada’s place and then, when he had done with this pretense, became Tony Lorello.

  To Bruno Andrada, a U.S.O. performer, particularly an Italian who lived in the same town with George Damon, must have seemed a heaven-sent messenger. One Italian to another, the home town destination.

  “I’d give him a few bucks,” Murdock said, “and tell him that I had written down in the letter that Damon was to pay him more—to be sure that Tony did not forget to deliver it.”

  Tony would deliver it, all right. But apparently, somewhere on the trip home, his curiosity had overcome better judgment and he had finally decided, for one reason or another, to steam open the envelope and make sure of the contents.

  It seemed obvious now that Tony had suspected the presence of some hidden writing, and if this was in a simple formula he could bring the writing out by heat, knowing that it would disappear again when the heat was removed. He must have done just that, copying down line for line the two notes, then sealing the envelope again and delivering it to George Damon. Now—

  This was where Murdock’s main idea began to take on tangents. Did he have blackmail on his mind? Had he approached George Damon? And why had he gone to Professor Andrada’s house?

  Murdock didn’t know. He stood up and put the letters away and took off his robe. He had to show Bacon those letters and tell how he got them, and the longer he waited the sorer Bacon was going to get. Yet, in his own mind, he thought it would be better to talk with Tony first. Bacon was a cop and his mere presence was enough to make most witnesses freeze up and scream for a lawyer. With him, Murdock, Tony Lorello might talk, once Murdock made it clear he was only interested in finding the Jade Venus and the one who killed Professor Andrada.

  In all probability, Tony knew nothing about either matter. There was no charge against him and if Murdock could convince him none could be made why then—

  The telephone’s shrill ringing ended further speculation. It was Barry Gould.