Jade Venus

by George Harmon Coxe

  “Were you kidding about buying one of Carroll’s oils?”

  “No,” Murdock said.

  “I was thinking about going down to his place and having a look and finding out what he wants for one. You want to come?”

  Murdock said he’d like to and where would he meet him? Gould said he’d stop by and pick him up in a half hour.

  Murdock slipped off his pajamas and started for the bathroom but stopped at the door and came back. He gave the operator the number of the Courier-Herald and asked for the automobile editor. While he waited he glanced down at his leg. Aside from this his skin was smooth and the muscles were supple and flat against his hips and across his lean stomach and along the arch of his upper chest and shoulders; but in the left thigh there was a bluish spot, still a bit concave and about the size of an orange, where the skin was new and puckered. He touched it gently and ran his fingers across it and thought it seemed less tender than before.

  “Hello,” he said and identified himself. “Will you check the bureau for a license tag for me?” And then he gave the number of the big sedan that had picked Tony Lorello up at the Silver Door the night before.

  Roger Carroll wore paint-stained slacks and a sweater that had holes in the elbows. His thick brown hair was tousled and though his eyes smiled when he saw Murdock and Gould there was still a lot of weariness in the lines of his thin face and he seemed older than his years.

  “What?” he said when they told him why they’d come. “Not customers? Well, come right in.”

  He closed the door and waved them to the old divan. “Just sit there and I’ll show you some things.” And he began to haul canvases out of the big racks with sudden enthusiasm.

  Murdock said he knew what he wanted. “It’s a waterfront job,” he said. “It looked like T-wharf.”

  “Oh, you know it?” Carroll turned. “When did you see it?”

  “Yesterday afternoon.” Murdock paused and knew he could not duck it. “With Lieutenant Bacon.”

  The lights died in Carroll’s gaze and his enthusiasm went away. For a moment his face was sullen and finally that broke up under the twist of a lopsided grin.

  “Yeah.… Well, it is T-wharf.” He brought it out and stood it against the wall. “Nice of you to recognize it.”

  “That’s the one,” Murdock said. He found he still liked the picture but he hesitated about asking the price. “I like it,” he said. “Now if—well, how much?”

  “Oh, whatever you think is right.”

  “That’s no good,” Murdock said. “It’s not a question of what I think is right. Maybe it’s worth more than I can pay. I don’t know much about these things but I know how much I can stand. If a hundred dollars will be all right—”

  “That’ll be fine. It makes a guy feel good to find a person who really wants one.”

  Murdock got out a checkbook. He said he wouldn’t take the picture now but could he leave it here? His apartment was sublet and he wanted to ask the tenants about it first. Carroll said that would be okay and then he was staring at Gould, some of that enthusiasm back and a touch of incredulity in his eyes.

  “You, too?” he asked.

  Gould laughed. “Why the hell not?”

  “I don’t get it,” Carroll said, “but I like it.” He hesitated, frowning. “Did Gail send you or—”

  Gould said no. “Louise was giving you the build-up to us last night. I think you probably owe her a dinner.… Let’s see something.”

  Murdock wrote his check, hearing Gould say, “No,” or “Leave that one out,” as Carroll displayed his canvases. When he looked up, Gould was inspecting four: The blue valley scene, the one of the river and the pine trees, a still life, slightly smaller than the other two, and a street scene, somberly done with the shadows of the elevated cutting across one side.

  “I guess it’s the blue valley or the river,” Gould said finally. “I like the others too, but for the place I have in mind—” He turned to Murdock. “Which one do you like?”

  Murdock said he liked them both and finally Gould said he’d take the blue valley if he could get it at the same price Murdock paid. He glanced expectantly at Carroll and something was happening to Carroll’s face.

  He rubbed his bony jaw and colored faintly and his glance was sheepish. Gould just looked at him. So did Murdock. Finally Carroll swallowed and his Adam’s apple slid up and down.

  “I—I guess I shouldn’t have shown you that one,” he said.

  “What’s the matter?” Gould bunched his brows and his voice got sardonic. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “Oh, sure. Only—well, that one’s a favorite of Gail’s. I thought I’d like to give it to her. I’d really rather not sell it.”

  Murdock looked at Gould and got a glance that said: The guy is starving but he doesn’t want to sell. Gould looked back at Carroll and smiled indulgently. “Okay,” he said. “It’s your picture.”

  Carroll was still embarrassed. He pointed to the picture of the river. “Ah—you wouldn’t like that one?”

  “I might,” Gould said dryly. “Are you sure it’s for sale?”

  “I’m sorry about the blue one.” Carroll put on his lopsided grin. “Look, you almost took this other one at first. I mean, why don’t you take it along and hang it and after a week if you like it you can pay me and if not— Come in,” he yelled as someone knocked at the door.

  Carl Watrous breezed in, looked the room over, and said, “Hah!” He unbuttoned his balmacaan, disclosing the brown Shetland underneath, and began to remove his gloves. “What is this, a private showing? Or can anyone buy?”

  Carroll looked impressed. “Hello, Mr. Watrous,” he said.

  Gould and Murdock said hello and Watrous answered, his gaze on the four pictures now. “This all?” he said.

  Carroll said no. He said Barry Gould was looking at these and Murdock had already bought one. He reached in and set up Murdock’s picture of T-wharf.

  “Don’t blame him,” Watrous said. “I like that one myself.… I like that blue one too. I don’t know who the hell ever heard of a blue valley. Of course it isn’t blue, it’s green and brown—the valley, I mean—but with that sky you get the impression of a blue valley at that.… I’ll give you two-fifty for it.”

  They all stared at him but Carroll stared the hardest. He wet his lips and the color began to rise in his face again. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and finally he said, “Well—to tell you the truth—”

  “That one isn’t for sale,” Gould said.

  “What?” Watrous warped his brows and held them that way.

  Two hundred and fifty dollars was a lot of money to Roger Carroll right then and Murdock, waiting to see what he would do, felt sorry for him because he looked so miserable. You could practically see him building up the necessary resistance. He swallowed again and took a breath and set his mouth right. Finally he said, awkwardly:

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Watrous. Gail Roberts liked that one. I sort of want to give that one to her.”

  Carl Watrous wrinkled his forehead and his expression, as he glanced at Murdock and Gould said: Is the guy nuts? He grunted softly.

  “What about the river? It isn’t as good but—”

  “I’ve got an option on that one,” Gould said.

  “Fine,” said Watrous. He reached in his pocket and pulled out his gloves. “That’s dandy. I guess I should’ve been here while the bidding was going on.”

  “But how about—” Carroll began.

  “No, thanks,” Watrous said. “That street scene isn’t bad, but I wouldn’t want to take it away from anyone else. Come over and see me some time—when you’re sure you want to sell.”

  He opened the door, a big, prosperous-looking, aggressive figure as he glanced back. He grinned at them, but the pale-blue eyes seemed annoyed. “When you going to give the blue valley to Miss Roberts?” he said. “Maybe I can buy it from her. See you later, kids.”

  The door closed and Watrous’s heavy footsteps d
ied away on the stairs. For a long minute no one said anything, no one moved. Carroll bunched his lips regretfully and took a big breath and then the telephone rang.

  “Yes,” he said. “Now?… Yes, I will.”

  He hung up and looked old again. His mouth was tight and his long, bony face looked sullen. “The district attorney,” he said. “I guess I’ll have to run along.”

  He went into the bedroom to get rid of the sweater and change his trousers. Gould put the other picture in the rack and then stood back to examine the river scene he had liked. Murdock lit a cigarette and walked around and then, from nowhere, he got an idea. He could not find any good reason for the idea, but it stayed with him and he arranged it so that when they were ready to leave he was the one to open the door.

  He stood back, holding it, and letting Gould go out carrying his picture. When Carroll hesitated, Murdock said, “Go ahead.” Carroll stepped ahead of him and Murdock reached quickly down and fixed the spring release on the lock so that the bolt was held back and did not catch as he closed the door.

  Outside, Roger Carroll hurried off down the street and Gould and Murdock went over to Gould’s car with the picture. Gould thought he’d like to take it to his place rather than keep it in the car all day and he asked Murdock if he would ride out with him.

  It was only a twenty-minute drive out to Commonwealth and when they came back Gould wanted to know where Murdock wanted to be dropped off.

  “I’ll go back to Carroll’s place,” Murdock said. “I guess I left my gloves there.”

  “Won’t it be locked?”

  “I don’t know. If it is, maybe I can get a key from the plumbing store on the first floor. You can just drop me off.”

  But when they came to the last corner, Gould said he’d wait and found a parking space—a no parking space, actually, since there was a yellow line on the curb—about a hundred feet from the entrance to Carroll’s stairway.

  “I’ll wait,” he said, “so I won’t get a ticket.”

  Murdock got out and walked down the street, taking no notice of the parked cars or the people on the sidewalk, but thinking of what he wanted to do. Examined closely, his idea did not seem worth much, for all he had in mind was a private search of Carroll’s rooms.

  What kept him going was a certain stubbornness, a reluctance to discard any hunch or suggestion that his mind presented. He had learned that the ideas which seem so apparently good were not always the most productive—not in a murder case. Often it was the obscure, the seemingly irrelevant hunches that paid off in the end, and since at the moment he seemed no closer to a solution than he had that first night, he intended to look into everything he could, no matter how crazy it might appear.

  In this case he knew the police had searched these rooms thoroughly. He knew, further, that he could hardly expect to find something that they could not find. But there was a difference. The police were looking for murder clues and considered everything they saw in that light; he was looking for a picture and what he wanted was any evidence, however slight, that would prove that the copy of the Jade Venus had been made by Roger Carroll.

  He was thinking of all this as he went up the stairs. Because of his mental intentness he was less observant than usual of physical things. He did not, for example, realize that the door of Carroll’s room was ajar until he had pushed into the room. Then it was too late.

  He was in the room. He was vaguely aware that it was a different room, that on the right there was an emptiness that had not been there before. He was aware too that someone was off to his right and outside his range of vision. But what he saw clearly was the blond Leo with a half-dozen rolls of canvas under one arm.

  Murdock had little time to think. What he did may or may not have been wise but his reaction was quick and positive. For two days he and the police had been looking for Leo. Here was Leo. Leo stared and dropped the rolls and reached for his pocket and Murdock, fully aware that where Leo was, Erloff would be, ignored the odds and kept moving.

  Leo set himself and forgot the thing in his pocket and swung. Murdock, moving in, caught the fist on his elbow and crossed his own right. Leo went back and Murdock followed him and whipped left and right and Leo fell back on the couch and bounced.

  It did not take long. That had been Murdock’s idea. Get Leo out of the way for a few seconds and turn on the someone he had felt behind him. He swiveled and saw Erloff rush in. He tried to set himself and very probably could have handled Erloff if Leo hadn’t bounced.

  For Leo, groggy but not out, bounced off the couch to the floor and as he sprawled, he reached out and pushed both hands at the back of Murdock’s legs. Murdock staggered, missed the punch he had already started, tried to fall into a clinch. Then something exploded on his head and the room began to spin.

  He tried to keep his feet on a floor that tilted wildly. He hung hard to Erloff with one hand and tried to slug with his other; then someone yanked his legs out from under him and he hit on his knees. He felt Erloff twist free. When he tried to regain his feet something hammered his head and he fell heavily, and the room blacked out.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE SMELL OF DEATH

  MURDOCK WAS ON HIS HANDS AND KNEES when he heard the door slam. But he could not get up just then. Later, he knew he was not out long, for he remembered voices that seemed to come to him in a dream, and he seemed also to be vaguely aware that when Leo had gathered the scattered rolls of canvas, he, Murdock, had been kicked solidly in the ribs.

  He did not feel anything but the jolt at the time because there was too much pain in his head and the floor still tilted crazily. He heard Erloff laugh at Leo before the door slammed and then he was alone, on his hands and knees, trying to push with his hands so that he could get one foot under him.

  He finally made it. He got the foot under him and pushed hard and toppled over again. Then he stayed on his hands and knees and let his head hang and crawled over to the couch. Little by little he pulled himself up until he could flop down and then, after a struggle to hold his nausea in check, he pushed himself to a sitting position.

  Gradually the room cleared and his stomach quieted down and presently he was well enough to be angry. That helped a lot. Anger, hot and driving now, was good for him and he finally made his way to the sink and turned on the water and let it run on the back of his head.

  He used the towel on the rack gingerly and explored the growing lump in back and above one ear. The skin did not seem to be broken and he knew he was lucky he had his cap on when the blackjack clipped him. He knew also he was lucky the blow had been at least a partially glancing one. He felt of his ribs. They were sore but nothing seemed to be broken.

  Turning from the sink, he glanced around. The racks that had been filled with canvases were bare. He went over and picked up his cap. He sat down on the divan again, his eyes morose and his mouth a thin, hard slit.

  “And you had to make it easy for them,” he mumbled. “You even unlocked the door so they wouldn’t have to force it.”

  He was still sitting there mumbling under his breath when he heard the footsteps on the stairs. He waited, sitting up now until he heard the steps in the hall. When the knob turned he stood up.

  Roger Carroll came in fast, turned, did a double take and stopped, his jaw sagging and his gaze fixed. “Hey,” he said. “Hello.” He closed the door. “What—” His eyes slid by Murdock and found the empty racks.

  “What is this?” he choked. “Who—what happened to my—?” He started for the racks, stopped, spun on Murdock, and his thin face was ugly. “Well, say something, damn it!”

  Murdock leaned back. “Sit down,” he said.

  “Sit down, hell. I want to know—”

  “Okay, stand up,” Murdock said, and took a big breath and it hurt his side. He began to tell Carroll what had happened.

  Roger Carroll did not move until Murdock finished. Muscle by muscle his face grew slack and then, at the end, it tightened again and got white around the mouth.<
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  “You got back from the D.A. early, didn’t you?” Murdock said.

  “He didn’t want me,” Carroll said. “It wasn’t his office at all.”

  “A phony call, huh? Well, that’s one way of doing it.”

  Carroll walked to the front windows and came back, stopping in front of Murdock and watching him narrowly.

  “How come you happened to walk in on those two thugs?” He hesitated. “I mean, what brought you back here anyway? You knew I—”

  “My gloves brought me back,” Murdock said. “I left them here and I—”

  He did not finish. He got up fast and went to the window. He could not see Gould’s car from there so he opened it and leaned out. He still could not see it. He closed the window and turned. Carroll was still watching him.

  “How did you expect to get in and get your gloves?” he asked. “Even if they were here.”

  “I thought I’d see, that’s all,” Murdock said. “I was coming this way and—”

  The telephone came to life. They both looked at it; then Carroll answered it. “Yes? Yeah.… For you,” he said, and looked more puzzled than ever.

  It was Barry Gould and he was talking hard and fast. “I saw them come down the stairs,” he said, “and one of them had some rolls of canvas under his arm. They got into a small truck and started away and something told me I ought to follow it.… What about you? Are you all right? Did they—”

  Murdock cut him off. He said he was all right. “Where are you?” he demanded. “Did you call the police?… Well, get back there and stay with it. You can’t watch them from a phone booth, can you?”

  He hung up without waiting for a reply. “Come on,” he said to Carroll. “Maybe we’ll get your pictures back after all.”

  Murdock had a dollar bill in his hand. When the cab stopped he thrust it at the driver and scrambled out one door while Carroll got out the other. He saw then that on each side of the street an alley cut between the backs of the houses which faced the streets perpendicular to this one. Apparently the alley continued for several blocks and he could not tell which side of the street was the one he wanted so he started for the nearest opening and was right at the mouth of the alley when a car screeched to a stop behind him.