Jade Venus

by George Harmon Coxe

  Lieutenant Bacon and Sergeant Keogh got out of the car. “This way,” Bacon said. “Yeah, there’s the prowl car.”

  Bacon had long legs and he walked fast, with the others hurrying to keep up. About halfway down the dusty, rutted alley a police car blocked the way. There were wire fences along the sides of the alley to close off back yards, and there were some individual garages and one larger, three-car affair. It was here that they found the paneled delivery truck.

  Two uniformed policemen were talking to Barry Gould. Erloff and Leo sat on the running-board, handcuffed together and sullenly silent.

  “Now.” Bacon glanced at Murdock. “Are these the two lads that grabbed you the other night?… Making progress, aren’t we?” He studied the two prisoners a moment and then looked at the policemen. “What did you mark this one up for? Give you an argument, did he?”

  Both policemen shook their heads. “We had ’em covered when we walked in on ’em,” one said. “They didn’t want to argue.”

  Murdock was watching Leo. Leo had a very nice mouse on one eye and a lump on his jaw. When he saw Murdock watching him his mouth twisted and he spat on the floor.

  “Somebody marked him up,” Bacon said.

  “I did,” Murdock said.

  Apparently Erloff and Leo had been surprised before they could unload their cargo, for a dozen or so paintings were stacked against the wall and the rest were still in the truck. Roger Carroll had inspected those at the wall and now he climbed into the back of the paneled truck and got busy checking the rest of his canvases. Bacon watched him a moment, rubbed his nose, cleared his throat.

  “Who’s going to tell it?” he said. “And start at the beginning.”

  Murdock told his part of the affair up to the point where Roger Carroll had walked in on him. Then Barry Gould took over. He said he was waiting for Murdock and saw two men come down the stairs, one with some rolls of canvas under his arm, and get into the truck that was parked opposite the stairway. When Erloff opened the rear door of the truck to put the rolls in, Gould caught a glimpse of what looked like a lot of framed paintings.

  “I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “I knew if those two were running off with Carroll’s paintings then Murdock must have had trouble and I was scared about that. But I heard the truck start and I couldn’t find a cop and then I decided I’d better follow the truck while I could.”

  “You knew what Murdock was after?” Bacon asked. “I mean about that Venus picture?”

  “I knew he’d been kidnaped the first night and the picture stolen from Andrada’s,” Gould said. “I knew the one we got at the Art Mart was a copy and I knew that Murdock hadn’t found the original—or if he had, he hadn’t admitted it. Hell, I wasn’t worrying about that. I couldn’t add it all up but I knew if I didn’t tail that truck we might never find any of that stuff.”

  He told how he’d seen the truck turn into the alley, how he’d watched it swing into the garage before he ran to the drugstore and phoned police headquarters.

  “I got the operator to get out a call for the nearest prowl car and told him I’d be waiting in the street. And I also said to locate you and send you down too.” He glanced at the two policemen admiringly. “I don’t think it was more than two minutes before they came. I rode down here with them on the running-board and we just walked in on these guys. It was nice going.”

  “You did all right, too,” Bacon said.

  Gould grinned at him. “Just remember that, will you? So the next time I want a little help on a story—”

  “Sure, sure.” Bacon glanced round the garage. He walked out and met Keogh, who was just coming in from the alley. “This it?”

  Keogh nodded and Bacon beckoned to Murdock. He took his arm and marched him along the alley until Murdock could see the three-storied, red-brick house that was separated by a tiny yard from the front of the garage.

  “How does it look in the daylight?” Bacon asked.

  Murdock inspected the slate roof and peeling gray paint on the trim and the sagging back porch before he knew what Bacon meant.

  “Is that where—”

  “We were down here a couple of hours ago,” Bacon said. “I guess your pals in the garage didn’t know about that. This is the place they took you that first night. We picked up Arlene, the maid, a character named Cassaldo, and a pane of glass from a window with two bars on it. The window’s got prints on it. I hope the hell they’re yours.”

  Murdock forgot the bump on his head and all of a sudden he felt much better. “This,” he said, “is one of your good days.”

  “We’re coming along,” Bacon said. “Thanks to you—and Barry Gould.” He walked back into the garage and looked at the prisoners. “Who hired you?” he demanded.

  He waited and what he got was sullen stares and silence. It did not seem to bother Bacon. He walked around the truck. “Probably hot,” he said. He stopped and watched Carroll climb out of the truck and he kept watching him until Carroll became aware of the inspection and glanced up.

  “How come these guys wanted your pictures?” he asked.

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “No idea, hunh?” Bacon rubbed at his jaw. He did not seem annoyed. He was thoughtful and unperturbed and yet there was a something going on behind his rain-gray eyes and Murdock waited to see what it was.

  “Very funny,” Bacon said finally. “Three hundred artists in town and these punks have to pick on you, is that it?”

  Carroll cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. “Well—it looks that way.”

  “Sure. You don’t know why, and they ain’t saying—yet.” He rubbed his chin some more and nodded. “All right, let’s go. We’ll take the whole works down to headquarters.”

  “What about my pictures?” Roger Carroll said.

  “What about ’em?”

  “Well”—he hesitated—“I’d like to get them back in the studio.”

  “We may need them as evidence.”

  “You can borrow them any time you want,” Carroll said. “You won’t need them until these two come up for trial, will you?”

  Bacon thought it over. “Oh, all right,” he said. “The sergeant can drive you back in the truck.” He told Keogh to help Carroll unload the paintings at the studio. He told him to itemize the collection for the record and bring the truck to headquarters. He told the two policemen to take the prisoners to his office in the prowl car and then motioned to Murdock. “You can ride with me,” he said.

  Murdock walked back to the street. At the police car he said, “I’d better meet you down there.”

  “Down where?”

  “At your office.”

  Irritation grew in Bacon’s gaze. “What’s the trouble?”

  “No trouble,” Murdock said.

  “I guess you’re not interested in these two guys.”

  Murdock answered patiently. “You know I’m interested. Only there’s something I have to do first and I’d like to do it before I get tied up with you.”

  “Oh, yes,” Bacon said. “Something you want to do first.”

  “It shouldn’t take more than a half hour.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to hurry on my account,” Bacon said sourly.

  Murdock watched the prowl car bounce out of the alley and turn away. He took another look at Bacon. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said, then turned and walked quickly away.

  When he reached the corner he heard a car door slam and a motor start. He walked another block to the elevated, during which time Bacon’s car passed him going fast. He found a taxi and climbed in.

  The street where Tony Lorello lived was gloomy even by daylight. The shadows were heavy but now you could see how dirty the brick façades really were and how badly the woodwork needed paint. Farther down the street a man in a dirty-white apron was sweeping the sidewalk and in front of Lorello’s house three smutty-nosed urchins were huddled by the curb.

  Murdock glanced at them, slowed down, stopped. The smallest
of the trio sat on the curb, elbows on knees and chin in cupped hands, a picture of utter desolation. The other two were on their knees peering down the grate of a drain.

  “Lose something?” Murdock asked.

  The two at the drain looked up, studying him and the uniform. Deciding he was to be trusted, the oldest one pointed to the little fellow on the curb. “A penny,” he said. “It was his.”

  The little one looked at Murdock with big black eyes. His face was smeared with dirt and dried tears but he wasn’t crying now.

  “I lost it,” he said simply.

  “That’s tough,” Murdock said. “What was it for?”

  “Candy,” said the trio in unison.

  “One penny for three?”

  “For him,” the middle-sized one said. “Each got a penny.”

  Murdock took out some change, found a dime and three nickels. He started to give the little boy the dime and then he showed them the three nickels. “If you can tell me where Tony Lorello lives,” he said seriously, “I’ll give you each one.”

  “There,” they yelled, even the melancholy one. They took their nickels and were away, legging it for the corner.

  Murdock grinned a moment; then the grin went away and he stepped into the doorway. A radio blared from a ground-floor apartment and the odor of the day was fried fish, only now the hall was faintly blue with the smoke that carried the odor. He climbed steadily and passed an open door on the second floor from which more radio sounds came and started up the last flight.

  He had not liked running out on Bacon but he knew what he had to do. It was time to tell Bacon about the letters he had found last night and he wanted only to give Lorello a chance to talk before he did so. No matter what Lorello said, Murdock’s next stop was Police Headquarters and what Lorello did now might not make much difference in the end. Yet Murdock still clung to the thought that Lorello would talk more freely with him than with Bacon. That, really, was the only point of the call.

  He knocked loudly and waited, seeing the faint groove his knife blade had made in the top of the door the night before. He knocked again and a door opened behind him. When he turned a squat, dark man in undershirt and baggy trousers was watching him.

  “Hokay,” the man said. “You want Tony? Excuse, please. I am not sure whose door you knock at.”

  “Is Lorello in, do you know?”

  The man shrugged. “Ain’t seen him today,” he said and shut the door.

  Murdock reached for his knife. He knocked once more and then used the knife, sliding back the bolt and turning the knob. He stepped inside.

  The room was dark. Not black but dark gray, for the drapes and shades at the windows were as he had left them the night before and what light there was came from the gloomy bedroom beyond.

  He knew then that something was wrong. It was not just the darkened windows; it was nothing that he saw or heard. It was something deep inside that whipped his instincts into sudden alertness. He felt along the wall and found the switch. When he pressed it the floor lamp went on, the one where he had unscrewed the bulb. Then he saw Tony Lorello.

  It was only a second or two that Murdock stood there but it seemed much longer then. The tension hit him hard and the room was suddenly close and though he knew it was impossible, the smell of death hung in that stale air.

  Tony lay partly on his side and partly on his face, though from where he stood, Murdock saw only the back of the head and the long black hair. One arm was stretched straight up, the fingers half-curled; the other was crumpled under him. The shoes lay sidewise on the floor, the toes pointing in the same direction.

  Murdock found he was holding his breath and let it out. He reached behind him and closed the door. He had photographed death too often to have any doubt about Tony Lorello, but he stepped forward and touched the exposed hand to be sure. When he found the skin cold and the wrist stiff, he straightened and went through the rooms looking for a telephone.

  He did not find one. He did not bother to examine the slim, still body. He fixed the lock so he could get in again, went down the stairs, found a pay telephone behind the stairs in the lower hall, and called Police Headquarters.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE ONLY LIE

  LIEUTENANT BACON was doing a fast burn. His neck was red and stiff, his jaw was hard, his voice was coldly savage. He walked stiff-legged about the room as he talked and every time he passed Murdock, he stopped and talked a little louder.

  “So you wouldn’t ride with me to my office. There was something you had to do first. You wouldn’t be more than a half hour.” He wheeled and came back to Murdock. “Why, damn it all! You knew he was dead all the time. You were going to come up here and find him and call me and then—”

  He choked and was silent, though it was not clear whether it was because he was out of breath or whether what he said did not make much sense and it finally occurred to him. Murdock was sitting on the piano bench. He was a little red in the face himself. He had known what was in store for him and had resigned himself to the stoic sufferance of anything Bacon wanted to say. He smoked and watched the other plain-clothes men in the room and waited for Bacon’s wrath to moderate.

  Sergeant Keogh was out interviewing the other occupants of the house. Two plain-clothes men prowled in the kitchen and bedroom. A fingerprint man from the bureau of identification was busy with his powders and camel’s hair brushes and the photographer was setting up his camera and lights.

  Doctor Mason came in at this point and Murdock was grateful for the respite. Mason looked surprised. “Well, Murdock,” he said, “you’re covering quite a bit of ground since you’ve been in town.”

  He put down his bag. He took off his coat and hat and put them in a chair. From his bag he took a large, loose-leaf notebook. He got out a fountain pen, opened the notebook, and began to make a sketch of the room, locating the doors, windows, and relative position of the body. While he drew he asked questions.

  “You have the measurements, Jerry?” he said to the photographer. “Well, let me know when you get them.… Murder, Bacon? Any weapon?”

  “No weapon yet,” Bacon said. “It’s murder, all right.”

  “Who found him?”

  “I did,” Murdock said. “About a half hour ago.”

  “All right.” Mason capped his pen and put the notebook away. “Now, let’s see. Anybody touch him?”

  “Not us,” Bacon said. “Probably Murdock wanted—”

  “I touched his hand,” Murdock said. “That’s all.”

  Mason went to one knee beside the body. He turned it so it came over on its back and then he took the face between his two hands and tested the resistance of the neck and head. He shifted to the legs and experimented with them, lifting and twisting. He did the same with the arms and then opened the dinner coat.

  There was a small, slightly charred hole in the left side of this and another hole and a very small dark stain in the shirt. “Well,” Mason said and stepped back, nodding to the photographer. He waited until a picture had been taken before he pulled the shirt and undershirt up.

  His back was between Murdock and the body and Murdock did not bother to get up, but lit another cigarette and waited until Mason rose and said, “All right, he’s yours for the moment, Lieutenant.”

  Bacon and one of the plain-clothes men went through Lorello’s pockets, and his belongings made a small pathetic pile on the table: two handkerchiefs, one clean, a billfold, some change, keys, two packets of matches, a pack of cigarettes, nearly empty, and a small leather address book.

  “Ah, here we are,” Mason said and stepped aside as two men came in with a rolled stretcher.

  One of the men wore a white coat and white trousers, the other a white coat over ordinary trousers. They unrolled the stretcher, lifted what had been Tony Lorello on it, spread a thin, gray blanket over him, and picked him up.

  “How long this time, Doc?” Bacon asked.

  “Oh—twelve hours. More or less.”

 
“That’s what you said about Andrada.”

  “I’m saying it again.”

  “Same kind of wound, wasn’t it?”

  “A little more accurate. From the edges of the wound I’d say the muzzle of the gun was pressed right against the coat. And this one hit the heart—at least that’s my guess, pending the P.M.”

  “What about Andrada?” Murdock asked. “Have you pinned that time down any?”

  “Why, yes,” Mason said. “Between ten-fifteen and eleven-fifteen the night before. Isn’t that what I told you, Lieutenant?… And I don’t mean halfway between. It could be ten-sixteen or eleven-fourteen.”

  Mason put on his hat and coat, picked up his bag, and went out. Bacon came back to Murdock. Before he could speak, Murdock took out the two letters he had found in the bedroom the night before and passed them over.

  Bacon accepted them tentatively, looked back at Murdock, finally opened them. He began to read and almost at once his head jerked up. Murdock was knocking ashes from his cigarette and watching them fall—on purpose. Bacon read on, whisked one sheet off the other, his eyes getting narrower and narrower.

  “Where’d you get ’em?” he stormed.

  “In there,” Murdock said. “In a drawer under some shirts.”

  “When?”

  “While I was waiting for you.”

  Murdock had already made up his mind about that. It was the only lie he was going to tell. The rest of the story of the night before was going to be as it happened, but the letter part would be changed to fit the story.

  As he saw it, it made no difference when he found the letter. If he had told Bacon about it at two-thirty last night, if he had delivered it in person, it would have made no difference. Because he was convinced now that Lorello was already dead by that time and Doctor Mason’s temporary estimate of the time of death bore out such reasoning. To admit now that he had kept the letter in the hope of seeing Lorello first would only fan Bacon’s dying anger and accomplish nothing.

  “I suppose you knew just where to look,” Bacon said. “You couldn’t let it wait for the police. Oh, no.”