Jade Venus

by George Harmon Coxe

  She had more to say about this but Murdock had heard most of it before and said nothing until Gail came to the part where Roger had come home.

  “How was your uncle then? I mean toward Carroll?”

  “Well”—Gail shrugged—“distant. Not really hostile at first. Roger brought some things he had done—sketches first and then when he got this studio some of his first oils—and I thought some of them rather impressed Uncle Albert. He knew I was going out with him and he didn’t say much about it until he found out Roger had done some catalogue work for an advertising agency and was doing sketches for whatever he could get in a night club called the Silver Door.”

  “I wondered,” Murdock said. “I sort of got the idea from watching the two of you tonight that you might have been in love.” He waited and when she made no reply he said, “It must have been something pretty serious to make you get an apartment in town and move out of here.”

  She caught her lower lip and a sudden sadness clouded her gaze. “I know. I—” She tried again. “I didn’t know what else to do. It was like when you say a thing in anger and then find you have to make good on your threat. We quarreled, Uncle Albert and I. Frightfully.”

  She hesitated and the hurt was still in her eyes. She pushed her dark hair back on one side and talked fast, staring straight ahead.

  “He always dictated to me,” she said, “and I always took it because I loved him and knew how he was and I was grateful for all he had done for me. It didn’t seem quite so bad when I was young, or maybe it was just that I didn’t mind so much. I guess I thought he’d be more reasonable when I grew up. He had always been terribly difficult about some things and lately he seemed even more dictatorial. I’m sure he worked too hard, and he was heartbroken about the things the Italians had done—or had not done—and it made him so nervous and irritable that he was almost impossible to work with.

  “I’d get angry too sometimes, and then I’d talk myself out of it. But there might be days when he wouldn’t speak to me and all the time I knew that some day I would have to do what I thought was right, because it was the only way I could keep my self-respect. Then Roger came back. He’d been terribly hurt and I’d been fond of him and now—well, he was changed. I found myself liking him even more and I guess Uncle Albert saw this and I suppose it was his privilege to forbid Roger the house. But when he told me I was not to see Roger at all—well, I’m twenty-three, Kent, and—”

  She glanced down at her hands, her lashes working fast. “I’d rather not talk about it. It was just that I finally decided I could not be dictated to any longer. I thought Uncle Albert would give in and he thought I would. So I rented this apartment to show him I meant what I said.”

  Murdock saw her distress and was touched. He realized now that she had been hurt not only by what had happened to Andrada but by Roger Carroll, and now he was going to aggravate that hurt because there was no other way.

  “I didn’t quite finish that story I told you tonight,” he said. “The real Jade Venus was delivered with the Andrada collection. Arlene, the maid, tipped off Damon about my train and Damon sent two men to meet me. One of them came here and stole the painting. You know that. You also know that the painting Damon got—the one we saw at the Art Mart—was a copy. Roger Carroll made that copy, didn’t he?”

  Gail’s eyes went wide and her mouth was pale. “N-o,” she said.

  “Yes,” Murdock said. “I saw the way you looked when you saw it that afternoon at the Art Mart. I didn’t know why you looked that way—surprised and deep down afraid—because I didn’t know then that the picture was a copy. But you had seen the original when it arrived and something in Carroll’s style told you he’d made the copy we saw that afternoon.”

  She shook her head. Her lips moved but she did not speak.

  “If you could recognize Carroll’s style,” Murdock went on relentlessly, “so could Andrada. He’d kept those three cheap paintings back against the wall so he wouldn’t have to look at them. He took the Jade Venus out to show it to Erloff and the moment he saw it he knew what must have happened. He didn’t know why or how or—”

  “No, Kent,” she whispered. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Roger didn’t kill him. He couldn’t have killed him. He couldn’t do a thing like that even if—”

  “That’s what you want to think,” he cut in. “I said I watched you and Roger tonight. I watched you the morning Bacon was here. A man can be accused of anything in the book and if a woman believes in him she’ll stand by. If she loves him she’ll go to him and comfort him and try to help. But if she thinks he’s guilty, if she can’t understand—”

  “He couldn’t have done it.”

  “You don’t know if Carroll killed your uncle or not. What you do know is that he made that copy. You hired a lawyer for him, I think, but you don’t dare look him in the eye. Your manner when he’s around is strained and brittle and you’re acting every minute and that’s because you know and are afraid. Because you’re all chewed up inside and don’t know what to do.”

  He stood up. “Think it over, Gail. This thing is too big to worry about a guy like Carroll. Andrada was murdered and last night a little guy named Lorello was murdered. That’s two. How much additional penalty do you think there is for a third?”

  He watched her straighten her legs and stand up, still not looking at him. He said:

  “It could have been you tonight. If you had recognized the man, if you’d had the flashlight instead of him having it— You didn’t recognize him, did you?”

  She looked at him then, her young face frightened and stiff. “I didn’t see him. I may have—I seem to remember some slight odor when he opened the closet door. Like shaving-lotion or cologne. But I—I’m not really positive.”

  She came to him and put her hands on his arms. “Roger couldn’t have had anything to do with the murder. He couldn’t have. Why, I was with him all evening, Kent. I helped him carry his canvases from the exhibition—at the DeRand galleries—to his studio. That was around six and we went from there to my apartment—he’s helping me fix it up—and we worked until eight and had dinner and went to a movie. He was with me until nearly ten-thirty.”

  He found it hard to meet her gaze. The hazel eyes were so eloquent in their appeal for understanding, her distress so moving, that a thickness came along his throat and in his chest there was a curious weakness.

  He thought, The time that counts is after ten-thirty, but he didn’t say so.

  “What’s the address of your place on Blake Street?”

  “118.”

  “Could I borrow the key?”

  “Why—yes.”

  She did not ask why. She let go of his arms and left the room. When she came back and gave him the key, he said:

  “Remember what I told you, Gail. It’s too late now to protect anyone.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  A KILLER COMES CLOSE

  KENT MURDOCK PARKED in front of 118 Blake Street and sat there staring at the empty street while he finished his cigarette. As he tossed it out, a car went by and a bar or two of dance music from a radio escaped from a lowered window before it was lost in the sound of the exhaust. He watched the car turn the corner and then the street was quiet again and he stepped out and glanced at the four-storied apartment building, one of a block-long row with ground-floor entrances which were distinguishable only by the design of the door and the number and name thereon.

  He did not feel like going in. His head had begun to ache again from the swelling Erloff’s blackjack had put there that morning and there was a throbbing too in his side from Leo’s final kick. It seemed like a week ago, that struggle in Roger Carroll’s studio, and he felt as weary as though he had been awake even longer than that.

  But Blake Street was on his way to the hotel and he wanted a quick look around before he went to bed. Louise had called here some hours before and Murdock wanted to know why she had stayed an hour and so he crossed the walk and glanced up and found t
he front windows dark.

  2-D, Gail Roberts had said, and he pushed past the glass swinging doors and crossed the vestibule and went up two steps to another glass door. The foyer was dimly lighted by a floor lamp that looked like a vase with brightness coming from the top. There was some mission furniture scattered about and looking deceptively comfortable; there was a single elevator door, and stairs that curved out of sight along with a wrought-iron railing. When he saw that the elevator had stopped at some upper floor he went up the stairs and down a dim corridor with pebbled plaster walls and ivory doors.

  There were four of these doors and 2-D was on the right, rear. He had the key in his hand as he approached it but he had a little trouble making the key work. Then the door opened for him and some of the dimness in the hall made a slanting rectangle on the carpet. He left the door open until he found the light switch and when he turned it he saw the picture over the mantle.

  It was a painting by Carroll, an oil on canvas. It was the blue valley scene he had refused to sell to Watrous or Barry Gould and its blue tones looked very well against the dusty-pink wall.

  Murdock closed the door and walked to the center of the room. It smelled rather strongly of paint and turpentine and varnish, and everything about the walls and woodwork and floor looked very clean and fresh. The Governor Winthrop desk and the two straight-backed chairs looked second-hand; so did the Boston rocker. There were two overstuffed chairs that wore new-looking slip covers and there was a Lawson sofa, very old and worn, with some other slip covers folded across the back. Murdock saw all this in his first inspection of the room and then he was frowning at the painting of the blue valley.

  He was still standing in the center of the room when he heard it, a clicking sound, remote yet somewhere within these rooms. A familiar sound, a remembered sound that vibrated through him and left him tense and listening.

  For seconds there was nothing more. Yet the room was suddenly close and his nerves were taut with a sudden awareness of danger. He turned his head and saw the closed door on his right, the open doorway diagonally ahead and to the left of the fireplace.

  Then he knew what the sound was and where he had heard it before, and the thought struck a warning gong within and he felt the way he felt the night before—in the alley behind Lorello’s place.

  He shifted his weight and moved one foot cautiously. He turned toward the open doorway and then the sound he had been waiting for came and he knew for sure that someone had been here when he entered. Someone had been about to leave and had nearly been trapped. He knew also that if he had come a minute earlier he would have walked in on this someone before he could get away.

  He forgot caution now and silence, because he knew the second sound he had heard had been the closing of a door whose stealthy opening had first warned him. He went through the doorway and swiftly along a hall and into a kitchen and there was enough light behind him so he could see the door.

  So intent was he on his pursuit that he forgot the odds. He forgot the warning gong and ignored the intuitive pressure that told him of danger. He only knew that he had missed his man last night, that perhaps if he was quick he might do better this time.

  He crossed the linoleum and reached for the door. It was unlocked, as he had known it would be, and he stepped into the opening. There was just an instant when he hesitated and he may have seen a shadow move in the darkness below him. Whatever he saw or felt made him flatten himself instinctively against the edge of the door; then the stairwell exploded fifteen feet below him.

  Flame struck at him and the stairs seemed to rock. A gun roared and even as he heard it he felt the jolt in his shoulder as something hammered against it.

  He fell away and stepped back into the kitchen, hearing the staccato beat of steps on the stairs, the quick opening and closing of some door below him. Then it was quiet again and he was cursing.

  He closed the door and locked it. He kept cursing, softly, viciously. At himself and his stupidity. He had been hit and it was his own fault. For he had forgotten the most important thing of all: that he was dealing with a killer and one who worked with a gun.

  He found a light and turned it on. He looked down at his shoulder and ran his hand over the cloth covering it. There was a slight numbness but no hole, no blood. He flexed the muscles and looked again; then he stepped to the door.

  There was an upward-angling, splintered hole on this side. It was about an inch from where his shoulder had flattened against the edge. Then he realized he had not been hit at all, that it was the shock and vibration of the panel against his tightly pressed muscles that had jolted him and made him think so.

  He found no relief in the knowledge. It had not been his fault that he had escaped. A slug through the shoulder would have been a fairly easy penalty for the chance he took. A little more light, a little steadier hand behind the gun, and he would not be here fuming at his insanity and failure.

  His good fortune failed to bring any sense of gratitude or relief. He shook off his anger and looked along the wall until he found the bullet hole. Then, as he examined it, he heard a window open. He heard a door open in the hall and the faint buzz of excited voices.

  He went quickly to the living-room and snapped off the light. He could hear the voices more plainly now, the low excited voices of neighbors discussing the shot they had heard. A window slammed shut. A door closed and the voices died away and Murdock sat in the darkness and waited.

  He smoked a cigarette while the house quieted down. He smoked another before he snapped on the light. Then he sat staring at the painting of the blue valley that hung over the mantle. He stared at it a long time, his lids narrowing as he estimated its size. Then, out of nowhere, a new idea took root in his brain and blossomed rapidly.

  Tossing his cigarette into the fireplace, he stood up. “It’s close,” he said, half aloud; “it’s about the right size.”

  He reached up and took the picture from the wall. Turning it, he saw that four bent nails held the stretched canvas in the frame and he twisted these so that the canvas and inner frame could be removed.

  For an excited moment or two then, he examined the back of the canvas; then the quick new hope went away and he had nothing left but weariness and disappointment. He put the inner framework on which the canvas was stretched back in the ornamental frame and turned the four nails to secure it. He hung the picture and studied it and tried to think.

  Louise had been here about an hour. According to Jack Fenner, she had taken nothing with her. What, then, had she been doing during that hour?

  He realized finally that he was not doing any good. He was thinking hard but fatigue had dulled his capacity to reason logically. He could not concentrate, nor follow through an idea to any reasonable conclusion. When he found his thoughts going round and round in the same unchanging pattern, when he saw he could not get beyond that pattern, he knew he would have to come back.

  He had learned nothing more than he had known when he came except that someone besides Louise was interested in this apartment. He doubted if that someone would come back tonight. In the morning perhaps he could think of something else.

  He opened the door, glanced out, then turned off the light. He went into the hall and closed the door quietly. There was no sound now but the tap-tap of his steps on the composition stairs.

  Chapter Nineteen

  FACE TO FACE

  WHEN KENT MURDOCK climbed the stairs to Roger Carroll’s studio the next morning he found a note on the door that said, Out to breakfast, but he tried the knob anyway and found the place was not locked.

  He went in and sat down on the couch. He lit a cigarette and glanced at his watch. It was 9:30. He was anxious to get back to Gail’s Blake Street apartment but when he remembered his earlier desire to have a look about these rooms, he stood up and got busy.

  He had no idea what he was looking for, or if he was looking for anything. He had thought, that day when he slipped off the catch on the door and then came back to run i
nto Leo and Erloff, that there might be something here to support his hunch that Roger Carroll had made the copy of the Jade Venus. Now he simply started with the couch and made his way around the room.

  There was nothing under the couch, in back of it, or in the cushions. He detoured past the rack of canvases and peered into and under and in back of the icebox. He looked back of the radiator and rolled down the shades to see if anything had been hidden there.

  The bedroom was small and dark and off this there was a cubbyhole containing toilet, lavatory, and a tin-walled shower. When he found nothing here or in the bedroom he came back to the studio. He glanced at his watch again, wondering whether he ought to wait and ask Carroll a question or two he had in mind, and then he was standing in front of a table which held some books and a midget radio about eight inches by ten.

  The radio stood against the wall and he moved it, noticing as he did so that the back was open. He started to open a book that said Modern American Artists on the cover and then, on impulse, he turned the radio about and looked in the back.

  What he saw then sent a tingling up his spine and he stood quite still, his neck stiff and the palms of his hands suddenly moist. For the tubes of that radio did not fill the compartment. There was a two-inch space between them and the top of the cabinet and in that space was a blue-steel automatic.

  For the next few seconds Murdock’s thoughts ran wild. He let them go while he glanced more closely at the gun and thought it was a .32 caliber and out of all his wild speculation some thoughts beat against his brain that were worth keeping.

  Andrada had been killed with a .32 automatic. But Lorello? He did not know. He had not checked with Bacon. And the slug that had nearly clipped him last night—what about that?

  He disciplined his thoughts then and reached for a handkerchief. With this in his hand he removed the gun and found he had been right about the caliber. He took out the clip and ejected the bullet from the chamber and counted the shells. There were four, but he knew this meant nothing since a gun of this sort would hold eight shots and since a man might not necessarily keep a full clip.