Jade Venus

by George Harmon Coxe

  He slipped the magazine in the butt, replaced the gun. He put the radio where it had been before and stepped back. He glanced at his watch again, then went quickly from the room.

  The janitor at 118 Blake Street was bald and sassy. He wore a faded blue shirt and dark trousers and he surveyed Murdock deliberately before replying to his question.

  “Last night? Why, yeah. Sure. Tall and blond and yum-yum—that one? Sure I gave her a key.”

  “Know who she was?”

  “I’d seen her before with Miss Roberts. Said she was a cousin or something so when she asked for the key last night I gave it to her and told her to slip it under my door when she finished.” He grinned. “I figured maybe she wanted to powder her nose.”

  “Did she leave the key?”

  “It was under the door when I got up this morning.”

  Murdock wanted to ask if the tenants had said anything about a shot being fired but he knew he couldn’t. He folded two dollar bills and the janitor’s eyes watched the maneuver.

  “I’ll probably be working up there most of the day,” Murdock said, “and I don’t want to be bothered.”

  “You got a key?”

  “Sure. Miss Roberts’s key.”

  “Oh,” the janitor said, pocketing the bills. “Another one of them decorator guys, hunh? Okay, Captain, whatever you say.”

  Two women, one with a baby in a carriage, were talking in the foyer when Murdock went through. They eyed him with speculative approval and kept on talking.

  “Fred heard it,” the one with the carriage said. “He woke me up and asked me if I’d heard it. If that isn’t just like a man. Waking you up out of sound sleep to ask a fool question. I told him to go back to sleep.”

  “I don’t think it came from this house anyway,” the other said. “It sounded out back. John said it was a car backfiring.”

  “It couldn’t have been a shot.”

  “The police would be here if anything was wrong.”

  Murdock glanced backward just before he made the final turn in the stairs. The women were still watching him and he gave them a grin as he disappeared from sight.

  There was no one in the second-floor hall and he let himself quickly into apartment 2-D and went directly to the kitchen. He glanced at the hole in the door and then stood on a chair and got out his pocket knife. The bullet had chipped a little plaster from the wall and buried itself just below the juncture of wall and ceiling. He dug it out, making a somewhat larger hole as he did so. It was a lead slug, twisted and somewhat flattened now, and he did not think it was a .32. He slipped it into his pocket and went into the living-room.

  He looked at the picture of the blue valley with narrowed eyes while he took off his coat and cap. He tossed them onto the sofa and then went into the bedroom which opened off the hall.

  Here too, the walls and woodwork looked freshly decorated. There were two single beds with mattresses and springs but they were not made. There was a vanity and a bureau and two bedside tables. There were some sheets and pillow cases and towels in a linen closet next to the bath but there was nothing in any of the drawers.

  Murdock went over things carefully. He spent a good hour searching the three rooms and kitchen but it was not until he started to pace back and forth in front of the picture over the mantelpiece that he found the tack.

  He stepped on it and stooped to pick it up. He scowled at it a moment and then took the picture down from the wall again, his thoughts racing now and the idea that had come to him last night stronger and more convincing than ever. He took the stretched canvas from the frame and examined the tacks that fastened the canvas to the inner frame. When he saw they were identical with the one he had found on the floor, he took out his knife and began to pry the others from the top of the picture until one edge of the canvas came free.

  There was nothing underneath. Just one layer of canvas, and he had already photographed this with infra-red film and knew that there was nothing underneath the oils that made the blue valley scene.

  But the idea was simmering hard now and he found a sense of exultation where only disappointment had been; something, some hunch only partly justified by facts, told him he was closer to the Jade Venus than he had ever been before. True, he did not know who had it or where it was, but he had an idea where it had been and the more he considered this idea the more hopeful he became. Without stopping to put the tacks back in, he forced the frame on and hung the picture. Then he grabbed his cap and coat and went out.

  Walking fast, he headed for the Avenue and went along this until he found a restaurant. It was a little early for lunch and he wasn’t hungry but he knew he was going to be. He ate an omelet and some sliced tomatoes and ice cream and coffee and when he finished he ordered a ham and cheese sandwich to go. While it was being made, he went into the telephone booth and called Gail Roberts.

  “Hi,” he said. “Have a good sleep?”

  “I locked my door and put a chair in front of it,” Gail said. “I had a wonderful sleep.”

  “I want you to do something for me,” Murdock said. “That picture of the Jade Venus is still out in the studio, isn’t it? I mean the copy that we found at the Art Mart?”

  “Why—yes. At least I think so.”

  “Get it,” Murdock said.

  “What?”

  “Go out in the studio when you can without being noticed. You know how to take the wedges out of the frame and get the tacks out, don’t you? Good. Then take the canvas off, roll it up, and carry it out of the house under your coat.”

  He waited and there was no answer and he said, “Hello—Gail!”

  “Yes,” she said. “I heard you. I just—”

  “There’s no reason why you can’t do it, is there?”

  “N-o.… All right, Kent.”

  “Good girl. Then bring it down to your apartment. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  He hung up to prevent further questions and went to the counter and got his sandwich. He also got two apples and picked up a chocolate bar at the cashier’s desk.

  Gail Roberts came to the apartment shortly after one and when she opened her camel’s hair coat, the rolled-up copy of the imitation Jade Venus was underneath.

  Murdock said she was a sweetheart. He took the canvas and helped her with her coat. “Did anyone see you come out?”

  She shook out her soft, dark hair. Her cheeks were slightly flushed and her hazel eyes were wide with interest and wonderment and he saw she was not looking at him but at the blue valley picture above the mantelpiece.

  “Mrs. Higgins. Louise was in bed, I think. But I had the picture under my coat. What’re you going to do, Kent?”

  Murdock did not answer her, but reached up and removed the blue valley scene from the wall. Gail was still watching it.

  “You didn’t know this was here, did you?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Roger Carroll could have sold it to Carl Watrous for two hundred and fifty bucks.”

  “He could?” She frowned, as though she did not understand. “When? Why didn’t—”

  “Watrous saw it the other day. Barry Gould liked it too. But Carroll said it was one of your favorites. He said you were with him when he roughed it out. On a picnic or something.”

  Her reply was soft, her gaze remote.

  “Yes. I remember.… He should have sold it.”

  “He must have brought it over yesterday afternoon, after Erloff and Leo tried to get away with every canvas he had.”

  Murdock had unrolled the copy of the Jade Venus as he spoke and now he held this canvas up against the one in the frame. “Hah!” he said and his eyes were bright when he saw the difference between them was less than a quarter of an inch on each side.

  “You can help,” he said. “I’ll pry the tacks out and you can keep them together.”

  He removed the wedges from the corners of the inner frame and then set to work on the tacks, handing them to Gail as he pried them out. When he had one side
of the canvas loose she touched his arm.

  “Why, Kent?”

  He looked at her. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just an idea. A screwy one maybe. But I have to try.”

  He realized it was not much of an answer. He went to work again, hoping it would do. When, finally, the canvas was free he measured it again against the imitation Jade Venus. Satisfied, he arranged the two canvases so that the blue valley covered the Jade Venus and then he started to fasten the two canvases to the frame where only one had been.

  Gail said, “Oh—”

  He asked her to hold one side while he put in the first tacks. There was no color in her cheeks now and the smooth skin seemed almost translucent. She wet her lips and the lower one trembled until she caught it gently in her teeth.

  “You think that—” she began.

  “Call it a hunch,” Murdock said, not looking at her any more because he knew the implication must now be as apparent to her as it was to him. “A hunch that says the real Jade Venus used to be right where the copy is now—under this blue valley painting that Carroll made—at one time or another.”

  Gail Roberts had little to say after that. She handed him tacks and he hammered them in with the handle of his knife, using the same holes to make it easier. He put the wedges in, slipped the stretched picture into the outer frame and fastened it; then he hung the painting over the mantle again.

  “Now what?” Gail said finally.

  “I wait.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sparks of irritation touched her glance and her voice was edgy. “You must have some idea.”

  “I hope somebody will come back and have a look at that picture.”

  She continued to survey him, soberly now, without resentment. “Come back? You think somebody already—”

  “I told you I didn’t know.” He grinned at her and picked up her coat. He made his voice casual and pretended he really did not expect anything much to happen. “I have to be sure, that’s all. Come on, humor me. Put this on.”

  He held her coat for her and after a moment she turned and slipped into it.

  “If you start arguing,” he said, “you’ll probably talk me out of it, and after all this trouble I don’t want to be talked out of it. Just forget that you came here, will you?”

  She walked over and opened the door, not answering him.

  “Stick around the house,” he said. “I’ll call you later. And Gail.” She stopped and he took her arm and walked into the hall with her. “If you really want to help get the one who killed your uncle I wouldn’t tell anyone what we’ve done, or even that you were here.”

  He let go of her arm and she started down the stairs. She had her hands in her pockets and she did not once glance back.

  Murdock closed the door and sank into one of the easy chairs and gradually the steady drive of his excitement moderated. He looked up at the painting and he knew how perfectly simple it had been for someone to hide the Jade Venus there. It was so simple you did not even consider such a hiding-place when you looked at the blue valley scene. Because, remembering only generally the dimensions of the Jade Venus, you did not stop to think that the sizes could be the same and that one canvas could be fastened beneath the other without possibility of detection unless the canvas was actually removed.

  Yes, it was simple enough, but he was still a long way from a final solution and he knew it. He had a long, and quite possibly a useless, wait in front of him. He was, in a manner of speaking, grasping at straws now and because of this he had no other course. He had nothing to lose and he was a stubborn man about some things and he was determined now that so long as there was a chance, no matter how remote, he must play out his hand.

  He needed luck, but there was more than a hope for luck that steadied his determination. He had done a lot of thinking since last night and he had a pattern in his mind that could be right. It was not complete, this pattern. There were still some things he had to know and since this was the only way he could think of to find out more, he knew he had to stay here and wait the thing through—at least until morning.…

  The afternoon dragged. Before an hour passed he realized he had made one mistake. He had brought food for his stomach but nothing for his mind and it was tiresome to think the same things over and over.

  “A fine newspaperman you turned out to be,” he groused. “Couldn’t even think to bring a paper or a magazine.”

  An inspection of the apartment revealed nothing to read, not even an old newspaper. And there were other annoyances that cropped up as time went by. He had to smoke but he could not risk opening a window and he knew that in the stale air tobacco smoke would be a dead giveaway to anyone who entered. He solved this by doing his smoking in front of the fireplace, crouched near the opening with the damper open, and blowing the smoke up the chimney. The butts he pinched out and put in his pocket.

  Every half hour he made a quick inspection of the rooms to give him a chance to stretch and also to make sure that he had left no evidence of his presence. He had hung his coat and cap in the living-room closet and he had tested the place as an observation point and found it satisfactory. By leaving the door of this open an inch or so he had a good view of the fireplace and its immediate vicinity and that was all he needed.

  He ate his chocolate bar at four and pocketed the wrapping. At seven when dusk began to blot out the room he had his ham and cheese sandwich and an apple and he used the bag it had come in to put his apple core in.

  At nine he ate the second apple and he was just finishing his cigarette when he heard footsteps on the stairs outside. It was not the first time. A dozen times it seemed to him that he had put out an unfinished cigarette and waited at the closet door for those steps to move down the hall and disappear.

  Now he went through the same routine again, rubbing the fire from the cigarette, blowing up the chimney, and moving to the closet door. It was well that he did, for this time as he waited the footsteps stopped and a key scratched in the lock.

  Murdock slipped into the closet as the room door opened. When the room lights went on he was well back from the narrow crack he had left open.

  “There,” a voice said.

  That voice did many things to Murdock. It jarred him and caressed him at the same time. It stiffened him where he stood and made him want to yell aloud with relief and satisfaction. For it was a woman’s voice. Louise Andrada’s voice, and as he watched she walked into his line of vision and pointed to the picture above the mantelpiece.

  “What about it?” a second voice said and this one startled Murdock, sobering him instantly.

  A man walked up beside Louise—a plump, dark man in a bulky topcoat and a black felt hat. Murdock could not see his face but it did not matter. George Damon! he thought and when the shock of recognition had passed he found himself grimly content.

  “That,” said Louise, “is where your Jade Venus is.”

  Damon looked at her and back at the painting. His voice suggested that he thought she was quite definitely crazy.

  “You mean that thing is painted over the one I want?”

  “Not painted,” Louise said. “Take it down and I’ll show you.”

  Murdock moved closer to his crack of observation and was careful how he breathed. He saw Damon remove the painting from the frame, heard vaguely Louise’s directions, and saw Damon take out a pocketknife and set to work on the tacks that held the canvas.

  “There you are,” Louise said when one corner was loose.

  Damon said nothing. He was on his knee, removing wedges and prying out tacks as fast as he could; he did not stop until he held the two canvases in his hand and then he dropped the blue valley painting and examined the one Murdock and Gail had put there.

  Louise sat on a chair arm, looking very expensive and superior. She swung one leg idly. She wore a short mink coat over her black dress, and her blond hair looked golden in the overhead light. She continued to watch Damon with ar
ched brows and a narrowed smile. “Well,” she said finally.

  Damon eyed her deliberately.

  “How do I know this isn’t the copy I had once before and turned in?”

  “That would be rather stupid of me, wouldn’t it?” Louise drawled in her husky voice. “The one you’re referring to is locked up in Andrada’s studio. You’re not suggesting there are two copies, are you?”

  “Okay.” Damon put the Jade Venus aside and began to restretch the picture of the blue valley. After a while he said, “You’ve got your money.”

  “Part of it,” Louise said. “But it may be several years before you get your hands on the loot, George. And I’ll be wanting that five hundred each and every month. I could tell quite a story, you know, if I should happen to want to.”

  Damon worked another few minutes, retrieving tacks from the floor and hammering them in. Murdock watched impatiently. It was getting stuffy in the closet and perspiration was trickling down his scalp and inside his arms. The muscles of his back and legs were stiff and he dared not change his position for fear he’d make some noise.

  Yet for all his discomfort and the day-long vigil, he had no complaint. The result was almost more than he had dared hope for and the pattern in his mind was nearly complete. He was sure now that Louise had known about the Jade Venus even before the Andrada collection arrived in town. He was also sure that she knew the picture had been hidden beneath Carroll’s painting of the blue valley, and, with what was happening now, he guessed that Louise realized she was not equipped to handle the rest of the job alone.

  “Yes,” Damon said. He straightened up, scowling. His nostrils dilated above his waxed mustache and he started to turn his head.

  Murdock drew back and held his breath again. When Damon continued he glanced out and was relieved to find the other watching Louise.

  “Yes,” he said. “You would have quite a story to tell, wouldn’t you?” He picked up the rolled canvas and stepped close to her. “It would be most unfortunate if you should tell it.”