Gould squinted at him. “You?”
“Me,” Murdock said. “I was in the alley when you came down the back way. I didn’t know who it was. I guess it was a break I didn’t try to find out. I might have tried if I’d known Tony was dead.”
“Look, Gould,” a hoarse voice said, and then Carl Watrous had moved up so Murdock could see him from the angle of his eye. “If you killed Andrada and Lorello—and it sure as hell looks that way—you’d better give in. Waving that gun around’ll get you nowhere.”
Gould moved the muzzle slightly. “You’ll find out what it’ll get you if you don’t stand still.”
“Ahh,” Watrous said, “you’re out of your mind. There are three of us.”
“And a bullet for each of you.… Go ahead,” he said to Murdock. “What about those other details? How did I know the picture was here in the first place? I’d like to know about that.”
“You saw it,” Murdock said and kept his eye on the gun. “You didn’t know Louise knew what the Jade Venus meant—not at first. I think probably you had the same idea she had when you found out Andrada had it: You had to get the original and the only way you could do it—aside from stealing it—was to have a copy made and substitute it for the one Andrada had. You said you were in this studio a couple of days before the murder and I think you came to see if you could talk Carroll into doing the copying, providing you could figure out a way to borrow the original.”
“Go on.”
“That was the day the copy Carroll had made for Louise was drying; the day Tony was here maybe.”
“It was,” Roger Carroll said. “I remember Tony was here first and then Barry came and I was changing my clothes in the bedroom. He could have seen the Jade Venus easily.”
“Only that one was the copy.” Murdock spoke over his shoulder because he was still watching Gould. “You hadn’t made the substitution yet.”
“No,” Carroll said.
“But when you saw it, Gould,” Murdock went on, “you knew what must have happened. You knew that Louise must also know the secret of the Jade Venus, had learned it from her husband. But she had beaten you to the idea of having it copied. So you had to wait; you had to watch Carroll and see what came next.”
“You’re still good.”
“You followed Carroll. I’m guessing, sure, but it has to be this way. You followed him that night—the night he took the copy to the back door of Andrada’s studio. Louise let him in. He was in there quite a while and when he came out with a picture you knew the substitution must have been made. And that was okay. That was wonderful. You could let the original stay with Roger a day or so—perhaps until you had a key made for the lock—and it was the next evening that I came and the trouble started.
“Later you killed Andrada and hid the painting under the blue valley scene, and then you waited until you could come and get it. Louise gave you the best idea of all the night she suggested that we buy a painting from Carroll. It was a cinch then. You’d buy the one that you had to have. Only when you offered to buy the picture with the Jade Venus underneath—the blue valley scene—Carroll wouldn’t sell.”
Murdock’s throat was dry and when he tried to chuckle all he got was a rasping, throttled sound. He said, “It would have been funny if Carroll sold it to Watrous. That would have gummed things up a little more, wouldn’t it?… But Carroll wouldn’t sell even for two-fifty. So you played your hand out by buying the picture of the river and pine trees because it was the same size, and it would give you a hiding place once you had a chance to remove the Jade Venus from under the painting Carroll refused to sell.”
Murdock glanced round. Carroll was behind him on the right. Watrous, his eyes ugly now and his jaw like a rock, was almost even with Murdock on the left. Murdock looked back at Gould and took a small, casual step toward the gun. He said:
“I think you came here for the blue valley picture last night when Louise was at the Silver Door with Carroll. You see, Louise was in a spot. She had left the real Jade Venus here with Carroll. He was involved in murder and she didn’t dare go poking around this studio, and she had no chance to ask Carroll where the painting was until last night.”
“I couldn’t tell her where it was,” Carroll said. “She didn’t believe me. She got sore as hell. But I didn’t know it was under the blue valley canvas. I didn’t know where it was and I told her so.”
“Yes,” Murdock said. “That was the rub. Damon, Louise, Lorello, and Gould knew the secret of the Jade Venus, but only you”—he looked at Gould—“knew where it was hidden. When you got here last night the blue valley job was gone and you got panicky. You thought of Louise and went to the house late—and you were in and out of there often enough to have picked up a key in advance—and searched her room and Gail’s.”
He shifted his weight a little more. “When you didn’t find it you thought of the one place left—Gail’s apartment. You went there some time after that and found your blue valley picture hanging over the mantle—with the Jade Venus stretched beneath it—just where you’d put it the night you murdered Andrada. You finished the job of getting the Jade Venus and putting the other picture back and must have been getting ready to leave when I walked in on you.”
Gould’s face was stiff, and damp with perspiration. He wet his lips and sucked on them a moment. “It would have been a lot simpler if I’d killed you last night, if I’d made sure. I—I thought I hit you.”
“So did I. Is that the gun?”
“I had my own last night,” Gould said. “This is Andrada’s.”
Murdock took a breath. “Yes,” he said. “Maybe it would have been simpler. You killed Andrada. You killed Lorello cold-bloodedly to silence him. You’d have murdered Gail last night if she’d recognized you. And Carroll here.”
“Me?” Carroll said.
“You,” Murdock said. “Gould couldn’t tell how much you knew. You hadn’t admitted painting the copy because with what the police had against you, you didn’t dare.”
He continued to Gould. “But I’m wondering if maybe—if the pressure got too hot—Carroll might not have been found dead with a bullet in his temple and the gun by his side. The gun that killed Andrada and Tony Lorello.”
“You talk too much, Murdock.” Gould’s voice was calm, quiet, deadly. He didn’t threaten them with any tonal quality. He was smiling that stiff, fixed smile and Murdock thought about Andrada and Lorello and knew that nothing could change Gould’s mind. Death was simply a word, like murder, which seemed not to touch him. When he was ready he would pull the trigger.
“It will still work,” Gould said. “It won’t be as good, but it could do. You and Watrous shot to death and Carroll with a slug in his head like you suggested and the gun near his hand.”
“You’re nuts!” Carl Watrous said.
“It could work,” Gould said. He did not look crazy or mad or unbalanced. Except for the smile and the dilated brightness of his eyes nothing seemed to have changed in his face. He waited. He seemed to gather himself, now that the decision had been made. He said, “I don’t think the police can pin it on me and I’ve got nothing to lose.”
Off to Murdock’s left, Watrous moved slightly.
“Deal me in on this, Murdock,” he said. “You don’t have to carry the ball all the time. I think we can take him.”
Murdock never shifted his gaze from Gould’s damp, twisted face. The tension had gone from him and there was no fear in him now, or even uncertainty. Instead he felt poised and ready, with every muscle synchronized.
“You’re not going to shoot anyone,” he said. “We’ve decided we don’t want it that way.”
And then he moved, straight at Gould, seeing him flatten against the wall as the gun leveled, the quick incredulity of his gaze. He heard Gould yell, “I’ll shoot!” and kept going. He saw the gun move as the trigger finger tightened; then Gould jerked hard and it was too late. For Murdock was close, striking at the gun with his left, hooking his right to the unprotected jaw.<
br />
The blow hit flush and Gould’s head slammed back against the wall. The automatic spun from his hand and then Murdock, still moving in, hooked again, left and right. He stepped back as Gould sagged.
Gould did not have a chance to fall. As he started to tip over a burly figure flashed past, swinging from somewhere in back of him. It was not a crisp, neat, well-timed hook like Murdock’s; it was a Sunday punch and it hit Gould on the side of the jaw and Murdock heard the bone crack.
The blow straightened Gould. His eyes were rolled back and he was limp all over, but Watrous grabbed with his right and held him while he struck once more, savagely, with his left. He let go and stepped back and Gould fell on his face.
Murdock did not see the final collapse. Something had moved beyond Watrous and Murdock leaped round the big man just as Roger Carroll stooped for the gun. Murdock blocked him off.
“Don’t touch it!” he snapped.
Carroll recovered his balance and stared in amazement, his jaw slack. “Oh,” he said finally. “You mean his prints are on it.”
Murdock felt for a cigarette, aware that his knees were trembling with reaction, feeling the moisture on his face. He told Carroll to get something to tie Gould’s ankles with.
“He’s not going to need any ankles tied,” Watrous said. He was looking down at Gould, breathing a little hard, making angry noises in his throat. “An ambulance is all he needs.”
Carroll’s thin face was still slack. “God!” he breathed. “I’ve never been so scared. I thought sure—” He stopped and squinted at Murdock. “Why didn’t he shoot when he had the chance?”
“Yeah,” Watrous said. “Wasn’t it loaded?”
“It was loaded, all right,” Murdock said. “That is, the clip was, but to get a shell into the chamber of an automatic and cock it, you have to pull back the slide.”
He told them about finding the gun that morning and how he had taken the bullet from the chamber and put it in the clip. Carroll mopped his face. After a while he said:
“Just the same, you took a chance.”
“Not much. I had to gamble the gun was the way I’d left it this morning—with no bullet in the chamber. I figured on reaching him before he could pull the slide back; that’s why I stayed fairly close to him.”
Watrous continued to watch the heap on the floor that was Barry Gould. He looked as if he was hoping Gould would get up so he could hit him again. Carroll’s brow was still furrowed as he struggled to clarify his thoughts.
“Was the gun there all the time?” he asked. “Did he hide it there after he shot Andrada?”
“I don’t know,” Murdock said. “I haven’t found out from Bacon whether the same gun killed both Andrada and Lorello. If it did—and I imagine it did—why then I think Gould put it there last night when he came looking for the picture. He had his own—the one he shot at me with—and I think he thought this would be a good place to get rid of the murder gun.”
He laughed shortly. “One thing I know: the lieutenant and his gang are going to swear up and down the gun was planted later, after they searched the place. You’ll never get them to admit they overlooked it and that, I think, is all to the good.”
He went over to the telephone. “Anyway, Gould planted it and he knew where to get it when he wanted it—that’s why I had to set this thing up the way I did—and his prints are on it. Lieutenant Bacon can take it from there.” He started to lift the telephone, then stopped. Finally he grinned.
“Look,” he said. “Suppose you call in for me. Just get headquarters and ask for Lieutenant Bacon and tell him to come down.”
“Sure.” Carroll studied Murdock’s grin. “But what’re you going to do?”
“I’m going to pretend I’m back on the Courier-Herald,” Murdock said, and opened his plate-case. “I’m going to take a couple of exclusive shots of our pal here and surprise my old managing editor. Just for the hell of it.”
It was after one before Murdock and Roger Carroll could get out to the Andrada home. But they had telephoned Gail Roberts and she was waiting up for them with coffee and sandwiches ready on the drawing-room coffee table.
The first minute, while they were getting rid of their coats, the talk was strained, with Murdock saying he thought they’d never get away from Bacon and Gail saying it didn’t matter so long as they came, and Roger Carroll saying nothing.
Then the silence moved in on them and grew awkward as they moved to the doorway, and then Murdock had a happy thought. “Coffee and sandwiches,” he said. “Just what I need.” And he made a bee-line for the table, ignoring the others.
He gave them plenty of time. Once he glanced over his shoulder and saw Gail in Carroll’s arms but they did not see him and he remained ingenuously unaware that anything was happening until he heard them moving up behind him. Then he said:
“Boy, does this hit the spot! Come on, Roger, pitch in.”
“Yeah,” Carroll said, somewhat red of face as he eyed the sandwiches. “This is swell, Gail.”
He was a fussed and happy guy as he busied himself with the coffee and Murdock’s grin was wise above his cup. He had all the answers he needed when he saw the pink glow in Gail’s smooth cheeks and the radiant softness of her eyes. And it was so wonderful to behold that for a while he was free of the strain and weariness that had been with him so long.
It took him about twenty minutes to tell what had happened and to explain about the pictures. They had found the original Jade Venus where he had figured it to be—in Gould’s apartment under Carroll’s painting of the stream and pine trees. It had been photographed thoroughly and was now in the custody of the police pending the arrival of an expert from Washington who would remove the paint from the maps that Angelo Andrada had ordered drawn there months before.
As for George Damon, he would be charged with grand larceny for taking the picture from Gail’s apartment—until or unless the four accomplices now in jail implicated him in the kidnaping of Murdock.
“And Louise?” Gail asked. “What happens to Louise?”
Murdock said he wasn’t sure. She would probably be released on bail shortly as a material witness but he doubted if the district attorney would press any other charges.
“Louise,” he said, “gets left. Damon will stop payment on the check and it looks as if Louise will have to pack her bags and keep right on trying to do the best she can for Louise.” He chuckled absently. “And I imagine she’ll do all right, one way or another.”
“Yes,” Gail said. “I imagine so.” She put her cup aside and inspected her hands a moment, frowning. “But”—she glanced back at Murdock—“I mean, I still don’t see how you suspected Barry Gould.”
“I didn’t, at the beginning,” Murdock said. “I had no idea about him until later. Then, after I realized that he could know about the maps and therefore had a motive, the rest of it came from you and Louise and Gould himself.”
“From me?” Gail sat up. “How, Kent?”
“The other night when Louise and Gould and Watrous and I were talking, Louise said Roger had six pictures in some exhibition—in some local gallery. She said they’d been there a couple of weeks.”
“That’s right,” Carroll said.
“Sure,” Murdock said. “And I said I’d seen some of your work and mentioned the T-wharf one and Gould spoke up and said he liked a couple of others better. Louise gave him the idea of buying the blue valley canvas right then and he described that one and the other of the same size. He said he hadn’t been to the exhibition but that he’d seen them at your studio a couple of days before.”
Roger Carroll’s eyes widened slowly. He shook his head. “But—he couldn’t have. They weren’t there the day he was at my place.”
“And that,” said Murdock, “is where Gail came in.” He smiled at her. “You told me last night that the day the professor was killed you helped Roger move those six pictures from the exhibition to his studio. You said it was six o’clock then.”
“Why, y
es.”
“But Gould had seen the pictures. He described them. So when did he see them?”
Gail’s “Ohhh” was a sucking sound.
“Right,” Murdock said. “He couldn’t have seen them when he said he did. Unless he’d gone to the gallery he could not have seen them until after six o’clock that night, and he admits he was at the office from six until he came up here. Therefore he could only have seen them sometime after he left here that night—a few minutes before the professor did.” He shrugged. “Add it up and you’ve got the opportunity for murder.”
Gail looked at Carroll, then slowly back at Murdock. She was impressed but still not quite convinced. “But even then you weren’t sure. I mean, absolutely.”
Murdock grinned. “If I had been, I’d have gone to Bacon. Look, Louise met Carroll last night and he couldn’t tell her where the original Jade Venus was. She knew it wasn’t here and she took a chance and looked in your apartment, and being a very smart girl, she finally discovered it stretched behind the blue valley picture. She didn’t take it—and Jack Fenner was sure of that—but it was gone when I got there this morning.”
He said, “The reason I waited there all day was to see if she—or anyone else—came back. She did, with Damon—because she had gone to him and made a deal. When she came back tonight and saw the copy we had placed there she believed it to be the original; I could tell from her reaction. Damon believed her. Therefore neither of them had the original. Therefore either Roger had it or Barry Gould had it. That’s why I had to put on the act at the studio. It was the gun that clinched it. I thought then that Gould was our boy but I had to give him a chance to go for that gun that killed Andrada and Lorello.”
“Oh,” Gail said. “Yes. Now I understand.”
Murdock sighed and grinned again. “You’re a hard lady to convince.”
“Well”—she pushed her lips out at him—“I had to find out, didn’t I?”
Roger Carroll cleared his throat. “And Gail,” he said, a flush in his thin cheeks and a shining brightness in his eyes Murdock had never seen before, “Carl Watrous is going to buy two pictures. For five hundred dollars.”
Jade Venus Page 22