Jade Venus

by George Harmon Coxe

  “What the hell,” he said. “No booze? Nine in the morning to midnight I work and not even a drink when I finish?”

  “It took you long enough to get in touch with me,” Murdock said.

  Fenner sighed. “I never thought it would come to this. No drink and not even an apology. Maybe you’re on the wagon. No, it couldn’t be that.… I didn’t have much to report.”

  “You started last night,” Murdock said, “You could have—”

  “I did. I phoned about one last night. You were out.”

  Murdock looked at him disgustedly. “You couldn’t have left a message, could you?”

  “Leaving messages with hotel operators these days is a waste of time. Anyway the only thing that happened was that the guy she was with took her home.”

  He sat down and stretched his legs. With his hat off his hair was straight and fine and he had a widow’s peak that was slowly approaching baldness. This, added to his tight-muscled face and the narrow, upward-slanting eyes, gave him a look that made you think of Mephistopheles.

  “You were right about Louise,” he said. “She’s pretty terrific. The only trouble is when you have to tail a dame like that you never get to meet her; you can’t even try to pick her up. You think you can fix it—for later—so I could buy her a drink?”

  “Never mind,” Murdock said. “What happened?”

  “Nothing much. She came home after the funeral, stayed there until nine tonight, then went to the place you were at last night.”

  “The Silver Door?”

  “Some guy was waiting for her and—”

  “Describe him.”

  “Tall, thin, hungry-looking. Maybe twenty-eight. Brown hair, wavy, needs a haircut. Clothes sort of hang on him and he looks as if the world had soured on him. Thin nose and—”

  “Roger Carroll,” Murdock said. “You couldn’t hear what they said?”

  Fenner shook his head. “Couldn’t get close enough. But they didn’t act like love birds. Sometimes it looked as if they were arguing and then they’d sit and stare at nothing. They were at it quite a while and the dame did most of the talking and finally I guess she got annoyed and walked out on him.”

  “Did she go home?”

  “Let me tell this, will you?”

  Murdock checked his reply. A strange new excitement he could not explain began to stir inside him. It made him impatient, but he knew Fenner would not be hurried. He waited while the detective lit a cigarette.

  “She went to a small apartment house on Blake Street-number 118. She was there about an hour and then came out, got into her car, and drove home.”

  Murdock’s brows puckered and one lifted and stayed there while he considered what he had heard. He did not know what it meant but he had the feeling that something had been accomplished. That here, possibly, was a new lead of some kind. Without knowing any more he felt good, a little exultant about this meeting of Louise and Roger Carroll. He looked at Fenner, his brows still warped.

  “Did she have anything with her? I mean did she carry anything?”

  “A pocketbook.”

  Murdock nodded. “Swell,” he said. “Try it again tomorrow.”

  “Okay. And don’t forget—I’d still like to buy her that drink.” He made no move to get up. He glanced at Murdock and the gleam in his eyes was sardonic but amused. “I’d even buy you one—if you’d order it.”

  Murdock sighed loudly and with the weariness of a beaten man. He got up. He started for the telephone, then stopped. “Will you shove off after you get it?”

  “Sure,” said Fenner. “If it’s a double.”

  Murdock ordered a double bourbon and a Scotch. When he came back Fenner was examining the end of his cigarette. He said, “I see the guitar player at the Silver Door got knocked off last night.”

  “Tony Lorello,” Murdock said. “Yes.”

  “I made some inquiries from a friend of mine down at headquarters. Shot once, close up, like Andrada, wasn’t he?”

  Murdock nodded and no longer felt good.

  “Lorello was talking to you last night,” Fenner said. “And Louise and that big guy she was with.” He tried to make smoke rings by bobbing the cigarette up and down. “Same guy shoot both of ’em?”

  “Probably.”

  The waiter came with the drinks. Fenner didn’t linger over his. He drank appreciatively and then drank again. “You’d like to crack this case, wouldn’t you?”

  “Professor Andrada was a friend of mine. If I hadn’t come to town he might be alive now. With what I know now I won’t be cracking anything, but maybe Bacon can.”

  “You’re going to try, though.”

  Murdock’s mouth was grim and unpleasant, like his thoughts. “You’re damn right I’m going to try. I am trying. I haven’t got to first base yet and there’s another job I have to do, but—”

  He let the sentence hang and made no attempt to finish it. Presently Fenner drained his glass and stood up. He said, “Thanks for the drink.” He went to the door and when Murdock did not get up or even look at him he said, “I’ll buy tomorrow,” and went out.

  Murdock remained in his chair, his drink practically untouched. Gradually his thoughts turned back to Louise Andrada and the things Jack Fenner had told him. He thought beyond this to the callers he’d had and he knew he had been wise in staying in tonight. Sometimes it paid to wait, to sit a thing out and let people come to you and this was one of those times—he hoped.

  “118 Blake Street,” he said aloud.

  Someone had said that Gail Roberts was fixing up an apartment on Blake Street. Was it the same address? And what business could Louise have there alone?

  He thought about it quite a while. Finally he sat down on the bed and started to unlace his shoe and then, abruptly, he stopped and picked up the telephone. What if it is after twelve? he thought, and gave the number of the Andrada home.

  Presently he heard the distant ringing of the other telephone. He listened absently at first and thought of other things; then, wonderingly, he began to count. When the operator said his party did not answer, he asked her to try again. In another moment he heard the distant ringing again and this time he counted twelve rings while his incredulity gave way to a vague alarm that worried him strangely. When he finally put the telephone aside he started to unlace his other shoe. Then, suddenly, he tied it, tied the other, grabbed his cap and coat, and left the room.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A LADY AFRAID

  THE ANDRADA HOUSE was dark when Murdock parked across the street and snapped off his lights, and he sat for a moment studying it. The more he thought of it the more he regretted the impulse that had brought him here and now, considering the matter coldly, he saw that there was slight basis for his act.

  The house was good-sized and a telephone ringing in a hall would not necessarily be heard behind the closed door of a bedroom if one was sound asleep. Jack Fenner had said Louise had come home and that was over an hour and a half ago. Gail Roberts would certainly be home by this time.

  He stepped to the pavement and walked to the corner where he could look along the side of the house. There was no light of any kind behind the vacantly staring windows. He came back along the hedge to the opening and the walk that led to the porch. He glanced up and down the street and it was dark and empty and quiet.

  He turned and walked resolutely to his car, climbed in and reached for the ignition switch. He touched it, hesitated, and was lost. He got out again and crossed the street toward the porch. He went up the steps on tiptoe. He was all confused inside with the struggle that was going on, yet all the time his mind pointed out the idiocy of the venture he kept moving. Still on tiptoe, he crossed the wide porch. The same intuitive force that had brought him this far made him reach for the doorbell. As he did so he saw it—the thin black space between the edge of the door and the frame.

  The sight of that open door shocked him and his imagination ran wild until he stifled it. For a long moment he looked at th
at opening while a tightness slid across his shoulders, and though he had not noticed it before he felt a cool breeze sweep across the floor of the porch and curl around his calves.

  Then, aware that he was wasting time, he reached out, not for the doorbell, but toward the knob. It was smooth and cold in his palm and he pushed in and slid through the opening, moving quickly to one side and pulling the door behind him.

  It was much darker here and he waited, listening, hearing nothing but the thudding of his pulse. His palms were cold and there was a stiffness in his neck as he began to move along the hall. Then a sound came to him, close but yet muffled, and all at once he realized that this was not the way.

  Something was wrong here, terribly wrong, but it was no good creeping about. He felt along the wall and stumbled against a chair. He hit a table and it made an awful racket and he kept on feeling until he located the light switch.

  The muffled sound came again as the hall was flooded with brightness. He moved toward the sound, locating it finally under the stairs. He heard it once more, a pounding sound this time, and saw the closet door. He turned the catch and opened it; then he caught his breath and stiffened there.

  Gail Roberts stood far back against the wall, a huddled, shrinking figure, her crossed hands pressed tightly to her breasts. Her hair was a dark frame for the chalky immobility of her young face and fear held her eyes wide until they focused and recognition touched them.

  “Gail!” Murdock said. “Why, Gail!”

  He reached for her and thought she was going to collapse as she staggered toward him; then he had her shoulders, pulling her to him, holding her as the shudders ran through her body.

  “Oh, Kent!” She pressed her face against his chest and clung to him and her words were muffled and torn. “I heard the phone ringing and ringing. I must have fainted—”

  “Okay.” Murdock let his breath out and his own relief was wonderful to feel. “You’re all right, aren’t you?” He held her off until he could look at her and saw no marks on her but only the whiteness of her face and the wide open eyes. “Take it easy, darling. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Someone was here, Kent. A man. Upstairs. I woke up and heard something and—”

  She broke off in a sudden gasp.

  “Louise!” she cried. “He was in her room!”

  And then she had freed herself and was running up the stairs, her negligee open and billowing behind her and bare feet flying.

  Murdock was a step behind her all the way along the upper hall. He caught up with her at Louise’s door, but it was Gail who opened it and reached in and snapped the switch. The room sprang into view and they stared at its wild disorder. There was no sign of Louise, but the bed had been pulled apart, and drawers stood open and furniture had been pulled from the walls.

  “Louise!” Gail cried, her voice shrill, “Louise!”

  She started for the connecting bath and snapped on the light here. She turned to Murdock incredulously. “She’s not here,” she said. “Where is she? What could have—”

  The knocking stopped her. Murdock wheeled, locating it behind a closed door. There was a key in it and he turned it and then Gail flashed by him and dropped to one knee beside Louise Andrada, who sat on the closet floor clutching a quilt around her shoulders.

  Louise’s reaction was somewhat startling. She paid no attention to Gail in that first moment. She looked at Murdock and her face was sullen and she sat right where she was.

  “Yes, I’m all right,” she said when Gail persisted. “Of course I’m all right.… I can get up alone,” she said when Murdock tried to help her and he saw then she was not frightened; she was furious.

  “Who was it?” she demanded.

  “But—we don’t know,” Gail said. “I thought I heard a noise and I came down to see if it was you and then I saw the knob turn and the door open. And this room was dark and I ran. I didn’t think he saw me but he must have. He found me in the closet under the stairs and when he turned a flashlight in my face I must have fainted. I heard the phone ringing and tried to get out and I was locked in.”

  She stopped, out of breath and watching Louise. Louise was watching Murdock. “What brought you here?”

  Murdock said he got worried when no one answered the telephone. He said he drove out to see if anything was wrong.

  “I suppose we should be glad you did,” Louise said. “I banged on that door until I got tired. I thought I was going to sit there all night.”

  She threw aside the quilt. She wore yellow pajamas and there was a yellow brocade robe on the floor which she quickly put on.

  “What would he want here?” Murdock asked.

  “How would I know?”

  “He wanted something—from the looks of this room. Were you asleep when he came in?”

  “I don’t know if I was or not,” Louise said shortly. “Yes, I suppose I must have been or I’d have heard him come in. All I remember was hearing someone moving around the room. I sat up and asked who was there; then, before I could yell, someone tossed the quilt over my head.”

  She found her slippers and put them on. “I didn’t have a chance,” she said. “He just dragged me out of bed and into the closet. I didn’t know where I was until I got that thing off my head and then I was locked in.”

  She began to shove furniture back in place and Murdock helped. Gail watched them, frowning. “But didn’t he say anything?”

  “He said if I made a sound he’d cut my throat.”

  “You didn’t recognize the voice?” Murdock asked.

  “With that thing over my head,” Louise said, “how could I?”

  She finally got the room straightened to her satisfaction and the bed fixed. She wasn’t so beautiful now, with her blond hair piled high and the cream on her face. Her mouth wasn’t red any more and the line of her brows was less striking. She caught Murdock looking at her and snapped at him.

  “Stop staring. I know how I look.”

  He grinned. He couldn’t help it.

  “You look cute,” he said. “In a domestic sort of way. Why don’t we go down and get a drink and—”

  “Not for me,” Louise said.

  “Do you good.”

  Louise made a face at him and her voice remained caustic.

  “I’m one of those girls that needs her ten hours sleep. And this time I’m going to lock my door. And look, darling”—she eyed Gail’s figure questioningly—“shouldn’t you pull yourself together a bit before you start drinking?”

  Gail glanced down. Her negligee was open and her nightgown was thin. She blushed as she belted the robe and Murdock touched her arm. “Come on,” he said. “Get some slippers and something warm on. I want to talk to you.”

  He was waiting in the drawing-room with two drinks when Gail came down in a flannel housecoat. She said she didn’t need a drink but she took a little when he insisted; then she curled up in the corner of the divan and watched him.

  He asked if Gail had come home before Louise, and was she alone in the house, and where was Mrs. Higgins? Gail said Mrs. Higgins’s room was in the wing and she would not have been able to hear the telephone once she had gone to bed.

  Murdock lit cigarettes and got some things sorted out in his mind. He remembered his unfinished conversation with Gail, and the point he had been about to make when Roger Carroll had come to his room and interrupted things. Now he started her talking about Carroll by asking when she first knew him and what kind of a lad he had been in those days.

  “He was twenty-one,” she said, “and I was sixteen. Uncle Albert brought him home one day—Roger was taking one of those art appreciation courses or something—and asked him to come back for Sunday afternoon tea. We used to have people in every Sunday—friends of Uncle Albert’s or students or artists. Anybody who wanted to come, really.”

  She paused and sipped her drink. She continued quietly, without enthusiasm, as though she had no feeling in the matter one way or the other.

  “Roger
really had talent,” she said. “He’d already had a one-man show here in town and Uncle Albert was quite proud of him. He fixed it up for him to study with someone on the North Shore one summer and planned out a schedule or course of study—something like that—and he had written to some men in Italy and Roger was going over there when he finished school and study with them. Of course, even with all that encouragement, Roger didn’t work too hard. He was fun to be with and he did crazy things that made you laugh. Of course there were girls. I was too young to be anything but a sort of kid sister, but sometimes he would take me out and I was very impressed too, going with someone who knew all the headwaiters and orchestra leaders. I thought it was all pretty wonderful.”

  She put her head back and continued to the ceiling: “He had a roadster and he was a marvelous dancer and he had enough money so he could always have a good time. He hadn’t much family. A married sister, who lived in Evanston, and his father, and I suppose he was a little wild. Uncle Albert used to get angry with him sometimes and lecture him and Roger would admit Uncle was right and they’d get along nicely for a while longer and then Roger would paint some abstraction or suddenly get madly enthusiastic about Cézanne or Picasso and then for a while he’d do a lot of badly drawn, quickly done oils that looked half-finished and pretty awful.

  “He knew they were no good. He gave them away to his friends as soon as he finished them. It was just his way of blowing off steam and getting things out of his system. But Uncle Albert didn’t see it that way. The thing that really ruined everything was some crazy sets Roger did for a Hasty Pudding Club show. Uncle Albert was furious. He told Roger not to come to the house any more and refused to let me go out with him again—of course I did sometimes when he didn’t know about it—and Roger can be pretty stubborn sometimes. He sulked and got defiant and painted badly and drank more than he should have. And then his father died and there was a little money and one day after that he asked me to meet him and we had dinner and he said he was going to Italy.”