Chapter Five

PICTURE PUZZLE

THE ANDRADA HOME was a semi-Georgian affair of red brick and white-painted frame. It stood well back on a half-acre plot and was separated from its neighbors by a high hedge except in the rear where the garage and the professor’s studio made the boundary line. Out in front, where the hedge broke to admit a sidewalk, a uniformed policeman was talking to a half-dozen reporters and apparently keeping them off the property, for when Murdock and Bacon left the police car they immediately chorused a good-natured protest at such discrimination.

Barry Gould was among them, and with the others Murdock had to go through much of the same routine he had gone through with the medical examiner. He knew most of them. He had to shake hands and say hello.

“How do you rate here?” they asked. “You working for the Courier again, or what? Where’s your camera?”

And then they were after Bacon. When was he going to give them the lowdown? Bacon said, “Later.” For the present he had nothing to say and he would have gone in if Barry Gould hadn’t stopped him.

“No,” Bacon said. “You’ll stay out here with the rest of them.”

“I think you should.” Gould glanced at Murdock and winked. “I’m really sort of a witness.”

“How?”

“Well, I was here last night for a little while. Ask Murdock.”

Bacon was immediately interested. He got corroboration from Murdock. He said, “Hmm. In that case you’re invited.”

“Oh, fine,” the others said. “Two guys from the Courier get front seats and the rest of us get the brush-off.”

Bacon ignored them and kept walking and Murdock and Gould followed along. Sergeant Keogh was waiting at the door. He was a blocky, blunt-jawed man with a thick, hoarse voice and when he had shaken hands with Murdock he told Bacon the housekeeper and maid were waiting in the kitchen. “The other two dames are in there,” he said, and nodded toward the drawing-room.

Bacon thought it over and told Murdock and Gould to wait in the other room. “Where’s the kitchen?” he said, and followed Keogh through the dining-room.

Louise Andrada was sitting on the divan having coffee and a cigarette, and when she saw Murdock and Gould she came to meet them. She wore a dark-blue house coat that trailed behind her and her voice sounded nervous and upset when she said how glad she was they had come. Murdock’s glance went beyond her to Gail Roberts.

Gail was sitting in a straight-backed chair, staring out the window. She wore a tailored black dress and held a wadded handkerchief in her hand and when he went to her he saw that her eyes were red-rimmed, the long lashes still wet. She looked up at him and then away but she did not speak. When he realized it might be kinder to leave her alone, he squeezed her shoulders gently and stood there a moment.

“I came out with Lieutenant Bacon,” he said. “He’ll have to ask some questions but I don’t think it will be bad.”

He went over to Louise and Barry Gould. There was a tray with a coffee urn and covered plates of rolls and toast on the coffee table and he let Louise pour him a cup. He took it black and had a piece of toast and listened absently while Louise asked questions in low tones and Gould tried to answer them. When she turned to Murdock he told her of the telephone call from Bacon and what had happened since.

The lieutenant came in about fifteen minutes later and was introduced. When he had been properly apologetic he said that Murdock had told him what had happened at the house last night and asked where he could locate Roger Carroll and Carl Watrous. Sergeant Keogh took down the addresses and went away without being told. Presently he could be heard talking on the telephone.

Bacon sat down and went over in detail the events of the night before, letting the two women tell the story and making notes from time to time. When he was satisfied he said there were some other things he’d like to know. They might not seem relevant but he hoped that they would co-operate so that he might have the proper picture of the background. He turned to Gail and asked whether she was related to the professor.

Murdock did not listen closely because he was aware of most of the answers. Gail had, he knew, been like a daughter to Professor Andrada since she was fourteen. For Andrada, the fiery, brilliant oracle of Renaissance painting, and Doctor Roberts had been brother professors at the University and the closest of friends. They had named each other in their wills as executors and after the automobile accident which had cost Doctor Roberts and his wife their lives, Gail came to live with Andrada, and Murdock knew how he had come to depend on her.

Using his own money and keeping what had been left to her intact, Andrada had sent her to finishing school and to Smith, though he was unable to make her go back after the first year. Instead she took a business course and bullied him into making her his secretary. It was about that time that Murdock first met her and though they had never been intimate friends he had run into her from time to time and now, remembering how close she had always been to Andrada, he realized how serious the break over Roger Carroll must have been to make her decide to leave the house for an apartment of her own.

“I see,” Bacon said when he had his story. “And Mrs. Andrada”—he looked at Louise—“you were living here too?”

“Temporarily,” Louise said. “I have no near relatives and no place particularly to go, so when I got back from Italy I wrote Uncle Albert from New York. I’d heard a lot about him from my husband and I thought it would be nice to meet him and tell him—well, about things in Italy and what had happened. He asked me to come and stay with him and—”

“How long ago was that?”

“Oh, I’ve been here a month or so,” Louise said. “I hadn’t planned to stay so long but I hadn’t been able to find anything definite I could do. For a living I mean. I haven’t any income, you see. I did manage to save a few pieces of jewelry and I thought I might try my hand at show business again. Carl Watrous thought he might have a part for me.”

“Watrous?” Bacon’s tone made it clear the name meant nothing to him. “An actor, is he?”

“A producer,” Louise said. “He did The Gay Buccaneer and Thursday Nights Off.”

Bacon said, “Umm,” but remained unimpressed. He shifted in his chair and watched Gould a moment. “How’d you happen to be here last night? Friend of the family, are you?”

“Well—not exactly.” Gould hesitated. “I came here first to see Professor Andrada when I got back from Italy. I’m doing a book on my experiences in the concentration camp and my escape, and I wanted his opinion on some things and also I had some news about one of his nephews who was in a concentration camp up near Milan. At Binofro.”

Murdock was familiar with part of the story and as he listened he filled in his background from memory. Gould had worked for the Courier for about a year before the war and Murdock had known him as an experienced, self-assured reporter who dressed well, liked a good time, and usually had one even if he had to borrow here and there to do it.

He was a gregarious sort and more popular with women than men, possibly because he was good-looking, possibly because he dressed better than most of his associates, possibly because he did things in a grand manner that impressed women more than men, as grand manners always do. He was a brilliant writer when he put his mind to it, but he was not above faking a story when he could get away with it and for that reason he was not as dependable as some of his less-gifted colleagues. But there was nothing wrong with his courage and determination. He was one of the first to get into the war as a correspondent, as a freelance first and later with Mutual Press. He was in on the African show and later, while acting as an observer on a bombing raid, he had been shot down over Northern Italy, and had languished in a concentration camp until the Allied invasion. At that time some Italians had revolted and during the uprising many prisoners had been released. Gould happened to be one of the lucky ones and his accounts of his escape had been given considerable publicity.

“So you’ve been back about six weeks,” Bacon said. “You didn’t come over with Mrs. Andrada?”

Gould glanced at Louise and shook his head. “I flew back from England. I got out through France and the underground. After that I spent a couple of months in London.”

“You’re working for the Courier now?”

“Not on salary. I do some special stuff—features.” He grinned. “I’m the Courier’s Italian expert.”

“You’re working on this or you wouldn’t have been out front with those other reporters.”

“Because I was assigned to it. Because I knew Andrada.”

A door opened somewhere as Gould spoke and in a moment Sergeant Keogh appeared. “Carl Watrous is out here,” he said, and when he got a nod from Bacon he called down the hall, “In here.”

Carl Watrous wore another of his hundred-and-fifty dollar suits, a chalk-striped number in dark gray, and double-breasted so that his husky torso seemed even more formidable. His thin hair was brushed straight back and his blue eyes, pale and troubled against the craggy framework of his face, took in all the room in that first glance and then went to Louise. He walked over and held her hand a moment.

“I just found out,” he said. “What a terrible thing to have happen. Is there anything I can do?”

Louise shook her head. “Thanks, Carl,” she said. “There isn’t anything now. I just can’t seem to realize—” She broke off as Bacon cleared his throat and then she said, “Oh, this is Lieutenant Bacon—Mr. Watrous. The lieutenant’s been asking us about last night.”

Watrous nodded to Bacon and looked for a place to sit down. There was room on the divan next to Louise and he took it. He nodded to Murdock and Barry Gould and gave a worried glance at Gail Roberts; then he reached for a piece of toast and broke it.

“You were here,” Bacon said, “when this fellow that impersonated Murdock came. What did he look like?”

It was strictly a throw-away question. Bacon knew all about Erloff from Murdock but he listened while Watrous gave a vague description of the man.

“You came to see Mrs. Andrada?” he said when Watrous finished.

“Yes,” Carl Watrous said. “Also I wanted to make an offer for three funny-looking pictures that came with the Andrada collection.”

“How’d you know they were in the collection?”

A faint flush crept up from Watrous’s collar. He popped a piece of toast in his mouth. “I didn’t when I left New York. I saw a thing in the paper about the collection and I was coming up to see Mrs. Andrada anyway so I thought I’d like to see the collection. I didn’t know about the three surrealist pictures until I got here.”

He went on to explain the offer and it was the same story Louise had told Murdock the night before. Bacon’s lids came down and his gaze was bright and direct.

“You offered him a thousand for the three, huh? I thought they were worthless.”

“To Andrada maybe.” Watrous sat up and brushed crumbs from his fingers. He met Bacon’s gaze with steady eyes and his voice was flat. “I’m doing a musical. I have to have sets. I spend a lot of money on smart ones. I saw where I could use these three wild pictures in one of those sets. The cost would be an expense of the production and chargeable on my income tax. Also I have a very modern rumpus room and bar in my house in Westchester and I figured those pictures would look very nice in that particular setting when I finished with them in the musical. I figured on killing two birds with one stone and charging it all off on my income tax. I offered him a thousand for the three and when one was stolen I would have bought the other two. I told him so but he wouldn’t sell.”

It was Bacon’s turn to get a little red around the neck. Watrous’s tone was impatient and curt and it was the A plus B plus C explanation one would give to a child. Furthermore it sounded convincing. Bacon grunted and got ready to say something more but the ringing of the doorbell stopped him. He glanced round, waiting. Presently Keogh appeared. “Roger Carroll,” he said.

Murdock’s first impression of Roger Carroll was that he was about twenty-eight, around six feet tall and too thin for his height, as though he hadn’t had enough to eat or was not too well. His hair was thick and brown, his nose thin and high-bridged, and his glance was indifferent and hostile as it swept the room—until it found Gail Roberts; then his whole face seemed to soften and he walked quickly to her chair.

She looked at him and then away and he said, “I’m sorry, Gail. Terribly sorry.” He turned and stepped toward Bacon. “You wanted to see me?”

Bacon said to sit down and did Carroll know what had happened?

“I know Professor Andrada was found murdered this morning,” Carroll said.

“That’s right,” Bacon said. “In his car. In an alley where someone else had driven it.… Where were you last night?”

“I was at a movie until nearly ten-thirty.”

“Alone?”

“With me,” Gail Roberts said.

Bacon turned in his chair. He looked at her a moment and she looked right back at him and finally he turned and asked Carroll a few more routine questions. Then he said, “You had trouble with Andrada.”

Carroll hesitated. “Not trouble, really.”

“The maid says different. He practically threw you out of the house and told you not to come back. He told you to stay away from Miss Roberts but you didn’t.” Bacon hesitated and when Carroll made no reply he continued. “It got so bad that Miss Roberts was going to leave. She was fixing up an apartment. Where, Miss Roberts?”

“On Blake Street.”

“Why did he have it in for you, Mr. Carroll?”

Roger Carroll’s brown eyes were sullen and his mouth, twisted now, was bitter. “He didn’t like the way I painted for one thing.”

“He used to,” Bacon said and Murdock, listening, once again was impressed by the lieutenant’s ability to get so much pertinent information in such short space of time. “The housekeeper, Mrs. Higgins, says you used to be one of Andrada’s favorites when you were in college. You used to be around here a lot. That’s how you got to know Miss Roberts so well.”

“I thought we were talking about now,” Carroll said. “Since I’ve been back I did a little commercial stuff for an advertising agency and I’ve been doing a little sketching nights in a place called the Silver Door—for whatever a customer would pay.” Carroll’s mouth dipped a little more. “Andrada thought I was a prime example of a weak-kneed wastrel. He didn’t like anything I did.… Also, I got in a little trouble in Italy, which I don’t imagine helped.”

Remembering what Louise had said the night before, Murdock sat up and waited for Bacon. The lieutenant came through. “What kind of trouble?”

Roger Carroll shrugged and reached for a cigarette. “I imagine you could find out, so I might as well tell you. A little black-market trouble. In Rome. In the fall of ’41. A black market in lira. A lot of people did it only I happened to get caught.”

The scratch of Carroll’s match was loud against the sudden silence. He blew out the flame with smoke and gave Bacon the twisted, humorless smile.

“They sentenced me to ten years, possibly to make an example and possibly because they did not care for Americans at the time. Anyway, the consul went to bat for me and they reduced the sentence to two years. I had just about finished when the Salerno landings were made. The Germans opened the prisons, some of them at least, and I guess they didn’t know I was an American. I looked up Lou—Mrs. Andrada. I’d known her before and she helped me. I passed as an Italian because no one seemed to give a damn at the time. We made our way to Naples, and her husband was killed there and we stuck it out until the Allies came.”

Bacon seemed about to say something and changed his mind. He scratched his head and looked at Gail Roberts. “Who inherits Andrada’s estate?”

Gail said she didn’t know. “You’ll have to ask his attorney,” she said and mentioned the name and address.

“What about that shipment of paintings, the genuine ones? Must’ve been pretty valuable.” Bacon glanced at Louise. “Were they the professor’s? Where’d he get ’em?”

“They belonged to the Andrada estate,” Louise said. “Since 1939 when his brother died—my husband’s father—Uncle Albert was really Count Andrada. The whole estate was his to do with as he pleased. It always has been that way—like the title. The art collection was handed down from generation to generation and if the owner needed money he would sell something from the collection. Later he might buy other things when times were good. Apparently Uncle Albert decided to take it all himself.”

“Because he didn’t want anyone else to have it?” Bacon asked.

“Because he was an American.”

The voice was cold and curt and Murdock looked round to see Gail Roberts sitting straight and defiant. “Because he was disgusted with the things his country had done. He didn’t care what happened to the land and buildings that belonged to him, but he wanted the paintings preserved for Americans to look at and enjoy.”

For a long moment no one said anything. Bacon cleared his throat and eyed Murdock aslant. “I didn’t know they allowed stuff like that to be shipped out of Europe.”

“They don’t ordinarily,” Murdock said. “But in this case the title was clear and Andrada had already asked us to be on the lookout for the collection and he requested that it be shipped to him so that he could turn it over to the museum if we found it. We were indebted to him anyway for the help he had given us. Ordinarily we move any art objects to a safe place and if we have any cases to open we like to wait and open them in front of the man who originally had charge of the museum or monastery or whatever it is—if we can locate him. Our job is simply to preserve and restore but in this case the rightful owner was here and got an okay from Washington, and since the acting Italian Government—under Badoglio—gave permission, the cases were shipped.”

“Umm,” Bacon said and stood up. “And now everything is safe in the museum except three phonies that you”—he looked at Watrous deliberately—“wanted to pay a thousand dollars for.”

Watrous gave him a long, indifferent stare. “They were worth that to me.”

“One of them—a thing called the Jade Venus—must have been worth more than that. A lot more.”

The telephone rang in the hall and Keogh went out and answered it. “For you,” he said, and nodded to Bacon. It was a one-sided conversation, what Murdock heard of it, with Bacon’s end consisting mostly of yes and no. When he came back he said he guessed that would be all. He was sorry he had to intrude at such a time but he was sure Gail and Louise would understand. There were a few more questions he wanted to ask Roger Carroll and if Carroll didn’t mind riding downtown with him—

“Not at all,” Carroll said.

Bacon started off, then stopped. “Oh, by the way. How do you fellows stand on the draft?”

They looked at him, everyone in the room. The three men in question exchanged glances, started to speak at the same time and then Carroll got the floor. He was a little red in the face.

“I’m 4-F,” he said. “Just temporarily, I hope.”

“I’m still deferred,” Gould said. “I expect to get across again when I finish the book.”

Watrous cleared his throat and his voice came out sardonic. “I got tossed out. An honorable discharge.”

“Oh?” Bacon’s brows climbed.

“I had six months as a private,” Watrous said. “We didn’t get along. Me and the Army. On my thirty-eighth birthday—that was two months ago—they brushed me off. Couldn’t get rid of me fast enough.”

“Hmm,” Bacon said. “Thanks. Ready, Carroll?”

They started down the hall with Barry Gould. Murdock and Carl Watrous followed along until Murdock felt a hand on his arm. It was Gail Roberts’s hand.

“Please, Kent,” she said. “You don’t have to go. You can stay a little while.”

“Yes,” Louise said. “Please stay.… And Carl …”

Murdock did not hear the rest of it, for he was looking at Gail and when he saw how small and forlorn she looked, when he realized how hard it was for her now, he nodded and took her hand and found an odd thickness in his throat when he spoke.

“Okay,” he said, “for a little while.”

He was wrong, however, about the length of his stay. Louise had talked Carl Watrous into staying too and both women insisted that they have lunch there. Murdock was still trying to get away at two o’clock when the telephone rang and Mrs. Higgins said it was for him.

Lieutenant Bacon wasted no words. “Come and get your picture,” he said.

“What?” Murdock yelled.

“The picture,” Bacon said. “The Venus thing. I’m down at George Damon’s Art Mart.”

Murdock found himself talking on a dead wire and when he recovered sufficiently to think he got the operator and gave her the number of the Courier-Herald.

Louise and Gail and Watrous gathered round him as he waited and he told them what Bacon said and asked Gail if she would go with him. Watrous said he would like to see the picture too and then Gould answered.

“Go down to the studio,” Murdock said when he repeated the information Bacon had given him. “I mean the Courier studio—and tell whoever’s there to give you my camera and plate-case. It should be in my old desk. And be sure you get some infra-red film and filters.”

The Art Mart, in pre-war days, had been an automobile showroom. Now it had a heavy, modernistic door and its front window was tastefully draped to display water colors and canvases and a small card which said: Originals from $25-$300.

Lieutenant Bacon and Barry Gould were waiting in the foyer when Murdock, Gail Roberts, and Carl Watrous entered. George Damon was talking to an auburn-haired girl with glasses, who sat behind the reception desk, and propped up against a corner of the desk was a medium- sized canvas in an antiqued frame, the focal point of which was a figure of Venus done in jade green.

Murdock stopped in front of it, aware that his pulse was thumping and his mouth was dry. “Yes,” he said, though he had never seen the picture before, “that’s it.… Isn’t it, Gail?”

When she hesitated he glanced at her and found her lips parted, her stare wide and oddly disturbed. “Yes,” she said in a small, husky voice. “Yes, that’s the one.”

Murdock watched her turn away, heard Bacon say something and glanced at the lieutenant. “How did it get here?” Murdock asked.

“Some kid brought it in—so Damon says.”

“Yes.” George Damon nodded and rubbed his palms. “I was out to lunch and this boy came in and spoke to Miss Garber.” He nodded toward the receptionist. “She thought something was wrong—the boy was poorly dressed and not more than seventeen or so—but she told him to sit down and wait until I came back.”

Damon spread his hands. “I guess he must have got scared and—”

“Why should he get scared?” Murdock asked.

“Well”—Damon glanced at Bacon and his manner became elaborately patient—“obviously it was not the boy’s. At least if what you told me last night was true, Murdock. And after a few minutes he told Miss Garber he’d be back. She tried to stop him but—”

“Why should he bring it here anyway?”

Damon shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. We do quite a bit of advertising. It might have been that. My own opinion is that he found it somewhere and hoped to sell it for a few dollars.”

Murdock examined the other as he spoke. It was different now from the deep shadows of Damon’s library last night. He could see all he needed to see now and he was aware that outwardly there had been a great change in George Damon since the Prohibition days that had given him his start.

In his late forties, he was plump, pink-faced, and very dapper indeed with his waxed mustache, striped trousers, and short Oxford-gray coat. A delicately embroidered handkerchief flowed from the breast pocket and his cravat was thick silk. His hands were soft and manicured and he still smelled of Eau-de-Cologne; only the opaque eyes, deepset beneath the thick black brows, told Murdock that behind it all was the same shrewd, hard ruthlessness that had made Damon the top man in any racket he ever touched.

“You didn’t see this up at Professor Andrada’s the other day?”

“As I told you,” Damon said, “the canvases I saw had value.”

“And you figured this was the one I said had been stolen and so you reported it to the police and—”

“Exactly.”

“Anyway, we’ve got it,” Bacon said. “And if that comes under the head of Art, I’ve seen everything.” He turned to Carl Watrous. “That’s the thing you wanted to pay a thousand bucks for, huh?”

“That and two others.”

Murdock was still watching Damon. He saw the opaque, half-hidden eyes flick to Watrous, hesitate, and pass on; then Bacon touched Murdock’s arm.

“Well, what do you want to do with it?”

Murdock hesitated and looked through the doorway into the long, narrow showroom beyond, hands thrust deep in his trench coat pockets, his gaze darkly brooding. He could see a few men and women inspecting the paintings and etchings which adorned the walls and part of his brain became vaguely busy with what he saw. This was a new kind of art gallery. Here there was no atmosphere of plush and frock coats designed to cow prospective clients and art lovers into the proper state of humility; the part of the room he saw was well lighted and smartly decorated and there were comfortable chairs and settees for those who wanted to sit and look. The pictures on the walls were openly displayed and priced, and the customers were allowed to go their own gait without solicitation. Sergeant Keogh wandered through the doorway shaking his head.

“Some stuff,” he said. “Not bad, either—some of it. You should get a load of it, Lieutenant.”

The remark broke Murdock’s mood. “Is there some place where I can photograph this?” he asked Damon.

George Damon said there was. Out back there was a room he was welcome to use.

Murdock developed his films in the darkrooms of the Courier-Herald and when, finally, he had examined them against the glow of the safe-light, he slipped them into the hypo and stood staring blindly into the darkness, trying to put down his bitterness and disappointment. The films showed nothing more than his eyes had seen on the canvases, and now that he was sure he tried to tell himself that he had expected nothing more, that he could not expect to be that lucky. Yet, underlying the doubt that had crept into his mind ever since he talked to George Damon, there had always been hope; now weariness and dejection erased even that as he went down the corridor to the studio anteroom. Barry Gould, who had come back with him, swung his feet down from a desk top and looked expectant.

“Find what you wanted?”

Murdock shook his head. “Drew a blank,” he said woodenly.

Gould studied him a moment. He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his sandy hair and put the hat back on. He had a trick of bunching his brows when thinking so that a hump came over the bridge of his nose from which tiny wrinkles spread, like the segments of a fanlight above a door. The wrinkles were there now.

“I haven’t asked a lot of questions,” he said. “I figured it was none of my business, otherwise someone would have told me. But you used infra-red films and filters because with that equipment you can tell if there’s another painting underneath the one the eye can see; because you figured there was something underneath that picture of the green Venus.”

“Something like that,” Murdock said.

“But you didn’t find it. Which means your idea was bad, or else there’s another picture and the one you got from Damon is only a copy of the original. Right?”

“Right.”

Gould stood up. He walked over to the window and looked out. “I guess you got your job with the A.M.G. because you were good at infra-red and ultra-violet stuff.”

“Partly,” Murdock said. “Also I’d been in Italy for a summer and could speak the language a little.”

“I didn’t say anything last night because Andrada was excited enough without me asking a lot of questions, but I know the sort of job your branch is doing and I know what the Germans have been doing with the things they’ve taken from museums and other collections. I heard about one case of wanton destruction. I don’t know how true it is but I think it was at Livardi. The Italians had brought over eight hundred cases of things dating from 1238—museum pieces, selected documents from state archives. There were registers of the Hohenstaufen and Angevin kings of Naples and stuff from the House of Aragon. I understand there were around sixty paintings including an early Botticelli and a Luini.… An incendiary squad destroyed the works.”

“We know about that one,” Murdock said, “but we can’t prove it. Not yet.”

Gould continued, still talking to the window. “It’s a lot different world than I thought it was when I used to be on the Courier. All I thought of then was Barry Gould and where he could make a few more fast bucks. I’ve seen a lot of death and suffering since then; and greed and treachery. From things I’ve heard I’m not so sure the Germans are the only ones doing the looting. I’ve got an idea there are a few Italians cashing in—the ones with a little power and the right connections.”

He turned. “But anyway, you come all the way from Italy to get your hands on a painting and last night the painting is stolen and Andrada is murdered. That could hook the two up, and if it does it sort of makes that painting important. It sort of looks as if that painting was a key or a map or a code to some very valuable things you guys haven’t been able to locate.”

“It was an idea I had,” Murdock said, aware that there was no point in denying such reasoning.

“And if the idea is still good you have to come back to the possibility that the picture you got from Damon is a copy. And when you think of copy you have to think of Roger Carroll. The only thing is he couldn’t have made it. He hasn’t been in that house in three days—at least I don’t think he has.”

He paused and suddenly his lids narrowed and a new brightness touched his gaze. “Look, could a copy have been made since the picture was stolen? Say from ten last night to two today—sixteen hours. Would there be time enough for a copy to dry?”

Murdock thought it over. He had already considered this and he went all over it again. He said he didn’t think so. He said:

“I think it would take a good man five or six hours to make a copy that good and I don’t think an oil like that would dry in ten hours, not enough to stand inspection. That one was dry. I felt it.”

“Well”—Gould turned away and stopped by the door—“I don’t know. What you’re doing is a lot more important than any story I could get, but I still want the story and not just for the Courier. Written right it would make a good magazine piece. So I’m going to keep crowding you. How about dinner if you’re not doing anything? What’re you going to do now?”

Murdock opened his plate-case. “I guess Carroll’s got a stack of paintings at his studio, hasn’t he? Where is his place, do you know?”

Gould gave him the address. He said Carroll had plenty of paintings. “At least he did have when I stopped in a couple of days ago.”

“I guess I have to photograph all of them,” Murdock said. “Whether I like it or not.”

Roger Carroll’s rooms were in a two-story, grimy brick building that was flanked by two others like it but one story higher. On one side was a wholesale paper house and on the other was a hardware store; below Carroll’s rooms was a plumbing supply shop. There was a narrow doorway between this and the paper house and when Murdock trudged up the worn wooden stairs he found the interior as discouraging as the outside.

Lieutenant Bacon, with Keogh and two plain-clothes men, were apparently just finishing a search of the place and Bacon scowled and said:

“Now what?” He looked at Murdock’s two plate-cases. “If it wasn’t for that uniform I’d think you were back in the harness. More pictures? How did those others turn out?”

Murdock put down his paraphernalia and glanced around. It was a big room, disordered and not very clean. There were racks filled with canvases, and easels, and a model stand, and tubes of paint; there was a rickety, overstuffed divan, a couple of tables and chairs, and in one corner a sink, a hot plate, and an old wooden icebox. Through an open doorway he could see a gloomy bedroom.

“Where’s Carroll?” he asked.

“We got him under glass. We’re keeping him that way awhile.”

“You got a case?”

“We got a start,” Keogh said.

Bacon pulled his hand from a pocket and opened it. In the palm was an empty shell. “A .32,” he said. “Found it under the couch, probably from an automatic. A .32 killed Andrada.”

“What else?” Murdock said.

Bacon pointed to a spot between two worn scatter rugs.

“Somebody did a lot of rubbing to get a stain off there—and recently.”

Murdock pretended to be unimpressed. “Could have been paint.”

“Could have been chocolate ice cream,” Bacon said. “But there might be some more on the rugs. We’ll take ’em down and let the chemist have a look. Now what about those pictures you took?”

Murdock told Bacon what he had told Barry Gould.

“Okay,” Bacon said. “Figure it for me.”

Murdock said he thought the picture Damon turned in was a copy. He said it had to be a copy if his original premise was right and he intended to stick to that premise, and maybe Roger Carroll had made the copy.

“It ain’t here now,” Bacon said. “We looked.”

“If he made a copy and the original was here,” Murdock said, “and if he killed Andrada or knew anything about the killing, he wouldn’t dare leave the picture around for someone to find. To hide it he might have painted over it—plenty of paintings were smuggled out of Europe before the war that same way—and I’ve got an extra case of film and lights and bulbs to find out.”

Bacon rubbed his nose. He took out a stogie and began to trim the end. “You still like George Damon, don’t you?”

“The two lads that grabbed me were pros,” Murdock said. “A guy like Damon would know where to hire thugs.”

“I’ll go along on that. So one of them swiped the picture and dropped it off at Damon’s place before they released you. Damon spotted it as a phony. Not just by looking at it.”

“By photographing it—or having it photographed. The same way I did. He knows enough about fake paintings to use the infra-red method. He had it photographed and found there was nothing underneath and that told him it was a copy.”

“Then why did he bother to turn it in today? You think some kid was hired to bring the picture in and tell the story to the receptionist?”

Murdock took off his coat and cap and began to unfasten one plate-case. “Whoever has the original—if we find it—might have to stand trial for murder. The copy was no good to Damon and by turning it in with a phony story he saw a chance to divert suspicion from himself. There was no point in running the risk of keeping the copy. If he destroyed it, everyone would keep looking for the original; this way there was a chance we’d accept the copy for the original—at least long enough to give him a chance to look for the real one all by himself.”

“That ain’t bad figuring. You don’t think he got the original?”

“No.” Murdock straightened up, exasperation in his glance and his mouth a thin grim line. “And don’t ask me how Damon found out enough about the Jade Venus to want it. I don’t know. Roger Carroll might have made a copy—though how, I don’t know either—and he may have been mixed up some way in the murder. But I think Andrada got some clue from something Erloff said or did. He started out to handle things himself and he tangled with Erloff and Erloff was too tough for him.”

“Could be. But if you’re right, Damon is going to keep on looking for the original—if there is one.”

“Sure, he’ll keep on looking.”

Bacon examined the end of his stogie to see that it was burning evenly. “Well, you hunt for your picture and I’ll take the guy that did the killing.… Look, how long you gonna be?”

“An hour; probably longer.”

“Andy.” Bacon glanced at one of the plain-clothes men. “Stick around till he finishes; then seal the place. Let me know if you find anything, Murdock.”

When they had gone, taking the rugs with them, Murdock began to sort out the canvases. He found about a dozen which were rolled and looked old and hurriedly done. There were eight or ten others, stretched and of varying sizes, and there were six more, neatly framed, and these were the best of all. Each had a small number pasted to the frame and of the six there were three that Murdock liked. One, about sixteen by twenty-four, was a waterfront scene that looked familiar to him; the other two were landscapes of the same size—about twenty-five by thirty—one a country valley done in a sort of blue mood, and the other a river and pine trees that might have been done somewhere along the upper Charles.

The more he looked at the water-front scene the better he liked it and he was trying to identify the exact place it portrayed when the plain-clothes man cleared his throat.

“You say you’ll be an hour?” the man said. “Then I guess there’s time for me to go out and pick up a sandwich and a beer, huh?”

“Plenty of time,” Murdock said, and began to set up his camera.

When he was ready he took off his blouse and rolled up his sleeves, eyeing the rack of canvases without enthusiasm. It would be a tedious job and he knew the rolled canvases would be hardest to handle so he decided to do them first.

The wall opposite the door had been finished with composition board and when he saw there was enough space between the window and the sink to take any canvas up to three feet or so, he got a box of thumb tacks out of his plate-case, picked up the first canvas, and stretched it as best he could against the wall, fastening it with his tacks.

Once he started he lost track of time. When he had finished with a canvas he rolled it again and put it on the floor and he had a pile of five or six of these when he heard the door open behind him. He was just stretching a picture against the wall, tacking one corner down and holding the other tacks in his mouth, and he did not bother to turn or try to say hello to the plain-clothes man.

He pinned down another corner and started to stretch the next side. He heard the door close and he tacked down the next corner and then he stopped and suddenly some latent instinct stirred inside him. He had the peculiar feeling that there was something different about the room or the air or the street noises outside.

He had heard the door close and though it was no more than five seconds since it opened he felt a tautness in his nerves where none had been before and his perceptions were alert and grasping for something more. He listened. Then he realized there had been no footsteps. He turned quickly. Beyond the camera the door was closed and there was no one in the room.

For another second or two he stood staring, neck twisted as he clung to the canvas. Then he let go. He turned, scowling, the intuitive tension that had touched him still more dominant than his bewilderment.

He stepped round the camera and started for the door and then checked himself and swerved toward the nearest front window. He snapped off the lock, lifted, and glanced out. There were a half-dozen pedestrians on the walk below but only two were close enough to the doorway to have just come from there. One of these was a heavy-set man in rough working clothes; the other was a slender fellow in a blue coat, with a lot of thick black hair and no hat.

This one was walking fast and Murdock watched as he started diagonally across the street. He reached the sidewalk, moved along behind the parked cars, and after fifty feet gave one quick backward, upward glance.

Murdock closed the window. The fellow had seen him looking out but that wasn’t important. What was important was that the face in that one brief glance was familiar. “Tony,” he said softly and groped for the last name.

He walked slowly back to the picture he was tacking to the wall. Tony was a guitar player—or had been when Murdock went into the Army. He had played around town for several years, sometimes with orchestras and sometimes with swing trios.

“Lorello,” he said finally. “Tony Lorello.”

And then, as he repeated the name, an odd excitement spread among his thoughts. Someone had mentioned that name since he had been in town. He could not remember who or under what circumstances. He continued with his work, thinking hard and prodding at his memory.