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 that 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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He couldn’t have done it.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“118.”

“Could I borrow the key?”

“Why—yes.”

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

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