The Casebook of Sidney Zoom
Page 7
The other two drew back, hesitated, then charged again.
The inert figure that had been lowered to the wharf by the three men at the challenge of Sidney Zoom, stirred, got to its feet, ran blindly toward the struggling figures, veered off.
Sidney Zoom’s voice sounded from the midst of the melée.
“There’s a rope ladder at the end. Go down it to the yacht.”
But the running figure seemed in a daze. It dashed to the end of the pier, flung itself outward, and again came the noise of a splash.
The three figures separated for a split second. Zoom’s fist thudded home. A man staggered backward, wobbled, charged blindly once more.
In the interval, however, there had sounded twin thuds. The third combatant had reeled away, and Sidney Zoom, running lightly, made for the end of the pier.
He went out into the darkness in a long are of graceful motion. Down, down, down... a vast sea of black before him, a splash, the cold waters of the bay hissing past him, then a few swift strokes as he fought his way to the surface.
The Alberta F. was almost on top of him as he came up into the dark night. He could see her white sides, the knife-like overhang of her bow. He swung to his side, kicked out, made a long, powerful stroke, and shot to the side.
“He’s right over there behind you, sir,” said the voice of one of the crew, standing in white watchfulness against the rail of the yacht.
Sidney Zoom caught the ripple of water, the sound of hands beating frantically, and went to the place from which those sounds emanated, in a racing flurry of overhand strokes.
His questing fingers caught a woolen garment just as a rope snaked through the darkness and splashed to the water within an arm’s length.
“Okay,” said Sidney Zoom, clutching the garment with one hand and the rope with the other, “pull away.”
The rope tightened. The yacht loomed again. Strong hands clutched and heaved, and they had her on the deck, a bedraggled figure clad in men’s rough clothes. But the clothes had been torn almost to shreds. It did not need the revealing clutch of the moist garments to show that here was no man at all, but a young woman whose right eye was swollen nearly shut and growing very, very black.
She sat up and spat out salt water, loked at Sidney Zoom with her single good eye, and grinned.
“Thanks,” she said, “for the buggy ride.”
Sidney Zoom smiled, and there was approval in that smile.
“If you’ll go into that cabin,” he said, “Miss Vera Thurmond, my secretary, will see that you have dry clothes.”
She got to her feet, clutched at the hand rail on the top of the cabin for support, turned back to Sidney Zoom.
“Okay,” she said, and entered the cabin.
Sidney Zoom walked to the pilot house.
“Clothes, sir?” asked one of the men.
“Can wait, Johnson. I’m taking her into the mooring float. Get the lines ready. Make her fast when I come up alongside. The tide’s running fast, so I’ll come in with it on the port bow. Get the bow line first. The tide will swing in the stern.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The door of the pilot house slammed. The deep throated motors purred into coughing life and the yacht slipped through the dark waters in a long circle of increasing speed. The lights of the ferry slips showed once more. The blinking electric signs threw varicolored reflections upon the waters. A ferry boomed a hoarse warning.
The yacht crossed the ferry lanes, swung into the more gloomy channel, and nosed its way past the small craft moorings to bump against the mooring float maintained by Sidney Zoom.
Lines thudded. The motors idled. Feet ran along the booming planks, and a voice from the darkness shouted, “All fast, sir.”
Chapter II
An Ungrateful Rescue
Sidney Zoom cut off the motor, the lights, turned on the cabin lights, and started for the locker where he kept dry clothes. His feet squashed water with every step, and the pilot house was steeped with that peculiar smell which comes from woolen wet with salt water.
Feet on the deck. The door was flung open, and Sidney Zoom found himself gazing at the business end of a squat automatic. Over the blued steel gleamed the almost shut right eye of the girl he had rescued. It was, by this time, turning a livid bruise color.
“All right, all right,” rasped the girl. “D’you think I’ve got all night. Get ’em up — and be quick about it.”
Sidney Zoom’s hawklike eyes challenged the glittering eye that bored into his over the barrel of the automatic.
“That,” he said, indicating the weapon with a toss of his head, “is not at all necessary — here.”
“Will you get ’em up,” asked the girl, “or have I got to spatter you all over the cabin?”
Sidney Zoom smiled.
“If you put it that way, I’ll get ’em up,” he said, and did so.
“All right,” rasped the voice of his visitor, “now get away from that locker and let me get some man’s clothes. Make any hostile moves and you’ll get drilled.”
Sidney Zoom moved away from the locker. There was in his eyes a glint of appreciation.
“If you want anything I can give you, you don’t need—”
“Shut up!” she snapped, and threw open the locker.
“My own clothes are far too big,” said Sidney Zoom, from the opposite end of the pilot house, “but there’s an assortment of yachting flannels over there on the left. Some of them will fit you.”
She reached gropingly in the closet with her left hand, her right holding the gun. She pulled out an assortment of garments and dumped them on the floor. Still covering the owner of the yacht, she pushed the garments with a bare foot until she found trousers, coat and shirt that suited her.
“Don’t move,” she warned, and started to strip off the soaked rags which covered her.
Zoom noticed that, beneath the outer garments of the male, she had the finest of sheer silks, lingerie that had been tailored to order from the finest materials.
“I can go out,” he ventured.
“You can stand tight there, and keep ’em up!”
She kicked aside the soggy outer garments, gazed ruefully at the wet undersilks. And Sidney Zoom saw that there was a money belt circling her slender waist.
She fumbled with the pockets of that belt, took out a packet of gold backed currency. She unfolded it, and Sidney Zoom’s eyes widened as he glimpsed the figure on the corner of the outer bill.
“That didn’t get so wet,” she remarked. “Any underwear in that place?”
“In the drawer below,” said Zoom.
“All right. I’ve got to take a chance on you. Turn your back, keep your hands up. Don’t look and—”
She never finished the sentence.
The door of the pilot house shook to the impact of a great weight. The girl turned the weapon toward it. There was a fumbling with the catch, the knob turned, then a moment’s silence.
“I’ll shoot!” warned the girl.
The door crashed open. The girl fired, breast high, the ruddy flame spurting in a stabbing streak of vicious death, straight toward where the heart of a man would have been.
But it was no man that shot through that door, rather low to the ground, fangs bared; but a tawny police dog. The bullet thudded over his head as he rushed. A low, throaty growl came from his great jaws.
Sidney Zoom sprang forward.
“Down, Rip!” he roared, and grabbed for the dog.
But the animal was already in the air, red lips twisted back from gleaming white fangs as he shot like a released arrow, straight for the girl’s throat.
But, at the command, he turned his head slightly. The girl flung up an arm. Then Zoom, the dog and the girl all collided at the same time in one confused impact of thudding motion that hit the floor and churned about in a heap.
From that heap came the form of Sidney Zoom, pulling and tugging. Next emerged the tawny police dog, his claws scraping along the floor o
f the pilot house. The girl sat up, looked at the dog, then at Sidney Zoom, and grinned.
“You win,” she remarked, and fainted.
Sidney Zoom frowned at the dog.
“Back, Rip, and stay there. Now watch! Guard! Careful.”
And then Sidney Zoom went through the door with swift strides, down the dark deck and into the cabin where he had left his secretary.
She was neatly bound and gagged, lying on the bed, her face red with rage and humiliation, her eyes glittering over the silken scarf that had been used as a gag.
Zoom slit the bonds, untied the scarf.
“The little devil!” exclaimed Vera Thurmond, sitting up on the bed.
Sidney Zoom grinned.
“I’m commencing to like her. I’m sick of these namby pamby women that are quitters. This girl looks like one that’d give a man a run for his money.”
“Go to her then!” snapped his secretary, and there was in her voice more than impatience, more than rage. There was a trace of jealousy. But if Sidney Zoom noticed it he gave no sign.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Atta girl!” he remarked, and started toward the pilot house. At the door he paused.
“How did she do it — cover you with a gun?”
“Cover me with nothing!” snapped his secretary. “The little spitfire hit me over the head with something when I wasn’t looking!”
Still grinning, Zoom gently dosed the door and went into the pilot house.
The girl was conscious now, sitting up stating at the dog. And the dog, muzzle on paws, yellow eyes slitted to a savage glare of wolf-like menace, was growling throatily.
“Sorry if you were frightened,” said Sidney Zoom. “He’ll only guard you. He won’t hurt you unless you try to escape.”
“Yes,” she said, “I found that out. I experimented. Give me a chance to put on some clothes and then you can ting the police.”
The door opened and Vera Thurmond came in, looking rather dishevelled.
“Sorry,” grinned the girl. “I was gambling for big things and I didn’t want to take any chances. I guess I did crack you a little hard.”
Vera Thurmond’s eyes were unsmiling.
“I’ve got a beastly headache,” she said.
The girl on the floor stretched forth a shapely limb.
“Headache’s nothing. Look at those bruises. And you aren’t seeing ’em all, not by a long ways.”
Vera Thurmond glanced at the livid skin, and swift sympathy flooded her warm eyes.
She turned on Sidney Zoom.
“Get out,” she said. “Let the girl dress, and take the dog with you!”
The girl reached for some white duck trousers.
“Oh, that’s all right,” she said. “He’s a good scout, and the dog’s all right, too. He just did his duty.”
She slid her limbs into the white trousers, reached for a shirt.
“You’re all wet underneath!” exclaimed Vera Thurmond.
“They’ll dry out. Go ahead. Get the police and let’s get it over with.”
Vera Thurmond shook her head.
“We don’t call the police — not from this yacht.”
“What?”
Sidney Zoom replied to the girl’s startled question.
“I’m tired of civilization. I hate the routine, the whole damned money-grubbing machine of treadmill existence! The police be damned! I sympathize with the unfortunate. I avoid the prosperous. Some day, I hope, there’ll be a change. In the meantime I spend much of my life on the water. There, at least, I’m comparatively free — on the high seas.”
The girl’s left eye had widened in wonder. The swelling on the right had gone down sufficiently so there showed a little glittering slit beneath a circle of livid black.
“You mean — I’m not arrested?”
Zoom waved his hand toward the dark windows of the pilot house.
“Take dry clothes and go — out into the night. Or stay, and tell me your troubles. Perhaps I can help.”
She sat, white, shaken, startled.
Sidney Zoom motioned with his hand.
“Go to her, Rip, old boy. She’s afraid of you.”
The dog arose from his crouching position, stalked toward the girl, sank to the floor and thrust his muzzle against the cold fingers.
She patted his head, stroked his ears, and the dog, moved by some intuitive understanding which is the heritage of well bred dogs, thrust his head upon her lap, snuggled down and thumped the floor with his tail.
She grasped the shaggy neck and began to cry, suddenly straightened and stared at the others with moist eyes.
Chapter III
Wanted — For Murder
“I’m not a cry-baby. I’ll take my medicine. I’ve been through hell the last twenty-four hours. I’m Eve Bendley.”
Vera Thurmond gasped.
“Not the Eve Bendley?”
The moist eyes regarded Sidney Zoom’s secretary with smoldering hostility.
“Yes, the Eve Bendley. I’m the one that the police want for murder. You should have guessed it sooner.”
Sidney Zoom nodded.
“Would you care,” he asked, “to tell us the details?”
She shrugged her shoulders, hugged the dog’s head to her breast.
“Why not? They’ll be all over the newspapers. You wouldn’t dare to protect me — not one wanted for murder. And I’m tired of hiding.
“I guess you know all the preliminaries. I was confidential secretary to Ralph C. Ames for five years. I believe I’m related to him by marriage. He was an old man, lovable when you understood him, but a bit of a tyrant at times.
“He didn’t have any natural heirs, and he left a will that was to have given me rather a large sum of money. I don’t know how much. The bulk of his fortune was left to charity; but I understood there was more than two hundred thousand left me under the will.
“Then this adventuress came along. The old man fell head over heels in love with her. That is, he fell for her line of talk. You know the one I mean, Nettie Pease.
“I tried to warn him against her. She was nothing but a peroxide adventuress. That made a scene. He threatened to discharge me, leave me without a cent and all that. And then he went out in a rage, came back and announced he had married the woman.
“She was with him, leering at me. He left the room and she told me where we stood — quick. She said I was out of sympathy with her, and that I could get out and stay out. You see Mr. Ames had his office in his house, and I was treated as one of the family, living under the same roof, handling his mail, helping the housekeeper run the house.
“When Mr. Ames came back he explained to me I was discharged, that I could take two weeks’ salary and leave.”
The young woman made these recitals in a flat, expressionless tone of voice, her fingers digging into the dog’s fur, her arms straining the head to her.
“There was to be a bonus?” prompted Sidney Zoom.
She nodded.
“Yes. There was a bonus paid me every year. My year was up and I’d figured the bonus. It amounted to over three thousand dollars. I asked Mr. Ames about it. He said he’d changed his mind. That adventuress had him entirely under her thumb. She simpered at him, leered at me. Damn her, I wish I’d killed her!”
Vera Thurmond winced at the savagery of the girl’s tone. Sidney Zoom’s eyes glowed with a sudden sympathy, an admiration of a kindred spirit.
“Go ahead,” he said, quietly.
She sighed and resumed her story.
“Gravy, he’s the butler, was my only friend. He knew I’d been treated shamefully, and he suggested that I should take what was due me — the bonus.
“I had the combination to the safe, but Mr. Ames didn’t know it. Gravy had found a paper that had it written on some weeks before and had brought it to me. When I saw it I knew it was some sort of a safe combination, and tried it out on the safe in the library. It worked.
“So Gravy got me to dress in some of his clothes and furnished me with a mask, just in case anything should happen. And it happened all right.
“Ames and the woman had been to some sort of a reception. They were to stay until midnight, but they came popping in, with a couple of people who were strangers to me, just as I was getting the money out of the safe. There I was, caught red-handed, as they say in the newspapers, the safe open, the money in my hands. But I was wearing men’s clothes and a mask. I thought that would keep ’em from recognizing me.
“Of course, I started to run toward the servants’ quarters. And Mr. Ames let out a bellow and started after me. I heard a shot and thought some one was firing at me. But there were a lot of screams and something fell to the floor.
“When I got to where I’d left my own clothes, I saw Gravy running after me. He was all excited. He said some one had shot Mr. Ames while I was running. He thought it was the woman who had fired the shot, but couldn’t be sure. He said I’d better keep right on going because the woman had sworn she’d recognized my figure, even in the man’s clothes, and was insisting that my room be thoroughly searched.
“So I just kept on going. I had the money in a money belt I’d purchased especially for that purpose. I went to a rooming house and went to sleep. Next morning I read of the murder. It seems the two people with him swear that Mr. Ames was running after a masked figure, that the masked man turned and shot him down, then made his escape.
“Personally, I’m satisfied it was the woman who fired the shot. She’ll get all his estate now. That was what she wanted. Believe me, she was a fast worker. Married and kills her husband within forty-eight hours!”
Sidney Zoom studied the girl through narrowed eyes.
“The two people with Mr. Ames and his newly made bride were people of unquestioned integrity,” he said. “They swear they saw the masked figure run toward a passage, suddenly turn and fire the fatal shot.”