Sidney Zoom leaned forward and searched the ground, inch by inch.
Between the cement walk and the side of the house there had been dwarf shrubbery planted. Between these shrubs there were stretches of bare ground, and it was in these bits of bare ground that the incriminating depressions were found.
But Sidney Zoom parted the little branches, looked with the intentness of a hawk searching good game cover.
And his search was rewarded.
A little glitter of metal struck his eyes, and he stooped. There was a brass cartridge of the type automatically ejected from a gun known as an automatic.
Sidney Zoom picked up the cartridge in his handkerchief, lest he should destroy some of the fingerprints on it. He renewed his search, and found the blued steel of a barrel sticking up from the base of one of the plants.
Once again he used his handkerchief, and dragged to light a small automatic, the same caliber as the shell, the same caliber as the bullet which had resulted in the death of Ralph C. Ames.
Sidney Zoom covered the evidence with the handkerchief, placed it in his pocket, straightened up from his search.
Almost at once he heard a door close, and then Graves came cat-treading down the cement.
“I’ve got it, sir!”
Sidney Zoom took the shoe from his hand, bent down and fitted the sole to the impression in the ground.
The fit was perfect.
“Good God!” exclaimed the butler. “You’ll notify the police of this?”
“That,” remarked Sidney Zoom, “depends upon a variety of things. Thanks, Graves, for your cooperation.”
“You’ll tell her I’m willing to do anything for her, sir?”
“If I see her?”
“Well, will you see her?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Sidney Zoom. Then, as he saw the gray eyes film with disappointment, he flashed the man a reassuring smile. “Not right away, Graves, but later, perhaps. I’ll tell her then.”
And he strode down the cement walk, went to his roadster, where Rip was growling at a man with an undershot jaw and a cauliflower ear who stood on the sidewalk, studying the car. Slightly behind him, parked at the curb, was an automobile. At the wheel of this car sat a thin individual with a beak-like nose and a catfish mouth.
Sidney Zoom bowed to them both. He climbled in his roadster and pressed his foot on the starter. The car purred into motion, and the man with the cauliflower ear hopped into the other machine, which promptly swung out into traffic.
Three blocks down the street another machine, driven by a woman, casually cut in ahead of the car with the two private detectives. Thereafter, Sidney Zoom made certain highly intricate maneuvers. The car with the two men got lost in the shuffle.
The other machine, driven by a baby-faced brunette, somehow or other managed to show up after Zoom had finished his turns and twists from one street to another.
But Zoom paid no attention to that machine, which fact brought the faintest suggestion of a gleam of triumph to the baby-faced brunette.
Chapter VI
Past History
Sidney Zoom lounged back in the chair at police headquarters. Captain Berkeley, seated across the desk, stared at a typewritten report which had been handed him by a messenger.
“Report of the finger-print expert?” asked Zoom, casually.
“Yes — and of the ordnance expert, too.”
“Indeed,” said Sidney Zoom, his eagerness showing in the crispness of his tone. “And what did they discover?”
Captain Berkeley drummed on the battered desk for a few seconds, the tips of his fingers beating a nervous tattoo.
“Zoom,” he remarked, “you’re in wrong.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. You’ve allowed yourself to become prejudiced against Mrs. Ames. And you’ve pulled your usual big-hearted stunt of falling for the hard luck story of a girl in misfortune—”
Sidney Zoom’s tone was hard as he interrupted.
“All of which is preliminary to stating what?”
“To stating,” snapped Captain Berkeley, “that the fatal bullet was undoubtedly fired from this weapon. But every finger-print on it is the print of Miss Eve Bendley — the person, by the way, who did the shooting.
“Probably she tossed the gun out of the window after the shooting. We’re tracing the numbers, but haven’t had a complete report yet.”
Sidney Zoom pursed his lips, a habit of his when thinking.
“You’re right about one thing,” said Captain Berkeley in a more gentle voice, “the so-called cousin is in reality the son of the widow. His real name is Amos Pease. She was a Nettie Pease. What’s happened to the husband is shrouded in mystery.
“I’ve got her history here for the last ten years, however. She’s been mixed up in all sorts of shady transactions. A man named Harry Garford was her partner for years. Finally, in Oregon, they were apprehended in connection with some minor crime. The authorities were determined to punish them, and made the bail pretty high.
“But they raised the bail, got out, and were formally married. Then, when the case came to trial, each refused to testify on the grounds that such testimony would be that of a husband against a wife, and a wife against a husband, which has always been considered a confidential relationship in they eyes of the law.
“The case was, of course, dropped, and they went to Idaho, then drifted into Nevada. Garford dropped from sight a couple of years ago. Nettie Pease, or Garford, to give her right name, seems to have steadied down a bit.
“Garford had a criminal record. Nettie Pease Garford had none. She was arrested several times, but there was never enough evidence to make a case.
“Undoubtedly, she played her cards deliberately when she ran into Ralph Ames, claimed her son was her cousin, dropped about ten years from her official age, and managed to marry him. But how the devil she did it is more than I know. There must be some story in the background there.
“Anyhow, all of that doesn’t change the facts. The girl did the killing. You haven’t said so, but I have a hunch the girl is on that yacht of yours. Now then, do you want to surrender her, or have us go and get her?”
And Captain Berkeley’s eyes glinted ominously.
“I don’t think—” began Sidney Zoom.
“You never do,” interrupted the police captain. “You cruise around the city at night, picking up flotsam and listening to the hard luck stories. Every one you befriend you think is as pure as the driven snow. I’ll admit that your hunches have been pretty fair, and you seem to know human nature pretty well, but this is once you’ve made a mistake.
“The department would hate like the very devil to have to name you as an accessory, or get hard with you. But the department would hate a damned sight worse to have that girl slip through its fingers.
“So you’ve got until five o’clock tonight to produce that girl. If she isn’t in custody by that time we’ll go get her, and we’ll put a charge against you.
“That’s final.”
Sidney Zoom smiled, looked at his watch.
“I have precisely five hours and thirty seven minutes.”
“All right.”
“Will you go to lunch with me, captain?”
The officer grinned and got to his feet.
“Okay. But you have that jane here by five o’clock, or you’ll be having lunch with me at this time to-morrow.”
Sidney Zoom smiled by way of reply, escorted the captain to his car, drove him to one of the most exclusive lunch places in the city, purchased a meal which made the officer stretch back in his chair and sigh contentedly.
“Captain,” said Sidney Zoom, “I have a favor to ask.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll have my yacht in dock at five o’clock. The girl will be aboard. But I want you to come personally to make the arrest, without a word to the newspapers. And I want you to give me three hours after you come aboard to prove to you that there may be more to this case than you suspec
t.”
A frown crossed the official forehead.
“That’s the worst of you damned amateurs. You get sold on the innocence of some baby-face and then overlook all the proof in the world! I tell you, Zoom, you’ll be the laughing stock of the department.”
Sidney Zoom beckoned a very attractive lady who carried a tray supported by shoulder straps.
“A perfecto for the captain!” he said.
She came smilingly toward them, bent solicitously over the officer, struck a match when he had selected a cigar.
“Is that a promise?” asked Sidney Zoom.
Captain Berkeley glanced at the tip of the fifty cent cigar and smiled.
“Yes,” he said.
And in a far comer of the room a baby-faced brunette with innocent eyes, made a surreptitious notation upon a leather covered notebook which she slipped adroitly from the top of her stocking.
Chapter VII
Ambushed
The Alberta F. swung into the mooring float. The men tossed lines, jumped from yacht to float with frenzied rapidity, raced against the thrust of the tide. The white yacht was snubbed, warped gently into the float.
Captain Berkeley and Sidney Zoom stepped aboard.
Vera Thurmond met them.
“Oh, I hope you’ve solved it! She’s the nicest girl, when you get to know her!”
Captain Berkeley twisted the cigar in his mouth, savagely.
“Yes,” he said, shortly, “we’ve solved it I’m sorry, Miss Thurmond, but you folks are in the wrong this time.”
The officer stepped aboard, went to an inner cabin, where the formalities of completing the arrest were speedily complied with. Eve Bendley stared at the officer, then at Sidney Zoom, shrugged her shoulders.
“Fortunes of war,” she said.
Sidney Zoom smiled reassuringly at his secretary.
“Now, Berkeley, I’ve given you a fair deal. Will you give me one?”
“Meaning?” asked the officer.
“Meaning that I’ve surrendered the girl on the dot as I promised. Now I want you to turn your official back on things for three hours.”
“And what happens to the prisoner?”
“Lock her in a cabin, handcuff her to Vera Thurmond, call another officer to watch her, anything you want.”
“And then?”
“Walk with me to the end of the wharf, don’t register any surprise at anything I may say. Then come back to the boat, stay here for three hours, and then meet me at the end of the wharf again.”
Captain Berkeley frowned, took a cigar from his pocket and meditatively regarded the end.
“Sounds simple,” he commented.
The two young woman watched him with anxious eyes.
“All right,” he said.
“Fine,” commented Zoom. “Now we’ll walk to the end of the wharf.”
And it was then Captain Berkeley did that which cemented a firm friendship throughout the years to come with Sidney Zoom.
“Miss Thurmond,” he said, “I’m paroling my prisoner in your charge,” and, with the words, stepped to the mooring float and followed Sidney Zoom up the steep ladder stairs which led to the wharf above.
They strolled through the gathering dusk, Sidney Zoom, tall, almost gaunt, the police dog padding gravely at his side; Captain Berkeley, puzzled, saying nothing.
For a long seven hundred feet the big wharf stretched, an abandoned commercial dock on one side, Sidney Zoom’s private mooring float on the other. A long warehouse partially covered the wharf. For the rest, it was littered with various piles of old lumber, odds and ends of various articles collected from years of service.
At the street side of the wharf Sidney Zoom turned to the officer and extended his hand.
“Very well, captain. It’s now precisely five twenty-one. At exactly eight o’clock I shall meet you here again. And you’ll have the pictures and complete police record of this Harry Garford.”
Captain Berkeley tensed.
“Huh?” he said.
“Thanks,” remarked Sidney Zoom. “I’m certain the matter will be cleared at that time. Good night.”
And Sidney Zoom, followed by his tawny police dog, paced out into the gathering darkness. Captain Berkeley grunted and walked back to the yacht. From behind a pile of lumber, a baby-faced brunette with eyes that were utterly expressionless, oozed as a surreptitious shadow, sprinted for a roadster that had been parked behind the shadow of a warehouse.
The powerful roadster of Sidney Zoom snorted out into the twilight. The other roadster, keeping well behind, followed it as a hawk might trail a scurrying bevy of frightened quail.
Nor did Sidney Zoom glance back, or go to any trouble to disguise where he was going. He drove directly to police headquarters, and the baby-faced brunette trailed him every foot of the way.
He was closeted within the grim walls of stone and steel for nearly an hour. Then he emerged and reentered his roadster. His shadow was nowhere in evidence. There were two men, clumsy, heavy-footed, beady-eyed, parked in a touring car. These men made an effort to follow him. But Sidney Zoom, more watchful than when the shadow had been the brunette, detected their presence and spun his car in a figure eight around a dozen blocks, swung into the boulevard traffic and then, disregarding all rules and regulations, made a complete turn about and rushed madly in the opposite direction, his throttle held near to the floor boards.
Thereafter he saw no more of the touring car with the two private detectives.
Precisely at eight o’clock, Sidney Zoom sent his car into the curb back of the warehouse, switched off the ignition, jumped out, and motioned to his dog.
That which followed was rather peculiar, for Sidney Zoom took the dog’s head in his hands and talked to him, low-voiced, connected conversation which seemed more the type of conversation one would carry on with an intelligent child than with a dog.
The dog wagged his tail, glided off into the darkness.
Sidney Zoom looked at his watch.
Heavy feet, assured, authoritative, deliberate, sounded on the boards of the wharf.
“Hello,” said Zoom. “Did you manage to get the pictures?”
Captain Berkeley grunted.
“Then,” said Sidney Zoom in a low voice, “reach for your gun.”
Captain Berkeley paused stock still to stare.
There was a blur of dark motion from behind a pile of empty gasoline drums. The darkness gave forth the sound of a low growl, ominous, menacing. The planks of the wharf reverberated to four feet thudding at a full gallop.
Fire streaked from the darkness, and answering fire stabbed from Sidney Zoom’s hand. The dog barked once. A man screamed. A woman shouted some shrill command. More spurts of fire ripping the darkness. Bullets crashed through the night air, splintering the boards, glancing from metallic objects with long drawn snarls.
Captain Berkeley, veteran of years on the force, was down behind the nearest gasoline drum at the first sound of firing. By the time the third shot had been fired, his service revolver was out of its holster and barking an answer.
Once more there came the muffled thunder of padded four feet charging at a gallop. The scream of the woman knifed the night. There was a low, throaty growl.
“Steady, Rip!” called Sidney Zoom, and began to ran, heedless of the danger which the night might hold. He ran directly toward the sound of that scream, the noise of that ominous growl.
Captain Berkeley lumbered into a flat-footed charge.
“I surrender!” shrilled a frightened voice from the darkness.
Chapter VIII
The electric flash light of Captain Berkeley sent a white beam into the night, turning the black piles into dazzling brilliance.
Against the black background, a pair of white hands, stretched high above a barricade of empty boxes, caught the gleam of the light. There was a strained, drawn face below those upraised hands, a sagging mouth, eyes that bulged with terror.
“Take him, captain!” said Zoom, an
d continued in the direction from which the growl had sounded.
He found that which he sought, a woman shrinking from the bloody fangs of the growling animal. On the planking of the wharf was the glitter of a weapon. The right wrist of the woman bore red splotches where the teeth of the animal had locked and tom as he wrested the gun from her wrist.
Sidney Zoom grasped the dog by the collar, pulled him back, kicked the gun out of the way.
“Go find, Rip,” he said.
And the dog rushed out in a great, questing half circle.
A revolver spat twice. A man’s feet pounded the planks. They were the feet of a man who ran lightly, on his toes, running as a trained sprinter runs. But behind him came the tattoo of dog’s feet, and those feet cut down the distance with a savage swiftness.
A growl, a tawny shadow in the air, the thud of an impact! The running form of the man skidded over the rough planks, rolled, twitched and lay still as the dog stood over him, fangs snarling at his throat, wolf eyes gleaming with blood lust.
Ten minutes later the three prisoners were on the yacht, getting wounds bandaged, a surly, shifty-eyed crowd of thwarted criminals.
“All right,” said Captain Berkeley, turning to Sidney Zoom, “spill it!”
Zoom laughed.
“So absurdedly simple it seemed complicated,” he replied. “So obvious that it almost escaped observation. The girl was advised to rob the safe and wear a mask by the butler. There was no need for her to wear a mask, really no pressing need for her to rob the safe.
“But, notice the significant fact that Ralph Ames returns with two responsible witnesses at the exact time that will surprise the young lady at the safe. That time, concededly, was controlled by Mrs. Ames, who became ill and insisted upon being taken home from the reception.
“Notice, also, the significant fact that Garford, the woman’s accomplice, has vanished from police ken for approximately two years — almost exactly the length of time Graves, the butler, had been working for Ralph C. Ames.
“What more natural than that Garford alias Graves, knowing that the police were on his trail, and wishing to lay low for a while, should forge references and secure the position of butler to Ames? What more natural than that he should insinuate himself into the good graces of Ames and his secretary so that he could naturally bring about the entrance of his woman accomplice into the picture?
The Casebook of Sidney Zoom Page 9
