The man got from the edge of the bed. His eyes were narrowed to mere slits.
“Are you accusing me?” he asked.
“Who in hell did you think I was accusing?” asked Sidney Zoom easily. “You planted some evidence on Dupree, left him where he’d be found and promptly suspected. You lifted the loot.”
The man laughed, a laugh of cold scorn.
“Prove it,” he said.
Sidney Zoom chuckled.
“That’s a nice way to express a challenge. And I rather think I shall prove it! You know I’m something of an opportunist in the field of crime detection. When I walked into this room I hadn’t the slightest idea of how I was going about the proof of this particular crime. I wanted to make certain of your identity by seeing if you’d identify the bracelet as something that belonged to you. As soon as you did that, you branded yourself as the crook. You stole so much stuff that you naturally couldn’t remember the various items. As soon as you saw the tag price of Huntley & Cobb on this bracelet you were willing to accept my statement that you’d dropped it, at its face value.
“But, do you know, now I’ve got an idea of a very fine way in which I can pin the crime on you and recover the stolen property.”
Sidney Zoom reached for his pocket.
The man exploded into swift action. His hand jerked out from behind his back. He held a gun which he had slid into his hand as he sat on the edge of the bed, worming it out from under the pillow.
“Is that so?” he snarled. “Get your hands up, you damned dick!”
Sidney Zoom stared into the gun.
“Get ’em up, I say!”
Zoom elevated his hands. As he raised them, he said:
“All right, Rip.”
The police dog went from the floor into a long spring. His lips were back from the glistening fangs. The tawny eyes glittered with menace. A throaty growl emerged from his throat.
The man with the gun whirled the weapon. Sidney Zoom snapped his hands down and lunged forward. Zoom, the police dog and the man with the gun all tangled in one simultaneous merger of motion which swept the man back on the bed, thudded the gun to the floor.
Zoom slipped handcuffs from his pocket, snapped them on the man’s wrist. And he snapped the other handcuff around the steam pipe on the radiator.
The man snarled at him: “You still haven’t proved anything!”
Zoom laughed. “Come, come, not with this murderous attack of yours? And then there’s the matter of the gun. You’ve been using that gun somewhere. Probably in some other stick-up, or perhaps a killing somewhere. My dog detected the odor of powder in the barrel. These dogs have keen powers of smell, but, even so, I would say the gun had been fired within forty-eight hours, and had not been cleaned afterwards. The police will probably be interested in that gun, and in your possession of it.”
The man, chained to the radiator, moved uneasily, and the handcuff rasped up and down the steam pipe as he moved. Sidney Zoom stole a glance at the bathroom door. The ribbon of light still showed under the door, and the two blobs which were made by the feet of a person standing inside the bathroom, just against the door, had moved their position somewhat, but were still visible.
“You haven’t found the stuff that was taken from the jewelry store, and you can’t find it!” said the man. “Until you find it you can’t convict me of anything.”
Zoom shrugged his shoulders.
“That’s a problem for the police. I have no doubt you concealed it rather cleverly. I’ll get the police here and they can figure that angle of it out for themselves. I’ve just made certain, my friend, that you’ll be here when the police arrive, that’s all.”
And he beckoned to the dog, strode to the door of the apartment.
“Ain’t you going to search here?” asked the man, obviously disappointed.
“No,” said Zoom. “That’s a job for the police.”
Chuckling, he strode out of the apartment and pulled the door shut behind him. The lock clicked into place. Sidney Zoom strode rapidly down the corridor, down the stairs, out into the night. The white-haired woman looked at him anxiously.
“Did you get anything?” she asked.
Zoom got into the roadster, started the motor, ran half a block to an alley, backed into the alley and turned off his headlights.
“I can’t tell just yet. I think I did. I’m gambling on my judgment of character and on a guess as to what happened. I think that we’ll see some action pretty soon.”
He waited for less than two minutes. Then the door of the apartment house opened. A trimly formed feminine figure stepped out into the night. She carried a little handbag in her hand, and she walked rapidly, with swiftly nervous steps that sent her heels click-clacking against the cement of the sidewalk.
She walked in the direction of Zoom’s car, and Sidney Zoom watched her curiously as a street light illuminated her features. She was pretty, yet the prettiness was a bold, brazen type of beauty which would soon dissolve under the unkind hand of ruthless time into a coarseness of feature and a hardness of eye.
In the meantime she was something which would cause masculine eyes to turn and follow her in appraisal and approval. Her clothes were cut so as to accentuate the feminine lines of her form. The dress was very short and the legs were encased in black silk stockings. The legs were slender at the ankles, well molded. She wore a hat which was pulled down on her head, a brimless little hat that served as a bit of color for the blond hair which tendrilled out on the sides. The hat was a vivid red. The eyes were dark and large, the nose straight, the lips thick.
That much Sidney Zoom saw of her, and then she walked past the circle of illumination, past the alley where his car was parked.
Sidney Zoom waited a moment and started the motor. He didn’t turn on the lights. The car slid softly and smoothly out of the dark alley into the street. The form of the woman, walking rapidly, was visible some half block ahead.
The dog, crouched on the back seat, sensing the object of the chase, whined softly. The white-haired woman asked a question. It went unheeded. She settled back on the cushions of the seat.
The girl paused in her rapid walk. Sidney Zoom promptly slid the car to a stop. The girl looked back, then peered about her. She was standing in front of a brick wall which surrounded a private dwelling. She moved her hand, as though counting bricks. Then she moved her shoulder, leaned against the brick wall.
Sidney Zoom pushed his car into sudden speed.
He snapped on the headlights. They showed the young woman standing before the brick wall from which a loose brick had been pulled. There was a dark cavity back of this loose brick, and she was sweeping the contents of that cavity into the little handbag that she carried.
“All right, Rip,” said Sidney Zoom. “Catch her. Hold her!”
The dog’s claws rattled on the polished fender as he scrambled into a position from which he could leap. As he sailed through the air, Sidney Zoom stopped the car, flung open the door and stepped to the sidewalk. There was a police whistle in his lips. He blew it loudly.
The girl started to run.
The dog, dashing along, belly close to the sidewalk, overtook her, got in front of her, crouched, growled, snapped up his head and caught her skirt in his teeth.
Coming along behind her, Sidney Zoom said, quite courteously: “Really, there’s nothing you can do. You can’t escape. You’d better be nice about it.”
She whirled to stare at him from black, sullen eyes. Her thick lips opened and rasped forth a curse. Somewhere in the night, a block or so away, sounded an answering police whistle. Sidney Zoom blew his own whistle once more.
The girl moved toward him, smiling seductively.
“Listen, big boy,” she smirked, moving so that her body was close to that of Sidney Zoom. “You and me can reach an understanding...”
Sidney Zoom turned away. The girl rasped another expletive and sent her hand flashing to the front of her dress. The dog growled ominously.
Sidney Zoom said, casually, speaking over his shoulder: “I wouldn’t. He’ll leave teeth marks on your arm if you pull a gun. He might even break the skin, and that wouldn’t be so good. There’d be an infection, perhaps.”
A figure rounded the corner, running heavily but purposefully.
The street light glinted on a badge and brass buttons.
Sidney Zoom raised his voice and called: “This way, officer.” The white-haired woman got out of the car and stammered questions. The officer came running up. The young woman drew herself up scornfully.
“Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll beat the rap. I always have so far, and I will this one.”
Zoom shrugged his shoulders.
“What is it?” asked the officer.
Zoom opened the handbag. The street light showed a glittering array of jewelry of the finest quality. Sidney Zoom said: “She was the lure who kidded Harry Dupree into being at the mouth of an alley where her accomplice could crack down on him with a black-jack. They planted some stuff on him to make it seem he had robbed Huntley & Cobb.
“This girl, and the man you’ll find in apartment fifteen at the apartment house a block or so down the road, robbed Hundey & Cobb of around twenty thousand dollars’ worth of jewels. They gave every one the slip and hid them in a place they’d arranged for in advance.
“I figured out who the man was and called on him. From his manner I knew the jewels weren’t concealed in the apartment. I knew there must have been a female lure to have trapped Dupree. I saw that two people had been in the apartment and that some one was hiding in the bathroom, listening to my conversation. So I handcuffed the man in a position where he was helpless and walked out, telling him I was sending the police to pick him up.
“I figured that the woman, having betrayed one man to his ruin, would be just the type of rat who would run out on that man if she thought she could get away with it. I counted on her figuring that the man was held helpless in the apartment, and corning down here to feather her own nest with the swag and walk out.
“You take the credit for the arrest. I don’t want to figure in it.”
The officer stared at Zoom, at the white-haired woman who stood open mouthed, wide eyed.
“Who’s she?” he asked.
“The mother of an innocent young man,” said Zoom, “who was about to be railroaded to jail by the pair of crooks.”
The woman clutched at his arm.
“A grateful mother,” she said, and started to sob her happiness.
The officer frowned.
“Well,” he said, “we gotta telephone to headquarters and get this thing straightened out.”
Sidney Zoom yawned.
“That’s okay. Only you take the credit of cleaning up the case. Say that I just happened along. It’ll mean a feather in your cap. It won’t mean anything to me.”
Sidney Zoom was at the wheel of his yacht The bar was choppy. A fresh breeze was ripping off the tops of the chops and sending spray drops as large as buckshot rattling against the windows of the cabin. The yeasty-water, churned into an agitated mass of tumbled foam, hissed past the sides of the rocking craft The yacht rose lightly on tumbled wave crests, only to be smashed by disordered cross swells.
It was weather such as Sidney Zoom liked, a stiff breeze, a sea that pounded his yacht, plenty of freedom and elbow room.
Vera Thurmond, his secretary, was straightening out the report of the radio calls that had gone over the police broadcasting system the night before.
“This robbery of Huntley & Cobb’s place was cleaned up,” she said. “The police got a confession.”
Sidney Zoom’s hawk-like eyes remained fixed upon the roaring waters.
“Yes?” he asked, shifting the wheel a bit so that he would quarter up a big roller.
“Yes. One of the men from the wholesale department did it He framed things so it would seem another employee was guilty. A patrolman caught the woman accomplice taking the loot from a brick wall. There was something like twenty thousand dollars’ worth. He’s going to get a promotion out of it. They found the man and he confessed and blamed the woman. She was the one who lured Dupree, the man they first suspected.”
Sidney Zoom yawned.
“Well,” he said, “if it’s a closed case, tear up the records. It’s dead, as far as I’m concerned, when the case is solved.”
She regarded him curiously.
“You were out getting the radio reports last night. I wonder that you didn’t get in on that. Weren’t you interested?”
“Oh, yes,” said Zoom, “I looked the ground over.”
He reached in his pocket and pulled out a bracelet, studded with small diamonds and rubies.
“By the way,” he said, “you might like that.”
He tossed it over to her.
She rose to her feet, braced herself against the roll of the yacht, let her breath come in a gasp as she saw the exquisite workmanship of the bracelet.
“For me?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yes, a present from Huntley. He tried to give it to me, and I laughed at him, told him I didn’t wear bracelets. So he asked me if I didn’t have some secretary who might like it. I told him yes. Better drop Huntley a note of thanks.”
The girl was staring at the bracelet, fitting it around her wrist.
“Why,” she exclaimed, “it’s worth hundreds of dollars! Why in the world would Huntley have given you such a bracelet?”
Sidney Zoom shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, I don’t know. I just happened to be in the place when the stolen jewelry was recovered. He was feeling generous, I guess.”
She said, sharply: “You were there when the stolen jewelry was brought back?”
“Yes.”
She laughed.
“No wonder another patrolman gets a promotion!” she said.
“Well,” explained Sidney Zoom, sheepishly, “he had a family, and he ran as though his feet were about to give out pounding pavements.”
“I see,” said the girl, and her eyes, watching the lines of Sidney Zoom’s grim back, were soft with a tenderness that was purely feminine, yet held no trace of being maternal.
But Sidney Zoom’s unwinking hawk-eyes were fastened upon the confused waters over the bar. His hands caressed the spokes of the wheel tenderly, and the yacht throbbed her way out into the storm.
Lifted Bait
Chapter I
Two Tickets to Midvale
The hawk eyes of Sidney Zoom peered into the lighted window of the telegraph office.
Sidney Zoom, tall, dynamic, sardonic, paced the midnight streets of the city, accompanied by his police dog, taking the part of the oppressed, and making war upon the oppressors. Experience had taught him the haunts of those bits of human flotsam who were spewed out to one side by the ruthless tide of the great city.
There were those who said that Sidney Zoom fought for the underdog because of a vast human sympathy beneath the sardonic exterior. There were others who claimed that Sidney Zoom was merely a born fighter, and that he cultivated the unfortunate because he wished some cause for combat.
Be that as it may, Sidney Zoom frequented the midnight-streets. He knew the haunts of those unfortunates who were about to commit suicide. He knew the cheap restaurants where human derelicts came drifting at night, dispirited, discouraged and all but impoverished.
And he knew that the foundation for many grim tragedies has been laid in the lighted interiors of the telegraph offices during those hours after the theatre crowds have ceased to surge along the pavements, and when human vitality is at its lowest ebb.
The young woman who caught the eyes of Sidney Zoom was twisting a handkerchief about her fingers as she stood at the counter of the office.
Sidney Zoom pushed his way through the swinging door. His well trained police dog dropped to the sidewalk, flattened against the side of the building, ears cocked forward, delicately attuned to the steps of his master.
Sidney Zoom approached the
telegraph counter and stood beside the young woman.
She did not so much as glance up. Her eyes were fixed upon the lone attendant who was shuffling through a sheaf of telegrams.
The clerk turned and approached the counter, empty-handed.
As the eyes of the girl saw the empty hands, she gave a quivering, sobbing gasp.
“No, Miss Allison,” said the clerk, “There’s nothing for you.”
“But,” she said, “I sent her a wire this evening, about nine o’clock. It certainly should have been delivered.”
The clerk looked inquiringly at Sidney Zoom.
“I’ll wait,” said Zoom.
The clerk turned to face the white despair of the girl’s features.
“Did you want me,” he asked, “to look up the telegram and see if it was delivered?”
She nodded. “It was sent to Evelyn Bostwick, and my name is Ruby Allison. The address was 2932 Cutter Avenue, Chicago.”
“Just a moment,” said the clerk.
He opened a filing drawer, thumbed rapidly through a list of cards, took out one, and brought it to the young woman.
“Apparently,” he said, “she was not at her apartment, but was expected later. The telegram is reported undelivered.”
The girl gasped, clutched the edge of the counter, then turned wordlessly and walked toward the nearest chair. She sat down as though her knees had collapsed.
Abruptly, she became conscious of the gaze of the two men, and flashed them a resentful look. She turned to the oak desk in front of which she was seated, pulled down a pad of telegraph blanks, picked up a pencil and started to scribble a message.
The clerk looked inquiringly at Sidney Zoom.
“Have you,” asked Sidney Zoom, “any message for Zoom? Sidney Zoom.”
“Just a moment, Mr. Zoom,” said the clerk.
He once more consulted the sheaf of telegrams, then shook his head.
The Casebook of Sidney Zoom Page 28
