“Nothing, Mr. Zoom.”
Sidney Zoom walked to one of the other desks, sat in front of it, and pulled toward him a pad of blanks, while he started to scribble a message which was but a meaningless jumble of words. From time to time he hesitated, as though seeking exactly the proper word, or crossed out some word which he had written. Upon those occasions, his eyes surreptitiously surveyed the young woman.
She finished writing her telegram, read it, hesitated, bit her lip, looked at the clock, tore the telegram in half and dropped it into the wastebasket. She pushed back her chair, walked with firm, determined steps to the counter and caught the eyes of the clerk.
“I’ll come back again in about an hour,” she said. “They certainly should be able to deliver that telegram, and there’ll be an answer for me.”
The clerk nodded.
“Very well,” he said. “We’re open all night. I’ll try and get another report for you, Miss Allison.”
She nodded, turned and walked swiftly through the door, out into the night.
Sidney Zoom waited a moment, then moved over to the desk where the girl had been sitting. Once more, he took a telegraph blank and scribbled aimless words upon it. Then he made a gesture of frowning annoyance, crumpled up the blank and dropped it into the wastebasket.
A moment later he leaned forward, as though to retrieve the crumpled telegram.
The clerk had ceased to pay any attention to Sidney Zoom.
Zoom’s fingers picked up the torn fragments of the telegram which the girl had written. He placed these torn fragments together upon the desk and studied the message.
The telegram was addressed to Mr. George Grace, 912 West 25th Street, and read: Require hundred dollars immediately save me from jail Wired Evelyn but have had no answer Can you spare money Send me care Western Union here.
Sidney Zoom regarded the message for several minutes, then dropped the torn pieces into his pocket, arose and strode from the lighted room, into the street.
The police dog rose from the shadows near the door. Gravely, sedately, he padded along by the side of his master.
Sidney Zoom went to the place where he had parked his roadster. A wave of his wrist, and the dog, catching the signal, leapt up from the pavement in a long arch of graceful motion, and dropped into the rumble seat.
Sidney Zoom started the motor and drove rapidly and purposefully, going to a branch telegraph station that he knew was open.
He parked the car, entered the small room, and said to the operator in charge: “Here is a hundred dollars. I want it wired to Ruby Allison, care of the telegraph company here. You may waive identification.”
The clerk frowned heavily at Sidney Zoom.
“You want to send it to some person care of the company in this city?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Sidney Zoom. “So that it will go to your main office for delivery.”
The clerk looked dubious for a moment, then handed Sidney Zoom a blank.
“Very well,” he said, “fill it in.”
Sidney Zoom took one hundred dollars from his pocket, placed the bills on the counter, asked for the amount of the charges, and paid those.
The clerk looked down at the signature Sidney Zoom had affixed to the blank.
“You’ve simply signed ‘A. Friend.’ ”
“Certainly,” said Sidney Zoom.
“But we can’t accept money signed like that. You can sign a telegram any way you want to, but...”
Sidney Zoom smiled.
“It happens,” he said, “that that is my name — Anson W. Friend, and I always sign it ‘A. Friend.’ ”
“Very well,” said the clerk, and took the money.
Sidney Zoom turned on his heel, strode once more out into the night. Now he was chuckling to himself, scenting adventure.
He drove back to the main office of the telegraph company, parked his car in an advantageous position, settled back against the cushions, and smoked a cigarette.
He had been there approximately twenty minutes, when he heard the click of heels on the pavement, and the young woman walked past his parked automobile and into the office, her steps quick, short and nervous, her face drawn and set.
Sidney Zoom watched her through the glass as she went to the counter, saw the clerk’s reassuring smile, saw him come to her with papers to be signed, and then saw the one hundred dollars which the clerk counted out and passed over to her.
The clerk said something, and the young woman frowned. There were several moments of animated discussion, and Sidney Zoom surmised that she was learning, for the first time, the mysterious name which had been used by the donor of the money.
However, the young woman finally shrugged her shoulders — a shrug which indicated very plainly that she had other matters to concern her — flashed the clerk a smile and a word of thanks, turned and walked rapidly from the telegraph office.
Sidney Zoom had rather expected she would go to some apartment, but she did not. Instead, she walked to a corner where an all-night bus line ran to the Union Station. She waited some ten minutes, caught a bus to the station, presented a check at the parcel checking counter, and received a suitcase and a hat box.
She lugged these to a ticket window and engaged in conversation with the clerk, pausing to look at the clock frowningly.
Sidney Zoom had parked his roadster after he had followed her to the depot. He had entered the foyer of the big depot, and gradually moved up to where he could hear the conversation between the young woman and the agent.
“... not until two o’clock?” she asked.
“That’s right.”
“And this train for the South leaves in fifteen minutes?”
“That’s right.”
“Very well,” she said, “give me a ticket on that.”
“Where to?” he asked.
She hesitated a moment, then pushed fifteen dollars through the barred grille.
“As far as that will take me,” she said.
He looked at her curiously, then consulted a schedule of rates.
“I can sell you a ticket to Midvale for fifteen dollars and twenty-five cents,” he said.
Wordlessly, she opened her purse, and pushed twenty-five cents across the marble slab. The clerk stamped a ticket and handed it to her.
“Pullman?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “How soon can I get on the train?”
“Right away,” he told her. “It leaves in exactly thirteen minutes.”
She picked up the suitcase and hat box and started for the train gates. Sidney Zoom moved up to the window.
“Midvale — single,” he said.
Chapter II
The Flight from Crime
The train gradually gathered momentum as it rumbled through the dark outskirts of the city. The young woman, her face still drawn and tense, her eyes dark with terror that amounted to panic, flashed a surreptitious glance at the tall, mysterious man who sat at ease in the seat across from her. His fingers toyed with a ticket and held it in such a position that the young woman could see the destination printed upon the, ticket was that of Midvale.
Abruptly, she held her eyes upon his.
“You live in Midvale?” she asked.
Sidney Zoom shook his head.
“Can you tell me what sort of a place it is?” she asked.
Sidney Zoom leaned toward her. His hawk-like eyes stared at her steadily; circles of cold ice, in the center of which were twin pinpoints of inky mystery.
“It is a place,” said Sidney Zoom in low, solemn tones, “where one who is hiding from the police could readily be found.”
For a second or two the full import of his words did not dawn upon her consciousness. She sat staring at him with an expression of stupefied terror upon her countenance. Then she gave a quivering gasp.
“Perhaps,” said Sidney Zoom in a kindly tone, “you would care to tell me about it.”
“Tell you about what?” she asked.
“About the reason you’re g
oing to Midvale,” said Sidney Zoom.
“I’m going there,” she said, defiantly, “to visit a sick aunt. I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t care to have any further conversation with you.”
“Evidently,” said Sidney Zoom, “you were overtaken by some emergency which demanded immediate flight. You packed your suitcase, took it down to the depot and checked it. Then you tried to get sufficient money to get out of town. You sent telegrams until you finally secured one hundred dollars. You came down to the station and took the first train leaving town. Now, perhaps, you would care to tell me why. I might help you.”
Her stare was that of icy scorn.
“I presume,” she said, “that this is just another trick of a fresh masher. I shouldn’t have spoken to you in the first place, but you looked like a gentleman. However, just to show you how wrong you are, it happens that my Aunt Agnes is quite ill, and she wired for me to come and nurse her. She also wired me the money for transportation, if you want to know. Come to think of it, it seems to me that I did see you watching me in the telegraph office. I don’t know just what your game is, but I shall certainly call the conductor and make a complaint if you speak to me again.”
Sidney Zoom sighed.
“Somehow,” he moaned, “I always do make the wrong approach.”
“Well, you’ve certainly done it this time,” she said icily.
Without another word, he reached into his pocket, took out the tom pieces of the telegram he had picked up from the wastebasket, and fitted them together in front of her astonished eyes. Then, from his wallet he took the receipt which the telegraph company had given him for the money he had telegraphed to her.
“I am the one who sent you the money.”
“You?” she gasped.
He nodded.
She reached swiftly forward, scooped up the torn pieces of the telegram, crumpled them into a ball.
“You can’t leave that around,” she said, “where people can see it!”
Her voice was a terrified whisper.
Sidney Zoom nodded.
“Now,” he pleaded, “won’t you please understand that I want to help you? I wanted to find out what it was all about before I spoke to you. I didn’t know whether you were really running away, or whether that expression you used in the telegram, about being saved from jail, was just a stall to get the money.”
“No,” she said, in a low voice, “I needed it to pay my expenses in running away. I didn’t have a cent when it happened.”
“What was it that happened?”
“A murder,” she said.
There was an interval during which the pair stared at each other; the eyes of Sidney Zoom hawk-like in their cold appraisal; the eyes of the young woman pathetically helpless. The train rumbled on through the night, gathering speed.
Sidney Zoom leaned toward her, so that there was no chance of her words being overheard by other passengers.
“Tell me,” he said.
“That’s all there is to tell,” she told him, speaking excitedly, “just that.”
“Did you commit the murder?” asked Sidney Zoom.
“No,” she said, “of course not.”
“Why are you running away then?”
“Because it happened in my apartment.”
“Do you know who killed him?”
“I have suspicions, that’s all.”
“How did it happen?”
“I never liked him,” she said. “But he kept trying to force his attentions on me.”
“Who?” Zoom inquired.
“Frank Venard,” she said.
“All right, go on.”
She told him the facts in low, throaty tones.
“Venard came to my apartment. He knocked on the door and said it was a telegram for me. I opened the door a little ways. I wasn’t dressed. He pushed the door open and came in. He had been drinking, and he was nasty. I started to fight. We struggled around the apartment for awhile. It was horrible — just one of those things that a girl has to put up with once in awhile. Finally I told him I was going to scream. He laughed and told me he’d choke me if I did. Then I heard the pistol shot.”
“In your apartment?” asked Sidney Zoom.
“No,” she said, “I don’t think so. I think it was from the Ore escape outside of the apartment — just the one shot. And I felt him jerk as the bullet hit him... Oh! It was horrible!”
“Well,” he said, “go on from there.”
She shook her head dubiously.
“That’s all,” she said. “He was stone dead. I tried to get him to a bed, but I couldn’t lift him. I got blood all over my clothes. The shot struck him in the side and must have gone through the heart. He died instantly.”
“Why didn’t you notify the authorities?”
“Because I was framed.”
“How do you mean?” he asked.
“Remember,” she said, “I wasn’t dressed and there was blood on my clothes. I didn’t want to notify the authorities, and get a lot of publicity in the papers. I ran in the bedroom closet and put on some more clothes. When I came out, there was a gun lying by the body.”
“Well?”
“And,” she said, “my fingerprints were on that gun — I knew they were.”
“How did you know?”
“Because,” she said, “Paul Stapleton got me to handle the gun. I should have suspected something at the time. He’s one of those fellows who is always giving someone the double-cross.”
“Who,” he asked, “is Stapleton?”
“He’s the man I work for.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m his stenographer and secretary.”
“And he got you to handle the gun?” asked Sidney Zoom.
“Yes,” she said, “I came into the office and found the gun on my desk. It was greasy. I picked it up and carried it in to him and asked him what it was doing there. He said that he had been cleaning it and had left it on my desk. I didn’t think anything more of it at the time, but I knew that Frank Venard and Paul Stapleton had been having trouble. Venard knew that Stapleton had been taking some bribes. There was some marked money that was given.”
“What was Stapleton being bribed for?” Zoom asked.
“He’s got something to do with the narcotic business,” she told him. “He has charge of searching certain incoming vessels. Frank Venard was a private detective who had been employed by someone, I don’t know just whom. Venard would never tell me. He was trying to get something on Mr. Stapleton, and finally he did it. There was a large sum in marked money given as a bribe. I don’t know who it was that gave him the bribe. Somebody was back of it; I couldn’t find out who.”
“Did Mr. Stapleton know that Venard knew about the bribe?” Zoom asked.
“Yes,” she said in a low voice, “he knew that he’d been trapped.”
“But what became of the money?”
“It was concealed somewhere in his house. He didn’t dare to bank it and he didn’t date to carry it with him. They had searched the house, but they couldn’t find it.”
“Suppose,” said Sidney Zoom, “you tell me more about that.”
“Well,” she said, “there was some man who came to the house. I think he was a big Chinese merchant. He gave Mr. Stapleton a bribe. Anyway, that’s what Venard told me. That’s all I know about it. The Chinese merchant was a plant, but he gave Mr. Stapleton ten thousand dollars in marked money. Then he came out and signaled the men who were watching the place that he had given the bribe to Stapleton. The men rushed in with a search warrant. They searched the house and they searched Stapleton, but they never found the money.”
“Perhaps,” said Sidney Zoom, “the Chinese was wily, and pocketed the money himself, but gave the signal to the men just the same.”
“No,” she said, “Venard was guarding against that. He searched the Chinese, too.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the train swaying and lurching as it roared throu
gh the night.
“All right,” Zoom said, “go on from there. What happened next?”
“That was all,” she said. “Venard swore that sooner or later that marked money would show up. He was waiting for it. He had some other evidence; I don’t know just what it was, but he was getting some evidence that was going to make things pretty hot for Mr. Stapleton.”
“How did it happen,” Zoom asked, “that you became friendly with Venard, if he was working against your employer?”
“I didn’t,” she said. ‘Venard became friendly with me. He tried to force his attentions on me at first, so he could get a point of contact with Mr. Stapleton and what was going on in the office. Then, when he found he couldn’t do that, he kept right on. He was objectionable to pie, but he seemed madly infatuated. I had had some trouble with him before.
“That was why I just couldn’t stand and face the music. When I realized that Frank Venard had been shot in my apartment, and that the gun which had done the shooting lay on the floor by the body, with my fingerprints on it, I knew that I was trapped. You see, I’d threatened to shoot him if he didn’t leave me alone.”
Zoom stared at her thoughtfully.
“You should have notified the police,” he said. “Even if you had shot him, you would have been acquitted.”
“I know,” she said, “but think of the publicity and the scandal that would be attached to it. They’d hold me up in the newspapers for the public to stare at.”
Zoom regarded her steadily.
“That’s not it,” he said. “There’s some other reason. What is it?”
She lowered her eyes and sat staring at her clasped hands.
“I can’t tell you that,” she said.
“I can’t help you,” Sidney Zoom told her, “unless you do.”
“If I should tell you,” she asked, “could you help me?”
“Perhaps.”
“Well,” she said, slowly, “I didn’t dare to let them take my fingerprints. As soon as they took my fingerprints, they’d have known who I was.”
“And who,” he asked, “are you?”
“I ran away once before,” she told him.
“From what?”
“I ran away,” she said, “from an investigation. I did it to shield a man who was unfortunate — a man that I loved. He had been guilty of embezzlement; that is, I guess he had, looking back on it now. But at the time I didn’t believe he had. He told me that things went bad for him. He was in a tough place and they were going to send him to the penitentiary, so I took the blame for the embezzlement, and ran away. That shielded him. He was to join me afterwards, and we were to be married. But...”
The Casebook of Sidney Zoom Page 29
