“I have every reason,” he said, “to believe that check is a forgery.”
“Well,” the cashier said, “we’ll settle that in short order. I’ll get Mr. Carter on the telephone right now.”
He took the check and stepped to a telephone booth. Sidney Zoom could see the man through the glass of the booth. Could see his face darken with anger. Saw him try to talk, only to be interrupted.
A moment later the door banged shut and the cashier stepped back to the cage. His face was wrathful.
“The man,” he said, “is positively insulting. He told me that I could either pay this check or he would sue the bank for damages.”
“But it looks like a forgery,” Zoom said.
“It can’t be a forgery,” the cashier said, “he says that he talked with one of the representatives from our main bank and told him that he was going to dean out the account, that he issued the check to dean out the entire balance and that if we don’t cash it, he’s going to sue us for damages... Who gave you the check?”
“A man,” said Sidney Zoom, “whom I do not know, who asked me to present it for him. He claimed to be working for Mr. Carter. I believe he said he was a butler or something. The whole circumstances seem strange and suspicious to me. Moreover, the signature looks to me like a forgery.”
“Well,” said the cashier, “the check isn’t a forgery. I’m quite familiar with Mr. Carter’s voice over the telephone. He told me unmistakably that I should cash that check.”
“Don’t you think,” said Sidney Zoom, “it would be a good plan to compare the signature with the signatures on some of the other checks?”
The cashier stared suspiciously at Sidney Zoom.
“What were you supposed to do with this money when you got it?” he said. “Were you to give it to the man who handed you the check?”
“No,” said Sidney Zoom, “I was to deposit it to the account of Nell Benton.”
Relief flooded the face of the cashier.
“Oh,” he said, “that’s all tight then, Nell Benton was his secretary. I’m familiar with her, and familiar with her signature. Where were you to make the deposit?”
“In this bank,” said Sidney Zoom.
“She has an account here now,” said the cashier, taking the check and banging a rubber stamp down on it. “It’s quite all right. I’ll simply add this to her account.”
“Well,” said Sidney Zoom, “you can do as you want to, but it looks like a forgery to me. However, I’ve washed my hands of the transaction.”
“Mr. Carter,” said the cashier, speaking with frigid dignity, “was a most unsatisfactory customer. His language over the telephone was abusive.”
Zoom shrugged his shoulders and turned away from the cashier’s window.
“Well,” he said, “you’ll remember that I did my duty.”
“Yes,” said the cashier, “you did your duty.”
Sidney Zoom left the bank. At the corner he climbed into the car which Burt Samson had parked at the curb.
“Well?” asked Samson.
“Now,” said Sidney Zoom, “we wait until we see Harry Exter, the butler, drive up to the bank.”
They waited for some five minutes and then a shining automobile slid smoothly into the curb, a liveried chauffeur at the wheel. A man got out of the cat and entered the bank with quick, rapid steps.
“That,” said Sidney Zoom, “is Exter, the butler. Now step on it and see if we can break a few speed laws getting to Carter’s residence.”
Samson’s voice was dubious.
“I guess,” he said, “that you know what you’re doing. I hope you do.”
Sidney Zoom chuckled.
Chapter VI
Unmasked
At times, Sidney Zoom could be smilingly suave, his manner radiating an urbane dignity.
Now, as he stood before the residence of Finley Carter, his long forefinger pressing the bell button, his lips were twisted in a smile. He motioned his police dog over to a corner back of the door, where it was not readily visible. Burt Samson stood slightly to one side.
There was an interval of silence following the jangling of the bell, and then a thick-necked individual with broad shoulders jerked the door open.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“There has,” said Sidney Zoom, “been some mistake made in connection with Mr. Carter’s account at the Second National Affiliate. I was here previously to see him in regard to that account. The name is Coleridge. He’ll remember me.”
“He won’t remember you,” said the man, “because he won’t see you.”
Listening, Zoom could hear the sounds of feet moving about, could hear noises that seemed to come from people who were moving about in surreptitious haste.
A telephone bell rang somewhere in the interior of the house.
“There has been a mistake made somewhere,” said Sidney Zoom. “Two checks have been presented to the bank, both checks closing out Mr. Carter’s account.”
“Well,” said the man, “he’s got a right to close it out if he wants to, hasn’t he?”
“But,” said Sidney Zoom, “there were two closing checks. One of them must be a forgery.”
The eyes stared in hostile appraisal at Sidney Zoom. The telephone continued to ring.
“I’ve got to answer the telephone,” said the man. “You stay here.”
The door was slammed shut in Sidney Zoom’s face.
“That’s as far as we’ll get,” said Samson.
Zoom shook his head in smiling negation.
“Stick around,” he invited.
There was an interval of some two or three minutes, and then the door opened. The thick-necked individual had changed his manner. There was no longer surly hostility in his demeanor, but, instead, a puzzled bewilderment.
“Come on in,” he said. “Mr. Carter wants to see you.”
He held the door open, and Sidney Zoom courteously stood to one side to let Burt Samson enter ahead of him.
“Who’s this man?” asked the thick-necked one.
“My assistant,” said Sidney Zoom.
The men filed in through the door. Zoom turned.
“All right, Rip,” he said, “you may come in.”
The dog slipped through the door like a tawny streak of light.
“Hey, wait a minute!” said the man who had opened the door. “That dog can’t come in here!”
“Oh, yes,” said Sidney Zoom, brushing the matter aside as though it were of no moment, “he has to come in. You see, he’s very valuable and I wouldn’t dare to leave him outside. He might be stolen.”
As Zoom talked, he headed toward the stairs.
“Wait a minute,” said the thick-necked individual.
“Quite all right,” said Sidney Zoom. “It’s quite all right, my good man. I know the way. You don’t need to show me.”
Sidney Zoom went up the stairs two at a time, his long legs carrying him upward with but little apparent effort. A stair or two behind, Burt Samson was straining every effort to keep up. The thick-necked individual who had been left well behind in the race, was pounding awkwardly up the stairs at a dead run, protesting as he climbed.
“Listen, what are you guys trying to pull? You can’t come busting in here that way. I said Mr. Carter would see you. That doesn’t mean he’s going to see the whole bank, and you can’t get that dog...”
Zoom reached the upper corridor. The police dog that had been guarding the door of the room at the end of the hall was still on duty. He rose to his feet, hair bristling. Zoom’s police dog, padding at the side of his master, gave a throaty growl.
The thick-necked man, dashing up the stairs, suddenly tugged at his hip pocket.
“Say, you guys!” he yelled. “Stop right there!”
Samson whirled, faced the thick-necked individual.
“Get your hand away from that gun,” he said.
The police dog at the end of the corridor charged.
Sidney Zoom spoke quietly
to the four-footed companion of his midnight prowls.
“All right, Rip,” he said.
The two dogs came together in a flash of swift motion, raising their front quarters up from the ground, teeth gleaming, flashing and snapping like the jaws of steel traps.
A door burst open and the man who had posed as Finley Carter stepped into the corridor, an automatic glistening in his right hand.
“Listen, you guys,” he said, “stand back.”
His voice was deadly with menace.
Sidney Zoom strode forward, passed the fighting dogs.
“Drop that gun,” he said.
There was the sound of a struggle behind him as Samson flung himself on the bullnecked individual. The gun in front of Sidney Zoom blazed once.
Zoom flung himself to one side with the agility of a fencing master. The bullet struck a glancing course along the side of the hallway, ripping off plaster, thudding into a lath, glancing to one side and down.
A gun boomed at the end of the corridor. There was the sound of a thudding blow.
Sidney Zoom’s long arm shot out. His fingers closed about the wrist that held the blued-steel. He gave a swift jerk.
The gun roared once more.
A tawny flash of four-footed motion sprinted along the hallway, then leapt into the air, bloodied muzzle pointed at the throat of the man who had posed as Finley Carter.
The man saw the dog coming in time to fling his left arm in front of his throat.
Then the hurtling dog struck with an impact that smashed the man backwards to the floor. Zoom held the gun in his hand as the man went backward?
“Watch him, Rip!” he shouted.
Zoom turned toward the place where Samson was battling with the bull-necked individual. That man was clubbing his gun, striking Samson indiscriminately about the head and shoulders.
Zoom jumped over the inert police dog that lay with tom throat and glazed eyes in the center of the corridor, flung up his gun.
“Hands up!” he shouted.
The heavy shoulders swung about. The gun snapped up.
“Damn you!” gritted the heavy-set man.
Samson swung his fist from the vicinity of his hip pocket, giving it every ounce of force he had. The blow crashed to the big man’s jaw, rocked him back to his heels. Samson’s left swung to the belt buckle. He steadied himself and crashed home another right.
The gun dropped from the limp fingers as the man swayed, then toppled backwards.
Samson wiped blood from his forehead, grinned at Sidney Zoom through cracked lips.
“Why the devil didn’t you use that gun I gave you?” Zoom demanded.
Samson’s grin stretched wider, to show a bleeding cavity where a tooth had been knocked from the front of his face.
“You never did ask much about me,” he said, “but I lost my job for okaying a forged check. I was a department manager in a hardware store. This is the guy that gave me the bum check.”
“He weighs fifty pounds more than you do,” Zoom remonstrated, “and you haven’t been eating regularly for a month or two. You should have used the gun.”
“He could have weighed a hundred pounds more than I did, and I’d still have taken him to pieces,” Samson retorted.
Zoom turned back to where Rip was standing over the prostrate form of the man who had posed as Finley Carter.
“Bust open that door, Samson,” he said, “I think we’ll find the real Finley Carter held in there as a prisoner.”
Samson tried the door. It was locked.
Zoom nodded a signal. The men crashed their shoulders against the door, which splintered free of the lock, shivered on its hinges.
A man with his legs tied to a heavy chair waved his arms and snarled irascibly.
“It certainly is time you rescued me. A hell of a fine bunch of police you are! Or, I suppose you call yourselves detectives, since you don’t wear uniforms, but I’m a taxpayer and a big taxpayer. I’m entitled to better protection than this. I’ve been a prisoner for days and you are just now getting here...”
Sidney Zoom’s grin was malicious.
“You’re wrong,” he interrupted. “We’re not just getting here, we’re just leaving.”
With a nod to Samson, he slammed the door shut in the face of the expostulating prisoner.
Chapter VII
Curious Accounting
Sidney Zoom sprawled at long-legged ease on the deck of his yacht, watched the sun glint on the sparkling waves, felt the swing of the craft as it rolled to the long, lazy swells.
Seated opposite him, his lips chewing nervously at a cigar, was a hatchet-faced individual from whose spectacles dangled a long black ribbon which from time to time was swung gently by the warm breeze.
“As your attorney,” he said, “I would say that you had not violated the law. A forgery is not a criminal act unless it is perpetrated with the intention to deceive, and the fact that you advised the bank at the time you presented the check to be cashed that it was forged probably constitutes a defense.
“It is, moreover, apparent that you did not profit in any way by any of the forgeries. You used them to detect crime, instead of to perpetrate crime.”
Zoom smiled, elevated his long legs and placed his feet on the rail of the yacht.
“On the other hand,” said the attorney, “the police are making a widespread inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of the tall individual who entered into the case. They have a very good description of you.”
“Description,” said Sidney Zoom, “don’t mean anything. I’m on the point of taking a month’s cruise to tropical waters, anyway.”
The attorney nodded his head slowly.
“As between Finley Carter and the bank, however,” he said, “there is a very peculiar legal problem. Carter received most of the money that had been withdrawn from his account when the police nabbed Harry Exter and his confederates. The man who posed as Finley Carter was an actor who had spent some time studying Carter’s voice until he could mimic it perfectly. Of course, Exter got the idea when he learned that Carter was in the habit of signing blank checks drawn on his housekeeping account, and leaving them in the hands of his secretary. Carter, of course, thought he was protected by the fact that he never kept over five hundred dollars in that bank. He didn’t realize what would happen if some crooks got possession of all of his mail and made deposits in the account. It only required a rubber stamp to deposit the money to Carter’s account.
“On the other hand, the checks that made the withdrawals were genuine checks, with the exception of the forged check which cleaned out the account. But, as I have stated, the bank was advised at the time that check was presented that it was probably a forgery. Nevertheless, the check was cashed and the money deposited to the account of Nell Benton.”
Sidney Zoom stretched his arms above his head, took a deep inhalation of the fresh ocean air.
“Well,” he said, “that was what I wanted to see you about particularly. I don’t know just how repentant Carter will be for the wrong that he did Nell Benton, or just how grateful he will be to Burt Samson for the part Samson played in rescuing him from the crooks. I want you, therefore, to represent the interests of Miss Benton.”
“You mean in asking a reward?” the lawyer inquired.
“No,” said Sidney Zoom, “in tactfully explaining to Mr. Finley Carter that she has a very good cause of action against him for defamation of character.
“You might further explain to all parties concerned that there is quite a question as to the legality of the deposit in Miss Benton’s name, inasmuch as the legal questions seem somewhat confused. In other words, what I want you to do is to add confusion to the legal question.”
“To what end?” inquired the attorney.
“To the end,” said Sidney Zoom, “of securing a very good cash settlement from Mr. Finley Carter — a settlement which will take care of Burt Samson, as well as Nell Benton.”
“You had some figure in mind
?” inquired the attorney cautiously.
“Yes,” said Sidney Zoom, “I thought that after the legal questions had been properly confused, a settlement might be made for ten thousand dollars. That could be effected by having Nell Benton execute a complete release and make a check in favor of Finley Carter for two hundred and ninety-one dollars and fifteen cents, because, you see, the ten thousand has already been deposited to her account.”
The attorney blinked his eyes at Sidney Zoom.
“Well, by heaven,” he said, “you’re the coolest customer I ever had to deal with! Some day I’m going to see you on your road to jail.”
“In the meantime,” said Sidney Zoom, “I will have derived a lot of amusement from life, and have, perhaps, done some good.”
“You’ve got all the money you want,” the attorney rasped. “You’ve got nothing to do except cruise around and enjoy life. Why the devil do you mess around the big cities, mixing into crime?”
“For the same reason,” said Sidney Zoom, “that I am going into tropical waters and fish for swordfish with light tackle — because I like it. When it gets dark I’ll swing in close to the shore, put you in a launch and see that you’re landed — just like the rum-runners used to land their cargo. And, of course, you’ll add to my bill fair compensation for whatever inconvenience is caused you.”
The lawyer sighed.
“Well,” he said, “I guess it’s all right. You saved Carter’s life. They probably would have killed him when they got ready to take it ‘on the lam,’ as the crooks express it. But you certainly skated on thin ice yourself. You stole some of the crooks’ thunder.”
Zoom lit a cigarette.
“Yes,” he said, as he sent twin streamers of smoke through his satisfied nostrils, “I stole some of the crooks’ thunder, and, all in all, it was a very satisfactory job of larceny.”
The Cases of Sidney Zoom
“The Higher Court.” Detective Diction Weekly, March 8, 1930.
“Willie the Weeper.” Detective Fiction Weekly, March 8, 1930. Collected in The Casebook of Sidney Zoom.
“ ‘My Name Is Zoom’.” Detective Fiction Weekly, April 12,1930. Collected in The Casebook of Sidney Zoom.
The Casebook of Sidney Zoom Page 35
