The Casebook of Sidney Zoom

Inside Job

Sidney Zoom piloted his powerful roadster over the wide stretch of boulevard, along which the night stream of after-theatre traffic was flowing.

Through a loud speaker, concealed under the dash of the car, came the steady sequence of police reports broadcast from headquarters.

These reports were preceded by a blast on a siren whistle which commanded attention. Some were for specified cars, some were general broadcasts.

Sidney Zoom passed a slow moving car in which a young man and a girl were huddled closely over the steering wheel. As he swung back to the right, there sounded the noise of the siren whistle.

“Car eighty-two attention! Attention eighty-two!”

There followed a short pause, then a voice that was mechanical as though reading from a typewritten report.

“Car eighty-two will go to the corner of Third and McAlpin for an investigation. There has been a report that a man is loitering about who is carrying a gun.

“A passing pedestrian witnessed the gun when a gust of wind blew the man’s coat to one side.

“Car eighty-two, go to Third and McAlpin Streets for an investigation and report.”

There was an interval of silence. Sidney Zoom knew that he was on the beat of car eighty-two. He was within a few blocks of Third and McAlpin, and he spun the wheel, turned down a side street that would give him a clear run to McAlpin.

Not that Sidney Zoom was a part of the police force. Far from it. Independently wealthy, owner of a palatial private yacht upon which he spent most of his time, he was tired of the ways of civilization. He demanded conflict, this gaunt, grim fighter. He had found that conflict in patrolling the midnight streets of the great city, listening to the reports which came over the short length radio from police headquarters, selecting such cases as sounded interesting, and speeding to them, gave him relief.

His activities were never quite illegal. That is, their illegality could never be proven. But those activities were very effective at times. There were occasions when he protected the weak, occasions when he fought the strong, and always, of late, he was in conflict with the police.

In the rumble seat of the roadster, crouched his companion of the night prowls, a tawny police dog, trained in the work of the police, trained, also, to obey the commands of Sidney Zoom. Master and dog worked together with unerring efficiency.

Sidney Zoom knew that car eighty-two had beat him to the call as he swung his roadster into McAlpin. He could see the red tail light, just above which was a any pinprick of blue light, signal of the police car. It was ahead of him and speeding along the boulevard.

Sidney Zoom did not care to tangle with the police unless he derived some pleasure or benefit from the contact. The mere routine of a casual investigation was not a sufficiently alluring bait. He swung his car to the right on Fourth Street and let the police car go on to the comer of Third.

Zoom drove in close to the curb and slowed down. He was listening for another call that would prove of interest. The siren whistle commanded attention while the mechanical voice of the police announcer reported a man chasing a woman, armed with a big knife. The chase was in a far corner of the city, however, and Zoom knew that car thirteen would be on the ground.

Another call reported a burglary on the beat of car twenty-nine. Then there was a period of silence, and Zoom saw the man who was walking rapidly and purposefully along the curb, his face turned back, as though looking for a cruising cab.

It was a section of the city where cabs rarely cruised, at that hour of the night. The business district was near, and this place was given over to wholesale offices, little retail stores that could not afford high rentals. Pedestrians were far from plentiful.

The lights of Zoom’s car fell full upon the white, strained face of the man at the curb. He was dressed in a brown sack suit, wore a black felt hat, had on a red necktie and brown shoes. He was, perhaps, forty-three or four and was stocky in build.

Sidney Zoom’s hawk-like eyes fastened upon the face of the waiting man, and something of tension in the strained, drawn expression of the mouth and eyes caused this connoisseur of adventure, to brake his car to an abrupt stop.

“Perhaps I can give you a lift,” he said. “There won’t be a cab along here for half an hour, perhaps.”

He saw the instant relief which flooded the face of the pedestrian.

“Thanks,” said the man and moved forward.

Sidney Zoom kicked a switch which shut off the radio from operation. The man climbed into the car and sat down.

“Nice dog you have there,” he said.

“Yes,” answered Sidney Zoom, shortly.

The police dog leaned forward, smelling of the newcomer, his paws placed upon the folded top of the roadster. He gave a deep sniff, then braced himself and growled throatily.

The man moved hastily.

“Won’t bite, will he?” he asked.

“No,” said Zoom. “That’s all, Rip. Get back and lie down.”

The dog stepped back to the cushion of the rumble seat, dropped down; but he gave another of those low, rumbling growls.

Sidney Zoom understood that growl as plainly as though the dog had spoken to him in words, and said: “I can smell a gun in this man’s pocket. It’s been shot somewhere recently. There’s the odor of powder, burnt powder.”

But Sidney Zoom gave no sign that he had learned that the man he had picked up on the dark side street was carrying a concealed weapon. His manner remained courteous, but aloof.

“I’m driving uptown,” he said.

“I wonder if you’re going past the Raleigh Arms Hotel on Madison Street,” said his guest.

“I can,” said Zoom, and spun the wheel.

The man he had picked up stared at him in surreptitious appraisal. Zoom kept his unwinking eyes on the road. He seemed to have no curiosity, no desire for social conversation. The car came to Madison Street. Zoom drove to the hotel, slowed the car.

“Thanks,” said his passenger.

“Don’t mention it,” said Zoom.

He speeded the car away from the curb, turned to the right at the comer, turned to the right again at the next comer and swung once more into Madison Street when he came to the intersection. He parked the car, ordered the dog to crouch down behind the lines of the car body so that he would be invisible to passers-by. Then Zoom walked to the other side of the street, stood in a position where he could watch the hotel lobby, both the front and side exits.

He waited five minutes. The man he had carried in his car came out of the side door, Looked about him, held up his hand for a cab. Zoom walked swiftly back, along the curb, climbed into his roadster and started the motor. By the time the cab had swung into the main street Zoom was on its tail.

He followed the cab to the Yeardly Apartments, an unpretentious building sandwiched between two of the outlying business streets, saw his man pay off the cab and go up a flight of stairs.

Zoom switched on the radio and started cruising again. He filed the appearance of the man and the place where he had discharged the cab in a hodge-podge of miscellaneous information which Zoom kept under his hat, and which concerned various and sundry of the night activities of the city.

He had gone a matter of some eight or nine blocks when the sound of the radio, calling car eighty-two again claimed his attention.

“An unconscious man is reported as being in an alley opening off of Fourth Street near McAlpin. Car eighty-two, investigate and report.”

Sidney Zoom pushed the throttle of his roadster well down and speeded toward the place described in the radio alarm. There was no stopping for arterial stops, no pausing for speed limits. The roadster rushed through the dark streets, Zoom’s gaunt hands gripping the steering wheel.

Once more he found that car eighty-two was ahead of him, but Zoom managed to catch up within the last two hundred feet. The cars swung to the curb together.

There was the form of a man, huddled in the shadows at the mouth of the alley, lying limp and inert. As the officers bent over him, the sound of the clanging gong of an ambulance came to their ears.

Sidney Zoom pushed his way forward.

One of the officers frowned, grunted: “Look who’s here!”

The other officer straightened, said: “Hello, Zoom.”

The greetings were not particularly cordial, nor were they entirely unfriendly. Lonely men who patrol the night streets, in more or less constant danger, welcome company, even though they do not always agree with the methods used by that company. On two occasions Zoom had been of considerable assistance to the patrol cars. On one evening he had saved the life of an officer who was trapped between the fire of two desperate bandits.

“Dead?” asked Zoom.

“Don’t think so. Got a sock on the head. Turn him over, Frank, and let’s see if there’s any blood.”

The men tugged at the inert body.

One of the officers straightened with a whistle, a low note of whistling surprise. His flashlight, illuminating a circle of white brilliance in the darkness of the alley, disclosed something that sent the beam glittering back in scintillating reflections of cold fire.

The second officer lunged toward it, clamped his hands on it.

“Diamond bracelet,” he said.

“Genuine?”

“Looks like it.”

The ambulance clanged its way to the curb, turned, backed into position.

“Better take a look and see if we can find any more. That looks funny.”

They pawed through the man’s pockets.

“Here’s another one. Guess that’s set in platinum, eh, Bill?”

“Looks like it. Take a look through this wallet and see if there’s any cards.”

The stretcher bearers from the ambulance came up, set down the stretcher. A young man bent over the prostrate form.

“Dead, Doc?”

“Nope. Case of concussion. Think he’s coming around. Find out what hit him?”

“Think it was a sock on the bean. Looks as though he’d been robbed, or had been doing some robbery. Here’s his wallet, stripped of dough. There’s a card, automobile driver’s license. Name’s Harry Dupree, 1641 Dinsmore Drive. Here’s a letter. It’s old. Telephone numbers scribbled on the back of the envelope. A bunch of keys. Here, this card mentions that he’s a jewelry salesman for Huntley & Cobb. Bet he had some samples and got stuck up.”

The ambulance man said:

“Well, he’s coming around. He can tell us for himself what happened.”

One of the officers said: “You better telephone in a report, Frank. I’ll stick around and listen to the radio and see if anything breaks.”

The inert figure shivered, stretched, turned and was gripped with nausea. “Okay,” said the ambulance man, “let him alone for a minute. Okay. Now give him this. Here, brother, swallow. No, no, swallow!”

The man gulped, retched, sat up, supported by the stretcher men. He stared about him with wide, bloodshot eyes and groaned. “We’re officers,” said the man from the radio patrol car. “Tell us what happened.”

“I was robbed,” groaned the man.

“See who did it?”

“Somebody who was hiding in the alley... I walked past... He socked me.”

“What’d he get?”

“I don’t know... Had some money... Not much, about eighteen bucks.”

“It’s gone,” said the officer. “Your name’s Dupree?”

“Yeah... Oh my head!”

“That’s okay, Buddy. You’ll be all right in a little while. How about the jewelry?”

“What jewelry?”

“Didn’t you have some gems, some samples or somethin’?”

The man started to shake his head, then gave a deep groan with the pain. One of the stretcher men said: “Don’t shake your head, Buddy, Don’t move any more than you have to. Think you can walk to the ambulance?”

The groaning man leaned far to one side and retched again. The officer who had gone to telephone came back and said: “Report’s just come in of a robbery at Huntley & Cobb’s place. Guy had keys and got in, laid in wait for the watchman, socked him and tied him up. When he didn’t turn in his box they sent out to investigate. Found the watchman tied up and the safe looted.”

“How come?” asked the other officer.

“That’s all I know. They gave me the dope on the telephone. Car fifty-seven’s out there now. I reported this bird as being employed there. We better check up. They said to hold him and follow the ambulance in. Looks like he had something to do with it.”

There was a moment of silence, then the officer who had telephoned crouched down so that his eyes were on a level with those of the man who was propped up by the stretcher men.

“Look here, Dupree, had you been to Huntley & Cobb’s tonight?”

“No.”

“Sure?”

“Of course.”

“Have any samples on you?”

“No.”

The officer produced the articles of jewelry he had found near the unconscious man. He held them cupped in his hand, flashed the beam of the light on them and said: “How about these? Ever see ’em before.”

Once more the man tried to shake his head, and once more the effort brought on nausea.

The officers exchanged glances.

“Okay, Buddy,” said Frank. “You better take a nice ride to the hospital. They’ll shoot you some dope there that’ll make that head of yours feel better.”

He motioned to the stretcher men.

“Better boost him, boys. He’s wanted for questioning. We’ll follow you in. Them’s orders. There’s something phony here.”

The men lifted the half limp figure. He struggled to rise.

“There, there, lie back.”

He stretched out on the canvas. They raised him and slid him into the ambulance. The door clicked shut. The ambulance motor whirred into speed. The officers climbed in their car and drove away. The radio was whirring its demand for attention as they rounded the corner.

Sidney Zoom got in his roadster and turned it toward the place where Huntley & Cobb had their jewelry store and warehouse. He was scowling and he kept the throttle well depressed.

George Dike enjoyed the notoriety. He had a welt over his left eye, and there was a thin bit of dried blood which had stained a dark red stream from the corner of his left nostril, down his chin.

The police had finished with him, temporarily, but Dike was relating to any one who was curious enough to ask, or, for that matter to listen, exactly how it had all happened.

“I thought there was sumpin’ behind that bale of stuff, and I turned to get the flashlight on it then I seen him jump up. I seen he had sumpin’ in his hand, and I made a swing. I don’t even know whether I connected or not. I can’t remember that far. It seemed like somebody’d set off a firecracker inside my dome, and the next thing I knew the cops were bendin’ over me.

“I can just remember seein’ sumpin’ red. I think it was his necktie. It musta been his necktie. I bet I’d know the guy if I seen him again, though. There was a way he had of throwin’ his shoulders when he raised his arm, that I won’t forget. An’ he had a funny sort of neck, kind of short and thick like.

“I guess I musta got an awful sock, because it was just like the fourth o’ July. Sock, an’ I got it! A whale of a lam. Lookit the ridge it made. But it didn’t bust the skin. A regular slung-shot.”

There was a little knot of spectators in front of the place. A uniformed officer prevented them from crowding too dose. Every once in a while he muttered a mechanical: “Move on, move on! Don’t be blockin’ the sidewalk!”

Some of the men who had drifted to the door of the robbed company remained. For the most part, however, the crowd was formed of straggling units who drifted up to the place, paused to listen to Dike’s story, saw the welt over his eye, and then drifted away into the night. They were couples for the most part, young men with attractive young women who remained only long enough to find out what it was all about. Then the night claimed them.

Sidney Zoom heard the story of the watchman.

He saw the chauffeur pilot the big limousine to the curb, saw the very portly gentleman with the white face and flabby lips get laboriously from the car and plunge into the entrance of the storeroom.

He paused only long enough to give a name to the uniformed officer who guarded the place, and those who were near enough to hear that name sent the whispered gossip to the outskirts of the little group of spectators.

“Frank Huntley, the senior partner. Just got the call.”

There was another interval of silence. Then a whispered rumor sprang up from nowhere like a breath of wind in the desert, and seeped through the crowd, passing from man to man.

“They’ve inventoried the loss. It’s more than twenty thousand dollars. They’ve got the man that did it. They’re bringing him out here. Going to confront him with the watchman and the scene of the crime. He had the combination of the safe. They say he worked here. He had an accomplice, and the accomplice got away with all the loot. Tough when a guy has to stick a place up and then gets stuck up himself.”

Sidney Zoom heard that rumor, also. He waited, standing there gaunt and grim, six feet odd of unsmiling efficiency, staring with eyes that took in every single detail.

A police car came shrieking from the boulevard. It skidded to the curb. Men jumped out. A white-faced young man with slumped shoulders was in the car. His wrists were handcuffed. They pulled him to the pavement and hustled him into the store. The crowd surged and swayed as its members sought to obtain a glimpse of the man.

A taxicab honked its horn persistently, crawled through the tangle of vehicles, discharged a lone passenger.

She was white-haired. Her eyes were blue. Her face gave indications of serene age. The lips smiled placidly. But the depths of the blue eyes contained a trace of panic. She spoke in a throaty voice.

“Has my boy come yet? Have they brought Harry? They said they were bringing the boy here.”

No one answered her. They stared with heartless, expressionless curiosity, Sidney Zoom inched his way toward her and lifted his hat.

“You mean Harry Dupree?” he asked. “Yes, they have taken him inside.”

She sighed. “I’m his mother. I wonder if they’d let me in?”

Sidney Zoom saw that those nearest him were taking in the conversation. He took the woman by the arm.

“Perhaps,” he said, “it would be wise to talk matters over first. They might make things a little disagreeable for you.”

“But it’s all a mistake. He didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it. They wouldn’t have charged him with it if it hadn’t been that they didn’t understand!”

Zoom soothed her, led her to his car, sat her in the cushioned seat beside him.

“Do you know how your son happened to be out tonight?” he asked.

“He had a date,” she said. “I don’t inquire too closely into his dates. I don’t think mothers should pry into their sons’ affairs. He’s a good boy. Some day he’ll marry and leave me. I don’t know who he was going to see tonight. It was a girl. I heard her voice over the telephone. I heard him say he was to wait for her somewhere.”

Sidney Zoom nodded thoughtfully.

“Would you mind waiting here?” he asked.

“You’re going to see Harry?”

“I don’t know. I want to talk with the officers for a moment. If you’ll just wait here, I may be able to get you some good news. Do you drive a car?”

“I can,” she said.

Zoom nodded, said crisply: “Then wait right here. I won’t be long.”

He left the car and strode toward the store. With the advent of the gray-haired woman upon the scene, his manner had undergone a change. He was no longer the bystander, but an aggressive individual, moving purposefully.

The uniformed officer barred his path. Zoom spoke briefly and to the point “I’ve got to see Huntley,” he said. “If I see him I may be able to help in solving this case. If I don’t, the police may lose a clew.”

The officer beckoned to one of the detectives.

“This guy wants to see Hundey,” he said.

The detective glared at Sidney Zoom.

“About what?” he asked.

“Important business,” said Sidney Zoom.

The detective stared again, grunted: “Okay. C’mon in. I’ll see if he wants to see you. What’d you want to see him about?”

Sidney Zoom strode into the store. He passed a knot of detectives chatting, smoking, came to a huge safe where a fingerprint man was dusting white powder over the black steel surface. Then he saw Huntley, slumped down in a chair.

He walked to the jeweler.

“Can you sell me a diamond bracelet with your price mark still on it?” he asked. Huntley looked at him, moistened his flabby lips and said, vacantly, “Huh?”

The officer tugged at Zoom’s arm.

“That ain’t what you said you wanted to see him about,” he complained.

“Because,” said Zoom, “if you will, I think I can clear this case up.”

Huntley got to his feet.

“What’s that?” he asked. “How can you clear it up? What are you talking about?”

Zoom shrugged his shoulders, took out a well filled wallet.

“I am only asking,” he said, “that you sell me a bracelet or some rather expensive bit of jewelry that has your price mark on it.”

Huntley growled.

“The store ain’t open.”

Zoom said: “I think I can get you your property back if you give me some cooperation.”

The detective stared at him. Huntley moved toward the safe. “Gimme that tray,” he said. “The one with the bracelets on it.” He selected a bracelet at random and said: “Four fifty.”

Sidney Zoom passed over the money.

He took the bracelet, started for the door. One of the detectives gripped his arm. Zoom shook him free. He walked out of the store. The detective hesitated, started to follow, then turned back. Zoom went out of the door, to his car. The detective went back into the store.

Zoom started the motor. He was smiling, but it was the grim smile of a fighter who is about to encounter some welcome conflict. The white-haired woman watched him speculatively.

“Are you a friend of Harry’s?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yes. The name is Zoom.”

She frowned and said: “I don’t believe he’s ever spoken of you. Are you a dose friend?”

Zoom said: “I’m a friend now that he’s in need. That makes me a friend indeed.”

She smiled at him, a warm, maternal smile.

“Do you know,” she said, “I believe you are going to get Harry out of this trouble. I have a hunch. Do you believe in hunches?”

“Certainly,” said Zoom.

She nodded and settled back.

“You can look very stem when you want to,” she remarked, “but I think you’ve got a kind heart. Go right ahead, young man. If I can help you, let me know.”

Sidney Zoom piloted the car to the apartment house where he had seen the man with the red necktie go on up the stairs.

“I’m going,” he said, “to run a bluff, and a big one. It may work. It may not. If it works everything will be fine. If it doesn’t you may have to take this car and call the police. Tell them I went into that apartment house with my dog. Give me fifteen minutes. If I’m not out then, give the alarm to the police.”

He left the car, motioned to the dog.

“I’ve got a hunch it’ll be all right,” said the woman, as Zoom strode up the steps of the apartment house.

The manager was a woman, not young, not good looking, and not good natured. She pulled a scanty robe about her ample figure and glowered at Sidney Zoom. In the end she gave him the information that he was after. The man who answered the description of the one Zoom had picked up on the street had the apartment on the top floor, well to the back. The number was fifteen.

Zoom went up, and the dog went at his side, tail waving proudly.

Zoom indicated the door of the apartment to the dog. Then he placed the article of jewelry he had purchased from Huntley in the dog’s mouth. He bent forward and made a gesture with his hand, as though scratching on the door.

The dog watered him with ears cocked rigidly upright. Zoom made another motion with his hand. “Bark,” he whispered. The dog barked. The bracelet fell to the floor. Zoom motioned toward it and the dog picked it up. Zoom scratched on the door. He repeated this operation until he heard some one stirring on the inside of the room.

When he heard bare feet hit the floor, Zoom whispered a word of command to the dog, ran down the hall. The dog, obedient to that whispered command, remained at the door. As the bolt clicked back and the door opened, Sidney Zoom came running up the steps, as though he had been exerting himself to the limit of his endurance. He was puffing and blowing, and the sound of his breathing filled the hall.

The man, who was attired in pajamas, stared at the spectacle of the dog on his threshold, and the man who was puffing his way down the corridor. The light which came from the apartment glittered from the bracelet that the dog held in his teeth.

Sidney Zoom raced down the carpeted corridor. The man looked from the dog to the master, then recognition dawned on his face. It was a recognition that was uncordial, gave way to downright concern. Sidney Zoom, on the other hand, let his face break into smiles.

“Well, well, so that’s the explanation,” he said. “The dog managed to trail you after all!”

The man gruffed a hostile question.

“What’re you talkin’ about?” he demanded.

Zoom grinned, the grin of a man who has done a favor for which he will be rewarded.

“When you got out of the car,” he said, “you dropped this. I called to you, but you’d gone out of sight in the hotel. It took me a minute to get the car parked, and get into the hotel. I didn’t have your name, but I described you to the clerk. He said you weren’t registered there. He remembered having seen you come in, he said, but knew you weren’t registered.

“I had something of an argument about it with him, and then remembered that the dog was trained to return lost property. I gave the bracelet to him, told him to find you. He remembered your odor, of course. They’ve got wonderful noses, these dogs.

“I thought he’d go to the elevators, but he didn’t. He went to the side door and barked. I gave him his head. He led me here, but it was a long chase.”

The man gasped.

“That’s impossible!” he said. “The dog couldn’t have followed me. I was in a cab.”

Sidney Zoom’s smile was patronizing.

“That doesn’t make any difference. Here you are, and the dog found you. I thought maybe I was going to have to consult the store that had sold you the bracelet, for your address, though. You see it’s Huntley & Cobb. They’re big jewelers. I figured you’d bought the bracelet there today and they’d have your address.”

The man’s eyes narrowed ominously. He stared at the bracelet.

“It’s got their name on it?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Zoom, “on the tag.”

“I never saw it before,” said the man in pajamas.

Zoom laughed as though the matter were a fine joke. “That’s a good one,” he said, “when I saw you drop it. That’s rich! A man dropping a five hundred dollar trinket and then saying he had never seen it before!”

After a moment the man in pajamas joined in the laugh. He laughed heavily and mirthlessly.

“Come in,” he said.

Sidney Zoom walked into the room. The dog followed, caught a motion from Sidney Zoom’s signalling hand, and flopped down in a comer. The apartment was a one room and a kitchenette affair. The bed pulled out from the wall and let down. There was a bathroom which opened off the bedroom, and the bottom of the door joined the threshold loosely enough so that a ribbon of light came through from under the door.

Sidney Zoom noticed that there were twin blotches of shadow in this ribbon of light, that these blotches moved slightly. He noticed, also, that there were two pillows on the bed, pillows which lay side by side, and each pillow contained the impression of a head.

The man sat down on the edge of the bed, took the bracelet.

“You want a reward,” he said, as though making a statement rather than asking a question.

Zoom shook his head.

“Not at all. It was a relief to find the owner. I was going to get in touch with the jewelry company.”

The man nodded his head.

“Well, it’s mighty nice of you. I’m Rogers, an exporter of gems, and an importer. I buy and sell and deal all sorts of ways. The reason that bracelet has the price mark on it is that it was a sample that was offered me in connection with rather a large order.”

Zoom stretched his arms, yawned, laughed.

“How about the others you have?” he asked.

“What others?”

“Don’t try to fool me. That lie chained you up with the robbery. You lured Harry Dupree into a position where you could make it seem the job was done by him. I presume the reason you did that is that you’re connected with the firm in some way, and you knew it’d be tagged as an inside job right from the jump. So you figured you’d get some one for a fall guy.”

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.