The Casebook of Sidney Zoom

Chapter I Samson’s Strange Job

Sidney Zoom hated routine with a bitter hatred.

Night after night, his police dog at his side, he prowled through those sections of the city where human misery came crawling forth with the hours of darkness. His eyes, which could be cold and savage at times, were filled with ready sympathy as he peered into the dark shadows of the city where human flotsam was deposited by the tide of economic struggle.

The park was lighted by blazing incandescents which attracted the first moths of spring and glittered in shining reflections from the green foliage of the trees.

But the lights cast shadows over some of the benches, and on these benches young couples sat in dose proximity, conversing in low voices.

Sidney Zoom wasted no time upon such couples. His peering eyes sought out those dark shadows where lone derelicts sat in black despair.

Here was a man whose pasty features and twitching nerves told of dope; another was sodden with cheap alcohol; a third was a drifter, one of those men who refuse to accept opportunity when it is offered; a fourth was a young man whose gaunt face and haggard eyes showed the pallor of malnutrition as he sat hunched forward, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his hands.

Sidney Zoom paused in his walk.

“A nice evening,” he said.

The man apparently did not hear him. It was only when Zoom repeated the comment that the man stared upward with strained, incredulous eyes.

“Yes,” he said at length in a thin voice, then added, after a pause: “A nice dog you have.”

Sidney Zoom nodded.

“Getting the air,” he asked, “after a hard day’s work?”

The man’s laugh was mocking.

“A hard day’s work is right,” he said. “I had a hard day’s work two weeks ago. It’s the last I’ve been able to get.”

Sidney Zoom stared steadily at him.

The man spat contemptuously.

“Go on,” he said, “I’ll take care of myself.”

Sidney Zoom turned and walked away, the police dog padding at his side.

The foot and ankle of a woman caught his eyes. He had seen it half an hour before when he had first entered the park. The woman was reclining on one of the park seats. Her head and torso were in the deep shadows. Her left foot and ankle caught a shaft of light which filtered through the trees.

Presently, the officer on the beat would awaken her. Sleeping upon the park benches was prohibited, but of late the rule had been relaxed so that many of the city’s homeless found a certain inadequate resting place on the hard, cold benches. These unfortunates, by some unwritten understanding with the police, did not descend upon the benches until after midnight.

Sidney Zoom moved to the side of the young woman, touched her shoulder.

He could see that she was well formed, that she was in her early twenties, that she was sleeping in an uncomfortable position and that she was sleeping soundly.

He touched her again.

The dog at his side gave a low whimper.

Sidney Zoom took the woman’s shoulders and shook her. A small glass bottle dropped from the limp fingers of her right hand, but she made no motion.

Sidney Zoom picked up the bottle. A skull and cross-bones caught his eyes. He held the label to the light, then dropped the bottle to his pocket, knelt and smelled of the young woman’s lips. Abruptly, he turned and retraced his steps to where the young man sat hunched upon the park bench.

“My friend,” he asked, “would you like temporary employment?”

The man didn’t look up.

“Take your sympathy,” he said bitterly, “and go to hell with it.”

Sidney Zoom’s voice was patient.

“My friend,” he said, “this is not sympathy. Every night I make it a rule to find some worthy individual who is out of employment and give him work. The work is not orthodox, nor are my methods, but the employment certainly is not charity. If you want the job, say so; if you don’t want it, there are probably others who do.”

The haggard features raised to his. There was the glint of dawning hope in the eyes.

“You mean it?” the man asked.

“Your name?” asked Sidney Zoom.

“Burt Samson,” he said.

Zoom nodded.

“The wages,” he said, “will be adequate. They will be on a basis of profit-sharing. The work will be probably within the law.”

The man’s laugh was rasping.

“I didn’t ask any of that,” he said.

“Come with me,” Zoom told him.

They approached the bench where the young woman lay.

“I want,” said Sidney Zoom, “to get her to a taxicab.”

Samson flashed Zoom one swiftly searching look.

“How long have you known she was here?”

“I just found her,” Zoom said.

“Do you know who she is?”

“No.”

“Why do you want to get her to a taxicab?”

Zoom stared at him with steady, uncordial eyes.

“My friend,” he said, “if you are going to work for me, you are going to follow instructions without a lot of questions. No matter what a job is, there’s only room for one boss.”

Samson stooped wordlessly, placed his hands under the girl’s shoulders. Sidney Zoom caught one of her arms. They lifted her to her feet. She was motionless, inert, lifeless.

“A drug?” asked Samson.

Zoom made no comment.

“A taxicab,” he said after a moment.

They supported her between them, cut across the grass of the park, keeping to the shadows.

“I’ll hold her,” said Zoom. “Get a cab. Say that the woman passed out after a couple of drinks. Don’t offer too many explanations.”

The young man nodded, stepped out from the shadows of the park shrubbery to the lighted sidewalk, hailed a passing cab. The driver gave him a searching look, slowed, then speeded on. A second cab answered his hail and stopped. Samson talked for a moment with the cabbie, who opened the door and stared suspiciously toward the park.

Sidney Zoom waited for an auspicious moment, then he strode across the sidewalk, the woman in his arms. He deposited her on the cushions of the cab, nodded to the police dog. The dog leapt into the cab, crouched on the floor. Samson climbed in, hesitated for a moment, then pillowed the young woman’s head on his shoulder. Sidney Zoom fastened the insolent eyes of the cab driver with a steady stare.

“Drive down this street to the waterfront,” Zoom said. “Turn to the left. I’ll tell you when to go out on the docks. I want to get aboard the Alberta F.”

“You mean that millionaire’s yacht that’s moored...”

“Exactly,” said Sidney Zoom, climbed into the cab and slammed the door shut.

Chapter II The Girl Who Wanted to Die

Vera Thurmond was a most efficient nurse. Years of experience with the strange character whom she served in the dual capacity of assistant and secretary, had fitted her to cope with all sorts of people and conditions.

She moved back and forth from the dining salon, in which Zoom and Samson sat waiting, to the room where the young woman moaned and retched.

A pot bubbled on an electric stove, and the smell of coffee filled the air.

“She’ll be all right now,” Vera Thurmond said, “the emetic has done its work, and I’m going to get some coffee down her. You’d better help me.”

Sidney Zoom strode into the bedroom, looked at the features of the young woman, features that were now white with misery. Her eyes were red-rimmed from the nausea which had been induced by the emetic. Her lips were pale and bloodless.

She stared at Sidney Zoom with wide blue eyes, looking at him as though he had been a creature from another world.

“So you took laudanum?” said Sidney Zoom.

She moved her lips but there was no sound. Her eyes filmed over with drowsiness even as he looked at her.

Vera Thurmond appeared with coffee steaming in a cup, coffee that was black and bitter.

“We’ve got to get this down her,” she said, “and make her keep it down. Then you’ve got to walk her around the deck where she can get the fresh night air.”

Together they got two cups of coffee down the young woman’s throat. Samson and Zoom got her to the deck, started walking her along the moist planks — planks that were kept spotlessly clean and on which the night dew had left a thin film of moisture.

“Let me alone,” she said thickly, “I want to lie down.”

Zoom paid no attention to her, but kept pushing her along. By degrees, the fresh air of the night and the coffee got in its work.

“I think we can take her down below now,” Zoom said.

“Oh, I’m all right now,” she told him in a voice that was bitter. “Why didn’t you leave me alone? Now I’ve got to do it all over again.”

Zoom made no comment but assisted her down the companionway to the dining salon.

Samson turned to Zoom.

“I wonder,” he said, “if...”

“Well,” said Zoom, “go ahead. What is it?”

“If,” said Samson in a voice that quavered, “I could have some of that coffee? I haven’t eaten for three days.”

He moved toward a chair, stumbled, and pitched forward on his face.

Zoom bent over him, but it was the young woman who reached him first.

“You poor boy,” she said.

Zoom raised Samson from the floor and into a chair. His eyelids fluttered as Vera Thurmond brought him a steaming cup of coffee. Samson drank the coffee, turned on them savagely.

“Keep your damned sympathy,” he said, “I don’t want it.”

There had been a few drops of brandy in the coffee and after it had taken effect, Zoom fixed an egg-nog.

“Take this,” he said, “and then we’ll try something solid and substantial.”

He turned to the girl.

“What,” he asked, “is your name?”

“Say,” she said staring around curiously. “What kind of a place is this?”

“A yacht,” said Zoom.

“Who owns it?”

“I do.”

“What do you do with it?”

“Sail it occasionally.”

“What’s the idea of getting this fellow and me aboard?”

“I thought,” said Zoom, “I could help you, and at the same time help myself.”

“You could have left: me alone and helped me a lot more,” she said.

Zoom stared at her steadily.

“When I have heard your story,” he said, “I can give employment to this man.”

“How?” she inquired, curiosity getting the better of her.

“I don’t know,” he said, “but there will be a way. Things are never hopeless. People who brood over their problems, lose sight of obvious solutions. People who kill themselves because they can’t find a way out are like the persons who get lost every year and lie down to die within a few hundred yards of a habitation; like the wanderer in the desert who perishes of thirst within a mile of water.”

She looked at Burt Samson.

“Where does he come in?” she asked.

“I am going,” said Sidney Zoom, “to give him a job helping to untangle your affairs.”

“Who’s going to pay him?”

“I’m not,” Zoom said. “We’re going to collect from some other person.”

The young woman stared at him incredulously.

Vera Thurmond nodded her head.

“He always does,” she said.

The young woman took a deep breath.

“Okay,” she said, “I can stand it if you can. My name’s Nell Benton. Did you ever hear of Finley Carter?”

“Rather an eccentric millionaire,” asked Zoom, “whose hobby is the collection of paintings and the playing of chess?”

“That’s the one,” she said.

“I’ve heard of him,” Zoom said.

“Do you know him personally?”

“No. I’ve never met him.”

“I acted as his secretary,” she said. “I was discharged.”

“Why?” asked Zoom.

“Because of dishonesty,” she said.

She stared at Sidney Zoom as though seeking to probe his thoughts.

“You don’t seem particularly shocked,” she said after a moment, her voice showing the bitterness of her feelings. “Why don’t you get a smirking look of self-righteousness on your face?”

Sidney Zoom’s voice was patient. “I don’t get shocked,” he said, “and I am not self-righteous. As far as the law is concerned, it is an excellent system for the majority of cases; it falls far short in certain individual cases. Under those circumstances, I have no hesitancy about stepping outside the law myself.”

The blue eyes widened.

“Go on,” Sidney Zoom said, “give me the details.”

“It was so simple,” she said bitterly, “that it sounds absurd. Someone made very fair copies of a couple of rare paintings, and substituted them for the originals.”

Sidney Zoom’s face showed quick interest.

“One of the originals,” she said, “was found in my room, another one was found in a pawn shop. The pawnbroker said that a young woman had left it with him. He had no conception of the value of it, and had given her but five dollars on it. The description he gave of the woman fitted me exactly.

“Mr. Carter,” she said bitterly, “was most generous! He simply discharged me and kept the money that was due me. He said that he wouldn’t send me to jail, inasmuch as he had recovered the paintings. I tried to get other employment; there was no use. I had been with Finley Carter for five years. It’s hard enough to get a job anyway, there aren’t many vacancies. Once or twice I got people interested in me. They rang up Carter. He told them that he had discharged me for dishonesty.”

Sidney Zoom jack-knifed his lean length into a swivel chair at the head of the dining table. His eyes glowed with a fierce interest.

“This,” he said, “is one of the most interesting situations I have ever encountered in my life.”

She stared at him, her eyes flashing.

“Are you,” she asked, “trying to make fun of me?”

“On the contrary,” said Sidney Zoom, “the obvious, outstanding facts not only show your innocence, but convince me that there is some remarkably sinister plot afoot.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“In the first place,” said Zoom, “the fact that the paintings were copied indicates that there is an artist who is in on the conspiracy.”

“Naturally,” she said scornfully.

“The artist,” went on Sidney Zoom, “is a friend of someone in the house. He must have had unlimited opportunity to make copies of the pictures that were stolen. That means that he must have access to the house.”

“Yes,” she said sarcastically, “even the master mind of Mr. Finley Carter reasoned that far. The fact that the artist had his opportunity to work undisturbed, showed that I was his accomplice.”

Zoom shook his head from side to side in silent negation.

“If,” he said, “you had been with Finley Carter for five years you would have known the value of the paintings. If you had gone to the trouble and risk of having them copied, you wouldn’t have disposed of one of them for five dollars. Moreover, if you had an artist as your accomplice, the artist would have known of channels through which the pictures could have been disposed of to advantage. Therefore, it is perfectly obvious that the object of the scheme was to discredit you.”

“But why?” she asked, her face showing interest.

“That,” said Sidney Zoom, “is one of the things we will find out. What were your duties?”

“I handled his correspondence.”

“Did you have access to any funds?”

“None... That is, there was an account of five hundred dollars that I handled.”

“What account was that?”

“Housekeeping money.”

“It was fixed at five hundred dollars?”

“Yes. I made out checks on it, Mr. Carter signed the checks. Usually he signed them in advance. He figured that he could trust me to the extent of five hundred dollars.”

“Was it a separate account?” asked Zoom.

“Yes.”

“How did he keep it separate from his other accounts?”

“By keeping it in an entirely different bank. It was a branch bank located in the neighborhood — the Second National Affiliate. His regular account was in the Mechanics National.”

“How many servants?” asked Sidney Zoom.

“There was James Stearne, chauffeur; Harry Exter, butler and valet; and Mrs. Ethel Clint, housekeeper. There was no one else other than myself. Finley Carter is a crusty old bachelor.”

Sidney Zoom glanced at the portholes; they showed the grayish light of coming day. He looked at the haggard, drawn features of Burt Samson, then nodded to Vera Thurmond.

“Get the cook up, Vera,” he said. “We’ll have breakfast. Put Samson to bed. Send his clothes up to the best ready-to-wear store you can find, and get a new suit of blue serge. Duplicate the other as nearly as you can.”

He nodded his head to the pair.

“Vera Thurmond,” he said, “will show you your staterooms. You’ll get some sleep.”

“Say,” said Samson getting to his feet, “what kind of a nut factory is this?”

“Shut up,” Sidney Zoom said without raising his voice. “You wanted work — you’re going to get it, and it’s going to be hard work. You’re going to get some grub on your stomach; you’re going to get some sleep, and then you’re going to have a job.”

“A job,” said Samson sneeringly, “who’s going to pay me?”

Sidney Zoom’s voice was as final as the tolling of a bell.

“Finley Carter,” he said, “is going to pay.”

Sidney Zoom turned to Nell Benton.

“During the time,” he said, “that you worked for Carter, I take it you became rather familiar with his signature?”

She nodded.

“And can you tell me,” asked Sidney Zoom, “where I can find a specimen of his signature?”

“In my purse,” she said bitterly, “I asked him for a reference. He gave me a letter stating that it was impossible for him to give me a reference. That I had been discharged because of dishonesty.”

Zoom nodded thoughtfully.

“I should like that letter,” he said.

“What,” she inquired, “do you want to use it for?”

“As a sample,” Sidney Zoom said.

“A sample?”

“Yes,” he said. “I desire to forge the signature of Finley Carter.”

Chapter III Zoom’s Plan

Sidney Zoom had considerable aptitude with a pen, and he practiced the signature of Finley Carter until he was able to dash it off with that smooth speed which makes for artistic forgeries.

He presented his forged credentials to the cashier of the Second National Affiliate, and it would have taken an expert some time to have detected the fact that the signature of Finley Carter was, in fact, a forgery.

Perhaps had the signature been on a check, the matter would not have gone through quite so expeditiously, but being on a letter to the effect that the bearer was making an audit of Carter’s books in order to secure some information in connection with a refund from the income tax department, the signature was accepted without question.

Within a matter of minutes, Sidney Zoom found himself ensconced in a little cubby-hole office, with the statements and vouchers pertaining to the account of Finley Carter before him.

The account, as Zoom noticed, had been used just as Nell Benton had claimed — for the payment of housekeeping expenses. The account seldom went below three hundred dollars, and seldom above five. Checking over the date and amount of deposits, Zoom was able to ascertain that the millionaire lived unpretentiously and that his existence was governed by a methodic regularity.

It was within the past few days that the account had suddenly broken from its conservative deposits and withdrawals. There were deposits which ran into the thousands, and two withdrawals had been made that had virtually cleaned out the account.

Sidney Zoom armed himself with this information and then waited upon the cashier.

“Can you tell me,” he said, “why it is that the account which ran around five hundred dollars for months has suddenly become very active in large amounts?”

The cashier smiled.

“Mr. Carter,” he said, “used this bank merely as a housekeeping convenience until quite recently. Then he had some trouble with the bank which handles his main business. There was a misunderstanding over something — I don’t know the exact nature of it, but Mr. Carter decided to give us more of his business.”

“Would it,” asked Sidney Zoom, “be possible for you to tell me how you received this information?”

“Over the telephone,” said the cashier.

“And with whom were you talking?”

“With Finley Carter himself.”

“You’re certain?”

“Quite certain,” said the cashier. “I know his voice fully as well as I know his signature.”

“The withdrawals,” Zoom pointed out, “are quite large and are virtually in the form of cash.”

The cashier stared at him curiously.

“Those also,” he said, “are okayed by telephone instructions from Mr. Carter.”

Zoom bowed gravely.

“Thank you,” he said. “I have completed my investigations here.”

The cashier was overly polite.

“You understand,” he said, “that we want to do everything we can to accommodate Mr. Carter. We consider his account a valuable one, and he can rest assured we will give him the very best of service.”

“When I see Mr. Carter,” said Sidney Zoom, “I shall tell him that your cooperation with me has left nothing to be desired.”

The clerk thanked him, and Sidney Zoom left the bank and entered his automobile. His forehead was furrowed in frowning concentration as he drove rapidly to the float where his yacht was moored.

Nell Benton, looking rather white, her eyes dark with mingled emotions, wore some lounging pajamas which Vera Thurmond had found for her and surveyed Sidney Zoom with puzzled eyes. Burt Samson, attired in his new suit, seemed somehow to be more certain of himself, to have taken on a certain added vitality which radiated from him in an atmosphere of positive assurance.

Zoom nodded to Vera Thurmond.

“I want you,” he said, “to ring the residence of Finley Carter, Tell whoever answers the phone that you’re one of the bookkeepers at the Second National Affiliate, that you desire to ask him a question about his account Ask him if a check for twenty-two thousand dollars, issued to the Wheeling Construction Company, is regular. And I want you, Miss Benton, to listen on an extension telephone. I want you to listen carefully to the sound of Finley Carter’s voice. I want you to tell me if it sounds natural.”

Nell Benton stared at him with eyes that grew wider.

“Why, he couldn’t issue a check for twenty-two thousand dollars on that account,” she said. “He doesn’t keep anything in it except enough money for housekeeping.”

“He’s keeping plenty in it now,” Sidney Zoom said grimly, “and apparently is keeping in constant communication with the bank over the telephone.”

Vera Thurmond put through the call. The yacht had a private switchboard which was connected with a telephone cable at a private connection Zoom had arranged at the mooring float, and Zoom was able to listen on one extension while Nell Benton listened on the other. Vera Thurmond followed his instructions to the letter, making an inquiry about the validity of the check.

Sidney Zoom, listening, could find no faintest trace of tension, no lack of spontaneity. The voice seemed edged with impatience as it announced that the validity of the check had already been confirmed in a telephone communication to the cashier.

“I will,” said the voice with petulant impatience, “be forced to transfer my account if these telephone calls continue. Certainly the check is good. Checks that come in over my signature should be honored.”

“Yes,” said Vera Thurmond in a patient voice, “but you see, the amount was rather large and the Wheeling Construction Company secured what was virtually a cash payment...”

“What the devil do I care what they did with it?” rasped the voice. “The check was given to them for a consideration. I received the benefit of it. They’re entitled to the cash. That’s what the check is for. Any time you people feel that you can’t cash my checks, all you’ve got to do is to say so.”

“It’s not that,” Vera Thurmond said sweetly, “but the fact that the check was rather large in its amount. We simply wanted to protect you and your account, Mr. Carter.”

“The amount isn’t large,” said the voice, “that is, it’s not unusually large. My account is an active account and a large account.”

“Thank you,” said Vera Thurmond, and hung up.

Sidney Zoom glanced inquiringly at Nell Benton.

“It’s his voice all right,” she said, “but I can’t understand it. I don’t think it’s like him to talk that way, and yet there can be no mistaking his voice.”

“Did he sound as though he might be under a strain, or as though he were being threatened?” asked Sidney Zoom.

She shook her head slowly.

“No,” she said, “he sounded exactly natural — that is, his voice did — but I don’t think he would have adopted that attitude toward a check for that amount. There’s something funny about it.”

Sidney Zoom nodded.

“Just who of the servants,” he asked, “comes into personal contact with Finley Carter?”

“The chauffeur,” she said, “doesn’t unless he’s called. Exter is in constant contact with him. The housekeeper comes when she’s summoned, otherwise she does the cooking and has charge of the house. A woman comes in to do the cleaning.”

Zoom turned to Burt Samson.

“Samson,” he said, “you will take this letter. The signature is forged. It purports to be a letter from Finley Carter, written to you some two weeks ago, asking you to be sure and drop in and see him when you arrive in the city. The dictation marks show that it was dictated to Nell Benton. No one else will know about it.”

Samson stared curiously.

“Carter will know about it, won’t he?”

Zoom nodded.

“Carter will know about it,” he said. “If Carter makes any trouble about it, you are to get in touch with me at once on the telephone. I will stand back of you. But I don’t think Carter is going to make any trouble about it. I don’t think you’re going to see Carter.”

Samson nodded slowly.

“What I want,” said Zoom, “is to find out just who it is that keeps you from seeing Carter.”

Samson took the letter, slipped it in the inside pocket of his coat.

“Okay,” he said, and moved purposefully toward the companionway. Food and clothes had made a big difference in him.

When he had gone, Nell Benton said slowly, “What do you think has happened, Mr. Zoom?”

Sidney Zoom’s voice was as crisp as the cracking of a lash.

“There’s no question about what’s happened,” he said. “In some way, Exter planned to get complete control of Finley Carter. He knew that there were checks signed in advance and drawn on the housekeeping account that you supervised. Naturally, he wanted to get rid of you. He did that by seeing that you were accused of crime, and knew that Carter would discharge you. What I can’t understand is how he has been able to get Carter to talk over the telephone, unless he has an accomplice who is a very finished actor and who is able to mimic Carter’s tones over the telephone. That is the probable solution. We’ve got to get Burt Samson’s report in order to find out.”

“But,” she pointed out, “Samson doesn’t know Finley Carter. They might have someone posing as Finley Carter and let Samson go in to see him.”

“That,” said Sidney Zoom, “is why I phrased the forged letter so it would appear that Samson was quite intimately acquainted with Carter.”

She frowned thoughtfully.

“They wouldn’t try withdrawals from the bank where Carter regularly keeps his large deposits,” Zoom said slowly. “They started building up deposits in the Second National Affiliate, which probably has been very anxious to get Carter’s account.”

She nodded slowly.

“Should we,” she asked, “notify the police?”

Zoom shook his head.

“Not yet,” he said. “In the first place, we have nothing to go on except suspicions; in the second place, I am not entirely certain that Finley Carter has a generous disposition.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I am not entirely certain,” he said, “that he would make proper restitution to you.”

“He wouldn’t,” she said. “He’s obstinate, and he’s tight.”

“He pays plenty for his original paintings, doesn’t he?” Zoom asked.

“Yes,” she said bitterly, “but that’s all he does pay out for. He never paid me a decent salary all the time I worked for him. I’d have gone to some other position if it hadn’t been that jobs were so scarce.”

“Yet,” said Zoom slowly, “if we save Carter from exploitation at the hands of a bunch of crooks, we are entitled to a reward, and the fact remains that Carter, himself, will not care to pay that reward. Therefore, it remains for us to do it for him.”

“You’re talking in enigmas,” she said.

Zoom smiled at her.

“Don’t worry about methods,” he said, “simply leave the entire thing to me.”

Chapter IV An Interview

Sidney Zoom prided himself upon his ability to fight the devil with fire so adroitly as to leave no backtrack.

Following Samson’s report that he had been curtly denied admission to the Finley Carter residence, despite the letter which he had produced, a letter which assuredly was signed by Carter himself, Sidney Zoom, attired in a neat-fitting, well-pressed business suit, presented himself at the door of the residence.

“I,” he said, “am from the Second National Affiliate. I desire to discuss a matter with Mr. Carter personally.”

The butler in the doorway eyed Sidney Zoom with cold suspicion.

“Do you,” he asked, “know Mr. Carter personally?”

Zoom appeared to notice nothing unusual in the question.

“I am familiar with his signature,” he said. “I have heard his voice over the telephone. I have never met the gentleman.”

The grim-faced hostility of the butler relaxed slightly.

“And what did you wish to see Mr. Carter about?”

“I merely wished to get his okay concerning certain withdrawals.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the butler with ponderous servility, “but I think that matter has been discussed with Mr. Carter over the telephone. He might become very much displeased if you took the matter up with him again.”

“That,” said Zoom gravely, “is a chance I will have to take on behalf of the bank. Please tell him that Mr. George Coleridge, from the bank, is here to interview him.”

Sidney Zoom gravely extracted a leather wallet from his pocket, took from it an embossed card, handed it, with something of a flourish, to the butler.

The butler examined the card.

“I see,” he said slowly. “George Coleridge, special investigator for the Second National Affiliate.”

“Exactly,” said Sidney Zoom. “And will you please tell Mr. Carter that if he refuses a personal interview, his refusal may lead to banking complications.”

Sidney Zoom’s smile was reassuring, but his eyes were steady.

“Please step in and be seated,” said the butler. “I will take the matter up with Mr. Carter.”

Zoom was ushered into a reception hallway, given a seat. The butler climbed a flight of stairs. Somewhere from the upper corridor, Zoom heard the deep-throated barking of a big dog, the slamming of a door. There followed an interval of silence, and then the thud of the butler’s returning feet became audible.

“If you’ll be so kind as to step this way, sir,” he said, “Mr. Carter will be glad to give you a few moments. He is not feeling well and wishes you to make your visit as brief as possible.”

Sidney Zoom surrounded himself with a cloak of banker-like dignity as he followed the butler up the stairs.

A big police dog lay in front of a closed door. As he saw Sidney Zoom, he twisted his lips back from his fangs and gave a deep-throated growl, but made no motion to leave the door.

The butler opened a door across the corridor.

“Mr. Carter,” he said, with something of a flourish.

A man, attired in bathrobe and pajamas, sat up in bed. Pillows were bolstered behind him. Both hands were concealed beneath the covers of the bed. His eyes were deep-set and glittered irascibly. When he spoke, his voice had the distinctive rasping harshness that Zoom had heard over the telephone.

“You’re Coleridge,” he said, “from the Second National Affiliate?”

Sidney Zoom bowed.

“What I want to know,” said the man, “is what the devil you folks mean by making so much commotion about a few ordinary withdrawals. I gave you an account some time ago. You thought it wasn’t large enough and kept asking me to give you more of my accounts. Recently I decided to do it. You’ve made so much commotion about it that one would think a check for more than one hundred dollars never went through your bank oftener than once a year.”

Zoom’s smile was reassuring.

“Hardly that, Mr. Carter,” he said, “but, you understand we’re a branch bank. The parent bank desired a report. I’m from the parent bank.”

“I don’t give a damn who you’re from,” the other said. “You’re making a confounded nuisance out of yourself. I’m putting money in your bank. I have a right to draw it out whenever I wish. I’m putting in some rather large deposits. I want to withdraw them whenever I want to.”

“The deposits are made only with a rubber stamp endorsement,” Sidney Zoom pointed out.

“That’s the way deposits are made in any active account,” Carter said. “That’s the way nine-tenths of your commercial houses make their deposits. The withdrawals are all made by checks that bear my personal signature.”

“I have here a list of withdrawals,” said Sidney Zoom. “Would you mind okaying them?”

The man sighed with annoyance.

“Very well,” he said, “but I’m playing a correspondence chess game, and you’re making me so mad I can’t concentrate on it the way I want to.”

He indicated a chess board on the table beside the bed, a chess board on which men had been arranged. A pawn or two had been moved. Aside from that, the men were arrayed in two rows on opposite sides of the board.

Sidney Zoom stared thoughtfully at the board.

“Rather a peculiar opening,” he said.

“It’s the opening I like to play,” the other told him.

Zoom handed over the list. The long, thin fingers of the other man checked off the withdrawals.

“All correct,” he said, “and all in order.”

“Would you sign it?” asked Sidney Zoom.

“No,” snarled the other, “I won’t sign it. I’ve given you enough of my time. You’ve had my okay over the telephone. You’ve got my signed checks. I’ve gone over this and okayed it. If you don’t like it, I’ll take my account out of your bank and put it somewhere where it’s appreciated.”

Sidney Zoom bowed.

“Very well,” he said, “and thank you.”

Turning, he walked toward the door with rigid dignity.

The rasping voice of the man on the bed called to him as he reached the door.

“Don’t think I don’t appreciate your interest, Coleridge,” he said, “I do. I know you’re just safeguarding my money, but I want the privilege of withdrawing checks from my own account in my own way.”

Sidney Zoom’s bow was grave.

“Thank you,” he said.

Chapter V A Trap Is Baited

Sidney Zoom was never happier than when he was concentrating upon some mental problem.

He raised his long, thin legs to place his feet on the table in the dining salon. His eyes glittered with concentration. His fingers were interlaced across his thin stomach.

“An impostor,” he said, “a rank impostor. I find that there have been very few pictures of Finley Carter taken.”

“Yes,” Nell Benton said, “he was suspicious of cameras.”

“But I nevertheless located one,” Zoom said. “This man looks something like him, but he isn’t Carter. Moreover, Carter is a chess expert. The man who has engineered this crime knows nothing about chess. Knowing that Carter was a chess player, the man sought to impress me by having a chess atmosphere about the room. A chess board sat at the side of the table. Some men had been moved, but they weren’t in the position in which players would have moved them. Moreover, the white queen had been placed on the black square instead of the white.”

“Then,” said Nell Benton, “we must go to the police.”

Sidney Zoom shook his head.

“No,” he said, “Finley Carter deserves to be punished. He discharged you, when, if he had used his brains, he would have known you were the victim of a conspiracy which was soon to involve him. Moreover, there is compensation which you must receive. Carter has never been generous. The salary that he paid you shows you that he hasn’t even been fair. No, there’s another way of handling this. Let me think.”

He stared with a fixed, unwinking scrutiny, his eyes fastened upon distance.

At length he spoke; there was an accentless quality to his voice, as though he had been talking in his sleep.

“How many checks were signed when you left, Miss Benton?”

“I don’t know, half a dozen perhaps. Why?”

“These men aren’t forgers,” he said, “or else they know that they can’t forge Finley Carter’s signature well enough to fool a bank... Did Mr. Carter keep a police dog?”

“No. He’s afraid of dogs. He wouldn’t have them in the house.”

Zoom nodded slowly.

“We could,” said Samson, “go to the police and get a detective into the house as a building inspector or something.”

Zoom shook his head.

“There’s the matter of payment,” he said, “and there’s one other matter. I’m satisfied that they’ll kill Carter before they’d let him talk. He’s under guard, probably somewhere in the house.”

Suddenly he chuckled.

“I think,” he said, “I have it.”

He turned to Samson.

“You,” he said, “have got to act a part. You’ve got to keep your head. If anything goes wrong, you’ve got to be able to show that you were doing what you were doing for the purpose of exposing the guilt of these people.”

“What,” asked Samson, “am I supposed to do?”

Zoom made no reply, but picked up a telephone and dialed the number of Finley Carter’s residence.

“Will you,” he said, “please tell Mr. Finley Carter that I am Mr. Coleridge of the Second National Affiliate, and that I desire to talk with him over the telephone for a few moments.”

There was a moment of silence, then the receiver made a metallic noise, and Sidney Zoom said affably, “Our bank regrets causing you inconvenience in connection with your account, Mr. Carter, but we feel called upon to take determined steps to protect your interests. In order that there may be no possible misunderstanding, would you mind telling us what checks you have outstanding against your account? That is, checks that have not been cashed, but which may be presented within the next twenty-four hours.”

The metallic diaphragm of the receiver registered a squawking protest which sounded like static, then Sidney Zoom said, “I understand all that, Mr. Carter. I can only repeat that this is for your own protection.”

The receiver made more violent noises and Sidney Zoom’s voice lost its purring pleasantry.

“Very well,” he said, “if you want to take that course, you may do so. I was only trying to protect your interests... When may we expect this check to come in?... Very well, thank you.”

He slammed the receiver back into place and nodded to the little circle of his attentive listeners.

“Well,” he said, “I’ve done it.”

“Done what?”

“Led them to believe that the chase is so hot they’ve got to dust out. They were looking for an excuse.”

“What do you mean?” Nell Benton asked.

“They planned,” he said, “to make as large deposits as they possibly could in the account of the Second National Affiliate. They planned to withdraw those deposits by checks which had previously been signed by Mr. Carter, checks that were signed in blank because he knew that they couldn’t be raised. The fact that the account was limited to five hundred dollars kept him reasonably safe. What Carter overlooked, was the fact that it’s easy to make deposits where the money goes into a regular bank account, so the crooks simply took over Carter’s affairs, collected whatever sums came in through the mail, or whatever they could collect otherwise, and made huge deposits. Then they made large withdrawals in the form of what amounted virtually to cash.”

“Well?” asked Nell Benton.

“Now,” said Sidney Zoom, “the man who poses as Finley Carter, convinced that the game is about at an end, and thinking that he was talking to the bank, has advised me that he is sending down a check closing out the entire account. The balance, as I happen to know from my investigation, is ten thousand two hundred and ninety-one dollars and fifteen cents.”

Sidney Zoom opened a drawer in the table, from it he took a pad of blank checks drawn on the Second National Affiliate. Working with the skill of a practiced penman, he filled out a check in an angular handwriting. The check was payable to cash. The amount was ten thousand two hundred and ninety-one dollars and fifteen cents, and Sidney Zoom signed the name of Finley Carter to that check — signed it so perfectly that Nell Benton gave an exclamation.

“But,” she said, “it’s a perfect imitation of his signature.”

Zoom nodded.

“Therefore,” she said, “a forgery.”

Zoom nodded once more.

“And,” he said with pride in his voice, “a very good one.”

“But,” she said, “it’s against the law, you’d be sent to prison.”

Sidney Zoom smiled.

“After all,” he said, “my methods are irregular, I’ve warned you of that.”

“But,” she told him, “you mustn’t do that. It’s not right. It’s not the way to handle it.”

Sidney Zoom smiled at her.

“If,” he said, “I should tell you that by using this check I would save Mr. Carter ten thousand two hundred and ninety-one dollars and fifteen cents which he would otherwise lose, would you think that it was right?”

“Yes,” she said slowly, “if that’s the case.”

“That,” said Zoom, “is the case.”

He beckoned to Burt Samson.

It was a few minutes before dosing time at the bank when Sidney Zoom presented himself at the cashier’s window.

“You will remember me,” he said, “I was checking up on Mr. Carter’s account.”

The clerk nodded.

“I have been given a check,” said Sidney Zoom, “by a man who claimed to represent Mr. Carter, stating that he desires to dose out his account. The amount of the check is for ten thousand two hundred and ninety-one dollars and fifteen cents, which is, I believe, the exact amount Mr. Carter has on deposit.”

The cashier frowned.

“We don’t want him to draw out his account,” he said. “There must be some misunderstanding.”

Sidney Zoom said slowly, “I don’t think there is any misunderstanding, I think the check is a forgery.”

“You think it’s a forgery?” said the cashier.

Sidney Zoom nodded and produced the check.

“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.”