The Casebook of Sidney Zoom

I

It had been known as “Lovers’ Lane” until a dejected sweetheart, jilted by his lady, had chosen to blow out his brains on the very bench where caresses had been exchanged.

He was rather artistic about it, too. He waited until the big clock at City Hall chimed the hour of midnight. The cough of the revolver merged with the last booming note of the clock.

The newspapers featured the story. The girl in the case cried and had her picture taken with a handkerchief at her eyes. She had pretty knees, so the newspapers put her on page one.

It was a good idea. Another rejected swain, lacking originality, but appreciating the publicity, committed suicide in the same place a week later. The hour was after midnight. Evidently he had almost lost his nerve and had battled the decision for some thirty minutes.

A newspaper made the mistake of calling the spot “Suicide Park.”

Now the psychology of suicide is subtle and but little understood. Police know that suicides run in epidemics. An account of one suicide inspires others to take the step.

And this relates to places. Let a certain locality once become known as a spot for suicides and it can never live down the name. Morose persons with a suicide complex will see that the reputation is kept alive. Niagara Falls found this out. And there are other spots.

Hence the casual remark of a newspaper writer changed Lovers’ Lane overnight. Lovers no longer resorted to the place. The benches were grim, the shadows filled with stalking specters. Lone men came to the spot to brood over their troubles. Occasionally one of these men failed to leave the place. He would be found sprawled on a bench in the shadows, the cheap revolver at his side.

Then the newspapers would build up more hypnotic complexes.

An extra policeman was assigned to the park. The city government decided to erect a municipal building there and eliminate the shadow-filled stretches of midnight menace.

But all of these things take time, and, in the meantime, while architects labored over plans and specifications, while voters waited the issuance of bonds, the park continued to beckon the unfortunate. There was in its very silence a hint of rest. Its shadows became psychic vortexes in which a weak soul might spin down into oblivion.

For the most part men did not come to the park twice. They came to it at night, as though drawn by an invisible cord, sat upon the benches in silence, watching the patrolling forms of the special police officers. Then they departed in slinking, cringing silence.

One man alone came there regularly, night after night.

Tall, slender, purposeful, grimly silent, a tawny police dog trailing his steps, this man strode through the night shadows as though upon some gruesome sentry duty.

The police sought to find out more about him.

The man was courteous, but reserved. He gave them such information as they could have found out by other means. Beyond that he was as a clam.

His name was Sidney. Zoom. He lived upon a small, expensively equipped yacht, which lay anchored in the harbor just, beyond the park. The police dog was named Rip, and needed exercise.

The park was a convenient place to stroll. It was a lovely evening, and good night to you, officer.

And the grim, silent figure, walking, walking, always walking, became a midnight fixture of the park. At times the dog trailed behind, at times ran ahead. Sometimes the dog would revert to wolf habits, and come skulking through the shrubbery, a tawny shadow against the midnight black of the grass. Twice he had given one of the officers such a start that the minion of the law had tugged at his holstered weapon.

They had suggested to Sidney Zoom that dogs must be leashed and muzzled. And Sidney Zoom had shown them a clause in the old deed by which the park had been dedicated. That clause had made it a condition of the dedication that pets could run free within the confines of the park.

The officers yielded the point, but in such a manner that boded no good for the police dog, should he give the patrol any legitimate excuse to send a bullet crashing into his tawny body.

But Sidney Zoom and his dog seemed entirely oblivious of any danger. They continued their midnight pacings through the park.

The officers noticed that, at times, some unfortunate attracted the attention of Sidney Zoom. At such times there would be long conversations, then the unfortunate would leave the park, arm in arm with the well-dressed figure of Sidney Zoom, the police dog bringing up the rear.

That unfortunate never returned to the park.

II

It was approaching midnight.

Suicide Park lay a blotch of shadow. The lighted boulevard terminated in a sweeping circle. The street lights caught the tower of City Hall, showed the hands of the big clock. Then the shade trees and grass patches of the park contrasted their blackness with the white illumination.

Beyond lay the lapping waters of the bay, black, mysterious broken occasionally by the drifting lights of some cruising craft.

Sidney Zoom walked the graveled walks with the mechanical step of one who knows his way through the constant repetition of thousands of similar steps. The police dog darted ahead, paused, slipped beneath a bit of shrubbery, and stood motionless as a statue.

The man on the bench held his right hand beneath his coat. He was listening, not to the lap of the water along the shore of the bay, not to the gentle whisper of faint wind in the trees, but listening for some sound which was not, yet which would be.

The clock on City Hall tower gave a preliminary dick. Then the first stroke of midnight boomed forth upon the air.

The man upon the bench sighed.

Behind him, the trained police dog crouched, tense, eyes two glittering points of phosphorescent scrutiny.

— nine — ten — eleven — twel—

The man whipped his right hand out from beneath his coat. The trained police dog became a streak of blurred motion.

The light, reflected from the white tower of City Hall, glittered upon some metallic object. The right hand was elevated. The right arm became rigid.

A streak of hurtling motion terminated at the arm.

White fangs caught in the sleeve of the coat. A body that was as firmly muscled as the body of a timber wolf flung itself to one side and down.

The revolver clattered as it slid along the gravel.

The man uttered a single sharp exclamation.

The dog barked, a swift, yapping, purposeful bark, then was quiet, haunched on the gravel the coat sleeve still in his teeth, gleaming eyes fastened upon the white face above them, in motionless appraisal.

Sidney Zoom came at once.

“That’s good, Rip. Down and quiet”

The dog released his grip upon the sleeve of the coat, flattened his body upon the gravel.

Sidney Zoom kicked the revolver out of sight, sat down upon the bench, and turned to the astonished man at his side.

“Good evening,” he said.

The man sought to mutter something, but his voice refused to function. The white blur that was his face continued to point toward the form of the dog.

“You have nothing to fear from the dog,” said Sidney Zoom, “as long as you offer no resistance and come quietly.”

Emotional reaction had gripped the man on the bench.

His hands jerked and quivered. The comers of his mouth twitched. When he spoke his voice was husky.

“I... I’m under arrest?”

“No. Let us not use that term. You are being restrained for the present. You will come quietly?”

“Yes. I’ll come — I don’t know what possessed me — yet it’s the only way — Good God! Let me end it all! What’s the use of just prolonging the agony!”

Sidney Zoom linked his arm through the quivering elbow of the unfortunate.

“Walk quietly,” he said.

Together they strode from the park. The dog brought up the rear, alert and watchful.

It took them ten minutes to board the palatial yacht which Sidney Zoom kept in the sheltered anchorage. Another five minutes sufficed to find glasses, whisky, bring a tinge of color to the face of the shivering man.

Then they confronted each other in appraisal.

The man who had trembled upon the brink of eternity saw a tall man, lean, muscular, head thrust slightly forward. There was a suggestion of taut springs, steel wired muscles, panther energy. And the eyes dominated that face as though the other features had been nonexistent.

Hawk eyes they were, fierce, keen, but, more than that, they were untamed.

And Sidney Zoom saw a quivering huddle of humanity that was hardly more than a boy. The eyes were dazed. The flesh still quivered as though shrinking from the caress of the icy hands of death.

“Tell me about it,” said Zoom.

The young man opened his pale lips, closed them again, lowered his eyes, shook his head.

Sidney Zoom fell to pacing the carpeted floor of the cabin.

“Come on. Don’t hesitate. No need for fear. No matter what it is I’m your friend. I hate civilization and all it stands for. Civilization is a vast machine. Men are mere cogs in the machine they have created. They spin frantically, are worn out and cast aside. There’s no longer room for an individual. Society wants cogs, parts that are uniform, interchangeable!”

He spat out the words with an intensity of feeling that tinged his tone, made his tongue whip out the words with the rattle of machine gun fire.

The dazed eyes of the young man followed him. The lips were half parted.

Swiftly, almost fiercely, Sidney Zoom turned to him.

“You won’t confide in me. I frighten you. Bah! Cowards, all of you! You would plunge headlong into death, yet you fear me! But wait, I have my secretary coming. You’ll talk to her. They all do.”

As though the words had been an announcement, there sounded light steps on the half ladder that ran from the deck. The door swung noiselessly open. The dog wagged his tail in a series of violent thumpings.

Upon the threshold stood a young woman, a radiant vision of youthful beauty, sparkling with the sheer joy of life, yet maternally tender with it all. She had been dancing if one could judge by the filmy beauty of her evening clothes. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, red lips half parted, eyes starry.

“I saw your emergency light and came as quickly as I could,” she said, starry eyes fastened upon the hawk-like orbs of Sidney Zoom.

“My secretary, Vera Thurmond,” snapped Sidney Zoom. “You’ll talk to her. They all do.”

And, with that, he strode to a connecting door, jerked it open, motioned to the dog. For a moment they stood motionless, then man and dog blended into rippling motion. Noiselessly they slipped through the door into the adjoining cabin, wolf-dog and hawkman, savages both, beneath the veneer of civilization.

III

The girl crossed the room, sank to the floor by the side of the pallid, dazed mortal who had so recently gazed into the black mystery of death.

Her hands slid along an arm, possessed five cold fingers in a warm clasp, then she raised her eyes and spoke.

“You mustn’t fear him, ever. He lives for good. Less than two months ago I was like you. The world seemed hopeless. I jumped from a wharf. He saved me. And I told him my story.

“He started to right the wrongs that had been done me. I can’t tell you all about it, but you’ll find out for yourself. You must tell me your story.”

The young man nodded. It had needed but that touch of feminine tenderness to restore him to the psychology of living. The last touch of death’s fingers slipped from him, and he encircled the girl’s shoulders with an arm that was clinging, yet impersonal.

There were tears in his eyes as he talked. His voice choked at times, but he talked freely. His words did not seem words alone, but his speech was more the outpouring of a soul, a lonely, terrified soul that had found life too stern for it, yet had recoiled from the black abyss of mystery which comes after life.

“There’s no way out. It will kill the folks. The officers, are looking for me now. But I didn’t do it. I couldn’t have done it — oh, why won’t they listen?

“It’s so foolish. Why should I go to all that trouble to steal a diamond necklace? I’d have simply skipped out, not returned with that miserable imitation.”

He halted for a moment, and the girl nodded, squeezed his hand.

“Of course,” she said.

The calm faith of her tone heartened him, and he went on. His tale was more coherent now.

“I’m at Cremlin’s, you know, the jewelry house. They used me as messenger to take gems out for inspection. There was a Franklin T. Vane at the Westmoreland Hotel who wanted a diamond necklace. I took him two yesterday. Neither satisfied him. Today he telephoned and wanted the same two brought back for a second inspection.

“I took them. He had two men in his room. One was an expert appraiser. The appraiser examined the necklaces, advised against a purchase, and I had to take them both back.

“I’d swear they put the same necklaces back in the bag. I know they did. And then — well, then I did the thing that damns me. I didn’t go directly back to the store.

“There’s a girl. She wanted to see me about something awfully important — we were going to be married — and she’d telephoned. I though it’d be all right to run a little out of the way to see her.

“I wasn’t there over ten minutes, and only she and I were there. She didn’t even know what I had in the bag. But when I got back to the store — well, the genuine necklaces weren’t in the bag. There were two paste imitations, fairly good imitations, but not perfect.

“They telephoned for an officer, and they gave me two hours to restore the originals. I told them the whole story, but they wouldn’t believe it.

“Franklin Vane was awfully bitter. He said I looked nervous when I was in his room at the hotel. And, of course, the others back him up in his statements about returning the originals to me. There was Cohen, the expert appraiser, and there was Purdy, from the bank. The word of those men can’t be doubted.”

The young man gave a dry, choking sob.

“She won’t believe me. She won’t even see me again. And the officers are looking for me. I got in a panic, knocked down the chap who was guarding me and bolted through the back door.

“Think of my folks. My mother’s sick — I can’t go on with it. I’ve got to end it all. Kindness is wasted. Oh, why didn’t he let me go through with it. It’d have all been over by this time.”

The girl stroked his cold hand.

“This girl, how long had you known her?”

“A week, but it was — gee, it was love at first sight.”

Vera Thurmond nodded, then got to her feet with the easy grace of a trained dancer, walked to the inner door, flung it open.

“Come in,” she said to Sidney Zoom.

Sidney Zoom entered the room, the dog at his heels. The hawklike eyes fastened themselves upon the shamed face of the young man, then turned to the girl.

“Well?”

In short, simple words she formed crisp sentences that told him the story of the young man. During the recital, the visitor nodded from time to time, watched the expressionless face of Sidney Zoom anxiously.

When Vera had finished her recital, Sidney Zoom regarded the young man, “Your name?”

“Otto Shaffer.”

“What sort of a bag did you carry the diamonds in?”

“A black hand bag.”

“Locked?”

“No, but I held it in my hand all the time.”

“The girl’s name?”

“Lois Manly.”

“What does she do?”

“Works — I don’t know just where.”

“Vane? What do you know about him?”

“Nothing. He gave credit references at the store. He was just a customer.”

Sidney Zoom made a swift turn or two about the room, then his eyes caught those of his secretary, made a suggestive flicker toward an alcohol lamp upon which sat a teapot.

The girl sighed, set about brewing tea. Sidney Zoom walked the floor in purposeful concentration.

At length the tea was made. The girl set out three cups. As she poured the tea into the cup that was placed nearest the hand of Otto Shaffer, she gave a slight flickering motion of her left wrist. A small portion of white powder drifted unnoticed to the cup, was instantly dissolved in the tea.

They drank, talked for a few minutes. Then, as the eyes of the young man filmed under the influence of the drug, Sidney Zoom walked to a closet, flung it open.

Within the closet were numerous disguises, wigs, mustaches, spectacles, hats, coats, beards, grease paint, mirror, stains. In the hands of a novice they would have been ludicrous. But Sidney Zoom had been known as the Master of the Disguise when he had served the intelligence departments of three nations.

The young man tried to say something. His head nodded forward, then his eyes closed in surrender, and he slept.

“You gave him a strong dose?”

“Yes. He’ll sleep for twenty-four hours.”

“He’ll need to. This may prove a difficult case. I think I know what happened, but I can’t tell until I’ve looked up the girl.”

As he spoke his deft fingers fitted a small mustache to his upper lip. A stick of grease paint slid rapidly over his features, left little lines which suddenly blended into a composite whole. The man had apparently aged twenty years in as many seconds.

“You’ll be back, when?”

“Some time before morning. I’ll put that young man to bed.”

And he stooped, picked up the sleeping form, carried it with effortless ease to a bunk, covered it with a blanket, loosened the clothes.

“It seems horrible to drug them this way.”

Sidney Zoom snorted.

“Getting squeamish? Quit if you are. We’re snatching souls back from black despair. It takes rest. And we can’t soothe their nerves until we’ve relieved their troubles. We can’t do that by a wave of the hand.”

Her eyes were starry now as she regarded him.

“But you seem to do it by magic.”

“Well, it’s hard work.”

His tone was gruff, the eyes busy surveying a mirrored reflection of his face.

“It’s a wonderful work!”

He either did not notice the admiration in her tone, or else chose to disregard it. His hands busied themselves over a selection of garments, finally removed a rather shabby suit of brown worsted, shiny, baggy, frayed.

“We deal,” he said, “in lost souls, and our methods must be more or less irregular... I’ll be back by ten o’clock in the morning.”

IV

But it was noon before the deck planks thudded to the returning steps of Sidney Zoom.

The girl rushed to meet him. The dog flung himself wearily in the sunshine. Sidney Zoom’s skin showed some trace of graying fatigue, but his eyes were as bright as ever.

“You’ve found out something?”

The Master of the Disguise nodded. His voice was sharp, his words rapid.

“As I suspected. There were altogether too many witnesses to what happened in that room at the Westmoreland Hotel. It was too much of a coincidence that two men who were gem experts and of unimpeachable veracity should have seen those gems returned to the bag, the bag given to Shaffer.

“That would lead one to believe Franklin T. Vane knew of the impending robbery. So I started with Vane. I’ve traced his record, but it’s been a job. He’s really a fence from Chicago.

“And the girl, Lois Manly, was an accomplice, of course. Thus it’s not difficult to reconstruct what happened.

“The girl had the messenger in love with her. Vane had a credit at the jewelry store. He ordered gems for inspection. While he had them in his hands he observed sufficient details to enable copies to be made. And he had a copy of the black bag made up.

“Then he surrounded himself with reputable witnesses, telephoned for the same gems to be sent up again. And Lois Manly, relying on the young man’s love for her, gave him a pleading call for help. He must stop on the way back to the store.

“The boy called on her, his bag contained two necklaces that had been determined in advance by the real criminal. It only remained for the girl to switch the imitation bag with the duplicate necklaces. No one thought of bag and everything being changed. And, of course, the fact that Shaffer had strayed from the direct route to the store was all that was needed to clinch the case against him.”

Vera Thurmond nodded brightly.

“So you’ve notified the police of the real facts?”

Sidney Zoom flashed her a single glance of cold scorn.

“Certainly not. Your sex is impulsive, and you seem to share the common fault. The police, indeed! What would they do? What could they do? They’d bungle the case, of course. They wouldn’t move until they’d looked Vane up, and by that time he’d have completely covered up the crime.

“No, Miss Thurmond, I shall resort to my usual methods. I returned for another disguise. Did you, by any chance, ever hear of Willie the Weeper?”

“Willie the Weeper? What an odd name!”

“A rather unfortunate creature of the underworld, Miss Thurmond, who has been famed in song and fable. He is, of course, not a real character, and yet it is a character that has always appealed to me. I rather fancy I shall become Willie the Weeper.”

She knew him too well to ask for further explanations.

“I’ve switched on the electric coffee-pot and toaster. Our patient is still sleeping.”

Sidney Zoom nodded, absently, strode across the deck, entered a cabin and began throwing garments in a suitcase.

Then he bathed, shaved, and came to coffee and toast as Sidney Zoom, an eccentric, millionaire yacht owner, cruising about for pleasure.

“Keep the boy asleep until midnight. By that time I hope to have a solution.”

“Will I hear from you before then?”

“No.”

“Will you tell me your plans?”

“No, Certainly not.”

She propped her elbows on the table, regarded Sidney Zoom with level eyes, eyes which contained a glint of maternal tenderness, and also a hint of an emotion that was warmer.

“What a strange creature, what a wonderful man you are!”

“The coffee,” said Sidney Zoom in measured tones, “is excellent.”

And the girl’s throaty laughter pealed through the cabin.

“Thank you so much.”

And again she laughed.

“Your amusement comes from...”

“From your evident fear that I’m going to bite you,” said the girl, arising from the table. “Do you know, I believe your hard-boiled manner with women, amounting at times to rudeness, is caused by... well, guess.”

Sidney Zoom gulped half a cup of coffee in a single scalding swallow, and scraped back his chair.

“Is caused by fear,” laughed the girl. “And some day I’m likely to puncture your pose just to hear you go ‘boom.’ ”

But Sidney Zoom might not have heard the words. In cold dignity that had something of hostility in it, he picked up his suitcase, crossed to the companionway, flung back a single comment over his shoulder.

“Midnight,” he snapped. “Rip, you’ll stay here and guard the girl.”

The dog paused, mid-stride, cocked his ears, lowered his tail. For a long moment he gazed after his departing master, hoping against hope for some change in orders.

There was none. A door banged. Rapid feet crossed the deck. The dog stood, listening, head on one side. And Vera Thurmond, swooping her supple body down and around, caught his head in her hands and implanted a swift kiss upon the shaggy forehead.

In the after cabin, Otto Shaffer, his nerves relaxed by a sleeping potion that brought a deep, natural sleep, slumbered as peacefully as a child.

V

Sidney Zoom strode to the desk at the Madison House and fastened his glittering eyes on the clerk.

“A suite. The best in the house.”

The clerk spun the register, glanced at the signature, at the single suitcase.

“The best in the house will run a hundred and forty dollars a day.”

Sidney Zoom flipped a roll of currency from his pocket. The outside bill contained a five followed by two ciphers.

“The rest of my baggage will follow. This will establish my credit.”

“Yes, Mr. Zoom. Yes, indeed,” purred the deferential clerk.

“And I wish to purchase some rather expensive diamonds — oh, say around a hundred thousand dollars,” continued Mr. Zoom. “Can you refer me to a good store. I’m somewhat of a stranger here.”

The clerk’s eyes widened, caught those of the house detective who was loitering near the desk.

“Cremlin’s is right across the street. They’re rated as the most exclusive in the city. I can ring them up and make an appointment, Mr. Zoom.”

Sidney Zoom nodded his acquiescence.

“My sister will join me later. It’s her birthday, and I want to get something appropriate. Diamonds are her birthstone. Please tell Cremlin’s that I will be over there within half an hour.”

And then Sidney Zoom strolled to the elevator, was shown to his suite, and gave the bell boy a ten-dollar bill in token of appreciation for having a suitcase carried a hundred feet.

Thirty minutes later he beamed upon the clerk, shook hands with the house detective, strolled across the street and purchased one fifteen-thousand-dollar diamond necklace, one ten-thousand-dollar diamond brooch. And he paid for these articles in cash, upon the distinct understanding, however, that they could be returned at any time within twenty-four hours and the cash refunded.

Then Sidney Zoom strolled back to his room in the hotel, telephoned for the house detective, opened an excellent bottle of Scotch, and had some ginger ale sent up by a bell boy.

“Think she’ll like ’em?” asked Sidney Zoom, flipping his hand toward the dresser.

Harry Colman, the house detective, stared with wide eyes and a mouth that tried to appear sophisticated, yet showed a tendency to sag in a gape.

“Some ice!”

“She should like them. She’ll be in during the next two or three hours. I’ve left instructions with the clerk to give her the duplicate key. My sister, you know, the one I’m buying the diamonds for. It’s her birthday.”

“Yeah,” remarked Harry Colman, pouring himself another drink. “You’ll leave the stones in the safe?”

“No, I think not. They’ll be safe in the room. No one knows they’re here, and I’d like to have Alberta find them on the dresser when she comes in.”

Harry Colman sat the whisky bottle back upon the table with such violence that the resulting thump sounded like the stroke of a hammer.

“You’re going to... leave... those... stones... here!”

“Certainly.”

“But there’s a fortune there. The hotel won’t be responsible for them. Why, there’s half a dozen pass-keys out for the rooms on this floor. Good heavens...”

The cold, passively hostile eyes of Sidney Zoom impaled the startled orbs of the house detectives.

“And, of course, there being no responsibility on the part of the hotel, it is no concern of yours what I do with them.”

Harry Colman sighed, averted his gaze.

“Except as a matter of friendly advice. And, of course, the hotel doesn’t get any benefit from having a burglary pulled in one of the rooms.”

Sidney Zoom abstracted a cigarette from a gold case, took two deep drags at it, then flipped it into a porcelain cuspidor with casual fingers.

“Have some more of that Scotch,” he remarked, as though the matter had been closed.

Harry Colman poured himself a stiff drink.

“When’ll your sister be in?”

“Inside of a couple of hours.”

“How’ll we know the jane’s your sister?”

“My sister,” said Sidney Zoom, with that dignified stupidity which can only be safely assumed by millionaires who casually purchase twenty-five thousand dollars in gems and leave them hanging around a hotel bedroom, “wouldn’t lie about it. When she states that she is my sister you may accept her word.”

Harry Colman drained his second drink and reached for his third.

“And,” resumed Sidney Zoom, “you’re about the only person who knows the gems are here.”

“Case of a robbery that’d make it interesting for me,” commented the house detective.

Zoom waved his hand toward the bottle.

“Take it with you. If you’ll excuse me, I wish to bathe and change my clothes.”

The house detective accepted the dismissal, left the bottle on the table.

“And if you think this room ain’t in for some special watching during the next two hours you got another think coming,” he promised grimly as the door slammed.

Sidney Zoom rasped the key in the lock, then set to work.

He dragged the clothes from the bed, even slit the mattress with a sharp knife. He cut the pillows, scattered the feathers about the room. He took the bottle of excellent Scotch, emptied it down the drain, pulled the drawers from the bureau, ripped up a section of the carpet. He opened his suitcase, scattered his things about the feather-strewn floor.

Then he took the jewels from their ornate caskets, slipped them in the pocket of his coat, tore the paper wrappings into fine bits and threw them in the waste basket.

When he had completed this work of destruction he took from an inner pocket a grimed, soiled card. Upon this card was scrawled in pencil the number of a room, the name of a hotel and the cryptic words, “Stuff that’s too hot to handle.”

Then Sidney Zoom emerged from the room, carefully locked the door behind him, slipped the key in his pocket, and left the hotel.

A taxicab took him to the Union Depot. Here he redeemed a suitcase which had been checked over the parcel counter, and sought a cheaper hotel, where he engaged a very modest room.

Within this room he set about making over his entire character.

Shabby clothes, glaringly cheap, yet pressed with some attempt to simulate wellbeing, shoes that had been battered out of shape, a celluloid collar and gaudy tie, a shirt that shrieked to high heaven, and a derby hat, all came from the suitcase and were carefully donned.

A shock of graying hair was properly adjusted. A few strokes of a bit of grease paint weakened the mouth. The hawklike glitter of the untamed eyes was concealed behind a pair of colored spectacles.

When these preparations had been made, carefully checked, skillfully executed, the personality of Sidney Zoom, adventurer extraordinary, collector of lost souls, doctor of destinies, became merged in a personality that could only be fittingly placed by reference to that well known song of the underworld which features the adventures of Willie the Weeper.

When the transformation was complete Willie the Weeper left the confines of the cheap hotel and presented himself cringingly at the house telephones of the Westmoreland Hotel.

The hearty, confident voice of Franklin T. Vane boomed in his ear.

“Yes, what is it?”

“A friend of yours.”

“Name?”

“Never mind the name.”

“I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong party.”

“You’re Franklin T. Vane, ain’t you?”

“Yes. Who are you?”

“You wouldn’t know the name.”

“What do you want?”

“To make you a proposition.”

“Well, I’m not open to any proposition. I don’t know you and I don’t care to. Good night.”

“From Chicago,” whined Willie the Weeper.

There was a biting silence. It almost seemed that the telephone wire transmitted a squeak made by a tightened grip on the receiver at the other end of the wire.

“I know no one in Chicago.”

“But I do.”

“Where are you?”

“Downstairs. I’m coming up.”

And Sidney Zoom, completely merged in the personality of Willie the Weeper, slipped the receiver back on the hook, surreptitiously took something from his pocket, and rubbed it just beneath the lids of his eyes.

The effect was almost instantaneous. The eyes reddened, began to ooze water.

Then Willie the Weeper went toward the elevators and was shot upward to the seventh floor. From there he groped about, found seven forty-nine, and scratched on the door.

The door flung open. A portly, heavy-voiced man let glittering eyes sweep over the cringing figure.

“What the hell?” he exploded.

“From Chicago,” said Willie the Weeper, and oozed against the half-open door.

The big figure drew back, let the unwelcome visitor in, and then thrust out an inquisitive head. After a swift glance up and down the deserted corridor, Franklin T. Vane slammed the door, locked it, turned toward the man who stood in the center of the room.

“Who in hell are you?”

“Willie. Folks call me Willie the Weeper.”

“Willie the Weeper! Hell, there ain’t no such animal. That’s just a song hit that Nell—”

The dejected figure shook its head.

“That’s where you make a mistake. The song was first all right. Then I started panhandling, and the boys called me Willie the Weeper, ’cause I got something wrong with my eyes. I made a fortune outa panhandling the boulevard in Chi, but I found I had talents better suited for other things.”

“Yes?”

The voice of Franklin T. Vane was cold in its guarded note of inquiry.

“Yes, I got to collecting hot ice.”

Vane’s figure stiffened.

“What brought you here?”

“I don’t know the local ropes very well. A strange fence tried to cross me, an’ I seen you come out of the hotel this morning.”

Franklin T. Vane shook his head.

“You’re crazy,” he said, “as crazy as a bedbug.”

Willie the Weeper nodded, and reached a hand in the side pocket of his coat. When it came out the fingers seemed to catch the late afternoon sunlight, magnify it, send it sparkling in corruscating fire about the hotel room.

“What’s that?” snapped Franklin T. Vane, and his glittering eyes contained the fire of avarice.

Willie the Weeper passed over the necklace. It was the same necklace which had been purchased from Cremlin’s for fifteen thousand dollars. And Sidney Zoom had selected it because, among other things, a certain odd cutting of the stones, a certain distinctiveness of the clasp, made the necklace one which could be readily identified.

“Hot ice,” he said, in the whining voice which characterized him.

“Not interested!” snapped Vane, but his eyes belied his tongue.

“Too hot to handle here,” pursued Willie the Weeper. “It might be handled in Chi. If I had a stake I’d go back there. If you don’t wanta handle it, how about a stake for get-by money?”

Vane shook his head. His massive neck gave a suggestion of dominant power to the gesture. But his feverish eyes and eager fingers gave evidence of continued interest. “Got any more?”

Willie the Weeper rubbed beneath his eyes with a dirty handkerchief. The streaks of moisture still remained upon his sallow skin. His hand slipped furtively into his other pocket, brought out a diamond brooch.

“I got this.”

The cupidity which glittered so avariciously in the eyes of the fence crystalized into sudden determination.

“Sit down,” he said, and there was a cooing softness in the voice which gave the words an oily suggestion of smooth hypocrisy. “I’m going to give you a square deal, one hell of a square deal.”

Willie the Weeper sat down, raised red rimmed eyes which peered through the darkened lenses of spectacles.

“Yes?”

“Yes. I’m going to give you some get-by money for a get-away, and I’m going to give you a trade. This stuff is hot, too hot to handle. But I’ve got some stuff that’s nearly cold. You can take it to Chi, and it’ll be a cinch.”

Willie the Weeper hesitated, shifted his eyes doubtfully.

“I want cash.”

“But you’ll get cash, and a hell of a good trade to boot. Those diamonds of yours are worth perhaps eight grand. I’ve got some that would be worth twenty thousand if they weren’t hot.”

“Eight grand!” expostulated Willie the Weeper. “Why, those rocks would retail for a cool twenty-five thousand!”

Franklin T. Vane threw back his head and laughed. The laugh was more forceful than mirthful.

“What a boob you are! Somebody’s been kidding you. If you think those things would retail for twenty-five thousand you’d think mine would sell for a hundred. Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you three thousand in cash and trade you one of the finest strings of rocks you ever saw. Or I’ve got two strings I’ll trade you even.”

“I want cash.”

“Well, take this trade I’m offering. Three grand and a swell string.”

Willie the Weeper looked at the diamonds in necklace and brooch.

“Le’me see the string.”

The string which Vane offered was made up of rather small stones. There was not the perfect fire, not the matching which makes necklaces run into real money. Yet it was a good necklace, well worth lifting.

Sidney Zoom, sitting there with his dominant, aggressive personality completely dissolved into that of Willie the Weeper, had no difficulty whatever in recognizing that string as one of the necklaces which had been taken from Cremlin’s, and the theft of which had been laid to the door of young Otto Shaffer.

“Four thousand and I might consider it.”

“Three’s the price.”

“Make it three fifty.”

“Three’s the limit. That’s really too much. I should make it two fifty.”

Willie the Weeper sniffled. A streak of moisture slimed his cheek, drifted uncertainly past his quivering lips and dropped to the carpet.

“It’s robbery,” he whined.

Franklin T. Vane sat in sneering contemplation of the weeping man. Willie the Weeper lived up to his nickname. He whined with voice and eyes, sniffled, cried. The tears dropped from his reddened eyes to the carpet.

At length he gave sniffling acquiescence.

Franklin T. Vane stripped three one thousand dollar bills from a roll and handed them over.

“That’s a swell string I’m giving you. You can hock it in Chi for more than both of your pieces were worth.”

Willie the Weeper sniffled over the consummation of the deal. He whined, cried, hung around until Vane had dropped the necklace and brooch into a secret compartment of the wardrobe trunk. Then he sniveled himself out of the door.

Franklin T. Vane snorted, slammed the door shut and locked it.

VI

Willie the Weeper became a very busy man. He took a cab to the cheap hotel where he had placed his suitcase. Within a matter of minutes he transformed himself into his true character. Eye wash stopped the watering eyes, leaving them red.

Attired in a tailored suit which proclaimed itself as having cost much money, Sidney Zoom returned to the Madison House.

“Evening, Colman,” he saluted the house detective. “Wonder how my sister liked the diamonds.”

“She hasn’t shown up,” announced the detective.

“Hasn’t shown up! Good Heavens, there must be some foul play. I sent her a message — I wonder if that message could have miscarried.”

The house detective shrugged his shoulders.

“I wish you’d left those diamonds in the safe.”

“Nonsense! The diamonds are all right, but how about my sister. Come on up and we’ll put through a call.”

The house detective, mindful of the excellent Scotch, nodded assent. Together they approached the door of the room. Sidney Zoom fitted a key, flung the door open, gave a slight, hospitable push upon the shoulder of his guest, and switched on the light.

Harry Colman’s muscles became rigid beneath Zoom’s hand which rested on his shoulder. He jumped back.

“Burglars! Great Heavens! Look at that room!”

Sidney Zoom sprang forward.

“The diamonds!” yelled Colman.

“Gone!” screamed Zoom.

There followed a period of seething activity. The police were notified. Colman started searching for clews, muttering to himself as he looked about.

“Funny they’d make all this commotion when the diamonds were in plain sight. Wonder what the idea was?”

“Looking for my money, perhaps,” volunteered Sidney Zoom, moving slightly so that one foot rested almost upon the crumpled bit of cardboard bearing the mysterious address and the significantly scrawled words.

“Well,” muttered Colman, “they sure made a— What’s that?”

“What?”

“By your foot?”

“Looks like a card.”

Colman pounced upon it.

“Stuff that’s too hot to handle!” he read. “Gee, what a break.”

“Too hot to handle?” muttered Sidney Zoom in an apologetic undertone.

“Yeah,” explained Colman, “a yegg term. It means stolen goods that are wanted badly by the police and for which a description’s gone out. I’ll bet you fifty dollars that’s the address of the fence that was going to handle this job.”

“I’m afraid I shouldn’t bet,” retorted Sidney Zoom, “but if you recover those gems there’ll be a little reward of two thousand dollars, cash.”

And the face of Sidney Zoom set in such grim lines of righteous indignation at the criminal act which had deprived him of his property that Colman found it necessary to place a restraining hand upon the taut arm.

“There, there, don’t worry. Here are the police now. They’ll have authority to make a search of this room in the Westmorland Hotel.”

“You think we have enough evidence upon which to predicate a search?”

“Say, baby, when there’s two thousands bucks reward I’d search George Washington’s tomb for a stolen dollar. Come on.”

The police listened.

A whispered conversation took place between the sergeant in charge of the detail and the house detective. Then the red police automobile sirened its way through the crowded thorough-fares.

Once more Sidney Zoom found himself at the door of Franklin T. Vane’s suite. But this time he was not in the disguise of a whining crook. He stood erect, indignant, a picture of righteous indignation, such as any honest citizen might feel toward a crook, particularly if that crook had just lifted twenty-five thousand dollars in diamonds from the aforesaid honest citizen.

Franklin T. Vane saw the bluecoats, the glittering eyes, the firm lips, and his heavy face blanched.

“What is the meaning of this outrage?” he stormed, before the police had even stated their errand.

The words placed him definitely in an attitude of antagonism.

“It means,” bellowed Sidney Zoom, “that you’re a fence, a receiver of stolen property. You’ve got my diamonds here, taken from some crook with whom you connived the robbery.”

Franklin T. Vane recoiled before the very violence of those words, the blast of righteous wrath which accompanied them.

“Really, gentlemen—”

But it was too late. Sidney Zoom had shouldered the door, marched resolutely into the room. The officers followed.

Ten minutes later they found the secret compartment in the wardrobe trunk.

“The diamonds!” yelled Sidney Zoom. “Colman, you’re a wonder! Sergeant, you’ll get a promotion for this! I never saw such prompt work!”

The police sergeant was gazing at another diamond necklace with a puzzled frown.

“And here’s another one. By George, that’s one of the necklaces from that Cremlin job yesterday. We thought the kid pulled that one. Maybe he used this guy as a fence. But — wait a minute! My God, yes! This is the very room! I see it all now. Why, you’re the man who had the messenger bring up the stones. Aha! so that’s your game, eh?”

And Franklin T. Vane, taken unawares at the start, showing a positive genius for doing the wrong thing, made the fatal mistake of trying to rush for the door.

There was the thud of a well placed fist, the flop of a huge body, the adjustment of handcuffs.

“Colman, your reward!”

Sidney Zoom peeled two one thousand dollar bills from his pocket, handed them to Harry Colman.

Colman flashed the sergeant a meaning glance, pocketed the bills. Both men were grinning.

On the floor, Franklin T. Vane raised a bruised eye, saw the denomination of the bills, gave a violent start, muttered an oath, and gazed with wide eyes at the form of Sidney Zoom.

“I get my diamonds?” asked Zoom.

“Certainly,” purred the sergeant. “The identification’s beyond any doubt.”

“Then, Colman, you can take them back to Cremlin’s to-morrow I don’t think sister would like any stones that have such unpleasant associations. I’ll ask for a cash refund, as was arranged between us when I purchased the stones.

“In the meantime, you gentlemen have no further use for me?”

“Go right along, Mr. Zoom,” boomed the sergeant. “I understand Colman knows where to get you if we want you.”

“Aboard the yacht Alberta F.,” smiled Zoom, “and now, gentlemen, good night.”

Franklin T. Vane groaned, stifled a curse, then damped his mouth tightly shut.

Aboard the yacht, Sidney Zoom gazed at the curious face of his secretary. There was a quizzical gleam in his eyes.

“The second necklace was mailed back to Cremlin’s before I boarded the boat. I’ll secure a return of my twenty-five thousand, dollars from the jeweler to-morrow. In the meantime, after deducting the reward, there’s a thousand dollar note that remains a dear profit. I think that should go to Shaffer. He might want to pay his folks a visit.”

The girl sighed.

“How perfectly wonderful!”

“Nonsense!” snapped Sidney Zoom. “There’s a tendency on the part of your sex, Miss Thurmond, to exaggerate any small mental effort that shows successful results. I certainly trust you will not fall into that habit.”

And Sidney Zoom turned abruptly to the closet where he kept his various disguises, and began putting them in order, making ready for the next case.

The girl stared at him, and her eyes showed a light of admiration that was far from being impersonal.

But Sidney Zoom, keeping his back turned, kept busy with his disguises. It was only the police dog that turned yellow eyes upward and surprised the expression of tenderness in the eyes of the young woman.

The dog wagged his tail, softly thumping it against the carpeted floor, signifying his entire approval.

A faint wind ruffled the dark waters of the bay and the boat creaked gently as it swung about, the water lapping its sides.

In the inner cabin Otto Shaffer, just awakening from a peaceful sleep of drugged tranquility, rubbed his eyes with his fists, and smiled dreamily.