The Casebook of Sidney Zoom

Chapter I A Fight on the Wharf

Sidney Zoom turned the wheel of the Alberta F. hard to star-board.

The yacht swung in a sweeping curve through the dark water of the bay. The lighted ferry slips, backed by blinking electric signs advertising half a dozen national products, were blotted out by a projecting wharf.

In their place loomed the black hulks of towering freighters, massive wharves against which the little wavelets slapped invisible fingers.

Here and there, one of the big boats was preparing for sea. Half-naked men toiled like white beetles in the glare of incandescents. Donkey engines rattled, cables clanked against metal spars. But for the most part the black hulls of the boats towered in dark silence.

Sidney Zoom turned to the figure at his side — a young woman, well formed, alert, vital.

“Looking for someone?” she asked.

Sidney Zoom thrust forward his grim features. The hawklike eyes peered into the darkness.

“The Willmoto,” he said. “I want to see Captain McGahan. You’ll get a kick out of him, Vera. Most efficient captain in the coastal service. Gets more cargo aboard in less time, moves more freight faster with less crew—”

He broke off.

Over the chug of the engines, through the damp darkness of the waterfront, there sounded a scream. It was the scream of a woman in terror.

Sidney Zoom slammed the throttle shut, kicked out the clutch.

In the comparative silence the scream sounded the second time, knifing the darkness of the yacht’s pilot house. It was followed by the sound of a masculine laugh, and that laugh contained many emotions other than humor.

“There!”

The girl’s arm pointed and Sidney Zoom’s gaze followed the direction of the outstretched finger.

A little knot of struggling forms cast grotesque black shadows out on the end of one of the piers. Back of them showed a freighter, getting ready for sea. All the hatches were loaded except number four, and the donkey engines were busily clattering supplies into that hold. The lights were concentrated upon the section of the freighter that was being loaded. For the rest, the boat was dark and silent.

Sidney Zoom twisted the spokes of the wheel. In his eyes showed a sudden lust of conflict. At his side, in the darkness, came the sound of a low growl, and a tawny police dog, a bulking shadow of ominous strength, got to his feet and stood braced, shoulders low and forward.

“Steady, Rip,” warned Sidney Zoom. “I’ll handle this. Hold her against that pier head. Vera. There’s a rope ladder there. No, no, not so far over. There it is, right on the end. Throw her into reverse as you make the swing. Then stand by.”

And Sidney Zoom was out of the pilot house, on to the deck of the yacht in four swift strides that sounded merely as rapid thumps upon the planking. He went to the rail, paused, leaped out into the darkness.

His long arms swung his weight into the night as his hands clenched the rungs of the rope ladder. The yacht swung around, then bumped into the pilings of the wharf and flung clear.

Sidney Zoom went up the ladder, all angles, like a huge jumping-jack, yet with the swift efficiency of a climbing monkey.

The struggle was over when he reached the pier. Three men were carrying some limp object which might have been a sack of meal, but was not.

Sidney Zoom padded purposefully through the half darkness.

A masculine voice, coming in irregular spasms of sound, after the manner of a man who is talking after a struggle, reached his ears. “... so damned anxious... to travel... let her travel.”

“We can’t help it if she stows away,” said another.

And then there was another laugh, coarse, primitive.

“Gentlemen,” said Sidney Zoom.

They whirled at the sound.

“Just a moment,” said Sidney Zoom.

The men set their burden to the wharf.

“Well?” rasped one of the group.

“I heard a woman scream,” Zoom said.

“You’re a liar,” said one of the men, and rushed.

The other two followed, spread out a bit, one on either side. They came in, crouching low, men who had learned the advantage of being close to the ground in a rough-and-tumble.

These were no amateur fighters, but men who had learned the art of conflict in various ports of the world. The science of the padded gloves was not for them; rather, had they mastered the little tricks of the trade that were dirty, but effective. A trick with the knee, a bit of shoulder stuff, a butting with the head, and all combined with a swift aggression of purposeful silence that had been the result of long and bitter experience.

The leader reckoned without the terrific length of arm which had fooled more than one antagonist. His head snapped back as Zoom’s fist crashed out. Then the other two closed and the planks of the pier thudded to the rapid tattoo of swift conflict.

The struggling knot of figures milled into a circle.

There was the sound of a terrific impact and one of the men staggered backward and out of the circle. For what seemed a long breath he paused teetering on the edge of the pier, then he vanished into the night. An appreciable interval later, there sounded the noise of a terrific splash.

The other two drew back, hesitated, then charged again.

The inert figure that had been lowered to the wharf by the three men at the challenge of Sidney Zoom, stirred, got to its feet, ran blindly toward the struggling figures, veered off.

Sidney Zoom’s voice sounded from the midst of the melée.

“There’s a rope ladder at the end. Go down it to the yacht.”

But the running figure seemed in a daze. It dashed to the end of the pier, flung itself outward, and again came the noise of a splash.

The three figures separated for a split second. Zoom’s fist thudded home. A man staggered backward, wobbled, charged blindly once more.

In the interval, however, there had sounded twin thuds. The third combatant had reeled away, and Sidney Zoom, running lightly, made for the end of the pier.

He went out into the darkness in a long are of graceful motion. Down, down, down... a vast sea of black before him, a splash, the cold waters of the bay hissing past him, then a few swift strokes as he fought his way to the surface.

The Alberta F. was almost on top of him as he came up into the dark night. He could see her white sides, the knife-like overhang of her bow. He swung to his side, kicked out, made a long, powerful stroke, and shot to the side.

“He’s right over there behind you, sir,” said the voice of one of the crew, standing in white watchfulness against the rail of the yacht.

Sidney Zoom caught the ripple of water, the sound of hands beating frantically, and went to the place from which those sounds emanated, in a racing flurry of overhand strokes.

His questing fingers caught a woolen garment just as a rope snaked through the darkness and splashed to the water within an arm’s length.

“Okay,” said Sidney Zoom, clutching the garment with one hand and the rope with the other, “pull away.”

The rope tightened. The yacht loomed again. Strong hands clutched and heaved, and they had her on the deck, a bedraggled figure clad in men’s rough clothes. But the clothes had been torn almost to shreds. It did not need the revealing clutch of the moist garments to show that here was no man at all, but a young woman whose right eye was swollen nearly shut and growing very, very black.

She sat up and spat out salt water, loked at Sidney Zoom with her single good eye, and grinned.

“Thanks,” she said, “for the buggy ride.”

Sidney Zoom smiled, and there was approval in that smile.

“If you’ll go into that cabin,” he said, “Miss Vera Thurmond, my secretary, will see that you have dry clothes.”

She got to her feet, clutched at the hand rail on the top of the cabin for support, turned back to Sidney Zoom.

“Okay,” she said, and entered the cabin.

Sidney Zoom walked to the pilot house.

“Clothes, sir?” asked one of the men.

“Can wait, Johnson. I’m taking her into the mooring float. Get the lines ready. Make her fast when I come up alongside. The tide’s running fast, so I’ll come in with it on the port bow. Get the bow line first. The tide will swing in the stern.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

The door of the pilot house slammed. The deep throated motors purred into coughing life and the yacht slipped through the dark waters in a long circle of increasing speed. The lights of the ferry slips showed once more. The blinking electric signs threw varicolored reflections upon the waters. A ferry boomed a hoarse warning.

The yacht crossed the ferry lanes, swung into the more gloomy channel, and nosed its way past the small craft moorings to bump against the mooring float maintained by Sidney Zoom.

Lines thudded. The motors idled. Feet ran along the booming planks, and a voice from the darkness shouted, “All fast, sir.”

Chapter II An Ungrateful Rescue

Sidney Zoom cut off the motor, the lights, turned on the cabin lights, and started for the locker where he kept dry clothes. His feet squashed water with every step, and the pilot house was steeped with that peculiar smell which comes from woolen wet with salt water.

Feet on the deck. The door was flung open, and Sidney Zoom found himself gazing at the business end of a squat automatic. Over the blued steel gleamed the almost shut right eye of the girl he had rescued. It was, by this time, turning a livid bruise color.

“All right, all right,” rasped the girl. “D’you think I’ve got all night. Get ’em up — and be quick about it.”

Sidney Zoom’s hawklike eyes challenged the glittering eye that bored into his over the barrel of the automatic.

“That,” he said, indicating the weapon with a toss of his head, “is not at all necessary — here.”

“Will you get ’em up,” asked the girl, “or have I got to spatter you all over the cabin?”

Sidney Zoom smiled.

“If you put it that way, I’ll get ’em up,” he said, and did so.

“All right,” rasped the voice of his visitor, “now get away from that locker and let me get some man’s clothes. Make any hostile moves and you’ll get drilled.”

Sidney Zoom moved away from the locker. There was in his eyes a glint of appreciation.

“If you want anything I can give you, you don’t need—”

“Shut up!” she snapped, and threw open the locker.

“My own clothes are far too big,” said Sidney Zoom, from the opposite end of the pilot house, “but there’s an assortment of yachting flannels over there on the left. Some of them will fit you.”

She reached gropingly in the closet with her left hand, her right holding the gun. She pulled out an assortment of garments and dumped them on the floor. Still covering the owner of the yacht, she pushed the garments with a bare foot until she found trousers, coat and shirt that suited her.

“Don’t move,” she warned, and started to strip off the soaked rags which covered her.

Zoom noticed that, beneath the outer garments of the male, she had the finest of sheer silks, lingerie that had been tailored to order from the finest materials.

“I can go out,” he ventured.

“You can stand tight there, and keep ’em up!”

She kicked aside the soggy outer garments, gazed ruefully at the wet undersilks. And Sidney Zoom saw that there was a money belt circling her slender waist.

She fumbled with the pockets of that belt, took out a packet of gold backed currency. She unfolded it, and Sidney Zoom’s eyes widened as he glimpsed the figure on the corner of the outer bill.

“That didn’t get so wet,” she remarked. “Any underwear in that place?”

“In the drawer below,” said Zoom.

“All right. I’ve got to take a chance on you. Turn your back, keep your hands up. Don’t look and—”

She never finished the sentence.

The door of the pilot house shook to the impact of a great weight. The girl turned the weapon toward it. There was a fumbling with the catch, the knob turned, then a moment’s silence.

“I’ll shoot!” warned the girl.

The door crashed open. The girl fired, breast high, the ruddy flame spurting in a stabbing streak of vicious death, straight toward where the heart of a man would have been.

But it was no man that shot through that door, rather low to the ground, fangs bared; but a tawny police dog. The bullet thudded over his head as he rushed. A low, throaty growl came from his great jaws.

Sidney Zoom sprang forward.

“Down, Rip!” he roared, and grabbed for the dog.

But the animal was already in the air, red lips twisted back from gleaming white fangs as he shot like a released arrow, straight for the girl’s throat.

But, at the command, he turned his head slightly. The girl flung up an arm. Then Zoom, the dog and the girl all collided at the same time in one confused impact of thudding motion that hit the floor and churned about in a heap.

From that heap came the form of Sidney Zoom, pulling and tugging. Next emerged the tawny police dog, his claws scraping along the floor of the pilot house. The girl sat up, looked at the dog, then at Sidney Zoom, and grinned.

“You win,” she remarked, and fainted.

Sidney Zoom frowned at the dog.

“Back, Rip, and stay there. Now watch! Guard! Careful.”

And then Sidney Zoom went through the door with swift strides, down the dark deck and into the cabin where he had left his secretary.

She was neatly bound and gagged, lying on the bed, her face red with rage and humiliation, her eyes glittering over the silken scarf that had been used as a gag.

Zoom slit the bonds, untied the scarf.

“The little devil!” exclaimed Vera Thurmond, sitting up on the bed.

Sidney Zoom grinned.

“I’m commencing to like her. I’m sick of these namby pamby women that are quitters. This girl looks like one that’d give a man a run for his money.”

“Go to her then!” snapped his secretary, and there was in her voice more than impatience, more than rage. There was a trace of jealousy. But if Sidney Zoom noticed it he gave no sign.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Atta girl!” he remarked, and started toward the pilot house. At the door he paused.

“How did she do it — cover you with a gun?”

“Cover me with nothing!” snapped his secretary. “The little spitfire hit me over the head with something when I wasn’t looking!”

Still grinning, Zoom gently dosed the door and went into the pilot house.

The girl was conscious now, sitting up stating at the dog. And the dog, muzzle on paws, yellow eyes slitted to a savage glare of wolf-like menace, was growling throatily.

“Sorry if you were frightened,” said Sidney Zoom. “He’ll only guard you. He won’t hurt you unless you try to escape.”

“Yes,” she said, “I found that out. I experimented. Give me a chance to put on some clothes and then you can ting the police.”

The door opened and Vera Thurmond came in, looking rather dishevelled.

“Sorry,” grinned the girl. “I was gambling for big things and I didn’t want to take any chances. I guess I did crack you a little hard.”

Vera Thurmond’s eyes were unsmiling.

“I’ve got a beastly headache,” she said.

The girl on the floor stretched forth a shapely limb.

“Headache’s nothing. Look at those bruises. And you aren’t seeing ’em all, not by a long ways.”

Vera Thurmond glanced at the livid skin, and swift sympathy flooded her warm eyes.

She turned on Sidney Zoom.

“Get out,” she said. “Let the girl dress, and take the dog with you!”

The girl reached for some white duck trousers.

“Oh, that’s all right,” she said. “He’s a good scout, and the dog’s all right, too. He just did his duty.”

She slid her limbs into the white trousers, reached for a shirt.

“You’re all wet underneath!” exclaimed Vera Thurmond.

“They’ll dry out. Go ahead. Get the police and let’s get it over with.”

Vera Thurmond shook her head.

“We don’t call the police — not from this yacht.”

“What?”

Sidney Zoom replied to the girl’s startled question.

“I’m tired of civilization. I hate the routine, the whole damned money-grubbing machine of treadmill existence! The police be damned! I sympathize with the unfortunate. I avoid the prosperous. Some day, I hope, there’ll be a change. In the meantime I spend much of my life on the water. There, at least, I’m comparatively free — on the high seas.”

The girl’s left eye had widened in wonder. The swelling on the right had gone down sufficiently so there showed a little glittering slit beneath a circle of livid black.

“You mean — I’m not arrested?”

Zoom waved his hand toward the dark windows of the pilot house.

“Take dry clothes and go — out into the night. Or stay, and tell me your troubles. Perhaps I can help.”

She sat, white, shaken, startled.

Sidney Zoom motioned with his hand.

“Go to her, Rip, old boy. She’s afraid of you.”

The dog arose from his crouching position, stalked toward the girl, sank to the floor and thrust his muzzle against the cold fingers.

She patted his head, stroked his ears, and the dog, moved by some intuitive understanding which is the heritage of well bred dogs, thrust his head upon her lap, snuggled down and thumped the floor with his tail.

She grasped the shaggy neck and began to cry, suddenly straightened and stared at the others with moist eyes.

Chapter III Wanted — For Murder

“I’m not a cry-baby. I’ll take my medicine. I’ve been through hell the last twenty-four hours. I’m Eve Bendley.”

Vera Thurmond gasped.

“Not the Eve Bendley?”

The moist eyes regarded Sidney Zoom’s secretary with smoldering hostility.

“Yes, the Eve Bendley. I’m the one that the police want for murder. You should have guessed it sooner.”

Sidney Zoom nodded.

“Would you care,” he asked, “to tell us the details?”

She shrugged her shoulders, hugged the dog’s head to her breast.

“Why not? They’ll be all over the newspapers. You wouldn’t dare to protect me — not one wanted for murder. And I’m tired of hiding.

“I guess you know all the preliminaries. I was confidential secretary to Ralph C. Ames for five years. I believe I’m related to him by marriage. He was an old man, lovable when you understood him, but a bit of a tyrant at times.

“He didn’t have any natural heirs, and he left a will that was to have given me rather a large sum of money. I don’t know how much. The bulk of his fortune was left to charity; but I understood there was more than two hundred thousand left me under the will.

“Then this adventuress came along. The old man fell head over heels in love with her. That is, he fell for her line of talk. You know the one I mean, Nettie Pease.

“I tried to warn him against her. She was nothing but a peroxide adventuress. That made a scene. He threatened to discharge me, leave me without a cent and all that. And then he went out in a rage, came back and announced he had married the woman.

“She was with him, leering at me. He left the room and she told me where we stood — quick. She said I was out of sympathy with her, and that I could get out and stay out. You see Mr. Ames had his office in his house, and I was treated as one of the family, living under the same roof, handling his mail, helping the housekeeper run the house.

“When Mr. Ames came back he explained to me I was discharged, that I could take two weeks’ salary and leave.”

The young woman made these recitals in a flat, expressionless tone of voice, her fingers digging into the dog’s fur, her arms straining the head to her.

“There was to be a bonus?” prompted Sidney Zoom.

She nodded.

“Yes. There was a bonus paid me every year. My year was up and I’d figured the bonus. It amounted to over three thousand dollars. I asked Mr. Ames about it. He said he’d changed his mind. That adventuress had him entirely under her thumb. She simpered at him, leered at me. Damn her, I wish I’d killed her!”

Vera Thurmond winced at the savagery of the girl’s tone. Sidney Zoom’s eyes glowed with a sudden sympathy, an admiration of a kindred spirit.

“Go ahead,” he said, quietly.

She sighed and resumed her story.

“Gravy, he’s the butler, was my only friend. He knew I’d been treated shamefully, and he suggested that I should take what was due me — the bonus.

“I had the combination to the safe, but Mr. Ames didn’t know it. Gravy had found a paper that had it written on some weeks before and had brought it to me. When I saw it I knew it was some sort of a safe combination, and tried it out on the safe in the library. It worked.

“Then Gravy was afraid Mr. Ames would fire us both if he knew what we’d done, so he swore me to secrecy. You see, Mr. Ames was a most peculiar character, and that safe was sort of sacred with him. He loved to pop things in there and put them under lock.

“So Gravy got me to dress in some of his clothes and furnished me with a mask, just in case anything should happen. And it happened all right.

“Ames and the woman had been to some sort of a reception. They were to stay until midnight, but they came popping in, with a couple of people who were strangers to me, just as I was getting the money out of the safe. There I was, caught red-handed, as they say in the newspapers, the safe open, the money in my hands. But I was wearing men’s clothes and a mask. I thought that would keep ’em from recognizing me.

“Of course, I started to run toward the servants’ quarters. And Mr. Ames let out a bellow and started after me. I heard a shot and thought some one was firing at me. But there were a lot of screams and something fell to the floor.

“When I got to where I’d left my own clothes, I saw Gravy running after me. He was all excited. He said some one had shot Mr. Ames while I was running. He thought it was the woman who had fired the shot, but couldn’t be sure. He said I’d better keep right on going because the woman had sworn she’d recognized my figure, even in the man’s clothes, and was insisting that my room be thoroughly searched.

“So I just kept on going. I had the money in a money belt I’d purchased especially for that purpose. I went to a rooming house and went to sleep. Next morning I read of the murder. It seems the two people with him swear that Mr. Ames was running after a masked figure, that the masked man turned and shot him down, then made his escape.

“Personally, I’m satisfied it was the woman who fired the shot. She’ll get all his estate now. That was what she wanted. Believe me, she was a fast worker. Married and kills her husband within forty-eight hours!”

Sidney Zoom studied the girl through narrowed eyes.

“The two people with Mr. Ames and his newly made bride were people of unquestioned integrity,” he said. “They swear they saw the masked figure run toward a passage, suddenly turn and fire the fatal shot.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t suppose my word or that of Gravy will amount to anything, but Gravy swears he heard the woman say, ‘Let him have it,’ just before the shot was fired. He thinks that it was the adventuress herself who fired the shot, but he wasn’t where he could see. But he swears the shot sounded from behind Ames rather than in front.”

Zoom gravely shook his head.

“I’m sorry, Miss Bendley, but the post mortem shows absolutely that the shot was fired from the direction in which Mr. Ames was facing, and the two witnesses, who are positive in their testimony, are men who are absolutely reliable.”

“Oh, well,” she sighed, “what’s the difference? It’s all up now. I knew when I read the account in the paper that I was in bad. I was disguised as a man, and I tried to stow away on a freighter. Some sailors found me, started to beat me up, found I was a woman — then you came along.”

She gave her undivided attention to the dog.

There was silence in the cabin for several seconds.

“The new wife had a second will made?” asked Sidney Zoom.

“No. She didn’t need to. In this State a marriage made subsequent to the execution of a will makes it void. Therefore the will is no good and the wife takes all the estate as the only heir. She was shrewd, that woman.”

Sidney Zoom clipped the end from a cigar, smoked it meditatively. From time to time he stared at the girl with thought-slitted eyes. The girl, still sitting on the floor, caressed the dog’s head. From time to time the heavy tail of the animal thumped lazy appreciation.

“There’s something strange about this case,” said Sidney Zoom. “From all the physical evidences, young lady, you’re lying.”

Her eyes showed no resentment “All right,” she said, “let it go at that.”

Sidney Zoom glanced at his secretary.

Vera Thurmond avoided the questioning eyes.

Zoom gave his attention to the cigar. “My faith in human nature has given me some queer hunches in my time,” he observed.

“If you fall for this case,” snapped Vera Thurmond, “you’ll be getting into trouble.”

“Go ahead,” murmured the girl, “don’t mind me. Say it.”

Zoom took the cigar from his mouth.

“The fighter,” he said, “rarely gets sympathy. That is particularly true with women. Men like women who are beautifully helpless. I’m different. I like the fighter. I’m going to stand back of you, Miss Bendley.”

“Meaning?” she asked.

“That we’re putting out to sea. That is, you are. I’m going to get you outside of civil jurisdiction on the high seas. I’m staying behind to work on the case. I’ll be in radio communication with the yacht.

“Tell me just one thing. This man, Gravy — who is he? Can I trust him?”

“Sure you can trust him. His name is Graves. He’s the butler out there, been with us for two years, and he’s a square shooter. He’s stuck up for me through thick and thin.”

Sidney Zoom stroked his chin.

“The return of Mr. Ames was rather unexpected?”

“You mean when he came back from the reception?”

“Yes.”

“Sure it was. His wife got sick — damn her, I wish she’d croaked!”

“Nothing serious?”

“No. She even forgot all about it, whatever it was, after she’d seen that the bullet had made her a fortune.”

“And you think she was glad the shooting took place?”

“Glad! I’m telling you she shot him. I don’t care how reputable your witnesses are. That woman did the murder.”

Sidney Zoom whistled to his dog, pressed his finger on an electric button. A white clad shape came softly and swiftly along the deck of the yacht.

“Put out to sea at once, Malcom. Stay beyond the twelve mile limit until you receive other orders via wireless. Understand?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Come, Rip!”

And Zoom’s feet thudded to the planking of the float, followed by the padding of the dog’s feet as the tawny shape arched through the night.

Almost at once a line hit the deck of the boat, the running lights switched on, and the motor started its rhythmic chugging.

On the rail of the boat, just aft of the pilot house, the figure of Vera Thurmond showed, her eyes straining into the night, her arm up flung in a gesture of farewell.

Beside her was the indistinct shape of the girl who had boarded the yacht under such exceptional circumstances. She was motionless, silent.

The yacht swung out on the tide, the motor speeded up and a churning of cheesy water just under the stem, marked the pulsation of the screw as the craft gracefully melted into the darkness.

Chapter IV The Adventuress

Mrs. Nettie Pease Ames regarded Sidney Zoom through tear reddened eyes.

“B-but you s-s-said you w-w-wanted to give me some information. N-n-now you’re asking questions. I w-w-would not have seen you at all so soon after the tragedy.” Sidney Zoom nodded.

“I am very sorry, madame, to intrude upon your grief; but I must get certain matters clear in my mind before I can give you the information. Then I believe I can clear up the shooting mystery and have the culprit in your hands.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“Come up to my sitting room,” she said. “There are too many servants around here.”

And the sobbing stammers had entirely disappeared from her voice.

Sidney Zoom followed her up a flight of stairs, into a room, tastefully furnished. The woman indicated a chair, facing the window, and sat opposite.

“Now spill it,” she said.

Sidney Zoom chose his words cautiously.

“I know the police feel Eve Bendley is guilty of the murder. Yet there are certain facts which haven’t as yet been satisfactorily explained.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed.

“Such as?”

“Several things. I will come to them later. In the meantime, may I ask another question? There’s no possibility that the marriage didn’t annul the will, I take it? In other words, you are the sole heir?”

The eyes widened.

“Of course, I hadn’t thought of it. I’d been so prostrated with grief. But I guess that’s right. In fact, an attorney so advised me this morning.”

Sidney Zoom smiled, a close-clipped smile of frosty humor. “Your great grief didn’t prevent you from consulting him, I take it?”

The woman crossed her legs, leaned back in her chair and grinned.

“All right. There’s no use beating around the bush. I’m a gold digger. But I married him. I’m damned glad he’s gone. I wouldn’t have helped him along any, but I knew he wouldn’t live forever when I married him. He was in the late seventies. I’m twenty-nine. You’ve suspected all this, and I might as well own up to it — privately. You ever repeat a word of this conversation and I’ll call you a liar.

“But that’s all I have been keeping under cover. As for the rest, it’s right out in the open. The girl killed Ralph Ames. I don’t know whether she did it deliberately or whether she lost her head. She was getting money out of the safe when we came in. I’d recognize her figure anywhere, man’s clothes or woman’s. I know the way she carries head, the little swing she has to her shoulders.”

Sidney Zoom smiled.

“Thanks for being frank. You know, of course, that the girl only took the money from the safe that was due her under the bonus agreement with Mr. ’Ames.”

“I know nothing of the sort!” snapped the woman. “I know that the books she kept had been doctored, and I have an idea there was a lot more money in the safe than she admitted or acknowledged in her books.

“And I know something else. I know that she has been traced to the waterfront, that she was dressed in men’s clothes and tried to stow away on a freighter. I know that she was in a brawl with a bunch of sailors, and that some man who was about your build rescued her.

“Now you haven’t told me what your interest is in this case and I don’t know as you need to. But I’ll tell you something. You either get that girl into the hands of the police, or I’ll charge you with being an accessory!”

Sidney Zoom lit his cigarette, regarded the blazing eyes of the woman, and smiled, his frosty smile of cold humor.

“Very well, Mrs. Ames. Now we understand each other perfectly. If you’ll dismiss the charge you made against the girl of theft and embezzlement, I’ll have her come back here to answer the murder charge.”

The laugh which greeted this comment was coarse and mocking.

“Go jump in a lake! The jury might acquit her on the murder charge. Juries have been known to do fool things. But I’ve got her dead to rights on the theft. I’m going to see she has plenty to occupy her mind for a while.”

Sidney Zoom crossed his long legs, and sighed.

“Yes, of course,” he said, “after—”

“After what?”

“After you catch her, of course.”

The woman’s face mottled with dull rage.

“Go ahead and wise crack,” she said. “See what it gets you.”

She reached for the telephone.

“Police headquarters?” asked Sidney Zoom, courteously.

“No,” she snapped. “I’ve no confidence in the police. I have a private agency at work on this, and they’ll pick you up from the time you leave here and tell me where you go and what you do.”

Sidney Zoom arose and bowed.

“I enjoyed the chat, anyway. I suppose you’ll be the heart-broken widow with the red eyes the next time I see you.”

“Don’t be a damned fool,” sneered the woman. “Of course I will.”

And, holding the telephone ready for her call with her right hand, she reached for a small bottle with her left, and drew it under her nose. Almost instantly tears welled into her eyes and trickled slowly down her cheeks. The eyes themselves reddened and the lids became swollen.

Sidney Zoom turned the knob of the door.

“Good day,” he said.

The woman made no answer. She was giving a number to the telephone, a number which was, doubtless, the telephone number of the private detective agency, just as she had threatened.

Sidney Zoom closed the door, paused in the hallway.

A shadowy figure flitted from an adjoining door on noiseless feet. A long, bony finger was pressed crosswise upon thin lips. Gray eyes that set like jewels in a fine network of smile wrinkles, regarded Sidney Zoom with stem speculation. Then the bony finger left the lips, crooked in a gesture of beckoning, and the man led the way down the corridor.

Sidney Zoom followed.

Within a small bedroom on the ground floor, back of the kitchen, the figure once more confronted Sidney Zoom.

“You saw her?” husked a hoarse whisper.

Sidney Zoom laughed.

“You’re Graves, I take it.”

The man nodded, slowly, solemnly.

“She always called me Gravy,” he remarked.

“You mean the girl?”

The nod was quick and eager this time.

“You’re her friend?” asked the butler.

Sidney Zoom smiled. “Right at present I’m an investigator, getting certain facts together.”

The butler’s face twisted into a smile.

“Beg pardon, sir, but I was listening, sir, at the doorway, you know. It’s a prerogative of servants, sir. I heard — and, if you’ll pardon my saying so, sir, I know you’re a friend of the girl.”

And the gray eyes twinkled from their network of radiating wrinkles.

Sidney Zoom answered the smile.

The butler lowered his voice to a mere whisper.

“If they catch her, sir, I’m going to swear that the shot came from the other direction. I know she didn’t fire that shot. Why, she wasn’t the kind. She’s so tender hearted she wouldn’t hurt a fly, sir.”

Sidney Zoom smiled again.

“She didn’t impress me as being particularly soft,” he remarked.

The affirmation of the butler was eager.

“Yes, sir. That’s right, sir. She isn’t, sir. But with those she likes she’s always thinking of anybody but herself. I had to urge her to get the money in the way she did. And yet it was hers, sir. By every right and every justice it was hers!”

The gray eyes were blazing with earnestness now, and an anxious hand groped for the lapel of Sidney Zoom’s coat.

Chapter V Clews in the Yard

“Of course, sir, you know that I was the one that gave her the idea in the first place. Probably I shouldn’t say so, sir. But I don’t want her to take all the blame. I guess I’m an accessory or something in the eyes of the law; but it was a mistake of the head and not of the heart, sir.

“I tell you what I’m afraid of, sir. I’m afraid that our conversation was overheard, and some one was lying in wait to grab the money from her. Or perhaps, it was that blond adventuress, after all, sir. Miss Eve swears that the shot came from the other side of the room, and it sounded so to me, sir.”

Sidney Zoom let his eyes bore into the gray eyes with their puckered wrinkles radiating from the corners.

“Very well, Graves, could you swear to that?”

“Swear to it, sir! I’ll tell the world, I’ll swear to it. I’d even swear to anything that wasn’t the truth to help the young lady out. And this is the truth, sir. That shot sounded from the back of the room, sir.”

“But the bullet,” said Sidney Zoom, speaking with the finality of a judge pronouncing sentence, “entered Mr. Ames’s chest and came out at his back. Every one agrees that he was running after the masked figure.”

The butler twisted his mouth in a grimace. For several long seconds he seemed lost in thought.

“Do you know, sir, I believe it was some one standing just outside the house, sir, in the yard. That would account for the peculiar sound of the explosion. The window in the south-east corner of the room was open. A man could have fired through that window, and—”

“Show me,” snapped Sidney Zoom, his voice clipping off the words with machine gun precision.

The butler went to the door, opened it, peered cautiously up and down the corridor.

“Come,” he said.

Sidney Zoom followed him to a wider corridor that went past the kitchen, through a door, and walked down a carpeted passageway. A long room opened before him.

“This was where it was done,” whispered the butler.

Sidney Zoom surveyed the room, the safe in one comer, the entrance hall from the outer door, then, after he had given these things a close inspection, followed the direction of the butler’s pointing finger.

He saw a window in an alcove, open.

“It’s nearly always left open, sir.”

Zoom regarded the window, the interior of the room again.

“The body fell here?” he asked.

“Just about, sir.”

“The shot might have come through the window, all right. If the old man had been partially turned it could very readily have come from the window.”

The butler nodded eager acquiescence.

“What I thought, sir, was that perhaps some one standing outside the window might have made a motion, and the old man half turned and caught it square in the chest.”

Zoom pursed his lips.

“Have you looked outside the window?”

“No, sir, I haven’t, sir. Fact of the matter is, I’m mixed up in this too much as it is.”

Zoom strode toward the window.

“Have a care, sir. She’s a devil, that adventuress. If she finds you—”

“Bosh!” snapped Sidney Zoom. “Look here, Graves. Here are foot-prints in the soil out here. Have they been made recently?”

“I couldn’t say, sir. If you would not mind, sir, I’d like to leave the room—”

“Bosh again, Graves. Don’t be so frightened of her. You want to help Miss Eve, don’t you? Very well, then, you’d better stick by me for a little while. How can we get outside from here without using the front door?”

“Right this way, sir. Back of the curtain are French doors, sir.”

Sidney Zoom walked to the curtains, pushed them apart, strode through the doors and began to examine the loamy soil which fringed the cement walk running around the house.

“Look here, Graves. This is serious. See where a box was planted in the soft loam there? And it looks as though some one had stood on it! And look here. Here’s a perfect footprint!”

The butler bent down.

“Yes, sir. So it is, sir. But I’d rather not mix in it any further—”

Sidney Zoom grasped the man by the shoulder, whirled him back against the side of the house.

“Now, Graves, come dean. You’re trying to duck out of this because you think you know who was standing out here. Tell me the truth and talk fast.”

The butler gulped, stammered, swallowed with audible effort, then began to spill words with a rapidity that was almost hysterical.

“Amos Style, sir. He claims to be a cousin of the adventuress. But I think he’s a son of hers by a former marriage. She’s altogether too fond of him for a mere cousin, sir, and he’s nothing but a callow lad. He comes to visit her and stays here in the house a large part of the time.

“If the woman wanted Mr. Ames out of the way quickly, she could have conspired with her son to do the trick — if he is her son. And the fact that Mr. Ames just happened to find Miss Eve at the safe, sir, was in the nature of a coincidence, and—”

Sidney Zoom regarded the imprint of the foot in the soft soil, the oblong indentation that had marked the place where the end of the wooden box was placed.

“Stays here in the house, eh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Here now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Could you get me his left shoe?”

The butler sighed.

“I don’t know, sir, but I can try. I’d do anything for Miss Eve, sir.”

And Graves melted away, as furtively silent as a shadow, as swift as a stalking cat.

Sidney Zoom leaned forward and searched the ground, inch by inch.

Between the cement walk and the side of the house there had been dwarf shrubbery planted. Between these shrubs there were stretches of bare ground, and it was in these bits of bare ground that the incriminating depressions were found.

But Sidney Zoom parted the little branches, looked with the intentness of a hawk searching good game cover.

And his search was rewarded.

A little glitter of metal struck his eyes, and he stooped. There was a brass cartridge of the type automatically ejected from a gun known as an automatic.

Sidney Zoom picked up the cartridge in his handkerchief, lest he should destroy some of the fingerprints on it. He renewed his search, and found the blued steel of a barrel sticking up from the base of one of the plants.

Once again he used his handkerchief, and dragged to light a small automatic, the same caliber as the shell, the same caliber as the bullet which had resulted in the death of Ralph C. Ames.

Sidney Zoom covered the evidence with the handkerchief, placed it in his pocket, straightened up from his search.

Almost at once he heard a door close, and then Graves came cat-treading down the cement.

“I’ve got it, sir!”

Sidney Zoom took the shoe from his hand, bent down and fitted the sole to the impression in the ground.

The fit was perfect.

“Good God!” exclaimed the butler. “You’ll notify the police of this?”

“That,” remarked Sidney Zoom, “depends upon a variety of things. Thanks, Graves, for your cooperation.”

“You’ll tell her I’m willing to do anything for her, sir?”

“If I see her?”

“Well, will you see her?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Sidney Zoom. Then, as he saw the gray eyes film with disappointment, he flashed the man a reassuring smile. “Not right away, Graves, but later, perhaps. I’ll tell her then.”

And he strode down the cement walk, went to his roadster, where Rip was growling at a man with an undershot jaw and a cauliflower ear who stood on the sidewalk, studying the car. Slightly behind him, parked at the curb, was an automobile. At the wheel of this car sat a thin individual with a beak-like nose and a catfish mouth.

Sidney Zoom bowed to them both. He climbled in his roadster and pressed his foot on the starter. The car purred into motion, and the man with the cauliflower ear hopped into the other machine, which promptly swung out into traffic.

Three blocks down the street another machine, driven by a woman, casually cut in ahead of the car with the two private detectives. Thereafter, Sidney Zoom made certain highly intricate maneuvers. The car with the two men got lost in the shuffle.

The other machine, driven by a baby-faced brunette, somehow or other managed to show up after Zoom had finished his turns and twists from one street to another.

But Zoom paid no attention to that machine, which fact brought the faintest suggestion of a gleam of triumph to the baby-faced brunette.

Chapter VI Past History

Sidney Zoom lounged back in the chair at police headquarters. Captain Berkeley, seated across the desk, stared at a typewritten report which had been handed him by a messenger.

“Report of the finger-print expert?” asked Zoom, casually.

“Yes — and of the ordnance expert, too.”

“Indeed,” said Sidney Zoom, his eagerness showing in the crispness of his tone. “And what did they discover?”

Captain Berkeley drummed on the battered desk for a few seconds, the tips of his fingers beating a nervous tattoo.

“Zoom,” he remarked, “you’re in wrong.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. You’ve allowed yourself to become prejudiced against Mrs. Ames. And you’ve pulled your usual big-hearted stunt of falling for the hard luck story of a girl in misfortune—”

Sidney Zoom’s tone was hard as he interrupted.

“All of which is preliminary to stating what?”

“To stating,” snapped Captain Berkeley, “that the fatal bullet was undoubtedly fired from this weapon. But every finger-print on it is the print of Miss Eve Bendley — the person, by the way, who did the shooting.

“Probably she tossed the gun out of the window after the shooting. We’re tracing the numbers, but haven’t had a complete report yet.”

Sidney Zoom pursed his lips, a habit of his when thinking.

“You’re right about one thing,” said Captain Berkeley in a more gentle voice, “the so-called cousin is in reality the son of the widow. His real name is Amos Pease. She was a Nettie Pease. What’s happened to the husband is shrouded in mystery.

“I’ve got her history here for the last ten years, however. She’s been mixed up in all sorts of shady transactions. A man named Harry Garford was her partner for years. Finally, in Oregon, they were apprehended in connection with some minor crime. The authorities were determined to punish them, and made the bail pretty high.

“But they raised the bail, got out, and were formally married. Then, when the case came to trial, each refused to testify on the grounds that such testimony would be that of a husband against a wife, and a wife against a husband, which has always been considered a confidential relationship in they eyes of the law.

“The case was, of course, dropped, and they went to Idaho, then drifted into Nevada. Garford dropped from sight a couple of years ago. Nettie Pease, or Garford, to give her right name, seems to have steadied down a bit.

“Garford had a criminal record. Nettie Pease Garford had none. She was arrested several times, but there was never enough evidence to make a case.

“Undoubtedly, she played her cards deliberately when she ran into Ralph Ames, claimed her son was her cousin, dropped about ten years from her official age, and managed to marry him. But how the devil she did it is more than I know. There must be some story in the background there.

“Anyhow, all of that doesn’t change the facts. The girl did the killing. You haven’t said so, but I have a hunch the girl is on that yacht of yours. Now then, do you want to surrender her, or have us go and get her?”

And Captain Berkeley’s eyes glinted ominously.

“I don’t think—” began Sidney Zoom.

“You never do,” interrupted the police captain. “You cruise around the city at night, picking up flotsam and listening to the hard luck stories. Every one you befriend you think is as pure as the driven snow. I’ll admit that your hunches have been pretty fair, and you seem to know human nature pretty well, but this is once you’ve made a mistake.

“The department would hate like the very devil to have to name you as an accessory, or get hard with you. But the department would hate a damned sight worse to have that girl slip through its fingers.

“So you’ve got until five o’clock tonight to produce that girl. If she isn’t in custody by that time we’ll go get her, and we’ll put a charge against you.

“That’s final.”

Sidney Zoom smiled, looked at his watch.

“I have precisely five hours and thirty seven minutes.”

“All right.”

“Will you go to lunch with me, captain?”

The officer grinned and got to his feet.

“Okay. But you have that jane here by five o’clock, or you’ll be having lunch with me at this time to-morrow.”

Sidney Zoom smiled by way of reply, escorted the captain to his car, drove him to one of the most exclusive lunch places in the city, purchased a meal which made the officer stretch back in his chair and sigh contentedly.

“Captain,” said Sidney Zoom, “I have a favor to ask.”

“What is it?”

“I’ll have my yacht in dock at five o’clock. The girl will be aboard. But I want you to come personally to make the arrest, without a word to the newspapers. And I want you to give me three hours after you come aboard to prove to you that there may be more to this case than you suspect.”

A frown crossed the official forehead.

“That’s the worst of you damned amateurs. You get sold on the innocence of some baby-face and then overlook all the proof in the world! I tell you, Zoom, you’ll be the laughing stock of the department.”

Sidney Zoom beckoned a very attractive lady who carried a tray supported by shoulder straps.

“A perfecto for the captain!” he said.

She came smilingly toward them, bent solicitously over the officer, struck a match when he had selected a cigar.

“Is that a promise?” asked Sidney Zoom.

Captain Berkeley glanced at the tip of the fifty cent cigar and smiled.

“Yes,” he said.

And in a far comer of the room a baby-faced brunette with innocent eyes, made a surreptitious notation upon a leather covered notebook which she slipped adroitly from the top of her stocking.

Chapter VII Ambushed

The Alberta F. swung into the mooring float. The men tossed lines, jumped from yacht to float with frenzied rapidity, raced against the thrust of the tide. The white yacht was snubbed, warped gently into the float.

Captain Berkeley and Sidney Zoom stepped aboard.

Vera Thurmond met them.

“Oh, I hope you’ve solved it! She’s the nicest girl, when you get to know her!”

Captain Berkeley twisted the cigar in his mouth, savagely.

“Yes,” he said, shortly, “we’ve solved it I’m sorry, Miss Thurmond, but you folks are in the wrong this time.”

The officer stepped aboard, went to an inner cabin, where the formalities of completing the arrest were speedily complied with. Eve Bendley stared at the officer, then at Sidney Zoom, shrugged her shoulders.

“Fortunes of war,” she said.

Sidney Zoom smiled reassuringly at his secretary.

“Now, Berkeley, I’ve given you a fair deal. Will you give me one?”

“Meaning?” asked the officer.

“Meaning that I’ve surrendered the girl on the dot as I promised. Now I want you to turn your official back on things for three hours.”

“And what happens to the prisoner?”

“Lock her in a cabin, handcuff her to Vera Thurmond, call another officer to watch her, anything you want.”

“And then?”

“Walk with me to the end of the wharf, don’t register any surprise at anything I may say. Then come back to the boat, stay here for three hours, and then meet me at the end of the wharf again.”

Captain Berkeley frowned, took a cigar from his pocket and meditatively regarded the end.

“Sounds simple,” he commented.

The two young woman watched him with anxious eyes.

“All right,” he said.

“Fine,” commented Zoom. “Now we’ll walk to the end of the wharf.”

And it was then Captain Berkeley did that which cemented a firm friendship throughout the years to come with Sidney Zoom.

“Miss Thurmond,” he said, “I’m paroling my prisoner in your charge,” and, with the words, stepped to the mooring float and followed Sidney Zoom up the steep ladder stairs which led to the wharf above.

They strolled through the gathering dusk, Sidney Zoom, tall, almost gaunt, the police dog padding gravely at his side; Captain Berkeley, puzzled, saying nothing.

For a long seven hundred feet the big wharf stretched, an abandoned commercial dock on one side, Sidney Zoom’s private mooring float on the other. A long warehouse partially covered the wharf. For the rest, it was littered with various piles of old lumber, odds and ends of various articles collected from years of service.

At the street side of the wharf Sidney Zoom turned to the officer and extended his hand.

“Very well, captain. It’s now precisely five twenty-one. At exactly eight o’clock I shall meet you here again. And you’ll have the pictures and complete police record of this Harry Garford.”

Captain Berkeley tensed.

“Huh?” he said.

“Thanks,” remarked Sidney Zoom. “I’m certain the matter will be cleared at that time. Good night.”

And Sidney Zoom, followed by his tawny police dog, paced out into the gathering darkness. Captain Berkeley grunted and walked back to the yacht. From behind a pile of lumber, a baby-faced brunette with eyes that were utterly expressionless, oozed as a surreptitious shadow, sprinted for a roadster that had been parked behind the shadow of a warehouse.

The powerful roadster of Sidney Zoom snorted out into the twilight. The other roadster, keeping well behind, followed it as a hawk might trail a scurrying bevy of frightened quail.

Nor did Sidney Zoom glance back, or go to any trouble to disguise where he was going. He drove directly to police headquarters, and the baby-faced brunette trailed him every foot of the way.

He was closeted within the grim walls of stone and steel for nearly an hour. Then he emerged and reentered his roadster. His shadow was nowhere in evidence. There were two men, clumsy, heavy-footed, beady-eyed, parked in a touring car. These men made an effort to follow him. But Sidney Zoom, more watchful than when the shadow had been the brunette, detected their presence and spun his car in a figure eight around a dozen blocks, swung into the boulevard traffic and then, disregarding all rules and regulations, made a complete turn about and rushed madly in the opposite direction, his throttle held near to the floor boards.

Thereafter he saw no more of the touring car with the two private detectives.

Precisely at eight o’clock, Sidney Zoom sent his car into the curb back of the warehouse, switched off the ignition, jumped out, and motioned to his dog.

That which followed was rather peculiar, for Sidney Zoom took the dog’s head in his hands and talked to him, low-voiced, connected conversation which seemed more the type of conversation one would carry on with an intelligent child than with a dog.

The dog wagged his tail, glided off into the darkness.

Sidney Zoom looked at his watch.

Heavy feet, assured, authoritative, deliberate, sounded on the boards of the wharf.

“Hello,” said Zoom. “Did you manage to get the pictures?”

Captain Berkeley grunted.

“Then,” said Sidney Zoom in a low voice, “reach for your gun.”

Captain Berkeley paused stock still to stare.

There was a blur of dark motion from behind a pile of empty gasoline drums. The darkness gave forth the sound of a low growl, ominous, menacing. The planks of the wharf reverberated to four feet thudding at a full gallop.

Fire streaked from the darkness, and answering fire stabbed from Sidney Zoom’s hand. The dog barked once. A man screamed. A woman shouted some shrill command. More spurts of fire ripping the darkness. Bullets crashed through the night air, splintering the boards, glancing from metallic objects with long drawn snarls.

Captain Berkeley, veteran of years on the force, was down behind the nearest gasoline drum at the first sound of firing. By the time the third shot had been fired, his service revolver was out of its holster and barking an answer.

Once more there came the muffled thunder of padded four feet charging at a gallop. The scream of the woman knifed the night. There was a low, throaty growl.

“Steady, Rip!” called Sidney Zoom, and began to ran, heedless of the danger which the night might hold. He ran directly toward the sound of that scream, the noise of that ominous growl.

Captain Berkeley lumbered into a flat-footed charge.

“I surrender!” shrilled a frightened voice from the darkness.

Chapter VIII

The electric flash light of Captain Berkeley sent a white beam into the night, turning the black piles into dazzling brilliance.

Against the black background, a pair of white hands, stretched high above a barricade of empty boxes, caught the gleam of the light. There was a strained, drawn face below those upraised hands, a sagging mouth, eyes that bulged with terror.

“Take him, captain!” said Zoom, and continued in the direction from which the growl had sounded.

He found that which he sought, a woman shrinking from the bloody fangs of the growling animal. On the planking of the wharf was the glitter of a weapon. The right wrist of the woman bore red splotches where the teeth of the animal had locked and tom as he wrested the gun from her wrist.

Sidney Zoom grasped the dog by the collar, pulled him back, kicked the gun out of the way.

“Go find, Rip,” he said.

And the dog rushed out in a great, questing half circle.

A revolver spat twice. A man’s feet pounded the planks. They were the feet of a man who ran lightly, on his toes, running as a trained sprinter runs. But behind him came the tattoo of dog’s feet, and those feet cut down the distance with a savage swiftness.

A growl, a tawny shadow in the air, the thud of an impact! The running form of the man skidded over the rough planks, rolled, twitched and lay still as the dog stood over him, fangs snarling at his throat, wolf eyes gleaming with blood lust.

Ten minutes later the three prisoners were on the yacht, getting wounds bandaged, a surly, shifty-eyed crowd of thwarted criminals.

“All right,” said Captain Berkeley, turning to Sidney Zoom, “spill it!”

Zoom laughed.

“So absurdedly simple it seemed complicated,” he replied. “So obvious that it almost escaped observation. The girl was advised to rob the safe and wear a mask by the butler. There was no need for her to wear a mask, really no pressing need for her to rob the safe.

“But, notice the significant fact that Ralph Ames returns with two responsible witnesses at the exact time that will surprise the young lady at the safe. That time, concededly, was controlled by Mrs. Ames, who became ill and insisted upon being taken home from the reception.

“Notice, also, the significant fact that Garford, the woman’s accomplice, has vanished from police ken for approximately two years — almost exactly the length of time Graves, the butler, had been working for Ralph C. Ames.

“What more natural than that Garford alias Graves, knowing that the police were on his trail, and wishing to lay low for a while, should forge references and secure the position of butler to Ames? What more natural than that he should insinuate himself into the good graces of Ames and his secretary so that he could naturally bring about the entrance of his woman accomplice into the picture?

“Between them they worked the old man skillfully enough so that he actually married the woman. Then they wanted his fortune, wanted it quick before there should be any chance of Ames discovering how he had been duped.

“So, Garford, posing as Graves, the efficient butler, and the stanch friend of Miss Bendley, talked her into putting on men’s clothes and robbing the safe, with a mask over her features. Then he arranged to have Ames, accompanied by unimpeachable witnesses, walk in on the affair. He knew Ames well enough, hot-headed, irascible, tight-fisted, he would naturally pursue a running figure.

“And Graves, wearing a mask, dressed as the girl was dressed, stepped into the doorway where he could be seen by the witnesses, shot the old man and then slipped off his mask and became once more the loyal butler.

“But he made the mistake of gilding the lily. He wanted the police to get the gun with which the killing was done. This gun doubtless belonged to Miss Bendley, and could be traced to her by the police. Also it had her finger-prints-on it.

“So Graves, or Garford, planted the gun where I would find it, and turn it into the police. But he overlooked the fact that Miss Bendley couldn’t have tossed the gun there after the killing, that she had rushed from the house immediately after the shooting. Finding the gun where it was, pointed conclusively to the fact that some one other than Miss Bendley had fired the fatal shot.

“But the butler was damnedly clever in letting me in on what he knew the police would soon discover, that the supposed cousin was, in reality, the woman’s son.

“When he had his private detectives shadowing me, and learned I hadn’t been fooled, but intended to get the pictures and record of Garford, he had two alternatives, flight, or to take the chance of killing and effectually silencing our lips.

“I had hoped they would resort to flight, but the bait of Ames’s estate was too much. They decided to risk everything on silencing us until after the woman could collect at least a part of the estate.

“I felt certain they would either flee or be waiting for us—”

It was the woman who interrupted.

“Well, you’ve been damned smart. But you can’t stop me from getting that money. Mr. Ames made a will. That was revoked by his marriage. The girl is no relation to him. I’m the only legal relative he has in the world. And even if a jury would believe your story, the money will, of course, go in my family!”

Sidney Zoom shook his head, mournfully, solemnly.

“Perhaps you’ve forgotten that you were forced to marry Garford, legally. That marriage has never been dissolved. Therefore your marriage to Ames was bigamous, merely an empty ceremony, and not legal. As a result the will was never revoked. It’s just as good now as the day it was written.”

The woman’s eyes widened with a sudden realization of the full import of Sidney Zoom’s words. She muttered an exclamation, sank back in her chair.

Captain Berkeley caught Zoom’s eye.

“Just a minute now, Zoom. The girl’s imprints were on the gun. We’ve traced the numbers and can show she picked it up in a pawnshop, and—”

“Of course,” said Zoom. “The butler planned the thing well from the first. It was the girl’s gun. She’d kept it in her room. Naturally her finger-prints would be on it. Garford simply took it, wearing gloves, of course, shot the man, tossed the gun to one side and later cast it out of the window.

“And he tried to throw me off the track by digging up clews that would seem at first to point to the girl’s innocence, but later would serve to clinch the case against her. He simply borrowed the gun for the murder, knowing the bullet would be traced to the gun, the gun to the girl.”

Captain Berkeley got to his feet.

“I think I hear the wagon,” he said. “Zoom, I think we’ve got a case here a jury will act on, and do it damned quick. Help me escort the prisoners to the wagon, will you?”