The Casebook of Sidney Zoom

Chapter I The Girl with Diamonds

The city was, for the most part, dark and silent. The theatrical district glowed with light. The narrow streets of Chinatown gave forth whisperings to the night as slithering feet slid along the pavement. The financial district was grim and gloomy, business houses were dark.

Between Chinatown and the theatrical district there was a street which glowed with lighted windows. This was the pawnshop district. Human misery, like human pain, becomes more acute at night, and the pawnbrokers in this district did much of their business around midnight.

Drab shadows flitted through this district on furtive feet, pausing now and again momentarily, then plunging into one of the lighted interiors, shortly to emerge and slink back into the realm of darkness which bordered the pawnshop lane.

Midnight boomed the hour.

The financial district, which was to the east, gave forth the sound of foot-steps. These steps contained nothing of the furtive. They echoed from the cold pavements with the rhythmic regularity of some metronome of fate. The footsteps were audible some seconds before the figure became visible. Then he strode into the half illumination of pawnshop lane, six feet odd of whipcorded strength, grim, gaunt, uncompromising. At his side padded a police dog.

That strange personality, known as Sidney Zoom, pacing the midnight streets, police dog at his side, hawk eyes utterly untamed, paused to scan the furtive figures which glided through the district where human misery might secure temporary relief, for sufficient collateral.

For some half minute he stood, surveying, appraising. Then he strode through the length of the narrow thoroughfare and was about to vanish into the darkness once more, when a figure arrested his attention.

She was young, attractive, well formed. A shabby coat was hugged about her figure with something of an air, as though it had been a coat of sable instead of cheap shoddy. The face was held rigidly, impersonally to the front, as becomes a young lady who must walk the night streets unescorted, yet wishes to convey no false impression.

Outwardly she was calm, cool, poised. Yet there was something about her which spoke of anxiety. Perhaps it was in the swiftly nervous beat of her tiny feet upon the pavement; perhaps it was in the way she hugged the coat about her Figure, as though it had been a shield.

Sidney Zoom’s eyes, as colorless as those of a hawk, and as keen, fastened upon her. At his side, the dog whined. Sidney Zoom turned, followed.

For two blocks they walked. The girl’s feet patting the pavement with short, nervous steps, as rapid and sharp as the beating of an excited heart. Behind her, Sidney Zoom’s feet banged upon the pavement at explosive intervals as his long legs swung through the night.

The girl paused at a door above which hung the conventional gilded balls. It was as though she waited to muster courage. Then her hand pushed the door open.

Sidney Zoom entered behind her. The dog crouched upon the pavement, tawny muzzle dropped to his paws, yellow eyes watchfully alert.

A thin figure with stooped shoulders and a bald head, upon the back of which was a black skull cap, came shuffling to the counter from a back room.

His eyes were watery, showing a great fatigue with life, yet there was uncanny wisdom in their watery depths. They were eyes that could flicker to a face and appraise character.

A cigarette drooped from the thin lips. Yet the air of the place was thick with heavy cigar smoke.

Sidney Zoom sniffed that cigar smoke, let his eyes fasten upon the cigarette, and then his lips clamped together. He knew the meaning of that cigar smoke. The detectives were waiting for something “hot.”

The girl half turned, shot an anguished glance at Sidney Zoom. It was evident that she would have preferred to transact her business without an audience.

“Wait on him first,” she said.

The thin man with the slithering feet and the drooping cigarette started to shuffle toward Sidney Zoom. That individual waved his hand.

“I shall be some little time,” he said. “I want to see about purchasing a watch,” and he bent over the counter upon which the watches were displayed under glass, giving every outward indication of being so utterly absorbed in his inspection as to be oblivious of what was going on in the place.

The thin man raised his watery eyes to the girl’s face.

“Well?” he asked.

The girl’s hand darted from beneath the folds of her shabby coat. She held it over the glass of the show case, then made a little flinging gesture.

Hard pellets of frozen fire rattled over the glass, sent coruscating beams of glittering light flaming about the place. There were half a dozen diamonds, and they were of sufficient size to make a respectable showing.

“How much,” said the girl in a voice that quavered, “for the lot?”

The thin man swooped out a swift hand, scooping the pellets into a little group, as though his cautious soul rebelled at the liberal gesture with which the girl’s hand had flipped them away.

“They are unset,” he said.

The girl made no comment. None was necessary. The fact was self evident.

The pawnbroker fastened a jeweler’s glass to his right spectacle, picked up the stones, examined them.

“But,” he said slowly, “they have been set, and have been pried from their settings.”

Leaning over the watch counter, Sidney Zoom noticed that the man had raised his voice, knew that this was for the benefit of the man who remained in the back room, smoking heavy cigars.

The girl asked her question again, in a monotone.

“How much for the lot?”

The pawnbroker’s voice was quite loud now.

“You are the same girl who has been in here before, yes? And these stones are of peculiar sizes. They weren’t stones from a necklace. They were taken from rings and stickpins, and they have been pried...”

Chapter II Hot Ice

The smoky entrance to the back room framed a hulking figure. A hat was back on one side of his head. From beneath the hat showed a shock of black hair. Insolent eyes surveyed the world in scornful appraisal. Thick lips held a half-smoked cigar clamped rigidly. Broad shoulders swung half sideways to clear the narrow doorway.

“All right, sister,” he said: “where did you get ’em?”

And he flipped back a casual hand to his coat lapel, let her eyes catch the gleam of a silvered badge.

“Oh!” she said, and the exclamation was almost a scream.

Her hand darted for the diamonds.

They moved with quickness, those two. The pawnbroker swooped his clawlike fingers upon the diamonds. The detective did not reach for the stones. He slammed his great paw down upon the lean wrist, held it in the grip of a vise.

“Say-y-y-y!” he said, the word having a snarling emphasis, “none o’ that! I asked you where you got ’em.”

The girl’s face showed conflicting emotions.

“I... I can’t tell.”

“She the one that’s been in here before, Moe?”

“Yeah.”

“All right, sister, you’re goin’ by-by in a wagon with wire over it. Better kick through right now. If you come clean we might give you a break.”

“I— No, no— I won’t!”

The detective laughed. The laugh was a sneer, coarse, grating.

“Th’ hell you won’t,” he said.

And he pulled glittering bracelets of steel from the vicinity of his left hip. His right hand still held the girl’s wrist.

“Take a look at these,” he invited.

The girl shook her head.

“I won’t tell. I don’t care what you do to me.”

The detective grunted.

“S’pose I tell then, if you won’t?”

His eyes were scornful, sneering. The girl’s face showed panic.

“You know?” she asked.

“Sure, I know. You’re a friend of Sally Barker, an’ Sally Barker’s the housekeeper out at Jake Goldfinch’s place. And Goldfinch got bumped off about five thirty this evening and there is a hell of a lot of diamonds missing. Now are you goin’ to talk?”

The effect of his words was magical. The girl began to talk, swiftly, almost hysterically.

“Yes, yes, now I’ll talk. I wasn’t going to get Sally into trouble. I wasn’t going to mention her name. But if you know of her it’s all right. Only I don’t want her to think that I was the one that told. You must explain that to her.

“It was yesterday that Mr. Goldfinch called Sally into his room. He told her that he was getting to be an old man. He said he hadn’t made any provision for her in his will. He said that he was leaving these diamonds in a vase over his desk, that if anything happened to him Sally was to take these diamonds at once and pawn them.

“He made her promise that she wouldn’t wait a minute, that she’d take the stones and sell them for the best price she could get. He said he wanted her to have them instead of taking anything from his estate. She’d been with him for years, you know.”

The detective grunted.

“Yeah,” he said, “I know.” And he winked at the pawnbroker, then moved toward the telephone, picked up the receiver.

“Gimme police headquarters,” he said.

There was a moment of silence, then the detective’s voice rumbled through a formula.

“Let me talk with Sergeant Gilfillan... Hello, sergeant. This is Renfoe talking. I’ve got the frail in the Goldfinch case and she was loaded with the hot ice. Came into the pawnshop. Yeah, I’m bringin’ her down... Okay... Okay, g’by.”

He hung up the telephone.

The thin man with the stooped shoulders and the bald head moved shufflingly over to where Sidney Zoom leaned against the counter.

“Watches?” he asked.

“I want,” said Sidney Zoom, “a watch that is of a particular make, and you do not seem to have one.”

The thin man lost interest in the detective and the girl in order to make a sale.

“I have here,” he proclaimed, “the best watches in the country. Don’t you want a good watch?”

Sidney Zoom raised his voice.

“I want a square deal, and I want to see that every one else gets a square deal.”

The girl started at the timbre of that voice, as solemnly resonant as the tone of a rich violin.

The pawnbroker looked puzzled.

“Don’t you believe my watches are the best in the country?” he asked.

Sidney Zoom’s voice retained its solemn timbre.

“I disbelieve in nothing,” he remarked, “not even in a divine justice which works through strange channels to see that wrongs are righted.”

And he strode calmly to the outer door, pushed it open, and walked into the night, leaving behind him a startled, sagging jawed pawnbroker, a very puzzled young woman, and a scowling detective.

Chapter III The Murder Room

Sergeant Huntington regarded Sidney Zoom speculatively. Little puckers appeared at the corners of the keen eyes.

“I don’t know too much about it. Sergeant Gilfillan’s been handling most of the case. It broke around supper time to-night. Understand the old man was murdered, stabbed with a knife, I believe. We’ve got one of the brightest detectives on the force working on it. Think he came in a little while ago.”

He jabbed a button with his forefinger. A head bobbed in through a doorway.

“Tell Jack Hargrave to come in here,” rumbled the sergeant.

The head was withdrawn, the door dosed. Seconds lengthened into minutes. Neither Zoom nor Huntington made any further comment.

The door abruptly opened. A young man with keen eyes, a whimsical smile at the corners of his mouth, walking lightly, easily upon the balls of his feet, stepped into the room.

“Hargrave, shake hands with Sidney Zoom. Hargrave’s the brightest young detective on the force. Zoom’s a man who butts into a case once in a while, makes everybody sore, and usually turns out to be one hundred per cent right.”

The two men shook hands.

“Want to show Zoom around on the Goldfinch case?” asked Sergeant Huntington.

Jack Hargrave turned on the balls of his feet, his every motion as swiftly efficient as a prize fighter going into action.

“Let’s go,” he said.

It was the first word he had said since entering the room.

Sidney Zoom reached for his hat, grinned, strode his long length of gaunt strength toward the door. Jack Hargrave moved at his side, as smoothly and easily as water running along a flume.

They went down a flight of stairs, stale with the stench of poor ventilation, out into the crisp air of the night. Hargrave indicated a roadster with red spotlight and police siren.

Sidney Zoom got into the car.

“My dog,” he said.

The tawny police dog was watching his master with expectant eyes. He had been wailing just outside the door of police headquarters.

The detective flipped back a rumble seat.

The dog gathered his feet, crouched, sailed through the air, lit neatly and accurately upon the rumble seat. Hargrave crawled in behind the wheel, slammed the door, stepped on the starter.

The car ripped into speed, skidded at the corner. The siren was wailing by the time it hit the center of the car tracks and tore through the almost deserted street. Hargrave handled the wheel with the easy precision of one who is utterly certain of his muscular coordination.

Fifteen minutes and they drew up before a dark, forbidding mansion which sat back from the road, surrounded by a gloomy iron fence. A policeman was strolling at the gate of this fence on patrol. A police car was in the driveway, back of the swinging gates which had provided a carriage entrance in earlier days.

Hargrave switched off the ignition, stepped to the curb.

“Hello, Haggerty.”

The uniformed policeman stepped to one side.

“Evening, sir.”

They went up the walk, Jack Hargrave first, stepping with the latent power of a coiled spring; Zoom second, striding grimly, purposefully; the dog third, padding behind his master with that cautious strength which a wolf might display in stalking a deer.

They went up the wooden steps of the porch, through the door into a corridor which smelled musty. The atmosphere of the house reeked of death and decay.

A man with broad shoulders and a bull neck stepped out of a room, looked at Hargrave.

“Hello, Jack.”

“Hello, Phil. Are you working on this case?”

“Yeah. They asked me to take it over.”

Hargrave nodded. His manner showed something of a chill of formality.

“I’m working on it,” he said.

The bull-necked one grinned.

“You was,” he stated. “I am.”

Hargrave turned to Sidney Zoom.

“Mr. Zoom, meet Mr. Brazer.”

The bull-necked one did not offer to shake hands. Sidney Zoom bowed. The bow was uncordial. Brazer didn’t bother to bow.

“Whatcha want?” he asked.

“We’re taking a look around,” said Hargrave. “This way, Zoom.”

Sidney Zoom placed his dog in a convenient corner of the hallway. Brazer, the bull-necked individual, glowered at the dog.

“He can’t stay here!”

Sidney Zoom’s smile was close clipped in its cool insolence.

“I wouldn’t advise you to try to put him out,” he remarked, and followed Hargrave up a flight of stairs, around a turn, through a short corridor and into a room.

“This,” said Hargrave, “is the murder room.”

It was a room which peculiarly adapted itself to scenes of violence and death. A gable formed an “A” at one end. A big window showed black and bleak. The furniture was old-fashioned, rickety.

Hargrave talked, and the words rattled like bullets.

“Goldfinch was a millionaire, many times over. Bought diamonds. He was a miser with diamonds just as some folks are misers with money. Every gem dealer in the country knew Goldfinch. He’d buy any sort of gems, smuggled or not. One thing he drew the line at. He wouldn’t buy stolen gems, wouldn’t deal with any one who might be even suspected of handling hot stuff.

“His housekeeper, Sally Barker, knew him better than any one. She told friends she thought he’d provided for her in his will. She wished he’d hurry up and die. The woman’s one of those half cracked babies. She’s got a friend who’s class, Myrtle Crane. Myrtle’s been visiting pawnshops some lately.

“Goldfinch is found, stabbed with a knife. No diamonds are found. We’ve searched the house from cellar to garret. Goldfinch was killed about four o’clock, not discovered for an hour or so. The housekeeper skipped out when she discovered the body. That is, she claims that was what startled her. We have our own ideas.

“Anyhow, the body was discovered by the butler and general utility man. He telephoned us. We made a round up, found the housekeeper gone, threw out a dragnet and picked her up as she was taking a train out of the city. We put a watch on the pawnshops, and they picked up her friend, Myrtle Crane, trying to hock some diamonds that were taken from the Goldfinch collection.

“She says the housekeeper told her she was afraid they’d try to pin the murder on her, so she was going to skip out, that the housekeeper asked Myrtle to hock the stones and send her the money.

“That’s the lay. We’ve searched everywhere. No diamonds. No motive for the death except gain. Goldfinch was a funny crab. No one knew him. Had a manager to handle all his property affairs, chap by the name of Jed Slacker. He’ll be in, maybe. He’s been running around back and forth, all worked up. Seems he and Goldfinch had gone into some sort of a partnership deal on some stocks. Slacker put his own money up. Came out to get Goldfinch to check out his half and found him dead.

“Slacker’s a lawyer. Says that under the law he can’t testify to the transaction because death having sealed Goldfinch’s lips the law won’t let him testify.

“Guess he’s right, at that. That means Goldfinch’s estate gets the benefit of Slacker’s money, and maybe Goldfinch didn’t leave a will. We haven’t found one.”

Sidney Zoom grunted.

“Do you think the housekeeper did the stabbing?” he asked Hargrave.

The detective lowered his voice.

“No, I don’t. That’s why I’m getting switched off the case. It looks like an easy case to pin it on the woman and have the girl as an accomplice. It’ll make a quick solution. That’s what some of the department heads want — quick solutions and newspaper publicity. Understand that’s confidential.”

Sidney Zoom nodded again.

“Taken any finger-prints?” he asked.

“Yes. You can see where I’ve brought out some latents and photographed them. The identification department is working on them. Haven’t got the finger-prints of all the people in the place yet, though. We have the housekeeper and the dead man. We’ll get the others later. The department has trouble some times getting folks to pose for their finger-prints. We don’t do it unless they’re pretty willing or else suspected of crime.”

Sidney Zoom puckered his forehead in a frown.

“The prints of the butler, the dead man and the housekeeper would naturally be all over the place,” he said.

“Sure,” agreed the young detective. “What we’d be looking for, maybe, would be a strange finger-print that would tally with the prints of some fellow who might have pulled a diamond job.

“It’s hard to identify from a latent, but where we’ve got the prints to check with we can check pretty fast. Maybe the inside end was just an accomplice. Maybe there’s somebody higher up. We’ll get the prints and check them against half a dozen big diamond men who are known to be in the city.”

Zoom nodded thoughtfully. His eyes regarded an irregular dark stain upon the floor.

“What sort of a knife?” he asked.

“Big butcher knife. Came from the kitchen.”

“Finger-prints on the knife?”

“Not a print.”

Chapter IV The Dodger

There came a nervous knock at the door of the death chamber. Almost at once the knob turned and a pasty-faced man thrust himself through the doorway.

He was fleshy in a flabby, unhealthy corpulency. Yet he moved with the nervous, jerking swiftness of a lighter man. His eyes were red-rimmed, his face haggard.

Hargrave looked up.

“Shake hands with Mr. Zoom, Mr. Slacker. Jed Slacker, Mr. Zoom. He’s the manager I told you about.”

The fleshy man thrust out a right hand with the explosive force of a man striking a blow. He spoke and the words came rushing out so fast that each word seemed to be treading on the heels of its predecessor.

“Howdy-do-Mister-Zoom-howdy-do-pleas’d-t’meetcha. Listen, Hargrave, there’s gotta be a will here, simply gotta be. I can’t sleep. My God, my money, all of it. I’ve looked up the law. I’m stuck. Checked out my own money. Goldfinch would have made it good in a minute. Came out here, find he’s been murdered. Worst of it is that he was murdered after I’d put up the money. If he’d only been croaked an hour sooner I could have recovered. Furnished to the estate instead of to the dead man. See the point? But there’s a will, and I know he’ll remember me in the will. And—”

Hargrave interrupted:

“If you can think of any new place to search you’re welcome. If there’s a will there’s likely to be diamonds in the same place.”

The fleshy man fell to pacing the floor, quick jerky steps that made the flabby fat of his paunchy frame jiggle with the very violence of the motion. His hands were clasped behind his back, his head thrust forward. He seemed oblivious of every one in the room.

From time to time as he strode his feet passed over the irregular dark stain on the floor which marked the place where the life blood of a murdered man had oozed into the boards. But the fat man gave it no heed. He was utterly engrossed in his own problem.

Hargrave looked at Sidney Zoom, grinned, a wry twisting of the features.

Sidney Zoom fastened his eyes speculatively on the pacing form of the manager.

Of a sudden that form stopped with an abrupt cessation of motion, almost in mid stride.

“Got it,” he said. “Remember Goldfinch said once that he had to have the floor fixed in his bedroom. He wanted a certain carpenter to come in for the job. I had to get that carpenter. He was an old man, a crab, but a friend of the old gent. I couldn’t see anything wrong with the floor. Betcha he put something in there. Let’s take a look.”

He spun on his heel, worked his short legs like pumping pistons, and steamed through a doorway into an adjoining chamber. Zoom and the detective followed. The fat man dropped to his knees, started exploring the boards with his eyes and the tips of his fingers, keeping up a running fire of conversation meanwhile.

“Must be somewhere — bound to have a will — must have account books — funny old codger — but I can’t afford to donate everything I’ve got to the estate — what a break! — what a break — ought to’ve known better — me, a lawyer, too!”

There were heavy steps. Phil Brazer stood in the doorway.

“Whatcha doin’?” he asked.

Hargrave jerked a thumb toward the figure of the fat man, crawling around on the floor.

“Thinks he can find something,” he said, and fished a package of cigarettes from his pocket.

Jed Slacker crawled about the floor, making odd puffing noises as the fat pushed up against his lungs. He fumbled with his right hand.

“Here,” he said.

Hargrave stepped forward. Brazer bent over the figure. Sidney Zoom stood aloof.

The fat man pointed to a section of the boards.

“Feels funny. Put your fingers on it.”

Hargrave bent forward. He pushed his hand against the place Slacker indicated. There was a slight click. A section of the floor lifted up on cunningly concealed hinges. There was disclosed an oblong opening in which appeared papers tied together with a pink ribbon.

The fat man sat back on his haunches, gasping for breath. A smile of serene satisfaction appeared on his features.

“That’ll be the will,” he said.

Hargrave reached for the papers.

“Just a minute,” said Brazer, and his broad shoulders and bull neck pushed Hargrave aside as he reached a thick arm down into the cavity. “I’m in charge here now.”

He pulled out the package of papers.

Slacker was wheezing, getting his breath back.

“Get the will — the will!” he said.

The detective thumbed through the papers.

“Lot of receipts, letters, cancelled checks,” he said. “Here’s some sort of a legal paper. Let’s take a look at it.”

He unfolded the oblong document, read it with corrugated brows, his lips moving soundlessly as they laboriously formed the words of the document. Jed Slacker peered over his shoulder, let out a whoop of delight.

“The will?” asked Hargrave.

Slacker answered the question.

“No. But it’s a statement that we hold the stocks in trust as a joint venture and that I’m to be reimbursed for any expenditures I make. Dated only a couple of days ago, too. I don’t care about any of his money, only I don’t want him to take mine.”

Brazer grunted.

“What,” asked Sidney Zoom, “is this?”

Hargrave muttered an exclamation of surprise.

“By gosh it’s a dodger,” he said.

The fat man looked his relief, also his lack of comprehension.

“Dodger?”

“Yes. The sort that describes criminals, the type that’s tacked up in post offices in the small towns and mailed to peace officers.”

He unfolded the grayish sheet of printer’s paper. It showed a front and profile view. Above it, in large letters appeared the words Diamond Thief! Below the photographs was a description. “Robert Reelen, alias Sid Whalen, alias Charles Gillen, super crook of the diamond industry. Age, forty-seven; height, five feet ten and one-half inches; weight, one hundred and ninety-four pounds. Scar on left hand running from base of thumb to wrist. Almost bald. Eyes gray, slight blemish scar on left cheek. This man steals rings and stickpins, also acts as fence for crooks dealing in such articles. He pries stones from settings and sells. Never been able to find his market, but he is able to handle stones for cash. When arrested will probably have diamonds concealed in lining of vest. I hold a warrant, detain and wire. I will extradite.”

Below appeared the printed name and address of a sheriff.

“Humph,” said Hargrave.

“Huh,” snorted Brazer, “I don’t remember no Reelen — but a guy can’t remember every crook in the country. What else is in here?”

He finished going through the papers. Then he leaned over the opening in the floor, plunged his thick arm in to the shoulder, groped about. A slow smile wreathed his features.

He withdrew his hand.

Within the cupped palm were diamonds, half a dozen of them. They glittered in the light of the gloomy bedroom.

“More?” asked Hargrave.

“Yeah.”

The bull-necked detective made another lunge down into the dark interior. Sidney Zoom watched him with narrowed eyes. Hargrave’s expression was a mask. Slacker re-read the typewritten document and grinned.

“Let’s me out,” he breathed with that degree of satisfaction which is only seen in men who are fat.

Chapter V Madison, the Butler

Brazer straightened up after a few seconds. His face was very red from the strained position in which he had been lying. His huge hand cupped perhaps seven or eight diamonds. These were smaller than the others.

“That,” he said, “is about all.”

Slacker rotated his flabby head upon the thick neck.

“Can’t be. There’s a lot — somewhere.”

“Not here,” said Brazer.

Sidney Zoom lit a cigarette in silence.

“Let me feel,” said Hargrave.

Zoom tapped him on the shoulder.

“I wouldn’t,” he remarked.

The detective regarded him in surprise.

“Wouldn’t what?”

“Feel in there.”

Brazer laughed.

“No traps in there. I’ve felt all around it. It’s some sort of a metal box.”

Sidney Zoom nodded.

“Quite certain there aren’t any more, eh?”

Brazer grunted, got down on his knees again and groped around.

“Here’s one,” he said.

He brought out a stone smaller than any of the rest, a mere pebble of a diamond, looked at it, grinned.

“Wouldn’t bend down for another one that size.”

“Let’s give headquarters a ring,” suggested Hargrave.

Brazer grunted, walked to the corridor. “Telephone up here somewhere. Here it is.”

He called headquarters, reported, listened while the receiver rasped forth metallic sounds, and then turned to Hargrave.

“That’s a break,” he said, slamming the receiver back on the hook.

“What is?”

“Some of those latents have been checked. They’re the finger-prints of Shorty Relavan. Remember him? He’s the gem man that got out of stir two years ago and vanished. We haven’t been able to get him located. He hasn’t pulled a job that we know of. Now he turns up on this thing. He must have been layin’ low for a job that’d be big enough to make it worth his while.

“He’s the guy higher up all right. He’s the brains back of the thing. See the lay? He got the housekeeper planted, got her to spot where the sparklers was. Then he gets her to croak the old man and grab the rocks. Maybe he does the sticking himself... No, I guess the housekeeper did that, because we’ve got her. An’ it’s always better to have the guilty guy in jail than to have him outa jail. It makes a difference with the newspapers, see?” And Brazer winked one eye in a portentous and solemn manner.

There was a knock at the door.

“C’min,” called Brazer.

A man entered, dad in a bathrobe.

“Pardon, sir, I heard voices and the conversation over the telephone. I thought perhaps, sir, you had found the diamonds.”

Hargrave muttered an aside to Sidney Zoom.

“Madison, the butler.”

Brazer fastened stem eyes upon the man.

“Madison, did you ever know there was a secret hiding place under the bedroom floor?” he asked.

The butler stared at the opened oblong of space and let his jaw sag.

“Good heavens, sir. No, indeed, sir!”

Sidney Zoom flung a question at the man.

“How long you been with Mr. Goldfinch?”

“About a year and a half, sir.”

“Before that?” asked Sidney Zoom.

“I was in Australia, sir.”

Sidney Zoom turned to Hargrave.

“Let me see the latents you developed, please.”

The young detective swung on his heel, motioned toward the outer room.

“New knob on the door. I took latents from the knob that was on there. I took latents from the desk, from half a dozen other places where the man who had committed the murder might have searched for diamonds.”

Sidney Zoom studied the spiral of smoke from the end of his cigarette.

“Madison, have you noticed any strangers about the place?”

Brazer snorted. Madison shifted uneasily.

“He’s been asked that question at least a dozen times,” said Hargrave.

Sidney Zoom remained unperturbed.

“This,” he observed, “will make the thirteenth, then.”

The butler squirmed inside his bathrobe.

“No, sir,” he said. Then, suddenly, he started.

“The book peddler!” he exclaimed.

“Who?” asked Hargrave.

“I had forgotten when I told you before. He came here with a set of books. Mr. Goldfinch seemed much interested. The peddler came up here to the bedroom. And I remember he was talking with Mrs. Barker, the housekeeper, when I came into the corridor. They seemed to be quite well acquainted. They were whispering, sir.

“And I thought it was strange at the time, sir, and went so far as to mention the matter to the housekeeper, sir. She told me that they had a secret arrangement by which she was to share in the commission in the event a sale was made.

“The book agent was back here three times after that, sir. The last time was this afternoon. But I don’t think he saw Mr. Goldfinch, sir, not this afternoon. I know he was talking with Mrs. Barker. Of course, sir, you will understand that us servants sometimes have our little commissions, sir, so I thought nothing of the matter.”

Brazer grunted.

“This the first time you’ve told any one about that guy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why,” asked Jack Hargrave, “did you not say anything about it before?”

“Because it slipped my mind, sirs.”

Brazer cleared his throat.

“What sort of a looking chap was this book agent?”

“Five feet nine, a hundred and eighty-five pounds, about forty-one or two years of age, dressed in a pin-striped suit. He had gray eyes, and a funny way of talking out of one side of his mouth, sir. He had a funny habit of reaching up with his right hand and rubbing the lobe of his right ear, I remember that well, sir.”

Brazer whistled. “Whew,” he said, “that’s the description of Shorty Relavan. I remember now the dope that came out on him. He had that habit of tugging at his ear when he was excited. Gosh, what a break! We’ve got the higher up located right at the start. And we’ve got the housekeeper. This ties her in so tight she won’t never get out. All the slick lawyers in the world won’t never pry her loose.”

Jack Hargrave glanced at Sidney Zoom. His eyes were glittering with concentration. Sidney Zoom’s lips twisted, just a trifle.

“Where else,” asked Sidney Zoom, “did you find the latents of this Relavan?”

“In the kitchen, on some of the knives. Not on the murder knife,” said Hargrave.

Brazer thrust out his chest.

“Well,” he said, “I’m in charge of the case. I’m goin’ to telephone headquarters and tell ’em of the new developments.”

Jack Hargrave grinned at Brazer.

“How much credit do I get?” he asked.

Brazer grunted. “I’m in charge.”

Hargrave nodded, wordlessly.

“I,” remarked Sidney Zoom, “would like to check up on this dodger of Robert Reelen. Do you suppose, Mr. Hargrave, you could drive me to headquarters and go over the records? And it might be well to take Mr. Madison, the butler, with us, so that we can have him check over the photographs of Shorty Relavan.”

The eyes of Sidney Zoom met with those of Jack Hargrave and locked there for one long moment.

Hargrave smiled. “Okay,” he said.

Phil Brazer scratched his head meditatively.

“Yeah. I’m in charge here. You guys get out and let me think this thing out. It’s red hot, all right.”

The butler dressed, in company with Zoom and Hargrave they drove to police headquarters in utter silence. Hargrave led them to the presence of Sergeant Huntington.

“Understand Brazer’s in charge of the Goldfinch case.”

“Yes. Orders came through. Sergeant Gilfillan was working on it. You were under him. They switched it to the special duty department and ordered Gilfillan to lay off.”

Hargrave nodded, “Is that notification official?”

Sergeant Huntington studied him long and earnestly.

“No,” he said, “it’s not official.”

Hargrave turned to the man at his side.

“Shorty Relavan, alias Arthur Madison, I arrest you for the murder of Jacob Goldfinch, and warn you that anything you may say will be used against you.”

Sidney Zoom heaved a sigh.

“I was hoping,” he said, “that you would do that.”

Chapter VI The Butler’s Confession

The man who had acted as butler, his face the color of chalk, made two efforts to speak, but only succeeded in making weird throat noises.

Sergeant Huntington whistled softly, under his breath.

The butler cleared his throat.

“All right, you got me. I went after the sparklers. I got the job with Goldfinch hoping to find out where he kept ’em. I couldn’t get the lay so I asked the housekeeper if she knew. She told me to get a market for the stones and she’d produce ’em.

“I told her the name of a fence. Then she crossed me. She went ahead on her own, pulled the thing without my knowing anything about it, and the old man caught her. They had a struggle. She had taken a butcher knife from the kitchen, and she croaked him. She admitted it to me right after the crime.”

Sergeant Huntington looked at Jack Hargrave, a light of admiration in his eyes.

“Jack,” he said softly, “where did you leave Phil Brazer?”

Hargrave grinned. “Out at the house, waiting for something to turn up.”

“How did you know this was Relavan?”

“Simple. His finger-prints were all over the job. A man like Relavan wouldn’t have left any prints unless he couldn’t have helped himself. If he’d been going there once, or even twice or three times he’d have worn gloves.

“Then, again, when this man suddenly recollected how the book agent had pulled the lobe of his ear, I knew we had him. An old-timer like Relavan would have changed a habit like pulling at an ear as soon as he knew the police were using it as something to twig him by.”

Relavan shrugged his shoulders.

“Right,” he said, with a grimace. “Boy, they must have been gettin’ a new class of dicks since I got out of stir!”

Hargrave turned on him. “What did you go to Goldfinch for, the diamonds?”

“No,” said Relavan, “I didn’t. I don’t know that I was going straight, but I wanted to lay low. I applied for half a dozen jobs, all on forged references. This guy, Slacker, that runs things for Goldfinch, took a shine to me. He’s a square shooter, too. He knew my references were forged, found that out before he hired me; but he hired me anyway. That is, he got Goldfinch to do it. Goldfinch’d do everything Slacker told him to.”

Sergeant Huntington jabbed an accusing forefinger at Relavan.

“We’re going to search your room out there at the house. You’ve got diamonds in it?”

Relavan shrugged. “Four or five small ones the housekeeper overlooked when she cleaned up the place.”

The sergeant nodded. “Thought so. Book him, Jack”

The detective escorted his prisoner from the room. The first trickle of drab dawn percolated through the window. The sergeant grinned at Sidney Zoom.

That individual produced the dodger, describing Robert Reelen, alias Sid Whalen, alias Charles Gillen. “Can you find me his record?” he asked.

Sergeant Huntington took the dodger carelessly, jabbed his forefinger on a button. A man thrust his head into the room, caught the sergeant’s beckoning finger and entered.

“Take this up to the Identification Bureau. Get me the dope on it right away.”

The man vanished.

“Could we talk with the housekeeper?” asked Zoom.

Sergeant Huntington stared at him.

“What’s the matter? Think this case isn’t solved yet?”

Zoom took a cigarette from his pocket case, lit it deliberately.

“Your men arrested a girl in a pawnshop. I’m interested in her. I don’t think she’s guilty.”

The grin on Sergeant Huntington’s face was wide.

“Oh, her! Myrtle Crane her name was. Booked already, bail fixed at ten thousand cash, twenty thousand bond. Maybe she’s telling the truth. I’ll let you talk to the housekeeper.”

He jabbed the button once more, gave orders that Sally Barker was to be awakened, brought in. There followed an interval of silence. After it had lasted for minutes Jack Hargrave came back. He was grinning.

“Notified Phil Brazer over the phone. You should have heard him.”

Sergeant Huntington chuckled.

There was a knock at the door. A man walking swiftly upon rubber heels came to Sergeant Huntington’s desk. He bent over, whispered. There was a rustle of paper, a grunt of wonder from Sergeant Huntington.

“Listen, you fellows,” he said. “This dodger is a fake. It was printed on a hand press somewhere. The boys can’t find anything on this guy or his record, nor did we get any such dodger.”

Hargrave pulled his forehead into a frown.

“Well,” he said, “what’s the answer?”

Sergeant Huntington looked at Sidney Zoom.

At that moment there was another knock and the door swung open. A heavy set matron, dad in black, her face expressionless, led a slender woman with deep, lackluster black eyes into the room.

“Sit down, Mrs. Barker,” said Sergeant Huntington.

The woman folded herself into angular compliance, arranged her skirts so that they were smooth across the knees, raised her black, lackluster eyes and spoke in a drab tone of utter listlessness.

“I can’t tell you nothing more. You don’t believe me, anyway.”

Sergeant Huntington cleared his throat, leaned forward until the old swivel chair creaked under his shifting weight.

“All right. This’ll jar you loose from some conversation. Arthur Madison, the butler, was Shortly Relavan, the noted gem thief and ex-convict. He’s confessed. How do you feel about that?”

The woman’s face remained a drab mask. The thin hand with the blue veins and raised tendons, showed just a trace of nervousness as it smoothed over the skirt once more. But the voice was the same as ever, a monotone of comment.

“Fancy me working with an ex-convict!”

Jack Hargrave slammed a remark at her.

“Ain’t you interested in what he said?”

Her voice was in the same even, uninterested tone.

“What did he say?”

“He said you killed Goldfinch.”

“I didn’t.”

“How did you get the diamonds?”

“I’ve told you. You won’t believe me. Mr. Goldfinch told me he’d tom up his will. He gave me those stones in case anything should happen to him. I was to pawn them and get the money.”

Sergeant Huntington squirmed forward to the very edge of his chair. His big fist banged on the desk. His expression showed that he was going to make one last determined effort to browbeat the truth from the woman.

Sidney Zoom stepped forward, his long arm picked up the dodger which had been left on the desk, the one containing the picture of Robert Reelen. He whirled, extended the paper toward the woman.

“Know him?” he asked.

The lackluster eyes flickered to the paper. For a swift instant there was an expression of surprise. Then it vanished.

“Yes,” she said.

“Well?” asked Sidney Zoom.

“He used to come to the house. I think he sold diamonds. His name was Charles Gillen. He hadn’t come for a while. I thought he was a smuggler, maybe.”

Sergeant Huntington brushed aside the matter of the dodger.

“I want,” he said slowly and impressively, banging his fist upon the desk as he spoke each word, “to get the rest of those diamonds. Tell — me — where — they — are!”

The woman’s hand, sliding over the smooth surface of her skirt, gave a convulsive clutch at the cloth. It was but a momentary tightening of the fingers. Then the hand relaxed and the lackluster eyes were raised to the glittering eyes of the sergeant.

“I’ve told you all I know.”

Sidney Zoom got to his feet.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’ve work to do.”

His long legs gained the door in four strides.

The two men watched him with eyes that were wide with surprise. Sidney Zoom’s hand tightened upon the knob of the door, spun it. He pulled it open and vanished into the corridor without so much as a backward glance.

The door slammed shut and the two men looked at each other. Then they looked at the slender figure in the chair. She raised her deep-set, unsparkling eyes, lowered them almost at once. The fingers of her right hand clutched at the cloth of her dress.

Chapter VII Zoom Visits an Office

Sidney Zoom paused before a door on the seventh floor of a down town office building. Rip, his police dog, stood at his side, tail waving softly to and fro.

Sidney Zoom tried the lock with a key, failed, tried again. The third key clicked back the catch and Sidney Zoom entered the office.

Dawn had tinged the skyline of the city with a ruddy glow. Already the streets were commencing to rumble with the first signs of traffic, yet it would be some time before the office workers would throng into the business district.

The office air was stale after the freshness of the dawn. It assailed the nostrils as some foul poison, and Sidney Zoom’s lip curled with disgust as he inhaled. But he mastered his disgust and set to work.

The office was a single room affair, and it was a litter of odds and ends. Dusty papers were piled in confusion. A desk was grimed with dust, covered with old correspondence. A pile of newspapers was in one comer of the room. A closet offered storage space for some old coats, a dust covered hat, an umbrella and a box filled with an assortment of letters.

Sidney Zoom set to work.

He uncovered the typewriter which stood upon a little stand, took a sheet of paper and began to write. His words were purely specimen words. Then he struck off the letters of the alphabet, writing each one several times.

When he had finished with that sheet he took another and did the same thing. Then he left the typewriter uncovered, left the sheets beside it.

Next Sidney Zoom did a strange thing.

He took from a hand bag he had brought with him, a large package of cheesecloth and a can of floor polish. He stooped to the linoleum and began to scrub the liquid polish upon the linoleum, working slowly, painstakingly.

The dog watched him from a corner, head on paws, eyes alone moving.

It took Sidney Zoom three-quarters of an hour to finish his task. Then he motioned to the dog, indicated the closet.

Slowly, questioningly, the dog entered the closet.

“Stay there, Rip,” commanded Sidney Zoom.

Then he stepped to the outer doorway.

The corridor of the office building was of a white marble effect. Upon it, in front of the door of the office, Sidney Zoom sprinkled some white powder. It was virtually invisible against the white of the corridor.

“Wait there, Rip,” he called to the dog who had crawled back into the corner of the closet at the command of his master, and closed the closet door until it was open but a half an inch.

The dog whined, but remained where he had been placed.

Sidney Zoom left the office. The latch on the outer door clicked as he pulled it shut.

Then Sidney Zoom took up a vigil before the entrance of the office building. There was in his posture something of the grim efficiency of a lion waiting by a water hole.

The traffic of the street increased. Early office workers began to straggle into the building. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the stream increased. Abruptly it reached its crest. Young women, expressionless of face, bright of eye, shouldered their way into elevators, thronged the corridors.

Then almost at once, the stream thinned. Late comers sprinted for elevators, glancing anxiously at the clock. Business men bustled into the corridors, portly, important.

Sidney Zoom surveyed the whole stream of civilization’s flotsam as it slid past. His scornful eyes showed his hatred for the entire affair, but they missed no face.

It was nine twenty that a pasty face showed at the doorway of the lobby. A fat man walked with swift, jerky steps, so nervously rapid that they jiggled the pasty balls of flesh which clung to his flabby face.

“Ah,” said Sidney Zoom, “Mr. Jed Slacker.”

The man jerked himself to an abrupt stop.

“Huh? Who? What?”

The words were explosive.

Sidney Zoom smiled, a cold, frosty smile.

“It’s a wonder you wouldn’t come to your office in the morning! I’ve been waiting an hour.”

The flabby face twisted into a sudden smile that pushed the balls of fat about into a strange distortion.

“Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes! Zoom! Mr. Sidney Zoom. Met you out at Goldfinch’s place. Sure had me worried last night. Or was it this morning? Guess it was this morning. Slept late. Seemed good to get to sleep. First sleep I’ve had for a long time — seems like a long time. Tried to get to sleep but simply couldn’t. Worrying... What d’yuh want?”

“Just wanted to talk with you. Thought maybe Hargrave had seen you.”

“Hargrave? Hargrave? Hargrave? Oh, yes, Jack Hargrave. Detective. Young fellow. Nice chap that. Why should he see me? Looking for me?”

“I suppose so. He had the key to your office, I noticed.”

The flabby face seemed for an instant to become more pallid. The skin took on a waxy luster of dead white.

“Key? Key? Key? Key to my office? Must be mistaken, Zoom. Nobody has a key to my office, only me.”

Zoom’s smile was patronizing.

“Well,” he said, “you must have shut that detective up in the office all night then. When I went up to your office to see if you were in I met him coming out He had a sheet of typewriting in his hand, and some sort of a legal looking document.

“I spoke to him and he didn’t seem glad to see me in particular. Don’t think he knew who I was. He figured I was some other tenant of an office on the same floor, I guess. But, even so, he wasn’t at all cordial. Didn’t seem to want to be seen. Hope I have not said anything I shouldn’t.”

The fat man suddenly broke into an explosive laugh.

“Say anything you shouldn’t! Hell, no! Remember now. Hargrave asked me if I had a duplicate key. Said he wanted to try out my typewriter. Seemed like he wanted to trace the writing on that declaration of trust I found. Don’t know why he wanted to do that, though.

“I’d forgotten about the key. Matter slipped my mind. That what he had with him, the declaration of trust?”

“The one you found last night?” asked Sidney Zoom.

“Yeah. That’s the one.”

Sidney Zoom puckered his forehead.

“Well now, I couldn’t say for certain, but it looked like it.”

Jed Slacker jerked a watch from his pocket.

“Gosh, late. Got to go meet some friends on a train. What was it you wanted, Zoom?”

“I wanted to see you for five minutes.”

The man fingered the watch.

“Tell, you what you do, give me five minutes to open my mail. Then come up. Five minutes is all I want. Don’t be longer. Five minutes. Remember.”

Sidney Zoom inclined his head.

“Five minutes,” he agreed.

But it was a scant three minutes between the rime he said it and the time his hand twisted the knob on the door of Jed Slacker’s office.

The fat man was seated at the desk, his hands holding the two typewritten sheets Zoom had written on his machine.

He glanced up as Zoom pushed the door open.

“Huh!” he said, dropped the sheets.

Sidney Zoom walked forward and took a chair.

He smiled, a cold, frosty smile.

“I’ve discovered about the dodger,” he said.

“What dodger?”

“The one you had printed that had the picture of Charles Gillen on it. Rather clever, too. Gillen is listed in the city directory, by the way. Probably you knew that.”

The fat man licked his lips with the tip of his tongue.

“Gillen, Gillen, Gillen?” he said. “Dodger, city directory?”

Zoom nodded affably, but coldly.

“Yes, the dodger you had printed describing Mr. Goldfinch’s dealer as a thief.”

The man rotated his head upon his massive neck in a gesture of oily negation.

“No. He never sold Goldfinch many diamonds. Just a few — comparatively.”

Chapter VIII The White Steps—

Sidney Zoom leaned back in the chair, crossed his long legs, smiled, lit a cigarette.

“Now,” he said, after the manner of one discussing a chess problem, “it’s interesting to see how your mind worked. You could influence Goldfinch. You didn’t dare to steal his diamonds, murder him, and at the same time have him leave a will in your favor. That would make it appear you were the beneficiary of his demise.

“You wanted to have suspicion point elsewhere. So you fixed things so the housekeeper would be placed in a position where she’d be convicted even before she came to trial. You fixed things so Goldfinch would actually tell her something that would sound so bizarre when it was repeated that it would make a jury laugh.

“And, in case anything went wrong, you wanted a second string to your bow. You were given applications for the position of butler by Mr. Goldfinch. In running down some of the references you found those of Arthur Madison were false. So you checked them a little more carefully, found Madison was an ex-convict who was trying to find a place where he could lie low for a while. That suited your purpose splendidly, so you hired him.

“Now let’s see how things worked out.”

Sidney Zoom uncrossed his legs.

Jed Slacker was listening with a face that had been drained of color. His right hand was lowered, resting upon one of the drawers in the desk. His eyes were huge, the flesh seemed to sag away from them, leave them round and gleaming.

“Crazy!” he exploded. “Crazy as a clam!”

Sidney Zoom nodded.

“Yes, only dams aren’t crazy... However, as I was saying, let’s see how it worked. You waited until Goldfinch had made a small purchase from Charles Gillen. You waited until you felt certain the butler convict had been able to steal and conceal some of the diamonds.”

“Then you flashed your fake circular on Goldfinch. He had always had a horror of buying stolen gems. Not that he cared particularly about the ethics of the situation, but because he was afraid of paying good money for stones and then finding he had no title to them.

“So Goldfinch decided to get rid of the stones he’d purchased from Gillen, after you had convinced him those stones were stolen. Then was when you pulled a master stroke. You explained to Goldfinch that he’d left his housekeeper a sum under his will that would just about equal what he’d pay for the stones. Why not take those stones and give them to her, tear up the will and let the accounts balance?

“Goldfinch fell for the idea. It would save his face all around. He didn’t dare to sell the stones, knowing they were stolen and might be traced. Nor did he want to keep them. He gave them to his housekeeper and told her exactly what she said he had. But it sounded so utterly improbable under the questioning of the officers that it was ludicrous.

“And you knew that sooner or later Shorty Relavan would enter the picture. And he could be counted on to do just what he did do. There was a murder and there was a robbery. If he said he was innocent no one would believe him, not with diamonds in his room.

“So it was up to him to make up a story that would admit theft, or the receipt of stolen property, but pin the murder more securely on to the shoulders of the housekeeper, where the police had already fastened it.”

Sidney Zoom stopped talking.

Jed Slacker began to laugh, a nervous, almost silent laugh.

“Then what?” he asked.

“You wanted to get Goldfinch’s fortune. You wanted to steal the diamonds. But you didn’t dare to trust to a will. So you had Goldfinch give you a large block of stock and gave him a receipt and acknowledgment of trust. You knew where he kept those sort of papers.

“Then you killed him, and you planted a fake declaration of a half interest in some of your own stuff that hadn’t turned out to be other than an expense, and you destroyed your own declaration of trust.

“The police were slow in finding the place where the papers were stored, so you led them to it. You’d taken out the bulk of the diamonds. But you left a few so it wouldn’t look as though the place had been looted.”

Of a sudden the man’s tactics changed.

“Proof!” he bellowed, reaching for the telephone with his left hand. “Try to find any proof. I’m ringing the police right now. I’m going to have you arrested for defamation of character. I’m going to...”

Sidney Zoom pointed to the floor.

“Clever, what? The police came in here and took the writing of your machine so they could show the declaration of trust they found was written by you on this machine, and I arranged things so your first tracks when you entered the room would be visible.

“Naturally, you were worried whether the police had found where you’d hidden the diamonds. Your steps show that you rushed at once to the framed picture over the radiator. I presume there’s a hollow in the frame or something...”

The basilisk eyes stared with the fascination of utter horror at the white blotches on the smoothly polished linoleum. As Sidney Zoom had said, they went directly from door to picture, picture to typewriter, typewriter to desk.

Jed Slacker sighed.

“Then,” he said, with a cunning leer, “the police weren’t here at all. You were the one who wrote off the things from the typewriter. Did it so I’d be nervous when I came in. If you polished the floor, the police weren’t here.”

Zoom nodded after the manner of one who concedes a trick in a bridge game.

“Well reasoned,” he said.

The hand of the pudgy man whipped up from underneath the desk.

“Then you’re the only one that knows,” he half whispered, and Sidney Zoom found himself staring into the dark hollow of a gun muzzle.

Sidney Zoom was careful not to move his hands.

“All right, Rip,” he said.

“And you die!” sneered the fat man, half rising from his chair, his lips curled back from his tooth tips, “I’d sooner take chances...”

A tawny streak burst open the closet door, went across the waxed linoleum with a great scratching of claws as the police dog tried for traction.

Jed Slacker saw him coming, whirled the gun.

The police dog leaped. His teeth closed on the flabby wrist, just above the gun hand. The dog flung himself to one side so that his weight crashed against the arm, twisted the wrist.

Jed Slacker dropped the gun. The dog instantly released his hold and dropped to the floor, growling, the gun within a few inches of his curled lips and glistening fangs.

“I wanted, of course,” said Sidney Zoom, speaking in casual tones, “something like that, a declaration of guilt. There’s the typewriter. You’d better write a confession.”

The fat man stared at him in utter incredulity.

“It was to be the perfect crime,” he said. “I fixed it so it could never be pinned on me, and now...”

Sidney Zoom shrugged his shoulders, a gesture of utter finality.

“Don’t bother. I can’t get any sympathy for men who commit murder and try to pin it onto an innocent woman.”

“But...”

“Get busy with that confession, or I shall have to turn the dog loose on you. He likes to save murderers from the chair. After all it’s not so bad — having your throat ripped out.”

The man shuddered, sighed, seemed to collapse. The spirit left him. He put paper into the typewriter.

Sidney Zoom sat and smoked.

Chapter IX — of Death!

The fat man grew more enthusiastic as he typed. The pudgy fingers struck the keys, rattling off the letters. The face took on some semblance of color. Once or twice he smiled.

Sidney Zoom arose, looked over the man’s shoulder.

The confession was written as one might gloat over a victory. Slacker reveled in the details, telling of how he had fooled the police, of how he had left some two dozen diamonds in with the papers, of his feelings when Phil Brazer had palmed many of those diamonds while he was groping around in the receptacle.

Even the police were not immune to the greed lust which had actuated Slacker. But Slacker had got hundreds of diamonds, the crooked detective but a dozen or so.

Sidney Zoom, watched the confession as the sheets rolled out of the typewriter. When Slacker had finished Zoom told him to sign each page, and the fat man dashed off his signatures with a flourish.

“You missed lots of my moves,” he complained. “The press will get this. I want to stand before the public in the true light, a master criminal.”

Sidney Zoom nodded casually. “Of course.”

“How’d you know I had the diamonds hidden here? Why not in my room?”

“Because you asked for five minutes after I told you the thing that would make you realize the police suspected you. If you’d suddenly remembered something that made you want to go back to your room I’d have followed you and burst in just when you were at your hiding place.”

Slacker nodded. “Well,” he said, “it’s over.”

Zoom shook his head.

“No. It’s not over. Not until they come into your cell and shave off a bit of your scalp, and slit your pants leg. Then they start the grim march, down the corridor, the last steps you’ll take, the steps of death...”

“Don’t!” yelled Slacker. “Good God, don’t sketch the picture like that— Ugh, the chair — the horror of having people take you out and make you die. It isn’t that I’m afraid of death. I don’t fear dying. I hate to be dragged out by a lot of jailers, pulled down a corridor, strapped in an iron chair... I hate to think that they’re waiting, watching, night and day, ticking off the time...”

Sidney Zoom got to his feet.

“They say electrocution is painful,” he said. “I’m going out and bring in the police. Don’t try to escape while I’m gone. I shall leave the dog against the door on the outside.”

He got to his feet, his long angular length showing fine and strong against the flabby softness of the other’s panic.

“Come, Rip,” he said, and marched to the door, slammed it shut. The lock clicked into place.

He paused, standing to one side in the corridor, listening.

That for which he had been waiting came within a matter of seconds.

“Bang!” the roar of a single shot.

Something thudded to the floor. There was silence.

Sidney Zoom motioned to the dog.

Together, they sought the stairs and went down to the street. The noise of the shot might have been taken for backfire by the occupants of other offices.

Sidney Zoom went to the yacht basin where his small, but well-appointed yacht, the Alberta F., rode at her anchor.

Vera Thurmond, his secretary, greeted him.

“Anything new?”

“Not much.” His tone was weary. “Take ten thousand dollars. Go up and bail a girl named Myrtle Crane out of jail. She was arrested for complicity in the robbery of Jacob Goldfinch. Wake me up if anything happens.”

And Sidney Zoom sought his cabin, apparently unaware of the look of maternal tenderness which welled in the eyes of his secretary.

With the dog stretched on a mg near the foot of his bed, he dropped into dreamless slumber, lulled by the lap-lap-lap of the water against the sides of the yacht.

He was awakened by a knocking against the cabin door.

“Sergeant Huntington,” called his secretary.

“Come in,” said Zoom, sitting up.

Sergeant Huntington strode into the room. With him came Jack Hargrave.

Huntington’s manner was crisp, official. Hargrave looked at Sidney Zoom in a manner of respect. There was something almost of reverence in his glance.

“Hargrave got the hunch Slacker had acted funny,” said Sergeant Huntington. “He started looking for him. He found him at his office a little afternoon. Slacker had been dead some time. Suicide all right, his own gun and all that, and a confession, and the stolen diamonds in the hollowed picture frame. Here’s the confession.”

He passed over the typewritten sheets.

Sidney Zoom read them. A smile twisted his lips.

“Funny?” asked Sergeant Huntington with sarcasm.

“Thinking about Phil Brazer groping around for the diamonds. He was palming as many as he could, working them up his sleeve,” said Zoom. “That was why it took him so long to fish out the stones.”

Sergeant Huntington grunted.

Zoom finished the confession, handed it back.

“This is one case I’m surprised on,” he said.

Sergeant Huntington glowered at him.

“You went bail for Myrtle Crane.”

“Yes. I frequently do when I think people are innocent.”

“And,” went on Sergeant Huntington, “some one had scrubbed the office floor and sprinkled white powder at the entrance.”

Sidney Zoom raised his eyebrows.

“Yes?”

“Yes. And a tall man and a dog were seen hanging around the lobby of the office building.”

Zoom nodded.

“Oh, yes. That was I. Rip and I waited. Then, when we got tired we left.”

“What were you waiting for?”

“I wanted to ask Mr. Slacker a question.”

“What about?”

“Something about that fake dodger, you know, the one about the diamond thief...”

“Yes,” said Sergeant Huntington, “I know. I also know, Sidney Zoom, that whenever you start to solve a case you solve it. Of late I’ve been noticing that when you start in on a murder case and find the real culprit, that culprit never lives to get to jail.”

Zoom reached for a cigarette.

“The State executes men for murder?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Sergeant Huntington.

Zoom said nothing further.

After the silence had begun to be awkward, Sergeant Huntington rasped into speech.

“Will you admit you saw Slacker this morning?”

“No.”

“Do you know that Slacker’s steps show when he entered that room, that there are white blobs going to the picture frame, to the typewriter, back to his desk?”

“Were there?”

“Yes. There were.”

“And that same white powder shows the tracks of another man who entered the room and sat down, talking with Slacker.”

Zoom looked interested.

“Tracks of a dog, too?” he asked.

Sergeant Huntington frowned.

“No, that’s what puzzles me.”

“Well,” remarked Zoom, “it lets me out. I had my dog with me this morning. Your own witnesses admit that.”

He yawned, looked at the tip of his cigarette, glanced at Sergeant Huntington.

“Steps of death, eh?”

Sergeant Huntington suppressed an exclamation, stepped back.

“Well,” he said, “it looks like hell, that’s all. Looks as though some one had made it easy for this chap to shoot himself.”

Zoom’s voice was only mild in its interest.

“You were looking for some one higher up in this affair, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

Zoom made a motion with his muscular, angular shoulders.

“Look for something higher up in this, then.”

“Higher up?”

“Yes. You might try divine justice, for instance.”

Sergeant Huntington snorted, turned on his heel.

Jack Hargrave stepped to the bed.

“Good day, sir. I just wanted to shake hands.”

Silently, solemnly, the two men shook hands.

“Higher up,” said Hargrave.

“Higher up,” repeated Sidney Zoom and his tone had the timbre of a tolling bell.