The Casebook of Sidney Zoom

Chapter I The Man on the Sidewalk

Rain sheeted intermittently out of the midnight skies. Between showers fitful stars showed through drifting cloud rifts. Street lights, reflected from the wet pavements in shimmering ribbons, were haloed in moisture. Intermittent thunder boomed.

The feet of Sidney Zoom, pacing the wet pavements, splashed heedlessly through small surface puddles. Attired in raincoat and rubber hat, the gaunt form prowled through the rainy night, his police dog padding along at his side.

Sidney Zoom loved the night. He was particularly fond of rainy nights. Midnight streets held for him the lure of adventure. He prowled ceaselessly at night, searching for those oddities of human conduct which would arouse his interest.

The police dog growled, throatily.

Sidney Zoom paused, stared down at his four-footed companion.

“What is it, Rip?”

The dog’s yellow eyes were staring straight ahead. His ears were pricked up. After a moment he flung his head in a questing half circle as his nose tested the air.

He growled again, and the hair along the top of his back ruffled into bristling life.

“Go find, Rip.”

Like an arrow, the dog sped forward into the night, his claws rattling upon the wet pavement. He ran low to the ground, swift and sure. He leaned far in as he rounded a corner, then the night swallowed him.

Sidney Zoom walked as far as the comer where the dog had vanished, then stood, waiting. He heard footsteps, the rustle of a rubber raincoat and a dark figure bulked upon him.

A flash light stabbed its way through the darkness.

“What are you doin’ here?” grumbled a deep voice.

The hawklike eyes of Sidney Zoom stared menacingly at the flash light.

“Who are you? — and put out that damned flash!”

The beam of the flash light shot up and down the long, lean, whipcorded strength of the man, and the grumbling voice rumbled again.

“I’m the officer on the beat. It’s no time for a man to be standin’ out on a street corner, all glistenin’ with rain, an’ lookin’ into the night as though he was listenin’ for something. So give an account of yourself, unless you want to spend a night in a cell.”

Sidney Zoom turned his eyes away from the glare of the light, fished a leather wallet from an inside pocket, and let the officer see a certain card.

That card bore the signature of the chief of police.

The officer whistled.

“Sidney Zoom, eh?” he said in surprise. “I’ve heard of you an’ of your police dog. Where’s the dog?”

Sidney Zoom’s head was cocked slightly to one side, listening.

“If you’ll quit talking for a moment I think we can hear him.”

The officer stopped stock-still, listening. Faintly through the night could be heard the barking of a dog.

“It’s around the other comer,” said Zoom.

The officer grunted.

“What’s he barkin’ at?”

Sidney Zoom’s long legs started to pace along the wet pavement. A sudden shower came rattling down upon the hard surface of their shiny raincoats. Water streamed from the rims of rubber hats.

“The best way to find out,” said Sidney Zoom, “is to go and see.”

The officer was put to it to keep pace with the long legs.

“I’ve heard of some of your detective work,” he said.

He gave the impression of one who wished to engage in conversation, but the pace was such that he needed all of his wind, Sidney Zoom said nothing.

“And of your dog,” puffed the officer.

Sidney Zoom paused, motioned to the officer to halt, raised his head and whistled. Instantly there came an answering bark.

Zoom’s ears caught the direction of that bark, and he lengthened his stride. The officer ceased all efforts to keep step and came blowing along, taking a step and a half to Zoom’s one.

A street light showed a huddled shadow. The dog barked again, and Sidney Zoom pointed.

“Something on the sidewalk,” he said.

The officer started to say something, but thought better of it. Such conversation as he might have could wait until he had more breath to spare for it.

Zoom’s stride became a running walk. His lean form seemed fairly vibrant with excitement.

“Some one lying down,” he said.

The dog barked once more, a shrill, yapping bark, as though he tried to convey some meaning. And Sidney Zoom interpreted the meaning of that bark.

“Dead,” he said.

The officer grunted his incredulity.

But Zoom had been right. The man was quite dead. He lay sprawled out upon the pavement, on his face, his hands stretched out and clenched, as though he had clutched at something.

There was a dark hole in the back of the man’s head, and a welling stream of red had oozed down until it mingled with the water on the sidewalk, staining it red. The hat was some ten feet away, lying flat upon the sidewalk.

The man had on a coat, trousers, heavy shoes. But there were pyjamas underneath. The bottoms of the pyjamas showed beneath the legs of the trousers, and the collar of the pyjama coat showed through a place where the coat lapel had been twisted backward.

The officer ran his hands to the wet wrists of the corpse.

“Dead,” he said.

“That,” remarked Sidney Zoom, dryly, “is what the dog told me. He’d have come running to me, urging haste, if the figure had still had life.”

The officer looked up with glittering eyes.

“You kidding me?” he asked.

Sidney Zoom shrugged his shoulders. Experience had taught him the futility of seeking to explain canine intelligence, highly developed, to one who had had no experience with it.

The officer turned the figure over. Zoom’s hand thrust out, caught the officer’s arm.

“Wait,” he said, “you’re destroying the most valuable clew we have!”

The officer’s eyes were wide.

“I’m just turnin’ him over.”

He had paused, the corpse precariously balanced upon one shoulder and hip, the head sagging downward.

Zoom nodded.

“Precisely,” he said. “But you’ll notice that the shoulders of the coat, on the upper part, around the neck, ate quite wet. That shows that he’s been out in the rain for some little time. But the back of the coat is almost dry.

“That means he was walking, facing the rain, that he hasn’t been lying very long on his stomach here. Otherwise the back of the coat would have been quite wet. But if you turn him over before we check on these things, and the back of the coat lays on the wet pavement, we’ll have no way of determining the comparative degree to which the garments are soaked.”

The officer grunted.

“You’re right about the shoulders,” he said, feeling them with an awkward hand. “And the front of his coat is sopping wet. It looks as though he’d been walkin’ toward the wind, all right.”

Zoom ran his fingers over the garments. His eyes held that hawklike glitter of concentration which marked his arousing interest.

“Now the wind,” said Zoom, “was blowing in the same direction the head is pointing. Which means that he was either turned around, after the shot, or that he had changed the direction of his walk. You’ll notice that he has no socks on, that the shoes are incompletely laced, and the strings hastily tied about the ankles.

“Apparently the man had retired for the night, when something aroused him, sent him hurriedly out into the rain with just the very barely essential clothes on.

“He was shot in the back of the head. Probably the shot coincided with a clap of thunder, since no one seems to have heard it, and it’s a district where there are apartment houses. He probably has been dead less than quarter of an hour.

“Let’s have the flash on his face, officer.”

The beam of light played obediently upon the cold face.

They disclosed features of a man somewhat past the middle fifties. His face was covered with gray stubble. His hair was thin at the temples. The high forehead was creased with scowl wrinkles. The mouth was a firm, thin line, almost lipless. Deep calipers showed that the corners of the mouth were habitually twisted downward.

“A man,” said Sidney Zoom, “who seldom smiled.”

The officer’s hand went to the coat pocket.

“Lots of papers in this pocket. You go notify headquarters. I’ll stay here and watch.”

Zoom’s eyes focused upon the wet pavement, some three feet beyond the corpse.

“Officer, raise your flash light a bit — higher — there!”

“What is it?”

Chapter II The Scattered Beads

The rays of the flash light were caught, reflected back by something that glowed an angry red. Zoom walked over to it, stooped, picked it up.

“A red bead, or a synthetic ruby, pierced for stringing on a necklace,” he said, “and I think there’s another one a little farther on. Let’s see.”

The officer obediently elevated the flash. Once mote there was a dull gleam of angry red from the darkness.

“From the direction he was travelin’,” said the officer.

Zoom picked up the second bead, stalked back to the corpse.

“Look in his hands,” he ordered.

The officer pried open the left hand. It was empty. He pulled back the fingers of the right hand. Half a dozen red beads glittered in the reflection of the flash light, glowing red and angry, their color suggestive of drops of congealed blood.

Sidney Zoom scowled thoughtfully.

“Is that a bit of white thread there?” he asked.

The policeman bent forward.

“It is that. What do you make of it?”

Zoom stared in unwinking thought at the small cluster of red gems. “They may be genuine rubies. I doubt it. They look like synthetic rubies. Notice that they graduate slightly in size. Evidently they were strung on a necklace. There’s a chance, just a chance, that the necklace was worn by the one who fired the fatal shot, that the man clutched at this person, caught the necklace in his hand and ripped out a section of it.

“Then, when that person fled from the shooting, there were more of the rabies that dropped... but I doubt it.”

The officer lurched to his feet, letting the body slump back upon the wet pavement.

“It’s gettin’ too many for me,” he said. “I don’t want to leave the body, even if I do know you’re all right. You go in that apartment house and get a telephone, notify headquarters.”

Zoom nodded.

“Stay there, Rip,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

The dog slowly waved his tail in a single swing of dignified acquiescence, to show that he understood. Zoom crossed the street to an apartment house.

The outer door was locked, the lobby dark.

Zoom’s forefinger pressed against the call button below the apartment marked “Manager” until he had received a response. When a fat woman with sleep swollen eyes came protestingly to the door, Zoom explained the situation, was given a telephone, called headquarters and reported the finding of the body.

Then he returned to the officer. The dog was crouched down upon the wet pavement, his head resting upon his paws. He thumped his tail upon the pavement by way of greeting, remained otherwise immobile. The officer was going through the papers in the pocket.

“Seems to be a man named Harry Raine,” he observed. “There’s a bunch of letters and papers here. Looks like he tried to carry all his correspondence in his pocket. The address is here, too. It’s out West Adams Street, 5685. And here’s some legal papers, looks like he’d been in a lawsuit of some kind.

“The papers have been carried around for some time. You can see where pencil marks have rubbed off on ’em and polished up until they’re slick.”

Zoom nodded. He was studying the face of the dead man.

“Ain’t you interested in these papers?” asked the officer.

Zoom’s expression was one of dreamy abstraction.

“I’m more interested in the possible character of this dead man,” he observed. “He looks to me like an old crank, a man who never smiled, who had no compassion, no kindness. Look at those hands! See the gnarled grasping fingers... Do you believe in palmistry, officer?”

The policeman grunted scornfully.

“Baloney,” he said.

Zoom said nothing for a matter of seconds.

“It’s strange,” he remarked, “how character impresses itself upon every portion of a person’s body. Hands, feet, ears, shape of the nose, the mouth, the expression of the eyes... everything is shaped by that intangible something we call a soul.”

The officer, squatted on the wet pavement by the side of the corpse, lurched to his feet.

“You’re talkin’ stuff that don’t make sense,” he growled. “This here is a murder case, and the law has got to catch the person that did the murder. What’s the character of the dead man got to do with the thing?”

Sidney Zoom’s reply consisted of one word.

“Everything,” he said, and then reached for the papers which had been in the pocket of the corpse.

The officer grunted his disbelief.

“Murders,” he observed, “are everyday affairs. Handle ’em as routine an’ you get somewhere. Identify the dead guy, see who wanted him bumped, round up the evidence and maybe give a little third degree at headquarters, an’ you’re ready for the next case.”

Sidney Zoom said nothing. In the distance could be heard the wailing of sirens.

“There are powder marks on the back of the head,” said Sidney Zoom, after the siren had wailed for the second time. “Let me see your flash light.”

The officer handed him the flash light. Zoom circled the gutter with its rays, steadied his hand abruptly, pointed.

“There it is.”

“There what is?”

“The empty shell. See it, there in the gutter? He was shot with an automatic. The ejector flipped the shell out into the street, the running water from that last burst of rain washed it down into the gutter.”

The officer bent himself with an effort, picked up the shell.

“You’re right. A forty-five automatic.”

The siren wailed again. Lights glittered from the wet street, and the first of the police cars swung into the cross street, then hissed through the water to the curb.

Another machine, followed close behind. Then there sounded the clanging gong of an ambulance. Thereafter, events moved swiftly.

Chapter III The Girl in Apartment 342

Detective Sergeant Gromley was in charge of the homicide detail, and he heard the officer’s report, checked the facts from Sidney Zoom, and started the men gathering up the various dews.

They started tracing the trail of the blood-red beads, found that they led to an apartment house some fifty yards away. They were spaced almost at even intervals, and they glistened in the rays of the searching spotlights.

The district was largely given over to apartment houses, and the wailing sirens had brought watchers to the windows. The cloud rifts drifted into wider spaces and tranquil stars shone down upon the concrete canon of the sleeping street.

Officers started checking details, trying to find if any one had heard the shot, if any one had noted the time, if there had been any sound of running feet.

Sergeant Gromley scanned the apartment house where the trail of red beads ended and uttered an exclamation of triumph as he pointed to the row of mail boxes in the vestibule, each faced with a printed name cut from a visiting card.

“Notice the apartment 342,” he said. “The name’s been torn out of there within the last half hour or so. See, there’s a wet smear on the cardboard backing, and... it’s a little smear of blood. See it?”

He turned toward the lobby where a man in a bath robe was peering curiously.

“Where’s the manager?”

“I own the place. My wife and I run it.”

“Who’s the tenant in apartment 342?”

The man scowled, ran his fingers through his tousled hair.

“I ain’t sure. I think it’s a woman. Rainey or some such name. That’s it, Raine, Eva Raine, Ain’t her name on the mail box?”

The officer laughed. “Come on,” he said to the little cluster of broad shouldered assistants who had knotted around him in a compact group. “Let’s go.”

They went, crowding into the elevator. Sidney Zoom took the stairs, his dog at his heels.

“Here, you,” grunted the man in the bath robe, “you can’t bring the dog in here!”

But Sidney Zoom paid no attention. His long legs were working like pistons as he went up the stairs, two at a time.

But the officers were debouching from the elevator as Zoom reached the upper corridor. The stairs emerged at the end opposite from the elevator shaft, and the apartment they wanted was close to the elevator.

One of the men pounded upon the door.

It was opened almost immediately by a girl in a kimono. She stared at them in wide eyed silence.

“Oh!” she said, after a moment.

Sergeant Gromley pushed unceremoniously past her.

“We want to ask you some questions,” he said.

The others crowded into the little room, which was used as a sitting room during the daytime, a bedroom at night. The wall bed had been let down, apparently slept in, but the sheets were folded neatly at the corners. The girl must be a quiet sleeper, or else had not been in bed long.

She was robed in a kimono of bright red which enhanced the gleam of her eyes, the red of her lips, the glitter of the lights upon her hair, glossy black as a raven’s wing.

“You’re Eva Raine?” asked Sergeant Gromley.

“Yes. Of course. Why?”

“Know Harry Raine who lives at 5685 West Adams?”

“Y-y-yes, of course.”

“Why say ‘of course’?”

“He’s my father-in-law.”

“You married his son?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the son’s name?”

“Edward.”

“Where is he?”

“Dead.”

“When did you see Mr. Harry Raine last?”

She hesitated at that, made a little motion of nervousness.

“Why, I can’t tell. Yesterday afternoon, I think. Yes. It was yesterday afternoon.”

“Weren’t very certain, were you?”

She lowered her eyes.

“I’m a little confused. What is the idea of all of you men, who seem to be officers, coming here and asking me these questions? I’ve taken nothing — done nothing.”

Sergeant Gromley nodded, a swift, single shake of the head, belligerent, aggressive.

“No one accused you of it — yet.”

“What do you want?”

“Information.”

“About what?”

“About who might have had a motive for murdering Harry Raine.”

The girl came to her full height. The face paled. The eyes widened until the whites showed upon all sides of the irises. The forehead wrinkled into a suggestion of horror.

“Murdered?” she asked.

Her voice was weak, quavering.

“Murdered!” snapped Sergeant Gromley.

“I... I don’t know.”

“Was there bad blood between you?”

She hesitated, then became regal in her bearing.

“Yes,” she said, “and I’m glad he’s dead — if he is dead. He was a brute, parsimonious, narrow-minded, bigoted, selfish.”

Sergeant Gromley nodded casually. The character of the dead man was of no consequence to him. It mattered not how much the man might have deserved to die. It was the fact that the law requires vengeance which mattered to the officer.

“Who murdered him?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“Have you a necklace of strung rubies, or imitation rubies, or red glass beads? Think carefully. Your answer may mean a lot to you — and don’t lie.”

“What have red beads got to do with it?”

“Perhaps nothing, perhaps a lot. Have you such a necklace?”

Her lips clamped tightly.

“No!”

“Do you know any one who has such a necklace?”

“No!”

These single syllables of negation were explosive in their staccato emphasis.

Sergeant Gromley remained undisturbed. There was a lot of ground to cover yet, and the veteran investigator feared no lie. The only thing that caused him consternation was a suspect who would not talk. Given one who would answer questions, and he was always certain of ultimate triumph.

“Where have you been since nine o’clock?”

“In bed!”

The answer came as though it had been rehearsed.

Sergeant Gromley raised his eyebrows.

“In bed?”

“Yes.”

“Since nine o’clock?”

“Yes.”

The answer was surly this time, defiant, as though she had been trapped into some answer she had not anticipated and intended to stick by her guns.

“What time did you retire?”

“At the time I told you, nine o’clock.”

The sergeant’s smile was sarcastic.

“You went to bed at nine o’clock?”

“Yes.”

He looked over the graceful lines of her figure, the striking beauty of the face.

“Rather early for a young and attractive widow to retire on a Saturday night, isn’t it?”

She flushed. “No matter what you are investigating, that is none of your business. You asked me a question, and I answered!”

Sergeant Gromley’s smile was irritating. His manner was that of a cat who has a mouse safely hooked in its claws, who is willing to play for a while to torture the animal.

“Rather a coincidence that I was the one who selected the hour of nine o’clock, and you answered so promptly. I am just wondering, Miss Raine, if you hadn’t resolved to give the bed story as an alibi, and when I asked you where you had been since nine o’clock, rather than asked you where you had been during the last hour, you said ‘in bed’ because you had expected the question to be different. Then, having said it the first time, you decided to stick to your story.”

She was cool, defiant, but her shoulders were commencing to rise and fall with more rapid breathing.

“Your reasoning is too complicated for my childlike brain. Just confine yourself to necessary questions, please.”

The sergeant continued to press the point.

“It is rather a peculiar coincidence that I should have been the one who predicted the exact time of your retirement by asking you the question, isn’t it?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“That, also, is a matter upon which I cannot give you an answer.”

She swept her eyes momentarily from the boring eyes of the sergeant to the ring of curious faces which watched her, faces which formed a background, semicircled about the door, just inside of the room.

And, as Sidney Zoom caught her glittering eyes, jet black, shiny with excitement, his long forefinger raised casually to his lips and pressed firmly against them.

Her eyes had left his face before the significance of the gesture impressed her. Then they darted back with a look of swift questioning in them.

But Sidney Zoom, taking no chances that his signal might be seen and interpreted by one of the officers, was scratching the side of his nose with slow deliberation.

The girl returned her eyes to the sergeant, but now there was a look of puzzled uncertainty in them.

“Do you know what the weather is like?” asked Sergeant Gromley.

“It’s showering.”

He smiled again.

“Really, Miss Raine, you are remarkable. It was quite dear at nine o’clock. The showers started about nine forty-five and continued quite steadily until just before midnight.”

She bit her lip.

“And you were asleep?” pursued the sergeant.

Quick triumph gleamed in her eyes as she swooped down upon the opening he had left her with that eagerness which an amateur always shows in rushing into the trap left by a canny professional.

“I didn’t say I was asleep.”

“Oh, then, you weren’t asleep?”

“No, not all the time.”

“And that’s the way you knew it was raining?”

“Yes. The rain beat against the window. I heard it, got up and looked out. There was some lightning, thunder, rain.”

“And that’s the only way you knew it was raining?”

“Yes.”

“You’re positive?”

“Yes. Of course!”

“And you weren’t out of this room after nine o’clock to-night?”

“Would I be likely to leave it, attired as I am?”

“Answer the question. Were you out of the room after nine o’clock?”

This time she shifted her eyes, trying to escape the pinning down of the facts as though she could avoid them by moving her eyes from the steady stare of the inquisitor.

And her eyes instinctively sought those of Sidney Zoom.

This time there could be no mistaking the impressive significance of the gesture he made, the forceful pressing of a rigid forefinger against his closed lips.

“Answer the question,” boomed Sergeant Gromley, suddenly stern, unsmiling.

“No,” she said. “I didn’t leave the room.”

But her eyes were hesitant, helpless, and they looked pleadingly at Sidney Zoom. The sergeant swooped, pushed aside a filmy bit of silk, reached a long arm under the edge of the bed, brought out a pair of shoes.

“These your shoes?”

And she knew then that she was trapped, for the shoes were soaked with rain water. The knowledge showed In the sudden panic of her eyes, the pallor of her lips.

She looked at Sidney Zoom, suddenly stiffened.

“I have answered quite enough of your questions, sir. I will not make any more statements until I have seen a lawyer.”

He simulated surprise.

“Why... Why, Miss Raine, what could you possibly want to see a lawyer about? Has any one made any accusations against you?”

“N-n-n-oooo, I don’t know as...”

“Then why should you want a lawyer? Do you expect accusations will be made?”

She sucked in a rapid lungful of breath preparatory to speaking, then raised her eyes once more to Zoom’s face.

“I have nothing to say,” she said.

The sergeant snapped out a rapid barrage of words.

“Is it your custom to put powder on your cheeks, lip stick on your lips, have your hair freshly done up at one o’clock in the morning? Or were you expecting a call from the police, and, womanlike, wanted to look your best?”

It was plainly a relief to her that she did not need to answer the question. She simply shook her head, but the panic of her eyes was more evident now.

Sergeant Gromley turned to the men.

“Frisk the place, boys.”

Chapter IV Jewels in the Mail Box

He spoke quietly, but the effect of his order was instantaneous. The men scattered like a bevy of quail. Drawers were pulled open, skilled fingers explored the contents. They even went to the bed, felt in the mattress, probed in the pillowcase.

Sergeant Gromley kept his eyes upon the defiant, but panicky eyes of the young woman.

“It might be much better for you, later on, if you told the truth now,” he said, gently, trying to make the fatherly tone of his admonition break through the wall of reserve that had sealed her lips.

He was almost successful. The touch of fatherly sympathy in his voice brought instant moisture to her eyes. Her lips parted, then damped tightly dosed again. She blinked back the tears.

“I have nothing to say.”

One of the officers turned from the dresser.

“Look what’s here,” he said.

And he held up a fragment of necklace, made of fine red beads, either rubies or colorful imitations, dangling with red splendor in the light.

“Where was it?”

“Hidden. Fastened to the back of the mirror with a bit of chewing gum. You can see where the string was broken, then it was tied up at the ends, and fastened to the back of the mirror.”

Sergeant Gromley grunted.

“Let’s see the gum.”

The officer handed him a wad of chewing gum. The outside was barely dry, had not commenced to harden. It was still soft and pliable.

Sergeant Gromley fastened his eyes upon the young woman once more.

“Yours?” he asked.

She glanced swiftly at Sidney Zoom, shook her head.

“I’ll answer no more questions.”

Sergeant Gromley sat with his back to Sidney Zoom. He spoke now, quietly, evenly, without raising his voice.

“Zoom, I’ve heard of you, heard of some of the help you’ve given the department. It’s customary to exclude all civilians from questionings such as these. I let you remain because of your record. Unfortunately you seem to have taken advantage of my generosity.”

Sidney Zoom’s voice was vibrant.

“Meaning,” he asked, “exactly what?”

Sergeant Gromley kept his back turned.

“Do you think,” he asked, “that I am an utter fool?”

And Sidney Zoom, rasping out his counter question in a voice that showed he was not accustomed to take orders or criticism, snapped: “Do you want me to leave the room?”

“Yes,” said Gromley, without turning his head.

Sidney Zoom gained the door in two strides.

“Come, Rip.”

Their feet sounded in the corridor, the man’s pounding along in great strides, the dog’s pattering softly, a rattling of claws sounding upon the uncarpeted strip of floor at the sides of the hallway.

There was a sardonic smile upon the features of Sidney Zoom as he gained the ground floor of the apartment house.

Here were a few of the curious inmates who had been aroused by the commotion, asking questions, babbling comments which were vague surmises.

Sidney Zoom walked to the outer lobby, paused, surveyed the row of brass letter boxes, each fitted with a keyed lock by which the box could be opened.

Sidney Zoom paused to take from his pocket a pair of gloves. They were thin, flexible gloves, yet they insured against any casual finger-prints being left behind.

“Fools!” he muttered to himself under his breath.

Then he took from a pocket a bunch of keys. They were not many in number, but each had been fashioned with cunning care by a man who had made the study of locks the hobby of an adventurous lifetime.

The third key which he tried clicked back the bolt of the mail box which went with apartment 342.

Sidney Zoom reached a gloved hand inside the aperture, removed a wadded scarf of silk. Within the scarf were several hard objects which rattled crisply against each other.

They might have been pebbles, or bits of glassware, but Sidney Zoom wasted no time in looking to see what they were. He simply dropped the entire bundle, scarf and all, into one of the pockets of his spacious coat, and then went out into the night.

He paused at the nearest available telephone, a small garage where a night man regarded him with sleep swollen eyes, and telephoned to the best criminal attorney in the city.

“This is Zoom speaking. The police are trying to pin a murder charge on a young woman, a Mrs. Eva Raine, who Eves in apartment 342 at the Matonia Apartments. They’re there now. I’m retaining you to handle the case under the blanket arrangement I have with you. Get out there at once. Tell her to keep quiet. Just tell her to shut up, and see that she does. That’s all.”

And Sidney Zoom clicked the receiver back on its hook.

He knew that the attorney would be there in a matter of minutes. Sidney Zoom kept him supplied with various and sundry cases which attracted the interest of the strange individual who had for his hobby the prowling of midnight streets and the matching of wits with both criminals and detectives.

Then Sidney Zoom summoned a cab and was driven to the palatial yacht upon which he lived.

Only when he was safely ensconced within his stateroom, did he take out and open the package which he had taken from the mail box.

It was filled with jewels, strung, for the most part, into necklaces.

Chapter V Zoom Gets in Bad

It was ten o’clock in the morning.

The musty air of police headquarters was filled with that stale odor which comes to rooms which are in use twenty-four hours a day.

Captain Bill Mahoney, a small man in the early fifties, but equipped with a large mind, raised dark, speculative eyes and regarded Sidney Zoom thoughtfully.

“Sergeant Gromley,” he said, “wants to place a charge against you for aiding and abetting a felon.”

“The felon being whom?” asked Sidney Zoom.

“The Raine girl.”

Sidney Zoom tapped a cigarette impatiently upon the table, rasped a match along the sole of his shoe, lit the cigarette, shot out the match with a single swift motion of his arm.

“Sergeant Gromley,” he said, “is a dangerous man. He is dangerous to innocent and guilty alike.”

Captain Mahoney’s voice remained quiet.

“He’s the best questioner in the department.”

“Perhaps.”

“And he tells me you interfered with him in the Raine case.”

“He’s right. I did.”

“That’s serious, Zoom, We’ve orders to allow you to cooperate because you’ve always had a passion for justice, and you’ve helped us clear up some mighty difficult cases, but you’re going to lose your privileges.”

Captain Mahoney was never more quiet than when enraged. Zoom had known him for years in a close friendship which was founded upon mutual respect. Yet Captain Mahoney would have been among the first to have admitted that, despite his long intimacy, he knew virtually nothing of that strange, sardonic creature who made a hobby of patrolling the midnight streets and interesting himself in odd crimes.

Sidney Zoom regarded the smoldering tip of his cigarette.

“I’m afraid, Zoom, I shall have to ask you to surrender your courtesy star and your commission as a special deputy. I’m sorry, but you knew the rules, and you infringed upon them.”

Sidney Zoom took the articles from his pocket, passed them over, heaved a sigh.

“I’d anticipated that, and I’m glad. I can do more fighting the police than cooperating with them.”

He jackknifed his huge form to its full height, strode toward the door. His hand was on the knob when Captain Mahoney’s quiet voice stabbed the tense atmosphere of the room.

“That,” he said, “disposes of my duty as an officer. Now, Zoom, would you mind telling me, as a friend, why you took advantage of the confidence which the department reposed in you?”

“Because,” snapped Zoom, “Gromley was about to outwit an innocent woman and pin a murder upon her.”

“He’s done it anyway.”

“No. That he hasn’t.”

Captain Mahoney fished a cigar from his pocket, slowly bit off the end. His dark, luminous eyes regarded Sidney Zoom with curious speculation.

“Do you know who murdered Harry Raine?” he asked.

“No. I know who didn’t.”

Captain Mahoney lit his cigar.

“I wish I’d been there last night.”

“I wish you had, captain.”

Captain Bill Mahoney’s eyes flashed swiftly above the first puff of blue smoke which came from his cigar.

“Because if I had been, I’d have sensed that your interference was for the primary purpose of getting yourself kicked out. I’d have figured that you wanted most awfully to leave that room without exciting attention, and you took that way of doing it.”

And Sidney Zoom whirled, strode back to his chair, sat down, and laughed.

“Bill,” he said, “it’s a good thing you weren’t there. You’re a little too clever.”

Captain Mahoney had not moved. He twisted the cigar slowly, thoughtfully, flashed his black eyes at Sidney Zoom’s hawk-like face once or twice.

“And I have an idea you wanted to be relieved of your courtesy commission on the force because you’re figuring on a fast one, and don’t want any sense of ethics to stand in your way.”

Zoom said nothing. For a few moments they smoked in silence.

“Bill,” said Sidney Zoom, at length, “you’re human. Do you want to solve that Raine murder?”

Captain Bill Mahoney spoke cautiously when he answered.

“Gromley says it’s a perfect case, but that you and your lawyer have interfered with his proof and he may not be able to turn over enough evidence to get a conviction.”

Sidney Zoom leaned forward.

“If you’ll put your cards on the table, Bill, I’ll try and clear up the case for you.”

“If I put my cards on the table,” asked the police captain, “will you put yours on the table?”

Sidney Zoom’s answer was explosively prompt.

“No!”

“Why not?”

Zoom laughed lightly.

“Because I’m going to play with a marked deck.”

“You think the woman isn’t the guilty party?”

“I’m almost certain of it.”

“It would hurt the police a lot if we should go ahead and try to pin a murder rap on her and then have it turn out it was a mistake,” said Bill Mahoney, slowly.

Sidney Zoom knew when he had won.

“Get your hat, Bill,” he said.

Captain Mahoney reached for his hat.

“Where to?”

“To Harry Raine’s place, out on West Adams. I’ll drive slowly, and you can tell me what the police have found out while we’re driving.”

“Sergeant Gromley would die if he knew I was doing it,” sighed the captain.

But Bill Mahoney had seen Sidney Zoom perform seeming wonders upon many other occasions, and beyond the sighed regret he showed no other signs of hesitancy.

As they purred along in Zoom’s high powered, multi-cylindered car, his police dog crouched in the rumble seat, sniffing the air with curious nostrils, Captain Mahoney gave Zoom a brief summary of the facts the police had discovered.

“It’s a family fight affair. Guess old Raine was a man who had at least one killing coming to him. He had a son, Edward. Edward fell in love with Eva, the girl. Raine kicked the boy out. The boy started in doing some gem business, buying and selling. He was making good. Then, one day, he was killed, suddenly.

“There wasn’t any insurance. The girl found herself widowed, with a stock of gems that had to be sold. She started probating the estate to get good tide to the gems, and old Raine sued the administrator.

“It developed that there was an illegality about the marriage. He’d known it all along, had been saving it as a weapon. Therefore, Eva wasn’t the boy’s widow. Harry Raine was the only surviving relative. There wasn’t a will. Raine claimed the gems. The court gave them to him. He and his lawyer took possession of them yesterday afternoon.

“The girl didn’t have any money to carry on a fight. She let him have them. But she had some of her husband’s old effects. Among these was a key ring with a key to the house. Apparently, the girl sneaked out to the house after every one had gone to bed and stole the jewels.

“She’d have made a good job of it, too, because no one suspected she had the key. But she was just a little clumsy in the get-away and knocked over a chair. That woke old Raine up.

“He dashed after the burglar, but she eluded him and got out into the night. He chased her for a ways in his pyjamas, then came back, got into his clothes, and started to go after her.

“He told his attorney he’d caught a glimpse of her, running into the wind and rain, and had recognized her. He was furious, wanted to catch her red handed and all that.”

Sidney Zoom shot Captain Mahoney a swift glance.

“Told his attorney? What was his attorney doing there at midnight?”

“He lives there. Raine is a funny old codger, or was. He goes in for collecting things, stamps, first editions and what not. And he’s a litigious old cuss, always in court. He sues his neighbors, sues the dealers who sell him things, sues the paving contractors who do work on his street, sues everybody.

“He’s got a white-haired old lawyer that he found somewhere, down and out, and took the lawyer to live with him in his house. And he always keeps the lawyer busy. Then he’s got a butler who’s a character, looks like an old pug; and there’s a Chinese cook. That’s the household.”

Sidney Zoom nodded.

“That,” he said, “is just about how I figured the case.”

Captain Mahoney shot him a shrewd glance.

“How’d you’ figure any of that out?”

“There were legal papers in the pockets of the corpse,” he said, “and the latest of them was a case where he’d sued the administrator to quit title to some of the jewelry his son had had at the time of his death. A copy of the judgment was in his coat pocket at the time. The cop on the beat found it.”

Captain Mahoney squinted his eyes.

“Well,” he said, “here’s the way Gromley reconstructs the case. Old Man Raine started after the girl and didn’t catch up with her until he was almost at her apartment. He grabbed at her and clutched a string of synthetic rubies she was wearing, a present from her husband.

“She broke away, shot him, then turned and fled to her apartment. She was panic-stricken, and ditched the jewels and the gun. She probably was so excited she didn’t know he’d broken the necklace when he grabbed at her.

“She was afraid they’d be coming for her, however, so she ripped her name off the mail box to balk them of that much of a clew, and went to her apartment to pack, then she heard the sirens and knew any woman who started to leave the apartment house while the police were there would be stopped and questioned.

“So she pretended she’d been in bed asleep, and waited to see if the police were coming. If they hadn’t found her she’d have ducked out as soon as the police left. She figured that if they did find her she could stall them off. And she might have done it if it hadn’t been for Gromley’s being so damned shrewd with his questioning.”

Chapter VI The Dead Man’s House

Sidney Zoom shook his shoulders as though to relieve them of some weight.

“That’s what I didn’t like about Gromley. He’s damned clever, and he used his cleverness, not to reason out what must have happened there at the time of the murder, but to trap the girl. It wasn’t fair.”

Captain Mahoney smiled mechanically.

“Things in this world aren’t always fair. But they’re fairly efficient. It’s the result that counts.”

Sidney Zoom gave a single expletive.

“Bah!” he said.

“Still believe in divine justice, eh?” asked the police captain.

“I’ve seen something closely akin to that save several innocent people from jail or the death penalty,” said Sidney Zoom.

Captain Mahoney shook his head.

“You’ve been lucky, Zoom. But it wasn’t divine justice. It was your own damned cleverness, plus the fact that you’ve got sufficient money to ride your hobby as far as you want to.”

Sidney Zoom said nothing.

“That’s the place,” remarked Captain Mahoney. “The one on the other side of the street. The big house with the iron gate and the padlock.”

Sidney Zoom made a single comment.

“Yes,” he said. “It looks like the type of place he’d have lived in.”

“Evidently you didn’t take a shine to him?”

“No, I didn’t. His character showed on his face, even in death.”

“It takes all sorts of people to make a world, Sidney.”

Sidney Zoom’s answer was typical:

“All sorts of things come up in a garden. But one pulls out the noxious weeds.”

Captain Mahoney sighed.

“Your philosophy’s too advanced for this age, my friend.”

Sidney Zoom abruptly reverted to the clews which had led the officers to the crime.

“Would you ever have found the girl if it hadn’t been for the beads?”

“You mean the synthetic rubies broken from the string?”

“Yes.”

“Eventually, but we’d have had to go to the house first When we got there and talked with the servants who had heard the commotion we’d have gone after the girl.”

“But the beads were the clew?”

“Naturally. They led from the corpse to the outer door of the apartment.”

“Of the apartment house, you mean.”

“Well, yes.”

Sidney Zoom fastened his intense, hawk-like eyes upon the man who was staring at him with sudden curiosity.

“Did it ever strike you as being a bit strange, Bill, that the beads only went as far as the outer door of the apartment house, and that they were spaced most evenly? Why weren’t there any beads between the door and the entrance to the girl’s apartment?”

Bill Mahoney laughed.

“There you go, Zoom, with some of your wild theories. The beads were the girl’s all right. We’ve identified those beyond any doubt. And the rest of the string was found behind the mirror in her room where she’d tried to conceal it. She’d put it there. There was the imprint of a finger in the soft surface of the chewing gum. It was her finger.

“What happened was that the man she’d shot broke the string of beads with his last death clutch. They were spilling all over the street, but the girl didn’t know it until she got to the door of the apartment. Then she gathered up what was left, probably some that were on a thread that had dropped down the front of her dress.

“She knew she had to hide them. She wanted to put them where the police would never find them. By that time she knew they had been spilling, leaving a trail directly to the apartment house. That’s why she pulled the card off of the mail box. She knew the officers would trail those beads and, if they found a card bearing the same name as the dead man, they’d come right up.”

Sidney Zoom stretched, yawned, smiled.

“Did you notice, by any chance, if there was a cut on the fingers of Eva Raine?”

Captain Mahoney’s glance was gimlet eyed.

“Yes. There was. What made you think there might be?”

“The edges of the card container on the letter box were pretty sharp, and she was in a hurry. I thought she might have cut herself.”

“And that such cut accounted for the red stain on the mail box?”

“Yes.”

“I think,” said Captain Mahoney, very deliberately, “that we’ll go on in. You’ve told me too much — and not enough.”

Zoom uncoiled his lean length from behind the steering wheel, grinned at the officer. “Come on.”

They walked up a cement walk, came to the porch of the house. An officer on duty saluted the captain, regarded Zoom curiously. The police dog, padding gravely at the side of his master, managed a dignity which was the more impressive in that it was entirely natural.

The door swung open. Two men stood in the hallway.

Captain Mahoney intoned their names to Sidney Zoom in a voice that was informative, but not social.

“Zoom, this is Sam Mokley, the butler; Laurence Gearhard, the lawyer.”

Zoom nodded, stalked into the hallway, suddenly turned to transfix the two men with his hawk-like eyes.

“I want to see two things,” he snapped. “First, the room from which the jewelry was taken; second, the bed where Harry Raine slept.”

The lawyer, white-haired, cunning-eyed, shrewd judge of human nature, swept his pale eyes over Zoom’s tall figure, vibrant with controlled energy.

“Show him, Mokley,” he said to the butler.

The man nodded. “This way, sir.”

He was all that Captain Mahoney had described, a ferocious looking figure, massive, heavy-handed, his ear cauliflowered.

“Here is the room, sir. The gems were in a concealed cabinet back of the bookcase. Only a very few people knew of that bookcase.”

But Sidney Zoom did not even glance at the place of concealment. Instead he dropped to his hands and knees and started crawling painfully, laboriously, over the edges of the carpet, his fingers questing over every inch of the carpeted surface.

He remained in that position, searching patiently for some three or four minutes. If he found anything he gave no sign. As abruptly as he had assumed the position, he straightened to his full height, looked at the two men.

“The bedroom,” he said.

“This way, sir,” said the butler.

They trooped into the bedchamber. It was a dank, chilly place of slumber, suggestive of fitful sleep, disturbed by periods of worry, or restless thoughts, of selfish desires.

Zoom inspected the cheerless room.

“Where,” he asked of the butler, “did Raine keep his gun?”

The lawyer cleared his throat.

Zoom shot him a glance.

“I asked the butler,” he said.

The butler’s face was wooden.

“I haven’t seen him with a gun for some time, sir. He used to have one, a thirty-eight, Smith and Wesson, sir.”

Zoom strode to the dresser, started yanking open the drawers.

There were suits of heavy underwear, coarse socks, cheap shirts, a few frayed-edged, starched collars. In an upper drawer was a pasteboard box with a green label on the top. The sides were copper colored. Zoom pulled out the box, ripped open the cover, turned it upside down.

Upon the dresser there cascaded a glittering shower of brass cartridges, cartridges for a forty-five automatic.

The lawyer cleared his throat again. Then he shrugged his shoulders, walked away. Zoom stared fixedly at Captain Mahoney.

“I want to see the Chinese cook,” he said.

Captain Mahoney studied the level intensity of Zoom’s eyes for a moment, then motioned to the butler.

“Come with me and let’s find the cook.”

They left the room. The lawyer cleared his throat, turned, regarded Sidney Zoom.

“Going to say something?” asked Zoom.

“Yes,” said the attorney. “I was about to remark that it was a nice day.”

The door opened again and Captain Mahoney escorted the butler and the Chinese cook into the room. The cook was nervous, plainly so.

“Ah Kim,” said Captain Mahoney.

Zoom looked at the man. The slant eyes rotated slitheringly about in oily restlessness.

“Ah Kim,” snapped Zoom, “do you know much about guns?”

Ah Kim shifted his weight.

“Heap savvy,” he said.

Zoom indicated the pile of shells.

“What gun do these fit?”

“Alla samee fit Missa Raine gun. Him florty-five, automatic.”

Zoom turned on his heel, faced the lawyer.

“You made Raine’s will.”

It was a statement rather than a question. The pale eyes of the lawyer regarded Zoom unwaveringly.

“Yes,” he said “Of course I did.”

“Who were the beneficiaries?”

The lawyer pursed his lips.

“I would rather answer that later, and in private.”

Captain Mahoney glanced at Zoom, then fixed the attorney with his dark, thoughtful eyes.

“Answer it now,” he said.

The lawyer bowed.

“Very well. The property, what there is, and it’s considerable, is left share and share alike to the two servants, Ah Kim and Sam Mokley.”

Chapter VII The Hidden Gun

The Chinese heard the news with a bland countenance that was utterly devoid of expression. Sam Mokley gave a gasp of surprise.

“What!” he said.

The lawyer bowed.

“I wasn’t going to tell you until the investigation was over, but Raine left his property to you two.”

“Did you share in it?” asked Captain Mahoney.

“No.”

“He didn’t leave any to Eva Raine?” asked Zoom.

“Naturally not,” said the lawyer, “One does not ordinarily bequeath property to one’s murderer. And the girl was utterly unscrupulous. She testified falsely in the lawsuit over the gems. She broke into the house and committed burglary.”

Sidney Zoom nodded careless acquiescence.

“Do you ever read the Bible, Mr. Gearhard?”

The white-haired man smiled.

“I have read it,” he said, dryly.

“It is an excellent passage,” commented Sidney Zoom, “which remarks that the one who is without sin may throw the first stone.”

The lawyer’s lips settled in a straight line.

“If you mean anything at all personal by that,” he snapped, “you had better watch your tongue. There is a law in this State against libel. Your attitude ever since you entered this place has been hostile.”

It was apparent that the grizzled veteran of many a court room battle was very much on the aggressive whenever his personal integrity was assailed.

Zoom bowed.

“You are mistaken,” he said. “My attitude is that of an investigator.”

He turned to Captain Mahoney.

“The murder,” he said, “is solved.”

Captain Mahoney stared at him.

“Who did it?”

Zoom smiled.

“Since there is a law against defamation of character, I will say nothing, but will refer you to absolute means of proof. A step at a time, we will uncover the matter.

“Rip, smell of the gentlemen.”

And Sidney Zoom waved his hand in a gesture, a swift flip of the wrist.

An animal trainer would have known that it was the gesture, more than the words which made the police dog do that which he did. But the effect was uncanny. The dog walked deliberately to each of the three men, smelled their clothing with bristling hostility, ruffling the hair on his back.

“Come, captain,” said Sidney Zoom.

And he turned, stalked from the room.

“We will leave the car parked here,” said Zoom as they gained the porch, leaving behind them three very puzzled individuals, “and start walking by the shortest route toward the apartment which the girl maintained.”

Captain Mahoney fell into step.

“Zoom,” he said, quietly, “have you any idea of just what you’re after?”

Zoom’s answer was a single explosive monosyllable.

“Yes.”

They strode forward, walking swiftly.

“Search,” said Zoom, and waved his arm.

The dog barked once, a short, swift bark, then started to swing out in a series of questing semicircles, ranging ahead and to either side of the walking men.

They walked rapidly and in silence. Captain Mahoney was put to it to keep the pace. From time to time, his anxious, speculative eyes turned upward to Zoom’s face. But the rigid profile was as though carved from solid rock.

It was not until they had approached the place where the body of the murdered man had been found that the dog suddenly barked three times, came running toward them, then back toward a vacant lot.

Here was a patch of brush, back of a signboard. The ground was littered with such odds and ends as invariably collect in vacant lots. There were two or three automobiles which would never run again, a few tin cans which had been surreptitiously deposited.

“I think,” said Zoom, “the dog has found something important.”

Captain Mahoney sprinted into speed, was the first to arrive at the patch of brush. He parted the leaves. The dog pawed excitedly, as though to help.

Captain Mahoney straightened and whistled.

“Call back the dog, Zoom. There’s a forty-five automatic on the ground here. There may be finger-prints on it. I want to preserve them.”

Zoom snapped a swift command.

The dog dropped flat on his belly, muzzle on forepaws.

Captain Mahoney took a bit of string from his pocket. He lowered it until he had it slung under the barrel of the automatic, then he tied a knot and raised the gun.

Zoom muttered his approval.

For there were finger-prints upon the weapon, prints that showed unmistakable ridges and whorls. Those finger-prints might have been developed by an expert, so plain were they.

“A man’s fingers,” said Captain Mahoney.

Zoom nodded.

“Now, captain, if you don’t mind, we’ll return to the house where Raine lived and see if we can identify the gun. As a favor to me, I wish you’d tell no one where this gun was found until I give you permission.”

Captain Mahoney sighed.

“Zoom, I’m going to give you a free hand, for a little while.”

“Come then,” said Zoom.

And they returned to the house as rapidly as they had made the trip from it, presenting a strange pair, the tall man with the hawklike eyes, the shorter officer, carrying a gun dangling on a string, careful lest the finger-prints should be obliterated.

Sam Mokley, the butler, let them into the house.

Zoom ordered him to summon the lawyer and the cook.

They gathered in the living room, a restless group of men, very evidently under a great nervous strain.

“Ah Kim,” snapped Zoom, “is that Mr. Raine’s gun?”

The Chinese let his eyes slither to the gun, then to Zoom’s face, then about the room.

“Same gun,” he said.

“Beg your pardon, sir,” interposed the butler, “hut it’s not the gun. Mr. Raine’s gun had a little speck of rust on the barrel, just under the safety catch.”

Zoom’s grin was sardonic.

“Oh,” he said, “I thought you described Raine’s gun as being a thirty-eight revolver, not a forty-five automatic.”

The butler’s wooden face was as a mask.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

Captain Mahoney regarded the man curiously.

“Anything further to say, Mokley?”

“No, sir.”

Zoom nodded, slowly.

“No,” he said, “he wouldn’t.”

Captain Mahoney’s eyes were thoughtful.

“We’ve got to have proof, you know, Zoom. We may satisfy ourselves of something, but we’ve got to get enough evidence to satisfy a jury before we can do anything.”

Chapter VIII The Killer Shoots Again

Zoom started to talk. His voice was crisp, metallic.

“Let’s look at the weak points in the case they’ve built up against the girl, look at the clews and see what must have happened.

“Raine had the gems here. He heard a noise, found the gems gone — stolen.

“Something made him sufficiently positive to start out after the girl. That something must have been some tangible evidence. Let’s suppose, as a starting point, it was the finding of part of a broken necklace with some synthetic rubies strewn over the floor.

“Naturally, he scooped up some of those rubies, to be used in confronting the girl. He started after her. He was walking toward the wind. It was rainy. He got wet. That didn’t deter him. As I see his character, Raine was a very determined man.

“But, before he reached the apartment where the girl lived something caused him to turn back. What was that something? We can be fairly sure he didn’t get to the apartment. Otherwise he’d have raised a commotion. He was that sort. And he was facing in the other direction when he was shot from behind, with his own gun.

“Now what would have caused him to turn back? What would have caused him to surrender his gun? Certainly some one in whose advice he must have had implicit faith overtook him and convinced him that he was going off on a wrong track, that he should return and summon the police.

“Then, when that person had secured possession of the gun, he waited for a clap of thunder from the passing shower, shot Raine in the back of the head.

“That person had picked up more of the scattered rubies. He used them to leave a trail to the front door of the apartment house where the girl lived. Those rubies weren’t spaced the way they would have been had they come off a necklace. They’d have hit the sidewalk in a bunch and scattered. They were spaced just as they would have been had some one dropped them with the deliberate intent of causing the police to go to that apartment house.

“Now the only person I can think of who would have been able to dissuade Mr. Raine, cause him to surrender his gun, turn him back, is...”

And Sidney Zoom stared at the lawyer.

That individual laughed.

“Very cleverly done, Zoom, but not worth a damn. Your theory is very pretty, but how are you going to prove the necklace was broken here in this room? You got down on your hands and knees when you first came in here. You were looking for some of the rubies. You were disappointed. Your interest in the girl has led you to concoct a very pretty theory. It won’t hold water — before a jury.”

Zoom turned to the Chinese.

“Bring me the vacuum sweeper, Ah Kim,” he said.

The servant glided from the room on noiseless feet.

The butler exchanged glances with the lawyer. The attorney cleared his throat, then was silent again.

The Chinese returned with the vacuum sweeper. Sidney Zoom opened it, took from the interior the bag where the sweepings reposed. He opened that bag, spilled the dust upon the floor.

Instantly it became apparent that that dust contained several of the rubies. They glowed redly in the light which came through the massive windows.

“Yes,” said Zoom, “I looked for the rubies here. When I couldn’t find them I knew I was dealing with an intelligent criminal. But I did find that a vacuum sweeper had been run over the floor very recently.”

The butler looked at the lawyer, wet his lips. The lawyer frowned meditatively.

“That, of course,” he said, “is rather strong evidence you’ve uncovered there, Zoom. Ah Kim would have profited by the death. He has acted suspiciously several times. There’s a chance you may be right.”

Zoom’s smile was frosty.

“Ah Kim couldn’t have dissuaded Harry Raine from going on to the girl’s apartment,” he said, slowly, impressively. “And I don’t think it will be Ah Kim’s fingers that’ll fit the prints on that gun.”

The attorney regarded the gun more intently than ever.

“Ah, yes,” he said, “the finger-prints on the gun. Well, it’s certain they’re not mine, and I wouldn’t have profited by the death of my client. I have lost by it. He kept me in a law practice.”

The butler squirmed.

“Meaning that you’re directing suspicion at me?” he asked.

The attorney shrugged his shoulders.

“The finger-prints,” he said, “will speak for themselves.”

Sam Mokley regarded the attorney speculatively.

“Well,” said Captain Mahoney, “we’ll take the finger-prints of the men here, and—”

“Perhaps,” suggested Zoom, “we can also look over the clothes closers of the men. We might find evidence that one of them was out in the rain last night. And it’s peculiar that the bed of Harry Raine shows no evidence of having been slept in. Every one agrees he jumped out of bed to pursue the burglar.

“I wouldn’t doubt if there were clean sheets put on the bed, and the bed made up fresh because the old sheets and pillowcase might have shown that he kept a gun under his pillow.”

The attorney spoke, slowly, in measured tones.

“The finger-prints on the gun are the most important evidence. A jury will act on those. The other things are mere surmise.”

Captain Mahoney stared at the lawyer.

“Humph,” he said.

“As a matter of fact,” pursued the attorney, “the butler was out for a little while last night. I tried to locate him just after Mr. Raine went out, and—”

The butler’s motion was so bafflingly swift that the eye could hardly follow. He had edged near the gun which lay on the table. With a sweep of his hand he scooped it up, fired, all in one motion.

The attorney’s stomach took the bullet. A look of surprised incredulity spread over his countenance; before that look was wiped out by the crashing impact of two more bullets.

Sam Mokley jumped back, waving the gun at Zoom and Captain Mahoney.

“Get your hands up,” he said.

But he had forgotten something — the police dog.

The animal made a swift spring, a tawny streak of motion. Teeth clamped about the wrist that held the gun. Seventy-five pounds of hurtling weight, amplified by the momentum of the rush, crashed downward upon that extended arm. The dog twisted his powerful neck, flung himself in a wrenching turn.

The weapon dropped from nerveless fingers.

Captain Mahoney stepped forward, handcuffs glistened.

“Let go, Rip, and lie down,” said Sidney Zoom.

The police dog relaxed his hold.

Sam Mokley extended his wrists for the handcuffs, the right wrist dripping blood from the fangs of the dog.

“Put ’em on,” he said, his voice calm, his face utterly without emotion. “I got that lying, cheating, murdering double crossing lawyer. You’re right in everything, only both Gearhard and I went after Raine.

“The lawyer put up the plan to me on the way. I had a criminal record. He knew it. He got me the job here. He proposed that we had a chance to kill off old Raine, blame the murder on the girl. He’d stick by me, and I’d split my inheritance with him.

“He made me do the shooting so I’d be in his power. But I don’t know how in hell you ever found the gun. We took it down to the bay and dumped it in the water.”

Captain Mahoney turned to Sidney Zoom.

That individual was smiling, a cold, efficient smile.

“Certainly, captain. I had to victimize you a little to set the stage just the way I wanted it. Rip’s well trained and intelligent, but even he couldn’t have done what he appeared to do. The finger-prints on the gun are my own. I knew that the murder had been committed with a single shot from a forty-five automatic. Therefore I bought a similar gun, put very evident finger-prints on it, buried it where Rip could see it.

“When I told him to search for the gun, he naturally thought we were playing a game. He went to the place where I had placed the weapon — after I’d led him to the general vicinity. I thought it might help us in a third degree.”

Captain Mahoney stared angrily at Zoom.

“And you left it loaded, ready to shoot because you thought that—”

Zoom shrugged his shoulders.

“As you said, you need evidence to convict.”

Captain Mahoney sighed.

“Zoom, you’re the most ruthless devil I ever saw work on a case... And how about the girl? Even if you have the right hunch about her, she must have come here and stolen the gems. She broke the necklace, didn’t realize it until she got to her room. Then she found a part of the string and, of course, tried to conceal it... and she tore the name off the mail box. I wonder if she didn’t conceal those gems in the mail box. Do you know?”

Sidney Zoom met his gaze.

“Do you know, captain, you’re rather clever — at times. But I don’t think even you are clever enough to ever find out what became of those gems — or to get a case that you can make out against the girl for their theft. You know it takes evidence to convict.

“Personally, I have an idea those gems will eventually be sold to a collector who will be glad to pay a top price with no questions asked — and that the girl will receive the present of a sum of money.”

Captain Mahoney licked his lips.

“Zoom, your ideas of justice are, perhaps, all right at times. But you’re sworn to enforce the law. You’ve got to do your duty.”

Zoom grinned.

“You forget you made me turn in my star and commission. Come, come, captain, you’re going to get lots of credit for having solved a murder case swiftly and efficiently. You’d better let it go at that.

“And while you’re talking about law, remember that there’s always a higher law than man-made laws. Personally, I rather like that biblical admonition about the man who is without sin being the one to throw the first stone.”

Captain Mahoney took a deep breath.

“Zoom, what a strange mixture you are! Big-hearted about some things to the point of taking risks, ruthless about others!”

Zoom shrugged.

“I live life as I see it.”

It was Mokley who interrupted.

“Come on, cap, let’s get this thing over with... to think that damned crook Gearhard fell for that third degree stuff! And him a lawyer! He was the one who was going to see that I had a cinch... stand back of me in a crisis, and all that! Then the dirty snake tried to squirm out from under and let me take the rap!

“Well, if there’s anything in this divine justice business, this guy talks about, he certainly got his — the crook!”

Captain Mahoney went to the telephone.

“Send the homicide squad, the coroner and the wagon,” he said, when he had contacted headquarters, “and tell Sergeant Gromley to lay off that Raine woman. He’s got a wrong hunch.”