The Casebook of Sidney Zoom

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  She laughed lightly.

  “I would love to — if it would help you!”

  But Sidney Zoom seemed to notice neither the softness of the tone nor the gleam of her eyes. He had whirled to his cabinet, where he kept his disguises. His fingers were busy checking over clothes and equipment.

  “Take the sedan to your apartment,” he said gruffly. “I’ll sleep on the boat. Be back here at nine o’clock in the morning, and have some loud clothes. Better invest in some cheap perfume, too.”

  “But,” she protested, “chorus girls aren’t all like that.”

  “The one you’re going to take the part of is,” he assured her. “And, good night.”

  She paused, opened her mouth as though to speak, then clamped it shut.

  “Good night!” she said, and whirled on her heel.

  At the door she paused again. But Sidney Zoom was apparently entirely lost to his surroundings. His long, artistic fingers were busily engaged with the disguises, and his touch contained a delicacy of handling that was almost a caress.

  Swiftly the girl took two steps back into the room, stooped, pulled the dog’s shaggy head to her cheek, then opened the door.

  “Good night,” she called again.

  But Sidney Zoom apparently failed to hear the words. He was adjusting a false mustache to his upper lip, trying on a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, contemplating the result in the mirror.

  IV

  Albert Pratt rested his bony knuckles upon the mahogany desk and frowned.

  “You insisted upon seeing me personally, Mr. Stapleton?”

  Sidney Zoom, so perfectly disguised that his personality seemed to have entirely melted into another individual, nodded a cringing assent.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you. It’s most important.”

  And there was in his appearance just the right touch of servility to match the part he was to play. To all appearances he was a man about town who liked to pose as a lion under the white lights, who expanded his chest and boomed a welcome to prosperity, but who cringed when luck ceased to smile, whined when he was hurt.

  His hair was parted in the middle, slicked down almost to his cheek bones with some oily preparation which emanated a sickly sweet odor. His eyes blinked behind a pair of massive spectacles, obviously chosen to give him an appearance of owlish wisdom. His upper lip sported a trick mustache which looked like an elongated smudge. His tie was loud, flashy; his clothes, though well tailored, were cut in the style affected by extreme youth.

  Albert Pratt was familiar with the type. Ordinarily there was no money to be made from them. He cast his pale eyes over the figure in haughty disapproval.

  “If it’s a loan,” he said in his most icy manner, “you’ll have to make an application—”

  He broke off as his visitor reached a well manicured hand toward an inner pocket and began pulling out money. The money was in crisp, new bills; the denominations were five hundred dollars each, and the stack which began to grow on the mahogany desk indicated that there was a small fortune in immediate cash being placed before the greedy pale eyes of Albert Pratt.

  “There is a man bringing in some letters,” whined Zoom in his disguise of George Stapleton. “You see, he wouldn’t take any chances with them. He insisted that he’d deliver them to you in person and you could deliver him the money.”

  “Ah, yes,” purred Albert Pratt. “Letters, letters, eh?”

  “Yes. Letters.”

  “Ah, yes, yes, indeed, letters. Oh, yes. And you’re to pay how much for them?”

  “Ten thousand dollars.”

  Albert Pratt extended his bony hands. The avaricious fingers curled about the sheaf of currency.

  “Five, ten, fifteen, twenty— Why, there’s an even fifty thousand dollars here, Mr. Stapleton!”

  The man leaned forward, lowered his voice.

  “I know it. The man who has those letters doesn’t know how absolutely vital they are. My wife is ready to sue me for divorce, and I have over a million and a half involved. And this girl is threatening a suit for breach of promise, and she could collect a hundred thousand at the least.

  “I’ve made a very advantageous bargain over the telephone. The letters are to be returned to me for ten thousand dollars. But, if anything should go wrong, I’ve simply got to have those letters. That’s why I want to leave the extra forty thousand. Then, if there’s any hitch, I can instruct you over the telephone to go higher and you’ll have the money available.”

  Albert Pratt lowered calculating lids over his pale eyes. His tongue licked his wire-thin lips.

  “Ah, yes,” he murmured, and his tone showed keen mental concentration.

  “I’ll make a deposit of the money. Then I’ll leave you a check payable to cash for ten thousand dollars. If there should be any hitch I’ll send down another check for the balance, or so much of it as may be necessary.”

  Pratt nodded.

  “But how about the letters? Shouldn’t you identify them in some way before I pay over the check?”

  Stapleton shook his head.

  “Myrtle Ramsay is a hard baby to deal with when she’s sore, but she’s square as a cornerstone. When she says she’ll deliver those letters, she’ll deliver ’em. And she won’t jump the price, either, but — well, if anything should go wrong, I’d like to have the money right here where we can deal with it.”

  “Those letters are worth more than ten thousand, eh?”

  “I’ll say so. I’m willing to give fifty if necessary, and I guess I’d give a hundred if I had to.”

  Pratt nodded.

  “And the — er — collector, wouldn’t do business at your bank, eh?”

  “No. He insisted upon the deal being made through this private bank.”

  “I take it Miss Ramsay will not make the collection in person?”

  “No. It’ll probably be Robert Dundley who makes the deal.”

  Albert Pratt placed the tips of his fingers together.

  “It’s really blackmail. You know, we could have a detective in here, and save that money—”

  Stapleton shuddered, placed his hands before his face.

  “No, no! Good heavens, no! Nothing like that! That would mean publicity. I can’t stand publicity.”

  “Where can I reach you, Mr. Stapleton — just in case things shouldn’t go right?”

  The visitor handed over a card with a telephone number.

  “I’ll be waiting right there at that telephone. I can get over here in three minutes from the time you ring me, if it’s necessary.”

  Albert Pratt sighed, the sigh of perfect contentment which comes to a cat that has just found a pitcher of rich cream.

  “I think it can be attended to. It’s rather irregular, Mr. Stapleton, but we’ll handle it — for a consideration, of course. Come this way, and we’ll open an account and you can give me your check.”

  The details disposed of, George Stapleton extended a flabby hand.

  “You won’t forget the telephone number?” he inquired, anxiously.

  “Most certainly not,” assured Albert Pratt, the pale-eyed banker, and there was a wealth of sincerity in his booming tone for the first time during the interview. Stapleton nodded.

  “I didn’t think you would,” he muttered cryptically, bowed, and walked rapidly through the front door of the bank.

  The clock on the wall showed exactly ten minutes to eleven.

  Albert Pratt walked back into his private office, chuckling to himself, rubbing his bony hands together.

  “Forget the telephone number, indeed!” muttered Albert Pratt to himself, then banged the private door which closed him in his palatially furnished office.

  V

  The clock shifted to ten minutes past eleven.

  Robert Dundley entered the bank, his face pale, his mouth taut with determination. In his hand was a package of letters tied with a pink ribbon. From the package there came the faint odor of perfume.

  “Mr. Pratt?” he asked of a cler
k.

  “Right this way,” soothed the deferential clerk, and led the way to Albert Pratt’s private office.

  “I’ve got some letters to be delivered. I get ten thousand dollars for ’em,” said Dundley, using the toneless voice of one who recites a well rehearsed speech.

  “Let me see them.”

  Pratt extended his greedy hands, scrutinized the letters, the addresses, looked at the postmarks, cancelled stamps, stretched his razor-edged mouth into a smile.

  “Ah, yes,” he said, summoned a clerk.

  “Cash this check and get the gentleman ten thousand dollars,” he said.

  The clerk brought in the money, handed it to Dundley.

  That individual tried to count it, but nervousness made his hands tremble until they refused to function.

  “I guess it’s right,” he said, thrust the money into his coat pocket, arose from the chair, made a short bow and dived for the door.

  Ten thousand dollars! It had not all been some dream then; the words of the mysterious yachtsman had been true. He was to get three thousand, and the balance was to be distributed as instructed. But three thousand went for himself, his wife and daughter.

  As the realization gripped him, he sprinted for the outer door.

  Behind him, Mr. Albert Pratt sucked his lips into his mouth as he gave a dry chuckle. Then he proceeded to untie the pink ribbon and read the letters.

  They were warm letters, letters that would make a jury lean forward on chair edges. They were the sort of letters that sound damning in a court room, look foolish in print, only seem natural when tied with scented pink ribbon.

  Carefully, giving close attention to contents, Albert Pratt picked out two of the most lurid of the letters and dropped them into a desk drawer. Those two letters contained, in essence, all that the rest of the packet contained.

  Then Mr. Pratt retied the package with the scented pink ribbon and reached for the telephone.

  “Ah, Mr. Stapleton,” he purred, when the connection had been made. “It gives me pleasure to report that your little matter has been entirely closed in accordance with your instructions, and I didn’t have to go above the ten thousand dollars, either.”

  “I’ll be there in three minutes!” yelled Mr. George Stapleton, his voice a crescendo of joy, and slammed up the telephone.

  In fact, he beat his estimated time by thirty seconds.

  Puffing, breathless, his face beaming, eyes blinking rapidly behind his owlish glasses, he reached for the letters, clasped them in eager hands.

  Albert Pratt watched him with cold, pale eyes.

  Stapleton untied the ribbon, glanced through the letters, nodded eagerly.

  “Yes, yes — these are the ones. What a fool I was to write them! But... Good God! No!... It can’t be... Why...”

  Albert Pratt leaned forward, suave, courteous.

  “Something wrong?” he inquired with just the right trace of impersonal concern.

  “Two... two letters missing,” stuttered George Stapleton.

  The banker tilted back in his swivel chair, nodded gently as though his judgment had been confirmed in a matter that was of no moment to him.

  “I thought you might find something like that. You’ll remember I suggested the letters should be identified in some way before I handed over the money. But you were positive that this Miss Ramsay would be a square shooter! ‘As square as a cornerstone’ was the expression you used, I believe.”

  Stapleton sighed, then flung his head forward on his arms.

  “Good heavens! What will that mean? Those two letters are as damning as the other eight.”

  Pratt nodded.

  “Probably more so. When you start dealing with blackmailers, you must be on your guard.”

  “What shall I do? What shall I do? What shall I do?” asked Stapleton, his voice rising to a note that was almost hysterical.

  Albert Pratt sighed.

  “Return to your office. You’ll probably hear from the blackmailers soon. It will cost you money. But you can rest assured that’s all it will cost you. You’re too good a thing to lose. They’ll shake you down for another thousand or two. Probably they’ll let you off for a thousand dollars a letter.”

  Stapleton got to his feet in a daze.

  “I’d pay fifty thousand if I had to,” he muttered. “I still have forty thousand on deposit here, and I can get more.”

  “Tut, tut,” warned Mr. Pratt, “you’re talking foolishness. If they gave you the letters for ten thousand and only held out two, it’s likely they’ll fix an outside price of an additional three thousand dollars. You’re all wrought up. Go back to your office. I have your telephone number. If anything happens I’ll let you know. A Mr. Dundley brought in the letters. I believe you said it was Mr. Dundley who would bring them. Perhaps he was the one who took out the two letters?” Pratt’s tone was politely inquiring.

  “No,” said Stapleton, reluctantly. “It must have been Myrtle herself. Dundley hasn’t sense enough.”

  “You can’t ever tell,” said Pratt.

  Stapleton shook his head.

  “No. It was Myrtle. I’ll get her on the telephone if I can.”

  The banker’s shake of the head was more crisply positive than any gesture he had made.

  “I’m quite sure it was Dundley. I can read character, and that young man had something he was concealing. You should have followed my advice and left me a list of the letters. As it is, return to your office. I’ll telephone if I hear anything. Be sure you don’t leave your telephone for a moment. This is important.”

  “Of course,” promised Stapleton, and went out, the packet of letters clutched in a moist palm.

  VI

  Albert Pratt watched him go with that peculiar synthetic smile twisting the comers of his lips yet not changing for a moment the calculating expression of the pale eyes.

  Ten minutes later he clapped on his hat and left the building.

  He took a cab for half a mile, walked into a public pay station, called the number which Stapleton had given him.

  “Hello,” he said, when he heard Stapleton’s answer, and disguising his own voice as much as possible. “You know who this is?”

  “No,” said Stapleton’s anxious voice. “Who is it?”

  “Never mind who. It’s a man who has two letters of yours, addressed to Miss Myrtle Ramsay, all in your writing, signed by you. Those letters are for sale.”

  “Who are you?” yelled Stapleton.

  “Never mind. Do you want to buy the letters?”

  “I’ll give two thousand for them,” said Stapleton.

  A hollow laugh was his answer.

  “Come again. Just because Myrtle’s a fool is no sign I am. Those letters will cost you forty thousand dollars — cash!”

  “No, no!” groaned Stapleton.

  “All right. I’ll offer them to your wife’s lawyer then. I could get more money from him, anyway. I was just being a good sport and letting you off easy.”

  There was a period of tense silence. The wire vibrated and buzzed. At length it transmitted a sigh which came from the Stapleton end of the line.

  “How would I get the letters?”

  “Same way you got the others. They were left at some bank, weren’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “What bank was it?”

  “As though you didn’t know!”

  “No, I don’t know. I’m an independent operator who horned in on the deal. You’ll have to tell me the name of the bank. I’m willing to take a chance on you shooting square. You did this morning with Myrtle. You should this afternoon with me.”

  “It’s the Pratt Bank, and you’ll ask for Mr. Albert Pratt,” said Stapleton.

  “Wait a minute,” muttered Pratt. “I’ll have to write that down. Pratt Bank, eh? How do you spell it?... P-R-A-T-T, eh? All right, I’ve got it. I’ll take the letters over. This guy Pratt honest?”

  “Yes,” answered Stapleton, “If I’d taken his advice I wouldn’t hav
e been in this pickle. He’s protecting my interests, but you can trust him to do what he says he will.”

  “All right,” grinned Pratt. “When will you get over there?”

  “I’ve got a conference with my wife’s lawyer in ten minutes. It’ll be two thirty before I can make it. But you be sure and take the letters over there right away. I’ll get down just as soon as I can.”

  “All right. Forty thousand bucks, cash, and no funny stuff!” warned Pratt, and hung up the telephone.

  Then he called the bank of which he was the head, talked with the girl at the telephone desk.

  “Listen, Sadie, a fellow’s going to call up for me right away. Don’t tell him I’m out. Tell him I’m busy talking on the other telephone, but that you’ll have me call as soon as I’m at liberty. Get that? G’-by.”

  And Albert Pratt sprinted from the booth, climbed in a cab and made time back to his bank.

  The telephone girl greeted him with a wise smile.

  “That fellow called you twice. I told him you were still talking. Want him?”

  “Yeah. That’s a good kid. You rate a box of candy on that, Sadie.”

  Whereupon Albert Pratt passed into his private office, picked up the telephone and heard Stapleton’s voice.

  “I’ve been trying to get you for ten minutes, but you were talking.”

  “Yes, a very important call from a stockbroker. You’ve heard something from your people?”

  “Yes. They’ve stuck me for forty thousand dollars!”

  “What? You’re crazy!”

  “No, no. This chap who called knew his business. He threatened to take the letters to my wife’s attorney, and I couldn’t have that. It would have nicked me for half a million.”

  “I see,” remarked Albert Pratt. “Well, of course, you know your own business best. Personally, I’d have told ’em to go to the devil. But you’re fully decided to pay the forty thousand dollars?”

  “Yes, yes! Now this fellow’s going to bring the letters in to you and leave ’em with you. I can’t get down right away. He’s a new party, some one I don’t know. I don’t even know how he got the letters; but I’m playing a little foxy with him. He’s going to leave them with you. I told him he could trust you. Now I want you to be sure they are the missing two letters. Look at the handwriting and everything, will you?”