The Casebook of Sidney Zoom

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  “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 irregul
ar 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 stic
king 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.