“I’d forgotten about the key. Matter slipped my mind. That what he had with him, the declaration of trust?”
“The one you found last night?” asked Sidney Zoom.
“Yeah. That’s the one.”
Sidney Zoom puckered his forehead.
“Well now, I couldn’t say for certain, but it looked like it.”
Jed Slacker jerked a watch from his pocket.
“Gosh, late. Got to go meet some friends on a train. What was it you wanted, Zoom?”
“I wanted to see you for five minutes.”
The man fingered the watch.
“Tell, you what you do, give me five minutes to open my mail. Then come up. Five minutes is all I want. Don’t be longer. Five minutes. Remember.”
Sidney Zoom inclined his head.
“Five minutes,” he agreed.
But it was a scant three minutes between the rime he said it and the time his hand twisted the knob on the door of Jed Slacker’s office.
The fat man was seated at the desk, his hands holding the two typewritten sheets Zoom had written on his machine.
He glanced up as Zoom pushed the door open.
“Huh!” he said, dropped the sheets.
Sidney Zoom walked forward and took a chair.
He smiled, a cold, frosty smile.
“I’ve discovered about the dodger,” he said.
“What dodger?”
“The one you had printed that had the picture of Charles Gillen on it. Rather clever, too. Gillen is listed in the city directory, by the way. Probably you knew that.”
The fat man licked his lips with the tip of his tongue.
“Gillen, Gillen, Gillen?” he said. “Dodger, city directory?”
Zoom nodded affably, but coldly.
“Yes, the dodger you had printed describing Mr. Goldfinch’s dealer as a thief.”
The man rotated his head upon his massive neck in a gesture of oily negation.
“No. He never sold Goldfinch many diamonds. Just a few — comparatively.”
Chapter VIII
The White Steps—
Sidney Zoom leaned back in the chair, crossed his long legs, smiled, lit a cigarette.
“Now,” he said, after the manner of one discussing a chess problem, “it’s interesting to see how your mind worked. You could influence Goldfinch. You didn’t dare to steal his diamonds, murder him, and at the same time have him leave a will in your favor. That would make it appear you were the beneficiary of his demise.
“You wanted to have suspicion point elsewhere. So you fixed things so the housekeeper would be placed in a position where she’d be convicted even before she came to trial. You fixed things so Goldfinch would actually tell her something that would sound so bizarre when it was repeated that it would make a jury laugh.
“And, in case anything went wrong, you wanted a second string to your bow. You were given applications for the position of butler by Mr. Goldfinch. In running down some of the references you found those of Arthur Madison were false. So you checked them a little more carefully, found Madison was an ex-convict who was trying to find a place where he could lie low for a while. That suited your purpose splendidly, so you hired him.
“Now let’s see how things worked out.”
Sidney Zoom uncrossed his legs.
Jed Slacker was listening with a face that had been drained of color. His right hand was lowered, resting upon one of the drawers in the desk. His eyes were huge, the flesh seemed to sag away from them, leave them round and gleaming.
“Crazy!” he exploded. “Crazy as a clam!”
Sidney Zoom nodded.
“Yes, only dams aren’t crazy... However, as I was saying, let’s see how it worked. You waited until Goldfinch had made a small purchase from Charles Gillen. You waited until you felt certain the butler convict had been able to steal and conceal some of the diamonds.”
“Then you flashed your fake circular on Goldfinch. He had always had a horror of buying stolen gems. Not that he cared particularly about the ethics of the situation, but because he was afraid of paying good money for stones and then finding he had no title to them.
“So Goldfinch decided to get rid of the stones he’d purchased from Gillen, after you had convinced him those stones were stolen. Then was when you pulled a master stroke. You explained to Goldfinch that he’d left his housekeeper a sum under his will that would just about equal what he’d pay for the stones. Why not take those stones and give them to her, tear up the will and let the accounts balance?
“Goldfinch fell for the idea. It would save his face all around. He didn’t dare to sell the stones, knowing they were stolen and might be traced. Nor did he want to keep them. He gave them to his housekeeper and told her exactly what she said he had. But it sounded so utterly improbable under the questioning of the officers that it was ludicrous.
“And you knew that sooner or later Shorty Relavan would enter the picture. And he could be counted on to do just what he did do. There was a murder and there was a robbery. If he said he was innocent no one would believe him, not with diamonds in his room.
“So it was up to him to make up a story that would admit theft, or the receipt of stolen property, but pin the murder more securely on to the shoulders of the housekeeper, where the police had already fastened it.”
Sidney Zoom stopped talking.
Jed Slacker began to laugh, a nervous, almost silent laugh.
“Then what?” he asked.
“You wanted to get Goldfinch’s fortune. You wanted to steal the diamonds. But you didn’t dare to trust to a will. So you had Goldfinch give you a large block of stock and gave him a receipt and acknowledgment of trust. You knew where he kept those sort of papers.
“Then you killed him, and you planted a fake declaration of a half interest in some of your own stuff that hadn’t turned out to be other than an expense, and you destroyed your own declaration of trust.
“The police were slow in finding the place where the papers were stored, so you led them to it. You’d taken out the bulk of the diamonds. But you left a few so it wouldn’t look as though the place had been looted.”
Of a sudden the man’s tactics changed.
“Proof!” he bellowed, reaching for the telephone with his left hand. “Try to find any proof. I’m ringing the police right now. I’m going to have you arrested for defamation of character. I’m going to...”
Sidney Zoom pointed to the floor.
“Clever, what? The police came in here and took the writing of your machine so they could show the declaration of trust they found was written by you on this machine, and I arranged things so your first tracks when you entered the room would be visible.
“Naturally, you were worried whether the police had found where you’d hidden the diamonds. Your steps show that you rushed at once to the framed picture over the radiator. I presume there’s a hollow in the frame or something...”
The basilisk eyes stared with the fascination of utter horror at the white blotches on the smoothly polished linoleum. As Sidney Zoom had said, they went directly from door to picture, picture to typewriter, typewriter to desk.
Jed Slacker sighed.
“Then,” he said, with a cunning leer, “the police weren’t here at all. You were the one who wrote off the things from the typewriter. Did it so I’d be nervous when I came in. If you polished the floor, the police weren’t here.”
Zoom nodded after the manner of one who concedes a trick in a bridge game.
“Well reasoned,” he said.
The hand of the pudgy man whipped up from underneath the desk.
“Then you’re the only one that knows,” he half whispered, and Sidney Zoom found himself staring into the dark hollow of a gun muzzle.
Sidney Zoom was careful not to move his hands.
“All right, Rip,” he said.
“And you die!” sneered the fat man, half rising from his chair, his lips curled back from his tooth tips, “I’d sooner take chan
ces...”
A tawny streak burst open the closet door, went across the waxed linoleum with a great scratching of claws as the police dog tried for traction.
Jed Slacker saw him coming, whirled the gun.
The police dog leaped. His teeth closed on the flabby wrist, just above the gun hand. The dog flung himself to one side so that his weight crashed against the arm, twisted the wrist.
Jed Slacker dropped the gun. The dog instantly released his hold and dropped to the floor, growling, the gun within a few inches of his curled lips and glistening fangs.
“I wanted, of course,” said Sidney Zoom, speaking in casual tones, “something like that, a declaration of guilt. There’s the typewriter. You’d better write a confession.”
The fat man stared at him in utter incredulity.
“It was to be the perfect crime,” he said. “I fixed it so it could never be pinned on me, and now...”
Sidney Zoom shrugged his shoulders, a gesture of utter finality.
“Don’t bother. I can’t get any sympathy for men who commit murder and try to pin it onto an innocent woman.”
“But...”
“Get busy with that confession, or I shall have to turn the dog loose on you. He likes to save murderers from the chair. After all it’s not so bad — having your throat ripped out.”
The man shuddered, sighed, seemed to collapse. The spirit left him. He put paper into the typewriter.
Sidney Zoom sat and smoked.
Chapter IX
— of Death!
The fat man grew more enthusiastic as he typed. The pudgy fingers struck the keys, rattling off the letters. The face took on some semblance of color. Once or twice he smiled.
Sidney Zoom arose, looked over the man’s shoulder.
The confession was written as one might gloat over a victory. Slacker reveled in the details, telling of how he had fooled the police, of how he had left some two dozen diamonds in with the papers, of his feelings when Phil Brazer had palmed many of those diamonds while he was groping around in the receptacle.
Even the police were not immune to the greed lust which had actuated Slacker. But Slacker had got hundreds of diamonds, the crooked detective but a dozen or so.
Sidney Zoom, watched the confession as the sheets rolled out of the typewriter. When Slacker had finished Zoom told him to sign each page, and the fat man dashed off his signatures with a flourish.
“You missed lots of my moves,” he complained. “The press will get this. I want to stand before the public in the true light, a master criminal.”
Sidney Zoom nodded casually. “Of course.”
“How’d you know I had the diamonds hidden here? Why not in my room?”
“Because you asked for five minutes after I told you the thing that would make you realize the police suspected you. If you’d suddenly remembered something that made you want to go back to your room I’d have followed you and burst in just when you were at your hiding place.”
Slacker nodded. “Well,” he said, “it’s over.”
Zoom shook his head.
“No. It’s not over. Not until they come into your cell and shave off a bit of your scalp, and slit your pants leg. Then they start the grim march, down the corridor, the last steps you’ll take, the steps of death...”
“Don’t!” yelled Slacker. “Good God, don’t sketch the picture like that— Ugh, the chair — the horror of having people take you out and make you die. It isn’t that I’m afraid of death. I don’t fear dying. I hate to be dragged out by a lot of jailers, pulled down a corridor, strapped in an iron chair... I hate to think that they’re waiting, watching, night and day, ticking off the time...”
Sidney Zoom got to his feet.
“They say electrocution is painful,” he said. “I’m going out and bring in the police. Don’t try to escape while I’m gone. I shall leave the dog against the door on the outside.”
He got to his feet, his long angular length showing fine and strong against the flabby softness of the other’s panic.
“Come, Rip,” he said, and marched to the door, slammed it shut. The lock clicked into place.
He paused, standing to one side in the corridor, listening.
That for which he had been waiting came within a matter of seconds.
“Bang!” the roar of a single shot.
Something thudded to the floor. There was silence.
Sidney Zoom motioned to the dog.
Together, they sought the stairs and went down to the street. The noise of the shot might have been taken for backfire by the occupants of other offices.
Sidney Zoom went to the yacht basin where his small, but well-appointed yacht, the Alberta F., rode at her anchor.
Vera Thurmond, his secretary, greeted him.
“Anything new?”
“Not much.” His tone was weary. “Take ten thousand dollars. Go up and bail a girl named Myrtle Crane out of jail. She was arrested for complicity in the robbery of Jacob Goldfinch. Wake me up if anything happens.”
And Sidney Zoom sought his cabin, apparently unaware of the look of maternal tenderness which welled in the eyes of his secretary.
With the dog stretched on a mg near the foot of his bed, he dropped into dreamless slumber, lulled by the lap-lap-lap of the water against the sides of the yacht.
He was awakened by a knocking against the cabin door.
“Sergeant Huntington,” called his secretary.
“Come in,” said Zoom, sitting up.
Sergeant Huntington strode into the room. With him came Jack Hargrave.
Huntington’s manner was crisp, official. Hargrave looked at Sidney Zoom in a manner of respect. There was something almost of reverence in his glance.
“Hargrave got the hunch Slacker had acted funny,” said Sergeant Huntington. “He started looking for him. He found him at his office a little afternoon. Slacker had been dead some time. Suicide all right, his own gun and all that, and a confession, and the stolen diamonds in the hollowed picture frame. Here’s the confession.”
He passed over the typewritten sheets.
Sidney Zoom read them. A smile twisted his lips.
“Funny?” asked Sergeant Huntington with sarcasm.
“Thinking about Phil Brazer groping around for the diamonds. He was palming as many as he could, working them up his sleeve,” said Zoom. “That was why it took him so long to fish out the stones.”
Sergeant Huntington grunted.
Zoom finished the confession, handed it back.
“This is one case I’m surprised on,” he said.
Sergeant Huntington glowered at him.
“You went bail for Myrtle Crane.”
“Yes. I frequently do when I think people are innocent.”
“And,” went on Sergeant Huntington, “some one had scrubbed the office floor and sprinkled white powder at the entrance.”
Sidney Zoom raised his eyebrows.
“Yes?”
“Yes. And a tall man and a dog were seen hanging around the lobby of the office building.”
Zoom nodded.
“Oh, yes. That was I. Rip and I waited. Then, when we got tired we left.”
“What were you waiting for?”
“I wanted to ask Mr. Slacker a question.”
“What about?”
“Something about that fake dodger, you know, the one about the diamond thief...”
“Yes,” said Sergeant Huntington, “I know. I also know, Sidney Zoom, that whenever you start to solve a case you solve it. Of late I’ve been noticing that when you start in on a murder case and find the real culprit, that culprit never lives to get to jail.”
Zoom reached for a cigarette.
“The State executes men for murder?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Sergeant Huntington.
Zoom said nothing further.
After the silence had begun to be awkward, Sergeant Huntington rasped into speech.
“Will you admit you saw Slacker this morning
?”
“No.”
“Do you know that Slacker’s steps show when he entered that room, that there are white blobs going to the picture frame, to the typewriter, back to his desk?”
“Were there?”
“Yes. There were.”
“And that same white powder shows the tracks of another man who entered the room and sat down, talking with Slacker.”
Zoom looked interested.
“Tracks of a dog, too?” he asked.
Sergeant Huntington frowned.
“No, that’s what puzzles me.”
“Well,” remarked Zoom, “it lets me out. I had my dog with me this morning. Your own witnesses admit that.”
He yawned, looked at the tip of his cigarette, glanced at Sergeant Huntington.
“Steps of death, eh?”
Sergeant Huntington suppressed an exclamation, stepped back.
“Well,” he said, “it looks like hell, that’s all. Looks as though some one had made it easy for this chap to shoot himself.”
Zoom’s voice was only mild in its interest.
“You were looking for some one higher up in this affair, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
Zoom made a motion with his muscular, angular shoulders.
“Look for something higher up in this, then.”
“Higher up?”
“Yes. You might try divine justice, for instance.”
Sergeant Huntington snorted, turned on his heel.
Jack Hargrave stepped to the bed.
“Good day, sir. I just wanted to shake hands.”
Silently, solemnly, the two men shook hands.
“Higher up,” said Hargrave.
“Higher up,” repeated Sidney Zoom and his tone had the timbre of a tolling bell.
The First Stone
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.
The Casebook of Sidney Zoom Page 13