The Casebook of Sidney Zoom

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  Then he straightened, grinning, started to say something, and stopped. The smile faded from his face. His eyes grew large and glassy with horror. He screamed, whirled, tried to run from the room.

  There was a deep-throated growl at his heels.

  Rip, the police dog, barred the way with bared fangs.

  Carver’s hand raced to his hip, came out with a weapon that glinted an ominous blue in the half light of the horror chamber.

  The dog moved with incredible speed. His fangs caught the wrist, clamped down. The dog flung his weight in a sideways lunge, wrenching the wrist.

  The gun thudded to the floor.

  Sidney Zoom indicated the room.

  “Go in,” he said, “and sit down.”

  Edgar Carver seemed about to faint. His knees wobbled. His eyes stared at the gruesome interior of the room. That room was barely furnished. The chief object in it was a chair. Wires ran from the floor into that chair. It was straight-backed, businesslike, horrid.

  “What does this mean?” yelled Carver.

  “Go in,” said Sidney Zoom, “and sit down.”

  The man whirled in a fear and fury. He lashed out with his fists, bit, struck, clawed and kicked.

  The dog rushed forward, but was sent to the floor at a single sharp command from Sidney Zoom. Zoom’s long arms wrapped around the panic-stricken, struggling figure, bore him from the floor, carried him to the chair, flung him down.

  A strap circled the body, held it. The arms and legs frantically kicked. Sidney Zoom secured one of the arms with a strap which was fastened to the arm of the chair. Then he secured the other arm. Next he strapped the legs.

  He made his motions with a swift efficiency which showed skill and practice. And he pinioned the flying arms and legs with a speed of motion that indicated the great strength which was in those long, sinewy muscles.

  Zoom stared down at the man and nodded.

  “How does it feel?” he asked.

  “Good God, are you mad!” screamed the man, struggling against the straps.

  Zoom shook his head.

  “Very sane, thank you. I thought you might like a little taste of that which is to come. The chamber with the green door, the iron chair, the electrodes. Presently, I shall turn on a little current. Not too much. Just enough to let you know how you’ll feel when the state gives you the big jolt. They say that prisoners rise against the straps, that the chair shivers with their agony.

  “It’s all for the best, the performance of justice. You have killed, and you shall be killed. You have lived by the sword and you shall die by the sword.

  “I’ll go out for a while and you can sit and see how you look. Let your mind think ahead to the thing, that is in store for you.”

  And Sidney Zoom, stooping, backed through the green door, closed it after him.

  There was a mirror in the other side of that green door. It was so adjusted that the occupant of the chair stared at his reflection every time he raised his eyes.

  There was also a little peek-hole in the door, just to one side of the mirror. Through this hole, Sidney Zoom, unobserved, could study the features of the man who occupied the chair. It was a subtle bit of third degree which Zoom had perfected.

  He pressed his eye to the opening, watched Edgar Carver.

  Carver stared, fascinated, at the reflection of himself in the chair. His complexion was a sickly yellow. His eyes were wide and there was sweat dripping from his forehead.

  The man tore his eyes away, strove to look elsewhere and failed. The eyes, fascinated, always came back to that reflection.

  After a few minutes Sidney Zoom opened the green door.

  “Why,” he asked, “did you kill Muriel?”

  “I didn’t kill her,” said Carver.

  Zoom leveled a finger.

  “My friend, you have one chance, and one chance alone to escape the torture of that chair. I want a confession. If you confess to me you stand some slight chance of escaping the embrace of the electric chair. If you fail to confess, then nothing can save you.”

  “I have nothing to confess,” insisted Carver, the sweat dropping from his forehead.

  “Very well,” said Sidney Zoom, “I shall summon the police. They will take you to jail. You will be convicted, sentenced, and the fate that is in store for you will weigh on your mind day after day, sleepless night after sleepless night!”

  And he stepped outside, closed the green door.

  He heard the man’s scream as the eyes once more sought the grim reflection.

  “No, no! Come back! Come back!”

  Sidney Zoom opened the door.

  “Almost too late, my friend,” he said, and his voice held the timbre of a solemnly tolling bell.

  Edgar Carver burst into speech.

  “I’ll tell it all! I didn’t mean to kill her. I swear I didn’t. I didn’t know what to do, I was between the devil and the deep sea. I had to do it! You won’t understand. You don’t, you can’t understand! It’s horrible.

  “I got drawn into it, a little at the time. It started when I got to taking a few stones on my own. Then I felt I was likely to be caught. I knew they were going to take an inventory. The shortage would be discovered. I had to do something.

  “I knew this gang of gem thieves, I arranged to get in touch with one of the men in that gang. I wanted them to rob the place so that my own shortage would never be known.

  “I didn’t tell him I was short. He was a fence, I guess. He didn’t do the work himself. He said he could arrange to have it done for me. But, he said I’d have to rip the gang of when there was a heavy shipment of valuable stones coming in, and that I’d have to see that the vaults were on open so they could make a clean-up and a quick getaway.

  “I never met the real gangsters. I carried on everything through the fence. The girl, Muriel, knew something was going on. Maybe she’d been dipping in some, herself. I don’t know.

  “I only know that the gang staged the stick up. But things didn’t go right. The watchman was a fool. They killed him. That was the first time I realized what I was up against. There had been a murder, and I was in on the job!

  “It meant the chair! Think of it — the chair! The chair!”

  His voice rose to a crescendo of hysterical fear, then trailed into silence as he sat and shuddered.

  Sidney Zoom regarded him with unsympathetic eyes.

  “But the girl’s death,” he said, “What of that?”

  The man went on with his story.

  The girl was wise, too wise. She knew what was in the wind, and she started to hijack the proposition. Just before the gang came in, she made a sweep of the cream of the stock. She got a bunch of the stones that were the best values and could be the most easily sold.

  “Then the stick-up, and the gang found, when they went to fence the stuff that they had the inferior merchandise, and not as much of that as they should have. Naturally, they thought I was the one that had pulled the fast one on ’em, and the fence sent for me and gave me something to think about.

  “That started me using my wits. The fence gave me twenty-four hours to produce the missing stones. If I didn’t produce them within that time I was to be put on the spot.

  “I hunted up the girl and found that she had left her apartment. I figured she’d go to spend the night with Stella Denny, so I hot-footed over there and stuck around. The girl came in to the apartment house. I caught her in the elevator.

  “She denied it at first, and then admitted what she’d done, but claimed she’d ditched the stones. Then when I got to pressing her, she told me I could either like it or lump it, and that if I said anything more she’d tell the detectives what she knew and I’d fry for murder.

  “That was what set me crazy. The idea of being in the power of Muriel Drake, having her threaten to spill what she knew, and send me to the chair. I knew right then that it was my life or hers, I figured she had the stones on her somewhere.

  “And if I didn’t get those stones I was g
oing to be croaked. If the girl talked, I was due to be killed. So I grabbed her and choked her. I guess I was crazy at the time.

  “And then the damned broad didn’t have the stones on her at all. It was a pickle. I chucked her body against the comer of the elevator and beat it. No one knew I had been waiting in the corridor for her, and there wasn’t any one moving at that hour of the night. I’d run the elevator way up to the loft before I started in working on her, and there wasn’t any one who had heard a thing.

  “So I just pressed the button which took the elevator to the third floor, got out, closed the door. When the door closed that made the contact, and the elevator went down. I ducked out by the stairs and came out the front.”

  The man was rattling out the words with no regard for the effect they might have. He gave the impression of telling the truth.

  Sidney Zoom stared at him.

  “When was your twenty-four hours to be up?” he asked.

  “At nine o’clock tonight.”

  “Who was the fence you dealt with?”

  “Sol Asher. He’s got a pawnshop on Harrison Avenue.”

  “Ever seen anybody besides Asher — any of the gang?”

  “No. Not a one.”

  “You contacted them through Asher, made all the arrangements through him?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you happen to meet Asher?”

  “I used him to pawn my stuff through. Remember I’d been taking a stone or two on my own hook when I needed the money. I figured it was safe for a while. Then, when they were going to take inventory, I had to do something. I asked Asher for advice. Maybe Asher knew I had been dabbling, but he didn’t pass on the information to the gang.”

  Sidney Zoom let his eyes narrow.

  “Then at nine o’clock tonight, or before, you were to be at Asher’s place with the missing stones?”

  “Yes.”

  Zoom nodded.

  “Okay. Where do you live?”

  “At a little apartment in the Monadnock Apartments. That’s off Central Avenue.”

  “Asher know where you live?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “What’s the number of your apartment?”

  “Three hundred and ten.”

  Chapter VII

  In Apartment 310

  Sidney Zoom nodded his head, went to the chair, released the straps. He had to give Edgar Carver a hand to assist him from the chair. The erstwhile dapper clerk was as weak as a half drowned kitten. He could hardly stand when he had got to his feet.

  “I will have to take steps to see that you are quiet,” said Sidney Zoom, “while I make an investigation.”

  And he led Carver into a small cabin, stretched him out on a couch, mixed a glass of whiskey and ginger ale, shook in a white powder.

  “Drink this,” he said. “It will soothe your nerves.”

  The man drained the glass.

  He was nervous, weak. From time to time, he shivered, as with cold, moaned.

  “What a mess! There’s no way out. I’d better kill myself. And I thought I was so smart. I’m in the power of the gang, in your power, in the power of a crooked fence. They can all kill — kill me, and they’re going to kill me, too. There’s no escape! I don’t mind dying so much as that cursed electric chair. Good God! I nearly died when you opened that door and sent me into that room. I’d thought of the chair before, but I never dreamt it was so hideous, so sinister!”

  Sidney Zoom stared at him sternly.

  “You knew that crime doesn’t pay. You knew that sooner or later all criminals come to grief. It’s just a question of time. Yet you went blindly rushing into the crime web, floundering deeper and deeper. And, even now, you’re not sorry for what you’ve done. You’re only sorry you got caught. And you’ve got sympathy for yourself — none for that unfortunate girl you strangled with your greedy fingers.”

  Carver tried to sneer, but the sneer was a failure.

  “You talk like one of those damned reformers,” he said. “Lots of crooks make a good living, and they don’t get caught. I just didn’t get the breaks, that’s all. I had bad luck. I... shouldn’t be... shouldn’t be... blamed...”

  And his head dropped on the pillow and he slept.

  Sidney Zoom knew exactly the strength of the sleeping powder he had given the man. He knew almost to the hour when the man would awaken.

  He walked to the front part of the yacht, rapped on the door of a cabin.

  “Yes?” called the deep, rich voice of his secretary, Vera Thurmond.

  “I have a man asleep in the guest cabin,” said Sidney Zoom. “He will probably not waken before midnight. But he is not to be allowed to escape. See to that. I will be back some time tonight.”

  The young woman opened the door, giving the finishing touches to her complexion. She looked at Sidney Zoom with tender eyes in which there was a hint of the maternal.

  “You’re going into danger?” she asked.

  “I hope so,” rasped Sidney Zoom. “Going into danger adds zest to life.”

  She made a little grimace.

  “I do wish you’d get over that everlasting love of conflict, of danger, of struggle.”

  Zoom’s voice was solemn.

  “That is the way that nature brings about evolution. We grow from conflict. Our periods of pleasure are but the mental bromides which enable us to recuperate. We get our growth from adversity.”

  Vera Thurmond shook her head.

  “You’re hopeless... Tell me, what’s behind that green door? You’ve had a new lock put on it, and carpenters and electricians working...”

  He smiled at her and shook his head.

  “No. That is one of my secrets. Perhaps I am a bluebeard, and keep the bodies of my victims hidden behind the door of that room. Never open it. Don’t worry about me, and don’t waste sympathy on the man who occupies the guest cabin. Have the captain make everything ready for sea. I may want to get away as soon as I come aboard.”

  And Sidney Zoom turned on his heel, strode down the narrow passageway to the stairs which led to the dock. The police dog padded at his side.

  There was, in the manner of Sidney Zoom, that subtle something which characterizes a man who is going into a welcome danger. And the dog sensed this attitude, whether it came from some extra force with which the heels of the master pounded the planks of the boat, or from something more subtle, some auric emanation of tension.

  Sidney Zoom walked to his car, drove to the Monadnock Apartments, went boldly to the door of apartment 310, paused over the lock long enough to insert the key he had taken from Edgar Carver when that individual had dropped into his drugged sleep.

  Zoom entered the apartment, looked around him.

  It was a typical small apartment, furnished with conventional, uncomfortable overstuffed furniture. The apartment was used as a single, but there was a door which led to another single apartment, enabling the suite to be let as a double furnished apartment if desired.

  Sidney Zoom knocked upon that connecting door.

  There was no answer. He went out to the hall, approached the hall door of the adjoining apartment. He knocked, received no answer, and picked the lock of the door. The apartment was vacant.

  Zoom opened the connecting door between the two apartments, saw to it that his gun worked easily in his shoulder holster, pulled a sheet from the bed, tore it into strips, placed his police dog just within the door of the apartment which adjoined that rented by Edgar Carver. He ascertained that any one entering apartment 310 could not see the dog, crouched in the adjoining apartment.

  Then Sidney Zoom opened the collar of his shirt, loosed his necktie, sprawled in a chair, and gave the impression of being very much at home. He found a book which interested him, alternately read and dozed, while the dog slept.

  It was rather late in the afternoon when there sounded a knock at his door.

  “Come in,” called Sidney Zoom.

  The handle of the knob turned. A well tailored man
walked into the apartment, stood near the door.

  “I’m looking for Edgar Carver,” he said.

  Zoom got to his feet.

  “Yes, sir, what can I do for you?”

  “You’re Carver?”

  “Of course.”

  The well tailored man took a step inside the door.

  “I’m from Sol Asher,” he said.

  Zoom let his manner become cold.

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  The man nodded.

  “You been actin’ funny, and we read about what happened to the broad. You ducked out of the store today, and didn’t leave word where you was goin’, or when you was comin’ back, and that’s not so hot. There’s talk going around.”

  “Yeah?” said Zoom.

  “Yeah!” snarled his visitor. “Now did you get those stones or not?”

  Zoom’s right hand dropped to the side pocket of his coat. The hand of his well tailored visitor darted to the lapel of his own coat.

  “Bring that hand out clean!” he said.

  Zoom brought out his hand. In the cupped palm were stones of a quality and fire to arouse the greed of either a crook or a collector.

  “These,” he said.

  A gun snapped out of his visitor’s shoulder holster. He advanced menacingly, “Okay. I’ll take those.”

  “You will like hell,” snarled Zoom, adopting the manner which his visitor would evidently have anticipated had Zoom actually been Carver. “Those are mine. I’ll make a division — with the proper parties. That’s all.”

  “Bah!” sneered the other. “You, with a murder rap hanging over you, start to tell us what you will and what you won’t do!”

  He pushed the gun toward Sidney Zoom.

  “Fork ’em over!”

  Zoom smiled.

  “All right, Rip,” he said.

  The gangster whirled to face the tawny streak which charged out from the adjoining apartment. He had expected some man, either an accomplice of the tenant of the apartment, or, perhaps, an officer. His eyes were raised about the height of a man’s chest, and he was swinging the gun, holding it at about that level.

  Not until too late was he able to get his eyes down sufficiently to see the charging dog. He tried to lower the gun and fire, but he was far too late.