The Casebook of Sidney Zoom

by Erle Stanley Gardner

“When will the case go to the jury?” snapped Zoom.

  “The latter part of the week, maybe sooner.”

  “Could you get a continuance if we uncovered something interesting?”

  “Not a chance. I’ve tried twice for a continuance.”

  Sidney Zoom’s lips clamped in a thin line.

  “If the defendant had been wealthy, could you have secured a continuance?”

  “Why ask?”

  “Nothing. Do have some more cordial, and we’ll quit talking shop and let you get a little relaxation.”

  Chapter III

  The Girl in the Park

  The city of Dellboro quieted down early at night. After the second picture show there were a few stragglers who debouched upon the streets. But they dissolved almost at once. Cars roared into motion, pulling away from the curb, running with purposeful speed toward the residential section.

  Sidney Zoom patrolled the sidewalks. The police dog padded along at his side. Zoom was thinking. And, as some people find it necessary to pace the floor when they are wrestling with some mental problem, so did Zoom find it conducive to clarity of thought to stalk through the night streets of a city, his heels pounding the pavements of the deserted sidewalks.

  Sidney Zoom had found his adventures in various places and in various ways. But always he had specialized in ferreting out human misery. And the police dog had been with Zoom for years, long enough to know his system.

  Which was why the dog gave a low throaty growl, turned his muzzle toward dark shadows of the little park which showed as a black blotch in the middle of the city. Here were little benches, miniature fountains, dark hedges and patches of grass, cool and green in the daytime, but showing dark and forbidding at night.

  Sidney Zoom knew that the dog’s keen ears had detected some sound which was inaudible to his own ears. He paused in his pacing, said softly to the dog:

  “All right. Go find.”

  The dog at once took the lead. His noiseless feet padded toward the dark shadows. And then, when some few yards had been traversed, Sidney Zoom could hear those sounds which had caught the attention of the dog.

  Somewhere within a patch of shadow, back of a hedge, a woman was sobbing. They were those dry sobs which indicate utter despair.

  Sidney Zoom frowned.

  He had been turning over in his mind the problem of the murder. It had happened in a manner that was impossible. Yet he knew that he could not convince anyone of its impossibility unless he secured more information.

  Now he was confronted with a bit of human misery which could not be overlooked. Sidney Zoom would never rest until he had solved the mystery of those sobs. Fighter that he was, he chose to exert his fighting qualities in the helping of the weak and oppressed. And, in the course of years, he had come to know the sound of female sobs. There were the rapid sobs of heartache, sobs which came from emotion, and which no man could help. Then there were those dry, slow-paced, deadly sobs which told not of taut nerves seeking the relief of a good cry, but of the black hopelessness of utter despair. These sobs were like that.

  Sidney Zoom moved forward, and, as he did so, the woman got to her feet. Zoom could see the top of her head and her shoulders as she stood up. The rest of her was concealed by the line of the ornamental hedge.

  Zoom hesitated, then followed as the woman began to walk.

  She was young, he saw, as the hurrying figure crossed a patch of light near a fountain, and she was going some place in a hurry. Nor was she sobbing any longer. Her shoulders were set with a grim purpose.

  She left the park behind, turned to the left at the first corner, pounded the pavement with her determined little feet, heedless of the man and the dog who trailed along behind her.

  Sidney Zoom kept his distance. There was no chance of losing the trail, not with the keen nose of the dog to help him. Once let that police dog get the idea that they were trailing some human, and he would thread the way through a labyrinth of streets if necessary.

  It was when she came to the entrance to an office building that the girl paused. Sidney Zoom ducked into the shadows of a dark store entrance.

  The young woman looked up and down the sidewalk. Then she vanished.

  Cautiously, Sidney Zoom followed down the sidewalk, and came to the place where she had ascended a flight of stairs leading to a one-story office building.

  Sidney Zoom’s eyebrows raised a trifle.

  The stairway led to the offices of the county attorney. Under the regulations in effect in that county, the county attorney was permitted to engage in civil practice, and to keep offices in the business district, rather than in the court-house.

  Sidney Zoom spoke to the dog, quieting him. Then he walked up the stairs. The dog padded at his side.

  Sidney Zoom paused at the head of the stairs.

  He could hear keys rattling against the metal face of a lock a few doors down the corridor. The building was one which was typical of small towns. There were stores on the street level, a wide flight of stairs, a long corridor, and offices on the single upper story. In this building, the offices of the county attorney occupied the entire upper floor.

  The girl had some trouble with the lock of the door. Finally, however, Zoom’s keen ears heard the dick of the bolt, and then the creak of a door on hinges.

  Sidney Zoom whispered a command to the crouching dog. Together, they moved into the dark hallway, stepped cautiously toward the row of office doors which fronted on the corridor.

  The girl had not switched on the lights. But she was using an electric flashlight with great caution, keeping the beam from striking against the windows. Zoom could see the intermittent flashes of the light on the frosted glass of the oblong panels in the corridor doors.

  He frowned, moved closer, and listened.

  The girl was opening filing cases. Zoom’s ears could hear the sounds made by the steel drawers as they slid out on their well oiled rollers, could hear the noises made by the questing fingers as they riffled the pasteboard guides.

  Then Sidney Zoom became aware of another sound.

  Cautious feet were ascending the stairs leading from the street.

  Rip, the police dog, growled, swung about, crouched, bracing himself for a rush, should his master order it. The feet on the stairs were coming up rapidly, with assurance, yet with an attempt at stealth.

  Sidney Zoom placed a hand on the dog’s collar, flattened himself against the lower part of one of the dark doors and crouched, holding the dog.

  Chapter IV

  A Fight in the Dark

  There was enough light coming up from the street to enable Sidney Zoom to see the black hulk of the figure as it reached the top of the stairway. It did not hesitate. The shoes squeaked slightly as the big man, broad of shoulder, heavy of neck, tiptoed toward the door through which the girl had vanished.

  For a second, during which the muscles of the police dog were as taut wires under the restraining fingers of Zoom’s hand, the man paused, listening to the sounds of surreptitious activity from the inner office.

  Then the man’s shoulders lurched forward. He flung open the door. A flashlight was in his hand. The beam stabbed through the half darkness.

  “Stick’m up!” he growled.

  The little scene was enacted not six feet away from the place where Zoom crouched with the dog. Zoom could see the silhouette of the big figure, hulking against the light reflected from the beam of the hand torch. He could hear the scream which the girl gave, and then could catch the note of gloating in the man’s voice.

  “Well, if we needed anything to strap Crandall to the chair we’ve got it now. Come out, you little—”

  She hesitated.

  Sidney Zoom pressed the police dog firmly to the floor. He gave one last final push between the blades of the shoulders where the muscles bunched into hard knots. That pressure had a definite significance. It meant that the dog would remain there, no matter what happened, until he was ordered by Sidney Zoom to leave that position.
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  Then Zoom made two long, cautious steps, moving with the lithe grace of a stalking panther, and making no more noise.

  He found himself in a position from which he could peer over the broad shoulder of the man who blocked the doorway. He could see down the beam of the flashlight, could detect the expression of stark terror on the face of the girl.

  She was masked, her forehead covered by a cloth.

  The wide, terror-stricken eyes showed through the holes in that doth mask. The mouth sagged open. The lips were white with terror. She was standing before an open filing case. The flashing beam of pitiless light had speared her in the very act of searching the files. She held one marked “State vs. Crandall.”

  “Come here, you little—, and let me rip that mask off,” growled the man in the doorway. “I’ve had an idea all along there was a broad in that Crandall case.”

  She moved toward him, slowly, as one in a trance. She tried twice to speak, the white lips moving in a futile effort. The fear-constricted throat muscles could not function.

  She was within three feet of the man.

  “Take off the mask,” he said.

  She halted, motionless.

  “Take off the mask!”

  She still remained motionless.

  The big arm of the man flashed out in a sweeping swing. The hand did not rip at the cloth, but swung, instead, in a swishing blow. It caught the young woman squarely on the side of the jaw. She was swept to one side, stumbled over a chair, fell. The beam of the flashlight pinned her in its glare.

  “Take off that mask!” bellowed the man.

  The girl’s hands went to her face, not removing the mask, but in a gesture of instinctive terror, holding the cloth to her face.

  The man moved forward.

  “If you want to get beat up,” he said, “I’m the guy that’ll do it!”

  As he spoke, he drew back his foot, preparatory to making a vicious kick.

  It was at that instant that the long arm of Sidney Zoom flashed out in the darkness. The talon-like fingers, as rigid as though they had been fashioned from steel, clutched the cloth of the man’s coat collar. The arm jerked.

  The big man had been poised on one foot, swinging the other in a kick. The swift pull at his collar jerked him off balance. The twisting motion of the snapping arm sent him into a spin. Sidney Zoom’s other hand swooped down, struck the thick wrist of the hand that held the flashlight. The flashlight was snapped from the man’s grasp, thudded to the floor. All was darkness.

  “Never,” said Sidney Zoom, “strike a woman.”

  The man gave one inarticulate bellow of rage and rushed.

  Even in the darkness, he showed an uncanny judgment of spacing, of timing, and of distance. His blows had all of the swift speed, all of the vicious follow-through which characterizes the performance of a professional fighter.

  Sidney Zoom gave ground before that charging rush, before that avalanche of human weight But he gave ground in a scientific manner, his left foot always advanced, his right foot tapping out the retreat, his left shoulder hunched forward, protecting his chin and the side of his face. His left hand was held in readiness, his right flung in such a position as to protect the solar plexus, leaving a protruding elbow as a menace to the flying fists of his assailant.

  On the floor, the police dog whined his anxiety, chattered his teeth in an ecstasy of desire to tear this man limb from limb. Yet the iron discipline under which he had been schooled held him crouched to the floor, the saliva dripping from his quivering jaws.

  As the men cleared the doorway, the girl, jumping forward, ran for the stairs. The big man was heedless of her escape. But Sidney Zoom, his ears waiting for those very sounds of flight, knew the girl had eluded her captor.

  He suddenly ceased to be on the defensive.

  The big man, irritated that his flailing blows should find no vital mark, his right hand tender from having flung into that protruding elbow upon two occasions, set himself for a crashing rush.

  The left arm of Sidney Zoom suddenly ceased to be merely a wall of defense. It flicked out in swiftly stabbing blows, as smoothly and as rapidly as the tongue of a snake flickers in and out.

  One, two, three blows found their mark upon the face of the big man, every blow having the effect of throwing him off balance, keeping him from getting set for his rushing offensive.

  Then the fourth blow measured the distance, told Sidney Zoom exactly where the right should cross over. The right flashed in a swift hook, thudded to the jaw with a jar of impact that lifted the big man from his feet, sent him hurling back into the dark room where he had trapped the girl.

  Sidney Zoom flung the door of that office shut. There was a skeleton key in the mortise lock. He twisted it, locking the door.

  “Come, Rip,” he whispered, and ran lightly to the stairs which went to the street.

  He looked up and down the sidewalk.

  There was no sign of human life. The girl had vanished utterly and completely.

  Sidney Zoom had no means of knowing who she was. Nor could he tell the identity of the man with whom he had fought. Nor, truth to tell, did he greatly care. Sidney Zoom was a born fighter. He longed for conflict, mental and physical. This man had been taking advantage of a woman. Sidney Zoom asked for no other cause to make war.

  Man-made laws of property rights meant but little to this man who would have been a pirate leader in another age. Zoom recognized certain basic principles of right and wrong, and no other. He longed for conflict, and asked not too many questions concerning the technical laws governing the merits of such conflict. All that he required was to find the weak being oppressed by the strong. Then he hurled himself into the fight with a whole-hearted ferocity which swept all opposition before it.

  He had not the slightest doubt that the man he had locked in the office on that upper floor represented the law enforcement agencies of the city of Dellboro. And he did not care a hoot. Sidney Zoom’s concern had to do entirely with the identity of the young woman who had been sobbing her heart away on a park bench under the quiet stars of a midnight sky. He wanted to find her, to relieve her sufferings, if that were possible.

  He turned to the dog.

  “Find,” he said.

  Chapter V

  Della Rangar

  The dog, glad of an opportunity for action, placed his muzzle to the cold cement, sniffed, ran a few steps toward the west, then turned to the east, ran, sniffed, wagged his tail, started following the scent, his tail wagging vehemently.

  Sidney Zoom’s long legs moved in great strides.

  The dog led the way to the mouth of an alley, up that alley, to the back entrance of a rooming house, up a flight of stairs, through a back door, along a corridor, paused before a dark door, and looked up at his master.

  Sidney Zoom knocked on the door.

  There was no sound from the room.

  Sidney Zoom knocked again, tried the knob.

  “Open up,” he said, “and do it quickly.”

  There came the sound of bed springs creaking, a sleepy voice asked: “Who’s there?”

  “A friend,” said Sidney Zoom.

  “I’m in bed — asleep. Go away.”

  Sidney Zoom was impatient with such prevarication in the face of the infallible identification which the dog had given.

  “I will give you ten seconds,” he said, “to open the door.”

  There came the sound of bare feet thudding to the floor. Garments rustled. The feet came toward the door, a lock clicked, and Sidney Zoom stared into the eyes of a young woman who looked very much as though she had been asleep for some hours, save for one thing. That one thing was the red, swollen spot on the side of her face where the fist had crashed home.

  “This,” she said, “is an outrage.”

  Zoom moved into the room, locked the door behind him.

  “Now the first question,” he said, “is whether or not you left anything behind in that office by which you could be identified? A purse,
perhaps? Perhaps a compact?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said with dignity.

  She wrapped a kimono about her, first taking care to let it flap open for a sufficient length along the front to show Sidney Zoom that she was, indeed in night attire. There were feminine garments piled on the chair. Sidney Zoom walked to them, thrust his hand down among the filmy silks. They were still warm with the heat from the body of the young woman.

  She stared at him.

  Sidney Zoom regarded the red welt on the side of her face.

  “Look at yourself in the mirror,” he ordered.

  The girl moved to the mirror. Her eyes fastened upon that tell-tale mark, and her lips clamped into a thin line.

  “Who... who... who are you?” she stammered, her voice issuing from a mouth that was dry with terror.

  Sidney Zoom grinned at her.

  “I,” he said, “am the man who slammed the big boob who struck you, after you’d had a chance to make good your escape. I knocked him off his pins and locked him in the office. Here’s the skeleton key you left in the lock. Now tell me your story, and tell me whether there’s anything you left behind that would bring the officers to this place.”

  She stared at him.

  “Who are you?” she asked again.

  “I am the man who heard you sobbing in the park. I followed you to the office of the county attorney. Then when the big hulk came in and started to bully you, I gave you a break. Now answer my questions.”

  Her hand, unconsciously seeking the contact of companionship, had descended to the head of the crouching dog. The animal had first stiffened, then his ears had relaxed. The tip of his tail waved gently. In that manner he communicated to his master that the touch of this young woman spoke of sincerity and of honesty. Sidney Zoom needed no further endorsement. An intelligent animal can tell more from the touch of a human’s fingertips than most men can tell from a week of constant association.

  The dog’s head turned. His tongue shot out, gently caressing the girl’s hand, and that sign of sympathy broke through the wall of suspicion and reserve, and words poured from her lips.