The Casebook of Sidney Zoom

by Erle Stanley Gardner

  “I was robbed,” groaned the man.

  “See who did it?”

  “Somebody who was hiding in the alley... I walked past... He socked me.”

  “What’d he get?”

  “I don’t know... Had some money... Not much, about eighteen bucks.”

  “It’s gone,” said the officer. “Your name’s Dupree?”

  “Yeah... Oh my head!”

  “That’s okay, Buddy. You’ll be all right in a little while. How about the jewelry?”

  “What jewelry?”

  “Didn’t you have some gems, some samples or somethin’?”

  The man started to shake his head, then gave a deep groan with the pain. One of the stretcher men said: “Don’t shake your head, Buddy, Don’t move any more than you have to. Think you can walk to the ambulance?”

  The groaning man leaned far to one side and retched again. The officer who had gone to telephone came back and said: “Report’s just come in of a robbery at Huntley & Cobb’s place. Guy had keys and got in, laid in wait for the watchman, socked him and tied him up. When he didn’t turn in his box they sent out to investigate. Found the watchman tied up and the safe looted.”

  “How come?” asked the other officer.

  “That’s all I know. They gave me the dope on the telephone. Car fifty-seven’s out there now. I reported this bird as being employed there. We better check up. They said to hold him and follow the ambulance in. Looks like he had something to do with it.”

  There was a moment of silence, then the officer who had telephoned crouched down so that his eyes were on a level with those of the man who was propped up by the stretcher men.

  “Look here, Dupree, had you been to Huntley & Cobb’s tonight?”

  “No.”

  “Sure?”

  “Of course.”

  “Have any samples on you?”

  “No.”

  The officer produced the articles of jewelry he had found near the unconscious man. He held them cupped in his hand, flashed the beam of the light on them and said: “How about these? Ever see ’em before.”

  Once more the man tried to shake his head, and once more the effort brought on nausea.

  The officers exchanged glances.

  “Okay, Buddy,” said Frank. “You better take a nice ride to the hospital. They’ll shoot you some dope there that’ll make that head of yours feel better.”

  He motioned to the stretcher men.

  “Better boost him, boys. He’s wanted for questioning. We’ll follow you in. Them’s orders. There’s something phony here.”

  The men lifted the half limp figure. He struggled to rise.

  “There, there, lie back.”

  He stretched out on the canvas. They raised him and slid him into the ambulance. The door clicked shut. The ambulance motor whirred into speed. The officers climbed in their car and drove away. The radio was whirring its demand for attention as they rounded the corner.

  Sidney Zoom got in his roadster and turned it toward the place where Huntley & Cobb had their jewelry store and warehouse. He was scowling and he kept the throttle well depressed.

  George Dike enjoyed the notoriety. He had a welt over his left eye, and there was a thin bit of dried blood which had stained a dark red stream from the corner of his left nostril, down his chin.

  The police had finished with him, temporarily, but Dike was relating to any one who was curious enough to ask, or, for that matter to listen, exactly how it had all happened.

  “I thought there was sumpin’ behind that bale of stuff, and I turned to get the flashlight on it then I seen him jump up. I seen he had sumpin’ in his hand, and I made a swing. I don’t even know whether I connected or not. I can’t remember that far. It seemed like somebody’d set off a firecracker inside my dome, and the next thing I knew the cops were bendin’ over me.

  “I can just remember seein’ sumpin’ red. I think it was his necktie. It musta been his necktie. I bet I’d know the guy if I seen him again, though. There was a way he had of throwin’ his shoulders when he raised his arm, that I won’t forget. An’ he had a funny sort of neck, kind of short and thick like.

  “I guess I musta got an awful sock, because it was just like the fourth o’ July. Sock, an’ I got it! A whale of a lam. Lookit the ridge it made. But it didn’t bust the skin. A regular slung-shot.”

  There was a little knot of spectators in front of the place. A uniformed officer prevented them from crowding too dose. Every once in a while he muttered a mechanical: “Move on, move on! Don’t be blockin’ the sidewalk!”

  Some of the men who had drifted to the door of the robbed company remained. For the most part, however, the crowd was formed of straggling units who drifted up to the place, paused to listen to Dike’s story, saw the welt over his eye, and then drifted away into the night. They were couples for the most part, young men with attractive young women who remained only long enough to find out what it was all about. Then the night claimed them.

  Sidney Zoom heard the story of the watchman.

  He saw the chauffeur pilot the big limousine to the curb, saw the very portly gentleman with the white face and flabby lips get laboriously from the car and plunge into the entrance of the storeroom.

  He paused only long enough to give a name to the uniformed officer who guarded the place, and those who were near enough to hear that name sent the whispered gossip to the outskirts of the little group of spectators.

  “Frank Huntley, the senior partner. Just got the call.”

  There was another interval of silence. Then a whispered rumor sprang up from nowhere like a breath of wind in the desert, and seeped through the crowd, passing from man to man.

  “They’ve inventoried the loss. It’s more than twenty thousand dollars. They’ve got the man that did it. They’re bringing him out here. Going to confront him with the watchman and the scene of the crime. He had the combination of the safe. They say he worked here. He had an accomplice, and the accomplice got away with all the loot. Tough when a guy has to stick a place up and then gets stuck up himself.”

  Sidney Zoom heard that rumor, also. He waited, standing there gaunt and grim, six feet odd of unsmiling efficiency, staring with eyes that took in every single detail.

  A police car came shrieking from the boulevard. It skidded to the curb. Men jumped out. A white-faced young man with slumped shoulders was in the car. His wrists were handcuffed. They pulled him to the pavement and hustled him into the store. The crowd surged and swayed as its members sought to obtain a glimpse of the man.

  A taxicab honked its horn persistently, crawled through the tangle of vehicles, discharged a lone passenger.

  She was white-haired. Her eyes were blue. Her face gave indications of serene age. The lips smiled placidly. But the depths of the blue eyes contained a trace of panic. She spoke in a throaty voice.

  “Has my boy come yet? Have they brought Harry? They said they were bringing the boy here.”

  No one answered her. They stared with heartless, expressionless curiosity, Sidney Zoom inched his way toward her and lifted his hat.

  “You mean Harry Dupree?” he asked. “Yes, they have taken him inside.”

  She sighed. “I’m his mother. I wonder if they’d let me in?”

  Sidney Zoom saw that those nearest him were taking in the conversation. He took the woman by the arm.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “it would be wise to talk matters over first. They might make things a little disagreeable for you.”

  “But it’s all a mistake. He didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it. They wouldn’t have charged him with it if it hadn’t been that they didn’t understand!”

  Zoom soothed her, led her to his car, sat her in the cushioned seat beside him.

  “Do you know how your son happened to be out tonight?” he asked.

  “He had a date,” she said. “I don’t inquire too closely into his dates. I don’t think mothers should pry into their sons’ affairs. He’s a good boy. Some
day he’ll marry and leave me. I don’t know who he was going to see tonight. It was a girl. I heard her voice over the telephone. I heard him say he was to wait for her somewhere.”

  Sidney Zoom nodded thoughtfully.

  “Would you mind waiting here?” he asked.

  “You’re going to see Harry?”

  “I don’t know. I want to talk with the officers for a moment. If you’ll just wait here, I may be able to get you some good news. Do you drive a car?”

  “I can,” she said.

  Zoom nodded, said crisply: “Then wait right here. I won’t be long.”

  He left the car and strode toward the store. With the advent of the gray-haired woman upon the scene, his manner had undergone a change. He was no longer the bystander, but an aggressive individual, moving purposefully.

  The uniformed officer barred his path. Zoom spoke briefly and to the point “I’ve got to see Huntley,” he said. “If I see him I may be able to help in solving this case. If I don’t, the police may lose a clew.”

  The officer beckoned to one of the detectives.

  “This guy wants to see Hundey,” he said.

  The detective glared at Sidney Zoom.

  “About what?” he asked.

  “Important business,” said Sidney Zoom.

  The detective stared again, grunted: “Okay. C’mon in. I’ll see if he wants to see you. What’d you want to see him about?”

  Sidney Zoom strode into the store. He passed a knot of detectives chatting, smoking, came to a huge safe where a fingerprint man was dusting white powder over the black steel surface. Then he saw Huntley, slumped down in a chair.

  He walked to the jeweler.

  “Can you sell me a diamond bracelet with your price mark still on it?” he asked. Huntley looked at him, moistened his flabby lips and said, vacantly, “Huh?”

  The officer tugged at Zoom’s arm.

  “That ain’t what you said you wanted to see him about,” he complained.

  “Because,” said Zoom, “if you will, I think I can clear this case up.”

  Huntley got to his feet.

  “What’s that?” he asked. “How can you clear it up? What are you talking about?”

  Zoom shrugged his shoulders, took out a well filled wallet.

  “I am only asking,” he said, “that you sell me a bracelet or some rather expensive bit of jewelry that has your price mark on it.”

  Huntley growled.

  “The store ain’t open.”

  Zoom said: “I think I can get you your property back if you give me some cooperation.”

  The detective stared at him. Huntley moved toward the safe. “Gimme that tray,” he said. “The one with the bracelets on it.” He selected a bracelet at random and said: “Four fifty.”

  Sidney Zoom passed over the money.

  He took the bracelet, started for the door. One of the detectives gripped his arm. Zoom shook him free. He walked out of the store. The detective hesitated, started to follow, then turned back. Zoom went out of the door, to his car. The detective went back into the store.

  Zoom started the motor. He was smiling, but it was the grim smile of a fighter who is about to encounter some welcome conflict. The white-haired woman watched him speculatively.

  “Are you a friend of Harry’s?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Yes. The name is Zoom.”

  She frowned and said: “I don’t believe he’s ever spoken of you. Are you a dose friend?”

  Zoom said: “I’m a friend now that he’s in need. That makes me a friend indeed.”

  She smiled at him, a warm, maternal smile.

  “Do you know,” she said, “I believe you are going to get Harry out of this trouble. I have a hunch. Do you believe in hunches?”

  “Certainly,” said Zoom.

  She nodded and settled back.

  “You can look very stem when you want to,” she remarked, “but I think you’ve got a kind heart. Go right ahead, young man. If I can help you, let me know.”

  Sidney Zoom piloted the car to the apartment house where he had seen the man with the red necktie go on up the stairs.

  “I’m going,” he said, “to run a bluff, and a big one. It may work. It may not. If it works everything will be fine. If it doesn’t you may have to take this car and call the police. Tell them I went into that apartment house with my dog. Give me fifteen minutes. If I’m not out then, give the alarm to the police.”

  He left the car, motioned to the dog.

  “I’ve got a hunch it’ll be all right,” said the woman, as Zoom strode up the steps of the apartment house.

  The manager was a woman, not young, not good looking, and not good natured. She pulled a scanty robe about her ample figure and glowered at Sidney Zoom. In the end she gave him the information that he was after. The man who answered the description of the one Zoom had picked up on the street had the apartment on the top floor, well to the back. The number was fifteen.

  Zoom went up, and the dog went at his side, tail waving proudly.

  Zoom indicated the door of the apartment to the dog. Then he placed the article of jewelry he had purchased from Huntley in the dog’s mouth. He bent forward and made a gesture with his hand, as though scratching on the door.

  The dog watered him with ears cocked rigidly upright. Zoom made another motion with his hand. “Bark,” he whispered. The dog barked. The bracelet fell to the floor. Zoom motioned toward it and the dog picked it up. Zoom scratched on the door. He repeated this operation until he heard some one stirring on the inside of the room.

  When he heard bare feet hit the floor, Zoom whispered a word of command to the dog, ran down the hall. The dog, obedient to that whispered command, remained at the door. As the bolt clicked back and the door opened, Sidney Zoom came running up the steps, as though he had been exerting himself to the limit of his endurance. He was puffing and blowing, and the sound of his breathing filled the hall.

  The man, who was attired in pajamas, stared at the spectacle of the dog on his threshold, and the man who was puffing his way down the corridor. The light which came from the apartment glittered from the bracelet that the dog held in his teeth.

  Sidney Zoom raced down the carpeted corridor. The man looked from the dog to the master, then recognition dawned on his face. It was a recognition that was uncordial, gave way to downright concern. Sidney Zoom, on the other hand, let his face break into smiles.

  “Well, well, so that’s the explanation,” he said. “The dog managed to trail you after all!”

  The man gruffed a hostile question.

  “What’re you talkin’ about?” he demanded.

  Zoom grinned, the grin of a man who has done a favor for which he will be rewarded.

  “When you got out of the car,” he said, “you dropped this. I called to you, but you’d gone out of sight in the hotel. It took me a minute to get the car parked, and get into the hotel. I didn’t have your name, but I described you to the clerk. He said you weren’t registered there. He remembered having seen you come in, he said, but knew you weren’t registered.

  “I had something of an argument about it with him, and then remembered that the dog was trained to return lost property. I gave the bracelet to him, told him to find you. He remembered your odor, of course. They’ve got wonderful noses, these dogs.

  “I thought he’d go to the elevators, but he didn’t. He went to the side door and barked. I gave him his head. He led me here, but it was a long chase.”

  The man gasped.

  “That’s impossible!” he said. “The dog couldn’t have followed me. I was in a cab.”

  Sidney Zoom’s smile was patronizing.

  “That doesn’t make any difference. Here you are, and the dog found you. I thought maybe I was going to have to consult the store that had sold you the bracelet, for your address, though. You see it’s Huntley & Cobb. They’re big jewelers. I figured you’d bought the bracelet there today and they’d have your address.”

  The man’
s eyes narrowed ominously. He stared at the bracelet.

  “It’s got their name on it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Zoom, “on the tag.”

  “I never saw it before,” said the man in pajamas.

  Zoom laughed as though the matter were a fine joke. “That’s a good one,” he said, “when I saw you drop it. That’s rich! A man dropping a five hundred dollar trinket and then saying he had never seen it before!”

  After a moment the man in pajamas joined in the laugh. He laughed heavily and mirthlessly.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Sidney Zoom walked into the room. The dog followed, caught a motion from Sidney Zoom’s signalling hand, and flopped down in a comer. The apartment was a one room and a kitchenette affair. The bed pulled out from the wall and let down. There was a bathroom which opened off the bedroom, and the bottom of the door joined the threshold loosely enough so that a ribbon of light came through from under the door.

  Sidney Zoom noticed that there were twin blotches of shadow in this ribbon of light, that these blotches moved slightly. He noticed, also, that there were two pillows on the bed, pillows which lay side by side, and each pillow contained the impression of a head.

  The man sat down on the edge of the bed, took the bracelet.

  “You want a reward,” he said, as though making a statement rather than asking a question.

  Zoom shook his head.

  “Not at all. It was a relief to find the owner. I was going to get in touch with the jewelry company.”

  The man nodded his head.

  “Well, it’s mighty nice of you. I’m Rogers, an exporter of gems, and an importer. I buy and sell and deal all sorts of ways. The reason that bracelet has the price mark on it is that it was a sample that was offered me in connection with rather a large order.”

  Zoom stretched his arms, yawned, laughed.

  “How about the others you have?” he asked.

  “What others?”

  “Don’t try to fool me. That lie chained you up with the robbery. You lured Harry Dupree into a position where you could make it seem the job was done by him. I presume the reason you did that is that you’re connected with the firm in some way, and you knew it’d be tagged as an inside job right from the jump. So you figured you’d get some one for a fall guy.”