Her eyes narrowed.
“Applesauce. It’s worth twice that. Gimme the telephone, or have I gotta call a cop?”
“All right,” hastily agreed the agonized banker, with a swift glance at the clock, “I’ll give you the ten thousand. But get out of here and lay low.”
She got to her feet, nodded.
“It’s a rotten trick, but a workin’ girl has gotta take the breaks as she gets ’em. Fork over the ten grand.”
It took exactly one minute and thirty-eight seconds for Albert Pratt to produce the money and bow his unwelcome visitor to the door.
There followed an interval of fifteen minutes, and then Sidney Zoom, still disguised as the fictitious Mr. George Stapleton, entered the bank.
Albert Pratt welcomed him with a cordial handshake, ushered him into the inner office, produced a check made out to “cash” in the sum of forty thousand dollars, flipped the two letters from his desk drawer.
“Just sign there, and I’ll turn over the letters,” he said. “After all, I guess you were right. These letters are pretty purple. They’d wreck you if they ever got out.”
George Stapleton beamed at him.
“Would you believe it? I made a settlement with the wife. Her attorney relented just after you telephoned. I settled with her for forty thousand dollars. And that means I don’t care a hoot about the letters.”
VIII
Albert Pratt clutched the edge of the desk.
“But Myrtle Ramsay! How about her breach of promise suit?”
“Nonsense!” said his visitor. “Myrde Ramsay is a gold digger, but she’s square as a cornerstone. When she sets her price she’ll abide by it. She said ten thousand dollars, and she got the ten thousand dollars. Congratulate me, Pratt. I feel like a new man. Hang it, you don’t seem pleased!”
And Stapleton extended his hand, a frown of puzzled perplexity on his features.
Albert Pratt took a deep breath, extended a moist, limp lump of flesh.
“But the letters, those damning, purple, passionate, foolish letters! What’ll I do with them?”
“They’re left with you as an escrow holder?”
“Yes, for forty thousand. Of course, the man might take less, perhaps twenty thousand, possibly even fifteen.”
Stapleton gave a glad laugh.
“Forget it. Hand him back the letters on a silver platter. Tell him to frame ’em and hang ’em in the city hall if he wants to. What the devil do I care. I’ve made a settlement with the wife. I gave her a check on my account here. That deans it up. We’re all quits.”
Albert Pratt’s trained mind, skilled in chicanery, suddenly clicked the parts of the puzzle into a perfect picture. He lunged forward. His clutching fingers caught the horn-rimmed glasses, jerked them off. His other hand clutched the trick mustache, tore it loose from the upper lip.
“Framed!” he yelled. “Defrauded. I can have you arrested for criminal conspiracy. You’re not George Stapleton at all, and that woman was a confederate!”
And Sidney Zoom, straightened to his full height, letting his cold hawk-like eyes bore into the pale orbs of the banker, nodded.
“I didn’t care much for this disguise, anyway,” he said, “but I had to look the part of a sucker.”
And his hands, going to his head, slipped off the oily, perfumed wig he wore.
“My name is Zoom! Sidney Zoom, at your service. A specialist in legalized fraud, a subject, by the way, to which I understand you have devoted much of your life, Mr. Pratt.”
The banker stared at him with eyes that were as palely inexpressive as twin clam shells fished from a chowder.
“Specialist in what?”
“Legalized frauds, those little chicaneries by which a man can take advantage of his fellow mortal, yet be well within the law.”
“Legalized fiddlesticks! If I can’t convict you of criminal conspiracy in this case I’ll go out of the banking business.”
Sidney Zoom perched his tall frame upon a corner of the’ desk, reached for a cigarette. His eyes were now as hard as those of a swooping hawk.
“Yes? Well, think again. You’ll have to admit the theft of two letters before you can make out any case. And that will convict you of larceny to start with. In the second place, there was no wrongful act on my part. I merely deposited money with which to redeem certain letters that were being delivered by a confederate. In other words I was merely buying letters from myself.
“You were the one that committed the crime, and you were the one that did the conspiring. You paid the young lady ten thousand dollars to keep quiet about your theft of the letters. Try that on your thinking apparatus and see if you can get the answer without turning to the back of the book.”
And get the answer Albert Pratt undoubtedly did, for his mouth sagged open. He swallowed painfully a couple of times, then raised his eyes to confront the rigid forefinger of Sidney Zoom, jabbing into his necktie.
“And this is just a warning. As I mentioned, I specialize in legalized fraud. I know a hundred ways by which I can take money from you, yet never violate the letter of the law. I specialize in lost souls, and you’ve contributed your share. You with your damned rediscount company and your bum stocks. Sit still! Move and I’ll alter your features so the directors won’t know you when you try to preside at the next meeting!
“I’ve had my eye on you for some time. This little visit is long overdue. I’m taking ten thousand dollars as a warning. That money is being given, three thousand to a deserving applicant, seven thousand toward making partial restitution to some of the fellows you’ve charged illegal interest, wiped out their little savings with bum stock deals. You’ve got a chance to turn over a new leaf right now. If you don’t, I shall call again. And the next time your fine will be twenty thousand dollars!”
Albert Pratt rubbed a bony forefinger around the inside of his collar. Then he laughed, a hollow, mirthless laugh.
“Well, if you’re counting on getting any of the ten thousand dollars from the woman who got it from me, you’ve got another guess coming. I happen to know something of her type of woman. She may be a confederate, but she’ll skip out with the ten grand.”
Sidney Zoom thrust his face close to that of the banker.
“That young woman,” he snapped, “is just like I told you — as square as a cornerstone. Think that over, and. keep this to remember me by.”
And Sidney Zoom swung his open hand from the vicinity of his hip, hard, forward.
The open palm struck the banker’s cheek with such force that it sounded like the crack of a miniature pistol.
Albert Pratt staggered back, got to his feet, his pale eyes flabby with fear.
“I shall call an officer!” he threatened.
Sidney Zoom laughed in his face.
“Call out the reserves, you cheap crook,” he said, and then slammed the door, leaving the private banker alone with his thoughts and his smarting face; leaving him with the knowledge that he had no redress, either civil or criminal. He had been outsmarted by a past master in the art of legalized fraud.
Borrowed Bullets
Chapter I
A Fight on the Wharf
Sidney Zoom turned the wheel of the Alberta F. hard to star-board.
The yacht swung in a sweeping curve through the dark water of the bay. The lighted ferry slips, backed by blinking electric signs advertising half a dozen national products, were blotted out by a projecting wharf.
In their place loomed the black hulks of towering freighters, massive wharves against which the little wavelets slapped invisible fingers.