“Undoubtedly, she played her cards deliberately when she ran into Ralph Ames, claimed her son was her cousin, dropped about ten years from her official age, and managed to marry him. But how the devil she did it is more than I know. There must be some story in the background there.
“Anyhow, all of that doesn’t change the facts. The girl did the killing. You haven’t said so, but I have a hunch the girl is on that yacht of yours. Now then, do you want to surrender her, or have us go and get her?”
And Captain Berkeley’s eyes glinted ominously.
“I don’t think—” began Sidney Zoom.
“You never do,” interrupted the police captain. “You cruise around the city at night, picking up flotsam and listening to the hard luck stories. Every one you befriend you think is as pure as the driven snow. I’ll admit that your hunches have been pretty fair, and you seem to know human nature pretty well, but this is once you’ve made a mistake.
“The department would hate like the very devil to have to name you as an accessory, or get hard with you. But the department would hate a damned sight worse to have that girl slip through its fingers.
“So you’ve got until five o’clock tonight to produce that girl. If she isn’t in custody by that time we’ll go get her, and we’ll put a charge against you.
“That’s final.”
Sidney Zoom smiled, looked at his watch.
“I have precisely five hours and thirty seven minutes.”
“All right.”
“Will you go to lunch with me, captain?”
The officer grinned and got to his feet.
“Okay. But you have that jane here by five o’clock, or you’ll be having lunch with me at this time to-morrow.”
Sidney Zoom smiled by way of reply, escorted the captain to his car, drove him to one of the most exclusive lunch places in the city, purchased a meal which made the officer stretch back in his chair and sigh contentedly.
“Captain,” said Sidney Zoom, “I have a favor to ask.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll have my yacht in dock at five o’clock. The girl will be aboard. But I want you to come personally to make the arrest, without a word to the newspapers. And I want you to give me three hours after you come aboard to prove to you that there may be more to this case than you suspect.”
A frown crossed the official forehead.
“That’s the worst of you damned amateurs. You get sold on the innocence of some baby-face and then overlook all the proof in the world! I tell you, Zoom, you’ll be the laughing stock of the department.”
Sidney Zoom beckoned a very attractive lady who carried a tray supported by shoulder straps.
“A perfecto for the captain!” he said.
She came smilingly toward them, bent solicitously over the officer, struck a match when he had selected a cigar.
“Is that a promise?” asked Sidney Zoom.
Captain Berkeley glanced at the tip of the fifty cent cigar and smiled.
“Yes,” he said.
And in a far comer of the room a baby-faced brunette with innocent eyes, made a surreptitious notation upon a leather covered notebook which she slipped adroitly from the top of her stocking.
Chapter VII
Ambushed
The Alberta F. swung into the mooring float. The men tossed lines, jumped from yacht to float with frenzied rapidity, raced against the thrust of the tide. The white yacht was snubbed, warped gently into the float.
Captain Berkeley and Sidney Zoom stepped aboard.
Vera Thurmond met them.
“Oh, I hope you’ve solved it! She’s the nicest girl, when you get to know her!”
Captain Berkeley twisted the cigar in his mouth, savagely.
“Yes,” he said, shortly, “we’ve solved it I’m sorry, Miss Thurmond, but you folks are in the wrong this time.”
The officer stepped aboard, went to an inner cabin, where the formalities of completing the arrest were speedily complied with. Eve Bendley stared at the officer, then at Sidney Zoom, shrugged her shoulders.
“Fortunes of war,” she said.
Sidney Zoom smiled reassuringly at his secretary.
“Now, Berkeley, I’ve given you a fair deal. Will you give me one?”
“Meaning?” asked the officer.
“Meaning that I’ve surrendered the girl on the dot as I promised. Now I want you to turn your official back on things for three hours.”
“And what happens to the prisoner?”
“Lock her in a cabin, handcuff her to Vera Thurmond, call another officer to watch her, anything you want.”
“And then?”
“Walk with me to the end of the wharf, don’t register any surprise at anything I may say. Then come back to the boat, stay here for three hours, and then meet me at the end of the wharf again.”
Captain Berkeley frowned, took a cigar from his pocket and meditatively regarded the end.
“Sounds simple,” he commented.
The two young woman watched him with anxious eyes.
“All right,” he said.
“Fine,” commented Zoom. “Now we’ll walk to the end of the wharf.”
And it was then Captain Berkeley did that which cemented a firm friendship throughout the years to come with Sidney Zoom.
“Miss Thurmond,” he said, “I’m paroling my prisoner in your charge,” and, with the words, stepped to the mooring float and followed Sidney Zoom up the steep ladder stairs which led to the wharf above.
They strolled through the gathering dusk, Sidney Zoom, tall, almost gaunt, the police dog padding gravely at his side; Captain Berkeley, puzzled, saying nothing.
For a long seven hundred feet the big wharf stretched, an abandoned commercial dock on one side, Sidney Zoom’s private mooring float on the other. A long warehouse partially covered the wharf. For the rest, it was littered with various piles of old lumber, odds and ends of various articles collected from years of service.
At the street side of the wharf Sidney Zoom turned to the officer and extended his hand.
“Very well, captain. It’s now precisely five twenty-one. At exactly eight o’clock I shall meet you here again. And you’ll have the pictures and complete police record of this Harry Garford.”
Captain Berkeley tensed.
“Huh?” he said.
“Thanks,” remarked Sidney Zoom. “I’m certain the matter will be cleared at that time. Good night.”
And Sidney Zoom, followed by his tawny police dog, paced out into the gathering darkness. Captain Berkeley grunted and walked back to the yacht. From behind a pile of lumber, a baby-faced brunette with eyes that were utterly expressionless, oozed as a surreptitious shadow, sprinted for a roadster that had been parked behind the shadow of a warehouse.
The powerful roadster of Sidney Zoom snorted out into the twilight. The other roadster, keeping well behind, followed it as a hawk might trail a scurrying bevy of frightened quail.
Nor did Sidney Zoom glance back, or go to any trouble to disguise where he was going. He drove directly to police headquarters, and the baby-faced brunette trailed him every foot of the way.
He was closeted within the grim walls of stone and steel for nearly an hour. Then he emerged and reentered his roadster. His shadow was nowhere in evidence. There were two men, clumsy, heavy-footed, beady-eyed, parked in a touring car. These men made an effort to follow him. But Sidney Zoom, more watchful than when the shadow had been the brunette, detected their presence and spun his car in a figure eight around a dozen blocks, swung into the boulevard traffic and then, disregarding all rules and regulations, made a complete turn about and rushed madly in the opposite direction, his throttle held near to the floor boards.
Thereafter he saw no more of the touring car with the two private detectives.