The woman’s eyes widened with a sudden realization of the full import of Sidney Zoom’s words. She muttered an exclamation, sank back in her chair.
Captain Berkeley caught Zoom’s eye.
“Just a minute now, Zoom. The girl’s imprints were on the gun. We’ve traced the numbers and can show she picked it up in a pawnshop, and—”
“Of course,” said Zoom. “The butler planned the thing well from the first. It was the girl’s gun. She’d kept it in her room. Naturally her finger-prints would be on it. Garford simply took it, wearing gloves, of course, shot the man, tossed the gun to one side and later cast it out of the window.
“And he tried to throw me off the track by digging up clews that would seem at first to point to the girl’s innocence, but later would serve to clinch the case against her. He simply borrowed the gun for the murder, knowing the bullet would be traced to the gun, the gun to the girl.”
Captain Berkeley got to his feet.
“I think I hear the wagon,” he said. “Zoom, I think we’ve got a case here a jury will act on, and do it damned quick. Help me escort the prisoners to the wagon, will you?”
Higher Up
Chapter I
The Girl with Diamonds
The city was, for the most part, dark and silent. The theatrical district glowed with light. The narrow streets of Chinatown gave forth whisperings to the night as slithering feet slid along the pavement. The financial district was grim and gloomy, business houses were dark.
Between Chinatown and the theatrical district there was a street which glowed with lighted windows. This was the pawnshop district. Human misery, like human pain, becomes more acute at night, and the pawnbrokers in this district did much of their business around midnight.
Drab shadows flitted through this district on furtive feet, pausing now and again momentarily, then plunging into one of the lighted interiors, shortly to emerge and slink back into the realm of darkness which bordered the pawnshop lane.
Midnight boomed the hour.
The financial district, which was to the east, gave forth the sound of foot-steps. These steps contained nothing of the furtive. They echoed from the cold pavements with the rhythmic regularity of some metronome of fate. The footsteps were audible some seconds before the figure became visible. Then he strode into the half illumination of pawnshop lane, six feet odd of whipcorded strength, grim, gaunt, uncompromising. At his side padded a police dog.
That strange personality, known as Sidney Zoom, pacing the midnight streets, police dog at his side, hawk eyes utterly untamed, paused to scan the furtive figures which glided through the district where human misery might secure temporary relief, for sufficient collateral.
For some half minute he stood, surveying, appraising. Then he strode through the length of the narrow thoroughfare and was about to vanish into the darkness once more, when a figure arrested his attention.
She was young, attractive, well formed. A shabby coat was hugged about her figure with something of an air, as though it had been a coat of sable instead of cheap shoddy. The face was held rigidly, impersonally to the front, as becomes a young lady who must walk the night streets unescorted, yet wishes to convey no false impression.
Outwardly she was calm, cool, poised. Yet there was something about her which spoke of anxiety. Perhaps it was in the swiftly nervous beat of her tiny feet upon the pavement; perhaps it was in the way she hugged the coat about her Figure, as though it had been a shield.
Sidney Zoom’s eyes, as colorless as those of a hawk, and as keen, fastened upon her. At his side, the dog whined. Sidney Zoom turned, followed.
For two blocks they walked. The girl’s feet patting the pavement with short, nervous steps, as rapid and sharp as the beating of an excited heart. Behind her, Sidney Zoom’s feet banged upon the pavement at explosive intervals as his long legs swung through the night.
The girl paused at a door above which hung the conventional gilded balls. It was as though she waited to muster courage. Then her hand pushed the door open.
Sidney Zoom entered behind her. The dog crouched upon the pavement, tawny muzzle dropped to his paws, yellow eyes watchfully alert.
A thin figure with stooped shoulders and a bald head, upon the back of which was a black skull cap, came shuffling to the counter from a back room.
His eyes were watery, showing a great fatigue with life, yet there was uncanny wisdom in their watery depths. They were eyes that could flicker to a face and appraise character.
A cigarette drooped from the thin lips. Yet the air of the place was thick with heavy cigar smoke.
Sidney Zoom sniffed that cigar smoke, let his eyes fasten upon the cigarette, and then his lips clamped together. He knew the meaning of that cigar smoke. The detectives were waiting for something “hot.”
The girl half turned, shot an anguished glance at Sidney Zoom. It was evident that she would have preferred to transact her business without an audience.
“Wait on him first,” she said.
The thin man with the slithering feet and the drooping cigarette started to shuffle toward Sidney Zoom. That individual waved his hand.
“I shall be some little time,” he said. “I want to see about purchasing a watch,” and he bent over the counter upon which the watches were displayed under glass, giving every outward indication of being so utterly absorbed in his inspection as to be oblivious of what was going on in the place.
The thin man raised his watery eyes to the girl’s face.
“Well?” he asked.
The girl’s hand darted from beneath the folds of her shabby coat. She held it over the glass of the show case, then made a little flinging gesture.
Hard pellets of frozen fire rattled over the glass, sent coruscating beams of glittering light flaming about the place. There were half a dozen diamonds, and they were of sufficient size to make a respectable showing.
“How much,” said the girl in a voice that quavered, “for the lot?”
The thin man swooped out a swift hand, scooping the pellets into a little group, as though his cautious soul rebelled at the liberal gesture with which the girl’s hand had flipped them away.
“They are unset,” he said.
The girl made no comment. None was necessary. The fact was self evident.
The pawnbroker fastened a jeweler’s glass to his right spectacle, picked up the stones, examined them.
“But,” he said slowly, “they have been set, and have been pried from their settings.”
Leaning over the watch counter, Sidney Zoom noticed that the man had raised his voice, knew that this was for the benefit of the man who remained in the back room, smoking heavy cigars.
The girl asked her question again, in a monotone.
“How much for the lot?”
The pawnbroker’s voice was quite loud now.
“You are the same girl who has been in here before, yes? And these stones are of peculiar sizes. They weren’t stones from a necklace. They were taken from rings and stickpins, and they have been pried...”
Chapter II
Hot Ice
The smoky entrance to the back room framed a hulking figure. A hat was back on one side of his head. From beneath the hat showed a shock of black hair. Insolent eyes surveyed the world in scornful appraisal. Thick lips held a half-smoked cigar clamped rigidly. Broad shoulders swung half sideways to clear the narrow doorway.
“All right, sister,” he said: “where did you get ’em?”
And he flipped back a casual hand to his coat lapel, let her eyes catch the gleam of a silvered badge.
“Oh!” she said, and the exclamation was almost a scream.