Slacker nodded. “Well,” he said, “it’s over.”
Zoom shook his head.
“No. It’s not over. Not until they come into your cell and shave off a bit of your scalp, and slit your pants leg. Then they start the grim march, down the corridor, the last steps you’ll take, the steps of death...”
“Don’t!” yelled Slacker. “Good God, don’t sketch the picture like that— Ugh, the chair — the horror of having people take you out and make you die. It isn’t that I’m afraid of death. I don’t fear dying. I hate to be dragged out by a lot of jailers, pulled down a corridor, strapped in an iron chair... I hate to think that they’re waiting, watching, night and day, ticking off the time...”
Sidney Zoom got to his feet.
“They say electrocution is painful,” he said. “I’m going out and bring in the police. Don’t try to escape while I’m gone. I shall leave the dog against the door on the outside.”
He got to his feet, his long angular length showing fine and strong against the flabby softness of the other’s panic.
“Come, Rip,” he said, and marched to the door, slammed it shut. The lock clicked into place.
He paused, standing to one side in the corridor, listening.
That for which he had been waiting came within a matter of seconds.
“Bang!” the roar of a single shot.
Something thudded to the floor. There was silence.
Sidney Zoom motioned to the dog.
Together, they sought the stairs and went down to the street. The noise of the shot might have been taken for backfire by the occupants of other offices.
Sidney Zoom went to the yacht basin where his small, but well-appointed yacht, the Alberta F., rode at her anchor.
Vera Thurmond, his secretary, greeted him.
“Anything new?”
“Not much.” His tone was weary. “Take ten thousand dollars. Go up and bail a girl named Myrtle Crane out of jail. She was arrested for complicity in the robbery of Jacob Goldfinch. Wake me up if anything happens.”
And Sidney Zoom sought his cabin, apparently unaware of the look of maternal tenderness which welled in the eyes of his secretary.
With the dog stretched on a mg near the foot of his bed, he dropped into dreamless slumber, lulled by the lap-lap-lap of the water against the sides of the yacht.
He was awakened by a knocking against the cabin door.
“Sergeant Huntington,” called his secretary.
“Come in,” said Zoom, sitting up.
Sergeant Huntington strode into the room. With him came Jack Hargrave.
Huntington’s manner was crisp, official. Hargrave looked at Sidney Zoom in a manner of respect. There was something almost of reverence in his glance.
“Hargrave got the hunch Slacker had acted funny,” said Sergeant Huntington. “He started looking for him. He found him at his office a little afternoon. Slacker had been dead some time. Suicide all right, his own gun and all that, and a confession, and the stolen diamonds in the hollowed picture frame. Here’s the confession.”
He passed over the typewritten sheets.
Sidney Zoom read them. A smile twisted his lips.
“Funny?” asked Sergeant Huntington with sarcasm.
“Thinking about Phil Brazer groping around for the diamonds. He was palming as many as he could, working them up his sleeve,” said Zoom. “That was why it took him so long to fish out the stones.”
Sergeant Huntington grunted.
Zoom finished the confession, handed it back.
“This is one case I’m surprised on,” he said.
Sergeant Huntington glowered at him.
“You went bail for Myrtle Crane.”
“Yes. I frequently do when I think people are innocent.”
“And,” went on Sergeant Huntington, “some one had scrubbed the office floor and sprinkled white powder at the entrance.”
Sidney Zoom raised his eyebrows.
“Yes?”
“Yes. And a tall man and a dog were seen hanging around the lobby of the office building.”
Zoom nodded.
“Oh, yes. That was I. Rip and I waited. Then, when we got tired we left.”
“What were you waiting for?”
“I wanted to ask Mr. Slacker a question.”
“What about?”
“Something about that fake dodger, you know, the one about the diamond thief...”
“Yes,” said Sergeant Huntington, “I know. I also know, Sidney Zoom, that whenever you start to solve a case you solve it. Of late I’ve been noticing that when you start in on a murder case and find the real culprit, that culprit never lives to get to jail.”
Zoom reached for a cigarette.
“The State executes men for murder?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Sergeant Huntington.
Zoom said nothing further.
After the silence had begun to be awkward, Sergeant Huntington rasped into speech.
“Will you admit you saw Slacker this morning?”
“No.”
“Do you know that Slacker’s steps show when he entered that room, that there are white blobs going to the picture frame, to the typewriter, back to his desk?”
“Were there?”
“Yes. There were.”
“And that same white powder shows the tracks of another man who entered the room and sat down, talking with Slacker.”
Zoom looked interested.
“Tracks of a dog, too?” he asked.
Sergeant Huntington frowned.
“No, that’s what puzzles me.”
“Well,” remarked Zoom, “it lets me out. I had my dog with me this morning. Your own witnesses admit that.”
He yawned, looked at the tip of his cigarette, glanced at Sergeant Huntington.
“Steps of death, eh?”
Sergeant Huntington suppressed an exclamation, stepped back.
“Well,” he said, “it looks like hell, that’s all. Looks as though some one had made it easy for this chap to shoot himself.”
Zoom’s voice was only mild in its interest.
“You were looking for some one higher up in this affair, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
Zoom made a motion with his muscular, angular shoulders.
“Look for something higher up in this, then.”
“Higher up?”
“Yes. You might try divine justice, for instance.”
Sergeant Huntington snorted, turned on his heel.
Jack Hargrave stepped to the bed.
“Good day, sir. I just wanted to shake hands.”
Silently, solemnly, the two men shook hands.
“Higher up,” said Hargrave.
“Higher up,” repeated Sidney Zoom and his tone had the timbre of a tolling bell.
The First Stone
Chapter I
The Man on the Sidewalk
Rain sheeted intermittently out of the midnight skies. Between showers fitful stars showed through drifting cloud rifts. Street lights, reflected from the wet pavements in shimmering ribbons, were haloed in moisture. Intermittent thunder boomed.
The feet of Sidney Zoom, pacing the wet pavements, splashed heedlessly through small surface puddles. Attired in raincoat and rubber hat, the gaunt form prowled through the rainy night, his police dog padding along at his side.
Sidney Zoom loved the night. He was particularly fond of rainy nights. Midnight streets held for him the lure of adventure. He prowled ceaselessly at night, searching for those oddities of human conduct which would arouse his interest.
The police dog growled, throatily.
Sidney Zoom paused, stared down at his four-footed companion.
“What is it, Rip?”
The dog’s yellow eyes were staring straight ahead. His ears were pricked up. After a moment he flung his head in a questing half circle as his nose tested the air.