The plainclothes man moved away, over to the police car.
“Sidney Zoom,” he growled. “I’ve heard he’s got some sort of a special commission, and he’s in solid with the mayor. Better let Headquarters know and see what they say.”
Chapter III
Murder
The driver of the car nodded. He turned a microphone into action, spoke in a harsh, mechanical voice.
“Police car sixty-two. We’ve located the car in which Muriel Drake made her escape. It’s driven by a man named Sidney Zoom who claims he saw the woman running down the street, gave her a ride, and. didn’t stop when he saw the private dicks, because they just opened fire, and the girl said they were gangsters. There’s a lead that the girl went to the Continental Hotel. We’re checking that lead. Shall we bring Zoom in?”
He switched off the microphone, grinned at the other.
“We’ll pass the buck to somebody higher up.”
There was a period of brief silence. Then a man came running across the street.
“A dodge,” he said. “She went in to the night clerk all right, told him she might like a room for a week, asked him to let her take a look at it. She got a key, and the elevator boy showed her the room. She stalled around for five minutes, gave him back the key and a dollar, let the boy take the key to the desk while she ducked out the side door.”
The plainclothes officer who seemed to be in charge of the investigation, puckered his forehead.
“That checks with this guy’s story. She pulled that to throw him off the trail.”
He turned back to Zoom.
“Just what’d she say to you?” he asked.
“Said she had a millinery store, that some men were organizing a racket and she’d been fighting them, that these men were taking her for a ride when the car had a puncture. That the car slipped off the jack, and that one of the men was caught under it. When the others were lifting the car she beat it.”
The men exchanged glances.
“Pretty slick!” said one of the men.
“It’s a damned lie. He was in on it. He was the getaway car!” stormed the man who claimed to have been the one who fired the shot that had taken effect in the side of the car. “I could tell from the way she ran into the car without hesitating or anything, that it was a plant...”
“Shut up, Joe,” said the plainclothes man. “She couldn’t have told when the car you guys was in was going to have a blowout, nor that the jack was going to bust. She got a break, that’s all, and she took it. I’ve heard of this guy. He drives around the streets all the time. He’s helped the department on a case or two.”
He turned to Zoom.
“Now, then, did you see this broad leaving the hotel? She ducked out of the joint to give you the slip and there’s a chance you might have seen her.”
The man paused, stared at Sidney Zoom.
A harsh, metallic voice rasped into raucous sound from the automobile.
“Police car sixty-two! There’s been a murder at the Bratten Arms Apartments. A young woman was killed in the elevator. She answers the description of Muriel Drake. The body was found wedged in the elevator by a man named Hackett who was coming in from a party.
“Better chase around there, look at the corpse, interview Hackett and make sure he’s on the square. The corpse was searched thoroughly by the man who did the job. Clothes were ripped and torn. Looks like Muriel.”
There followed a startled silence which contrasted strangely with the mechanical voice, magnified by a loud speaker, coming in over the police radio; a voice that mentioned murder in so matter-of-fact a manner.
The man who had been standing near Zoom’s car jerked his head at Zoom.
“Get your dog in back and make him behave. I’m coming in.”
Sidney Zoom nodded, made a motion to the dog, a waving motion of the right wrist. “Back and down, Rip.”
The dog cleared the back of the front seat in a graceful leap, stretched out on the back seat. The plainclothes man walked around the car, flung open the door.
“No rough stuff,” he said. “Follow that police car.”
The siren wailed. The exhaust of the police car roared. The two cars shot out into the middle of the street, gathered speed, flashed past intersections.
It was but a matter of seconds until the lights of the lead car showed the knot of curious spectators which had gathered, even at that hour of the night, impelled by a morbid curiosity to gaze upon the features of the dead.
There was an ambulance backed up to the curb, a pair of uniformed policemen, keeping the crowd back. Lights blazed in the windows of the apartment house, as well as in the windows of adjoining houses. Oblongs of light framed the black silhouettes of the curious.
The cars swung to the curb, lurched to a stop. The plainclothes man touched Zoom on the arm.
“We go in,” he said.
Zoom turned to the dog.
“Stay here, Rip, and watch.”
The dog pricked up his ears then drooped them.
The pair left the car. A knot of police and detectives pushed their way into the lobby of the apartment house. It was now a blaze of light. A middle-aged woman with sagging flesh drooping from the bones of her face, a triple chin and puffs under her eyes, rushed toward them. She was clad in a kimono and slippers with a glimpse of silk showing at the neck of the kimono.
“I’m the manager. She wasn’t registered here. She didn’t have an apartment. It ain’t fair to pin a black eye on the place just because...”
The men pushed her to one side. An officer led the way.
“We parked her in a vacant apartment,” he said, “soon as we knew she might be connected with the stick-up.”
They pushed their way through white-faced, half clothed inmates of the apartment house, who had huddled together in the hallways as chickens huddle when the dark shadow of a hawk skims along the ground.
The officer opened a door. The men walked in. Zoom felt a hand on his arm, felt himself pushed forward. Then he was in a semicircle of men who stared silently down upon a still form.
“Choked,” said one of the officers.
“And how!” agreed another.
“Clothes just the way they were when she was found?” asked the man who was in charge.
“Just the same,” said the officer. “She was wedged in the elevator when we got there.”
“You put the elevator out of business?”
“Yeah. Sure. The boys are looking it over for finger-prints.”
The plainclothes man nodded.
“Well,” he said, “somebody sure as hell wanted something this broad had, and he wanted it bad. Lookit those clothes!”
Sidney Zoom stared at the distorted features.
“The girl you gave the ride to?” asked the plainclothes man.
“The same,” agreed Sidney Zoom.
“Got her identified?” asked the officer who had been at the apartment when the others arrived.
“Yeah. Name’s Muriel Drake. She works at Harmiston’s Wholesale & Retail Jewelry. She was there when the stick-up took place this afternoon. You know, the one where they gunned out the guard and looted the box.
“There was plenty of evidence it was an inside job and the boys were getting ready to give her a shake-down. She got a break and made a getaway. Went to the Continental and ducked. She lives at the Wentmore Apartments over on Ninety-sixth. But she was too foxy to head for there. She’s probably got a friend in this joint.
“The door’s locked at night, and she couldn’t get in unless she had a key or unless somebody answered the ring and gave the door a buzz. Better start checking ’em over...”
He was interrupted by a commotion at the door.
“Here’s the baby she called on,” said one of the officers, and pushed a girl into the room.