Chapter IV
In the Clear
The girl was clothed in a kimono over pajamas and slippers. Her hair was uncombed. Her face was white, eyes stating. She drew back from the gaze of the men, purposeful, appraising, hostile as that gaze was.
The officer behind her pushed her forward.
Then the girl saw that which was on the bed.
She screamed.
Her right hand, clenched into a fist, sought her mouth. The white teeth sank into the knuckles, and she screamed again.
She turned, tried to run. A man grabbed her around the waist, whirled her back so that she faced the bed.
“Take it easy, sister,” he said.
The girl stood rigid, staring, quivering. Then she started to cry and the sobs twisted her frame, shook her shoulders, sent tears coursing down her cheeks. The circle of men stared at her, nor offered her their slightest sympathy.
“Okay,” said the man who had brought her in. “She’s Stella Denny in 639. I knocked on all the doors and asked ’em if they knew a Muriel Drake. This jane gave me a tumble. I found she was holding something out and that she knew the broad, so I brought her down.”
The plainclothes man who had questioned Sidney Zoom moved so that he was between the sobbing girl and the bed.
“Okay, sister,” he repeated, “take it easy. That’s Muriel?”
The sobbing girl nodded.
“How long you known her?”
She tried to speak twice before the words came.
“T-t-two years.”
“Pretty friendly?”
“Yes.”
“You knew she was working for Harmiston’s Jewelry?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you work?”
“In a law office, Mr. Stringer’s office.”
“I see. And you were out some place tonight?”
“No. I was here. I came to my apartment right after I quit work. I cooked supper and didn’t go out.”
“Okay. You read the evening paper?”
“Yes.”
“Then you knew about the stick-up at Harmiston’s?”
The girl hesitated for a second before she answered.
“I d-d-don’t know. I guess so!”
“Guess so, hell!” roared the plainclothes officer. “You know so, don’t you?”
The girl nodded.
“That’s better. Now, you may be all right, sister, or you may be in a tough spot. So you kick through and don’t hold anything back and we’ll give you the breaks.
“Now, you tried to get Muriel on the telephone to see if she was all right and ask her about the stick-up, didn’t you?”
The girl nodded.
“And Muriel said she’d come over a little later and talk things over, didn’t she?”
Another nod.
“And you kept waiting for Muriel to come, and she didn’t come, and you rang her apartment and a man’s voice answered, and you got frightened and slid the receiver back on the hook, didn’t you?”
Her answer was a gasp.
“How... how did you know?”
“We had men planted in that apartment, waiting for Muriel to come back. And you called and they took the call.
“So you sat up and waited for Muriel and got tired, and went to bed. And then what happened?”
There was a moment or two of silence. Stella Denny had ceased to sob now. The necessity for answering questions had served to distract her attention somewhat from that which was on the bed.
“The telephone rang,” said the girl.
“Yes, who was it?”
“Muriel.”
“What’d she want?”
“She said she was in a jam and that I was to be all ready to let her in as soon as she rang the bell, and she didn’t know just when she’d get here, and then she hung up.”
“Well, what happened after that?”
“Nothing. Not for a long time. I moved the chair over by the button which opened the front door, and waited. I waited so long I fell asleep. I woke up when someone was pressing the button of the front door bell. I immediately pressed my button, the one that opened the door.
“Then I waited for Muriel to come up, and I waited and waited, and nothing happened. So I thought maybe someone had rung my bell by mistake. That sometimes happens. Or sometimes someone wants to get in, and he’ll press all the buttons at once to make sure someone will give him a tumble.
“So I waited, and then I heard the siren, and I knew the police were coming, and I remembered what Muriel had said about being in a jam, and I thought the best thing I could do was to sit tight.
“So I just sat there, and the door-bell rang, the one that’s on the apartment door, and I opened it, and it was this man who asked me if I knew Muriel.
“I thought it was a message from her, so I told him I knew her, and then he showed me his badge and told me to come with him. And that’s every single thing I know.”
The officers exchanged glances.
One of them flung the girl around so she faced the body on the bed once more.
“You’re the one that killed her. She had something you wanted. She had some of the stones that were stolen, and...”
“No, no, no!” screamed Stella Denny. “Don’t make me look. For God’s sake, don’t make me...”
She slumped in a faint, her lips bloodless, her face the color of death.
The plainclothes man picked her in his arms, dumped her unceremoniously into a chair.
“It wasn’t a woman’s job,” he said wearily. “It was a man that did it. Let’s go up to this frail’s apartment and give it a good frisking. Then we’ll check up on her boy friends and give them a shake-down. And we’ll check up on Muriel’s boy friends, and see what they know.”
He turned, regarded Sidney Zoom.
“I guess you’re in the dear,” he said. “You seem to have given us the straight dope. She ducked through the hotel to give you the slip. We can locate you whenever we want you, eh?”
Sidney Zoom nodded.
“Aboard the yacht, Alberta F.,” he said uncordially.
“Guy,” the officer said, “you’re gettin’ all the breaks, an’ you ain’t got sense enough to know it.”
Sidney Zoom said nothing. He strode from the room, tall, gaunt, unsmiling, pushed his way out of the apartment house, to his car, and stepped on the starter.
As he drove away, his left hand dropped to the side pocket of his coat. The gems which he had found in the robe in his machine rattled like pebbles.
He smiled, an enigmatical smile.
Nor did he return to his yacht. He went, instead, to a hotel where he registered as Loring Grigsby of Chicago. He went to his room, left the dog in the car at the garage near by, and slept until morning.
Chapter V
Edgar Carver
In the morning he read the newspaper accounts of the murder of Muriel Drake and a rehash of the account of the hold-up at Harmiston’s.
The bandits, two in number, had moved with perfect efficiency, and with a knowledge of the exact location of what they wanted which led the police to believe that there was an accomplice employed within the stores. There had been a guard who had refused to surrender when he saw a gun poking at his stomach. He had made a motion toward his hip and had been shot down in his tracks.
The crime had been singularly businesslike, utterly merciless, and had netted gems worth almost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars wholesale. There had been a big shipment received but a few hours earlier in the day, and the bandits seemed fully aware of this shipment, its nature and extent, and exactly where it could be found.
Sidney Zoom digested the newspaper accounts.
With the finding of Muriel Drake’s murdered body, the police and newspapers alike had concluded that the case was virtually closed, so far as the inside accomplice was concerned.