Harry Colman poured himself a stiff drink.
“When’ll your sister be in?”
“Inside of a couple of hours.”
“How’ll we know the jane’s your sister?”
“My sister,” said Sidney Zoom, with that dignified stupidity which can only be safely assumed by millionaires who casually purchase twenty-five thousand dollars in gems and leave them hanging around a hotel bedroom, “wouldn’t lie about it. When she states that she is my sister you may accept her word.”
Harry Colman drained his second drink and reached for his third.
“And,” resumed Sidney Zoom, “you’re about the only person who knows the gems are here.”
“Case of a robbery that’d make it interesting for me,” commented the house detective.
Zoom waved his hand toward the bottle.
“Take it with you. If you’ll excuse me, I wish to bathe and change my clothes.”
The house detective accepted the dismissal, left the bottle on the table.
“And if you think this room ain’t in for some special watching during the next two hours you got another think coming,” he promised grimly as the door slammed.
Sidney Zoom rasped the key in the lock, then set to work.
He dragged the clothes from the bed, even slit the mattress with a sharp knife. He cut the pillows, scattered the feathers about the room. He took the bottle of excellent Scotch, emptied it down the drain, pulled the drawers from the bureau, ripped up a section of the carpet. He opened his suitcase, scattered his things about the feather-strewn floor.
Then he took the jewels from their ornate caskets, slipped them in the pocket of his coat, tore the paper wrappings into fine bits and threw them in the waste basket.
When he had completed this work of destruction he took from an inner pocket a grimed, soiled card. Upon this card was scrawled in pencil the number of a room, the name of a hotel and the cryptic words, “Stuff that’s too hot to handle.”
Then Sidney Zoom emerged from the room, carefully locked the door behind him, slipped the key in his pocket, and left the hotel.
A taxicab took him to the Union Depot. Here he redeemed a suitcase which had been checked over the parcel counter, and sought a cheaper hotel, where he engaged a very modest room.
Within this room he set about making over his entire character.
Shabby clothes, glaringly cheap, yet pressed with some attempt to simulate wellbeing, shoes that had been battered out of shape, a celluloid collar and gaudy tie, a shirt that shrieked to high heaven, and a derby hat, all came from the suitcase and were carefully donned.
A shock of graying hair was properly adjusted. A few strokes of a bit of grease paint weakened the mouth. The hawklike glitter of the untamed eyes was concealed behind a pair of colored spectacles.
When these preparations had been made, carefully checked, skillfully executed, the personality of Sidney Zoom, adventurer extraordinary, collector of lost souls, doctor of destinies, became merged in a personality that could only be fittingly placed by reference to that well known song of the underworld which features the adventures of Willie the Weeper.
When the transformation was complete Willie the Weeper left the confines of the cheap hotel and presented himself cringingly at the house telephones of the Westmoreland Hotel.
The hearty, confident voice of Franklin T. Vane boomed in his ear.
“Yes, what is it?”
“A friend of yours.”
“Name?”
“Never mind the name.”
“I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong party.”
“You’re Franklin T. Vane, ain’t you?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
“You wouldn’t know the name.”
“What do you want?”
“To make you a proposition.”
“Well, I’m not open to any proposition. I don’t know you and I don’t care to. Good night.”
“From Chicago,” whined Willie the Weeper.
There was a biting silence. It almost seemed that the telephone wire transmitted a squeak made by a tightened grip on the receiver at the other end of the wire.
“I know no one in Chicago.”
“But I do.”
“Where are you?”
“Downstairs. I’m coming up.”
And Sidney Zoom, completely merged in the personality of Willie the Weeper, slipped the receiver back on the hook, surreptitiously took something from his pocket, and rubbed it just beneath the lids of his eyes.
The effect was almost instantaneous. The eyes reddened, began to ooze water.
Then Willie the Weeper went toward the elevators and was shot upward to the seventh floor. From there he groped about, found seven forty-nine, and scratched on the door.
The door flung open. A portly, heavy-voiced man let glittering eyes sweep over the cringing figure.
“What the hell?” he exploded.
“From Chicago,” said Willie the Weeper, and oozed against the half-open door.
The big figure drew back, let the unwelcome visitor in, and then thrust out an inquisitive head. After a swift glance up and down the deserted corridor, Franklin T. Vane slammed the door, locked it, turned toward the man who stood in the center of the room.
“Who in hell are you?”
“Willie. Folks call me Willie the Weeper.”
“Willie the Weeper! Hell, there ain’t no such animal. That’s just a song hit that Nell—”
The dejected figure shook its head.
“That’s where you make a mistake. The song was first all right. Then I started panhandling, and the boys called me Willie the Weeper, ’cause I got something wrong with my eyes. I made a fortune outa panhandling the boulevard in Chi, but I found I had talents better suited for other things.”
“Yes?”
The voice of Franklin T. Vane was cold in its guarded note of inquiry.
“Yes, I got to collecting hot ice.”
Vane’s figure stiffened.
“What brought you here?”
“I don’t know the local ropes very well. A strange fence tried to cross me, an’ I seen you come out of the hotel this morning.”
Franklin T. Vane shook his head.
“You’re crazy,” he said, “as crazy as a bedbug.”
Willie the Weeper nodded, and reached a hand in the side pocket of his coat. When it came out the fingers seemed to catch the late afternoon sunlight, magnify it, send it sparkling in corruscating fire about the hotel room.
“What’s that?” snapped Franklin T. Vane, and his glittering eyes contained the fire of avarice.
Willie the Weeper passed over the necklace. It was the same necklace which had been purchased from Cremlin’s for fifteen thousand dollars. And Sidney Zoom had selected it because, among other things, a certain odd cutting of the stones, a certain distinctiveness of the clasp, made the necklace one which could be readily identified.
“Hot ice,” he said, in the whining voice which characterized him.
“Not interested!” snapped Vane, but his eyes belied his tongue.
“Too hot to handle here,” pursued Willie the Weeper. “It might be handled in Chi. If I had a stake I’d go back there. If you don’t wanta handle it, how about a stake for get-by money?”
Vane shook his head. His massive neck gave a suggestion of dominant power to the gesture. But his feverish eyes and eager fingers gave evidence of continued interest. “Got any more?”
Willie the Weeper rubbed beneath his eyes with a dirty handkerchief. The streaks of moisture still remained upon his sallow skin. His hand slipped furtively into his other pocket, brought out a diamond brooch.
“I got this.”
The cupidity which glittered so avariciously in the eyes of the fence crystalized into sudden determination.
“Sit down,” he said, and there was a cooing softness in the voice which gave the words an oily suggestion of smooth hypocrisy. “I’m going to give you a square deal, one hell of a square deal.”