Sidney Zoom patrolled the sidewalks. The police dog padded along at his side. Zoom was thinking. And, as some people find it necessary to pace the floor when they are wrestling with some mental problem, so did Zoom find it conducive to clarity of thought to stalk through the night streets of a city, his heels pounding the pavements of the deserted sidewalks.
Sidney Zoom had found his adventures in various places and in various ways. But always he had specialized in ferreting out human misery. And the police dog had been with Zoom for years, long enough to know his system.
Which was why the dog gave a low throaty growl, turned his muzzle toward dark shadows of the little park which showed as a black blotch in the middle of the city. Here were little benches, miniature fountains, dark hedges and patches of grass, cool and green in the daytime, but showing dark and forbidding at night.
Sidney Zoom knew that the dog’s keen ears had detected some sound which was inaudible to his own ears. He paused in his pacing, said softly to the dog:
“All right. Go find.”
The dog at once took the lead. His noiseless feet padded toward the dark shadows. And then, when some few yards had been traversed, Sidney Zoom could hear those sounds which had caught the attention of the dog.
Somewhere within a patch of shadow, back of a hedge, a woman was sobbing. They were those dry sobs which indicate utter despair.
Sidney Zoom frowned.
He had been turning over in his mind the problem of the murder. It had happened in a manner that was impossible. Yet he knew that he could not convince anyone of its impossibility unless he secured more information.
Now he was confronted with a bit of human misery which could not be overlooked. Sidney Zoom would never rest until he had solved the mystery of those sobs. Fighter that he was, he chose to exert his fighting qualities in the helping of the weak and oppressed. And, in the course of years, he had come to know the sound of female sobs. There were the rapid sobs of heartache, sobs which came from emotion, and which no man could help. Then there were those dry, slow-paced, deadly sobs which told not of taut nerves seeking the relief of a good cry, but of the black hopelessness of utter despair. These sobs were like that.
Sidney Zoom moved forward, and, as he did so, the woman got to her feet. Zoom could see the top of her head and her shoulders as she stood up. The rest of her was concealed by the line of the ornamental hedge.
Zoom hesitated, then followed as the woman began to walk.
She was young, he saw, as the hurrying figure crossed a patch of light near a fountain, and she was going some place in a hurry. Nor was she sobbing any longer. Her shoulders were set with a grim purpose.
She left the park behind, turned to the left at the first corner, pounded the pavement with her determined little feet, heedless of the man and the dog who trailed along behind her.
Sidney Zoom kept his distance. There was no chance of losing the trail, not with the keen nose of the dog to help him. Once let that police dog get the idea that they were trailing some human, and he would thread the way through a labyrinth of streets if necessary.
It was when she came to the entrance to an office building that the girl paused. Sidney Zoom ducked into the shadows of a dark store entrance.
The young woman looked up and down the sidewalk. Then she vanished.
Cautiously, Sidney Zoom followed down the sidewalk, and came to the place where she had ascended a flight of stairs leading to a one-story office building.
Sidney Zoom’s eyebrows raised a trifle.
The stairway led to the offices of the county attorney. Under the regulations in effect in that county, the county attorney was permitted to engage in civil practice, and to keep offices in the business district, rather than in the court-house.
Sidney Zoom spoke to the dog, quieting him. Then he walked up the stairs. The dog padded at his side.
Sidney Zoom paused at the head of the stairs.
He could hear keys rattling against the metal face of a lock a few doors down the corridor. The building was one which was typical of small towns. There were stores on the street level, a wide flight of stairs, a long corridor, and offices on the single upper story. In this building, the offices of the county attorney occupied the entire upper floor.
The girl had some trouble with the lock of the door. Finally, however, Zoom’s keen ears heard the dick of the bolt, and then the creak of a door on hinges.
Sidney Zoom whispered a command to the crouching dog. Together, they moved into the dark hallway, stepped cautiously toward the row of office doors which fronted on the corridor.
The girl had not switched on the lights. But she was using an electric flashlight with great caution, keeping the beam from striking against the windows. Zoom could see the intermittent flashes of the light on the frosted glass of the oblong panels in the corridor doors.
He frowned, moved closer, and listened.
The girl was opening filing cases. Zoom’s ears could hear the sounds made by the steel drawers as they slid out on their well oiled rollers, could hear the noises made by the questing fingers as they riffled the pasteboard guides.
Then Sidney Zoom became aware of another sound.
Cautious feet were ascending the stairs leading from the street.
Rip, the police dog, growled, swung about, crouched, bracing himself for a rush, should his master order it. The feet on the stairs were coming up rapidly, with assurance, yet with an attempt at stealth.
Sidney Zoom placed a hand on the dog’s collar, flattened himself against the lower part of one of the dark doors and crouched, holding the dog.
Chapter IV
A Fight in the Dark
There was enough light coming up from the street to enable Sidney Zoom to see the black hulk of the figure as it reached the top of the stairway. It did not hesitate. The shoes squeaked slightly as the big man, broad of shoulder, heavy of neck, tiptoed toward the door through which the girl had vanished.
For a second, during which the muscles of the police dog were as taut wires under the restraining fingers of Zoom’s hand, the man paused, listening to the sounds of surreptitious activity from the inner office.
Then the man’s shoulders lurched forward. He flung open the door. A flashlight was in his hand. The beam stabbed through the half darkness.
“Stick’m up!” he growled.
The little scene was enacted not six feet away from the place where Zoom crouched with the dog. Zoom could see the silhouette of the big figure, hulking against the light reflected from the beam of the hand torch. He could hear the scream which the girl gave, and then could catch the note of gloating in the man’s voice.
“Well, if we needed anything to strap Crandall to the chair we’ve got it now. Come out, you little—”
She hesitated.
Sidney Zoom pressed the police dog firmly to the floor. He gave one last final push between the blades of the shoulders where the muscles bunched into hard knots. That pressure had a definite significance. It meant that the dog would remain there, no matter what happened, until he was ordered by Sidney Zoom to leave that position.
Then Zoom made two long, cautious steps, moving with the lithe grace of a stalking panther, and making no more noise.
He found himself in a position from which he could peer over the broad shoulder of the man who blocked the doorway. He could see down the beam of the flashlight, could detect the expression of stark terror on the face of the girl.
She was masked, her forehead covered by a cloth.