The wide, terror-stricken eyes showed through the holes in that doth mask. The mouth sagged open. The lips were white with terror. She was standing before an open filing case. The flashing beam of pitiless light had speared her in the very act of searching the files. She held one marked “State vs. Crandall.”
“Come here, you little—, and let me rip that mask off,” growled the man in the doorway. “I’ve had an idea all along there was a broad in that Crandall case.”
She moved toward him, slowly, as one in a trance. She tried twice to speak, the white lips moving in a futile effort. The fear-constricted throat muscles could not function.
She was within three feet of the man.
“Take off the mask,” he said.
She halted, motionless.
“Take off the mask!”
She still remained motionless.
The big arm of the man flashed out in a sweeping swing. The hand did not rip at the cloth, but swung, instead, in a swishing blow. It caught the young woman squarely on the side of the jaw. She was swept to one side, stumbled over a chair, fell. The beam of the flashlight pinned her in its glare.
“Take off that mask!” bellowed the man.
The girl’s hands went to her face, not removing the mask, but in a gesture of instinctive terror, holding the cloth to her face.
The man moved forward.
“If you want to get beat up,” he said, “I’m the guy that’ll do it!”
As he spoke, he drew back his foot, preparatory to making a vicious kick.
It was at that instant that the long arm of Sidney Zoom flashed out in the darkness. The talon-like fingers, as rigid as though they had been fashioned from steel, clutched the cloth of the man’s coat collar. The arm jerked.
The big man had been poised on one foot, swinging the other in a kick. The swift pull at his collar jerked him off balance. The twisting motion of the snapping arm sent him into a spin. Sidney Zoom’s other hand swooped down, struck the thick wrist of the hand that held the flashlight. The flashlight was snapped from the man’s grasp, thudded to the floor. All was darkness.
“Never,” said Sidney Zoom, “strike a woman.”
The man gave one inarticulate bellow of rage and rushed.
Even in the darkness, he showed an uncanny judgment of spacing, of timing, and of distance. His blows had all of the swift speed, all of the vicious follow-through which characterizes the performance of a professional fighter.
Sidney Zoom gave ground before that charging rush, before that avalanche of human weight But he gave ground in a scientific manner, his left foot always advanced, his right foot tapping out the retreat, his left shoulder hunched forward, protecting his chin and the side of his face. His left hand was held in readiness, his right flung in such a position as to protect the solar plexus, leaving a protruding elbow as a menace to the flying fists of his assailant.
On the floor, the police dog whined his anxiety, chattered his teeth in an ecstasy of desire to tear this man limb from limb. Yet the iron discipline under which he had been schooled held him crouched to the floor, the saliva dripping from his quivering jaws.
As the men cleared the doorway, the girl, jumping forward, ran for the stairs. The big man was heedless of her escape. But Sidney Zoom, his ears waiting for those very sounds of flight, knew the girl had eluded her captor.
He suddenly ceased to be on the defensive.
The big man, irritated that his flailing blows should find no vital mark, his right hand tender from having flung into that protruding elbow upon two occasions, set himself for a crashing rush.
The left arm of Sidney Zoom suddenly ceased to be merely a wall of defense. It flicked out in swiftly stabbing blows, as smoothly and as rapidly as the tongue of a snake flickers in and out.
One, two, three blows found their mark upon the face of the big man, every blow having the effect of throwing him off balance, keeping him from getting set for his rushing offensive.
Then the fourth blow measured the distance, told Sidney Zoom exactly where the right should cross over. The right flashed in a swift hook, thudded to the jaw with a jar of impact that lifted the big man from his feet, sent him hurling back into the dark room where he had trapped the girl.
Sidney Zoom flung the door of that office shut. There was a skeleton key in the mortise lock. He twisted it, locking the door.
“Come, Rip,” he whispered, and ran lightly to the stairs which went to the street.
He looked up and down the sidewalk.
There was no sign of human life. The girl had vanished utterly and completely.
Sidney Zoom had no means of knowing who she was. Nor could he tell the identity of the man with whom he had fought. Nor, truth to tell, did he greatly care. Sidney Zoom was a born fighter. He longed for conflict, mental and physical. This man had been taking advantage of a woman. Sidney Zoom asked for no other cause to make war.
Man-made laws of property rights meant but little to this man who would have been a pirate leader in another age. Zoom recognized certain basic principles of right and wrong, and no other. He longed for conflict, and asked not too many questions concerning the technical laws governing the merits of such conflict. All that he required was to find the weak being oppressed by the strong. Then he hurled himself into the fight with a whole-hearted ferocity which swept all opposition before it.
He had not the slightest doubt that the man he had locked in the office on that upper floor represented the law enforcement agencies of the city of Dellboro. And he did not care a hoot. Sidney Zoom’s concern had to do entirely with the identity of the young woman who had been sobbing her heart away on a park bench under the quiet stars of a midnight sky. He wanted to find her, to relieve her sufferings, if that were possible.
He turned to the dog.
“Find,” he said.
Chapter V
Della Rangar
The dog, glad of an opportunity for action, placed his muzzle to the cold cement, sniffed, ran a few steps toward the west, then turned to the east, ran, sniffed, wagged his tail, started following the scent, his tail wagging vehemently.
Sidney Zoom’s long legs moved in great strides.
The dog led the way to the mouth of an alley, up that alley, to the back entrance of a rooming house, up a flight of stairs, through a back door, along a corridor, paused before a dark door, and looked up at his master.
Sidney Zoom knocked on the door.
There was no sound from the room.
Sidney Zoom knocked again, tried the knob.
“Open up,” he said, “and do it quickly.”
There came the sound of bed springs creaking, a sleepy voice asked: “Who’s there?”
“A friend,” said Sidney Zoom.
“I’m in bed — asleep. Go away.”
Sidney Zoom was impatient with such prevarication in the face of the infallible identification which the dog had given.
“I will give you ten seconds,” he said, “to open the door.”
There came the sound of bare feet thudding to the floor. Garments rustled. The feet came toward the door, a lock clicked, and Sidney Zoom stared into the eyes of a young woman who looked very much as though she had been asleep for some hours, save for one thing. That one thing was the red, swollen spot on the side of her face where the fist had crashed home.
“This,” she said, “is an outrage.”
Zoom moved into the room, locked the door behind him.
“Now the first question,” he said, “is whether or not you left anything behind in that office by which you could be identified? A purse, perhaps? Perhaps a compact?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said with dignity.
She wrapped a kimono about her, first taking care to let it flap open for a sufficient length along the front to show Sidney Zoom that she was, indeed in night attire. There were feminine garments piled on the chair. Sidney Zoom walked to them, thrust his hand down among the filmy silks. They were still warm with the heat from the body of the young woman.