“Exactly where were you,” asked Sidney Zoom, “when Frank Strome was murdered?”
“Why... why... what... er... isn’t this a bit unusual and irregular and all of that?” asked the banker.
“Certainly,” said Sidney Zoom, “but the answer to that question is very important to you.”
“Well,” said the banker, “when I heard of the death of Frank Strome, I was standing, talking to—”
“Not where you were when you heard of his death, but where you were when he actually died, at the time of the killing,” interrupted Sidney Zoom.
“Oh, my goodness,” exclaimed the banker, “you’re asking for something entirely different now. I don’t know. I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t even know exactly what time it was they decided that he had died.”
“Thank you,” said Sidney Zoom. “Now Mr. Frink, Mr. Purcell and myself want you to come down to the row of vacant office buildings just across the street and down a half a block from the county attorney’s office.”
“I can’t get away,” snorted the banker.
“You’ll have to get away. You wouldn’t want to be subpoenaed as a witness would you, and have to wait around in the court?”
“What would I be a witness to?”
“Something you wouldn’t want to testify to. But if you come down here right away you probably won’t have to give your testimony in public.”
The banker cleared his throat.
“I’ll come,” he said.
Sidney Zoom slipped out to the street and waited. It took the banker less than ten minutes to arrive. He looked perturbed, and his eyes darted about as though seeking out some tangible menace.
Reluctantly, he crossed the street to the stairs, and started up those stairs. Zoom emerged from his place of concealment, started up after the banker.
Gilvert had reached the upper landing when some subtle warning caused him to whirl. He saw the gaunt form of Sidney Zoom, the police dog at his side.
“You!” said the banker.
“Yes,” remarked Sidney Zoom. “I came here to protect you.”
“From what?” snarled the banker.
“From being made the goat and convicted of the murder of Frank Strome,” said Sidney Zoom, speaking casually, as though being framed for murders might have been a mere matter of everyday occurence.
The banker stared, speechless.
“If you’ll step this way,” said Sidney Zoom, “I’ll show you exactly what I mean.”
He indicated the closed door, unlocked it, waved his hand in a gesture that indicated the bound, gagged body on the floor.
“George Frink,” he said, “the murderer of Frank Strome.”
The banker stared. He grasped his left hand with his right hand, twisted the fingers, then started cracking his bony knuckles. One by one, he cracked the knuckles of his right hand. His lips writhed as though he wanted to speak, but no sound emerged from the parched throat.
“You see,” said Sidney Zoom, indicating the window with its finger-print treated with chrome, the two prints on the sill, outlined in the dust, “how simple it was, Frink came down here, waited. He’s a good shot with an automatic. Purcell managed to raise Strome’s window. The publicity car of the unemployment drive started shooting its bombs. Frink watched for his chance and shot.
“It wasn’t at all necessary to wait for the explosion of a bomb. This building is deserted. A shot from here wouldn’t be heard.
“As a matter of fact, it would have been hard for a murderer to have synchronized a shot with a bomb explosion. And, in any event, he’d have had to sit with gun ready, waiting. Which shows how absurd it was to think Crandall could have committed the crime. Strome would never have sat at his desk while Crandall stood there, gun ready, waiting for the bomb explosion to cover the sound of his shot.”
The banker blinked his eyes.
“What does Frink say?” he asked.
Sidney Zoom bowed.
“That’s where you come into the picture. Frink confesses, but he blames you for being the leading spirit. Of course, Frink had to confess, what with his finger-print on the window, and the exploded shell from his automatic found here on the floor.”
Frink, bound and gagged, made little convulsive motions with his body and bound limbs. Inarticulate sounds gurgled in his throat.
“Blames me!” screamed the banker, “He blames me?”
Sidney Zoom nodded.
“He said that you suggested it to Purcell. You’d managed to steal those files, and were afraid of discovery—”
“Liar,” yelled the banker, “a black-hearted, deliberate liar. That’s what he is!”
Sidney Zoom raised his eyebrows.
“Indeed?” he muttered politely.
“Yes, damn it, indeed!” shrilled the banker. “They can’t put that over, not on me. I got that file from Purcell, all right. I knew he was worried about Strome calling him on it. It seemed there’d been two or three other files that Purcell had taken from the office, and Strome was all worked up about that. He threatened an investigation.
“So Strome threatened to make a scandal over it. He’d given Purcell notice to quit. Purcell came to me the night before the murder. He wanted the papers back. I’d destroyed them. He was all worked up and afraid that he was going to be disbarred.
“I was worried myself. Then when I heard that some ex-convict had murdered Strome, I thought it had just been a break for Purcell. I never put the two together at all.
“I knew Purcell was very much afraid. If Strome had found out the papers in my file were missing, after the bootlegging files had been missing, he’d have had Purcell arrested. I’m sorry now that I didn’t stand right up and face the music. The papers related to an irregularity. I could have squared it. Purcell sold me the file. I paid his price.”
Zoom nodded.
“And they were going to frame the murder on you,” he said.
The banker’s face was the color of putty.
“My God! Murder!”
Zoom handed him his notebook and a fountain pen.
“Write out your statement and sign it,” he said.
The banker seized the fountain pen, laid the notebook against the wall, started to write. Frink, on the floor, made significant motions, rolled his eyes, tried to attract attention.
Sidney Zoom spoke to his dog.
“Watch him, Rip. Make him stay quiet.”
The dog walked stiffly to the prostrate form, stood over him, lips curling back, teeth glistening. Frink moved his head. The dog growled, snapped toward the man’s throat. The teeth clicked as the jaws snapped together a scant half inch from the tender flesh, a canine warning which even the hardiest must have heeded.
Gilvert finished the confession, signed it with a flourish. “Now,” he said, “I feel better. That cursed thing’s been weighing on my mind for a long time.”
Chapter X
Angel or Devil
Sidney Zoom pocketed the notebook with its signed statement. He indicated the bound and gagged man on the floor.
“He can’t blame you now. I’m going to get you in the clear. He’ll try to shift the entire blame to Purcell next. These rats are always looking for some one to make the goat. When they get cornered, they squeal.
“You’ve got one more responsibility. I want you to go directly to Bill Dunbar, who’s defending Crandall, and tell him what you told me.”
The banker nodded.
“When will Purcell be arrested? I take it he’s an accomplice.”
Sidney Zoom’s tone was like the tolling of some bell.
“I’ll have to leave his arrest for the regular police.”