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“And you’re leaving Frink here?”

“For the present, yes.”

“He’s confessed?”

“After a fashion. He blames the job on Purcell. He tried to put the blame on you, at first. Then he implicated Purcell as the originator of the murder plan. Let’s go to the street. I want to telephone. You want to hunt up Dunbar, and explain things to him.”

They left the room together. Only after they were in the echoing corridor, did Sidney Zoom give the command to the police dog which relieved the bound man of his guard.

Gilvert hailed a passing car, driven by a man he knew, and demanded that he be taken to the courthouse. Now that he had made a clean breast of his share of the matter, he seemed to carry his shoulders straighter, his head higher.

Sidney Zoom went to the telephone, called the office of the clerk of the court, and demanded that Bill Dunbar be called from the court immediately, upon a matter of life and death.

There was a small amount of argument, and then he heard Dunbar’s voice on the wire.

“Yes; what is it?”

Sidney Zoom spoke rapidly.

“The prosecution have never introduced a test bullet fired from the automatic found in Strome’s office, or compared it with the fatal bullet,” he said. “Perhaps the significance of that fact has never dawned upon you.”

Dunbar grunted.

“This is Mr. Zoom?” he asked.

“It is.”

“Well, Mr. Zoom, there are certain matters in that connection which I dare not talk about over the telephone. In fact, we are willing to let sleeping dogs lie. If the prosecution doesn’t introduce such evidence, we’ll make a point of it in our argument to the jury. But we certainly won’t—”

Zoom interrupted.

“Yes,” he said, “you will. You will walk into the court room with a wise smile on your face, and demand that the court appoint an expert testing agency to make such a test. At about that time Sam Gilvert, the banker, will try to talk with you.

“Listen to what he has to say, and, if possible, let Carl Purcell overhear some of the remarks. Otherwise allow Purcell to get in touch with Gilvert, which he’ll be only too anxious to do.”

The lawyer’s voice was aloof, dignified.

“I am quite capable of conducting this trial without outside interference,” he said, “and am not particularly anxious to be drawn from court upon an urgent summons merely in order to hear suggestions as to how I should try my cases.”

Sidney Zoom’s voice changed its tone or timbre not at all. He spoke with the solemn dignity of a person intoning a ritual.

“You will return to the court room and do exactly as I said,” he observed, “or you will be sorry. If you do as I have instructed, your defendant will be released before the afternoon session of court.”

The very assurance of his voice carried conviction.

“What makes you think so?” asked the lawyer, interested.

“I don’t think so. I know so,” said Sidney Zoom, and slammed the receiver back on its hook.

The yacht was ready for sea. The crew had cast off the main lines, were standing with ropes snubbed around piles, waiting for the last order.

On the deck of the trim yacht two people were locked in a close embrace. The girl’s glad eyes were still incredulous. The man, so lately the defendant in a criminal action in which he had been headed straight for the chair, was dazed with joy.

Bill Dunbar, shrewd criminal attorney, eyed Sidney Zoom with an expression of puzzled contemplation.

“You knew,” he said, “that Gilvert would tell everyone Frink had confessed and blamed Purcell. You knew Gilvert would let it be known that Frink was bound and gagged in the room from which the fatal shot had been fired.”

Sidney Zoom’s expression was inscrutable.

“One does not know the future,” he said, “one merely makes a surmise.”

The lawyer shook his head impatiently.

“Having planned so far in the future, having tipped off the police so that they came for Purcell at the exact moment when he was in that room with Frink... Well, what I’m getting at is that you must have known Purcell would kill Frink and commit suicide!”

Sidney Zoom shrugged his shoulders.

“I anticipated that Purcell, like all his stamp, would try to cheat the chair. And I realized that he would be bitter against Frink. But it is no concern of mine if these sort of men eliminate themselves without expense to the state. In the meantime, you are detaining me. I want to get out to the open sea. Della Rangar and James Crandall are going with me. We are waiting only to get clear.

“I became interested in this case when I realized that it was impossible for the murder to have been committed in the way they claimed. I freed an innocent man. That the guilty ones had the chance to cheat the chair is incidental. I wish you good-by.”

The lawyer shook the proffered hand.

“I guess there are some things I’ll never know,” he said. “But I’ll say this much for you, you sure cracked the case — wide open.”

Then as he gazed into the saturnine features of the gaunt man, he added: “And whether you’re angel or devil is more than I know!”

For the first time during the interview, Sidney Zoom’s face softened into a half smile.

“You might catalogue me as a little of both,” he observed, “and, if you have to have me card-indexed, make a mental note that I believe in fighting the devil with fire.”

And he waved his hand, signal for the men to let go of the lines, jump aboard.

The propellers of the yacht churned the water into a yeasty foam, and the trim craft moved away from the dock.

Bill Dunbar stared at the lines of the graceful craft, mirrored in the placid waters of the river. Then he looked at the two figures who were clasped together on the deck. He sighed, shrugged his shoulders, turned and walked away.

The boat curled a hissing wave under her bow as she set her course for the open sea. Sidney Zoom stood near the bow, like some huge, gaunt figurehead, arms folded, eyes staring straight ahead, out toward the vast tumbled mass of untamed water.

It was a face that was utterly devoid of softness or mercy. The lawyer looked back, saw it, and shuddered. But the two figures on the after deck, smiling into each other’s eyes, shuddered only when they saw the buildings of Dellboro slipping astern — the huge white pile of the courthouse dominating the other buildings.

The sun gleamed from that structure of justice, and made it snow white, yet, withal cold and hostile, formal and distant. That same sun, touching the stern, sad face of Sidney Zoom, seemed to soften it and to make it more human.

Inside Job

Sidney Zoom piloted his powerful roadster over the wide stretch of boulevard, along which the night stream of after-theatre traffic was flowing.

Through a loud speaker, concealed under the dash of the car, came the steady sequence of police reports broadcast from headquarters.

These reports were preceded by a blast on a siren whistle which commanded attention. Some were for specified cars, some were general broadcasts.

Sidney Zoom passed a slow moving car in which a young man and a girl were huddled closely over the steering wheel. As he swung back to the right, there sounded the noise of the siren whistle.

“Car eighty-two attention! Attention eighty-two!”

There followed a short pause, then a voice that was mechanical as though reading from a typewritten report.

“Car eighty-two will go to the corner of Third and McAlpin for an investigation. There has been a report that a man is loitering about who is carrying a gun.

“A passing pedestrian witnessed the gun when a gust of wind blew the man’s coat to one side.

“Car eighty-two, go to Third and McAlpin Streets for an investigation and report.”