Her stare was that of icy scorn.
“I presume,” she said, “that this is just another trick of a fresh masher. I shouldn’t have spoken to you in the first place, but you looked like a gentleman. However, just to show you how wrong you are, it happens that my Aunt Agnes is quite ill, and she wired for me to come and nurse her. She also wired me the money for transportation, if you want to know. Come to think of it, it seems to me that I did see you watching me in the telegraph office. I don’t know just what your game is, but I shall certainly call the conductor and make a complaint if you speak to me again.”
Sidney Zoom sighed.
“Somehow,” he moaned, “I always do make the wrong approach.”
“Well, you’ve certainly done it this time,” she said icily.
Without another word, he reached into his pocket, took out the tom pieces of the telegram he had picked up from the wastebasket, and fitted them together in front of her astonished eyes. Then, from his wallet he took the receipt which the telegraph company had given him for the money he had telegraphed to her.
“I am the one who sent you the money.”
“You?” she gasped.
He nodded.
She reached swiftly forward, scooped up the torn pieces of the telegram, crumpled them into a ball.
“You can’t leave that around,” she said, “where people can see it!”
Her voice was a terrified whisper.
Sidney Zoom nodded.
“Now,” he pleaded, “won’t you please understand that I want to help you? I wanted to find out what it was all about before I spoke to you. I didn’t know whether you were really running away, or whether that expression you used in the telegram, about being saved from jail, was just a stall to get the money.”
“No,” she said, in a low voice, “I needed it to pay my expenses in running away. I didn’t have a cent when it happened.”
“What was it that happened?”
“A murder,” she said.
There was an interval during which the pair stared at each other; the eyes of Sidney Zoom hawk-like in their cold appraisal; the eyes of the young woman pathetically helpless. The train rumbled on through the night, gathering speed.
Sidney Zoom leaned toward her, so that there was no chance of her words being overheard by other passengers.
“Tell me,” he said.
“That’s all there is to tell,” she told him, speaking excitedly, “just that.”
“Did you commit the murder?” asked Sidney Zoom.
“No,” she said, “of course not.”
“Why are you running away then?”
“Because it happened in my apartment.”
“Do you know who killed him?”
“I have suspicions, that’s all.”
“How did it happen?”
“I never liked him,” she said. “But he kept trying to force his attentions on me.”
“Who?” Zoom inquired.
“Frank Venard,” she said.
“All right, go on.”
She told him the facts in low, throaty tones.
“Venard came to my apartment. He knocked on the door and said it was a telegram for me. I opened the door a little ways. I wasn’t dressed. He pushed the door open and came in. He had been drinking, and he was nasty. I started to fight. We struggled around the apartment for awhile. It was horrible — just one of those things that a girl has to put up with once in awhile. Finally I told him I was going to scream. He laughed and told me he’d choke me if I did. Then I heard the pistol shot.”
“In your apartment?” asked Sidney Zoom.
“No,” she said, “I don’t think so. I think it was from the Ore escape outside of the apartment — just the one shot. And I felt him jerk as the bullet hit him... Oh! It was horrible!”
“Well,” he said, “go on from there.”
She shook her head dubiously.
“That’s all,” she said. “He was stone dead. I tried to get him to a bed, but I couldn’t lift him. I got blood all over my clothes. The shot struck him in the side and must have gone through the heart. He died instantly.”
“Why didn’t you notify the authorities?”
“Because I was framed.”
“How do you mean?” he asked.
“Remember,” she said, “I wasn’t dressed and there was blood on my clothes. I didn’t want to notify the authorities, and get a lot of publicity in the papers. I ran in the bedroom closet and put on some more clothes. When I came out, there was a gun lying by the body.”
“Well?”
“And,” she said, “my fingerprints were on that gun — I knew they were.”
“How did you know?”
“Because,” she said, “Paul Stapleton got me to handle the gun. I should have suspected something at the time. He’s one of those fellows who is always giving someone the double-cross.”
“Who,” he asked, “is Stapleton?”
“He’s the man I work for.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m his stenographer and secretary.”
“And he got you to handle the gun?” asked Sidney Zoom.
“Yes,” she said, “I came into the office and found the gun on my desk. It was greasy. I picked it up and carried it in to him and asked him what it was doing there. He said that he had been cleaning it and had left it on my desk. I didn’t think anything more of it at the time, but I knew that Frank Venard and Paul Stapleton had been having trouble. Venard knew that Stapleton had been taking some bribes. There was some marked money that was given.”
“What was Stapleton being bribed for?” Zoom asked.
“He’s got something to do with the narcotic business,” she told him. “He has charge of searching certain incoming vessels. Frank Venard was a private detective who had been employed by someone, I don’t know just whom. Venard would never tell me. He was trying to get something on Mr. Stapleton, and finally he did it. There was a large sum in marked money given as a bribe. I don’t know who it was that gave him the bribe. Somebody was back of it; I couldn’t find out who.”
“Did Mr. Stapleton know that Venard knew about the bribe?” Zoom asked.
“Yes,” she said in a low voice, “he knew that he’d been trapped.”
“But what became of the money?”
“It was concealed somewhere in his house. He didn’t dare to bank it and he didn’t date to carry it with him. They had searched the house, but they couldn’t find it.”
“Suppose,” said Sidney Zoom, “you tell me more about that.”
“Well,” she said, “there was some man who came to the house. I think he was a big Chinese merchant. He gave Mr. Stapleton a bribe. Anyway, that’s what Venard told me. That’s all I know about it. The Chinese merchant was a plant, but he gave Mr. Stapleton ten thousand dollars in marked money. Then he came out and signaled the men who were watching the place that he had given the bribe to Stapleton. The men rushed in with a search warrant. They searched the house and they searched Stapleton, but they never found the money.”
“Perhaps,” said Sidney Zoom, “the Chinese was wily, and pocketed the money himself, but gave the signal to the men just the same.”
“No,” she said, “Venard was guarding against that. He searched the Chinese, too.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the train swaying and lurching as it roared through the night.
“All right,” Zoom said, “go on from there. What happened next?”
“That was all,” she said. “Venard swore that sooner or later that marked money would show up. He was waiting for it. He had some other evidence; I don’t know just what it was, but he was getting some evidence that was going to make things pretty hot for Mr. Stapleton.”
“How did it happen,” Zoom asked, “that you became friendly with Venard, if he was working against your employer?”