The man’s laugh was sarcastic.
“They looked everywhere,” he said.
“Well,” said Sidney Zoom, “we might as well look the house over a little bit. Come on and march around. Remember that I’m behind you with a gun. If you make any funny moves, I’m going to smack the barrel of this gun down on the top of your head, unless I should think the situation calls for sterner reprisals.”
“Where do you want to go?” asked the other.
“Oh, just lead the way around the house,” said Sidney Zoom.
The man started walking, his slippered feet shuffling along the floor. Behind him came Sidney Zoom, gun held ready, hawk-like eyes sweeping the premises in glittering appraisal. Sidney Zoom, however, said nothing. His every faculty was concentrated upon looking over the house, inspecting the various rooms through which they passed.
It was when they entered a room on the third floor that Sidney Zoom suddenly showed interest.
“What’s this room?” he asked.
“The master’s bedroom.”
“Why does he sleep on the third floor?”
“I don’t know — because he wants to, I guess.”
Zoom looked the room over.
He glanced about him for a moment. Then he started talking, and his voice was the expressionless monotone of one who is thinking aloud.
“As I size up your master,” he said, “he’s a man who would want to have the money near him at all times. He’s a man who would be very much inclined to hide any valued possession dose to his sleeping quarters.”
His answer was a sarcastic laugh.
Zoom paid no attention to the laugh, but stood in the center of the room, looking around it.
“Obviously,” he said, still speaking in the same monotone of one who is thinking aloud, “the obvious and likely places have been searched. Therefore, it remains to look for some place that would have naturally escaped search.”
“They took this room to pieces,” said the man, and there was a trace of bitterness in his voice.
“And found nothing?”
“And found nothing.”
Sidney Zoom stepped to the window, looked out into the well kept yard. The sun had gilded the roof and tree tops. Birds were fluttering about, chirping and singing.
Abruptly, Zoom stiffened to attention.
The room was in a tower which looked out upon the lower portions of the roof. Some ten feet away was a rigid mast, some eight or ten feet in height, and on the top of this mast was a little platform decorated by a bird house.
“Who put that up?” he asked.
“Mr. Stapleton,” said the man.
Sidney Zoom stared steadily at the bird house.
“Now Stapleton,” he mused, “is the type of man who ordinarily wouldn’t be interested in birds. His temperament is cruel, cold, supercilious and mocking. He’s the type of man who is intensely cold-blooded and self-centered. Yet he’s very intelligent. Therefore, I wonder...”
Sidney Zoom’s voice trailed away into silence. He looked about him, staring once more at the bedroom itself.
The eyes of the handcuffed man were fastened upon Sidney Zoom with intense interest.
Abruptly, Sidney Zoom pointed to a long bamboo pole which was suspended on pegs along the side of the room.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“A fishing pole,” said the man. “Can’t you see?”
Sidney Zoom nodded, but his nod was preoccupied. He strode to the pole and inspected it.
There was a reel on the pole. The line was heavy. The guides for the line were placed closely together, and were of the best material. The thing which was most noticeable, however, was the fact that the pole did not come to a tapering tip, as is usually the case, but had been cut off where the rod was still quite thick.
“That’s not a casting rod,” said Sidney Zoom.
The handcuffed man said nothing.
Sidney Zoom took the rod from its pegs and balanced it in his hand.
“Too stiff,” he said, “for fishing with bait. Not built right for a casting rod. I wonder...”
He took the hook on the end of the line between his thumb and forefinger, and inspected it.
“A hook,” he said, “that’s heavy enough to land a shark.”
He walked to the window, peered out once more and abruptly chuckled.
“My dear James,” he said, “do you, by any chance, happen to notice the ring in the top of the bird house?”
The handcuffed man forgot his hostility in order to peer in sudden curiosity.
“I think,” said Sidney Zoom, “that I will show you a little high class fishing.”
He pushed the end of the fishing pole out of the window, shortened the line on the reel until the hook hung down but a few inches below the tip of the pole. It took but a moment to drop the hook inside of the ring on the bird house.
Sidney Zoom held the reel with the fingers of his right hand. With his left hand he lifted the pole. The pole bent slightly. Then the entire bird house lifted from the wooden platform. Thus he brought it into the room, disengaged the ring from the hook, and set the bird house on the table.
He inspected the miniature structure for a moment, then manipulated two clasps, and the entire roof lifted dear. It was entirely filled with sheafed currency.
The handcuffed man lurched forward, his breath coming in a hissing exclamation.
Zoom whirled and the gun jabbed into the man’s stomach.
“Careful,” he warned, “Get back there!”
The man stared at the treasure in the bird house with bulging eyes and a sagging jaw.
“Cripes!” he said. “And I put in three days searching every place in the house I could think of, to try and find it.”
Zoom nodded.
“Quite so,” he said. “I figured you for that kind.”
Almost casually he pocketed the bank notes. When he had finished, he fitted the fish hook into the ring, put the bird house back into position, shook the hook free, pulled the fishing pole back, and placed it once more on the pegs.
“When you see your master,” he said, “you might tell him that his cache was robbed. However, I don’t think that you’ll do it, because as soon as you do, your master is going to think that you were the guilty party. Moreover, I think it’s going to be some time before you see your master. I fancy he’s going to be detained by the police on a murder charge. However, if you should see him, and if you should tell him, I rather fancy he’ll choose to remain silent about the entire matter.
“If,” said Zoom, “Paul Stapleton should complain that he had been robbed, and if he should, by any chance, divulge the identity of the robber, and if the police should obtain any proofs of my complicity, they would at the same time secure the proof of bribery and corruption on the part of Stapleton that they have been searching for.
“You might call those matters to Mr. Stapleton’s attention, in the event you should advise him of his misfortune, although, as I’ve said before, I don’t think you will, because Stapleton would immediately jump at the conclusion you had been the one to rob him.”
Zoom bowed affably to the enraged individual.
“As I go out the front door,” he said, “I will drop the key to the handcuffs on the hall carpet. You can find it and eventually free yourself. It will take a bit of patient manipulation to get the key into the lock. I would suggest that you hold it in your teeth and try turning it, by twisting the arms.
“In the meantime, I have the honor to wish you a very good morning, my dear James.”
Sidney Zoom sat in his stateroom on the yacht.
Across the table from him, Ruby Allison stared at the pile of bank notes with bulging eyes.
“But,” she said, “it wouldn’t be right.”