Sidney Zoom waited for an auspicious moment, then he strode across the sidewalk, the woman in his arms. He deposited her on the cushions of the cab, nodded to the police dog. The dog leapt into the cab, crouched on the floor. Samson climbed in, hesitated for a moment, then pillowed the young woman’s head on his shoulder. Sidney Zoom fastened the insolent eyes of the cab driver with a steady stare.
“Drive down this street to the waterfront,” Zoom said. “Turn to the left. I’ll tell you when to go out on the docks. I want to get aboard the Alberta F.”
“You mean that millionaire’s yacht that’s moored...”
“Exactly,” said Sidney Zoom, climbed into the cab and slammed the door shut.
Chapter II
The Girl Who Wanted to Die
Vera Thurmond was a most efficient nurse. Years of experience with the strange character whom she served in the dual capacity of assistant and secretary, had fitted her to cope with all sorts of people and conditions.
She moved back and forth from the dining salon, in which Zoom and Samson sat waiting, to the room where the young woman moaned and retched.
A pot bubbled on an electric stove, and the smell of coffee filled the air.
“She’ll be all right now,” Vera Thurmond said, “the emetic has done its work, and I’m going to get some coffee down her. You’d better help me.”
Sidney Zoom strode into the bedroom, looked at the features of the young woman, features that were now white with misery. Her eyes were red-rimmed from the nausea which had been induced by the emetic. Her lips were pale and bloodless.
She stared at Sidney Zoom with wide blue eyes, looking at him as though he had been a creature from another world.
“So you took laudanum?” said Sidney Zoom.
She moved her lips but there was no sound. Her eyes filmed over with drowsiness even as he looked at her.
Vera Thurmond appeared with coffee steaming in a cup, coffee that was black and bitter.
“We’ve got to get this down her,” she said, “and make her keep it down. Then you’ve got to walk her around the deck where she can get the fresh night air.”
Together they got two cups of coffee down the young woman’s throat. Samson and Zoom got her to the deck, started walking her along the moist planks — planks that were kept spotlessly clean and on which the night dew had left a thin film of moisture.
“Let me alone,” she said thickly, “I want to lie down.”
Zoom paid no attention to her, but kept pushing her along. By degrees, the fresh air of the night and the coffee got in its work.
“I think we can take her down below now,” Zoom said.
“Oh, I’m all right now,” she told him in a voice that was bitter. “Why didn’t you leave me alone? Now I’ve got to do it all over again.”
Zoom made no comment but assisted her down the companionway to the dining salon.
Samson turned to Zoom.
“I wonder,” he said, “if...”
“Well,” said Zoom, “go ahead. What is it?”
“If,” said Samson in a voice that quavered, “I could have some of that coffee? I haven’t eaten for three days.”
He moved toward a chair, stumbled, and pitched forward on his face.
Zoom bent over him, but it was the young woman who reached him first.
“You poor boy,” she said.
Zoom raised Samson from the floor and into a chair. His eyelids fluttered as Vera Thurmond brought him a steaming cup of coffee. Samson drank the coffee, turned on them savagely.
“Keep your damned sympathy,” he said, “I don’t want it.”
There had been a few drops of brandy in the coffee and after it had taken effect, Zoom fixed an egg-nog.
“Take this,” he said, “and then we’ll try something solid and substantial.”
He turned to the girl.
“What,” he asked, “is your name?”
“Say,” she said staring around curiously. “What kind of a place is this?”
“A yacht,” said Zoom.
“Who owns it?”
“I do.”
“What do you do with it?”
“Sail it occasionally.”
“What’s the idea of getting this fellow and me aboard?”
“I thought,” said Zoom, “I could help you, and at the same time help myself.”
“You could have left: me alone and helped me a lot more,” she said.
Zoom stared at her steadily.
“When I have heard your story,” he said, “I can give employment to this man.”
“How?” she inquired, curiosity getting the better of her.
“I don’t know,” he said, “but there will be a way. Things are never hopeless. People who brood over their problems, lose sight of obvious solutions. People who kill themselves because they can’t find a way out are like the persons who get lost every year and lie down to die within a few hundred yards of a habitation; like the wanderer in the desert who perishes of thirst within a mile of water.”
She looked at Burt Samson.
“Where does he come in?” she asked.
“I am going,” said Sidney Zoom, “to give him a job helping to untangle your affairs.”
“Who’s going to pay him?”
“I’m not,” Zoom said. “We’re going to collect from some other person.”
The young woman stared at him incredulously.
Vera Thurmond nodded her head.
“He always does,” she said.
The young woman took a deep breath.
“Okay,” she said, “I can stand it if you can. My name’s Nell Benton. Did you ever hear of Finley Carter?”
“Rather an eccentric millionaire,” asked Zoom, “whose hobby is the collection of paintings and the playing of chess?”
“That’s the one,” she said.
“I’ve heard of him,” Zoom said.
“Do you know him personally?”
“No. I’ve never met him.”
“I acted as his secretary,” she said. “I was discharged.”
“Why?” asked Zoom.
“Because of dishonesty,” she said.
She stared at Sidney Zoom as though seeking to probe his thoughts.
“You don’t seem particularly shocked,” she said after a moment, her voice showing the bitterness of her feelings. “Why don’t you get a smirking look of self-righteousness on your face?”
Sidney Zoom’s voice was patient. “I don’t get shocked,” he said, “and I am not self-righteous. As far as the law is concerned, it is an excellent system for the majority of cases; it falls far short in certain individual cases. Under those circumstances, I have no hesitancy about stepping outside the law myself.”
The blue eyes widened.
“Go on,” Sidney Zoom said, “give me the details.”
“It was so simple,” she said bitterly, “that it sounds absurd. Someone made very fair copies of a couple of rare paintings, and substituted them for the originals.”
Sidney Zoom’s face showed quick interest.
“One of the originals,” she said, “was found in my room, another one was found in a pawn shop. The pawnbroker said that a young woman had left it with him. He had no conception of the value of it, and had given her but five dollars on it. The description he gave of the woman fitted me exactly.
“Mr. Carter,” she said bitterly, “was most generous! He simply discharged me and kept the money that was due me. He said that he wouldn’t send me to jail, inasmuch as he had recovered the paintings. I tried to get other employment; there was no use. I had been with Finley Carter for five years. It’s hard enough to get a job anyway, there aren’t many vacancies. Once or twice I got people interested in me. They rang up Carter. He told them that he had discharged me for dishonesty.”