Sylvester’s forehead creased into a dark frown.
“How do you know?”
The Japanese smirked.
“Car gone, girl gone. Her car. She must have take, sir.”
But there was a subtle atmosphere of insincerity about the man that caused the officer to glower at him and roar: “You know she took her car! How do you know it?”
The Japanese smirked again.
“Car gone,” he said, and a mask of Oriental impassivity settled upon his countenance.
The detectives searched the premises, questioned the men individually, and admitted themselves baffled. It was three o’clock in the morning by the time they decided to concentrate on the girl who was held at headquarters.
Lieutenant Sylvester returned to his office, ordered the girl brought in for questioning. And Sidney Zoom, because he had been a witness to the girl’s flight, was allowed to be present.
But that questioning was as futile as had been the previous questions. The girl simply sat mute.
The officer raved, cajoled, threatened. The girl’s lips were sealed. She stared straight ahead, eyes expressionless.
The telephone rang.
Lieutenant Sylvester frowned at the instrument, disdaining to answer it. He was concentrating on the task of getting the truth from the lips of the silent girl.
There was an apologetic knock at the door. An officer thrust his head into the room.
“Beg pardon, Lieutenant, but there’s a man on the line in connection with this Stanwood affair. It’s important.”
Lieutenant Sylvester grabbed at the telephone, scooped the receiver to his ear.
“Okay, this is Lieutenant Sylvester speaking. Yeah... What?... You sure?... Where are you now?... You know him, eh?... You wait there. I’ll be there in seven minutes.”
He slammed the receiver back on the hook and motioned to an officer to remove the girl from the room. Then he turned to Sidney Zoom.
“Come on, Zoom. Your car’s outside and all ready to go. I want you to drive me out to the yacht basin. Your yacht’s located out there and you know the country. There’s a yachtsman just came in from a long trip, friend of Stanwood’s. He says the Stanwood sedan is parked against the side of a wharf with the lights on and old Stanwood is dead inside the car.
“He says there’s a dagger in his chest and that the car doors are locked. Funny business. Says there can’t be any mistake. He knows Stanwood well, been cruising with him several times.”
Zoom was on his feet, a hand on the doorknob.
“Who is the yachtsman?” he asked.
“Chap by the name of Bowditch.”
Zoom nodded approvingly.
“I know him well, a conservative man and a good sailor.”
They went down the stairs, out into the night that was just commencing to crispen with the tang of early morning. Zoom snapped his roadster into speed. They tore through the deserted streets, flashed past intersections and whizzed into the vicinity of the waterfront.
“A telephone in the Bayside Yacht Club House,” said Lieutenant Sylvester. “Know where it is?”
Zoom nodded, pushed down the throttle, swung the car, slammed on the brakes, rounded the corner of an alleyway between two of the wharves, and skidded to a stop where an office-like structure bordered the dark waters of the bay.
The east was just commencing to show streaks of light.
A man came running out to meet the car.
“It’s down here a couple of blocks, parked directly in front of where I dock my yacht.”
He caught Zoom’s eye, started, then nodded.
“Zoom! This is indeed a pleasure. How are you?”
Zoom shook hands and introduced Bowditch to the lieutenant.
“Better hop on the running board,” said Sylvester. “This is important.”
The man jumped on the running board. Sidney Zoom whirled the car, backed it, cut loose the motor in low gear, and the machine snorted forward like a frisky colt.
They went a block, turned down a little jog in a street, and came to a place where a parked sedan showed a glowing light from the dome globe.
“He’s in there. It’s ghastly.”
Sylvester nodded absent-mindedly. Spectacles that were ghastly meant but little to him. He had seen too many.
“Anybody else see it?” asked Sylvester.
“Yes. There were two of my crew. They were with me when I came up. I sent them back to the boat, because I was afraid there were rough characters around, and I had some rather valuable things on the yacht.”
Sylvester snorted.
“Rough characters is right!” he said.
Zoom drew his car up in behind the parked sedan.
“You’ll see it lying there on the floor, the face turned up toward the light. There’s a dagger in the breast, right here.”
And Bowditch indicated the right lapel of his coat.
Lieutenant Sylvester jumped from the car, lit upon the pavement with eager feet while the others were getting out, and ran to the sedan. He pressed his face against the windows, then jerked futilely at the door.
“It’s locked!” said Bowditch. “I tried ’em all.”
But Lieutenant Sylvester motioned them back with a fierce gesture.
“Keep away! Don’t touch the handles of those doors. I’ll be wanting fingerprints. He’s been taken out.”
“What!” Bowditch yelled incredulously.
Then he craned his neck forward, holding his hands behind him, careful not to touch the handles of the doors. Back of him, several inches taller, Zoom peered over his shoulder.
The sedan was empty.
The dome light showed the interior in a sickly light that was turning wan and yellow now that dawn was in the air. There was a red pool on the carpet in the rear of the sedan, and that was all.
“Sure he was in there?” asked Sylvester skeptically.
“Absolutely certain. I’ve had him out on my yacht often enough. I should know him when I see him. We’ve had interests in common. Once we purchased a collection together.
“Outside of Phil Buntler, I’m about the only close friend he has in the world. I saw him plain, I tell you. And my two men recognized him as the one who had been on cruises with us. He was lying on his back, his face tilted back. It was catching the full rays of the dome light. You couldn’t mistake the face. It was Harrison Stanwood all right.”
Lieutenant Sylvester nodded.
“Okay. You stick by that story and I’ll sure give someone a fry. That establishes the corpus delicti. You’re sure about the dagger?”
“Absolutely certain.”
“And that he was dead?”
“Ugh, I should say so. His face was all gray and his eyes were like glass. They looked awful! Awful!”
The officer nodded grimly.
“Okay. You two stay here. I’m getting down some fingerprint experts. Then I’m going to get rough with somebody.”
The police went through their routine. The car was gone over for fingerprints. The locks were removed from the doors. The red pool was tested to make certain that it was human blood.
The fingerprints found on the door handles were those of Frank Bowditch, the yachtsman. There were no other prints save such prints as were old and had been made by Harrison Stanwood himself.
It was Stanwood’s car, beyond a doubt. And the man who locked those doors upon the corpse had been careful to remove all fingerprints — unless that man had been Bowditch.
But what happened to the body after it had been found in the parked car? Why was it that the girl’s coat pocket held a thirty-eight-caliber revolver with two discharged shells, while Stanwood seemed to have been done to death with a dagger?
Sidney Zoom retired to his own yacht and apparently lost interest in the case. But he scanned the newspapers and from time to time rang up friends in the police department.
The police had found a bullet embedded in the wall at Stanwood’s house. That bullet had been fired from the weapon found in the girl’s pocket. That much the experts agreed upon with absolute certainty. But the girl refused to talk. Her silence continued in spite of all sorts of threats. On the other hand, she employed no attorney and seemed content to remain in jail pending further investigation by the police.