Matters continued at that deadlock for an even week. Then the body of Harrison Stanwood was discovered in its final resting place.
This time there was no question of a corpse being spirited away from under the noses of the police.
Children playing in a rubbish heap had noticed the foot of a man sticking out from under some cans. They had summoned parents. The parents had summoned the police.
The body was decomposed, but identification was positive.
There was a bullet in the left shoulder. That bullet, also, had come from the weapon which had been found in the girl’s pocket. There was a dagger wound in the left side of the chest, and that dagger wound had undoubtedly resulted in death. The blade had penetrated the heart.
Sidney Zoom read of the gruesome find and nodded his head. So might a man nod who had predicted a certain event, and that event had duly come to pass.
Zoom rang up Lieutenant Sylvester.
“The Kroom girl will talk now. I’ll be interested to know what she says,” he said.
The voice which rasped over the wire at him was keen with impatience.
“How do you know she’d talk now?”
“I just guessed she would.”
“Well, you’re a good guesser. She’s told her story and hired a lawyer. Whether we can keep her or not I don’t know.”
“What was her story?”
“Better come up to headquarters. There are a couple of questions I want to ask you. You may turn out to be the main witness of the prosecution against the girl.”
Sidney Zoom smiled grimly.
“I may,” he admitted, and hung up the receiver.
There had, for years, been a friendship between Sidney Zoom and Captain Mahoney of the police force. The two men held each other in mutual respect, which is the basis of all lasting friendship.
Zoom was surprised to find that Captain Mahoney was awaiting him at headquarters when he came to answer Lieutenant Sylvester’s questions.
Mahoney was a small man with a large mind. He had a voice which was rarely raised above a conversational tone, and he did not usually concern himself greatly over individual cases, but gave his attention to matters of policy.
Now he was smoking a long perfect with those meditative puffs which denote the thinker. He shook hands.
“Sit down, Sidney. I want to talk with you.”
Zoom sat down and crossed his long legs.
“The girl’s acting funny. She’s acted funny all the way through,” said the police captain.
Zoom nodded.
“She never made any statement or any defense until the body was found and she knew just where that bullet from her gun was located. Then she got an attorney.
“Here’s her story — now that she’s consulted with her lawyer. How much of it is hers and how much of it is his I don’t know.
“She claims she had been out on a party that had quite a bit of action and some gin, that she came home and went to see her uncle, that there was a light in his study and the door was unlocked. She walked in and found the room in confusion, very much as we found it.
“She says she was panicky and that she went out and locked the door and ran to her room. She always had the revolver in her dresser drawer, and something made her look for it. She found it in place, but detected an odor of burned powder, so she broke it open and found two shots had been fired.
“Then she happened to look in her jewel case and found the big diamond that she calls the Diamond of Death. It seems she’d given it that tag in talking with her uncle. The girl’s superstitious, or claims she is, or her lawyer claims it for her. It’ll sound all the same to a jury.
“She figured that her uncle had been murdered and that someone intended to blame the crime on her. So she started looking for anything else that might have been planted in her room.
“She turned everything upside down in a hurried search, then put the incriminating articles in a metal mesh bag and started for the waterfront to throw them in the bay. She said she figured that she might be watched, and that no matter where she concealed the things they’d be found. But if she pitched them in the bay it would be impossible to find them.
“Now here’s the case we’ve got against her. The diamond belonged to the dead man. The bullet from her revolver was found in his body, although not in a position that would prove fatal. Her Ford car was found parked within two blocks of where you found her when she was trying to dispose of the stuff.
“The sedan belonging to Harrison Stanwood was found within half a dozen blocks of where her Ford was parked. That car held the body. It was locked in the car and the lights were on. Later on the body disappeared.
“But there are holes in the case. The girl has played a game that’s almost sure to win. She’s kept her mouth shut until she’s found out everything that we have. Then, when she knows our complete case, she starts talking and gets a lawyer to coach her.
“Now there’s a lot of public sentiment against this girl. The circumstantial evidence against her points to coldblooded murder. But we can’t afford to guess wrong. We can’t afford to have a case of this sort result in an acquittal. If she’s innocent, we’ve got to know it now.”
Captain Mahoney peered shrewdly at Sidney Zoom.
Zoom lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, snapped the match out with an impatient gesture of the wrist and nodded.
“She is,” he said.
“Is what?”
“Innocent.”
Sylvester snorted.
“You talk like a fish!”
“Shut up, Sylvester,” said Captain Mahoney.
The two officers looked at Zoom. Sylvester’s stare was moodily hostile. Captain Mahoney’s glance was that of one who patiently waits.
Sidney Zoom broke the silence at length.
“Was there, perhaps, a cut in the right-hand side of Stanwood’s coat when you found the corpse?”
Captain Mahoney’s face did not change expression, but Sylvester’s face twisted in surprise.
“Yes,” said Sylvester.
Zoom pursed his lips thoughtfully and regarded the smoldering tip of his cigarette with judicial deliberation.
“Well?” said Captain Mahoney.
Sidney Zoom’s lips twisted in the ghost of a smile.
“You won’t believe what I’m going to tell you,” he said.
“Go ahead,” invited the captain.
Sidney Zoom took a deep inhalation, sucking in the smoke from his cigarette, exhaling it through his nostrils.
“Harrison Stanwood’s body wasn’t in the sedan when Bowditch put in the telephone call,” he said.
Sylvester laughed grimly.
“Bowditch was lying, eh? You want to involve him, huh?”
Zoom’s smile was paternally patient.
“No. Bowditch thought he saw a body. He didn’t.”
“What did he see, Sidney?” asked Captain Mahoney.
“A wax dummy.”
“A what?”
“A wax dummy. The man who committed that murder wanted to make certain it would be blamed on the girl. If there was going to be any hitch in the thing he didn’t want to become involved himself.
“He’d handled it all the way through so he could either go ahead with the murder or else quit. If the girl was going to get the blame, he’d go ahead. Otherwise, he’d quit. He knew enough law to know the police needed a corpus delicti in order to convict the girl. In this case it meant a corpse.
“Now here’s my theory of the case.