“The man who wanted to eliminate Stanwood sneaked up on him, held ether or chloroform to his nostrils, then removed him from the house. Before he did that, he inflicted a superficial wound with the girl’s gun, and fired one shot into the woodwork of the study. Then he planted clues in the girl’s room.
“The girl suspected something and tried to remove those clues. She was caught. Unwittingly, I helped the real criminal by assisting in retrieving the clues the girl was trying to get rid of.
“But the murderer was playing safe. He had a wax dummy to be used as a corpse. He planted it where it would be seen and identified. After it had been identified as a corpse, he removed it.
“Then he waited. If anyone had suspected him, or if the girl had been able to prove a good alibi, he’d have simply released Stanwood. And Stanwood wouldn’t have known but what the real criminal was his rescuer.
“As I reconstruct the crime, the man overpowered Stanwood, kept him unconscious, and kept him under the influence of drugs until he was certain the crime would be blamed on the girl. If he’d been suspected, he’d have let Stanwood regain consciousness, then rescued him from his prison and taken a lot of credit for solving the mystery.
“That’s why the coat was cut on the right side. The way the figure was jammed into the sedan left the right side uppermost. The man who pulled the job wanted to make sure the knife would show, so he stuck it into the upper side.”
Captain Mahoney shook his head.
“No, Zoom, I’m afraid that’s too improbable.”
Sylvester laughed aloud.
“I’ve heard some wild ones in my time,” he said. “But that’s the wildest I ever did hear.”
Sidney Zoom smoked complacently in calm silence.
After a few moments Captain Mahoney shot a series of swift questions at him.
“What made you think of this solution, Sidney?”
“Several things. A real corpse couldn’t have been juggled around so handily. It’s more than a coincidence that the dummy corpse was parked where about the only man who could positively identify it would see it.”
“How do you figure this drugging stuff?”
“Easy. The man drugged Stanwood. He wanted to lay the foundation for an abduction, so he wrote a note and left it in plain sight, stating that Stanwood would be drugged and kidnaped unless he paid some blackmail money.”
“Do you know who this man was?”
“No.”
“Have you any suspicions?”
“Only generally.”
“He could have been any one of the men who lived in the house and who were trusted by Stanwood?”
“Yes.”
“Can you prove the guilt of that man, if your theory is correct?”
Zoom shrugged his shoulders.
“Only by getting him to commit another murder.”
“Who would he murder?”
“Me.”
“You!”
“Not exactly. He used one dummy to perpetrate his crime. I’d use another to trap him.”
“You’d be in some personal danger?”
“Perhaps.”
“You think you could solve the crime?”
“Yes.”
“What would you want?”
“A brown candle and a microscope,” said Zoom, “also to be ensconced in Stanwood’s house as a scientific detective employed by the police to clear up the affair.”
Sylvester’s hearty laugh boomed heavily.
“Of all the damn fool theories!” he roared. “And you want a candle and a microscope. By Gad, Zoom, you’re good. You’ve got so romantic that your brain’s addled. Trying to protect a damned little two-timing, gun-toting, man-killing tart that had—”
Captain Mahoney raised his hand.
“Lieutenant,” he said, “please see that Sidney Zoom has everything he wants to clear up this crime.”
He bowed at Zoom and walked casually from the room. Sylvester’s laugh strangled in his throat.
“Hell!” he said.
Sidney Zoom was duly ensconced as a scientific detective working on the Stanwood murder case. He was given a room in the house of the murdered man and puttered about the corridors with tape measure and magnifying glass. Once or twice he swept up bits of dust and ostentatiously examined them through the binocular microscope which had been given him by the police department.
The occupants of the house watched him with varying expressions.
Charles Wetler, the secretary, was nervously alert to every single move. The Japanese servant, Hashinto Shinahara, was fawningly deferential. Yet, back of all that deference, there was a subtle impression of inward amusement.
Oscar Rabb was anxious to curry favor with the grim-visaged detective. Phil Buntler walked about as one in a dream, his eyes fixed upon space, his head bowed. He was vastly preoccupied, yet occasionally his eyes lost their dreamy abstraction and gazed at Sidney Zoom with pinpointed intensity.
Sidney Zoom worked all one afternoon. Then he retired to his bedroom. That room was at the end of the corridor, off by itself.
He read a book, consulting his watch from time to time. One by one, he could hear the other members of the household ascending stairs, retiring to their rooms.
Zoom waited.
At precisely thirteen minutes to one o’clock in the morning, Zoom opened the door of his room, took out a knife and the brown candle. He shaved the candle and let the shavings drop to the waxed floor of the corridor. He walked the full length of the corridor, sprinkling the wax shavings.
Then he returned to his room and picked up a heavy revolver.
He turned out the light and opened the window.
He pointed the revolver through the open window and fired three times, at intervals. The reports split the nocturnal silence with a roar.
Then Sidney Zoom stretched himself upon the floor, sprawled out, arms and legs extended, placed the revolver upon the floor and closed his eyes.
There were frantic steps in the corridor, voices that were raised in excited comment, a knock upon the door.
He had locked the door, and, when a hand tried the knob and found it locked, Sidney Zoom smiled to himself in the darkness of the room.
There was a hammering on the panels, no mere knock this time, then the sound of a weight thudding against the door.
Zoom realized that the entire household had now assembled.
Finally the combined weight of the hurtling bodies crashed the door open. Light from the corridor streamed in upon the form of Sidney Zoom.
“Murdered,” said a cool voice which Zoom recognized as belonging to Phil Buntler.
“Suicide — by Jove!” said Charles Wetler.
“Oh, isn’t it horrible!” muttered Oscar Rabb.
Hashinto Shinahara said nothing, but moved forward with catlike quickness and extended a hand.
Sidney Zoom sat up and grinned into the startled faces of his audience.
“Just a little test I had arranged for you boys,” he said.
They recoiled.
“Well, it’s a rotten test!” snapped Wetler irritably.
Oscar Rabb fidgeted. “I shall be unable to sleep,” he said.
Hashinto Shinahara grinned until his white teeth showed in a gleaming circle.
“Very smart!” he exclaimed.
Phil Buntler stared moodily downward at the floor, then said, “Rather clever. I am glad to be of any assistance, Mr. Zoom. Undoubtedly, wakening persons in the middle of the night, letting them discover what they think is the body of a murdered man, and watching their reactions, is a valuable psychological test.
“If any of us, for instance, had been implicated in the murder of my dear friend, Harrison Stanwood, I have no doubt that a trained psychologist would have detected something in the manner or appearance of us as we burst into the room which would have been a betrayal of guilt.”
And he beamed about him at the puzzled faces of the others.
“And you are a trained psychologist, Mr. Zoom?”