Ten minutes later they found the secret compartment in the wardrobe trunk.
“The diamonds!” yelled Sidney Zoom. “Colman, you’re a wonder! Sergeant, you’ll get a promotion for this! I never saw such prompt work!”
The police sergeant was gazing at another diamond necklace with a puzzled frown.
“And here’s another one. By George, that’s one of the necklaces from that Cremlin job yesterday. We thought the kid pulled that one. Maybe he used this guy as a fence. But — wait a minute! My God, yes! This is the very room! I see it all now. Why, you’re the man who had the messenger bring up the stones. Aha! so that’s your game, eh?”
And Franklin T. Vane, taken unawares at the start, showing a positive genius for doing the wrong thing, made the fatal mistake of trying to rush for the door.
There was the thud of a well placed fist, the flop of a huge body, the adjustment of handcuffs.
“Colman, your reward!”
Sidney Zoom peeled two one thousand dollar bills from his pocket, handed them to Harry Colman.
Colman flashed the sergeant a meaning glance, pocketed the bills. Both men were grinning.
On the floor, Franklin T. Vane raised a bruised eye, saw the denomination of the bills, gave a violent start, muttered an oath, and gazed with wide eyes at the form of Sidney Zoom.
“I get my diamonds?” asked Zoom.
“Certainly,” purred the sergeant. “The identification’s beyond any doubt.”
“Then, Colman, you can take them back to Cremlin’s to-morrow I don’t think sister would like any stones that have such unpleasant associations. I’ll ask for a cash refund, as was arranged between us when I purchased the stones.
“In the meantime, you gentlemen have no further use for me?”
“Go right along, Mr. Zoom,” boomed the sergeant. “I understand Colman knows where to get you if we want you.”
“Aboard the yacht Alberta F.,” smiled Zoom, “and now, gentlemen, good night.”
Franklin T. Vane groaned, stifled a curse, then damped his mouth tightly shut.
Aboard the yacht, Sidney Zoom gazed at the curious face of his secretary. There was a quizzical gleam in his eyes.
“The second necklace was mailed back to Cremlin’s before I boarded the boat. I’ll secure a return of my twenty-five thousand, dollars from the jeweler to-morrow. In the meantime, after deducting the reward, there’s a thousand dollar note that remains a dear profit. I think that should go to Shaffer. He might want to pay his folks a visit.”
The girl sighed.
“How perfectly wonderful!”
“Nonsense!” snapped Sidney Zoom. “There’s a tendency on the part of your sex, Miss Thurmond, to exaggerate any small mental effort that shows successful results. I certainly trust you will not fall into that habit.”
And Sidney Zoom turned abruptly to the closet where he kept his various disguises, and began putting them in order, making ready for the next case.
The girl stared at him, and her eyes showed a light of admiration that was far from being impersonal.
But Sidney Zoom, keeping his back turned, kept busy with his disguises. It was only the police dog that turned yellow eyes upward and surprised the expression of tenderness in the eyes of the young woman.
The dog wagged his tail, softly thumping it against the carpeted floor, signifying his entire approval.
A faint wind ruffled the dark waters of the bay and the boat creaked gently as it swung about, the water lapping its sides.
In the inner cabin Otto Shaffer, just awakening from a peaceful sleep of drugged tranquility, rubbed his eyes with his fists, and smiled dreamily.
“My Name Is Zoom!”
I
Sidney Zoom stood in the main cabin of his palatial yacht, scissors in one hand, paste in the other. On the table before him was a photograph.
The picture was of a thin man with eyes that seemed almost white. The cheeks were hollow, the mouth a mere razor-thin line of wire lips. A synthetic smile, twitching the comers of that mouth, yet failed to soften it. The picture gave forth an aura of cold cruelty. But the forehead showed keen intellectuality.
Back of Sidney Zoom, her eyes wide with interest, her shapely figure poised gracefully, Vera Thurmond, the newly employed secretary, gazed at the photograph.
“Another one for your rogues’ gallery?”
Zoom nodded, a terse nod that was but a single bob of the head.
“Who is he?”
“Albert Pratt, a banker.”
“Why put him in the rogues’ gallery?”
“For a variety of reasons. The principal one is the Citizens’ Rediscount Company.”
“And that is?”
“A little subterfuge by which Albert Pratt gets usurious interest. He turns down loans at his bank whenever he thinks the applicant is in desperate need of funds, but mentions that the Citizen’s Rediscount Company might be interested in the loan, at a high rate of interest, of course.
“And there are other reasons. Of late he made an unwise investment in some mining stock. But he didn’t have to stand the loss. Certain inexperienced depositors were tipped off that the stock was a good buy. They came to Pratt for advice. Pratt shrugged his shoulders, opened his safe and showed them that he had invested his own money in the company.
“The poor depositor invariably closed with the broker, and the broker supplied the stock, not from the capital stock of the company, but from a reissue of Pratt’s holdings.”
The girl’s eyes were dark with emotion.
“You’re sure of these things?”
Sidney Zoom turned to her, and his fierce, hawklike eyes fairly bored into her soul.
“Sure? Of course, I’m sure! I’ve heard the story from a dozen different men, from a dozen different angles. What do you think I do when I walk the streets of the city at night, prowling into the free parks, chatting with those in the bread lines? It is my hobby, finding those who are making their money through legalized fraud. I have here a list of half a dozen men who have lost money through their dealings with this man Pratt.”
She sighed.
“And you intend to do something? You’ll get a lawyer to handle the cases?”
Sidney Zoom laughed — a harsh, metallic laugh.
“Law! Lawyers! Bah! This man is above the law. The law is crude at best, a mere composite of rules passed by legislatures that are usually incompetent. A smart man can find thousands of legalized frauds which can be perpetrated. And this man, Pratt, is smart. He keeps within the law.”
There was silence for a moment.
The two figures in the cabin were each occupied with thoughts that could not be well clothed in words. Outside, the water of the bay lap-lapped against the smooth sides of the craft. Occasionally there was a gentle bump when the trim boat rubbed against the side of the float to which it was moored.
Sidney Zoom opened a little cabinet. There appeared a sheet of cardboard. Upon this sheet were pasted some half dozen photographs. These were men who made a habit of fleecing the unfortunate, who knew the game of legalized crime and waxed fat from their knowledge. Sly criminals who yet were not criminals, but slipped furtively through loopholes in the law, dodged from statute to statute, and emerged smugly complacent with ill-got gains, stared forth from this sheet of cardboard, photographed, numbered, indexed.
Such was the record kept by Sidney Zoom, that strange individual who rebelled against the vast machine of civilization and scoffed at the thousands of laws which sought to curb crime and safeguard property rights.
A scratching against a panel of the outer door caused the girl to turn the knob.
A tawny police dog, heavy of shoulder, yellow of eye, came into the room. A dignified wag of the tip of his tail by way of greeting, and the dog crouched down on the floor, tense as a coiled spring.