“Then you killed him, and you planted a fake declaration of a half interest in some of your own stuff that hadn’t turned out to be other than an expense, and you destroyed your own declaration of trust.

  “The police were slow in finding the place where the papers were stored, so you led them to it. You’d taken out the bulk of the diamonds. But you left a few so it wouldn’t look as though the place had been looted.”

  Of a sudden the man’s tactics changed.

  “Proof!” he bellowed, reaching for the telephone with his left hand. “Try to find any proof. I’m ringing the police right now. I’m going to have you arrested for defamation of character. I’m going to …”

  Sidney Zoom pointed to the floor.

  “Clever, what? The police came in here and took the writing of your machine so they could show the declaration of trust they found was written by you on this machine, and I arranged things so your first tracks when you entered the room would be visible. “Naturally, you were worried whether the police had found where you’d hidden the diamonds. Your steps show that you rushed at once to the framed picture over

  the radiator. I presume there’s a hollow in the frame or something …”

  The basilisk eyes stared with the fascination of utter horror at the white blotches on the smoothly polished linoleum. As Sidney Zoom had said, they went directly from door to picture, picture to typewriter, typewriter to desk.

  Jed Slacker sighed.

  “Then,” he said, with a cunning leer, “the police weren’t here at all. You were the one who wrote off the things from the typewriter. Did it so I’d be nervous when I came in. If you polished the floor, the police weren’t here.”

  Zoom nodded after the manner of one who concedes a trick in a bridge game. “Well reasoned,” he said.

  The hand of the pudgy man whipped up from underneath the desk.

  “Then you’re the only one that knows,” he half whispered, and Sidney Zoom found himself staring into the dark hollow of a gun muzzle.

  Sidney Zoom was careful not to move his hands. “All right, Rip,” he said.

  “And you die!” sneered the fat man, half rising from his chair, his lips curled back from his tooth tips. “I’d sooner take chances …”

  A tawny streak burst open the closet door, went across the waxed linoleum with a great scratching of claws as the police dog tried for traction.

  Jed Slacker saw him coming, whirled the gun.

  The police dog leaped. His teeth closed on the flabby wrist, just above the gun hand. The dog flung himself to one side so that his weight crashed against the arm, twisted the wrist.

  Jed Slacker dropped the gun. The dog instantly released his hold and dropped to the floor, growling, the gun within a few inches of his curled lips and glistening fangs. “I wanted, of course,” said Sidney Zoom, speaking in casual tones, “something like

  that, a declaration of guilt. There’s the typewriter. You’d better write a confession.” The fat man stared at him in utter incredulity.

  “It was to be the perfect crime,” he said. “I fixed it so it could never be pinned on me, and now …”

  Sidney Zoom shrugged his shoulders, a gesture of utter finality.

  “Don’t bother. I can’t get any sympathy for men who commit murder and try to pin it onto an innocent woman.”

  “But …”

  “Get busy with that confession, or I shall have to turn the dog loose on you. He likes to save murderers from the chair. After all it’s not so bad—having your throat ripped out.”

  The man shuddered, sighed, seemed to collapse. The spirit left him. He put paper into the typewriter.

  Sidney Zoom sat and smoked.

  CHAPTER IX

  —of Death!

  THE FAT man grew more enthusiastic as he typed. The pudgy fingers struck the keys, rattling off the letters. The face took on some semblance of color. Once or twice he smiled.

  Sidney Zoom arose, looked over the man’s shoulder.

  The confession was written as one might gloat over a victory. Slacker reveled in the details, telling of how he had fooled the police, of how he had left some two dozen diamonds in with the papers, of his feelings when Phil Brazer had palmed many of those diamonds while he was groping around in the receptacle.

  Even the police were not immune to the greed lust which had actuated Slacker. But Slacker had got hundreds of diamonds, the crooked detective but a dozen or so.

  Sidney Zoom watched the confession as the sheets rolled out of the typewriter. When Slacker had finished Zoom told him to sign each page, and the fat man dashed off his signatures with a flourish.

  “You missed lots of my moves,” he complained. “The press will get this. I want to stand before the public in the true light, a master criminal.”

  Sidney Zoom nodded casually. “Of course.”

  “How’d you know I had the diamonds hidden here? Why not in my room?”

  “Because you asked for five minutes after I told you the thing that would make

  you realize the police suspected you. If you’d suddenly remembered something that made you want to go back to your room I’d have followed you and burst in just when you were at your hiding place.”

  Slacker nodded. “Well,” he said, “it’s over.” Zoom shook his head.

  “No. It’s not over. Not until they come into your cell and shave off a bit of your scalp, and slit your pants leg. Then they start the grim march, down the corridor, the last steps you’ll take, the steps of death …”

  “Don’t!” yelled Slacker. “Good God, don’t sketch the picture like that—Ugh, the chair—the horror of having people take you out and make you die. It isn’t that I’m afraid of death. I don’t fear dying. I hate to be dragged out by a lot of jailers, pulled down a corridor, strapped in an iron chair … I hate to think that they’re waiting, watching, night and day, ticking off the time …”

  Sidney Zoom got to his feet.

  “They say electrocution is painful,” he said. “I’m going out and bring in the police. Don’t try to escape while I’m gone. I shall leave the dog against the door on the outside.”

  He got to his feet, his long angular length showing fine and strong against the flabby softness of the other’s panic.

  “Come, Rip,” he said, and marched to the door, slammed it shut. The lock clicked into place.

  He paused, standing to one side in the corridor, listening.

  That for which he had been waiting came within a matter of seconds. “Bang!” the roar of a single shot.

  Something thudded to the floor. There was silence. Sidney Zoom motioned to the dog.

  Together, they sought the stairs and went down to the street. The noise of the shot might have been taken for backfire by the occupants of other offices.

  Sidney Zoom went to the yacht basin where his small, but well-appointed yacht, the Alberta F., rode at her anchor.

  Vera Thurmond, his secretary, greeted him. “Anything new?”

  “Not much.” His tone was weary. “Take ten thousand dollars. Go up and bail a girl named Myrtle Crane out of jail. She was arrested for complicity in the robbery of Jacob Goldfinch. Wake me up if anything happens.”

  And Sidney Zoom sought his cabin, apparently unaware of the look of maternal tenderness which welled in the eyes of his secretary.

  With the dog stretched on a rug near the foot of his bed, he dropped into dreamless slumber, lulled by the lap-lap-lap of the water against the sides of the yacht.

  He was awakened by a knocking against the cabin door. “Sergeant Huntington,” called his secretary.

  “Come in,” said Zoom, sitting up.

  Sergeant Huntington strode into the room. With him came Jack Hargrave.

  Huntington’s manner was crisp, official. Hargrave looked at Sidney Zoom in a manner of respect. There was something almost of reverence in his glance.

  “Hargrave got the hunch Slacker had acted funny,” said Sergeant Huntington. “He started looking for him. He found him at his office a little afternoon. Slacker had been dead some time. Suicide all right, his own gun and all that, and a confession, and the stolen diamonds in the hollowed picture frame. Here’s the confession.”

  He passed over the typewritten sheets.

  Sidney Zoom read them. A smile twisted his lips. “Funny?” asked Sergeant Huntington with sarcasm.

  “Thinking about Phil Brazer groping around for the diamonds. He was palming as many as he could, working them up his sleeve,” said Zoom. “That was why it took him so long to fish out the stones.”

  Sergeant Huntington grunted.

  Zoom finished the confession, handed it back. “This is one case I’m surprised on,” he said. Sergeant Huntington glowered at him.

  “You went bail for Myrtle Crane.”

  “Yes. I frequently do when I think people are innocent.”

  “And,” went on Sergeant Huntington, “someone had scrubbed the office floor and sprinkled white powder at the entrance.”

  Sidney Zoom raised his eyebrows. “Yes?”

  “Yes. And a tall man and a dog were seen hanging around the lobby of the office building.”

  Zoom nodded.

  “Oh, yes. That was I. Rip and I waited. Then, when we got tired we left.”

  “What were you waiting for?”

  “I wanted to ask Mr. Slacker a question.”

  “What about?”

  “Something about that fake dodger, you know, the one about the diamond thief …”

  “Yes,” said Sergeant Huntington, “I know. I also know, Sidney Zoom, that whenever you start to solve a case you solve it. Of late I’ve been noticing that when you start in

  on a murder case and find the real culprit, that culprit never lives to get to jail.” Zoom reached for a cigarette.

  “The State executes men for murder?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Sergeant Huntington. Zoom said nothing further.

  After the silence had begun to be awkward, Sergeant Huntington rasped into speech. “Will you admit you saw Slacker this morning?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know that Slacker’s steps show when he entered that room, that there are white blobs going to the picture frame, to the typewriter, back to his desk?”

  “Were there?”

  “Yes. There were.”

  “And that same white powder shows the tracks of another man who entered the room and sat down, talking with Slacker.”

  Zoom looked interested.

  “Tracks of a dog, too?” he asked. Sergeant Huntington frowned. “No, that’s what puzzles me.”

  “Well,” remarked Zoom, “it lets me out. I had my dog with me this morning. Your own witnesses admit that.”

  He yawned, looked at the tip of his cigarette, glanced at Sergeant Huntington. “Steps of death, eh?”

  Sergeant Huntington suppressed an exclamation, stepped back.

  “Well,” he said, “it looks like hell, that’s all. Looks as though some one had made it easy for this chap to shoot himself.”

  Zoom’s voice was only mild in its interest.

  “You were looking for someone higher up in this affair, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Zoom made a motion with his muscular, angular shoulders. “Look for something higher up in this, then.”

  “Higher up?”

  “Yes. You might try divine justice, for instance.” Sergeant Huntington snorted, turned on his heel. Jack Hargrave stepped to the bed.

  “Good day, sir. I just wanted to shake hands.” Silently, solemnly, the two men shook hands. “Higher up,” said Hargrave.

  “Higher up,” repeated Sidney Zoom and his tone had the timbre of a tolling bell.

  THE FIRST STONE

  CHAPTER I

  The Man on the Sidewalk

  RAIN SHEETED intermittently out of the midnight skies. Between showers fitful stars showed through drifting cloud rifts. Street lights, reflected from the wet pavements in shimmering ribbons, were haloed in moisture. Intermittent thunder boomed. The feet of Sidney Zoom, pacing the wet pavements, splashed heedlessly through small surface puddles. Attired in raincoat and rubber hat, the gaunt form prowled through the rainy night, his police dog padding along at his side.

  Sidney Zoom loved the night. He was particularly fond of rainy nights. Midnight streets held for him the lure of adventure. He prowled ceaselessly at night, searching for those oddities of human conduct which would arouse his interest.

  The police dog growled, throatily.

  Sidney Zoom paused, stared down at his four-footed companion. “What is it, Rip?”

  The dog’s yellow eyes were staring straight ahead. His ears were pricked up. After a moment he flung his head in a questing half circle as his nose tested the air.

  He growled again, and the hair along the top of his back ruffled into bristling life. “Go find, Rip.”

  Like an arrow, the dog sped forward into the night, his claws rattling upon the wet pavement. He ran low to the ground, swift and sure. He leaned far in as he rounded a corner, then the night swallowed him.

  Sidney Zoom walked as far as the corner where the dog had vanished, then stood, waiting. He heard footsteps, the rustle of a rubber raincoat and a dark figure bulked upon him.

  A flash light stabbed its way through the darkness. “What are you doin’ here?” grumbled a deep voice.

  The hawk like eyes of Sidney Zoom stared menacingly at the flash light. “Who are you?—and put out that damned flash!”

  The beam of the flash light shot up and down the long, lean, whip corded strength of the man, and the grumbling voice rumbled again.

  “I’m the officer on the beat. It’s no time for a man to be standin’ out on a street corner, all glistenin’ with rain, an’ lookin’ into the night as though he was listenin’ for something. So give an account of yourself, unless you want to spend a night in a cell.”

  Sidney Zoom turned his eyes away from the glare of the light, fished a leather wallet from an inside pocket, and let the officer see a certain card.

  That card bore the signature of the chief of police. The officer whistled.

  “Sidney Zoom, eh?” he said in surprise. “I’ve heard of you an’ of your police dog.

  Where’s the dog?”

  Sidney Zoom’s head was cocked slightly to one side, listening. “If you’ll quit talking for a moment I think we can hear him.”

  The officer stopped stock-still, listening. Faintly through the night could be heard the barking of a dog.

  “It’s around the other corner,” said Zoom. The officer grunted.

  “What’s he barkin’ at?”

  Sidney Zoom’s long legs started to pace along the wet pavement. A sudden shower came rattling down upon the hard surface of their shiny raincoats. Water streamed from the rims of rubber hats.

  “The best way to find out,” said Sidney Zoom, “is to go and see.” The officer was put to it to keep pace with the long legs.

  “I’ve heard of some of your detective work,” he said.

  He gave the impression of one who wished to engage in conversation, but the pace was such that he needed all of his wind. Sidney Zoom said nothing.

  “And of your dog,” puffed the officer.

  Sidney Zoom paused, motioned to the officer to halt, raised his head and whistled.

  Instantly there came an answering bark.

  Zoom’s ears caught the direction of that bark, and he lengthened his stride. The officer ceased all efforts to keep step and came blowing along, taking a step and a half to Zoom’s one.

  A street light showed a huddled shadow. The dog barked again, and Sidney Zoom pointed.

  “Something on the sidewalk,” he said.

  The officer started to say something, but thought better of it. Such conversation as he might have could wait until he had more breath to spare for it.

  Zoom’s stride became a running walk. His lean form seemed fairly vibrant with excitement.

  “Someone lying down,” he said.

  The dog barked once more, a shrill, yapping bark, as though he tried to convey some meaning. And Sidney Zoom interpreted the meaning of that bark.

  “Dead,” he said.

  The officer grunted his incredulity.

  But Zoom had been right. The man was quite dead. He lay sprawled out upon the pavement, on his face, his hands stretched out and clenched, as though he had clutched at something.

  There was a dark hole in the back of the man’s head, and a welling stream of red had oozed down until it mingled with the water on the sidewalk, staining it red. The hat was some ten feet away, lying flat upon the sidewalk.

  The man had on a coat, trousers, heavy shoes. But there were pyjamas underneath. The bottoms of the pyjamas showed beneath the legs of the trousers, and the collar of the pyjama coat showed through a place where the coat lapel had been twisted backward.

  The officer ran his hands to the wet wrists of the corpse. “Dead,” he said.

  “That,” remarked Sidney Zoom, dryly, “is what the dog told me. He’d have come running to me, urging haste, if the figure had still had life.”

  The officer looked up with glittering eyes. “You kidding me?” he asked.

  Sidney Zoom shrugged his shoulders. Experience had taught him the futility of seeking to explain canine intelligence, highly developed, to one who had had no experience with it.

  The officer turned the figure over. Zoom’s hand thrust out, caught the officer’s arm.

  “Wait,” he said, “you’re destroying the most valuable clew we have!” The officer’s eyes were wide.

  “I’m just turnin’ him over.”

  He had paused, the corpse precariously balanced upon one shoulder and hip, the head sagging downward.

  Zoom nodded.

  “Precisely,” he said. “But you’ll notice that the shoulders of the coat, on the upper part, around the neck, are quite wet. That shows that he’s been out in the rain for some little time. But the back of the coat is almost dry.

  “That means he was walking, facing the rain, that he hasn’t been lying very long on his stomach here. Otherwise the back of the coat would have been quite wet. But if you turn him over before we check on these things, and the back of the coat lays on the wet pavement, we’ll have no way of determining the comparative degree to which the garments are soaked.”