Sidney Zoom made a single comment.

  “Yes,” he said. “It looks like the type of place he’d have lived in.”

  “Evidently you didn’t take a shine to him?”

  “No, I didn’t. His character showed on his face, even in death.”

  “It takes all sorts of people to make a world, Sidney.”

  Sidney Zoom’s answer was typical:

  “All sorts of things come up in a garden. But one pulls out the noxious weeds.” Captain Mahoney sighed.

  “Your philosophy’s too advanced for this age, my friend.”

  Sidney Zoom abruptly reverted to the clews which had led the officers to the crime.

  “Would you ever have found the girl if it hadn’t been for the beads?”

  “You mean the synthetic rubies broken from the string?”

  “Yes.”

  “Eventually, but we’d have had to go to the house first. When we got there and talked with the servants who had heard the commotion we’d have gone after the girl.”

  “But the beads were the clew?”

  “Naturally. They led from the corpse to the outer door of the apartment.”

  “Of the apartment house, you mean.”

  “Well, yes.”

  Sidney Zoom fastened his intense, hawk-like eyes upon the man who was staring at him with sudden curiosity.

  “Did it ever strike you as being a bit strange, Bill, that the beads only went as far as the outer door of the apartment house, and that they were spaced most evenly? Why weren’t there any beads between the door and the entrance to the girl’s apartment?”

  Bill Mahoney laughed.

  “There you go, Zoom, with some of your wild theories. The beads were the girl’s all right. We’ve identified those beyond any doubt. And the rest of the string was found behind the mirror in her room where she’d tried to conceal it. She’d put it there. There was the imprint of a finger in the soft surface of the chewing gum. It was her finger.

  “What happened was that the man she’d shot broke the string of beads with his last death clutch. They were spilling all over the street, but the girl didn’t know it until she got to the door of the apartment. Then she gathered up what was left, probably some that were on a thread that had dropped down the front of her dress.

  “She knew she had to hide them. She wanted to put them where the police would never find them. By that time she knew they had been spilling, leaving a trail directly to the apartment house. That’s why she pulled the card off of the mail box. She knew the officers would trail those beads and, if they found a card bearing the same name as the dead man, they’d come right up.”

  Sidney Zoom stretched, yawned, smiled.

  “Did you notice, by any chance, if there was a cut on the fingers of Eva Raine?” Captain Mahoney’s glance was gimlet eyed.

  “Yes. There was. What made you think there might be?”

  “The edges of the card container on the letter box were pretty sharp, and she was in a hurry. I thought she might have cut herself.”

  “And that such cut accounted for the red stain on the mail box?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think,” said Captain Mahoney, very deliberately, “that we’ll go on in. You’ve told me too much—and not enough.”

  Zoom uncoiled his lean length from behind the steering wheel, grinned at the officer. “Come on.”

  They walked up a cement walk, came to the porch of the house. An officer on duty saluted the captain, regarded Zoom curiously. The police dog, padding gravely at the side of his master, managed a dignity which was the more impressive in that it was entirely natural.

  The door swung open. Two men stood in the hallway.

  Captain Mahoney intoned their names to Sidney Zoom in a voice that was informative, but not social.

  “Zoom, this is Sam Mokley, the butler; Laurence Gearhard, the lawyer.”

  Zoom nodded, stalked into the hallway, suddenly turned to transfix the two men with his hawk-like eyes.

  “I want to see two things,” he snapped. “First, the room from which the jewelry was taken; second, the bed where Harry Raine slept.”

  The lawyer, white-haired, cunning-eyed, shrewd judge of human nature, swept his pale eyes over Zoom’s tall figure, vibrant with controlled energy.

  “Show him, Mokley,” he said to the butler. The man nodded. “This way, sir.”

  He was all that Captain Mahoney had described, a ferocious looking figure, massive, heavy-handed, his ear cauliflowered.

  “Here is the room, sir. The gems were in a concealed cabinet back of the bookcase.

  Only a very few people knew of that bookcase.”

  But Sidney Zoom did not even glance at the place of concealment. Instead he dropped to his hands and knees and started crawling painfully, laboriously, over the edges of the carpet, his fingers questing over every inch of the carpeted surface.

  He remained in that position, searching patiently for some three or four minutes. If he found anything he gave no sign. As abruptly as he had assumed the position, he straightened to his full height, looked at the two men.

  “The bedroom,” he said. “This way, sir,” said the butler.

  They trooped into the bedchamber. It was a dank, chilly place of slumber, suggestive of fitful sleep, disturbed by periods of worry, or restless thoughts, of selfish desires.

  Zoom inspected the cheerless room.

  “Where,” he asked of the butler, “did Raine keep his gun?” The lawyer cleared his throat.

  Zoom shot him a glance.

  “I asked the butler,” he said. The butler’s face was wooden.

  “I haven’t seen him with a gun for some time, sir. He used to have one, a thirty-eight, Smith and Wesson, sir.”

  Zoom strode to the dresser, started yanking open the drawers.

  There were suits of heavy underwear, coarse socks, cheap shirts, a few frayed-edged, starched collars. In an upper drawer was a pasteboard box with a green label on the top. The sides were copper colored. Zoom pulled out the box, ripped open the cover, turned it upside down.

  Upon the dresser there cascaded a glittering shower of brass cartridges, cartridges for a forty-five automatic.

  The lawyer cleared his throat again. Then he shrugged his shoulders, walked away.

  Zoom stared fixedly at Captain Mahoney.

  “I want to see the Chinese cook,” he said.

  Captain Mahoney studied the level intensity of Zoom’s eyes for a moment, then motioned to the butler.

  “Come with me and let’s find the cook.”

  They left the room. The lawyer cleared his throat, turned, regarded Sidney Zoom. “Going to say something?” asked Zoom.

  “Yes,” said the attorney. “I was about to remark that it was a nice day.”

  The door opened again and Captain Mahoney escorted the butler and the Chinese cook into the room. The cook was nervous, plainly so.

  “Ah Kim,” said Captain Mahoney.

  Zoom looked at the man. The slant eyes rotated slitheringly about in oily restlessness. “Ah Kim,” snapped Zoom, “do you know much about guns?”

  Ah Kim shifted his weight. “Heap savvy,” he said.

  Zoom indicated the pile of shells. “What gun do these fit?”

  “Alla same fit Missa Raine gun. Him forty-five, automatic.” Zoom turned on his heel, faced the lawyer.

  “You made Raine’s will.”

  It was a statement rather than a question. The pale eyes of the lawyer regarded Zoom unwaveringly.

  “Yes,” he said “Of course I did.”

  “Who were the beneficiaries?” The lawyer pursed his lips.

  “I would rather answer that later, and in private.”

  Captain Mahoney glanced at Zoom, then fixed the attorney with his dark, thoughtful eyes.

  “Answer it now,” he said. The lawyer bowed.

  “Very well. The property, what there is, and it’s considerable, is left share and share alike to the two servants, Ah Kim and Sam Mokley.”

  CHAPTER VII

  The Hidden Gun

  THE CHINESE heard the news with a bland countenance that was utterly devoid of expression. Sam Mokley gave a gasp of surprise.

  “What!” he said.

  The lawyer bowed.

  “I wasn’t going to tell you until the investigation was over, but Raine left his property to you two.”

  “Did you share in it?” asked Captain Mahoney. “No.”

  “He didn’t leave any to Eva Raine?” asked Zoom.

  “Naturally not,” said the lawyer. “One does not ordinarily bequeath property to one’s murderer. And the girl was utterly unscrupulous. She testified falsely in the lawsuit over the gems. She broke into the house and committed burglary.”

  Sidney Zoom nodded careless acquiescence. “Do you ever read the Bible, Mr. Gearhard?” The white-haired man smiled.

  “I have read it,” he said, dryly.

  “It is an excellent passage,” commented Sidney Zoom, “which remarks that the one who is without sin may throw the first stone.”

  The lawyer’s lips settled in a straight line.

  “If you mean anything at all personal by that,” he snapped, “you had better watch your tongue. There is a law in this State against libel. Your attitude ever since you entered this place has been hostile.”

  It was apparent that the grizzled veteran of many a court room battle was very much on the aggressive whenever his personal integrity was assailed.

  Zoom bowed.

  “You are mistaken,” he said. “My attitude is that of an investigator.” He turned to Captain Mahoney.

  “The murder,” he said, “is solved.” Captain Mahoney stared at him. “Who did it?”

  Zoom smiled.

  “Since there is a law against defamation of character, I will say nothing, but will refer you to absolute means of proof. A step at a time, we will uncover the matter.

  “Rip, smell of the gentlemen.”

  And Sidney Zoom waved his hand in a gesture, a swift flip of the wrist.

  An animal trainer would have known that it was the gesture, more than the words which made the police dog do that which he did. But the effect was uncanny. The dog walked deliberately to each of the three men, smelled their clothing with bristling hostility, ruffling the hair on his back.

  “Come, captain,” said Sidney Zoom. And he turned, stalked from the room.

  “We will leave the car parked here,” said Zoom as they gained the porch, leaving behind them three very puzzled individuals, “and start walking by the shortest route toward the apartment which the girl maintained.”

  Captain Mahoney fell into step.

  “Zoom,” he said, quietly, “have you any idea of just what you’re after?” Zoom’s answer was a single explosive monosyllable.

  “Yes.”

  They strode forward, walking swiftly. “Search,” said Zoom, and waved his arm.

  The dog barked once, a short, swift bark, then started to swing out in a series of questing semicircles, ranging ahead and to either side of the walking men.

  They walked rapidly and in silence. Captain Mahoney was put to it to keep the pace. From time to time, his anxious, speculative eyes turned upward to Zoom’s face. But the rigid profile was as though carved from solid rock.

  It was not until they had approached the place where the body of the murdered man had been found that the dog suddenly barked three times, came running toward them, then back toward a vacant lot.

  Here was a patch of brush, back of a signboard. The ground was littered with such odds and ends as invariably collect in vacant lots. There were two or three automobiles which would never run again, a few tin cans which had been surreptitiously deposited.

  “I think,” said Zoom, “the dog has found something important.”

  Captain Mahoney sprinted into speed, was the first to arrive at the patch of brush.

  He parted the leaves. The dog pawed excitedly, as though to help.

  Captain Mahoney straightened and whistled.

  “Call back the dog, Zoom. There’s a forty-five automatic on the ground here.

  There may be finger-prints on it. I want to preserve them.” Zoom snapped a swift command.

  The dog dropped flat on his belly, muzzle on forepaws.

  Captain Mahoney took a bit of string from his pocket. He lowered it until he had it slung under the barrel of the automatic, then he tied a knot and raised the gun.

  Zoom muttered his approval.

  For there were finger-prints upon the weapon, prints that showed unmistakable ridges and whorls. Those finger-prints might have been developed by an expert, so plain were they.

  “A man’s fingers,” said Captain Mahoney. Zoom nodded.

  “Now, captain, if you don’t mind, we’ll return to the house where Raine lived and see if we can identify the gun. As a favor to me, I wish you’d tell no one where this gun was found until I give you permission.”

  Captain Mahoney sighed.

  “Zoom, I’m going to give you a free hand, for a little while.”

  “Come then,” said Zoom.

  And they returned to the house as rapidly as they had made the trip from it, presenting a strange pair, the tall man with the hawk like eyes, the shorter officer, carrying a gun dangling on a string, careful lest the finger-prints should be obliterated.

  Sam Mokley, the butler, let them into the house.

  Zoom ordered him to summon the lawyer and the cook.

  They gathered in the living room, a restless group of men, very evidently under a great nervous strain.

  “Ah Kim,” snapped Zoom, “is that Mr. Raine’s gun?”

  The Chinese let his eyes slither to the gun, then to Zoom’s face, then about the room.

  “Same gun,” he said.

  “Beg your pardon, sir,” interposed the butler, “but it’s not the gun. Mr. Raine’s gun had a little speck of rust on the barrel, just under the safety catch.”

  Zoom’s grin was sardonic.

  “Oh,” he said, “I thought you described Raine’s gun as being a thirty-eight revolver, not a forty-five automatic.”

  The butler’s wooden face was as a mask. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  Captain Mahoney regarded the man curiously. “Anything further to say, Mokley?”

  “No, sir.”

  Zoom nodded, slowly.

  “No,” he said, “he wouldn’t.”

  Captain Mahoney’s eyes were thoughtful.

  “We’ve got to have proof, you know, Zoom. We may satisfy ourselves of something, but we’ve got to get enough evidence to satisfy a jury before we can do anything.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  The Killer Shoots Again

  ZOOM STARTED to talk. His voice was crisp, metallic.

  “Let’s look at the weak points in the case they’ve built up against the girl, look at the clews and see what must have happened.

  “Raine had the gems here. He heard a noise, found the gems gone—stolen. “Something made him sufficiently positive to start out after the girl. That something

  must have been some tangible evidence. Let’s suppose, as a starting point, it was the finding of part of a broken necklace with some synthetic rubies strewn over the floor. “Naturally, he scooped up some of those rubies, to be used in confronting the girl.

  He started after her. He was walking toward the wind. It was rainy. He got wet. That didn’t deter him. As I see his character, Raine was a very determined man.

  “But, before he reached the apartment where the girl lived something caused him to turn back. What was that something? We can be fairly sure he didn’t get to the apartment. Otherwise he’d have raised a commotion. He was that sort. And he was facing in the other direction when he was shot from behind, with his own gun.

  “Now what would have caused him to turn back? What would have caused him to surrender his gun? Certainly someone in whose advice he must have had implicit faith overtook him and convinced him that he was going off on a wrong track, that he should return and summon the police.

  “Then, when that person had secured possession of the gun, he waited for a clap of thunder from the passing shower, shot Raine in the back of the head.

  “That person had picked up more of the scattered rubies. He used them to leave a trail to the front door of the apartment house where the girl lived. Those rubies weren’t spaced the way they would have been had they come off a necklace. They’d have hit the sidewalk in a bunch and scattered. They were spaced just as they would have been had someone dropped them with the deliberate intent of causing the police to go to that apartment house.

  “Now the only person I can think of who would have been able to dissuade Mr.

  Raine, cause him to surrender his gun, turn him back, is …” And Sidney Zoom stared at the lawyer.

  That individual laughed.

  “Very cleverly done, Zoom, but not worth a damn. Your theory is very pretty, but how are you going to prove the necklace was broken here in this room? You got down on your hands and knees when you first came in here. You were looking for some of the rubies. You were disappointed. Your interest in the girl has led you to concoct a very pretty theory. It won’t hold water—before a jury.”

  Zoom turned to the Chinese.

  “Bring me the vacuum sweeper, Ah Kim,” he said. The servant glided from the room on noiseless feet.

  The butler exchanged glances with the lawyer. The attorney cleared his throat, then was silent again.

  The Chinese returned with the vacuum sweeper. Sidney Zoom opened it, took from the interior the bag where the sweepings reposed. He opened that bag, spilled the dust upon the floor.

  Instantly it became apparent that that dust contained several of the rubies. They glowed redly in the light which came through the massive windows.

  “Yes,” said Zoom, “I looked for the rubies here. When I couldn’t find them I knew I was dealing with an intelligent criminal. But I did find that a vacuum sweeper had been run over the floor very recently.”

  The butler looked at the lawyer, wet his lips. The lawyer frowned meditatively. “That, of course,” he said, “is rather strong evidence you’ve uncovered there,

  Zoom. Ah Kim would have profited by the death. He has acted suspiciously several times. There’s a chance you may be right.”