“Come here, you little—, and let me rip that mask off,” growled the man in the doorway. “I’ve had an idea all along there was a broad in that Crandall case.”

  She moved toward him, slowly, as one in a trance. She tried twice to speak, the white lips moving in a futile effort. The fear-constricted throat muscles could not function.

  She was within three feet of the man. “Take off the mask,” he said.

  She halted, motionless.

  “Take off the mask!”

  She still remained motionless.

  The big arm of the man flashed out in a sweeping swing. The hand did not rip at the cloth, but swung, instead, in a swishing blow. It caught the young woman squarely on the side of the jaw. She was swept to one side, stumbled over a chair, fell. The beam of the flashlight pinned her in its glare.

  “Take off that mask!” bellowed the man.

  The girl’s hands went to her face, not removing the mask, but in a gesture of instinctive terror, holding the cloth to her face.

  The man moved forward.

  “If you want to get beat up,” he said, “I’m the guy that’ll do it!”

  As he spoke, he drew back his foot, preparatory to making a vicious kick.

  It was at that instant that the long arm of Sidney Zoom flashed out in the darkness. The talon-like fingers, as rigid as though they had been fashioned from steel, clutched the cloth of the man’s coat collar. The arm jerked.

  The big man had been poised on one foot, swinging the other in a kick. The swift pull at his collar jerked him off balance. The twisting motion of the snapping arm sent him into a spin. Sidney Zoom’s other hand swooped down, struck the thick wrist of the hand that held the flashlight. The flashlight was snapped from the man’s grasp, thudded to the floor. All was darkness.

  “Never,” said Sidney Zoom, “strike a woman.”

  The man gave one inarticulate bellow of rage and rushed.

  Even in the darkness, he showed an uncanny judgment of spacing, of timing, and of distance. His blows had all of the swift speed, all of the vicious follow-through which characterizes the performance of a professional fighter.

  Sidney Zoom gave ground before that charging rush, before that avalanche of human weight. But he gave ground in a scientific manner, his left foot always advanced, his right foot tapping out the retreat, his left shoulder hunched forward, protecting his chin and the side of his face. His left hand was held in readiness, his right flung in such a position as to protect the solar plexus, leaving a protruding elbow as a menace to the flying fists of his assailant.

  On the floor, the police dog whined his anxiety, chattered his teeth in an ecstasy of desire to tear this man limb from limb. Yet the iron discipline under which he had been schooled held him crouched to the floor, the saliva dripping from his quivering jaws.

  As the men cleared the doorway, the girl, jumping forward, ran for the stairs. The big man was heedless of her escape. But Sidney Zoom, his ears waiting for those very sounds of flight, knew the girl had eluded her captor.

  He suddenly ceased to be on the defensive.

  The big man, irritated that his flailing blows should find no vital mark, his right-hand tender from having flung into that protruding elbow upon two occasions, set himself for a crashing rush.

  The left arm of Sidney Zoom suddenly ceased to be merely a wall of defense. It flicked out in swiftly stabbing blows, as smoothly and as rapidly as the tongue of a snake flickers in and out.

  One, two, three blows found their mark upon the face of the big man, every blow having the effect of throwing him off balance, keeping him from getting set for his rushing offensive.

  Then the fourth blow measured the distance, told Sidney Zoom exactly where the right should cross over. The right flashed in a swift hook, thudded to the jaw with a jar of impact that lifted the big man from his feet, sent him hurling back into the dark room where he had trapped the girl.

  Sidney Zoom flung the door of that office shut. There was a skeleton key in the mortise lock. He twisted it, locking the door.

  “Come, Rip,” he whispered, and ran lightly to the stairs which went to the street. He looked up and down the sidewalk.

  There was no sign of human life. The girl had vanished utterly and completely.

  Sidney Zoom had no means of knowing who she was. Nor could he tell the identity of the man with whom he had fought. Nor, truth to tell, did he greatly care. Sidney Zoom was a born fighter. He longed for conflict, mental and physical. This man had been taking advantage of a woman. Sidney Zoom asked for no other cause to make war.

  Man-made laws of property rights meant but little to this man who would have been a pirate leader in another age. Zoom recognized certain basic principles of right and wrong, and no other. He longed for conflict, and asked not too many questions concerning the technical laws governing the merits of such conflict. All that he required was to find the weak being oppressed by the strong. Then he hurled himself into the fight with a whole-hearted ferocity which swept all opposition before it.

  He had not the slightest doubt that the man he had locked in the office on that upper floor represented the law enforcement agencies of the city of Dellboro. And he did not care a hoot. Sidney Zoom’s concern had to do entirely with the identity of the young woman who had been sobbing her heart away on a park bench under the quiet stars of a midnight sky. He wanted to find her, to relieve her sufferings, if that were possible.

  He turned to the dog. “Find,” he said.

  CHAPTER V

  Della Rangar

  THE DOG, glad of an opportunity for action, placed his muzzle to the cold cement, sniffed, ran a few steps toward the west, then turned to the east, ran, sniffed, wagged his tail, started following the scent, his tail wagging vehemently.

  Sidney Zoom’s long legs moved in great strides.

  The dog led the way to the mouth of an alley, up that alley, to the back entrance of a rooming house, up a flight of stairs, through a back door, along a corridor, paused before a dark door, and looked up at his master.

  Sidney Zoom knocked on the door. There was no sound from the room.

  Sidney Zoom knocked again, tried the knob. “Open up,” he said, “and do it quickly.”

  There came the sound of bed springs creaking, a sleepy voice asked: “Who’s there?”

  “A friend,” said Sidney Zoom. “I’m in bed—asleep. Go away.”

  Sidney Zoom was impatient with such prevarication in the face of the infallible identification which the dog had given.

  “I will give you ten seconds,” he said, “to open the door.”

  There came the sound of bare feet thudding to the floor. Garments rustled. The feet came toward the door, a lock clicked, and Sidney Zoom stared into the eyes of a young woman who looked very much as though she had been asleep for some hours, save for one thing. That one thing was the red, swollen spot on the side of her face where the fist had crashed home.

  “This,” she said, “is an outrage.”

  Zoom moved into the room, locked the door behind him.

  “Now the first question,” he said, “is whether or not you left anything behind in that office by which you could be identified? A purse, perhaps? Perhaps a compact?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said with dignity.

  She wrapped a kimono about her, first taking care to let it flap open for a sufficient length along the front to show Sidney Zoom that she was, indeed in night attire. There were feminine garments piled on the chair. Sidney Zoom walked to them, thrust his hand down among the filmy silks. They were still warm with the heat from the body of the young woman.

  She stared at him.

  Sidney Zoom regarded the red welt on the side of her face. “Look at yourself in the mirror,” he ordered.

  The girl moved to the mirror. Her eyes fastened upon that tell-tale mark, and her lips clamped into a thin line.

  “Who—who—who are you?” she stammered, her voice issuing from a mouth that was dry with terror.

  Sidney Zoom grinned at her.

  “I,” he said, “am the man who slammed the big boob who struck you, after you’d had a chance to make good your escape. I knocked him off his pins and locked him in the office. Here’s the skeleton key you left in the lock. Now tell me your story, and tell me whether there’s anything you left behind that would bring the officers to this place.”

  She stared at him.

  “Who are you?” she asked again.

  “I am the man who heard you sobbing in the park. I followed you to the office of the county attorney. Then when the big hulk came in and started to bully you, I gave you a break. Now answer my questions.”

  Her hand, unconsciously seeking the contact of companionship, had descended to the head of the crouching dog. The animal had first stiffened, then his ears had relaxed. The tip of his tail waved gently. In that manner he communicated to his master that the touch of this young woman spoke of sincerity and of honesty. Sidney Zoom needed no further endorsement. An intelligent animal can tell more from the touch of a human’s fingertips than most men can tell from a week of constant association.

  The dog’s head turned. His tongue shot out, gently caressing the girl’s hand, and that sign of sympathy broke through the wall of suspicion and reserve, and words poured from her lips.

  “I’m Della Rangar,” she said. “No one knows me here, and no one knows I’m here. I recognized the picture of James Crandall which was published in the papers when his trial started. He—he’s my sweetheart. I knew him under another name, in another city.

  “He’s been living there, and going straight. We were to be married. He won’t tell where he was, or what he was doing because he knows that will mix me into the mess. He hoped I’d never hear of this. I thought—thought that he’d just run away and left me. You see, I haven’t always been so straight myself. I’ve had my experiences with the seamy side of life, and I’ve even done time.

  “Crandall knew that. And he knew that if the police found out about me they’d drag me in as an accomplice. He was going to take the rap, go to the chair in silence, just to protect me. When I saw his picture, I came on here. I thought I could break into the office of the county attorney and steal the file in the Crandall case. I’ve known of such things being done.”

  She paused, staring defiantly at Sidney Zoom, as though expecting to hear his denunciation.

  Sidney Zoom, however, merely nodded his head approvingly. “Good girl,” he said. “Did you find anything?”

  “No evidence. The file of the case was there. The letter wasn’t in the file. It’s that letter that will send Jim to the chair.”

  Sidney Zoom pursed his lips.

  “You haven’t answered one other question. Did you leave anything behind by which you can be identified?”

  She shook her head. Then her head suddenly became motionless. The cheek blanched again.

  “I made notations,” she said, “on a sheet of paper that I took from this rooming house. It had the address on it. The files were indexed, you know, and I first looked up the index numbers, and then wrote the numbers …”

  Zoom interrupted.

  “You left that paper behind?”

  “I’m afraid I must have. I had it in my hand when—when he struck me.” Sidney Zoom strode toward the door.

  “Get your things together,” he said. “I’ll watch the corridor. Make it snappy. Get ’em on quickly.”

  He jerked the door open, strode into the corridor, stood rigidly alert, the dog at his side. From the interior of the room came sounds of swift motion. Almost within a matter of seconds the door opened again and the girl, garbed for the street, stood at his side.

  “Ready,” she said.

  There was in her tone the implicit confidence of one who trusts. It was an emotion which Sidney Zoom inspired, particularly in the helpless, as well as in dogs, horses and children.

  Zoom led the way.

  They left by the front door, walked across to the other side of the street.

  And, as they rounded the corner, the night silence was disrupted by the noise of a speeding motor. A light car, filled with men, came swiftly down the street, skidded to a stop before the entrance to the rooming house. The men jumped from the car, ran across the strip of sidewalk, and vanished within the dark doorway.

  Sidney Zoom turned to the girl at his side and smiled. “We weren’t any too soon,” he said.

  There was no longer any fear in her voice.

  “Somehow, I don’t feel afraid anymore,” she said. “I have a feeling that justice is going to be done—real justice.”

  Sidney Zoom took her elbow, assisted her down from the curb to the street, piloted her to the place where the shadows were the deepest. Keeping to those clinging shadows, he guided her to his yacht, slipped her aboard.

  Vera Thurmond, the secretary, regarded the girl with eyes that were warm with sympathy. There was, in the secretary, a maternal affection for those strange outcasts of the night whom Sidney Zoom picked up from time to time and brought to safe sanctuary aboard the yacht.

  “Keep her safe, and keep her out of sight,” said Sidney Zoom.

  Vera Thurmond flung a protecting arm around the waist of Della Rangar. “Come, my poor dear, you need sleep,” she said.

  Taut nerves relaxed. The girl smiled.

  “I’m commencing to believe that God’s in his heaven after all,” she said.

  For Sidney Zoom’s character was such that no one could come in contact with him without feeling the strange influence of the man. He influenced the lives of those about him as a lodestone influences the needle of a magnet. The weak and the helpless found in him a haven of refuge, a gigantic wall of strength. The oppressor found in him a grim enemy, tireless, uncompromising, letting no man-made law stand between him and his prey.

  CHAPTER VI

  Rip Smells a Banker

  THE MORNING sun streamed through the long, narrow windows, reflected from the polished surface of the walnut desk, and made little splotches of uneven illumination upon the tinted wall.

  Sam Gilvert sat in the swivel chair, a filing drawer of a card indexing system in front of him. Several of those cards represented past due obligations owing to the bank. These had red tabs on their margins. The tabs were a bright red, and the gnarled fingers of the banker went from red tab to red tab, pulling out the cards.

  At his side, a secretary held an open notebook with a poised pencil. Occasionally the banker snapped an order and the secretary made a series of swift pothooks. Upon each such occasion the secretary would mutter a mechanical, “Yes, sir.”

  Sam Gilvert chuckled.

  “Not entirely an unpleasant task, Miller.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the secretary, mechanically.

  “Three years ago,” said the banker, “every one of these men used to look down on me. They were rich, gloatingly rich. Now we’re closing them out … Card number four thirty-five; Harrison, secured note for five hundred. Close out the security. Have our attorney get judgment for the deficiency. Attach his car.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the secretary.

  “Card number four fifty-three; secured note for fifteen hundred …” There was a knock at the door.

  The banker frowned.

  “Open it, Miller. I left orders I wasn’t to be disturbed. See what …” The secretary opened the door.

  The tall form of Sidney Zoom stood in the doorway. Behind him an apologetic clerk was endeavoring to explain.

  “I’m busy,” rasped the banker. “I left orders …”

  Sidney Zoom made a surreptitious motion with his wrist.

  The police dog, keen eyes seeing that motion, trained as he was to take orders from his master by a mere flip of the fingers or a slight movement of the hand, walked deliberately into that room and sniffed at the banker, then sniffed at the secretary.

  Sidney Zoom smiled sardonically.

  “Pardon the intrusion,” he said. “The dog is engaged in certain police work. I wanted him to get your odors. That is all. Come, Rip.”

  The dog trotted to him. Sidney Zoom turned away. The banker jumped to his feet instantly, his face flushed.

  “Here, what’s the meaning of this unwarranted intrusion? You can’t get away with that. I shall call the police. You walked in back of the counters of this bank without permission. You …”

  The banker broke off, sputtering in rage.

  “Exactly,” said Sidney Zoom, pausing mid-stride to look back at the banker. “I assure you, Mr. Gilvert, that had the information not been most vital, I would not have resorted to this means to get it.”

  His voice was formal, well-modulated, yet it had something in it akin to the tolling of a bell.

  “I am investigating,” he went on, “the murder of Frank Strome. You are probably aware that, coincident with that death, certain papers disappeared. You may or may not be aware of the contents of that file. Thank you for having given the dog the information.”

  And Sidney Zoom resumed his progress toward the street.

  But, over his shoulder, he could see the banker. That individual was reaching for the telephone. And the color of his face was whiter by several shades than when he had been showing his rage at an unwarranted interruption.

  Sidney Zoom strolled down the main street of Dellboro. He was conscious of eyes that turned to him in swift curiosity, of whispered comments that were made as he passed. News travels fast in a country community and word had passed about as to the identity of the owner of the strange craft that had slipped so quietly to a mooring. Sidney Zoom walked directly to the stairway which led to the offices of the county attorney. Those offices had been taken over by Carl Purcell when he had succeeded to the office upon the death of his superior. They were the same offices into which Sidney Zoom had entered during the dark hours of the early morning, following the trail of the mysterious young woman.

  Now Sidney Zoom surveyed those offices, looked about the street at the various store buildings, craned his neck upward at the cloudless blue of the sky.