The detective stared again, grunted: “Okay. C’mon in. I’ll see if he wants to see you. What’d you want to see him about?”

  Sidney Zoom strode into the store. He passed a knot of detectives chatting, smoking, came to a huge safe where a fingerprint man was dusting white powder over the black steel surface. Then he saw Huntley, slumped down in a chair.

  He walked to the jeweler.

  “Can you sell me a diamond bracelet with your price mark still on it?” he asked. Huntley looked at him, moistened his flabby lips and said, vacantly, “Huh?” The officer tugged at Zoom’s arm.

  “That ain’t what you said you wanted to see him about,” he complained. “Because,” said Zoom, “if you will, I think I can clear this case up.” Huntley got to his feet.

  “What’s that?” he asked. “How can you clear it up? What are you talking about?” Zoom shrugged his shoulders, took out a well filled wallet.

  “I am only asking,” he said, “that you sell me a bracelet or some rather expensive bit of jewelry that has your price mark on it.”

  Huntley growled.

  “The store ain’t open.”

  Zoom said: “I think I can get you your property back if you give me some cooperation.”

  The detective stared at him. Huntley moved toward the safe. “Gimme that tray,” he said. “The one with the bracelets on it.” He selected a bracelet at random and said: “Four fifty.”

  Sidney Zoom passed over the money.

  He took the bracelet, started for the door. One of the detectives gripped his arm. Zoom shook him free. He walked out of the store. The detective hesitated, started to follow, then turned back. Zoom went out of the door, to his car. The detective went back into the store.

  Zoom started the motor. He was smiling, but it was the grim smile of a fighter who is about to encounter some welcome conflict. The white-haired woman watched him speculatively.

  “Are you a friend of Harry’s?” she asked. He nodded. “Yes. The name is Zoom.”

  She frowned and said: “I don’t believe he’s ever spoken of you. Are you a close friend?” Zoom said: “I’m a friend now that he’s in need. That makes me a friend indeed.” She smiled at him, a warm, maternal smile.

  “Do you know,” she said, “I believe you are going to get Harry out of this trouble.

  I have a hunch. Do you believe in hunches?”

  “Certainly,” said Zoom.

  She nodded and settled back.

  “You can look very stern when you want to,” she remarked, “but I think you’ve got a kind heart. Go right ahead, young man. If I can help you, let me know.”

  Sidney Zoom piloted the car to the apartment house where he had seen the man with the red necktie go on up the stairs.

  “I’m going,” he said, “to run a bluff, and a big one. It may work. It may not. If it works everything will be fine. If it doesn’t you may have to take this car and call the police. Tell them I went into that apartment house with my dog. Give me fifteen minutes. If I’m not out then, give the alarm to the police.”

  He left the car, motioned to the dog.

  “I’ve got a hunch it’ll be all right,” said the woman, as Zoom strode up the steps of the apartment house.

  The manager was a woman, not young, not good looking, and not good natured. She pulled a scanty robe about her ample figure and glowered at Sidney Zoom. In the end she gave him the information that he was after. The man who answered the description of the one Zoom had picked up on the street had the apartment on the top floor, well to the back. The number was fifteen.

  Zoom went up, and the dog went at his side, tail waving proudly.

  Zoom indicated the door of the apartment to the dog. Then he placed the article of jewelry he had purchased from Huntley in the dog’s mouth. He bent forward and made a gesture with his hand, as though scratching on the door.

  The dog watched him with ears cocked rigidly upright. Zoom made another motion with his hand. “Bark,” he whispered. The dog barked. The bracelet fell to the floor. Zoom motioned toward it and the dog picked it up. Zoom scratched on the door. He repeated this operation until he heard someone stirring on the inside of the room.

  When he heard bare feet hit the floor, Zoom whispered a word of command to the dog, ran down the hall. The dog, obedient to that whispered command, remained at the door. As the bolt clicked back and the door opened, Sidney Zoom came running up the steps, as though he had been exerting himself to the limit of his endurance. He was puffing and blowing, and the sound of his breathing filled the hall.

  The man, who was attired in pajamas, stared at the spectacle of the dog on his threshold, and the man who was puffing his way down the corridor. The light which came from the apartment glittered from the bracelet that the dog held in his teeth.

  Sidney Zoom raced down the carpeted corridor. The man looked from the dog to the master, then recognition dawned on his face. It was a recognition that was uncordial, gave way to downright concern. Sidney Zoom, on the other hand, let his face break into smiles.

  “Well, well, so that’s the explanation,” he said. “The dog managed to trail you after all!” The man gruffed a hostile question.

  “What’re you talkin’ about?” he demanded.

  Zoom grinned, the grin of a man who has done a favor for which he will be rewarded.

  “When you got out of the car,” he said, “you dropped this. I called to you, but you’d gone out of sight in the hotel. It took me a minute to get the car parked, and get into the hotel. I didn’t have your name, but I described you to the clerk. He said you weren’t registered there. He remembered having seen you come in, he said, but knew you weren’t registered.

  “I had something of an argument about it with him, and then remembered that the dog was trained to return lost property. I gave the bracelet to him, told him to find you. He remembered your odor, of course. They’ve got wonderful noses, these dogs. “I thought he’d go to the elevators, but he didn’t. He went to the side door and

  barked. I gave him his head. He led me here, but it was a long chase.” The man gasped.

  “That’s impossible!” he said. “The dog couldn’t have followed me. I was in a cab.” Sidney Zoom’s smile was patronizing.

  “That doesn’t make any difference. Here you are, and the dog found you. I thought maybe I was going to have to consult the store that had sold you the bracelet, for your address, though. You see it’s Huntley & Cobb. They’re big jewelers. I figured you’d bought the bracelet there today and they’d have your address.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed ominously. He stared at the bracelet. “It’s got their name on it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Zoom, “on the tag.”

  “I never saw it before,” said the man in pajamas.

  Zoom laughed as though the matter were a fine joke. “That’s a good one,” he said, “when I saw you drop it. That’s rich! A man dropping a five-hundred-dollar trinket and then saying he had never seen it before!”

  After a moment the man in pajamas joined in the laugh. He laughed heavily and mirthlessly.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Sidney Zoom walked into the room. The dog followed, caught a motion from Sidney Zoom’s signalling hand, and flopped down in a corner. The apartment was a one room and a kitchenette affair. The bed pulled out from the wall and let down. There was a bathroom which opened off the bedroom, and the bottom of the door joined the threshold loosely enough so that a ribbon of light came through from under the door.

  Sidney Zoom noticed that there were twin blotches of shadow in this ribbon of light, that these blotches moved slightly. He noticed, also, that there were two pillows on the bed, pillows which lay side by side, and each pillow contained the impression of a head.

  The man sat down on the edge of the bed, took the bracelet.

  “You want a reward,” he said, as though making a statement rather than asking a question.

  Zoom shook his head.

  “Not at all. It was a relief to find the owner. I was going to get in touch with the jewelry company.”

  The man nodded his head.

  “Well, it’s mighty nice of you. I’m Rogers, an exporter of gems, and an importer. I buy and sell and deal all sorts of ways. The reason that bracelet has the price mark on it is that it was a sample that was offered me in connection with rather a large order.”

  Zoom stretched his arms, yawned, laughed. “How about the others you have?” he asked. “What others?”

  “Don’t try to fool me. That lie chained you up with the robbery. You lured Harry Dupree into a position where you could make it seem the job was done by him. I presume the reason you did that is that you’re connected with the firm in some way, and you knew it’d be tagged as an inside job right from the jump. So you figured you’d get someone for a fall guy.”

  The man got from the edge of the bed. His eyes were narrowed to mere slits. “Are you accusing me?” he asked.

  “Who in hell did you think I was accusing?” asked Sidney Zoom easily. “You planted some evidence on Dupree, left him where he’d be found and promptly suspected. You lifted the loot.”

  The man laughed, a laugh of cold scorn. “Prove it,” he said.

  Sidney Zoom chuckled.

  “That’s a nice way to express a challenge. And I rather think I shall prove it! You know I’m something of an opportunist in the field of crime detection. When I walked into this room I hadn’t the slightest idea of how I was going about the proof of this particular crime. I wanted to make certain of your identity by seeing if you’d identify the bracelet as something that belonged to you. As soon as you did that, you branded yourself as the crook. You stole so much stuff that you naturally couldn’t remember the various items. As soon as you saw the tag price of Huntley & Cobb on this bracelet you were willing to accept my statement that you’d dropped it, at its face value.

  “But, do you know, now I’ve got an idea of a very fine way in which I can pin the crime on you and recover the stolen property.”

  Sidney Zoom reached for his pocket.

  The man exploded into swift action. His hand jerked out from behind his back. He held a gun which he had slid into his hand as he sat on the edge of the bed, worming it out from under the pillow.

  “Is that so?” he snarled. “Get your hands up, you damned dick!” Sidney Zoom stared into the gun.

  “Get ’em up, I say!”

  Zoom elevated his hands. As he raised them, he said:

  “All right, Rip.”

  The police dog went from the floor into a long spring. His lips were back from the glistening fangs. The tawny eyes glittered with menace. A throaty growl emerged from his throat.

  The man with the gun whirled the weapon. Sidney Zoom snapped his hands down and lunged forward. Zoom, the police dog and the man with the gun all tangled in one simultaneous merger of motion which swept the man back on the bed, thudded the gun to the floor.

  Zoom slipped handcuffs from his pocket, snapped them on the man’s wrist. And he snapped the other handcuff around the steam pipe on the radiator.

  The man snarled at him: “You still haven’t proved anything!”

  Zoom laughed. “Come, come, not with this murderous attack of yours? And then there’s the matter of the gun. You’ve been using that gun somewhere. Probably in some other stick-up, or perhaps a killing somewhere. My dog detected the odor of powder in the barrel. These dogs have keen powers of smell, but, even so, I would say the gun had been fired within forty-eight hours, and had not been cleaned afterwards. The police will probably be interested in that gun, and in your possession of it.”

  The man, chained to the radiator, moved uneasily, and the handcuff rasped up and down the steam pipe as he moved. Sidney Zoom stole a glance at the bathroom door. The ribbon of light still showed under the door, and the two blobs which were made by the feet of a person standing inside the bathroom, just against the door, had moved their position somewhat, but were still visible.

  “You haven’t found the stuff that was taken from the jewelry store, and you can’t find it!” said the man. “Until you find it you can’t convict me of anything.”

  Zoom shrugged his shoulders.

  “That’s a problem for the police. I have no doubt you concealed it rather cleverly. I’ll get the police here and they can figure that angle of it out for themselves. I’ve just made certain, my friend, that you’ll be here when the police arrive, that’s all.”

  And he beckoned to the dog, strode to the door of the apartment.

  “Ain’t you going to search here?” asked the man, obviously disappointed. “No,” said Zoom. “That’s a job for the police.”

  Chuckling, he strode out of the apartment and pulled the door shut behind him. The lock clicked into place. Sidney Zoom strode rapidly down the corridor, down the stairs, out into the night. The white-haired woman looked at him anxiously.

  “Did you get anything?” she asked.

  Zoom got into the roadster, started the motor, ran half a block to an alley, backed into the alley and turned off his headlights.

  “I can’t tell just yet. I think I did. I’m gambling on my judgment of character and on a guess as to what happened. I think that we’ll see some action pretty soon.”

  He waited for less than two minutes. Then the door of the apartment house opened. A trimly formed feminine figure stepped out into the night. She carried a little handbag in her hand, and she walked rapidly, with swiftly nervous steps that sent her heels click-clacking against the cement of the sidewalk.

  She walked in the direction of Zoom’s car, and Sidney Zoom watched her curiously as a street light illuminated her features. She was pretty, yet the prettiness was a bold, brazen type of beauty which would soon dissolve under the unkind hand of ruthless time into a coarseness of feature and a hardness of eye.

  In the meantime she was something which would cause masculine eyes to turn and follow her in appraisal and approval. Her clothes were cut so as to accentuate the feminine lines of her form. The dress was very short and the legs were encased in black silk stockings. The legs were slender at the ankles, well molded. She wore a hat which was pulled down on her head, a brimless little hat that served as a bit of color for the blond hair which tendrilled out on the sides. The hat was a vivid red. The eyes were dark and large, the nose straight, the lips thick.

  That much Sidney Zoom saw of her, and then she walked past the circle of illumination, past the alley where his car was parked.

  Sidney Zoom waited a moment and started the motor. He didn’t turn on the lights. The car slid softly and smoothly out of the dark alley into the street. The form of the woman, walking rapidly, was visible some half block ahead.

  The dog, crouched on the back seat, sensing the object of the chase, whined softly. The white-haired woman asked a question. It went unheeded. She settled back on the cushions of the seat.

  The girl paused in her rapid walk. Sidney Zoom promptly slid the car to a stop. The girl looked back, then peered about her. She was standing in front of a brick wall which surrounded a private dwelling. She moved her hand, as though counting bricks. Then she moved her shoulder, leaned against the brick wall.

  Sidney Zoom pushed his car into sudden speed.

  He snapped on the headlights. They showed the young woman standing before the brick wall from which a loose brick had been pulled. There was a dark cavity back of this loose brick, and she was sweeping the contents of that cavity into the little handbag that she carried.

  “All right, Rip,” said Sidney Zoom. “Catch her. Hold her!”

  The dog’s claws rattled on the polished fender as he scrambled into a position from which he could leap. As he sailed through the air, Sidney Zoom stopped the car, flung open the door and stepped to the sidewalk. There was a police whistle in his lips. He blew it loudly.

  The girl started to run.

  The dog, dashing along, belly close to the sidewalk, overtook her, got in front of her, crouched, growled, snapped up his head and caught her skirt in his teeth.

  Coming along behind her, Sidney Zoom said, quite courteously: “Really, there’s nothing you can do. You can’t escape. You’d better be nice about it.”

  She whirled to stare at him from black, sullen eyes. Her thick lips opened and rasped forth a curse. Somewhere in the night, a block or so away, sounded an answering police whistle. Sidney Zoom blew his own whistle once more.

  The girl moved toward him, smiling seductively.

  “Listen, big boy,” she smirked, moving so that her body was close to that of Sidney Zoom. “You and me can reach an understanding …”

  Sidney Zoom turned away. The girl rasped another expletive and sent her hand flashing to the front of her dress. The dog growled ominously.

  Sidney Zoom said, casually, speaking over his shoulder: “I wouldn’t. He’ll leave teeth marks on your arm if you pull a gun. He might even break the skin, and that wouldn’t be so good. There’d be an infection, perhaps.”

  A figure rounded the corner, running heavily but purposefully. The street light glinted on a badge and brass buttons.

  Sidney Zoom raised his voice and called: “This way, officer.” The white-haired woman got out of the car and stammered questions. The officer came running up. The young woman drew herself up scornfully.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll beat the rap. I always have so far, and I will this one.” Zoom shrugged his shoulders.

  “What is it?” asked the officer.

  Zoom opened the handbag. The street light showed a glittering array of jewelry of the finest quality. Sidney Zoom said: “She was the lure who kidded Harry Dupree into being at the mouth of an alley where her accomplice could crack down on him with a black-jack. They planted some stuff on him to make it seem he had robbed Huntley & Cobb.

  “This girl, and the man you’ll find in apartment fifteen at the apartment house a block or so down the road, robbed Huntley & Cobb of around twenty thousand dollars’ worth of jewels. They gave every one the slip and hid them in a place they’d arranged for in advance.

  “I figured out who the man was and called on him. From his manner I knew the jewels weren’t concealed in the apartment. I knew there must have been a female lure to have trapped Dupree. I saw that two people had been in the apartment and that someone was hiding in the bathroom, listening to my conversation. So I handcuffed the man in a position where he was helpless and walked out, telling him I was sending the police to pick him up.