In the main cabin, Sidney Zoom paced back and forth, irritably, impatiently.

  At a table, Vera Thurmond, his secretary, regarded him with eyes that were warm and maternal, despite the fact that she was some five years his junior.

  Seated beside Vera Thurmond, her eyes filled with gratitude, was Ruby Allison. “I really can’t let you do this for me,” she said. “I know enough about law to know

  that you are likely to get in serious trouble over this.”

  Zoom shook his head with a single swift gesture of impatience, and continued pacing the floor.

  At the forward end of the cabin, a radio with loudspeaker made little sputtering noises of static.

  “Why the devil don’t they discover the body?” said Sidney Zoom.

  There was no answer. The two young women stared at him in silence. Something in the very impatient savagery of the man made them keep a watchful silence.

  Abruptly, there was the whirring noise of a siren whistle over the radio. Then a masculine voice said:

  “Calling all cars for a further report on the shooting at the Richmore Apartments.” Sidney Zoom breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Here it comes,” he said.

  The masculine voice droned through facts in a weary monotone. “The man who fired the shots and who gave the name of Richard Horton, and who claimed to be a tenant in the building, has been identified positively as Paul Stapleton, in charge of narcotic investigations relating to incoming ocean liners. A check-up on the tenants of the Richmore Apartments showed that a Ruby Allison had apartment 35B, and was employed by Paul Stapleton in the capacity of stenographer and secretary.

  “When she failed to answer her door, detectives effected an entrance and found the dead body of Frank Venard, a private detective, lying sprawled on the floor. Venard had evidently been shot, but there was no weapon found within the apartment. “The ballistic department is making a series of experiments with the gun found in the possession of Paul Stapleton, to determine if the bullet was fired from that gun. “In the meantime, all cars are warned to be on the lookout for Ruby Allison, a young woman, age twenty-three, height five feet four and a half inches, weight one hundred and seventeen pounds, hair dark, eyes dark. When last seen, wearing a tweed coat. She has been traced to the Union Depot, and positively identified as having purchased a ticket for Midvale; but a search of the train discloses that she did not remain on the train, but evidently left it en route. She is wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of Frank Venard.

  “We will repeat the description of the girl: Ruby Allison …”

  Sidney Zoom strode to the instrument and snapped over the switch which cut it off.

  “That,” he said, “is that.”

  The two women stared at him in silence.

  “Now,” said Sidney Zoom, “it remains to collect from Stapleton.”

  “How do you mean?” asked Vera Thurmond.

  “I mean,” he said, “that I am convinced the story told me by Miss Allison is correct, and that it is true in every particular. It remains, therefore, for me to assess some contribution against Paul Stapleton—a contribution which will compensate this young woman in some measure for the publicity, the humiliation, and the expense which will doubtless become necessary in connection with securing legal representation.”

  He turned and strode purposefully toward the door.

  Rip, the police dog, who had been lying by the radio, raised his head and cocked his ears inquiringly.

  Sidney Zoom shook his head.

  “No, Rip,” he said, “you are going to stay there. This is one time when I must resort to subterfuge and disguise.”

  “You’re not going to do anything dangerous?” asked Vera Thurmond anxiously. Sidney Zoom smiled grimly at her.

  “Everything that one does is dangerous,” he said. “And perhaps the most certain way to court danger is to try to avoid it. The man who allows his style to be cramped because he fears consequences, is one who never gets any place.”

  Sidney Zoom pushed his way out into the early dawn, and if he was conscious of the warm tenderness in the eyes of Vera Thurmond, he did not show it, but strode grimly forth as a warrior going into battle, his mind concentrated only upon a plan of attack.

  THE sun was not yet up, but there was sufficient light to show something of color. The East was blazing into a golden hue. Birds were commencing to flit restlessly about from house top to tree top. The air was fresh, buoyant and life-giving.

  Sidney Zoom strode entirely around the house of Paul Stapleton, paused before the side door of the house, and gave the lock some careful attention. A moment later he inserted a skeleton key, and twisted the bolt back. He stepped into the house and listened. There was no sound.

  Zoom knew that there was at least one servant in the house. He also knew that the servant would have no hesitancy about shooting first and asking questions afterwards. Therefore, Sidney Zoom made no attempt at being quiet.

  He adjusted a mask over his features, slipped a revolver into his right hand, and stepped into a closet which opened from the library. He saw that there was ample room for concealment in this closet, then boldly walked out into the center of the library, and toppled over a bookcase.

  The books fell to the floor with a terrific crash of breaking glass, splintering wood and thudding volumes.

  Zoom stepped back and waited.

  He had not long to wait. There was the sound of hurried steps running down the stairs, and then the figure of the man who had stood at the elbow of Paul Stapleton the night before entered the room. The man was attired in pajamas and slippers, and carried a heavy caliber revolver in his right hand.

  Zoom, hiding in the closet, his eyes glued to a crack between the partially open door and the casement, saw the man enter the room; saw the expression of puzzled bewilderment on his face; then saw the expression of bewilderment gradually change to one of annoyance. The gun was slightly lowered as the man stepped forward to inspect the damage.

  He looked around the room, then bent over the wreckage of the bookcase and the scattered books. Sidney Zoom pushed the door of the closet open and noiselessly stepped out. The first intimation that the man had of Zoom’s presence was when the muzzle of Zoom’s gun made a cold pressure against the back of the bare neck.

  “Stick ’em up!” said Zoom.

  The man grew rigid. For a moment he hesitated, then slowly his hands moved up in the air.

  “Drop the gun,” Zoom told him.

  The gun dropped, struck a book, glanced and skidded along the floor. “Put your hands behind your back with your wrists together,” Zoom said.

  When his command had been obeyed, Zoom took handcuffs from his hip pocket, fitted them over the wrists and clicked them shut.

  “Now,” said Zoom, “you can tell me where Stapleton had the marked money concealed.”

  The man turned a curious head over his shoulder, saw the tall form, with the mask covering the features.

  “There wasn’t any marked money,” he said. Sidney Zoom laughed, and the laugh was grim. “Do you know?” he asked.

  “Of course I don’t know. I tell you there wasn’t any.”

  Sidney Zoom spoke after the manner of one who thinks out loud.

  “Not the usual servant,” he said. “Either an intimate of your master or one of the conspirators who works with him.”

  The man grunted a comment that caused Zoom to prod his pistol into the tender short ribs.

  “That’ll do,” he said. “Shut up if you can’t speak decently.”

  The man winced, and Zoom’s hawk-like eyes looked swiftly around the room. “Were you here,” he asked, “when the search was made?”

  The man muttered a grudging assent.

  “Did they, perhaps,” asked Sidney Zoom, “look through the books in the library?”

  “They looked everywhere,” he said. “They searched this house from top to bottom. They spilled books all over the floor, tore up carpets, pounded walls, pulled out the casements from the windows and examined the window weights. They looked everywhere.”

  Zoom laughed grimly.

  “That,” he said, “makes it nice. It only remains for me to conduct a very limited search.”

  Curiosity mastered the handcuffed man. “How do you mean?” he asked.

  “Simply,” said Sidney Zoom, “that they have looked in all of the likely hiding places. It only remains for me to look in the unlikely hiding places.”

  The man’s laugh was sarcastic. “They looked everywhere,” he said.

  “Well,” said Sidney Zoom, “we might as well look the house over a little bit. Come on and march around. Remember that I’m behind you with a gun. If you make any funny moves, I’m going to smack the barrel of this gun down on the top of your head, unless I should think the situation calls for sterner reprisals.”

  “Where do you want to go?” asked the other.

  “Oh, just lead the way around the house,” said Sidney Zoom.

  The man started walking, his slippered feet shuffling along the floor. Behind him came Sidney Zoom, gun held ready, hawk-like eyes sweeping the premises in glittering appraisal. Sidney Zoom, however, said nothing. His every faculty was concentrated upon looking over the house, inspecting the various rooms through which they passed.

  It was when they entered a room on the third floor that Sidney Zoom suddenly showed interest.

  “What’s this room?” he asked. “The master’s bedroom.”

  “Why does he sleep on the third floor?”

  “I don’t know—because he wants to, I guess.” Zoom looked the room over.

  He glanced about him for a moment. Then he started talking, and his voice was the expressionless monotone of one who is thinking aloud.

  “As I size up your master,” he said, “he’s a man who would want to have the money near him at all times. He’s a man who would be very much inclined to hide any valued possession close to his sleeping quarters.”

  His answer was a sarcastic laugh.

  Zoom paid no attention to the laugh, but stood in the center of the room, looking around it.

  “Obviously,” he said, still speaking in the same monotone of one who is thinking aloud, “the obvious and likely places have been searched. Therefore, it remains to look for some place that would have naturally escaped search.”

  “They took this room to pieces,” said the man, and there was a trace of bitterness in his voice.

  “And found nothing?”

  “And found nothing.”

  Sidney Zoom stepped to the window, looked out into the well-kept yard. The sun had gilded the roof and tree tops. Birds were fluttering about, chirping and singing.

  Abruptly, Zoom stiffened to attention.

  The room was in a tower which looked out upon the lower portions of the roof. Some ten feet away was a rigid mast, some eight or ten feet in height, and on the top of this mast was a little platform decorated by a bird house.

  “Who put that up?” he asked. “Mr. Stapleton,” said the man.

  Sidney Zoom stared steadily at the bird house.

  “Now Stapleton,” he mused, “is the type of man who ordinarily wouldn’t be interested in birds. His temperament is cruel, cold, supercilious and mocking. He’s the type of man who is intensely cold-blooded and self-centered. Yet he’s very intelligent. Therefore, I wonder …”

  Sidney Zoom’s voice trailed away into silence. He looked about him, staring once more at the bedroom itself.

  The eyes of the handcuffed man were fastened upon Sidney Zoom with intense interest.

  Abruptly, Sidney Zoom pointed to a long bamboo pole which was suspended on pegs along the side of the room.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “A fishing pole,” said the man. “Can’t you see?”

  Sidney Zoom nodded, but his nod was preoccupied. He strode to the pole and inspected it.

  There was a reel on the pole. The line was heavy. The guides for the line were placed closely together, and were of the best material. The thing which was most noticeable, however, was the fact that the pole did not come to a tapering tip, as is usually the case, but had been cut off where the rod was still quite thick.

  “That’s not a casting rod,” said Sidney Zoom. The handcuffed man said nothing.

  Sidney Zoom took the rod from its pegs and balanced it in his hand.

  “Too stiff,” he said, “for fishing with bait. Not built right for a casting rod. I wonder …”

  He took the hook on the end of the line between his thumb and forefinger, and inspected it.

  “A hook,” he said, “that’s heavy enough to land a shark.”

  He walked to the window, peered out once more and abruptly chuckled.

  “My dear James,” he said, “do you, by any chance, happen to notice the ring in the top of the bird house?”

  The handcuffed man forgot his hostility in order to peer in sudden curiosity. “I think,” said Sidney Zoom, “that I will show you a little high-class fishing.”

  He pushed the end of the fishing pole out of the window, shortened the line on the reel until the hook hung down but a few inches below the tip of the pole. It took but a moment to drop the hook inside of the ring on the bird house.

  Sidney Zoom held the reel with the fingers of his right hand. With his left hand he lifted the pole. The pole bent slightly. Then the entire bird house lifted from the wooden platform. Thus he brought it into the room, disengaged the ring from the hook, and set the bird house on the table.

  He inspected the miniature structure for a moment, then manipulated two clasps, and the entire roof lifted clear. It was entirely filled with sheafed currency.

  The handcuffed man lurched forward, his breath coming in a hissing exclamation. Zoom whirled and the gun jabbed into the man’s stomach.

  “Careful,” he warned. “Get back there!”

  The man stared at the treasure in the bird house with bulging eyes and a sagging jaw. “Cripes!” he said. “And I put in three days searching every place in the house I could think of, to try and find it.”

  Zoom nodded.

  “Quite so,” he said. “I figured you for that kind.”

  Almost casually he pocketed the bank notes. When he had finished, he fitted the fish hook into the ring, put the bird house back into position, shook the hook free, pulled the fishing pole back, and placed it once more on the pegs.

  “When you see your master,” he said, “you might tell him that his cache was robbed. However, I don’t think that you’ll do it, because as soon as you do, your master is going to think that you were the guilty party. Moreover, I think it’s going to be some time before you see your master. I fancy he’s going to be detained by the police on a murder charge. However, if you should see him, and if you should tell him, I rather fancy he’ll choose to remain silent about the entire matter.

  “If,” said Zoom, “Paul Stapleton should complain that he had been robbed, and if he should, by any chance, divulge the identity of the robber, and if the police should obtain any proofs of my complicity, they would at the same time secure the proof of bribery and corruption on the part of Stapleton that they have been searching for.

  “You might call those matters to Mr. Stapleton’s attention, in the event you should advise him of his misfortune, although, as I’ve said before, I don’t think you will, because Stapleton would immediately jump at the conclusion you had been the one to rob him.”

  Zoom bowed affably to the enraged individual.

  “As I go out the front door,” he said, “I will drop the key to the handcuffs on the hall carpet. You can find it and eventually free yourself. It will take a bit of patient manipulation to get the key into the lock. I would suggest that you hold it in your teeth and try turning it, by twisting the arms.

  “In the meantime, I have the honor to wish you a very good morning, my dear James.”

  SIDNEY ZOOM sat in his stateroom on the yacht.

  Across the table from him, Ruby Allison stared at the pile of bank notes with bulging eyes.

  “But,” she said, “it wouldn’t be right.” Sidney Zoom laughed sarcastically.

  “You know that it’s right,” he said. “What you mean is that you’re afraid of man-made laws. As a matter of fact, you are the one who is entitled to this money. You admit that it’s bribe money. It could never be returned to the persons who had put it up. Obviously, Paul Stapleton shouldn’t be allowed to keep it. Moreover, Stapleton has done you a great wrong. He has, as it happens, walked into his own trap, but that was due to the fact he fell for the bait which I held out to him. If it hadn’t been for that, you would have been a fugitive from justice right now, charged with murder.

  “Law is but a man-made attempt to secure justice. In many instances, laws fall down because it is impossible to anticipate all of the complexities of human conduct. Those are the cases in which I interest myself. I endeavor to do substantial justice, without regard to laws.”

  He pushed the currency toward her. “But how about you?” she asked.

  Sidney Zoom smiled patiently.

  “I,” he said, “have had a very interesting night’s adventure, and now, if you’ll pardon, I’ll retire.”

  He arose from his chair, moved swiftly to the door of the stateroom, turned to smile at the young woman, nod at Vera Thurmond, then jerked the door open, stepped out of the stateroom and slammed the door behind him.

  Ruby Allison looked in stupefied wonder at Vera Thurmond. “But,” she said, “I don’t understand the man.”

  Vera Thurmond’s laugh was wistful.

  “You could,” she said, “be with him for years, without doing that. You could respect and admire him, but you’d never understand him.”

  Her eyes were bright.

  STOLEN THUNDER

  CHAPTER I

  Samson’s Strange Job

  SIDNEY ZOOM hated routine with a bitter hatred.

  Night after night, his police dog at his side, he prowled through those sections of the city where human misery came crawling forth with the hours of darkness. His eyes, which could be cold and savage at times, were filled with ready sympathy as he peered into the dark shadows of the city where human flotsam was deposited by the tide of economic struggle.