He presented his forged credentials to the cashier of the Second National Affiliate, and it would have taken an expert some time to have detected the fact that the signature of Finley Carter was, in fact, a forgery.

  Perhaps had the signature been on a check, the matter would not have gone through quite so expeditiously, but being on a letter to the effect that the bearer was making an audit of Carter’s books in order to secure some information in connection with a refund from the income tax department, the signature was accepted without question. Within a matter of minutes, Sidney Zoom found himself ensconced in a little cubby-hole office, with the statements and vouchers pertaining to the account of

  Finley Carter before him.

  The account, as Zoom noticed, had been used just as Nell Benton had claimed— for the payment of housekeeping expenses. The account seldom went below three hundred dollars, and seldom above five. Checking over the date and amount of deposits, Zoom was able to ascertain that the millionaire lived unpretentiously and that his existence was governed by a methodic regularity.

  It was within the past few days that the account had suddenly broken from its conservative deposits and withdrawals. There were deposits which ran into the thousands, and two withdrawals had been made that had virtually cleaned out the account.

  Sidney Zoom armed himself with this information and then waited upon the cashier. “Can you tell me,” he said, “why it is that the account which ran around five hundred dollars for months has suddenly become very active in large amounts?”

  The cashier smiled.

  “Mr. Carter,” he said, “used this bank merely as a housekeeping convenience until quite recently. Then he had some trouble with the bank which handles his main business. There was a misunderstanding over something—I don’t know the exact nature of it, but Mr. Carter decided to give us more of his business.”

  “Would it,” asked Sidney Zoom, “be possible for you to tell me how you received this information?”

  “Over the telephone,” said the cashier. “And with whom were you talking?”

  “With Finley Carter himself.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Quite certain,” said the cashier. “I know his voice fully as well as I know his signature.”

  “The withdrawals,” Zoom pointed out, “are quite large and are virtually in the form of cash.”

  The cashier stared at him curiously.

  “Those also,” he said, “are okayed by telephone instructions from Mr. Carter.” Zoom bowed gravely.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I have completed my investigations here.” The cashier was overly polite.

  “You understand,” he said, “that we want to do everything we can to accommodate Mr. Carter. We consider his account a valuable one, and he can rest assured we will give him the very best of service.”

  “When I see Mr. Carter,” said Sidney Zoom, “I shall tell him that your cooperation with me has left nothing to be desired.”

  The clerk thanked him, and Sidney Zoom left the bank and entered his automobile. His forehead was furrowed in frowning concentration as he drove rapidly to the float where his yacht was moored.

  NELL BENTON, looking rather white, her eyes dark with mingled emotions, wore some lounging pajamas which Vera Thurmond had found for her and surveyed Sidney Zoom with puzzled eyes. Burt Samson, attired in his new suit, seemed somehow to be more certain of himself, to have taken on a certain added vitality which radiated from him in an atmosphere of positive assurance.

  Zoom nodded to Vera Thurmond.

  “I want you,” he said, “to ring the residence of Finley Carter. Tell whoever answers the phone that you’re one of the bookkeepers at the Second National Affiliate, that you desire to ask him a question about his account. Ask him if a check for twenty-two thousand dollars, issued to the Wheeling Construction Company, is regular. And I want you, Miss Benton, to listen on an extension telephone. I want you to listen carefully to the sound of Finley Carter’s voice. I want you to tell me if it sounds natural.”

  Nell Benton stared at him with eyes that grew wider.

  “Why, he couldn’t issue a check for twenty-two thousand dollars on that account,” she said. “He doesn’t keep anything in it except enough money for housekeeping.”

  “He’s keeping plenty in it now,” Sidney Zoom said grimly, “and apparently is keeping in constant communication with the bank over the telephone.”

  Vera Thurmond put through the call. The yacht had a private switchboard which was connected with a telephone cable at a private connection Zoom had arranged at the mooring float, and Zoom was able to listen on one extension while Nell Benton listened on the other. Vera Thurmond followed his instructions to the letter, making an inquiry about the validity of the check.

  Sidney Zoom, listening, could find no faintest trace of tension, no lack of spontaneity. The voice seemed edged with impatience as it announced that the validity of the check had already been confirmed in a telephone communication to the cashier. “I will,” said the voice with petulant impatience, “be forced to transfer my account

  if these telephone calls continue. Certainly the check is good. Checks that come in over my signature should be honored.”

  “Yes,” said Vera Thurmond in a patient voice, “but you see, the amount was rather large and the Wheeling Construction Company secured what was virtually a cash payment …”

  “What the devil do I care what they did with it?” rasped the voice. “The check was given to them for a consideration. I received the benefit of it. They’re entitled to the cash. That’s what the check is for. Any time you people feel that you can’t cash my checks, all you’ve got to do is to say so.”

  “It’s not that,” Vera Thurmond said sweetly, “but the fact that the check was rather large in its amount. We simply wanted to protect you and your account, Mr. Carter.”

  “The amount isn’t large,” said the voice, “that is, it’s not unusually large. My account is an active account and a large account.”

  “Thank you,” said Vera Thurmond, and hung up. Sidney Zoom glanced inquiringly at Nell Benton.

  “It’s his voice all right,” she said, “but I can’t understand it. I don’t think it’s like him to talk that way, and yet there can be no mistaking his voice.”

  “Did he sound as though he might be under a strain, or as though he were being threatened?” asked Sidney Zoom.

  She shook her head slowly.

  “No,” she said, “he sounded exactly natural—that is, his voice did—but I don’t think he would have adopted that attitude toward a check for that amount. There’s something funny about it.”

  Sidney Zoom nodded.

  “Just who of the servants,” he asked, “comes into personal contact with Finley Carter?”

  “The chauffeur,” she said, “doesn’t unless he’s called. Exter is in constant contact with him. The housekeeper comes when she’s summoned, otherwise she does the cooking and has charge of the house. A woman comes in to do the cleaning.”

  Zoom turned to Burt Samson.

  “Samson,” he said, “you will take this letter. The signature is forged. It purports to be a letter from Finley Carter, written to you some two weeks ago, asking you to be sure and drop in and see him when you arrive in the city. The dictation marks show that it was dictated to Nell Benton. No one else will know about it.”

  Samson stared curiously.

  “Carter will know about it, won’t he?” Zoom nodded.

  “Carter will know about it,” he said. “If Carter makes any trouble about it, you are to get in touch with me at once on the telephone. I will stand back of you. But I don’t think Carter is going to make any trouble about it. I don’t think you’re going to see Carter.”

  Samson nodded slowly.

  “What I want,” said Zoom, “is to find out just who it is that keeps you from seeing Carter.”

  Samson took the letter, slipped it in the inside pocket of his coat.

  “Okay,” he said, and moved purposefully toward the companionway. Food and clothes had made a big difference in him.

  When he had gone, Nell Benton said slowly, “What do you think has happened, Mr. Zoom?”

  Sidney Zoom’s voice was as crisp as the cracking of a lash.

  “There’s no question about what’s happened,” he said. “In some way, Exter planned to get complete control of Finley Carter. He knew that there were checks signed in advance and drawn on the housekeeping account that you supervised. Naturally, he wanted to get rid of you. He did that by seeing that you were accused of crime, and knew that Carter would discharge you. What I can’t understand is how he has been able to get Carter to talk over the telephone, unless he has an accomplice who is a very finished actor and who is able to mimic Carter’s tones over the telephone. That is the probable solution. We’ve got to get Burt Samson’s report in order to find out.”

  “But,” she pointed out, “Samson doesn’t know Finley Carter. They might have

  someone posing as Finley Carter and let Samson go in to see him.”

  “That,” said Sidney Zoom, “is why I phrased the forged letter so it would appear that Samson was quite intimately acquainted with Carter.”

  She frowned thoughtfully.

  “They wouldn’t try withdrawals from the bank where Carter regularly keeps his large deposits,” Zoom said slowly. “They started building up deposits in the Second National Affiliate, which probably has been very anxious to get Carter’s account.”

  She nodded slowly.

  “Should we,” she asked, “notify the police?” Zoom shook his head.

  “Not yet,” he said. “In the first place, we have nothing to go on except suspicions; in the second place, I am not entirely certain that Finley Carter has a generous disposition.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I am not entirely certain,” he said, “that he would make proper restitution to you.”

  “He wouldn’t,” she said. “He’s obstinate, and he’s tight.”

  “He pays plenty for his original paintings, doesn’t he?” Zoom asked.

  “Yes,” she said bitterly, “but that’s all he does pay out for. He never paid me a decent salary all the time I worked for him. I’d have gone to some other position if it hadn’t been that jobs were so scarce.”

  “Yet,” said Zoom slowly, “if we save Carter from exploitation at the hands of a bunch of crooks, we are entitled to a reward, and the fact remains that Carter, himself, will not care to pay that reward. Therefore, it remains for us to do it for him.”

  “You’re talking in enigmas,” she said. Zoom smiled at her.

  “Don’t worry about methods,” he said, “simply leave the entire thing to me.”

  CHAPTER IV

  An Interview

  SIDNEY ZOOM prided himself upon his ability to fight the devil with fire so adroitly as to leave no backtrack.

  Following Samson’s report that he had been curtly denied admission to the Finley Carter residence, despite the letter which he had produced, a letter which assertedly was signed by Carter himself, Sidney Zoom, attired in a neat-fitting, well-pressed business suit, presented himself at the door of the residence.

  “I,” he said, “am from the Second National Affiliate. I desire to discuss a matter with Mr. Carter personally.”

  The butler in the doorway eyed Sidney Zoom with cold suspicion. “Do you,” he asked, “know Mr. Carter personally?”

  Zoom appeared to notice nothing unusual in the question.

  “I am familiar with his signature,” he said. “I have heard his voice over the telephone.

  I have never met the gentleman.”

  The grim-faced hostility of the butler relaxed slightly. “And what did you wish to see Mr. Carter about?”

  “I merely wished to get his okay concerning certain withdrawals.”

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” said the butler with ponderous servility, “but I think that matter has been discussed with Mr. Carter over the telephone. He might become very much displeased if you took the matter up with him again.”

  “That,” said Zoom gravely, “is a chance I will have to take on behalf of the bank. Please tell him that Mr. George Coleridge, from the bank, is here to interview him.”

  Sidney Zoom gravely extracted a leather wallet from his pocket, took from it an embossed card, handed it, with something of a flourish, to the butler.

  The butler examined the card.

  “I see,” he said slowly. “George Coleridge, special investigator for the Second National Affiliate.”

  “Exactly,” said Sidney Zoom. “And will you please tell Mr. Carter that if he refuses a personal interview, his refusal may lead to banking complications.”

  Sidney Zoom’s smile was reassuring, but his eyes were steady.

  “Please step in and be seated,” said the butler. “I will take the matter up with Mr.

  Carter.”

  Zoom was ushered into a reception hallway, given a seat. The butler climbed a flight of stairs. Somewhere from the upper corridor, Zoom heard the deep-throated barking of a big dog, the slamming of a door. There followed an interval of silence, and then the thud of the butler’s returning feet became audible.

  “If you’ll be so kind as to step this way, sir,” he said, “Mr. Carter will be glad to give you a few moments. He is not feeling well and wishes you to make your visit as brief as possible.”

  Sidney Zoom surrounded himself with a cloak of banker-like dignity as he followed the butler up the stairs.

  A big police dog lay in front of a closed door. As he saw Sidney Zoom, he twisted his lips back from his fangs and gave a deep-throated growl, but made no motion to leave the door.

  The butler opened a door across the corridor.

  “Mr. Carter,” he said, with something of a flourish.

  A man, attired in bathrobe and pajamas, sat up in bed. Pillows were bolstered behind him. Both hands were concealed beneath the covers of the bed. His eyes were deep-set and glittered irascibly. When he spoke, his voice had the distinctive rasping harshness that Zoom had heard over the telephone.

  “You’re Coleridge,” he said, “from the Second National Affiliate?” Sidney Zoom bowed.

  “What I want to know,” said the man, “is what the devil you folks mean by making so much commotion about a few ordinary withdrawals. I gave you an account some time ago. You thought it wasn’t large enough and kept asking me to give you more of my accounts. Recently I decided to do it. You’ve made so much commotion about it that one would think a check for more than one hundred dollars never went through your bank oftener than once a year.”

  Zoom’s smile was reassuring.

  “Hardly that, Mr. Carter,” he said, “but, you understand we’re a branch bank. The parent bank desired a report. I’m from the parent bank.”

  “I don’t give a damn who you’re from,” the other said. “You’re making a confounded nuisance out of yourself. I’m putting money in your bank. I have a right to draw it out whenever I wish. I’m putting in some rather large deposits. I want to withdraw them whenever I want to.”

  “The deposits are made only with a rubber stamp endorsement,” Sidney Zoom pointed out.

  “That’s the way deposits are made in any active account,” Carter said. “That’s the way nine-tenths of your commercial houses make their deposits. The withdrawals are all made by checks that bear my personal signature.”

  “I have here a list of withdrawals,” said Sidney Zoom. “Would you mind okaying them?”

  The man sighed with annoyance.

  “Very well,” he said, “but I’m playing a correspondence chess game, and you’re making me so mad I can’t concentrate on it the way I want to.”

  He indicated a chess board on the table beside the bed, a chess board on which men had been arranged. A pawn or two had been moved. Aside from that, the men were arrayed in two rows on opposite sides of the board.

  Sidney Zoom stared thoughtfully at the board. “Rather a peculiar opening,” he said.

  “It’s the opening I like to play,” the other told him.

  Zoom handed over the list. The long, thin fingers of the other man checked off the withdrawals.

  “All correct,” he said, “and all in order.”

  “Would you sign it?” asked Sidney Zoom.

  “No,” snarled the other, “I won’t sign it. I’ve given you enough of my time. You’ve had my okay over the telephone. You’ve got my signed checks. I’ve gone over this and okayed it. If you don’t like it, I’ll take my account out of your bank and put it somewhere where it’s appreciated.”

  Sidney Zoom bowed.

  “Very well,” he said, “and thank you.”

  Turning, he walked toward the door with rigid dignity.

  The rasping voice of the man on the bed called to him as he reached the door. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate your interest, Coleridge,” he said, “I do. I know

  you’re just safeguarding my money, but I want the privilege of withdrawing checks from my own account in my own way.”

  Sidney Zoom’s bow was grave. “Thank you,” he said.

  CHAPTER V

  A Trap Is Baited

  SIDNEY ZOOM was never happier than when he was concentrating upon some mental problem.

  He raised his long, thin legs to place his feet on the table in the dining salon. His eyes glittered with concentration. His fingers were interlaced across his thin stomach. “An impostor,” he said, “a rank impostor. I find that there have been very few

  pictures of Finley Carter taken.”

  “Yes,” Nell Benton said, “he was suspicious of cameras.”

  “But I nevertheless located one,” Zoom said. “This man looks something like him, but he isn’t Carter. Moreover, Carter is a chess expert. The man who has engineered this crime knows nothing about chess. Knowing that Carter was a chess player, the man sought to impress me by having a chess atmosphere about the room. A chess board sat at the side of the table. Some men had been moved, but they weren’t in the position in which players would have moved them. Moreover, the white queen had been placed on the black square instead of the white.”