The Casebook of Sidney Zoom
- Автор: Гарднер Эрл Стенли, Пронзини Билл
- Год: 2006
- Язык: английский
- Год: Crippen & Landru Publishers
- ISBN: 978-1-932009-47-7
- Жанр: Классические детективы
Электронная книга - «The Casebook of Sidney Zoom». Краткое содержание книги:
Among his toughest characters was Sidney Zoom, wealthy yacht-owner who prowls at night to help the downtrodden in the days of the Great Depression. “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.” “His soul craved combat,” Gardner writes, “as the soul of many men craves strong drink.”
The Casebook of Sidney Zoom is the first book-collection of the Zoom stories, and they show Gardner’s pulp style at it hard-hitting best.
The man was rattling out the words with no regard for the effect they might have. He gave the impression of telling the truth.
Sidney Zoom stared at him.
“When was your twenty-four hours to be up?” he asked.
“At nine o’clock tonight.”
“Who was the fence you dealt with?”
“Sol Asher. He’s got a pawnshop on Harrison Avenue.”
“Ever seen anybody besides Asher — any of the gang?”
“No. Not a one.”
“You contacted them through Asher, made all the arrangements through him?”
“Yes.”
“How did you happen to meet Asher?”
“I used him to pawn my stuff through. Remember I’d been taking a stone or two on my own hook when I needed the money. I figured it was safe for a while. Then, when they were going to take inventory, I had to do something. I asked Asher for advice. Maybe Asher knew I had been dabbling, but he didn’t pass on the information to the gang.”
Sidney Zoom let his eyes narrow.
“Then at nine o’clock tonight, or before, you were to be at Asher’s place with the missing stones?”
“Yes.”
Zoom nodded.
“Okay. Where do you live?”
“At a little apartment in the Monadnock Apartments. That’s off Central Avenue.”
“Asher know where you live?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“What’s the number of your apartment?”
“Three hundred and ten.”
Chapter VII
In Apartment 310
Sidney Zoom nodded his head, went to the chair, released the straps. He had to give Edgar Carver a hand to assist him from the chair. The erstwhile dapper clerk was as weak as a half drowned kitten. He could hardly stand when he had got to his feet.
“I will have to take steps to see that you are quiet,” said Sidney Zoom, “while I make an investigation.”
And he led Carver into a small cabin, stretched him out on a couch, mixed a glass of whiskey and ginger ale, shook in a white powder.
“Drink this,” he said. “It will soothe your nerves.”
The man drained the glass.
He was nervous, weak. From time to time, he shivered, as with cold, moaned.
“What a mess! There’s no way out. I’d better kill myself. And I thought I was so smart. I’m in the power of the gang, in your power, in the power of a crooked fence. They can all kill — kill me, and they’re going to kill me, too. There’s no escape! I don’t mind dying so much as that cursed electric chair. Good God! I nearly died when you opened that door and sent me into that room. I’d thought of the chair before, but I never dreamt it was so hideous, so sinister!”
Sidney Zoom stared at him sternly.
“You knew that crime doesn’t pay. You knew that sooner or later all criminals come to grief. It’s just a question of time. Yet you went blindly rushing into the crime web, floundering deeper and deeper. And, even now, you’re not sorry for what you’ve done. You’re only sorry you got caught. And you’ve got sympathy for yourself — none for that unfortunate girl you strangled with your greedy fingers.”
Carver tried to sneer, but the sneer was a failure.
“You talk like one of those damned reformers,” he said. “Lots of crooks make a good living, and they don’t get caught. I just didn’t get the breaks, that’s all. I had bad luck. I... shouldn’t be... shouldn’t be... blamed...”
And his head dropped on the pillow and he slept.
Sidney Zoom knew exactly the strength of the sleeping powder he had given the man. He knew almost to the hour when the man would awaken.
He walked to the front part of the yacht, rapped on the door of a cabin.
“Yes?” called the deep, rich voice of his secretary, Vera Thurmond.
“I have a man asleep in the guest cabin,” said Sidney Zoom. “He will probably not waken before midnight. But he is not to be allowed to escape. See to that. I will be back some time tonight.”
The young woman opened the door, giving the finishing touches to her complexion. She looked at Sidney Zoom with tender eyes in which there was a hint of the maternal.
“You’re going into danger?” she asked.
“I hope so,” rasped Sidney Zoom. “Going into danger adds zest to life.”
She made a little grimace.
“I do wish you’d get over that everlasting love of conflict, of danger, of struggle.”
Zoom’s voice was solemn.
“That is the way that nature brings about evolution. We grow from conflict. Our periods of pleasure are but the mental bromides which enable us to recuperate. We get our growth from adversity.”
Vera Thurmond shook her head.
“You’re hopeless... Tell me, what’s behind that green door? You’ve had a new lock put on it, and carpenters and electricians working...”
He smiled at her and shook his head.
“No. That is one of my secrets. Perhaps I am a bluebeard, and keep the bodies of my victims hidden behind the door of that room. Never open it. Don’t worry about me, and don’t waste sympathy on the man who occupies the guest cabin. Have the captain make everything ready for sea. I may want to get away as soon as I come aboard.”
And Sidney Zoom turned on his heel, strode down the narrow passageway to the stairs which led to the dock. The police dog padded at his side.
There was, in the manner of Sidney Zoom, that subtle something which characterizes a man who is going into a welcome danger. And the dog sensed this attitude, whether it came from some extra force with which the heels of the master pounded the planks of the boat, or from something more subtle, some auric emanation of tension.
Sidney Zoom walked to his car, drove to the Monadnock Apartments, went boldly to the door of apartment 310, paused over the lock long enough to insert the key he had taken from Edgar Carver when that individual had dropped into his drugged sleep.
Zoom entered the apartment, looked around him.
It was a typical small apartment, furnished with conventional, uncomfortable overstuffed furniture. The apartment was used as a single, but there was a door which led to another single apartment, enabling the suite to be let as a double furnished apartment if desired.
Sidney Zoom knocked upon that connecting door.
There was no answer. He went out to the hall, approached the hall door of the adjoining apartment. He knocked, received no answer, and picked the lock of the door. The apartment was vacant.
Zoom opened the connecting door between the two apartments, saw to it that his gun worked easily in his shoulder holster, pulled a sheet from the bed, tore it into strips, placed his police dog just within the door of the apartment which adjoined that rented by Edgar Carver. He ascertained that any one entering apartment 310 could not see the dog, crouched in the adjoining apartment.
Then Sidney Zoom opened the collar of his shirt, loosed his necktie, sprawled in a chair, and gave the impression of being very much at home. He found a book which interested him, alternately read and dozed, while the dog slept.
It was rather late in the afternoon when there sounded a knock at his door.
“Come in,” called Sidney Zoom.
The handle of the knob turned. A well tailored man walked into the apartment, stood near the door.
“I’m looking for Edgar Carver,” he said.
Zoom got to his feet.
“Yes, sir, what can I do for you?”
“You’re Carver?”
“Of course.”
The well tailored man took a step inside the door.
“I’m from Sol Asher,” he said.
Zoom let his manner become cold.
“Yeah?” he asked.