“Just a random guess!” I lied, trying to soothe him. “I don’t want to overlook any bets. But now that’s out of the way.”
“It is,” he was still talking deliberately, “and it seems to me that most of your guesses have been random ones. If you will have your office send me a bill for your services to date, I think I can dispense with your help.”
“Just as you say. But you’ll have to pay for a full day today; so, if you don’t mind, I’ll keep on working at it until night.”
“Very well! But I am busy, and you needn’t bother about coming in with any reports.”
“All right,” I said, and bowed myself out of the office, but not out of the job.
That letter from “Boots” had not been in the desk when I searched it. I had taken every drawer out and even tilted the desk to look under it. The letter was a plant!
And then again: maybe Zumwalt had given me the air because he was dissatisfied with the work I had done and peeved at my question about the girl—and maybe not.
Suppose (I thought, walking up Market Street, bumping shoulders and stepping on people’s feet) the two partners were in this thing together. One of them would have to be the goat, and that part had fallen to Rathbone. Zumwalt’s manner and actions since his partner’s disappearance fit that theory well enough.
Employing a private detective before calling in the police was a good play. In the first place it gave him the appearance of innocence. Then the private sleuth would tell him everything he learned, every step he took, giving Zumwalt an opportunity to correct any mistakes or oversights in the partners’ plans before the police came into it; and if the private detective got on dangerous ground he could be called off.
And suppose Rathbone was found in some city where he was unknown—and that would be where he’d go. Zumwalt would volunteer to go forward to identify him. He would look at him and say, “No, that’s not him,” Rathbone would be turned loose, and that would be the end of that trail.
This theory left the sudden change in Rathbone’s plans unaccounted for; but it made his return to the office on the afternoon of the twenty-seventh more plausible. He had come back to confer with his partner over that unknown necessity for the change, and they had decided to leave Mrs. Earnshaw out of it. Then they had gone out to Zumwalt’s house. For what? And why had Zumwalt decided not to sell the house? And why had he taken the trouble to give me an explanation? Could they have cached the bonds there?
A look at the house wouldn’t be a bad idea!
I telephoned Bennett, at the Oakland Police Department.
“Do me a favor, Frank? Call Zumwalt on the phone. Tell him you’ve picked up a man who answers Rathbone’s description to a T; and ask him to come over and take a look at him. When he gets there stall him as long as you can—pretending that the man is being fingerprinted and measured, or something like that—and then tell him that you’ve found that the man isn’t Rathbone, and that you are sorry to have brought him over there, and so on. If you only hold him for half or three-quarters of an hour it’ll be enough—it’ll take him more than half an hour traveling each way. Thanks!”
I stopped in at the office, stuck a flashlight in my pocket, and headed for Fourteenth Avenue.
Zumwalt’s house was a two-story, semidetached one; and the lock on the front door held me up about four minutes. A burglar would have gone through it without checking his stride. This breaking into the house wasn’t exactly according to the rules, but on the other hand, I was legally Zumwalt’s agent until I discontinued work that night—so this crashing in couldn’t be considered illegal.
I started at the top floor and worked down. Bureaus, dressers, tables, desks, chairs, walls, woodwork, pictures, carpets, plumbing—I looked at everything that was thick enough to hold paper. I didn’t take things apart, but it’s surprising how speedily and how thoroughly you can go through a house when you’re in training.
I found nothing in the house itself, so I went down into the cellar.
It was a large cellar and divided in two. The front part was paved with cement, and held a full coal-bin, some furniture, some canned goods, and a lot of odds and ends of housekeeping accessories. The rear division, behind a plaster partition where the steps ran down from the kitchen, was without windows, and illuminated only by one swinging electric light, which I turned on.
A pile of lumber filled half the space; on the other side barrels and boxes were piled up to the ceiling; two sacks of cement lay beside them, and in another corner was a tangle of broken furniture. The floor was of hard dirt.
I turned to the lumber pile first. I wasn’t in love with the job ahead of me—moving the pile away and then back again. But I needn’t have worried.
A board rattled behind me, and I wheeled to see Zumwalt rising from behind a barrel and scowling at me over a black automatic pistol.
“Put your hands up,” he said.
I put them up. I didn’t have a pistol with me, not being in the habit of carrying one except when I thought I was going to need it; but it would have been all the same if I had had a pocket full of them. I don’t mind taking chances, but there’s no chance when you’re looking into the muzzle of a gun that a determined man is holding on you.
So I put my hands up. And one of
