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