CHAPTER XA ROYAL FEAST

To complete the picture Johnny discovered an ugly scar running down the sergeant’s jaw and around his neck. The sergeant had got that scar during his first year of service. A holdup man, caught in the act, had pretended to surrender. He had given up his gun, but seeing an opening, had stabbed McCarthey, half behind his back. From that time on McCarthey began earning the name of the hardest man on the force. Certainly he made them “stick ’em up, and keep ’em up.” For all that, there were those who knew that the sergeant had a very human side.

“What do you think, Drew?” he shot at the young detective. “Do you think those pickpockets had their gang walk in on this boy and beat him up?” He was speaking of Johnny.

“Tell the truth, I don’t,” said Drew Lane. “First place they laughed when they saw him. If—”

“Can’t tell as much about a crook’s laugh as you can a bullfrog’s croak,” McCarthey broke in. “Not as much. When a frog croaks he’s saying he’s happy. A crook’s liable to laugh when he gets ten years.”

“It’s not just that,” said Drew. “You know yourself that pickpockets are sneaks; coyotes, not wolves. They may be well organized in some cities. They’re not in this one.”

“You’re right,” said McCarthey, shuffling a sheaf of papers on the desk. “That possibility is about all there is to that clue. But we’ll keep the sheets; you never can tell.

“I work it out this way.” He spread five sheets of paper on the desk. “See! This one is for your pickpocket friends who are naturally afraid of Johnny as a star witness against them. We’ll put it over here.” He laid it aside.

“But what about the squad call that was going through when the raid on the radio station was made?” Drew broke in.

“I’m coming to that. That’s the queer part,” the sergeant went on. “You see I have four sheets left. That means four possibilities.

“Since you insist, we’ll take the call that was going through when the station was raided. You’ll be surprised. That squad call was a notice that someone was breaking in over on Lake Shore Drive. Swell apartment. People all gone. When the radio failed to give the alarm, a squad was sent out from the local police station, and the burglars were caught.”

“Oh!” Johnny leaned forward expectantly.

“That’s what I thought,” grumbled the sergeant. “But they turned out to be two kids, one about twenty, the other younger. Dressed like college kids, they were, in yellow slickers decorated with hearts and kewpies; you know the sort.

“But let me tell you one thing. You may lay a bet those boys never saw the inside of any college. I’ve been watching. We don’t get many real college boys. When they’re smart enough and good enough workers to get up to college, they’re too smart to think they can beat the game by turning crooks.”

“But where did the boys come from?” Johnny asked.

“That’s what they didn’t tell,” said McCarthey. “If we knew, it might throw some light on the subject. But you can see how likely it is that a bunch of kids are going to figure out that they’ll get caught burglarizing an empty flat unless they send someone to beat up a radio announcer or two. And besides, if they did, who would they get to go for ’em? Too dangerous. Lot worse than burglarizing.

“So that,” he threw the second sheet aside, “looks like a doubtful chance. But we’ll keep ’em all.

“Another queer thing.” He turned to the third sheet. “Not many cases go out over the air. We can handle ’em other ways. Three an hour is a good many. But in that fifteen minutes when the radio station was dead, smashed to bits, there were three squad calls that did not go out, and two were mighty important.

“You know that long row of warehouses just back of your shack, Drew?” He turned to Drew Lane.

“Sure.”

“Some cracksmen burst the safe in the third one from the water, ten minutes after the radio station was smashed.”

“That looks like a hot scent,” said Drew, starting forward to bend over McCarthey’s sheet.

“Rather blind one, at that,” said the sergeant. “No one saw them. A straggler heard the blast and turned in the alarm. Squad came. Safe was looted. Birds flown. Might have gone a dozen ways, rowboat, on foot, in a car. Gone, that’s all. Got something over a thousand dollars. Left nothing, not even a fingerprint.”

“It’s too bad,” sighed Drew. “I’d say that was the likely case. Going to blow up a safe. Mighty few cases these days. Since the radio gave us a lift, electric drills are cheap. Radio’s too quick for them. Whang! goes the blast; r-ring-ring! the telephone; gong-gong! the radio; and the police squad is on the way; all too soon for the safe-cracker.

“Easy enough to see why they’d send an accomplice over to break up the radio!”

“Ah, well!” McCarthey’s narrow eyes contracted. “Give us time. Not so many of ’em escape us.

“The other case that came off in that fateful quarter of an hour was a theatre holdup on State Street, just over the river; one of those quiet little affairs. Two men say, ‘Stick ’em up! Give us the swag. Don’t yell! Don’t move for a full minute, or you’ll be dead!’ A car. Quick getaway. And there you are!

“No clue. Nothing to go by. One of those things that are mighty hard to trace.”

“And you don’t think they could have had a friend—” began Johnny.

“Who made you a call? Not likely,” McCarthey laughed. “Little those birds fear the radio. They’re too quick. No radio will ever stop ’em. They’re like the army transports during the war that were too fast for the submarines.

“This last sheet,” he added, “I have saved for gentlemen who, on other occasions, have had their gentle business of robbing, burglarizing, bombing, safe-blowing and the like interfered with. From time to time I will enter the names here of those who show undue resentment to the radio activities of the police.

“And that, boys,” he concluded, once more shuffling his sheaf of papers, “appears to bring the case to date. These are the facts. Draw your own conclusions.”

“Conclusions!” Johnny said as he left the office. “I only conclude that I was slugged; that my telephone was smashed; and that my head still is very sore.”

“Give him time,” said Drew. “He seldom fails. In the meantime, we must do our bit.”

That evening at nine o’clock Johnny was given a delightful surprise. At the same time some of the questions that had been revolving about in his mind like six squirrels in one cage were solved.

He had returned to the shack at six. Weary from his exciting day, he had stretched himself out on his cot and had at once fallen asleep.

Awakened by someone entering the room, and startled by the darkness that had settled upon the place since he fell asleep, he was about to cry out in alarm when the place was flooded with light and he found Drew Lane smiling down upon him.

“Have a good rest?” he asked.

“Fine. And you? What luck this afternoon?”

“No luck at all. But that’s what one must expect. You can’t get ’em every day. If you did you’d soon be out of a job. All the crooks would be behind the bars.

“Not that I’d care,” he hastened to add. “There are a lot of occupations more congenial. If I didn’t have a conscience that keeps me hunting men, I’d take up commercial aviation. There’s a job for you! I can fly. Have a hundred and ten hours to my credit, and never a crack-up.”

“Think they’ll ever use airplanes in hunting criminals?” asked Johnny, sitting up.

“Might. Couldn’t do much right in the city. But if a gang was supposed to be leaving town; if the car they used was well marked, you could do a lot with a plane; soar about, watching a hundred roads at once.”

“Had anything to eat?” Drew asked, as Johnny rose and busied himself with his toilet.

“Not since noon.”

“My treat to-night. And you’ll like it. Mrs. Ramacciotti has some ravioli a la Tuscany on the stove.”

“What’s all that?”

“You’ll see. Just get on your collar and tie. We’ll want plenty of time for a feast before you go back there to get beaten up again. Or are you going?”

“Think I’d stay away?” Johnny gave him a look.

“No, I didn’t. But if I were you I’d sit with my back to the wall.”

“Do more than that. Take ‘Silent Murder,’ as you call him, along.” He nodded toward the bow that stood in the corner.

“Too slow. Better get a gun.”

“Slow! Sometime I’ll show you. That studio is all of twenty-five feet long. Door’s at one end. My cubby-hole’s at the other. Let anyone try getting to me after this!” He picked up an arrow and felt its razor-like point. “Silent murder,” he mused. “About right, I guess.”

To Johnny’s surprise he found that the feast Drew had alluded to was just ten steps from their own door. Down one low flight of stairs, up another, and there they were in the shack that stood before their own and fronted the street.

A large, dark-skinned woman of middle age greeted them with a smile that was genuine, and a handshake that was “all there.”

“This is Mrs. Ramacciotti,” said Drew. “Without her and Rosy this city would be a dreary place.”

Rosy stood by the table dimpling and smiling her thanks.

Johnny had seen Rosy before. Now, however, she was dressed for the occasion, and one good look at her made him think of cool meadows, shady orchards, blushing russet apples, and all the rest.

“I don’t blame Drew,” he told himself.

They were invited to take seats before a small square table covered with a cloth of snowy linen. At once a steaming platter was set before them.

“But what’s on the platter?” Johnny asked himself. “Dumplings in meat gravy?”

It was far more than that. The finest of chicken meat, run through a grinder, some fine chopped veal; carrots cut fine, and who knows what else of viands and seasoning had been mixed together and used as the filling for small, turnover pies. These had been boiled for half an hour in salt water. After that they were smothered in rich gravy. A layer of meat pies, then one of gravy, then pies again until they stood a foot high on the platter.

But then, who can describe ravioli a la Tuscany? It is the proudest dish of Italians, and they are an exceedingly proud people.

For a full half hour the time was spent between small talk, and much eating.

As Johnny pushed back his chair with a sigh of regret, Mrs. Ramacciotti put her hand to her hair, and said in a sympathetic tone:

“Your head. What could have happened to it?”

“Haven’t you heard?” exclaimed Drew. “Some gangster beat him up last night.”

“Oh, the miserable ones!” Madame spread her hands in horror. “But why? He is only a boy.”

“I’ll tell you,” said Drew. He proceeded to tell of Johnny’s unusual adventures.

“And the only thing we know,” supplemented Johnny at the end, “is that the man has a hole in his hand. I saw that. I—”

But what was this? Rosy had uttered a low scream, then had dropped into a chair. Her face had gone white.

“Now! Now!” her mother said, placing a protecting hand across her shoulder.

“You see,” the Italian mother’s face took on added character as she spoke in a low, clear, steady tone, “her papa was shot by a man. He wanted papa’s money. He would give. But he not always understand. He move his hand to pocket. Always he did so when he was nervous. This man shoot him—dead! Rosy, she see this man. See hole in the hand. Same man? What you think? Mebby so.”

Johnny and Drew stared at one another.

Johnny was thinking, “So the man who beat me up was a murderer!”

“You never told me this before,” said Drew, speaking to Mrs. Ramacciotti.

“No. I did not know you then. You did not work on the case. The man, he was never found.”

“Well,” said Drew as his lips drew together in a tight line, “now we know, and we have a double reason for getting the man with a hole in his hand. And we will get him. Never fear.”

This unfortunate interruption of their party ended in a prolonged silence. In the end the two boys expressed sincere thanks for the splendid feast and begged to be excused.

Rosy, with an effort, summoned one of her sweetest smiles of farewell. As she stood there framed in the door, a brave little orphan of gangland’s making, Johnny could not help feeling that their common tragic interest in finding the man with a hole in his hand was destined to bring them very close together in the days that were to come. Nor was he far wrong.

Johnny’s return to the radio studio that night caused quite a sensation. He arrived somewhat ahead of time. The girl who presided over the switchboard, one floor lower than the studio proper, was still at her post.

“Gee!” She stared at him, wide-eyed. “They nearly killed you, didn’t they?”

“Tried it, I guess,” Johnny admitted.

“And still you came back?”

“Lightning never strikes twice in the same place,” Johnny laughed.

“It does. I’ve seen it. Very same tree. Going to strike twice here, too. Something tells me that. You’ll see. They’ll bomb this place. When those Sicilians start a thing they never quit ’til they get what they want. That’s what my dad says. And he knows. I’m quitting; to-morrow night’s my last. Dad says, ‘Let the police do their own work.’ And that’s what I say, too.”

“If the officers of the law were not backed up by the honest people of a great city like this,” Johnny replied thoughtfully, “nobody’s life would be safe for a moment. In such times as these every man must do his duty.”

“Not for me, sonny, not for me! I know where there’s a safe place to work, and me for it!”

Johnny climbed the stairs with heavy steps, only to learn that his operator of the night before had also quit.

“Quit us cold,” was the way Bill Heyworth, the sturdy night manager and chief announcer, put it. Bill was thirty, or past. He was a broad shouldered Scotchman with a stubborn jaw. “Said he didn’t want to be shot at. Well,” he philosophized, “guess nobody does. But somebody has to carry on here. This thing is not going to stop because the gangs want it stopped. In time, of course, the city will have a station of its own. That will let us out. But until then the squad calls will go through if we have to call upon the State Militia to protect us. This city, officer and civilian, has set itself for a cleaning up. And a cleaning it shall be!

“What’s that?” he asked, as Johnny drew forth his six foot yew bow.

“A plaything, you might say,” Johnny smiled. “Then again you might say it has its practical side. I’ll demonstrate.”

Picking up a bundle of magazines, he set them on end atop a table against the wall. The outermost magazine had an oval in the center of its cover-jacket the size of a silver dollar.

Johnny drew back to the end of the room, then nocked an arrow and drove it through the very center of that spot.

Bill Heyworth whistled. He whistled again when Johnny showed him that four of the thick magazines had been pierced by the arrow’s steel point.

“Of course,” said Johnny, laughing low, “I don’t expect ever to use it here. But I’ll feel safer if you allow me to turn that chair about so I’ll be facing the entrance to this studio and have this ‘Silent Murder,’ as Drew Lane calls it, close at hand. Do I have your permission?”

“With all my heart, son. With all my heart. And you’ll stick?”

“Till they drag me out by the feet!”

“Two of us!” The Scotchman put out a hand. Johnny gripped it tight, then went to his post.

* * * * * * * *

The days that followed were quiet ones for Johnny. There needs must be many quiet days in every life. These days, calm as a May morning, placid as a mill pond, give us strength and fortitude for those stormy periods that from time to time break upon us.

But these were not uninteresting days. Far from it. Hours spent in a fresh environment, among new and interesting people, are seldom dull.

There are few more interesting places than the studio of a great radio station. Besides the never ending stream of famous ones, great authors, moving-picture actors, statesmen, musicians of high rank, opera singers, and many more, there are the regulars, those who come night after night with their carefully prepared programs planned to entertain and amuse a tired world.

That he might cultivate the society of those more skilled, more famous than he, Johnny arrived night after night an hour or two ahead of his schedule.

He came, in time, to think of himself as one of them. And he gloried in this rich environment.

Bill Heyworth, the night manager, was himself worthy of long study. A doughty Scotchman, sturdy as an oak, dependable as an observatory clock, brave as any who ever wore kilts, a three year veteran of the great World War; yet withal, bubbling over with good humor, he was a fit pattern for any boy.

Quite different, yet not less interesting, were the comedy pair, one very slim, one stout, who came in every evening at ten o’clock to put on the adventures of a German street band.

Not all the skilled musicians were transients. The Anthony Trio, piano, violin and cello, might have graced the program on many a notable occasion, yet here they were, night after night, sending out over the ether their skillful renditions of the best that other times have produced in the realm of music.

Dorothy Anthony, the violinist, a short, vivacious girl with a well rounded figure and dancing blue eyes, seemed no older than Johnny himself. Many a talk, gay and serious, they had, for Dorothy took her outdoor adventures at second hand. She listened and exclaimed over Johnny’s experiences in strange lands, and insisted more than once upon his demonstrating his skill by shooting at the magazines with his bow and arrow.

As for his bow, it stood so long in the corner that it seemed certain that it would dry out and become too brittle for real service in emergency.

Though Johnny enjoyed the company of the great and the near-great, he found most satisfaction in his association with a certain humble individual who occupied a small space before the switchboard at the foot of the stairs. And that person was none other than Rosy Ramacciotti. Since Johnny had been told that Rosy was in need of work, he had hastened to secure this position for her.

He had thought at first, because of her father’s most unhappy death, she, too, might be afraid. When he suggested this to her he was astonished by the snapping of her black eyes as she exclaimed:

“Me afraid? No! I am Italian. Did you not know that? We Italians, we are many things. Afraid? Never!”

So Rosy presided at the switchboard. Each night, during the hour that preceded Rosy’s departure and Johnny’s taking up of his duties, they enjoyed a chat about many, many things.

Nor did Drew Lane object; for, as he one night explained to Johnny, his relations with the Ramacciottis were based on little more than a charitable desire to be of service to someone.

“You have heard, I suppose,” he said to Johnny one evening, “that there is a society that looks after the families of policemen who lose their lives in the service. That is a splendid enterprise.

“There are also many societies in existence that take care of the interests of criminals and their families. That too, I suppose, is all right.

“But where is the society that cares for the women and children made widows and orphans by the bullets of gangsters, burglars, and robbers? Never heard of one, did you?

“Well, some of us fellows of the Force decided to do what we could for these.

“I learned of the Ramacciotti family. They had inherited a small candy store and a large debt. They were paying sixty dollars a month flat rent, and going bankrupt rapidly.

“I helped them sell out the store. Then I found these two shacks. Used to be fishing shacks, I suppose, twenty-five years ago. Tried to find the owner. Couldn’t. So we moved in anyway. I pay for my room and morning coffee. The furniture is Mrs. Ramacciotti’s.

“I found her a small kitchen and dining room down street, where she serves rare Italian dishes, ravioli a la Tuscany and the like. They are doing very well, and are happy.

“Happy. That’s it,” he mused. “Everyone in the world has a right to be happy. It’s our duty, yours and mine, to be happy, and to do the best we can to help others to their share of happiness.”

“So that was how Drew came to live in such a strange place, and to be interested in these unusual people.” Johnny thought about this for a long time after Drew had gone. His appreciation of the character of this young detective grew apace as he mused. His interest in Rosy and her mother also increased.

Shortly after his discovery that the man who wrecked his broadcasting corner and beat him up was, in all probability, the robber who had murdered Rosy’s father, Johnny visited Sergeant McCarthey at the police station. As the days passed, this station was to become a place of increasing fascination for this boy who was interested in everything that had to do with life, and who had a gnawing desire to know all that is worth knowing.

This day, however, his interest was centered on one question: What additional information had the sergeant secured regarding the man who had wrecked his station?

“Little enough, old son.” The sergeant leaned back as he spoke. “Visited those pickpockets in the jail. If they know anything about the affair, their lips are sealed.

“As for those young chaps, caught looting a house, they promise even less. Won’t tell a thing about themselves; names, addresses, nothing. They’re not foreigners. American stock, I’d say. It’s my guess that they had nothing to do with your radio affair. They appear to be boys from out of town. Some of those chaps who read cheap detective stories that make the criminal a hero. Came to this city to crash into crime. Got caught. And now they’ll take what’s given to them rather than disgrace their families. Can’t help but admire their grit. But the pity of it all! To think that any boy of to-day should come to look upon crime as offering a career of romance and daring! If only they could know the professional criminal as we do, could see him as a cold-blooded brute who cares only for himself, who stops at nothing to gain his ends, who lives for flash, glitter and sham, a man utterly devoid of honor who will double-cross his most intimate friend and put a pal on the spot or take him for a ride if he believes he is too weak to stand the test and not talk if he is caught.”

Then Johnny spoke. He told of the murder of Rosy’s father.

“He did? The same man!” The sergeant sat up straight and stared as Johnny finished. “The man with the hole in his hand shot Rosy’s father?

“Let me think.” He cupped his chin in his hands. “I worked on that case. Didn’t get a clue. There was just one thing. After Rosy’s father had been shot, this man fired a shot into the wall. Bullet’s there still, I suppose. Few crooks would do that. Likes noise, I suppose, the sound of his gun.

“You know,” he explained, “we are always studying the peculiarities of bad men. It pays. You know how a poker player judges men. When his opponent has a good hand, he looks just so, from beneath his eyelashes, or his fingers drum the table, so. But if his hand is bad, and he’s bluffing, he looks away, whistles a tune, does some other little thing that betrays him.

“It is that way with the crook. Each man has some little tell-tale action which brands each job he pulls. One man never speaks; he writes out his orders. Another whispers. A third shouts excitedly. One is polite to his victims, especially the ladies. Another is brutal; he binds them, gags them, even beats them. Some prefer silence; some, noise.

“It would seem,” he sat up to drum on the desk, “that our friend with the hole in his hand likes the sound of his gun. He fired an unnecessary shot in the Ramacciotti case, and one when he raided your studio.

“Now,” he said with a sigh, “all we have to do is to search the records of crimes committed in this city and see if we can find other raids and stick-ups to lay at this man’s door. Of course, if the perpetrator of other crimes fired his gun needlessly, it will not prove that Mr. Hole-in-the-Hand did it, but it will point in that direction.

“That bit of research will take some time. I’ll let you know what I find.”

“In those other cases of that night, the safe-blowing and theatre robbery, was there any unnecessary shooting?” Johnny asked.

“None reported. But then, of course, it is not likely that Mr. Hole-in-the-Hand was on the scene in either case. He was busy with you. If he was in on either of these, the work was done by his gang, not by him.”

That night a curious and startling thing happened. This affair, as Herman McCarthey agreed later, might or might not have a bearing on the problem just discussed.

The detective team of Drew and Howe worked for the most part during the daylight hours. They were assigned to the task of detecting and arresting pickpockets. If you rode a crowded street car, attended a league baseball game, or chanced to be on the edge of a crowd drawn together on the street corner by a vender of patent medicine or unbreakable combs, you might easily sight the nifty hat and flaming tie of Drew Lane, the natty detective. They knew more than three hundred pickpockets by sight, did this young pair. They picked up any of these on suspicion if they were found in a likely spot, and at once haled them into court.

This permanent assignment left Drew with his evenings free. Because of this, he and Johnny enjoyed many a night stroll together.

One of their favorite haunts was a slip which ended some four blocks from their shack, and extended for several blocks east until it lost itself in the waters of the lake. This narrow channel of water was lined on one side by great bulging, empty sheet iron sheds, and on the other by brick warehouses which appeared equally empty. A narrow landing extending the length of the sheds, and fast falling into decay, offered a precarious footing for any who chose to wander there.

It was a spooky place, this slip at night. At the end nearest the shore, half under water, half above, a one-time pleasure yacht lay rotting away. At the far end, an ancient tug fretted at a chain that was red with rust and from time to time added to the general melancholy of the place a hollow bub-bub as it bumped the shore.

One would scarcely say that a horde of gigantic red-eyed rats could add to the attractions or any place, let alone one such as this. Lend it a touch of joy, they did, nevertheless. This became Johnny’s hunting ground. Armed with his bow and quiver of arrows, he stalked rats as in other climes he had stalked wolves and bears.

Drew never tired of seeing his keen bladed arrow speed straight and true. There is a certain fascination about such expert marksmanship. Besides, Drew hated rats. He had said many times, “A great city has two scourges, professional criminals and rats. It’s every honest man’s duty to help rid the city of both.”

On this particular night Johnny and Drew had gone on one of their hunting trips. They had put out a lure of shelled corn during the day. Game was plentiful. In the half light of the smoke-dulled moon, many a rodent whose eyes gleamed in the dark met his death.

Drew had tired of the sport and had walked a dozen paces down the way. Johnny was lurking in the shadows, hoping for one more good shot, when he thought he heard a curious sound. This sound appeared to come from the shadows opposite the spot where Drew, unconscious of any danger, walked in the moonlight.

Then, of a sudden, a terrifying thing began to happen. A hand and half an arm emerged from the shadows that lay against the rotting shed. In the hand was a gun. This gun was rising slowly, steadily to a position where it would be covering Drew.

What was to be done? Johnny’s mind worked with the lightning rapidity of a speed camera.

Should he shout a warning? There was not time. Leap forward? This too would be futile. One thing remained. The movement of that hand was slow, sure. Johnny’s fingers were fast as the speed of light. He nocked an arrow, took sudden aim, and let fly. “Silent Murder” found his mark.

Came a low cry of surprise, then a thud.

“What was that?”

Drew whirled about and snatched for his own gun.

Johnny did not dare answer. What had he accomplished? Where was the hand, the gun, the man? Nocking a second arrow, he crowded further into the shadows. What was to come next? His heart pounded hard against his ribs.

Ten seconds passed, twenty, thirty.

With gun drawn, Drew advanced toward him. Johnny expected at any moment to hear a shot ring out. None did.

Once more Drew demanded, “What was that?”

“I-I saw a hand, half an arm, a-a gun,” Johnny stammered. “I shot—shot an arrow at the arm.”

“A hand, an arm, a gun?” Drew was plainly bewildered.

“The gun was aimed at you.”

“Where?”

“There. Over there in the shadows.”

Gripping his gun tight, Drew threw the light of his electric torch into those shadows. “No one there,” he muttered. “You were dreaming. But no. I heard something.

“And look!” he cried, springing forward. “Here’s the gun. He dropped it. Fled. Thought the Devil was after him. No wonder, when you hunted him with ‘Silent Murder.’

“But I say, boy!” he exclaimed, gripping Johnny’s hand till it hurt. “You saved my life. I’ll not forget that!”

“We’ll just take this along,” he said a moment later as he picked up a steel blue sixshooter with a six inch barrel.

“A forty-five,” he said, turning it over. “Not a bad gun. And full of slugs. Reminds me of one that nearly did for me once. Tell you about it sometime.”

At that they turned and walked quietly away from the scene of the near tragedy.

Where was the intruder? Gone. What of Johnny’s arrow? What damage had it done? Perhaps the light of day would answer some of these questions. At present it was time for Johnny to hasten away to his nightly vigil in the squad call corner.

Johnny’s work at the studio never failed to fascinate him. The noon hours were pure routine. But at night, when squad calls came thick and fast—that was the time!

An entire symphony orchestra might be crashing its way through some magnificent concerto. No matter. The squad operator spoke a few words in Johnny’s ear. He jotted down those words. He pressed a button twice. For one brief second the air, a thousand miles around, grew tensely silent. ThenClang! Clang! Clang!And after that, Johnny’s voice: “Squads, attention! Squad 16. A shooting at Madison and Ashland.” Ah! There was power for you; a little press of a button and all the world stood by.

Each night brought to his ears a terse description of some new form of violence.

“You’d think,” he said to Drew once, “that the whole city had turned criminal.”

“But it hasn’t,” Drew replied thoughtfully. “Only one person in three hundred is a professional criminal. Don’t forget that. If you want to know what that means, go somewhere and watch a turnstile. Count three hundred people as they pass through. Then say ‘ONE.’ Big, like that. That stands for one crook. Then begin all over again, and count three hundred.” Johnny tried that, and derived a deal of assurance from the experiment. It gave him the comforting feeling that one might have who has three hundred friends arrayed solidly behind him, row on row, while a single enemy stands across the way.

But were these truly ready to stand back of law and justice? “If they are not,” he told himself, “it is because of ignorance. If they do not know the truth they must be told.” Johnny hurried back to the shack as soon as his work was done, on the night of his curious adventure down by the slip. He had no desire to go prowling about those abandoned sheds again that night. He did wish to be abroad the first thing in the morning. He wanted to discover, if possible, how the would-be assassin had made his escape. He was also curious to discover whether or not his arrow had gone with the stranger.

“I am surprised that anyone should attempt to kill me,” Drew said, as they started for the slip early that morning.

“But isn’t a police officer’s life always in danger?”

“Why, no, I wouldn’t say so. Depends, of course, on your record, and the type of crooks you are assigned to.

“Take the matter of arresting a crook. He doesn’t usually resist, unless you’ve caught him red-handed in crime. Rather take a chance with the judge. Figures you’ve got nothing on him anyway. And I haven’t been in on anything really big. They give those things to older men. Howe and I have been following pickpockets for months. That was my first and it’s my last assignment as a detective so far.

“Pickpockets are seldom violent. Sneaking is their game. They seldom pack a gun. If they do, they don’t know how to use it.”

“That man knew his gun,” said Johnny with a shudder.

“Fairly good gun.” Drew had thrown the cartridges out of the revolver. He had hung it on a nail over the head of his bed. There it was destined to remain until a busy spider had spun a web about it and built him a gauzy home inside the trigger guard. For all that, neither the spider, the revolver, nor the former owner of the revolver were destined to rest long in peace.

“It’s plain enough,” said Johnny, as they reached the sheds, “why that assassin was unconscious of my presence. I had been standing silently in the shadows, a long time, looking for a rat.”

“Well,” chuckled Drew, “you got one, didn’t you?”

“That’s what I’ve been wondering,” replied Johnny. “Probably I did; otherwise why did he drop the gun?”

“Quite so. You traded an arrow for a loaded gun. Not so bad.”

“I still have hope of recovering my arrow. The flesh of a man’s arm is a thin target. I put all I had into that shot.”

They found some footprints ground into the cinders where the man had stood. They discovered several breaks in the rusting sides of the shed, where he might have escaped. And yes, true to Johnny’s expectations, they found the arrow where it had spent its force and dropped a hundred or more feet from the spot from which it had been fired.

“See!” exclaimed Johnny as he picked it up. “I got him. Blood on the feathers.”

“I never doubted that for a moment,” Drew said impressively. “As you suggested, the arrow must have gone through the fleshy part of his arm.

“He’s a marked man!” he exclaimed. “You must keep that arrow. Some day, perhaps to-morrow, perhaps ten years from now, it may be needed as evidence.”

“Why, I—”

“That arrow mark will leave a scar that matches the width of your arrow blade. It will have other peculiarities that will tell straight and plain that the wound was made, not only by an arrow, but by one arrow—this one. I’ve seen things far more technical than that, far more difficult to prove, sway a jury and win a hanging verdict.”

So, in the end, the arrow was laid across two nails close to the revolver above Drew’s bed.

And, just by way of providing an easy means of escape if escape were necessary, the spider ran a line from the thug’s revolver to Johnny’s blood-dyed arrow.

“You said something about boxing once,” Drew was at the door of the shack, ready to depart for his day of scouting. “How’d you like to meet me at the club this evening for a few rounds?”

“Be great!” Johnny exclaimed enthusiastically. “You’ll find me rusty, though. Haven’t had gloves on for a long time.”

“Here’s the address.” Drew wrote on a bit of paper, and handed it to Johnny. “I’ll meet you in the lobby at nine o’clock.”

“Fine!”

With Drew gone, and only the distant rumble of the city to keep him company, Johnny sat down in Drew’s rocking chair to think. From time to time his gaze strayed to the wall where the revolver and the arrow hung.

“Life,” he thought, “has grown more complicated and—and more terrible. And yet, what a privilege it is to live!”

For the first time since he arrived on that freighter at midnight, he felt a desire to be far, far away from this great city and all that it stood for.

“Power,” he murmured, “great power, that is what a city stands for. Great power, great weakness, great success, gigantic failure, men of magnificent character, men of no character at all; that’s what you find in a city of three million people.”

At once his mind was far away. In his imagination he stood upon a small and shabby dock. A small and shabby village lay at the back of the dock. At his feet a dilapidated clinker-built rowboat bumped the dock. Oars were there, minnows for bait, and fishing tackle. Two miles up the bay was a dark hole where great muskies waved the water with their fins, where bass black as coal darted from place to place, while spotted perch, seeming part of the water itself, hung motionless, watching.

“Ah, to be there!” he breathed. “The peace, the simple joy of it all. To drop a minnow down there; to cast one far out, then to watch for the move that means a strike!

“And yet—” He sighed, but did not finish his sentence. On the youth of to-day a great city exerts an indescribable charm. Johnny would not leave this city of his boyhood days until he had conquered or had been conquered.

“It’s strange, all this,” he mused. “Wonder why that man beat me up there in the studio? Wonder if Sergeant McCarthey knows any more than he did. Let me see. Pickpockets, boy robbers, theatre holdup men, safe blowers. Wonder whose accomplice that man with a hole in his hand is. Who can tell?”

Back to IndexNext