Having presented his papers to the janitor, and procured the key, Newton Mills led the way into this dingy cavern where dust lay thick and cobwebs festooned the walls. This room had known tragedy. It was here that Rosy Ramacciotti had seen her father shot down. Johnny fancied that if one were to brush away the dust, he might still find blood stains on the floor. He did not brush away the dust. Instead he shuddered.
Then, so that his mind might be occupied with brighter thoughts, he set himself at the problem of picturing the place as it was before the tragedy. Bright lights, gleaming show cases, boxes of candy, their colorful wrappings lending a note of cheer to the place, and behind all this, smiling, happy to be of service, Rosy.
“And after that,” he thought, “there—”
His thoughts were interrupted by Newton Mills, who was speaking aloud.
“The cash register was about there. Rosy’s father had just waited on a customer. He would not be far from this spot. The man with the gun must have advanced from the door, but not too far. He would aim so. The bullet would take this direction. It lodged in that wall.”
During all this time the veteran detective went through a small dream which took him about from place to place. He now marched across the room at an acute angle from the door, put his hand to the wall, felt about, then uttered a low sigh of satisfaction.
“The medium sized chisel, please.” He held out a hand toward the boy.
Johnny supplied the required instrument.
After prodding about, first in the plaster, then in a wooden lath at the back, the detective gave vent to a second sigh as a leaden pellet dropped into his hand.
“Here we have it,” he murmured. “And not badly preserved. It should present no difficult problem.”
He placed the bullet, which had been fired at Rosy’s father several months before, in one of the white cloth bags. To this bag he attached a tag. He wrote a number on the tag, recorded the same number in a small notebook, and scrawled a few words beside the number; then, having placed both notebook and bag in his pocket, he turned to go.
“That is all here. We will go next to your radio studio.” He led the way out of the gloomy place.
At the studio they searched the padded walls until they located the bullet that had been fired on the night when Johnny was beaten up.
This bullet was also secured, placed in a bag, labeled and recorded.
“We will return to the police station.” Once more Newton Mills led the way.
They spent the remainder of that day in a vacant basement room at the police station. To Johnny their occupation seemed passing strange.
First they filled a barrel with cotton waste. Next they went to a room in the station where a great number of used arms were stored. These had been taken from hoodlums, suspects, and police characters. With his arms full of pistols of all possible descriptions, Johnny returned to the basement.
For four hours after that, they practiced the same bit of drama over and over. Newton Mills loaded a pistol and fired it at the barrel of waste. Johnny retrieved the bullet from the waste. This bullet was bagged, numbered and recorded. After that a different pistol was fired, and the identical process repeated.
Darkness fell before they finished. As Johnny left the basement he fancied that he still heard the sharp crack of small fire-arms.
“We will return to the shack,” said Newton Mills. “No. First we will go to the laboratories.”
They took an elevator, mounted five floors, then entered a room. The walls of the room were lined with all manner of instruments. With some of these Johnny was thoroughly familiar. Others were of a sort of which he knew nothing.
Newton Mills requested the loan of two microscopes, some prisms, a curious type of camera and various odds and ends of equipment. These he wrapped in a bundle. He tucked the bundle tightly under his arm.
“To-morrow,” he said as they descended to the main floor, “I shall not require your services.”
Johnny was disappointed. His curiosity had been roused by the strange occupation of that day; it had been redoubled by the package under Newton Mills’ arm. He had hoped that the morrow would reveal the purpose of it all.
“But now,” he told himself with a sigh, “I am left out.”
During the three days that followed, Newton Mills never left the shack. He rigged up a curious affair made of microscopes and prisms. With this he studied bullets. Bullets, bullets, and more bullets were studied, measured, compared, and studied again.
He ate little, drank much black coffee, took numberless tiny photographs, sent these out to have them enlarged, then pored over the numerous enlargements, hours on end.
Since he had no part in this, and understood it not at all, Johnny returned to the radio studio and his squad calls. In this he found slight comfort. Rosy was not there.
From time to time he made inquiries regarding the girl. She was holding her own, that was all. Time alone would tell whether or not this bright world of sunshine and shadows, of moonlight, springtime, birds’ songs, and budding flowers was to exist longer for her.
The new bus boy at the Seventy Club was making progress. The boss liked him. He had eyes in his head and a tongue in his cheek. He also knew what they were for. He did his work in an intelligent manner. He talked little and asked no questions.
From time to time the boss called him to his desk. There he plied him with questions regarding their mutual friends in another city. The boy knew an amazing amount about this man’s underworld friends there.
On the third night the boss pressed a telephone slug into the boy’s hand, and said:
“Go call your friend.” He added a wink.
The boy entered one of the six booths, closed the door firmly, slipped the slug into its place, heard it click, then felt himself slowly descending.
There are those who might have cried out at this extraordinary occurrence. Not this boy. He merely mumbled:
“So that’s it.”
After that he was all eyes for what was to come. He had not long to wait.
Having dropped some fifteen feet, in the manner of a slow elevator, his curious conveyance stopped. At the same time a door directly before him slid open. He passed out. The door closed.
He found himself in a second dining room. At the back, too, there were tables for cards. But how different it all was! Here was music, dancing, drinking, gambling; just such a life as the hard working members of gangland demand while off duty.
From that night on, the new boy carried dishes and brushed crumbs from the tables on the floor below, this secret meeting place of gangland. Did he prefer it so? Who could have told? He went about his work in the same mechanical, precise manner. He talked little. He asked no questions. When the boss descended to the floor below, he rubbed his hands and seemed pleased.
Despite the drinks, the music, the dancing in this place, it possessed a somber air.
Pure unadulterated joy never comes to those who attempt to extract pleasure from that which has cost other people days of arduous toil. This is a law of nature. Like the laws of the Medes and Persians, this law altereth not.
Men and women did not frequent this place for pleasure alone. We have said it was a club. Men meet in their clubs for purposes of business. It was so here. That this business might be transacted in the strictest privacy, booths had been provided. It was the duty of the new boy to bring away dishes from these booths.
On the second night of service here on the floor below, the boy saw a tall, broad man with the features of a southern European, but the complexion of an Anglo-Saxon, with close-set eyes of blue, and a mass of tumbled hair, enter the second booth from the center. He had a companion. The companion was younger than he. At times this youth’s face seemed a mask; at others, when he smiled, it changed. They ordered a sumptuous feast, these two: chicken, Italian style; creamed new potatoes; lobster salad; and a great black bottle. They ate in silence.
As the bus boy removed the dishes, he noted the large man’s hand. It appeared to give him a start. He barely avoided spilling a glass of water on the table. Perhaps this was because there was a hole in the center of the man’s hand.
Dinner disposed of, the younger man of the pair left the booth, walked out upon the floor, talked for a time to one of the entertainers, a tall blonde, then held out his hand for a dance.
Shortly after that he returned to the booth, poured a drink from the black bottle, then sat in the semi-darkness talking in guarded tones to his companion, him of the hole in his hand.
At that instant a curious thing happened. Against the wall, on the darkest side of the booth, appeared a singular phenomenon. A red arrow as long as a man’s forearm was distinctly to be seen. And even as the two stared at it in astonishment, the arrow appeared to flame, as if perhaps the walls were on fire.
The younger of the two men shot a startled glance at his companion. Then, with fingers that trembled ever so slightly, he drew a chain that flooded the booth with light.
Instantly the arrow of fire vanished.
The light was extinguished. The arrow did not return.
Once more the light was thrown on.
Chancing to glance down at the table, the younger gangster uttered a low exclamation, then put out a hand to grasp a note that had appeared from nowhere.
Holding this up to the light, he read aloud these words:
“Justice is an arrow of fire. It goes straight to hearts that are evil. It burns as it strikes. No one shall escape.”
The thing was done on white paper with a typewriter.
For a full moment the two men stared at one another in silence. Then they rose abruptly to disappear into the secret booths where one does not telephone.
It is a curious fact that no man ever grows so hard, so stoical, so impervious to emotions that he fails to retain a superstitious fear of that which seems unnatural and uncanny. The flaming arrow, the mysterious note, stirred up within the hearts of these killers a sense of dread such as no display of arms, no great body of police, could ever inspire within them.
This little affair most certainly was not on the program as it had been prepared by the heavy-set, stolid man who presided over the door. Yet, strange to say, neither the man with a hole in his hand, nor his companion, spoke one word to the manager regarding the affair as they left the clubroom above, for the cooling air of night.
The name by which the younger of these two gangsters was known was Jimmie McGowan. Jimmie was not the name his mother had given him at birth. Nor was McGowan the one he had inherited from his father. His face was dark. His parents had come to America from a foreign land.
This gave Jimmie no occasion to be ashamed. That foreign nation has furnished the world many of her bravest warriors, her wisest statesmen, her sweetest singers. Still Jimmie had chosen another name.
On the following night Jimmie and his companion, who was named Mike Volpi, returned to their booth on the lower floor of the Seventy Club. The slender bus boy who hovered about the place did not appear to notice them.
They had ordered dinner and were seated in the shadows talking when, of a sudden, the flaming arrow once more appeared on the wall.
Like a flash Jimmie’s hand threw on the light. His sharp eyes looked for a note. There was none. The need was not great. The message of the flaming arrow was burned on his brain:
“Justice is an arrow of fire.”
The two men rose without a word. They left the place without dining. They did not return. Their actions spoke louder than words. They appeared to say:
“Here is something alarming, sinister, terrifying. Are we warned or threatened? Who is to stand up against such an invisible force?”
Was there, from time to time, about the corners of the slim bus boy’s lips on that night the suggestion of a smile? Who can say?
Jimmie McGowan was no ordinary cheap crook. That is to say, he did not deal in small change. He never picked a pocket nor snatched a purse. He did not jimmy a door to enter and carry away the silver while a family was away.
He preferred to deal in matters pertaining to thousands. He did not, however, disdain a few hundreds if opportunity came his way. By all this you may be led to conclude that he belonged in a class with Robin Hood; that he robbed only the rich, because they were rich, and perhaps even slipped a little of his quickly secured wealth into some poor man’s hand. But Jimmie was no Robin Hood, as you must know from what follows.
It chanced on a certain night that he saw a man draw a sum of several hundred dollars from his bank. The man walked away from the bank. Jimmie, noting his direction, walked around the opposite corner and, by doing a double-quick down an alley, managed to meet him at a dark corner two blocks farther on.
“Hands up!” commanded Jimmie.
The man hastened to comply. But at once he began to plead with Jimmie. The money was the result of two years of careful saving. He meant to use it in paying a skillful surgeon for straightening his child’s spine. This child, his only son, had been a cripple since birth. But now he might be made to walk.
It chanced that the man was telling the truth. But must a high class robber believe all that he hears on the street? Was he to be expected to accompany the man to his home and see for himself that the truth was being told?
Most certainly not. At least, so concluded Jimmie. He struck the man on the head, took his money and departed.
The man went to the hospital. His son remained a cripple. And Jimmie, being one of those persons known among his friends as a “hot sport,” put on a party that very night which was the envy of all his pals. Such a feast, such drinking, such dancing! Well, that was Jimmie.
Jimmie knew how to dress. Never doubt that. His suits were tailor-made. His shirts were custom-made to match his suits, and his ties to match the shirts. At all times Jimmie was immaculate. It pays in his line of business. A natty burglar gets fine notices in the papers.
Nor was Jimmie entirely devoid of culture. Back in his family somewhere, there had been a musical strain. At the symphony orchestra opening concert or the opera first night, unless too greatly annoyed by the troublesome police, Jimmie was present. And invariably he was accompanied by a person described in the papers as a stunning blonde. The blonde was dressed in an opera cloak of dark, dark purple, trimmed in richest white fox. It was not always the same blonde. It was always the same cloak. Jimmie provided that. For how is one to enjoy culture unless he has a lady on his arm? Well, that was Jimmie.
On the night following that disagreeable affair of the flaming arrow, Jimmie was not at the Club, nor was he with Mike Volpi. Instead he was out in search of culture. With a lady on his arm, he was strolling a certain park where, every summer, opera is put on in the open air. Drew Lane was also there.
Drew saw Jimmie. He had never seen him before, nor even heard of him. For all this, instinct, trained by experience, said to him:
“Here is a crook. He has a gun.”
Now there is one trinket which no plain citizen may carry—a gun.
Drew stepped up to Jimmy and patted him on the back, exclaiming:
“How are you, son?”
That instant Jimmie’s face became a mask. Well for him that Drew was not looking at his face. Instead he was watching Jimmie’s hands. Also his own hands were busy. They were extracting a gun from a hidden pocket in Jimmie’s coat.
“You haven’t a thing on me.” Jimmie’s tone was low. It was also the snarl of a wolf. “You can arrest me for that, but it will do you no good.”
Drew knew he spoke the truth. A man may be fined or imprisoned for carrying a gun, but only when the officer who takes the gun has a search warrant.
“I am glad to have met you, old son.” Drew spoke in a tone of counterfeit cordiality. At the same time he displayed a little corner of his star.
“I will be glad to meet you under different circumstances.” Once more it was Jimmie the wolf who spoke in scarcely audible tones.
“No doubt you will,” said Drew. “And here’s luck to the best man.”
Drew lost himself in the crowd. Jimmie’s gun was in Drew’s pocket.
Had Drew been asked just how he knew that Jimmie was a crook who carried a gun, he could not have told.
His reasons for taking the gun were clear enough. A snake without fangs is harmless. So, too, is a crook without a gun. The fewer guns there are in a night crowd such as this, the better. For all that, Jimmie seldom mixed business with pleasure. Without doubt he carried that gun for defense only. For the moment he was defenseless; quite as defenseless as his many victims. What a pity that the victims did not know this! As it was, Jimmie and his companion imbibed fresh culture without further disturbance.
That night when Drew returned to the shack, he found the slight form of Newton Mills still bent over his microscope.
“There you are, Old Timer!” Drew exclaimed as he removed the clip from Jimmie’s gun and let it drop with a clatter on the table. “There’s another little plaything for you.”
Newton Mills looked at the gun for a space of ten seconds. Then, as his weary eyes became focused upon it, he seized it eagerly.
“It’s the type!” His words were tense.
“What do you mean, the type?”
“It is the type of gun from which that bullet was fired.”
“What bullet?”
“The one that may have ended the life of your good friend Rosy.”
“No!”
“It is.”
“We will try it out, examine the bullet to-night. Now.” Drew reached for the gun.
“Not to-night.” Newton Mills made that old familiar gesture seeming to brush cobwebs from his face. “My eyes are gone for to-night. To-morrow will do.”
Drew started to hang the gun on a nail beside the one that had hung there so long. Newton Mills took it from him and buried it deep in the bottom of a chest. He then locked the chest and hid the key.
“You can never be too careful,” he said quietly. “Things happen when we least expect them.
“By the way!” He changed the subject. “Where did you get that gun?” He pointed to the one hanging close to Johnny’s blood-stained arrow.
Drew sat down and told the story of the gun and the arrow, as it was enacted that dark night on the deserted slip.
Newton Mills drank in his every word.
“It’s strange I never told you about that before,” said Drew.
“It is,” agreed the veteran detective.
Reaching up, he took the gun from its nail and brushed away the spider’s web. After that he unlocked the chest and placed this gun beside the other. Without another word, he undressed and went to bed.
Johnny was awakened early next morning by the sound of muffled shots.
Drew too was awake. He was sitting up in bed, listening. The Old Timer’s cot was empty.
“Wha—what is it?” Johnny asked.
“Shots,” Drew replied.
“Where?”
“In the basement of the Ramacciotti cottage, I would say.”
This guess was correct. Having awakened before dawn, Newton Mills had removed the two guns from the bottom of his chest, had searched in a box for cartridges, then had crept quietly out of the room.
He had meant to go down to the beach and fire shots into the sand. However, having found Mrs. Ramacciotti in her kitchen, he had stuffed a keg with rags and had retired to her basement. There he fired three shots from the young gangster’s gun and three from the one that had so long been hanging on the wall of the shack.
He left the cellar, as soon as he had retrieved and labelled the bullets, and returned to the shack.
“Out gunning rather early,” Drew commented.
“Hey? Yes. Important, I’d say.” Newton Mills seated himself at his bench, switched on a light, and at once lost himself in a study of the freshly fired bullets.
At a certain time, had one chanced to observe him closely, he would have noted that intense excitement gripped him. His fingers trembled. Three times he dropped the same bullet. His lips trembled as if with palsy.
A few moments later he became a creature of marble calmness. Turning about in his chair he stood up, stretched his arms, straightened his tie, then announced quietly:
“These are the guns.”
“What guns?” Drew looked up.
“This,” he said, patting Jimmie McGowan’s gun, the one Drew had taken the night before, “this thin automatic is the gun that fired the shot that has perhaps taken the life of Rosy Ramacciotti.”
Had he exploded a bomb in the center of the room, he could not have caused greater excitement. Drew leaped to his feet, overturning his chair with a crash. Johnny allowed a glass of water to slip from his hand.
“That gun!” Drew exclaimed as soon as he had regained possession of his senses. “Why! I had that man in my hands, unarmed, defenseless, last night!”
“Can’t help that,” Newton Mills smiled a dry smile. “Bullets don’t lie, not to me.
“What is more—” He laid a hand on the other gun, the one that had been taken from a murderous hand on the deserted slip on the night Johnny shot an arrow, “this is the gun that killed Rosy’s father. It is also the gun that fired the shot in the studio on the night that Johnny was beaten up.”
The two boys stood there for some time, silent, dumfounded by such startling revelations.
“Since you know this much,” the Old Timer went on at last, “you may as well know the rest. Let me explain to you how it is that I can know these things with such certainty. I will explain it to you just as I would to a jury. May take a little time, but in view of the large place this new science of forensic ballistics is sure to play in future detection of crime, I am certain it will be time well spent.”
There was a tap at the door. Mrs. Ramacciotti appeared with the morning coffee.
“Good!” exclaimed the Old Timer. “Coffee and bullets. What could be sweeter!
“Forensic ballistics,” he said musingly as he sipped hot coffee, “sounds rather impossible, doesn’t it? It means only this. Forensic, having to do with the law; ballistics, the science of projectiles. Forensic does not interest us. Ballistics, for us, means the science of bullets.
“Now,” he said, reaching for Jimmie’s automatic and glancing down its barrel, “you know that the barrels of revolvers are rifled; that is, there is a series of spiral grooves running through each barrel. That is done to make the bullet go straight. A smooth surface causes the bullet to tumble end over end the instant it leaves the gun.”
Taking three small white sacks from his bench, he emptied their contents on the table before him: three bullets.
Displaying two of these on the palm of his hand, he asked:
“Are they alike?”
“Yes,” replied Drew after a moment’s scrutiny.
“No,” said Johnny.
“In what way do they differ?” The detective’s eyes lighted.
“I don’t know. Let me have them.” Johnny studied them closely.
“The grooves in one are wider than in the other,” he said at last.
“Correct. In other words, there is one more spiral groove in the barrel of one gun than the other. So we know at once that if a bullet killed a man it could have been fired from only one of these guns.
“In fact the guns are of different makes. No two manufacturers rifle their barrels in the same manner. Some cut more grooves. Some cut deeper grooves, and so on.
“We have got this far,” said the veteran detective, taking a long drink of coffee, “but that isn’t very far. There are thousands upon thousands of automatics in this country, manufactured by the same company. They are of the same rifling, same caliber and all. Suppose a bullet has been fired from a revolver. It has killed a man. You think you have the gun. You wish to say to judge and jury, ‘I have the gun that killed the man. This is the gun. I will prove it to you by a study of bullets fired from it.’ In view of the fact that there are thousands of such guns in existence, of the same caliber and manufactured by the identical machinery, are you able to prove that one particular gun fired the fatal shot?”
“Don’t seem possible,” said Johnny.
“It is possible, nevertheless.” Newton Mills’ eyes shone. “With the aid of a comparison microscope and micro-photography, it can be done.
“In the first place, the spiral grooves in a gun are made by passing a narrow cutting die many times through the barrel. No metal has ever been found that will not wear. The cutting die wears. Its edge becomes rough. You cannot see the roughness with the naked eye. A microscope reveals it. This rough cutting edge imparts just such a roughness to the spiral groove.
“Since the cutting die is constantly wearing, the roughness of the spiral groove of one gun, when studied under the glass, will not be exactly the same as that of any other barrel, though cut by the same machine on the same day.
“Now, when a soft bullet is shot from a gun, the rough edge of the groove leaves scratches upon its surface. You cannot see these scratches with your naked eye. The microscope again reveals them.
“When you put two bullets fired from two guns of the same identical type under a comparison microscope, you can see them both at once and can place their scratches side by side and end to end, and you know at once that they were not fired from the same gun.
“But if the scratches match perfectly, then you know that the two bullets were fired from the same gun, and no other.”
By this time both Johnny and Drew were listening with all their ears.
“This study,” said Mills, “is sure to be of great service to the forces that make for justice. Every crook has his weakness. A weakness common to many is love for a particular gun. A man has carried a gun and used it many times. It has saved his life by taking the life of another. The gun becomes his pal, his defender. He does not willingly part with it. And in this he reveals a great weakness. That gun has left its trademark, its bullets, behind. By these, man and gun may be traced. If the gun falls into the hands of the law, woe to the crook!
“As you know,” he turned to Johnny, “we secured the bullet that wounded Rosy; also the one that was fired that other time in the studio; and the one imbedded in the wall at Ramacciotti’s old place.
“After examining these, we fired test bullets from all guns taken by the police from suspects during the past six months.
“An exhaustive study of these showed that the guns from which our three bullets were fired had not been taken by the police. That was a discouraging discovery.
“But now, as so often happens, just as we seemed at a standstill, Drew takes a gun from a suspect; he hauls another down from the wall, and behold: here we have the very guns we seek!
“The test bullets fired from the gun of Drew’s suspect are exactly the same as the one fired into Rosy’s body. The ones fired from the gun you took in such a strange manner beside that deserted slip are exactly the same as those fired by the man with the hole in his hand. I will be able to prove this to any jury by the use of enlarged photographs of the bullets. I now have evidence that will convict these two men. Bring me the men!”
“Ah yes!” Drew sighed. “That’s it! Catch the men!”
“But we will do it!” he exclaimed, springing to his feet. “Such men are a menace to any community. No decent, law abiding citizen is safe as long as they are at large. We will get them. We will! Wemust!”
While the old time detective was making these brilliant discoveries, Herman McCarthey and Drew had made little progress in their endeavor to find the men in the case.
They had taken to riding a squad car at night. A special car of great speed was assigned to them. This car was equipped with a loud gong. They worked only on radio squad calls. The moment a call was announced, they threw on the gas. If the case reported was within a certain distance of the place where their car was parked, they set their gong clanging and dashed away.
In this manner, during a two nights’ vigil, they had run down more than twenty squad calls and had learned not one thing to their advantage.
They did not despair. “The fish are here,” was Herman’s sage remark. “We may be obliged to let down the net many times. At last we will get them.”
On the night following Newton Mills’ great discovery, both the Old Timer and Johnny decided to accompany the others on their squad calls. Since Johnny was once more on the late squad calls at the radio station, he took with him his bow and arrows.
“We’ll just drop you off there later in the evening,” was Herman’s word to him.
It was well along toward midnight. They had chased down four radio calls to no purpose. It was beginning to look like another wasted night. They were parked north of the river on Main Street, when of a sudden there struck their waiting ears a call that promised much.
“The Roosevelt on Main!” Herman exclaimed in a breath. “That’s the place they picked the night Rosy was shot. Same gang. Came back for the rest of the roll. Step on the gas!”
The motor purred. The gong sounded. They were away. By some unusual chance, theirs was the first car to arrive.
They had not come to a standstill before Herman, Drew, Mills and two men in uniform were out of the car and bounding through the theatre door.
“Down there!” cried an excited youth in a green cap. “They went to the basement!”
Down the stair they plunged.
In the meantime Johnny, gripping his bow and arrow, and urged by who knows what instinct, raced around the building to enter an alley which ran at the back of the theatre’s stage.
Halfway down the stairs, Herman McCarthey suddenly found himself facing two stocky men. The foremost of these whipped out a gun and fired. The bullet grazed Herman’s cheek and lodged in a policeman’s thigh.
A second shot followed instantly. Newton Mills had gone into action. His bullet entered the robber’s heart. He fell back dead. The other man turned to flee down the stairs. He was struck down by a blow from Herman’s gun.
In the meantime, what of Johnny? Astonishing things were happening to him. Hardly had he entered the alley than someone sprang around a corner of masonry and, without noting him, began to approach.
The light of a street lamp fell on his back. Johnny recognized him instantly. He had a face that was like a mask. It was Jimmie McGowan.
Scarcely had Johnny stepped back to nock an arrow, than the other saw him.
Among people of his own kind this youth, Jimmie McGowan, was known as the quickest trigger in all gangland. Nor was an automatic lacking.
What saved Johnny? One curious circumstance. As the gangster came to a halt, a weird red light, from no one will ever know where, fell upon Johnny and his bow. His arrow was turned to a thing of flaming red.
It was this weird light that sent cold terror to the gangster’s heart. The hand that did not falter at the dealing of death was paralyzed by fear of that which could not be understood, the arrow of fire.
Before the gangster’s hand could regain its cunning, a missile came crashing into his shoulder. It was Johnny’s arrow. The gun went clattering to the pavement. Next instant, with the force of a tiger, Johnny leaped upon mask-faced Jimmie McGowan and bore him to the ground.
In the meantime Herman had made fast work of the second robber. Having knocked him down, he had him in handcuffs at once. As he turned the fellow over, more than five thousand dollars in currency dropped from beneath his coat.
Drew had noted the direction Johnny had taken. As soon as possible he followed in his wake. He found Johnny sitting on the chest of Jimmie McGowan. A feathered arrow protruded from Jimmie’s shoulder.
“I got him!” exulted Johnny. “I got the one we want!”
“Silent Murder,” murmured Drew. “So you have. But not so fast. Not another word at this time.”
Jimmie McGowan went to the hospital in the jail to have Johnny’s arrow removed. Drew called the radio station and had Johnny released from duty that night. Then they all adjourned to the shack.
“We win!” said Johnny exultantly.
“Not so fast,” said Herman McCarthey. “What was this bird doing when you shot him with that arrow?”
“Coming down the alley. Preparing to shoot me.”
“Can you prove that he meant to shoot you?”
“No. But anybody knows—”
“Sure. But not in court. Crooked lawyers, and all that. This poor boy, meaning Jimmie McGowan, was obliged to go out at night. He carried a gun for protection. He met a stranger. The stranger attempted to massacre him with a murderous six foot bow. Can’t you see how they’ll shape it up?”
“Yes, but Rosy will identify him.”
“Perhaps, if she lives. There are still grave doubts regarding her recovery. But if she does live, this boy has two faces, a smile and a mask. He will show her the smile. She must pick him from among other men. She was frightened that night. Will she recall the face? Well, perhaps.”
“But there are the bullets. They are absolute proof.”
“They are our best bet. We must guard them well.”
A little later Newton Mills spoke to Johnny in a low tone. At the same time he pressed a package into his hand.
“You keep these until to-morrow,” he said. “I’m a marked man. They won’t suspect you of having them. It’s the bullets, the little pills that will send that man of the masked face down for life.”
Perspiration started out on Johnny’s brow as he listened to these words. Nevertheless, he stowed the small package deep in his innermost pocket.
“They won’t get them,” he muttered. “None of them will.”
As an afterthought, he drew the package from his pocket, seated himself at a table, then wrote his name and address on the outside of the package. He then replaced it in his pocket.
This was a habit of Johnny’s, of long standing. Not for ten years had he carried a package a distance of so much as one block without first writing his name and address upon it. Absent-minded people should keep their records well. Johnny was, at times, absent-minded.
As often happens when men have a good piece of work well off their hands, Drew Lane and Newton Mills went to bed almost at once, and were soon fast asleep.
Not so Johnny. He sat in a chair thinking. The room was dark. That did not matter. The men he had most feared were in prison and in the hospital. One was dead. He had not seen the dead man, nor his accomplice who surrendered. As one will, he had assumed that one of these was the man with a hole in his hand. What could be more natural? Those two, the youth of the mask-like face, and he of the hole in his hand, had been together on every other occasion.
As Johnny thought the thing through now, the whole affair seemed clear. On the night he had been attacked in the studio, this gang had planned to rob a theatre. Two had come up to silence the radio. Another pair had pulled off the robbery.
On the second occasion they had not dared to enter the radio studio, so had planned to cut the private wire of the police. In doing this they had frightened Rosy, and shot her, either without purpose or to cover their escape.
On this, the third night, they had feared to approach the radio station. Without doubt they knew that now the station was strongly guarded. They had disregarded the peril of a squad call and had staged the robbery with all hands on board.
In drawing these conclusions, Johnny may have been partly right. In one matter he was completely wrong. The man with the hole in his hand had not been captured.
As Johnny was thinking of retiring he touched a pocket. The pocket gave forth a crackling sound.
“A letter,” he thought. “Meant to mail it. Forgot. May as well take it to the box now.”
As we have said, Johnny believed the entire gang that had been troubling them were in jail. He had no fear of the dark and empty street. Indeed, as he walked the two blocks that lay between the shack and the mail box, he was thinking of that dark fishing hole on the far shores of Lake Huron where the black bass lurk.
He did not note the two men who lay in hiding beneath the shadows of the Ramacciotti cottage. Nor was he conscious of their presence as they pussyfooted along after him. Only when he was within ten paces of the mail box did he turn his head half about, to see them out of the corner of an eye.
It was with the greatest difficulty that he suppressed a start.
“The bullets!” he thought. “They know. They are after the bullets.”
What should he do? Like a flash a plan of action came to his mind. Quickening his pace a little, he allowed his left hand to drop to his side, revealing the letter. At the same time his right sought the inner pocket of his coat.