by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER III TALKING IN THE DARK
Johnny spent the remainder of the day sight-seeing. Old friends awaitedhim, the Museum, the Art Institute, the State Street stores. The workalong the Outer Drive amazed and delighted him.
"Great city!" he mused. "Do anything. No spare land for parks. Make some.Why not? Goes and gets things, this old city does. No islands. Dig somefrom the bottom of the lake. Great, I'd say!"
Then his brow clouded. He recalled stories he had heard repeated. Even inthe far-away Canadian woods men had spoken of rampant crime, gangkillings, wholesale gambling and robbery in his beloved city.
But at once his face brightened. "A few hundred fellows like this DrewLane would fix that all up. Young, ambitious, fearless college fellow,I'll bet. Looks like a dude, but got real stuff in him. Why not athousand like him, fresh from college, full of ideals, ready for fight?Like the men that went to France. Why not? A thousand strong! The Legionof Youth. Man! Oh man!"
So, sight-seeing, reminiscing, dreaming, he wandered through the day tofind himself, toward eventide, wandering back to the low shack that layat the foot of many great piles of brick, and wondered more and more thatsuch a fellow as Drew Lane should choose so humble, not to saydisreputable appearing, habitation.
"Lot of things go by opposites," he told himself. "Besides, there's thatgirl. Italian. But a beauty for all that."
He was only partly right. The girl had played a part in it all, but notexactly in the way he thought.
"Just what you been doing with this thing?" Drew asked, taking upJohnny's bow, as he entered.
"Hunting."
"What did you kill?" Drew's brow wrinkled. "You couldn't kill much."
"Couldn't I though!"
Johnny drew forth an arrow and handed it to him. "Exhibit A. I will askyou to examine the point." Drew felt of the razor-like edge and whistled.
Taking up a square of pine board, Johnny set it against the far end ofthe room. Then, nocking the arrow, he sent it fleeting. The arrow strucksquarely in the middle, passed quite through the board and buried itselfin the wainscoting.
"Oh--ah!" said Johnny. "'Fraid I've marred your paint."
"Silent murder!" murmured Drew. "What a spiteful little thing of power!
"Wouldn't be bad; not half bad," he mused a moment later.
"Bad for what?" Johnny asked.
"For an officer. Catch a bunch of yeggs pulling a job. Pick 'em off oneby one with that bow, like the Indians used to do wild turkeys. Andgather them up after. Never know what killed them. I say! We'll have toadd you to our staff!"
They laughed together, then went out to the little restaurant around thecorner for their evening meal.
Darkness had fallen when they returned to the shack, yet Drew Lane didnot throw on the lights at once. Instead, he guided Johnny to acomfortable chair.
"Let's just sit and talk," he said. "I like it best this way, in thedark. You tell me of the wild woods where the North begins, and I'll tellyou of a city where trouble is always just around the corner!"
"Tell me first," said Johnny quickly, "how you came to be at the pierlast night and why you picked me up."
"Nothing easier," Drew laughed. "An officer of the law is never fully offduty. Tell you about some of my 'off duty' experiences some time. You'llbe surprised.
"You see, last night I strolled down to the pier, just for an airing.Then your ship came in. Thought I'd have a look at anyone who came off.An extraordinarily large number of persons enter our country in this wayfrom Canada and Mexico. Mighty undesirable persons, many of them. So Iwas on the lookout.
"When I saw you I guessed you were all right. But in our business,guesses don't go. We must have facts. I got them. You were O.K."
Drew lapsed into silence.
"But that doesn't explain why I am here now," Johnny suggested.
"Oh! That." Drew sat up. "There's a natural comradeship between certainpeople. If you are one of the parties you know it at once. I felt sort ofrelated to you. Liked the way your muscles bulged beneath your clothes.You had an air of open spaces about you. I wanted to know you. So hereyou are. Regret it?"
"Not a bit."
"Nor I."
So they talked. And as Drew Lane's voice came to him in a slow and steadymurmur Johnny felt a kindred spirit laying hold of his very soul. Morethan once, too, he felt an all but irresistible impulse to leap to hisfeet and dash from the room, for a steady, indistinct but unmistakablestill small voice was saying to him: "This man goes into many dangers. Ifyou travel with him he will lead you into great peril. Once you havefollowed you cannot turn back. Such is the spirit of youth, faith,romance, and love for the human race. Test the steel of your soul well.If you are in the least afraid it were better that you turn back now."Johnny listened and humbly vowed to follow this or any other leader whosepurpose was right and whose heart was true.
An hour passed. At last Drew Lane rose, stepped across the room andpressed a button to set a square of light dimly glowing.
"Like a little music?" he asked.
Johnny did not reply, but waiting, heard as in a dream the faint,plaintive notes of a violin creeping into the room.
It rose louder and louder. Then of a sudden, quite without warning, itwas broken in upon by a terrible, jarring WHONG!
Clang! Clang! Clang! sounded a brazen gong. Then a voice:
"Squads attention! Squads 8 and 11 go to 22nd and Wabash. A man robbedthere."
The message was repeated. Then again, quite as if nothing had happened,the violin resumed its lovely melody.
"That's the way it goes at that station," said Drew. "Funny part is thatthe gong sings a sweeter song to us than the violin. It's a greatservice, son; a great service.
"Of course in time we'll have our own station; broadcast the calls on alow wave-length. Only people who get the squad call will be the boys inthe squad cars. Know how it works, don't you?"
"Not very well."
"Simple enough. Someone reports a robbery, a burglary or what have you,to the police by phone. The report is relayed to headquarters.Headquarters gives it the once over. Is it important? Out it goes on aprivate wire to the radio station. 'Hold everything!' the radio squadreport operator signals to the other studio people. Then Whang! Whang!Whang! the report goes out.
"More than forty squads of police, with loud-speakers in the tops oftheir cars, are listening, waiting. Number 9 is called. The squad carwhizzes away. Two minutes later they are there. Burglars have laid downtheir tools to find themselves staring into the muzzle of an officer'sgun. A bank robber has pulled off a slick daylight affair, only to walkright into the waiting arms of a detective squad summoned by the radio. Itell you it's great.
"But after all," his voice dropped, "we're not getting them very fast,not as fast as we should. It's the professional criminals we don't get.We--"
"There! There she goes again!"
Once more the squad call sounded. This time it was the robbery of a storeby two men who fled in a green sedan.
"You might haunt the courts for two weeks at a time and never see aprofessional criminal on trial," Drew went on. "And yet eighty-five percent of crimes are committed by professional criminals, men and womenwith records, who make a business of crime, who haven't any otheroccupation, who don't want any other, who wouldn't know what you meant ifyou asked them to settle down and live an honest life. In this city oneperson out of every three hundred is a professional criminal. Think ofit! Three hundred people go to work every day, work hard, save theirmoney, raise their children in a decent manner, look ahead to old age;and here is one man who robs them, beats 'em up, burglarizes their homes,disgraces their children. And the irony of it all is, the whole threehundred can't catch that one man and lock him up. Be funny if it wasn'tso tragic."
"I suppose," said Johnny, "it's because the city is so big."
"Well, perhaps." Once more the young officer's voice dropped. "It'sdiscouraging. And yet it's fascinating, this
detective business. Thereare boys, lots of them, who think crime is fascinating. They read thoserotten stories about Jimmy Dale and the rest, and believe them. I tellyou, Johnny!" He struck the table. "There never was the least touch ofromance in any crime. It's mean and brutal, cowardly and small. Buthunting down these human monsters. Ah! There's the game! You tell of yourwhite bears, your wolves, your grizzlies. Fascinating, no doubt. Butcompared with this, this business of hunting men, there's nothing to it!"He took a long breath and threw his arms wide.
"I believe you," said Johnny with conviction. "I wish I might have a partin it all."
"Don't worry. You have made a good start. You are to be a witness."
"That--why, that's nothing."
"Nothing, is it? You wouldn't say so if you had seen witnesses kidnapped,bribed, beaten, driven out of town, murdered by the gangs that all butrule us. A good witness. That's all we need, many's the time. And lackinghim, the case is lost.
"You won't fail us?" he said in a changed voice.
"I won't fail you. When the trial comes up I'll be there."
"Of course." Drew's tone was reassuring, "I don't want you to becomeunduly frightened. Pickpockets don't band together much. We seldom havetrouble once they are caught. It's the robbers, the hi-jackers, thebootleggers. They are the ones."
A few moments later they turned in for the night. Johnny, however, didnot sleep at once. He had been interested in all this newfound friend hadtold him. He had felt himself strangely stirred.
"If only I could have some real part," he whispered to himself.
A few moments later he murmured half aloud, "That's it! I believe I coulddo that. Anyway it's worth the try. Do it first thing in the morning."
With that he fell asleep.