by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER V MYSTERIOUS VIOLENCE
It was twenty minutes past twelve o'clock, ten minutes before closingtime. At this precise moment a thing happened that was destined to changeJohnny's whole career. It was to make him a hunter of men.
At this hour the radio studio in an out-of-the-way corner on the tenthfloor of a great hotel was dimly lighted and spooky. The merry-makers inthe studio beyond had long since departed. That room was completely dark.So, too, was the studio nearest Johnny. Even the dim shadows of musicalinstruments had faded into nothing. Two lights burned dimly, one overJohnny's head, the other directly before the operator who, half asleep,sat waiting for the moment when he might cut a distant ballroom orchestraoff the air and follow his fellow workers home.
"No more calls tonight," Johnny was thinking to himself. "Quiet night,right enough; one holdup, two robberies and a shooting. Ho well, it'sbeen interesting all the same. Fellow wouldn't--"
No, there it was again, one more call. Buzz, buzz, flash, flash.
He pressed his ear to the head phone, his lips to the mouthpiece. Andthen, like lightning from a clear sky, things began to happen. He wasstruck a murderous blow on the head. He was pitched violently forward. Hehad a vague sensation of something resembling a microphone glancing pasthim, then crashing violently against the wall. Other objects appeared tofollow. A sudden shock of sound burst on his ears, filling the air.
"Shot," he thought to himself. "I'm shot!"
He experienced no pain. For all that, his mental light blinked out and heknew no more for some time.
In the meantime the operator in the glass cage was seeing and hearingsuch things as he had never so much as dreamed of.
His first intimation that something was wrong was when Johnny'smicrophone sent him a curious sound of warning. This was caused bysomeone grasping it in both hands. Compared to the sound that followed atonce, this was as nothing. Had two freight engines entered the room fromopposite directions and suddenly crashed they could not have produced amore deafening hubbub than that which came from the loud-speaker as themicrophone, hurled by mysterious hands, crashed against the studio wall.
As the operator's startled senses directed his attention to Johnny'scubby-hole, and his eyes took in at a glance the full horror of thesituation, he stood paralyzed with fear.
His chair overturned, Johnny Thompson lay crumpled on the floor. Ashadowy figure reached up and crushed his light as a child might a bird'segg. The same figure seized the police gong and hurled it through awindow. Broken glass flew in every direction. A telephone followed thegong. Then, as mysteriously as he had come, the sinister figure steppedonce more into the dark, leaving wreck, ruin and perhaps death in hiswake.
"Gone!" No, not quite. One more act of violence. Came a flash, a roar,and a bullet struck with a thud against the padded partition.
The operator promptly dropped flat upon the floor. Nor did he, being aprudent youth, rise until heavy feet came stamping up the stairs andthree uniformed policemen, led by a youth in shirt sleeves, burst intothe room.
The young man in shirt sleeves was Drew Lane.
From the moment Johnny took his first squad call, Drew had been listeningin at his room. He had come to have a very great interest in Johnny."Anyone of his courage, spirit and ambition, coupled with a desire to beof real service to others, will go far," he had told himself. "I'll justlisten in tonight. He may make a slip or two. If he does I can set himright."
Johnny made no slips. In fact Drew was obliged to give him credit for asteady hand and a clear head. Drew had been thinking of throwing off theradio and turning in, when the crash of the wrecked microphone reachedhim through his loud-speaker in the shack.
With a mind well trained for sudden disaster, he knew on the instant thatsomething unusual and terrible was happening in the studio. What it washe could not guess.
Grasping his automatic, without waiting to draw on his coat, he haddashed out of the shack, down one rickety stairway, up another, andraced. By good chance he had run squarely into a police squad car.
"Step on the gas, Mike!" he shouted, springing into the car. "East onGrand, then north on Lake Shore. Something gone wrong at the broadcastingstudio!"
The motor purred, the gong sounded as they were away at sixty miles anhour.
"Heard it," Mike shouted above the din. "Guess your young friend droppedhis 'mike'!"
"Worse than that," Drew came back. "I've heard that happen. This wasdifferent. Worse! Ten times worse!"
That he was telling the truth you already know.
And that was how it happened that Drew and the squad appeared on thescene, exactly six minutes after the destroyer had completed his work ofdemolition.
"Hey! What's this? Who's here?" bellowed Mike O'Hearne, the head of thesquad, drawing his revolver and leading the way.
"He--he's gone!" The terrified operator rose shakily.
"Who's gone?"
"I--I don't know. Truly I don't. But look! Look what he's done!"
"Where's the light switch?" Mike advanced into the studio, tripped over atrap drum, dropped his gun; then said some words appropriate to theoccasion.
"Here. Just a moment."
The operator, who was rapidly regaining the power of his senses, toucheda switch and the room was flooded with light; so, too, was Johnny'scubby-hole.
"They--he shot at me," stammered the operator, once more thrown intoconfusion at sight of Johnny's still form crumpled up beneath the debris.
"Who shot?" demanded Mike.
"I--I don't know."
"You don't know much. Looks like they'd done for this boy here. And why,I wonder? That's always the question. Why? Here, give us a hand. Let'sget him out of here. Somebody call the house doctor."
Relieved to find there was something definite he might do, the youngoperator got the doctor on the phone at once.
"He'll be up right away," he reported.
"Hm, let's see." Mike, the experienced police officer, who had examined athousand cases, living and dead, turned Johnny over carefully.
"Lot of blood," he muttered. "Hit on the head. May come round. Doctor cantell. Bring some water."
The operator brought a pitcher of water. Mike bathed Johnny's forehead,then began washing away the blood. Johnny had just begun to stir a bitwhen the doctor arrived.
A full five minutes the doctor remained bent over the prostrate form.
"I hope he's going to come out of it," Drew said to a husky,grizzle-haired Irish sergeant named Herman McCarthey. "He's a game kid,and he's got right ideas. He'll go far. This was his first night."
At the end of that tense five minutes Johnny sat up unsteadily.
"He's reviving," said the doctor. "Let's have some air."
Windows were thrown up. Johnny opened his eyes and looked about him.
"Wha--where am I?" he half whispered.
"Right where you were," Drew chuckled. He was pleased to see the boycoming round so soon.
"I--I--" Johnny's eyes held an uncertain light. Then they cleared."Something hit me. I--I went--went down. The microphone, the telephone,every--everything went--"
"That's all right," said Herman McCarthey quietly. "Just you take iteasy. You'll be fine and dandy pretty soon. Then we'll take you home inthe car and you can tell us all about it. He hit you, that's clear. Hitwith his gun. Dent of the hammer's in your scalp. An' it's goin' to staysome time.
"He hit you. We don't know just why. But we'll find out, won't we, Drew?"
"You know we will!"
"And we'll find the man, won't we, Drew?"
"We sure will!"
"And when we do!"
"And when we do!" Drew Lane echoed with appropriate emphasis, and a lightgrip on his automatic.