by Roy J. Snell
CHAPTER XIII A MARKED MAN
Johnny's work at the studio never failed to fascinate him. The noon hourswere pure routine. But at night, when squad calls came thick andfast--that was the time!
An entire symphony orchestra might be crashing its way through somemagnificent concerto. No matter. The squad operator spoke a few words inJohnny's ear. He jotted down those words. He pressed a button twice. Forone brief second the air, a thousand miles around, grew tensely silent.Then _Clang! Clang! Clang!_ And after that, Johnny's voice: "Squads,attention! Squad 16. A shooting at Madison and Ashland." Ah! There waspower 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 ofviolence.
"You'd think," he said to Drew once, "that the whole city had turnedcriminal."
"But it hasn't," Drew replied thoughtfully. "Only one person in threehundred is a professional criminal. Don't forget that. If you want toknow what that means, go somewhere and watch a turnstile. Count threehundred people as they pass through. Then say 'ONE.' Big, like that. Thatstands for one crook. Then begin all over again, and count threehundred." Johnny tried that, and derived a deal of assurance from theexperiment. It gave him the comforting feeling that one might have whohas three hundred friends arrayed solidly behind him, row on row, while asingle enemy stands across the way.
But were these truly ready to stand back of law and justice? "If they arenot," he told himself, "it is because of ignorance. If they do not knowthe truth they must be told." Johnny hurried back to the shack as soon ashis work was done, on the night of his curious adventure down by theslip. He had no desire to go prowling about those abandoned sheds againthat night. He did wish to be abroad the first thing in the morning. Hewanted to discover, if possible, how the would-be assassin had made hisescape. He was also curious to discover whether or not his arrow had gonewith the stranger.
"I am surprised that anyone should attempt to kill me," Drew said, asthey 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 thetype of crooks you are assigned to.
"Take the matter of arresting a crook. He doesn't usually resist, unlessyou've caught him red-handed in crime. Rather take a chance with thejudge. Figures you've got nothing on him anyway. And I haven't been in onanything really big. They give those things to older men. Howe and I havebeen following pickpockets for months. That was my first and it's my lastassignment as a detective so far.
"Pickpockets are seldom violent. Sneaking is their game. They seldom packa 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. Hehad hung it on a nail over the head of his bed. There it was destined toremain until a busy spider had spun a web about it and built him a gauzyhome inside the trigger guard. For all that, neither the spider, therevolver, nor the former owner of the revolver were destined to rest longin peace.
"It's plain enough," said Johnny, as they reached the sheds, "why thatassassin was unconscious of my presence. I had been standing silently inthe 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 athin target. I put all I had into that shot."
They found some footprints ground into the cinders where the man hadstood. They discovered several breaks in the rusting sides of the shed,where he might have escaped. And yes, true to Johnny's expectations, theyfound the arrow where it had spent its force and dropped a hundred ormore feet from the spot from which it had been fired.
"See!" exclaimed Johnny as he picked it up. "I got him. Blood on thefeathers."
"I never doubted that for a moment," Drew said impressively. "As yousuggested, 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 asevidence."
"Why, I--"
"That arrow mark will leave a scar that matches the width of your arrowblade. It will have other peculiarities that will tell straight and plainthat the wound was made, not only by an arrow, but by one arrow--thisone. I've seen things far more technical than that, far more difficult toprove, sway a jury and win a hanging verdict."
So, in the end, the arrow was laid across two nails close to the revolverabove Drew's bed.
And, just by way of providing an easy means of escape if escape werenecessary, the spider ran a line from the thug's revolver to Johnny'sblood-dyed arrow.
"You said something about boxing once," Drew was at the door of theshack, ready to depart for his day of scouting. "How'd you like to meetme 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 toJohnny. "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 himcompany, Johnny sat down in Drew's rocking chair to think. From time totime 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, hefelt a desire to be far, far away from this great city and all that itstood for.
"Power," he murmured, "great power, that is what a city stands for. Greatpower, great weakness, great success, gigantic failure, men ofmagnificent character, men of no character at all; that's what you findin a city of three million people."
At once his mind was far away. In his imagination he stood upon a smalland 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. Oarswere there, minnows for bait, and fishing tackle. Two miles up the baywas 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. Todrop a minnow down there; to cast one far out, then to watch for the movethat means a strike!
"And yet--" He sighed, but did not finish his sentence. On the youth ofto-day a great city exerts an indescribable charm. Johnny would not leavethis city of his boyhood days until he had conquered or had beenconquered.
"It's strange, all this," he mused. "Wonder why that man beat me up therein 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 cantell?"