The Arrow of Fire

by Roy J. Snell

  CHAPTER XXVI THESE ARE THE GUNS

  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'scot 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 hadremoved the two guns from the bottom of his chest, had searched in a boxfor 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 akeg with rags and had retired to her basement. There he fired three shotsfrom the young gangster's gun and three from the one that had so longbeen 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 freshlyfired bullets.

  At a certain time, had one chanced to observe him closely, he would havenoted that intense excitement gripped him. His fingers trembled. Threetimes he dropped the same bullet. His lips trembled as if with palsy.

  A few moments later he became a creature of marble calmness. Turningabout 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 thenight before, "this thin automatic is the gun that fired the shot thathas perhaps taken the life of Rosy Ramacciotti."

  Had he exploded a bomb in the center of the room, he could not havecaused greater excitement. Drew leaped to his feet, overturning his chairwith 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 hissenses. "Why! I had that man in my hands, unarmed, defenseless, lastnight!"

  "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 beentaken from a murderous hand on the deserted slip on the night Johnny shotan arrow, "this is the gun that killed Rosy's father. It is also the gunthat fired the shot in the studio on the night that Johnny was beatenup."

  The two boys stood there for some time, silent, dumfounded by suchstartling revelations.

  "Since you know this much," the Old Timer went on at last, "you may aswell know the rest. Let me explain to you how it is that I can know thesethings with such certainty. I will explain it to you just as I would to ajury. May take a little time, but in view of the large place this newscience of forensic ballistics is sure to play in future detection ofcrime, I am certain it will be time well spent."

  There was a tap at the door. Mrs. Ramacciotti appeared with the morningcoffee.

  "Good!" exclaimed the Old Timer. "Coffee and bullets. What could besweeter!

  "Forensic ballistics," he said musingly as he sipped hot coffee, "soundsrather impossible, doesn't it? It means only this. Forensic, having to dowith the law; ballistics, the science of projectiles. Forensic does notinterest us. Ballistics, for us, means the science of bullets.

  "Now," he said, reaching for Jimmie's automatic and glancing down itsbarrel, "you know that the barrels of revolvers are rifled; that is,there is a series of spiral grooves running through each barrel. That isdone to make the bullet go straight. A smooth surface causes the bulletto tumble end over end the instant it leaves the gun."

  Taking three small white sacks from his bench, he emptied their contentson 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 barrelof one gun than the other. So we know at once that if a bullet killed aman it could have been fired from only one of these guns.

  "In fact the guns are of different makes. No two manufacturers rifletheir barrels in the same manner. Some cut more grooves. Some cut deepergrooves, and so on.

  "We have got this far," said the veteran detective, taking a long drinkof coffee, "but that isn't very far. There are thousands upon thousandsof automatics in this country, manufactured by the same company. They areof the same rifling, same caliber and all. Suppose a bullet has beenfired 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 fromit.' In view of the fact that there are thousands of such guns inexistence, of the same caliber and manufactured by the identicalmachinery, are you able to prove that one particular gun fired the fatalshot?"

  "Don't seem possible," said Johnny.

  "It is possible, nevertheless." Newton Mills' eyes shone. "With the aidof a comparison microscope and micro-photography, it can be done.

  "In the first place, the spiral grooves in a gun are made by passing anarrow cutting die many times through the barrel. No metal has ever beenfound 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 spiralgroove.

  "Since the cutting die is constantly wearing, the roughness of the spiralgroove of one gun, when studied under the glass, will not be exactly thesame as that of any other barrel, though cut by the same machine on thesame day.

  "Now, when a soft bullet is shot from a gun, the rough edge of the grooveleaves scratches upon its surface. You cannot see these scratches withyour naked eye. The microscope again reveals them.

  "When you put two bullets fired from two guns of the same identical typeunder a comparison microscope, you can see them both at once and canplace their scratches side by side and end to end, and you know at oncethat they were not fired from the same gun.

  "But if the scratches match perfectly, then you know that the two bulletswere 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 forcesthat make for justice. Every crook has his weakness. A weakness common tomany is love for a particular gun. A man has carried a gun and used itmany times. It has saved his life by taking the life of another. The gunbecomes his pal, his defender. He does not willingly part with it. And inthis he reveals a great weakness. That gun has left its trademark, itsbullets, behind. By these, man and gun may be traced. If the gun fallsinto the hands of the law, woe to the crook!

  "As you know," he turned to Johnny, "we secured the bullet that woundedRosy; also the one that was fired that other time in the studio; and theone imbedded in the wall at Ramacciotti's old place.

  "After examining these, we fired test bullets from all guns taken by thepolice from suspects during the past six months.

  "An exhaustive study of these showed that the guns from which our threebullets were fired had not been taken by the police. That was adiscouraging discovery.

  "But now, as so often happens, just as we seemed at a standstill, Drewtakes a gun from a suspect; he hauls another down from the wall, andbehold: here we have the very guns we seek!

  "The test bullets fired from the gun of Drew's suspect are exactly thesame as the one fired into Rosy's bo
dy. The ones fired from the gun youtook in such a strange manner beside that deserted slip are exactly thesame as those fired by the man with the hole in his hand. I will be ableto prove this to any jury by the use of enlarged photographs of thebullets. I now have evidence that will convict these two men. Bring methe 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 amenace to any community. No decent, law abiding citizen is safe as longas they are at large. We will get them. We will! We _must_!"