Johnny experienced no difficulty in locating Drew’s club. It was a fine place, that club; small, but very useful. Not much space for loafing there; a lobby, that was all. A completely equipped gymnasium, showers, a swimming pool, bowling alleys in the basement, a floor for boxing and fencing. A young men’s club this was, with a purpose. That purpose was set up in large letters above the desk in the lobby: KEEP FIT.
In a surprisingly short time they had undressed, passed under the showers, gone through a quick rub-down, drawn on shorts and gloves, and there they were.
Drew was five years Johnny’s senior. He was taller almost by a head, and thirty pounds heavier. It seemed an uneven match. But Johnny was well built. Then, too, he had a passion for boxing that dated back to his sixth year. When at that early date a boy three years his senior had taken it upon himself to put Johnny in his place, Johnny had emerged from the engagement bloody, tattered and victorious.
For a space of five minutes these two, Johnny and Drew, sparred, getting up their wind and landing comfortable body blows now and then. When they sat down for a brief blowing spell, Drew looked Johnny over with increased admiration. He had expected to amuse this boy and get a little workout for himself. He had found that Johnny was quick on his feet, that his eyes were good, and that his left carried a punch that came with the speed of chain lightning.
“I was going to give you a little sermon on keeping fit,” Drew said after a moment of silence. “Guess you don’t need it.”
“Everyone needs it.”
“You bet they do. Hadn’t been for my keeping fit, I wouldn’t be here at all. Come on. Let’s go another round.”
Once more they sparred. This time Drew seemed determined to deal Johnny at least one smacker on the face. In this he was singularly unsuccessful. Johnny was never there when the blow arrived. He ducked; he wove right, wove left, sprang backward, spun round.
Then of a sudden, something happened. In making a desperate effort to reach Johnny’s chin, Drew exposed the left side of his face. Johnny swung hard, but planned to pull the punch. Drew suddenly leaned into it. Johnny’s blow came in with the impact of a trip hammer, just under Drew’s ear.
Drew dropped like an empty sack.
He was out for the count of five. Then he sat up dizzily, stared about him, caught Johnny’s eyes, then grinned a crooked grin that lacked nothing of sincerity as he exclaimed:
“That was a darb!”
Half an hour later, after a second shower, the two boys sat in the small lunch room of the club, munching cold tongue sandwiches on rye, and drinking coffee.
“Boy!” said Drew. “You should train for the ring.”
“Doesn’t interest me,” said Johnny. “Fine thing to box, just to keep fit. But when it comes to making a business of a thing that should be all pure fun—not for me!”
“Guess you’re right.”
“But tell me,” said Johnny. “Is it hard to become a city detective?”
“Not so easy. Many a fellow out in the sticks pounding a beat would like to be on the detective force. It’s more dangerous. But you have more freedom. And you get a bigger kick out of it. If you get there quick you’ve got to get a break. I got a break.
“Queer sort of thing,” he mused as one will who is about to spin a yarn. “I was off duty, dressed in knickers, driving home in my car, with a friend, from a golf game. Traffic light stopped us. Fellow, tough looking egg, stuck a cannon in my face and said: ‘Stick ’em up!’”
“What did you do?” Johnny leaned forward eagerly.
“What would you have done?”
“You weren’t on duty. Weren’t wearing your star?”
“Not wearing my star, that’s right. But in a way an officer of the law is never off duty. Many a brave fellow has been killed because he stepped into something when he was in civilian clothes and off duty.
“My friend that was with me was a real guy. He wouldn’t have squawked if I had given that bad egg my money and driven on.
“But you know, that’s not the way a fellow’s mind works. No, sir! You say to yourself, ‘This guy’s got the drop on me. I’ve got to get him. How’ll I do it?’”
“What did you do?” Johnny’s coffee was cooling on the table.
“I said, ‘Please, Mister, don’t shoot me. I’m a young fellow. I don’t want to die. I’ll give you everything, but don’t shoot!’ Stalling for time. See?
“‘All right,’ he growled, ‘back the car into the alley.’
“He climbed into the back seat and pressed cold steel against the back of my neck.
“Of course I had to look through the rear window to back into the alley. That gave me an idea. I blinked my eyes as if I saw someone behind the car. He was nervous. They generally are. Who wouldn’t be?
“He turned his head to look back. I had a small 32 in my pocket. I whipped it out and took a pot shot at him.
“My hand struck the back of the seat. The gun flew up. I missed.
“He whirled about and put his gun on my temple. ‘You murderin’ —— ——,’ he said, and pulled the trigger three times.
“The gun didn’t go off.” Drew paused to smile. “Sometimes a fellow gets a break that makes him want to believe in angels and things like that.
“That gun was loaded with slugs. It had a lock on it. He had failed to release the lock. He threw away his gun and grabbed for mine.
“We grappled, and I went over the seat on top of him, shouting to my friend: ‘Go call the police.’ He went.
“Then we fought it out there alone. That’s where keeping fit came in. He was a tough egg with a record long as your arm. He was strong. He was desperate. The ‘stir’ craze was on him.
“‘Don’t resist me,’ I said. ‘I’m an officer.’
“‘I’ll kill you with your own gun if it’s the last thing I ever do!’ That was his answer.
“We fought and struggled. He banged me here. He banged me there. He bit my hand to the bone. Once he pressed my own gun to my head, but my finger was on the trigger. He couldn’t shoot.
“‘Pull the trigger, —— —— you! Pull the trigger. It’s on your head!’ That’s what he said.
“A stranger heard the noise and came to look at us.
“‘Call the police!’ I yelled. ‘Call the police!’
“You should have heard him hot-footing out of there! I tell you that was funny!
“And then we bumped into the door. It flew open. We tumbled out. I got my chance. I fired one shot. I got my man.
“Hey, waiter!” Drew called with a smile. “Bring us some more coffee. This has gone cold.”
“Of course,” he said thoughtfully, “it’s always too bad when a man has to die. But it was one or the other of us. He wasn’t much good. They wanted him for a dozen robberies, and for shooting a policeman.
“I was in the sticks walking a beat then. They gave me a job on the detective force, and I received a hundred dollars reward from one of the papers. So you see, life as a copper isn’t so bad, providing you get the breaks.”
“Yes,” Johnny said slowly, “Providing you do.”
“I suppose,” said Drew after stirring his coffee reflectively for a time, “that I should be satisfied. And I am, reasonably so. But you know, pickpockets are very small game. It’s necessary enough that they should be mopped up. But it’s like hunting rabbits when there are grizzly bears about. I’d like to get in on something big.
“Things are going to happen in this old town. Judges are getting better. The prosecutors are working harder. The honest people are waking up. One of these fine days the order will be given to break up every gang in town; bring them in or drive them out. I want to be in on that.”
“You will,” said Johnny. “They won’t be able to do it without you. They need a thousand like you, a Legion of Youth.”
“You are right!” Drew put his cup down with a crash. “College men. That’s what they need. Men may sneer at them. They needn’t. I’m a college man, and I’m proud of it.
“Know what?” His eyes shone. “They are going to put courses in criminology in the colleges and universities. They’ll do more than that. They’ll teach young fellows how to be good detectives. Why not? They teach them everything else. Why not that?”
“They will,” said Johnny. “And I’d like to take the course myself.”
That night Sergeant McCarthey visited Johnny in his cubby-hole by the big radio studio.
“Hello, boy,” he said, putting out a big, brown hand for a shake. “Mind if I sit down awhile? Sort of like to see how the calls go out.”
“Not a bit,” Johnny smiled. “Glad to have company. Little dull lately. Robbery, shooting, burglary, shooting, holdup; that’s about the way it goes. Nothing really new.” He laughed a short laugh.
“Say!” the sergeant exclaimed, “You’ve got to hand it to this old burg. That stuff goes out all over the country. Everybody gets it. And they say, ‘What a terrible town!’
“But it’s not a bad town. I’ve lived in others. I know. They’re all alike. Difference is, others cover it all up. We don’t. You’ll see. When we shout enough, the crooks will begin clearing out. You—”
Johnny held up a finger. He listened. He wrote. He banged his gong. Then—
“Squads attention! Squads 36 and 37. Robbers in the second apartment at 1734 Wabash.”
“That’s the way it goes, is it?” said the sergeant. “Pretty quick work. When we get our own station it will be snappier. And only the squad cars will get the calls. Special low wave-length.”
For a time they sat in silence. Then Johnny’s telephone buzzed.
“Another call?” McCarthey asked in a low tone.
“Just a report on that last call.” Johnny’s eyes twinkled. “Got ’em. Got ’em four minutes after the call went out.”
“Good work. No wonder they hate you, those crooks. This place should be guarded.”
“It is.” Johnny laid his hand on his bow.
“Drew told me about that thing and the way you handled it down there by the slip. Wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t told me.
“By the way, I’ve been making a little study of that man’s history, the one who shot Rosy’s father, the one that beat you up.”
“Find anything?”
“Following the hunch about his liking the sound of his gun, and the descriptions given in other robberies, I believe he’s responsible for several bad bits of business.
“This much we know from the case of Rosy’s father. He’s a Sicilian. A tall fellow, and heavily built. Not dark for his race. Got a low, narrow forehead, and blue eyes very close together. He’s never been caught. Probably sneaked into our country from Canada or Mexico. Send him back where he came from if we get him. And we’ll get him!”
“I hope so,” said Johnny, with a furtive glance toward the door. “I mostly manage to keep wide awake. But it’s late by the time I’m through. If I should get drowsy, and he walked in again, well—”
“This place should be guarded,” the sergeant repeated. “I’ll suggest it.”
“No, don’t bother.”
“I’ll lend you a gun.”
“Guns make such a lot of noise. Old Silent Murder here will do as well.”
“Guess I’d better be going.” Herman McCarthey rose. “Got to catch my train.”
“Train?”
“Yes. I live in the country. Little village; one store, one church, post office, few homes. Need the peace I find there to go with the rush of the city and this business of hunting crooks. It’s good to wake up with a breath of dew in your nostrils, and the robins singing their morning song. Nothing like it.”
“No,” said Johnny, “there isn’t.” He was thinking of the woods by his fishing hole in the far away North Peninsula, where the song sparrows fairly burst their throats with melody.
“Good night,” said Johnny.
“Good night, son.” The sergeant was gone.
* * * * * * * *
The State Street Police Court with its humorous Punch and Judy judge became a place of great fascination to Johnny. In the past he had dreamed of courts where trials dragged through weary months; where prisoners languished in jail; and a man might be sentenced to five years of hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread to feed a starving family. How different was this court where a pretty lady might steal a dress she did not need, and never go to jail at all.
The very poor, Johnny soon learned, were treated with consideration. Their poverty was not forgotten.
“And yet,” he said to Drew one day, “I can’t help but feel that there would be less stealing if some of these first offenders scrubbed a few floors in the workhouse.”
“There are many things to be considered,” was Drew’s reply.
And then one day, as he stood in that State Street court room, all eyes and ears for what was taking place, Johnny made a great discovery. He found a man.
This man was not brought to court. He came of his own accord, to plead the cause of another.
He was not quite sober, this man; indeed there are those who would have said he was drunk. And yet he spoke with precision.
Though there was about him an indescribable air of youth, this man’s hair was white. His face was thin. Some of his teeth were gone. His clothes were well-worn, yet they showed immaculate care. His linen was clean. “Shabby gentility” partly described him; but not quite.
“Judge,” he said, tilting first on heels, then on his toes, “Judge, your Honor, you have a man in jail here. He was fined twenty-five dollars for being drunk.” He paused for breath. “Judge, your Honor, he can’t pay that fine. He isn’t a bad man, Judge. He drinks too much sometimes, Judge. Let him go, can’t you, Judge?” The man’s voice took on a pleading note.
“What’s this man’s name?” The judge studied the stranger’s face.
“Judge, your Honor, his name is Robert MacCain. He isn’t a bad man, Judge. Let him go, will you, Judge?”
“He’s a pal of yours?”
“Yes, your Honor.”
“You drink with him sometimes?”
“Yes, your Honor.”
“You took a little drink yesterday?”
“Yes, your Honor.”
“And last night?”
“And last night. Yes, your Honor.”
“How does it come you were not arrested with this pal of yours?”
“Your Honor,” again the stranger tilted backward and forward from heel to toe, “Your Honor, I try at all times to be a gentleman.
“Let him go, Judge. Will you?”
“Are you a lawyer?” The judge leaned forward to stare at him.
“No, your Honor. But I know more law than your Swanson or Darrow or—”
“You should have been a lawyer. What are you?”
Again the stranger went up on his toes. “Your Honor, for seventeen years I was a detective on the police force of New York. I ranked as a lieutenant, your Honor.”
“This fellow is a romancer,” Johnny whispered to an attorney who stood beside him. “He doesn’t know truth from lies.”
“He is telling the truth,” was the astounding reply. “I know him. He was rated high.”
The lawyer scribbled a sentence on a slip of paper. He handed it to the judge.
This movement did not escape the stranger.
“Your Honor,” he pleaded, “don’t let any of this get into the papers. I have a mother eighty-six years old. It would kill her.”
“What is your name?”
“Your Honor, my name is Newton Mills.”
“Newton Mills?” The judge started, then stared in unfeigned astonishment. “You are Newton Mills?”
“Yes, your Honor.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Nothing, your Honor.”
“Yes, you are!” The judge braced himself on the arms of his chair. “You’re drinking yourself to death. You are breaking your mother’s heart.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do.” He reached for an order blank. “I’ll send you down there with your pal. You’ll have a chance to sober up.”
At once the face of Newton Mills became a study in pain. “Don’t do that, Judge. Don’t do it. It will break my mother’s heart. I haven’t done anything bad, Judge. I’ll quit drinking, Judge. I promise. Don’t do it, Judge. I’ll quit. I promise, Judge.”
There had been a time when, quite a young boy, Johnny Thompson had made friends with a homeless dog. At another time he had found a half grown kitten starving under a barn. After much trouble he had caught the kitten. It had scratched him terribly, but he had clung to it and had carried it home to give it a chance.
Something of the same feeling came over him now. Only this time he had found, not a dog, not a cat, but something more precious—a man.
“You—your Honor,” he stammered, scarcely knowing what he was saying, “if your Honor please, I’d like this man.”
“To what purpose?” The judge stared.
“To give him another chance.”
“Can you?” Once more the judge leaned far forward in his chair.
“Drew Lane is my friend. We live together. With his help I can.”
“Done!” said the judge.
“You heard what he said!” he exclaimed, turning to the astonished Newton Mills. “You promised to stop drinking. This young man will see that you do stop.”
Never in all his life had Johnny seen such a look of despair as came over the face of the old-time detective. He had made that promise a thousand times. He had never kept it. Now here was someone with the mighty arm of the law behind him, who said, “You must!”
He glanced wildly about the room, as if looking for means of escape. Then with a look of utter weariness he murmured:
“Yes, your Honor.”
So it happened that when Drew returned from work that evening he found a man in Johnny’s bunk, and Johnny seated near him. The man was asleep, or in a drunken stupor.
“I found a man,” said Johnny.
“Looks like a bum,” said Drew, casting a critical eye over the stranger.
“He has been.”
“Looks like he was drunk.”
“He is.”
“Then why—” Drew paused to stare at the stranger.
“Drew,” said Johnny, almost solemnly, “did you ever hear of Newton Mills?”
“Newton Mills, the great city detective? Who hasn’t?”
“That,” said Johnny dramatically, “is Newton Mills.”
“What!” Drew took a step forward. “It can’t be. He disappeared three years ago. He’s dead.
“And yet—” He stared at the face of the man on the cot.
Then he tore into a trunk to drag out a bundle of old photographs. One of these he studied intently for a moment. Then turning to Johnny, he said in a voice tense with emotion,
“Yes, Johnny, that is Newton Mills. You have indeed found a man.
“My God!” he exclaimed in an altered tone. “I wonder if that’s the price? Will I be like that in twenty years?”
To this question he expected no reply. He received none.
He took a seat beside the cot where the man with deep-lined face and tangled white hair was sleeping. For a long time he said nothing. Silence brooded over the shack.
“This man, Drew Lane, is an unusual person,” Johnny told himself. “He is so full of strange deep thoughts.”
This beyond question was true. He was given to actions quite as strange as his thoughts. At one time he had paid a half-dollar for the privilege of taking Johnny to the top of his city’s highest tower. Once there, he had spread his hands wide as he exclaimed, “See, Johnny! Look at all that!”
It was indeed an awe-inspiring sight. Mile on mile of magnificent buildings. Towers rising to the clouds, all the wealth and glory of a great modern city was there, spread out beneath them.
“Johnny,” Drew had said, “there are people living down there who are ashamed of their own city. They don’t believe in its future.
“You can’t blame them too much.” His voice took on a note of sadness. “The badness of it is pretty terrible.
“But think, Johnny! Look! Look and think how many men of great wealth must have believed in this city and her future. Not one of those great towers could have risen a foot from the ground had not some man had faith in the city’s future.
“And, Johnny!” He had gripped the boy’s arm hard. “It’s my task and yours, every young man’s task, to prove to the world that the faith of those men was not misplaced.
“And we will!” He had clenched his hands tight. “We’ll make it the grandest, the greatest, the safest, most beautiful city the world has ever known!”
He had said that. And now he sat brooding beside the form of one who, like himself perhaps in his youth, had thrown himself against the slow revolving wheel of stone that is a great city’s appalling wickedness.
“And now see!” he murmured, half aloud.
“The lawyer who told me who he was said he was ‘just a shell!’” Johnny volunteered. “Do you think you can make anything of just a shell?”
“I don’t know.” Drew’s tone betrayed no emotion. “But who could do less than try?”
“Who?” Johnny echoed.
At that moment the souls of Drew and Johnny were like those of David and Jonathan. They were as one.
“That man,” said Drew as he nodded at the slight form on the cot, “was one of New York’s finest. Many a member of the old Five Point Gang has felt a light touch on his arm, to turn and laugh up into those mild blue eyes. But they never laughed long. That touch became a chain of steel. The chain dragged them to a cell or to a grave.
“There are people still,” he rambled on, “who believe that a detective should be a man of muscle and brawn. In a fight, of course, it helps. But in these days when fighting is done, for the most part, with powder and steel, a slight man with brains gets the break. This Newton Mills surely did. For a long, long time he got all the breaks. But now look!”
“He told the judge he had been living on fifteen dollars a week, sent by his mother,” said Johnny. “What could have happened?”
“Many things perhaps. Herman McCarthey will know. I have heard him speak of Newton Mills. We will ask him, first thing to-morrow morning.”
And there, for a time, the matter rested.
That night as he went to work, walking by preference down the Avenue, then over the Drive that fronted the lake, as one will at times, Johnny received the impression that he was being watched, perhaps followed.
An uncomfortable feeling this, at any time. A late hour, a deserted street, do not lessen one’s mental disturbance.
Long ago Johnny had formed two habits. While walking alone at night he kept well toward the outer edge of the sidewalk. Under such conditions it is hard for a would-be assailant to spring at one unobserved. Then, too, he carried one hand in his coat pocket. “For,” he was accustomed to say to his friends, “who will know what I hold in that hand? It may be a small gun. If it were, I could shoot it quite accurately without removing it from my pocket. Crooks are, at heart, great cowards. What one of them will face a hand in a coat pocket?” Thus far in Johnny’s young life, not one of the night prowlers had molested him.
Though some sixth sense told him now that he was being followed in the shadows, he was not greatly alarmed. He merely increased his pace to a brisk walk. From time to time he looked over his shoulder. Each time he saw no one.
He was passing along an empty lot lined with great signboards, and had reached the center of the block when two men sprang from the shadows.
Not wholly unprepared for this, he gave a sudden leap to one side, then sprang forward to transform the affair into a foot race.
Fortunately at that moment four sturdy citizens turned a corner and advanced in his direction.
This apparently was an unforeseen part of the program, for at once his would-be assailants stopped short, then turned as if to walk in the other direction.
As they turned, the face of the shorter one was suddenly illumined by a light from an auto that had turned a corner.
It was but a flash. Then all was darkness. Yet in that flash Johnny had seen a man, one of those who had followed him. He was a youth with broad, slightly stooping shoulders. His face seemed a mask. His clothes were in the height of style. The light brought a flash from a diamond somewhere on his person.
Darkness followed. Johnny walked straight ahead. He met and passed the four men, who paid him not the slightest attention. Fifteen minutes later he was at his post in the radio station. There, for a time, the matter ended. Of two things you may be sure. Johnny walked that street no more at night, nor did he forget that youth with a face that was like a mask.
When Johnny returned to the shack that night his strange guest was still asleep. A third cot had been set up in the room. Understanding this, Johnny crept between the fresh, clean-feeling sheets, and was soon sleeping soundly.
When he awoke in the morning Drew was gone. His white-haired guest, Newton Mills, the man he had found, was seated on his bunk, chin cupped in hands, staring at the floor.
Johnny lay in his bunk watching him for a full quarter of an hour. In all that time he did not move so much as a finger.
This man fascinated Johnny. Does this seem strange? Who has not dreamed of coming upon a derelict at sea; of seeing her masts broken, bridge and gunwale gone, decks awash, yet carrying on, the wreck of a one-time magnificent craft? Could such a sight fail to bring to the lips an awe-inspired cry? How much more the wreck of a great man?
But was this a true derelict? This was the question that pressed itself upon Johnny’s eager young mind. Many a drifting hulk, having been found sound of beam and keel, has been towed ashore to be refitted and sail the seas once more. So, too, it is with men. Thus Johnny’s thoughts rambled on.
But what of this strange, prematurely gray man? What thoughts filled his mind at this hour? Or did he think?
Rousing himself, Johnny stepped from his bed, donned shirt, trousers and slippers to glide from the room and knock at that other door. Into Rosy’s ready ear he whispered:
“Coffee for two. Stout! Black and strong!”
A short time later as he and the one-time great detective drank hot black coffee in silence, the door opened and Herman McCarthey entered. Johnny understood in an instant. Drew had sent him.
“Hello, Mills!” the sergeant exclaimed heartily. “Remember me, don’t you? We worked together on the Romeri kidnapping case. That was, let me see, twelve years ago.”
“Romeri.” The man passed a hand before his face, as one will who brushes away a cobweb. “Romeri. Yes, I remember the case. And you, Herman McCarthey. Ah yes, Herman McCarthey. There were no stool pigeons in that case.”
“No,” said Herman, “there were none.”
Conversation lagged. Herman sat down to drink a cup of coffee. He sighed, got up, walked across the floor, and sat down again.
“Tell you what,” he said at last, looking at Johnny. “To-day’s my day off. Going out to my place at Mayfair. It’s quiet out there and mighty fine. To-morrow’s Sunday. Supposing I take Mills out there for the week-end. You come out Sunday and stay all night. Then we’ll come back to town in my car, the three of us. What do you say, Mills?”
The white-haired man rose with the air of one who has surrendered his will; like a prisoner who receives orders from a guard.
Herman McCarthey read the meaning of that act, and frowned. He did not, however, say, “Well, let’s not go.” He said nothing, but led the way. The other followed.
Johnny went with them to the sidewalk. There he stood and watched them board a west bound car. After that he turned about and walked thoughtfully back to the room. In his mind questions turned themselves over and over. “When is a man an empty shell? When is he a hopeless derelict?”
He thought of Herman McCarthey, alone out there at his country place with that terribly silent man, and was tempted to regret the steps he had taken.
He ended by drinking a second cup of coffee, then falling asleep in his chair.
* * * * * * * *
Next day Johnny went out to Herman McCarthey’s place. He had no trouble finding the house. The town was small, only a tiny village, but filled with many stately trees.
He wondered a little as he walked up the gravel path. How was his man, his derelict? Would anything worth while come of this affair?
He found Newton Mills in the same condition as when he left the shack. He talked little, always of trivial matters. He ate almost nothing. At times a haunting desire was written on his face.
“Been like that all the time,” Herman whispered to Johnny. “Can’t tell how he’ll come out. Seen many like him. Can’t help it when you’re a cop. They’re like a lamp that’s been burning a long time and gone dim. Some, if you give them a fresh supply of oil, flare up, then burn steadily again. Some don’t. Last spark is gone. How about him? Who knows? Only God knows. We must do our best.”
They spent the day in quiet rambles about the village and long periods of loafing on the porch.
Newton Mills retired early. That left Herman and Johnny to amuse themselves; not that the strange derelict had furnished them much amusement. In his bed at least he was no longer a burden.
The two, the seasoned detective and the boy, chose to sit the long evening through on the broad screened porch.
The still peace of the place seemed strange to the boy whose ears had become accustomed to the rattle of elevated trains, the shouts of newsboys and the miscellaneous din of a city’s streets.
“It’s so quiet,” he said, looking away through the motionless leaves of stately trees, across the darkened lawn to the spot where the moon was rising.
“Yes,” said Herman McCarthey, “it is quiet. Sometimes I like to feel that the peace of God hovers over the spot. Anyway, it’s the only place I’ll ever live.
“You know, of course, that you’re supposed to live in Chicago if you’re on the force,” he went on. “But the Chief fixed that for me. It’s only a rule; not a law.
“The Chief and I,” and his tone became reminiscent, “were on the force together when we were young. We were in one fight which the Chief won’t forget. Nor I, either.
“There was a tough gang down by the river. A shooting had been reported. We got there on the double-quick; too quick perhaps. We met ’em coming up the bank, all armed. They didn’t wait for words. Just started in shooting. They got me in the shoulder first round. But I stood up to ’em and let ’em have it back. So did the Chief. One man went down.
“Of a sudden the bullet I had in me made me dizzy. I spun round and went down.
“The Chief stood up to ’em. A dozen rounds were fired before my head cleared. When it did, I propped my eyes open just in time to see one of them bending over the Chief, taking deadly aim. The Chief was down with a bullet in his back. That shot never was fired.”
“You—you got him.” It was Johnny who spoke.
“You said it, son.”
“And that,” said Herman McCarthey, “is why the Chief lets me live where I please.
“But that,” he went on after a moment, “is not why I live here. Of course I’ve always loved the quiet peace of the open country. You need it after the day’s rush and noise and all the squalid fuss you endure as a police officer. Somehow I have a notion that if a lot more of those city cave-dwellers lived out in places like this we wouldn’t have so many to run down and put in jail. But who knows?
“That’s not the whole reason either.” He leaned forward in his chair. “I live here because it’s the place where I spent my honeymoon.”
“You—your—” Johnny stared at him through the darkness.
“Yes.” Herman McCarthey’s tone was deep. “I was married once.
“No. She didn’t die. Just went away. They do that sometimes. She’s living yet, and happy, I hope. Successful too, and prosperous. Buys dresses for a big store in New York, swell dresses they say. Goes to Paris every year and all that. Ten thousand a year, maybe more.
“You see,” his tone became very thoughtful, “she married the wrong man. That happens too. I was only a cop, a plain ordinary policeman. Perhaps she married my uniform. Who knows?
“I brought her out here. She wasn’t happy. ‘Too still,’ she said.
“So we took a flat in the city. But she wanted what I couldn’t give, kind of a society life.”
For a time, he stared away to the west where the first stars were appearing. Then he spoke again.
“I bought this place on payments. When we moved to the city I couldn’t very well keep up the payments, so I let it all go; or thought I had.
“But when she’d left me and gone to New York I sort of felt like I’d like to come out and see the old place—the place where I’d spent my honeymoon.
“And what do you think? The man I’d bought the place from had saved it for me all that time! All I had to do was begin paying again, and it was mine.
“It’s things like that that make me like quiet country places. Men do such things out here. Perhaps they do in the city, too. But somehow I feel that a man is a bit nearer God when he sees the dew on the grass, the red in the sunset, and the gold in the moon.”
Again he was silent for a time.
“All this,” he went on then, “hasn’t made me bitter. It’s the duty and grand privilege of most men to have a home and raise a family of youngsters. It’s the duty of us all, especially of us officers of the law, to make it easy and safe for those boys and girls to grow up strong, clean, and pure. That’s why an officer who doesn’t do his whole duty is so much of a monster.”
That particular Sunday was a happy one for Rosy, the bright-eyed Italian girl. Why not? It was her birthday. She was sixteen. What is more wonderful than being sixteen? Besides, her mother had given her a new dress. It was real silk, the color of very old Italian wine, this dress was, and trimmed with such silk flowers as only the skillful fingers of Mother Ramacciotti could form.
There were other reasons for happiness. Rosy’s life had known misery and sadness. Now she had a home; very plain, it is true, but comfortable. She had friends. Were not Johnny and Drew her friends? Many more there were at the radio studio. Rosy was a favorite. Her obliging interest in all that pertained to her duties, her ready smile, won many.
Then too, her mother had said to her that very morning, “Six months more, and we will go to those so beautiful hills that are my home. Your grandmother awaits us among her flowers and her vines. The white-topped Alps will look down upon us from afar. Ah! There is a country! Italy! Oh, my beloved Italy!”
Rosy had not seen Italy. Her mother had painted glowing pictures of that land. Oh! Such pictures! Who can say which one longed most for that land, mother or daughter?
A gay time they had that day. Drew was in for dinner. They had ravioli a la Tuscany, and after that some very rare fruit cake that had come only the week before from sunny Italy.
So proud of her new dress was Rosy, that she needs must wear it to her work. Her friends, all of them, must see how very beautiful it was. So, with a smile on her lips, and a dimple in each cheek, she departed, waving goodbye. Rosy, happy Rosy!
At the studio she was greeted with many smiles and hearty congratulations. In time, however, all her friends had passed to their work on the floor above, leaving Rosy there alone.
It was always a little dreary down at the foot of the stairs. Only an occasional buzz at the switchboard disturbed the silence of the place. Faint, indistinct, seeming to come from another world, the mingled notes of many musical instruments floated down from above. Some tunes were merry; some sad.
On this particular night, for no reason at all, they all reached her ears tinged with melancholy. What was it? Is great happiness always followed by a touch of sadness? Was a shadow of the future stretching out to engulf her?
In one studio was a massive pipe organ. At 9:30 the organist, ascending to the console, left the studio door ajar. The pealing, throbbing notes of this organ drifted down to Rosy.