CHAPTER XVIII

A SCREAM--A SHOT

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.

For each of us there is some musical instrument whose notes stir us with joy, another that awakens a feeling of sadness. To Rosy the pipe organ carried a feeling of infinite pain and sorrow. On that tragic day, when her murdered father had been carried to his last long rest they had led her, at her mother's side, to a great dark, damp and lofty room that was a church. There for one long, torturing half hour she had listened to the most mournful tones she had ever known. The tones had come from a pipe organ.

Now, as she sat listening, it seemed to her that the dampness, the darkness, the gloom of that vast church were once more upon her.

She shuddered. Then, though the night was warm, she threw a wrap about her shoulders. Her fingers trembled.

"That door," she thought. "I will go up and close it."

She had risen and was turning about when, of a sudden, her blood froze in her veins. Directly behind the place where she had been sitting, were two men. One was half concealed by a door. His head and shoulders were within a closet. The other looked squarely at her.

Two things Rosy's startled eyes told her at a glance. The man who looked at her was young. His face was like a mask. The other man had a hole in his hand.

It was enough. Without willing to do so, she screamed. It was such a long-drawn, piercing scream as one utters but once or twice in a lifetime.

* * * * * * * *

In the meantime, under quite different circumstances, Johnny and Sergeant McCarthey were discussing their latest problem, the derelict from New York.

"Has he told you how it all came about?" Johnny asked.

"No. He won't tell that. What's the use? He knows I am a detective. He knows I know all that's worth knowing."

"Someone has told you?"

"No. They never need to. I've seen it before; too often. Too often!" Sergeant McCarthey's tones were sad. For some time he said no more. When he did speak it was with the voice of one who has resolved to tell much.

"You're young, son," he began. "You don't know a great deal about this business of hunting down criminals. You heard Mills say there were no stool pigeons used in that kidnapping case we solved?"

Johnny nodded.

"To me that remark was significant. He hates stool pigeons. Everyone does. A stool pigeon is a person who, for pay or for immunity from arrest for some crime he has committed, tells on some other person.

"There are men on every police force, good men too, who believe that criminals cannot be captured without the aid of stool pigeons.

"But how one must come to hate them when he is obliged to deal with them constantly. Perhaps you think of stool pigeons as poor, weak-eyed, slinking creatures who can earn a living in no other way. If so, you are wrong. Some are rich, some are poor, some men, some women. All are alike in two particulars. All want something; for the most part protection for some form of petty vice or crime. And they all crawl. How they do crawl!

"Perhaps you don't quite understand. It's using the little criminal to catch the big one. Take an example. Some Greek runs a cheap gambling house. With card games and roulette wheels he entertains laborers and takes their money. He breaks the law. But he knows of a man who has robbed a bank. He is afraid of having his place raided, having his evil means of living taken away. He becomes a stool pigeon by informing on the robber. After that the detective uses him on many cases.

"But how must the detective feel who has dealings with such a man? You can't play with snakes unless you lie down and crawl.

"Little by little, the thing gets you. To associate with stool pigeons you must do the things they do. You begin to drink. You do other things. You break the law. But the law forgives you, for you are working for it.

"Can't you see? No matter how high your ideals were in the beginning, how lofty your aims, you step down, down, down, when you deal with stool pigeons.

"It was so with him." He nodded his head toward the room in which the white-haired one was sleeping. "I happen to know. When I worked with him there was no finer man on any force. A college man, born to his task, enthusiastic for it from his youth; no one promised more. But his Chief believed in stool pigeons. He had a complicated, well guarded system of informers. Newton Mills was forced into this system. A man of sensitive nature and much native honor, he went down fast."

"And you--"

"I have never used a stool pigeon in my life. I never will. Perhaps I am wrong. Crime must be punished. It's a matter of method. I have informers, but they are all honest citizens. They tell what they know, and ask nothing in return. They are my friends. They are more than that. They are true Americans. It is the duty of every honest citizen to inform the officers of the law when he learns of any flagrant violation of the law. Perhaps if every citizen did his full duty, there would be no need of stool pigeons. Who knows? I--

"There's the telephone," he broke off suddenly. "Go answer it, will you?"

Johnny sprang through the door and disappeared into the dark interior of the house.

* * * * * * * *

The young man with a face like a mask was not one of those who love the sound of his own gun overmuch. But he was, by nature, a killer. When Rosy screamed, indeed even as she did so, he whirled about and, without removing his hand from his hip, fired one shot.

Rosy crumpled to the floor. Soon a scarlet stream began disfiguring her bright new birthday dress. Her eyes closed as in death. Her cheeks were white with pain.

When a throng of musicians and operators, electrified by Rosy's scream, at last came to their senses and, led by Bill Heyworth, came pouring down the stairs, they found Rosy lying unconscious on the floor. Otherwise the place was deserted.

Some time later it was found that a wire had been cut in the closet back of Rosy's chair. This wire ran through the closet to the studio above. It was the private wire from the Central Police Station to the radio squad call room.