CHAPTER IX

CLUES

"It's queer the way the thing works out." Sergeant McCarthey looked the two boys squarely in the eyes when Drew Lane asked him how he had progressed with the radio station case.

Meanwhile Johnny was sizing up the sergeant. Nothing very wonderful to look at, this Sergeant McCarthey. Average size he was, with a face like a hawk. His nose was too long. It was curved like a beak. Shining out from behind it were two small black eyes. His head was, for the most part, bald, and he was but forty-five.

"Reminds me of a bald eagle," Johnny told himself.

To complete the picture Johnny discovered an ugly scar running down the sergeant's jaw and around his neck. The sergeant had got that scar during his first year of service. A holdup man, caught in the act, had pretended to surrender. He had given up his gun, but seeing an opening, had stabbed McCarthey, half behind his back. From that time on McCarthey began earning the name of the hardest man on the force. Certainly he made them "stick 'em up, and keep 'em up." For all that, there were those who knew that the sergeant had a very human side.

"What do you think, Drew?" he shot at the young detective. "Do you think those pickpockets had their gang walk in on this boy and beat him up?" He was speaking of Johnny.

"Tell the truth, I don't," said Drew Lane. "First place they laughed when they saw him. If--"

"Can't tell as much about a crook's laugh as you can a bullfrog's croak," McCarthey broke in. "Not as much. When a frog croaks he's saying he's happy. A crook's liable to laugh when he gets ten years."

"It's not just that," said Drew. "You know yourself that pickpockets are sneaks; coyotes, not wolves. They may be well organized in some cities. They're not in this one."

"You're right," said McCarthey, shuffling a sheaf of papers on the desk. "That possibility is about all there is to that clue. But we'll keep the sheets; you never can tell.

"I work it out this way." He spread five sheets of paper on the desk. "See! This one is for your pickpocket friends who are naturally afraid of Johnny as a star witness against them. We'll put it over here." He laid it aside.

"But what about the squad call that was going through when the raid on the radio station was made?" Drew broke in.

"I'm coming to that. That's the queer part," the sergeant went on. "You see I have four sheets left. That means four possibilities.

"Since you insist, we'll take the call that was going through when the station was raided. You'll be surprised. That squad call was a notice that someone was breaking in over on Lake Shore Drive. Swell apartment. People all gone. When the radio failed to give the alarm, a squad was sent out from the local police station, and the burglars were caught."

"Oh!" Johnny leaned forward expectantly.

"That's what I thought," grumbled the sergeant. "But they turned out to be two kids, one about twenty, the other younger. Dressed like college kids, they were, in yellow slickers decorated with hearts and kewpies; you know the sort.

"But let me tell you one thing. You may lay a bet those boys never saw the inside of any college. I've been watching. We don't get many real college boys. When they're smart enough and good enough workers to get up to college, they're too smart to think they can beat the game by turning crooks."

"But where did the boys come from?" Johnny asked.

"That's what they didn't tell," said McCarthey. "If we knew, it might throw some light on the subject. But you can see how likely it is that a bunch of kids are going to figure out that they'll get caught burglarizing an empty flat unless they send someone to beat up a radio announcer or two. And besides, if they did, who would they get to go for 'em? Too dangerous. Lot worse than burglarizing.

"So that," he threw the second sheet aside, "looks like a doubtful chance. But we'll keep 'em all.

"Another queer thing." He turned to the third sheet. "Not many cases go out over the air. We can handle 'em other ways. Three an hour is a good many. But in that fifteen minutes when the radio station was dead, smashed to bits, there were three squad calls that did not go out, and two were mighty important.

"You know that long row of warehouses just back of your shack, Drew?" He turned to Drew Lane.

"Sure."

"Some cracksmen burst the safe in the third one from the water, ten minutes after the radio station was smashed."

"That looks like a hot scent," said Drew, starting forward to bend over McCarthey's sheet.

"Rather blind one, at that," said the sergeant. "No one saw them. A straggler heard the blast and turned in the alarm. Squad came. Safe was looted. Birds flown. Might have gone a dozen ways, rowboat, on foot, in a car. Gone, that's all. Got something over a thousand dollars. Left nothing, not even a fingerprint."

"It's too bad," sighed Drew. "I'd say that was the likely case. Going to blow up a safe. Mighty few cases these days. Since the radio gave us a lift, electric drills are cheap. Radio's too quick for them. Whang! goes the blast; r-ring-ring! the telephone; gong-gong! the radio; and the police squad is on the way; all too soon for the safe-cracker.

"Easy enough to see why they'd send an accomplice over to break up the radio!"

"Ah, well!" McCarthey's narrow eyes contracted. "Give us time. Not so many of 'em escape us.

"The other case that came off in that fateful quarter of an hour was a theatre holdup on State Street, just over the river; one of those quiet little affairs. Two men say, 'Stick 'em up! Give us the swag. Don't yell! Don't move for a full minute, or you'll be dead!' A car. Quick getaway. And there you are!

"No clue. Nothing to go by. One of those things that are mighty hard to trace."

"And you don't think they could have had a friend--" began Johnny.

"Who made you a call? Not likely," McCarthey laughed. "Little those birds fear the radio. They're too quick. No radio will ever stop 'em. They're like the army transports during the war that were too fast for the submarines.

"This last sheet," he added, "I have saved for gentlemen who, on other occasions, have had their gentle business of robbing, burglarizing, bombing, safe-blowing and the like interfered with. From time to time I will enter the names here of those who show undue resentment to the radio activities of the police.

"And that, boys," he concluded, once more shuffling his sheaf of papers, "appears to bring the case to date. These are the facts. Draw your own conclusions."

"Conclusions!" Johnny said as he left the office. "I only conclude that I was slugged; that my telephone was smashed; and that my head still is very sore."

"Give him time," said Drew. "He seldom fails. In the meantime, we must do our bit."