Chapter XVI: The Branded Bullet

To inform you that Drew Lane made his escape from a perilous position while the Galloping Ghost was doing his bit would be to waste words. There are times, of course, when it is an officer’s duty to stand his ground and shoot it out with the outlaws who chance to cross his path. This was not one of those times. Drew Lane went for reinforcements. That he did not return in time was an unavoidable misfortune. He was obliged to content himself with turning in a detailed report of the affair together with an accurate description of the individuals who composed the band.

“I’d know that little fellow with the fiery eyes anywhere,” he said to Tom Howe, as he sat at his desk. “His scar marks him if nothing else does.

“But those three fellows that look just alike. Suppose they scatter. How’s a fellow to tell which is which? Clever, I call it. Suppose one is suspected of a stick-up. Suppose he’s put in the ‘show up’ on Sunday morning. Then suppose the victim says: ‘That’s the man.’ But suppose the other two are in the line and the victim says again and yet again: ‘That’s the man.’ And each time he’s seeing a different one. Which of the three will be tried and convicted?”

“There’d be a mix-up,” Tom grinned.

“Sure would.

“But look, Tom.” Drew placed a thing of blue steel on the table. “Here’s the automatic that the little fellow with fiery eyes dropped. He’s the sort that shoots on sight. He may have done some shooting right here in town. It might just happen that you’ve got a bullet in your collection that came from his gun.”

“Might at that.” Tom took the gun. “Quite a collection of bullets I’ve got right now. There’s the one that stopped Patrolman O’Malley down by the Stock Yards. There’s the one that passed through the Chink’s heart and landed in a wall down in Chinatown. Six or seven more. I’ll try it out. Want to come along, Johnny?”

Johnny Thompson dropped the book he was reading. “I’ll be glad to!” Anything that had to do with scientific crime detection might claim this boy’s attention, be it day or night.

Tom Howe and Johnny dropped down to the basement where a bullet might be fired into a barrel of sawdust without disturbing the guests of the hotel. Drew finished his report, dispatched it by a messenger and then, having extinguished his lamp of gleaming white light, switched on one of faint blue that gave the whole place an air of spooky mystery. It was thus that he could best think out the problems which lay directly before him.

“A whole day gone,” he told himself. “And what have we? A bed sheet taken from a sleeping car. An invisible footprint on that sheet. But whose footprint? Shall we ever know? A bullet.”

He spread out a sheet of paper to examine it afresh. “A second message from the dead,” he murmured. “At least from the Galloping Ghost. Pretty hard-fisted ghost at that. Knocks Tom down; then when he is gone, digs a bullet from some post or railway tie, and presents it for our inspection. He says here that the bullet is the one fired at Tom out there by the Red Rover’s sleeping car. ‘Find that man.’ And then—sure, find him if you can!

“But this jack-knife business,” he mused on. “The Ghost says one of the kidnapers has the whittling habit, that while waiting for Red to fall asleep he sat on a pile of ties and whittled at a soft stick. A knife blade, he says, when examined under a microscope shows some irregularities on its edge, even the sharpest of ’em. I suppose that’s right. But what of it?”

He sat for some time in a brown study from which he emerged with a start and a low exclamation:

“Something to it! What? Might be a lot! I’ll have to get Tom digging into that. He and his microscope have solved many a baffling crime.”

Once again he settled back into meditation. “Speed boat tied up far down the river. Airplane hangar nearby. Police have searched all buildings near there. No result. Looks like an airplane job. Spirited away in an airplane. What could be simpler? Wonder if the night mechanic at the airport knows anything? If he does, like as not he wouldn’t tell.

“One thing sure!” He brought his chair down with a bang. “We’ve got to get action, and get it quick!”

Seizing the evening paper he scanned its front page. GHOST GALLOPS AGAIN was sprawled across the front page. And below, RED ROVER STILL MISSING. POLICE HAVE NOTHING TO REPORT.

“Well—” Drew smiled grimly. “Hold your horses. We may report something yet.”

Again he read, in smaller type: “The public is aroused by this daring crime. A large purse is being raised as a reward for the return of the Red Rover. The Midway coach is game. He is drilling his team hard in the face of almost certain defeat.”

“Too bad!” Drew shook his head. “Probably his last great game. They say he is to retire at the close of this season. Everything was set for a glorious victory. And now this! The plans wrecked by a gang of outlaws who deserve nothing but to die horribly. And here we are doing our best, working night and day, following blind trails, getting nowhere. We—”

He broke short off as a fist banged the door and a voice demanded:

“Open up! Let me in!”

It was Johnny. As a bringer of good news he had outstripped Tom Howe.

“Drew! Drew!” he panted. “That’s the gun!”

“What gun is which gun?” Drew grinned in spite of himself.

“That bullet fits that gun.”

“Which bullet fits what gun? Sit down and tell me about it.” He pushed him into a chair.

After a breathing spell Johnny was able to tell a connected story. He and Tom Howe had gone to the basement and had fired three bullets from the gun Drew had picked up on the floor of the place where, for a very good reason, he had eaten no supper. Having fired the bullets into sawdust, they had picked them out and had examined them under the microscope.

“You know how it is,” he went on. “Every gun barrel has microscopic defects on the inside. These leave their marks on the bullet. The bullet left by the Galloping Ghost apparently struck the steel car a glancing blow and then entered a block of wood. One side was flat, but the other showed its marking clearly. And the scratches on that bullet, four of them, clearly marked, exactly matched the ones fired from the gun you took from that little fellow with a branded forehead and fiery eye.”

“They did!” Drew dropped in a heap on a chair. “So that was the man! And I had him, had him in my hands! And I let him go! What a break!”

Johnny, as he recalled the circumstances, was not sure whether Drew had had the little man or the little man and his gang had had Drew; but he said nothing.

“We’ll get ’em. We’ll get ’em yet!” Drew came to his feet with a bound. “Get the Chief on the wire. He’ll send out a drag-net. A mob like that can’t cruise about this city without being caught. They’re marked men, every one of them!”

Was he right? Only time would tell.