“Wheels Bryant?” questioned Rufus Cruikshank. “Who is he?”
“A big shot,” declared Yates. “Maybe you’ve never heard of him — but he’s big, all right. So big, he has always kept out of sight, and a big shot that can do that is mighty big! One of the gunmen blabbed his name. So we’re looking for him — and I’d like to get him!”
“We wish you success, Chief Yates,” declared the mayor. “We are with you to a man. I repeat, again, that your work has been excellent.”
POLICE CHIEF YATES, despite his investigations, had managed only to accumulate a mass of disconnected facts. The chief reason of his failure to obtain more was due to his neglect of one prisoner — Herbert Carpenter.
Strangely enough, the man who had aided Carpenter to escape questioning on charges other than the blackmail affair, was Gifford Morton.
The millionaire could have definitely linked Carpenter with the gunmen, for he had overheard one of them speaking to the blackmailer. But in Gifford Morton’s make-up was a strong touch of remorse.
He remembered certain phases of that eventful night for which he felt a complete regret. In a crucial moment, when gangsters had been about to take his life, Herbert Carpenter had intervened. In return, Morton had cracked the blackmailer over the head with a bottle.
Now, Morton was actually sorry. Hence in his testimony, he had emphasized the fact that Carpenter, like himself, had been surprised by the entrance of the gunmen. Morton was willing to see Carpenter convicted for blackmail, but not for murder.
As a result, Carpenter was out of jail, under heavy bail. At the very time that Police Chief Yates was in session with the mayor and the Public Safety Committee, the blackmailer was seated in his comfortable cottage, the picture of dejection.
Carpenter’s past had been a career of subtle crime. Now, he was realizing the first fruits of his double life. For years he had managed to pass in good society. His wife — and his two children — had lived in ignorance of his criminal activities. His arrest had been a blow to them.