Gutchall put the Luger in his hip pocket, made sure it wouldn't fall out, and took his departure.
"You shouldn't have loaded it," Hartley père reproved, when he was gone.
Allan sighed. This was it; the masquerade was over.
"I had to, to keep you from fooling with it," he said. "I didn't want you finding out that I'd taken out the firing pin."
"You what?"
"Gutchall didn't want that gun to shoot a dog. He has no dog. He meant to shoot his wife with it. He's a religious maniac; sees visions, hears voices, receives revelations, talks with the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost probably put him up to this caper. I'll submit that any man who holds long conversations with the Deity isn't to be trusted with a gun, and neither is any man who lies about why he wants one. And while I was at it, I called the police, on the upstairs phone. I had to use your name; I deepened my voice and talked through a handkerchief."
"You—" Blake Hartley jumped as though bee-stung. "Why did you have to do that?"
"You know why. I couldn't have told them, 'This is little Allan Hartley, just thirteen years old; please, Mr. Policeman, go and arrest Frank Gutchall before he goes root-toot-toot at his wife with my pappa's Luger.' That would have gone over big, now, wouldn't it?"
"And suppose he really wants to shoot a dog; what sort of a mess will I be in?"
"No mess at all. If I'm wrong—which I'm not—I'll take the thump for it, myself. It'll pass for a dumb kid trick, and nothing'll be done. But if I'm right, you'll have to front for me. They'll keep your name out of it, but they'd give me a lot of cheap boy-hero publicity, which I don't want." He picked up his pencil again. "We should have the complete returns in about twenty minutes."