The despairing, struggling hood managed to get off one more shot, as if defying even fate and chance. This bullet likewise found a target. It burst a container of powdered dye-stuff, also stored overhead. The container practically exploded and its contents descended in a widespread shower which coated all the interior of the garage with a lovely layer of bright heliotrope.
Maybe the struggling hood saw it. If so, it broke him utterly. What had happened was starkly impossible. The only sane explanation was that he had died and was in hell. He accepted that explanation and broke into sobs.
Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald had witnessed every instant of the happening, but he did not believe it. Nevertheless, he said in a strange voice: "I'll phone for the paddy-wagon. It'll do for a ambulance, in case of need."
He put away his unused service revolver. Thinking strange, dizzy thoughts of twitching eyelids and plastic scraps and starkly incredible happenings, he managed to call for the police patrol. When he hung up, he gazed blankly at the wall. He gazed, in fact, at a spot where a peculiar small machine with no visible function reposed—somewhat dusty—on a shelf.
Brink stepped over briskly and closed the door between the scene of catastrophe and the immaculate shop. Somehow, none of the mess had spilled back through the doorway. Then he came in, frowning a little.
"The fight's out of them," he said cheerfully. "One's got a bad cut on his head. The other's completely unnerved. Tsk! Tsk! I hate to have such things happen!"
Sergeant Fitzgerald shook himself, as if trying to come back to a normal and a reasonable world.
"Look!" he said in a hoarse voice. "I saw it, an' I still don't believe it! Things like this don't happen! I thought you might be lucky. It ain't that. I thought I might be crazy. It ain't that! What has been goin' on?"
Brink sat down. His air was one of wry contemplation.