“The cash register was about there. Rosy’s father had just waited on a customer. He would not be far from this spot. The man with the gun must have advanced from the door, but not too far. He would aim so. The bullet would take this direction. It lodged in that wall.”
During all this time the veteran detective went through a small dream which took him about from place to place. He now marched across the room at an acute angle from the door, put his hand to the wall, felt about, then uttered a low sigh of satisfaction.
“The medium sized chisel, please.” He held out a hand toward the boy.
Johnny supplied the required instrument.
After prodding about, first in the plaster, then in a wooden lath at the back, the detective gave vent to a second sigh as a leaden pellet dropped into his hand.
“Here we have it,” he murmured. “And not badly preserved. It should present no difficult problem.”
He placed the bullet, which had been fired at Rosy’s father several months before, in one of the white cloth bags. To this bag he attached a tag. He wrote a number on the tag, recorded the same number in a small notebook, and scrawled a few words beside the number; then, having placed both notebook and bag in his pocket, he turned to go.
“That is all here. We will go next to your radio studio.” He led the way out of the gloomy place.
At the studio they searched the padded walls until they located the bullet that had been fired on the night when Johnny was beaten up.
This bullet was also secured, placed in a bag, labeled and recorded.