He left the cellar, as soon as he had retrieved and labelled the bullets, and returned to the shack.
“Out gunning rather early,” Drew commented.
“Hey? Yes. Important, I’d say.” Newton Mills seated himself at his bench, switched on a light, and at once lost himself in a study of the freshly fired bullets.
At a certain time, had one chanced to observe him closely, he would have noted that intense excitement gripped him. His fingers trembled. Three times he dropped the same bullet. His lips trembled as if with palsy.
A few moments later he became a creature of marble calmness. Turning about in his chair he stood up, stretched his arms, straightened his tie, then announced quietly:
“These are the guns.”
“What guns?” Drew looked up.
“This,” he said, patting Jimmie McGowan’s gun, the one Drew had taken the night before, “this thin automatic is the gun that fired the shot that has perhaps taken the life of Rosy Ramacciotti.”
Had he exploded a bomb in the center of the room, he could not have caused greater excitement. Drew leaped to his feet, overturning his chair with a crash. Johnny allowed a glass of water to slip from his hand.
“That gun!” Drew exclaimed as soon as he had regained possession of his senses. “Why! I had that man in my hands, unarmed, defenseless, last night!”