“Little enough, old son.” The sergeant leaned back as he spoke. “Visited those pickpockets in the jail. If they know anything about the affair, their lips are sealed.
“As for those young chaps, caught looting a house, they promise even less. Won’t tell a thing about themselves; names, addresses, nothing. They’re not foreigners. American stock, I’d say. It’s my guess that they had nothing to do with your radio affair. They appear to be boys from out of town. Some of those chaps who read cheap detective stories that make the criminal a hero. Came to this city to crash into crime. Got caught. And now they’ll take what’s given to them rather than disgrace their families. Can’t help but admire their grit. But the pity of it all! To think that any boy of to-day should come to look upon crime as offering a career of romance and daring! If only they could know the professional criminal as we do, could see him as a cold-blooded brute who cares only for himself, who stops at nothing to gain his ends, who lives for flash, glitter and sham, a man utterly devoid of honor who will double-cross his most intimate friend and put a pal on the spot or take him for a ride if he believes he is too weak to stand the test and not talk if he is caught.”
Then Johnny spoke. He told of the murder of Rosy’s father.
“He did? The same man!” The sergeant sat up straight and stared as Johnny finished. “The man with the hole in his hand shot Rosy’s father?
“Let me think.” He cupped his chin in his hands. “I worked on that case. Didn’t get a clue. There was just one thing. After Rosy’s father had been shot, this man fired a shot into the wall. Bullet’s there still, I suppose. Few crooks would do that. Likes noise, I suppose, the sound of his gun.
“You know,” he explained, “we are always studying the peculiarities of bad men. It pays. You know how a poker player judges men. When his opponent has a good hand, he looks just so, from beneath his eyelashes, or his fingers drum the table, so. But if his hand is bad, and he’s bluffing, he looks away, whistles a tune, does some other little thing that betrays him.
“It is that way with the crook. Each man has some little tell-tale action which brands each job he pulls. One man never speaks; he writes out his orders. Another whispers. A third shouts excitedly. One is polite to his victims, especially the ladies. Another is brutal; he binds them, gags them, even beats them. Some prefer silence; some, noise.
“It would seem,” he sat up to drum on the desk, “that our friend with the hole in his hand likes the sound of his gun. He fired an unnecessary shot in the Ramacciotti case, and one when he raided your studio.
“Now,” he said with a sigh, “all we have to do is to search the records of crimes committed in this city and see if we can find other raids and stick-ups to lay at this man’s door. Of course, if the perpetrator of other crimes fired his gun needlessly, it will not prove that Mr. Hole-in-the-Hand did it, but it will point in that direction.
“That bit of research will take some time. I’ll let you know what I find.”