Johnny understood. He loved Herman McCarthey for his generosity, his foresight, his extreme benevolence.
“It may save this man Mills for a great service,” he told himself, “and who knows better than he how to bring these inhuman ones to justice?”
In an incredibly short time Newton Mills was clothed and ready to go. He took the seat beside Herman McCarthey. Johnny sprang into the back seat. The motor purred and they were away.
As they sped toward the city Johnny sat hunched up in one end of the seat, the greater part of the time immersed in deep meditation. From time to time Newton Mills leaned over to speak to Herman McCarthey. Johnny caught snatches of the conversation. Always it had to do with bullets.
“Bullets?” Johnny said to himself. “What can one learn from a spent bullet?”
So they sped on through the night. As the hand on the dial of the great illuminated clock that overlooked the city pointed to 1:00 they slid into Grand Avenue and came to a stop before the shack.
As they passed the Ramacciotti cottage on their way to the shack, Johnny noted that the place was illumined by a single tiny lamp.
“Rosy is dead!” was his melancholy thought. “That is the light of the death watch.”
This was not true. Rosy was in the hospital. Her mother had gone to her bedside. That she might not be obliged to re-enter her cottage in darkness, she had left the light.
Drew awaited them in the shack. The tragic story was soon told. The birthday party, the new dress, the return to work, the silent house, the strange men, the hand with a hole at its center, the face that was a mask; the scream, the shot—no detail was omitted.