The Arrow of Fire

by Roy J. Snell

  CHAPTER XVI THE FACE THAT SEEMED A MASK

  So it happened that when Drew returned from work that evening he found aman in Johnny's bunk, and Johnny seated near him. The man was asleep, orin a drunken stupor.

  "I found a man," said Johnny.

  "Looks like a bum," said Drew, casting a critical eye over the stranger.

  "He has been."

  "Looks like he was drunk."

  "He is."

  "Then why--" Drew paused to stare at the stranger.

  "Drew," said Johnny, almost solemnly, "did you ever hear of NewtonMills?"

  "Newton Mills, the great city detective? Who hasn't?"

  "That," said Johnny dramatically, "is Newton Mills."

  "What!" Drew took a step forward. "It can't be. He disappeared threeyears ago. He's dead.

  "And yet--" He stared at the face of the man on the cot.

  Then he tore into a trunk to drag out a bundle of old photographs. One ofthese he studied intently for a moment. Then turning to Johnny, he saidin a voice tense with emotion,

  "Yes, Johnny, that is Newton Mills. You have indeed found a man.

  "My God!" he exclaimed in an altered tone. "I wonder if that's the price?Will I be like that in twenty years?"

  To this question he expected no reply. He received none.

  He took a seat beside the cot where the man with deep-lined face andtangled white hair was sleeping. For a long time he said nothing. Silencebrooded over the shack.

  "This man, Drew Lane, is an unusual person," Johnny told himself. "He isso full of strange deep thoughts."

  This beyond question was true. He was given to actions quite as strangeas his thoughts. At one time he had paid a half-dollar for the privilegeof taking Johnny to the top of his city's highest tower. Once there, hehad spread his hands wide as he exclaimed, "See, Johnny! Look at allthat!"

  It was indeed an awe-inspiring sight. Mile on mile of magnificentbuildings. Towers rising to the clouds, all the wealth and glory of agreat modern city was there, spread out beneath them.

  "Johnny," Drew had said, "there are people living down there who areashamed of their own city. They don't believe in its future.

  "You can't blame them too much." His voice took on a note of sadness."The badness of it is pretty terrible.

  "But think, Johnny! Look! Look and think how many men of great wealthmust have believed in this city and her future. Not one of those greattowers could have risen a foot from the ground had not some man had faithin the city's future.

  "And, Johnny!" He had gripped the boy's arm hard. "It's my task andyours, every young man's task, to prove to the world that the faith ofthose men was not misplaced.

  "And we will!" He had clenched his hands tight. "We'll make it thegrandest, the greatest, the safest, most beautiful city the world hasever known!"

  He had said that. And now he sat brooding beside the form of one who,like himself perhaps in his youth, had thrown himself against the slowrevolving wheel of stone that is a great city's appalling wickedness.

  "And now see!" he murmured, half aloud.

  "The lawyer who told me who he was said he was 'just a shell!'" Johnnyvolunteered. "Do you think you can make anything of just a shell?"

  "I don't know." Drew's tone betrayed no emotion. "But who could do lessthan try?"

  "Who?" Johnny echoed.

  At that moment the souls of Drew and Johnny were like those of David andJonathan. They were as one.

  "That man," said Drew as he nodded at the slight form on the cot, "wasone of New York's finest. Many a member of the old Five Point Gang hasfelt a light touch on his arm, to turn and laugh up into those mild blueeyes. But they never laughed long. That touch became a chain of steel.The chain dragged them to a cell or to a grave.

  "There are people still," he rambled on, "who believe that a detectiveshould be a man of muscle and brawn. In a fight, of course, it helps. Butin these days when fighting is done, for the most part, with powder andsteel, a slight man with brains gets the break. This Newton Mills surelydid. For a long, long time he got all the breaks. But now look!"

  "He told the judge he had been living on fifteen dollars a week, sent byhis mother," said Johnny. "What could have happened?"

  "Many things perhaps. Herman McCarthey will know. I have heard him speakof Newton Mills. We will ask him, first thing to-morrow morning."

  And there, for a time, the matter rested.

  That night as he went to work, walking by preference down the Avenue,then over the Drive that fronted the lake, as one will at times, Johnnyreceived the impression that he was being watched, perhaps followed.

  An uncomfortable feeling this, at any time. A late hour, a desertedstreet, do not lessen one's mental disturbance.

  Long ago Johnny had formed two habits. While walking alone at night hekept well toward the outer edge of the sidewalk. Under such conditions itis hard for a would-be assailant to spring at one unobserved. Then, too,he carried one hand in his coat pocket. "For," he was accustomed to sayto his friends, "who will know what I hold in that hand? It may be asmall gun. If it were, I could shoot it quite accurately without removingit from my pocket. Crooks are, at heart, great cowards. What one of themwill face a hand in a coat pocket?" Thus far in Johnny's young life, notone of the night prowlers had molested him.

  Though some sixth sense told him now that he was being followed in theshadows, he was not greatly alarmed. He merely increased his pace to abrisk walk. From time to time he looked over his shoulder. Each time hesaw no one.

  He was passing along an empty lot lined with great signboards, and hadreached the center of the block when two men sprang from the shadows.

  Not wholly unprepared for this, he gave a sudden leap to one side, thensprang forward to transform the affair into a foot race.

  Fortunately at that moment four sturdy citizens turned a corner andadvanced in his direction.

  This apparently was an unforeseen part of the program, for at once hiswould-be assailants stopped short, then turned as if to walk in the otherdirection.

  As they turned, the face of the shorter one was suddenly illumined by alight from an auto that had turned a corner.

  It was but a flash. Then all was darkness. Yet in that flash Johnny hadseen a man, one of those who had followed him. He was a youth with broad,slightly stooping shoulders. His face seemed a mask. His clothes were inthe height of style. The light brought a flash from a diamond somewhereon his person.

  Darkness followed. Johnny walked straight ahead. He met and passed thefour men, who paid him not the slightest attention. Fifteen minutes laterhe was at his post in the radio station. There, for a time, the matterended. Of two things you may be sure. Johnny walked that street no moreat night, nor did he forget that youth with a face that was like a mask.