A great black headline lay across the tops of the latest editions of the city’s journals as Ghost and Saxon proceeded through the Loop. Once more Detective Sergeants Sheets and Kelly were atoms in the public eye. At important intersections, fresh bundles of papers, damp from the press, were being dropped by mud-splashed motor vehicles driven by belligerent satraps. Newsboys were beginning to shout their tidings.
Saxon descended from the taxi and purchased a paper. He returned, dismayed and apprehensive.
“I knew it,” he groaned. “I knew I ought to have telephoned the paper! They’ve arrested Moore, at last. Lord, what a mess!”
Ghost glanced at the screaming headlines and shrugged his shoulders. He read the opening paragraphs without emotion.
“There’s no harm done,” he said. “They can’t hold him. They’ll know the truth soon enough, I fancy. You can’t telephone till you’re sure of Rainfall. The whole unhappy boiling of them will be free shortly—Moore, Ridinghood, Miss Carvel, and whoever else they may have tucked away in their cells. How they all must have hated Lear, Howard! And how they all stuck together and protected one another! How they protected Lear! A curious animal is man.”
They drove onward, crossing the bridge over the river’s mouth, where Rainfall once had stopped to bestow a cigar upon a traffic policeman, and entered the opening block of the glistening boulevard. Following the stream of motors northward they proceeded upon their gruesome mission. Neither was happy about his errand. In the rolling cab, beside them, rode the familiar personality of John Rainfall, an emanation that lay heavily upon them both.
The taxicab waited for them at the curb as they ascended the steps in Division Street and paused for an instant outside the well remembered door.
With his hand upon the knob Ghost hesitated and drew back. The handle had turned under his grasp. With a little shock he realized that the door was unlocked and ready for their visit.
“I’ve a key,” said Saxon. His voice trembled on the words.
“Unnecessary,” muttered Ghost; and still he hesitated. “I have an odd notion, Howard,” he added suddenly. “Suppose—just suppose—we find nobody here!” He smiled a little faintly. “Nobody and no body!”
His companion stared. “What do you mean?”
“It would be rather pleasant to go away without knowing,” said Ghost. “Never to know! To wonder, sometimes, if in the end he had not decided to escape, to start again some other place. To try again for that happier life he would have liked. Eh?”
“Good heavens, Mr. Ghost!” cried the startled Saxon. “We’d have to know—some time! There are the papers to tell us.”
“I know! But—if it were only a book, let us say, that could be ended here—without this ultimate revelation! Wouldn’t it be happier for us all?”
He shrugged again and clapped the younger man on the shoulder.
“I’m a fool,” he confessed. “And there’s Moore to be considered. And my thought does Rainfall an injustice. After all, he preferred it this way. Pay no attention to me. The fact is, though, I thought I couldn’t bear to see that note again.”
The taxi driver was watching them curiously.
“Note?” echoed Saxon. For a moment he stared; then suddenly he understood. “You mean, you think that he …?”
“I’m sure of it,” said Ghost.
He pushed open the door with sudden decision and passed into the narrow corridor.
Then for a number of dreadful seconds they stood silent, looking at the square of white paper on the inner door.
THE END