Anthony M. Rud

“ Masters opened the door without a word. I followed him down into the street. “Bennett has been watching this place for months now,” he went on after we had walked ten minutes in silence. “If it were merely a case of getting a few of the murderers, he could have landed them at any time—at least he could have had a dozen or so suspects; but there is a brain at the head of all this, a man really worth capturing. He knows enough of the superstitious fears of the illiterate to give them an organization bound together by secrecy and a symbol. What the red ball means I confess I don't know yet.” ”

“ Masters' question was sharp, incisive.
The Italian sat motionless for fully ten seconds before answering. “I—I suppose there is no logical reason why I should not tell all I know,” he admitted finally. “No secret is as dear as life. I know that this is not Black Hand work, because there is not, strictly speaking, any such thing as Black Hand in this country. Murderers and robbers sometimes use the signature to throw off the police, but there is no real Black Hand like in Sicily and Sardinia.” ”

“ I answered. “The nearest to that I can name is golf-pool; that takes a cue-ball and one object-ball.”
“No, this is played on a regulation billiard table. Say, Bert, if you saw a man with a cue and just one red ball, shooting earnestly away at the cushions with that one red ball, stopping his shots, trying them over, and sometimes helping them along when they do not go exactly as he desires—”
“I'd say he was practicing the use of English, or testing the cushions or just plain nutty,” I broke in.
Masters nodded almost imperceptibly, but his wide mouth curved in a smile. ”

“ Giordini shrugged one shoulder. “I know no name,” he said. “All I know is that when a man comes with a message, and that man carries in his coat pocket a red billiard-ball—well, he may be bluffing, but it is not worth while trying to find out!”
“A red billiard-ball!” exclaimed Masters, and his eyes met mine. “So that's the way they let themselves be known! Just one more thing, Mr. Giordini. Do these men always use bombs in killing their victims?”
“So far as I know. You see, a bomb is easily hidden in the clothes ”

“ I'll have Bennett find you. You watch for this hook-nosed chap. When he comes out, follow him, and don't get caught! If you wait around on the street beside the house he goes into, Bennett will take charge.”
“But the crowd up there?” I cried. “What will they be doing?”
“You just leave them to me!” retorted Masters. “You watch old hook-nose!” With that he was off, striding at a rapid rate.
DESPITE the adventure involved, I had no real hankering for the assignment, for it seemed as if I were more or less out of it. The real action would come when the pool-room gang was corraled ”

“ Where are you?”
“I-I—” I stopped; for the first time I realized that I had not the faintest idea where to tell Bennett to come. “I don't— Oh, yes!” I shouted. “Tell him to come to telephone number 48920-J. He'll know where that is!”
Then came a terrible period of waiting, not over ten minutes, I suppose, but intolerable to me because I got to thinking of what had happened to Jigger Masters in the intervening time. He had had a harder assignment even than mine—at least I know he thought so when he sent me after Hook-nose. ”

“ All you had to do was to add the numbers of the cushions hit in any one shot, take that letter and then continue shooting, till you had finished the message.”
“Good land!” I exclaimed. “That sounds intricate to me!”
“It is, when you try it,” Masters admitted. “I would have been successful except I made too many mistakes. I was too confident; those chaps—probably because of years doing it—reeled off the shots so easily that I thought I could do it right away. ”

“ I passed a few minutes looking over the men I had overcome. I had little or no sympathy for them; if I had not got them, they would have killed me. However, one of my last assailants was not dead, the chap who had been first in the rush through the door. ”