“These two,” said Fuller, pointing to Mary Bagley and to Marian Sharpe.
“All right,” said Corning, “let’s shoot off the finals.”
Fuller clipped a target on the carrier.
“You shoot first,” Corning said to Mary Bagley.
She looked at Marian Sharpe with keen appraisal, then turned and picked up the gun.
“All right,” she said.
Once more she shot with both eyes open. The spectators surged forward, against the line which had been extended by the police. The unsuccessful contestants stared with a disdainful scrutiny.
Mary Bagley shot more slowly this time, but her shots were spaced evenly and regularly. As she snapped back the pump mechanism of the rifle she did it with a forceful regularity which punctuated the interval between shots. They were as evenly spaced as if timed.
As she fired her sixth shot, she set down the gun on the counter, turned to Corning.
“This other jane uses the same gun and the same sights,” she said. “Understand?”
Corning nodded affably.
“Certainly,” he said.
Ted Fuller flipped his hand and brought back the target. As he handed it to Corning and Mary Bagley, and as they leaned forward to study it, Ted Fuller put the new target on the carrying mechanism. He stood so that his body shielded the target from the gaze of the spectators, then he sent it scurrying and fluttering along the long, dark tunnel, until it came into position at the back of the tunnel, against the back-stop, full in the field of light.
By the time Mary Bagley looked up from a contemplation of her target, Marian Sharpe was shooting.
Mary Bagley watched with wary eyes; saw the manner in which the girl slid back the repeating mechanism; saw the almost imperceptible wince as the gun was fired. Her eyes became scornful and her lip curled.
The girl fired the sixth shot, set down the gun, and looked at Ken Corning. There was something pleading in her eyes.
Ted Fuller stepped back and gave the wire a quick, sharp pull. The wire rolled over the pulleys, and the target came fluttering back. Ken Corning was careful to wait until it had reached a point almost directly in front of Mary Bagley, before he brought it to a stop. He stood in full view of the spectators, unclipped the target, then whistled. He pushed it towards Mary Bagley.
“Look at that!” he said.
Mary Bagley looked at it with eyes that slowly widened.
Ken Corning raised his voice.
“Miss Marian Sharpe,” he said, “wins the prize of one hundred dollars and the loving cup.”
“I,” said Mary Bagley, slowly and distinctly, “will be a dirty name!”
Corning passed over the ten ten-dollar bills to Marian Sharpe, and glanced significantly at the crowd, then started to applaud. The crowd caught the hint and broke into a spattering chorus of applause. Before it had finished, Mary Bagley was standing in front of Ken Corning, her eyes blazing.
Her first words were snapped out before the applause had finished, and the crowd, sensing the purport of her remarks, became instantly curiously silent.
“What kind of a skin-game is this?” she demanded. “That target’s a fake and you know it! There isn’t a shot in the world that could shoot that kind of group at that distance, and hold the gun the way that broad held it. She damn near closed her eyes every time she fired. That target was a frame-up!”
Corning shrugged his shoulders and turned away.
“You signed the application blank,” he said, over his shoulder, “and said that you agreed to abide by the rules of the contest and the selection of the winner. Miss Sharpe has been selected as the winner.”
“Baloney!” blazed the girl. “You can’t pull a stunt like that. I’ll have you arrested!”
Corning kept his back to her, but took the arm of Marian Sharpe, and piloted her through the crowd.
On his way to the rooming-house on Maple Avenue Ken Corning stopped to telephone the police.
“Listen,” he said, “I don’t want my name used in this and I don’t want anybody to know who I am. I’m just giving you a tip. You can take it or leave it, but I’ve got a room in a rooming-house at 329 Maple Avenue. There’s a couple of guys in a room on the same floor who have made a dicker with a fellow to give them some counterfeit money and a bunch of dope. I heard them make the deal. They’re going to make a delivery some time within the next hour. The room is number 49, and there’s a closet in that room. The guys are out now, but if you can get a couple of men to hide in the closet, you can catch them right when they make the delivery. But don’t ever let on that you had a tip, or they’ll know who gave it to you.”
He slammed up the telephone, took a taxicab to his rooming-house, but did not enter at once; instead, he went across the street and stood lounging in a shaded doorway, watching.
Within a matter of ten minutes, a light coupé slowed down and pulled in to the curb. Two tall, square-shouldered men pushed their way purposefully from the coupé, and entered the rooming-house. The coupé moved away.
Corning waited another five minutes, then went up the stairs of the rooming-house, unlocked the door of his room, went in, sat down, turned on the light, and started to read a newspaper.
Fifteen minutes passed, while Corning smoked and read. Then there were steps in the corridor, and peremptory knocks on the door.
“Come in,” said Corning.
The door pushed back. A squat, heavy-set man with black mustaches stood glaring at him. Behind him, and slightly to one side, was Mary Bagley.
“This the guy?” asked the man.
“That’s him,” said Mary Bagley.
The heavy-set man pushed his way into the room, waited a moment until Mary Bagley came in, then kicked the door shut.
“You’re the guy that put on the shooting contest,” said the heavy-set man.
“Who are you?” asked Corning. “And what business is it of yours?”
“Never mind,” said the man. “I came here to see that this jane gets a square deal. That thing was the crudest kind of fake, and you know it. You can’t pull anything like that and get away with it. I’ve been in the shooting gallery business myself, and I know just how it was done. This winner was picked in advance. She didn’t even shoot at the target, but shot at the back-stop. The target was a frame-up all the way through. The whole thing was put on ice...”
“You,” said Ken Corning, speaking in a cool, calm voice, “seem to know a hell of a lot about it. If you know so much about how that was done, maybe you can tell me what these are.”
He reached his hand in his pocket, took out a wallet. From the wallet he took two pieces of tom paper.
“Know what these are?” he asked.
The man stared with black, glittering, hostile eyes.
“What the hell do I care what they are?” he asked.
“They’re bits of red tissue paper that are stained with blood,” Ken Corning explained.
The black eyes lifted from a contemplation of the torn fragments of paper, to stare glittering menace at Ken Corning.
“They are,” went on Corning, “bits of paper from the torpedo which was exploded to make it seem that the shot which killed Frank Glover was fired from the group of men who were near Glover at the time he fell.
“The real shot was fired from a .22 automatic in Mary Bagley’s apartment. You fired the shot, and then slipped out and placed the gun back of the signboard. Mary Bagley posed as a witness.”
The glittering black eyes became ominous, with a slight reddish-brown tint suffusing the pupils.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” said Pete, the Polack.
“Oh, yes you do,” said Ken Corning slowly. “That’s the reason that all of the tenants in the corner apartments were moved out. You didn’t want anyone to hear the sound of the shot. I figured you were back of it because it took an expert shot to fire a single shot from the window of that apartment, and be certain Glover was killed. The other men were your accomplices. They baited George Pyle into losing his temper, then were careful to hold him in such a position that he was out of the line of fire, but so that you could shoot to one side of him, and make it appear that the bullet had come from his general direction.