y.

"Well, well, well!" he said. "You fellas still here!" There was silence.
"In union there is strength," said Fitzgerald. "As long as you stay in
one room everybody's sure the others haven't started rattin'. Right?"

One of the four snarled silently at him.

"It was just a accident," pursued the detective. "You four guys are
ridin' along peaceable, merrily takin' the air, when quite inadvertently
one of you almost blows the head off of another, and he's so astonished
at there bein' a gun in the car that he wrecks it. And when they get you
guys in the hospital there ain't one of you knows anything about four
sawed-off shotguns and a tommy gun in the car with you. Strange!
Strange! Strange!"

Four faces regarded him with impassive dislike. The bandaged ones were
prettier than the ones that weren't.

"That tommy gun business," explained Fitzgerald, "is a federal affair.
It's against Fed law to carry 'em around loaded. And your friend Big
Jake hasn't been leavin' presents on the White House steps. Y'know, you
guys could be in trouble!"

Three pairs of eyes and an odd one--the other was hidden under a
bandage--stared at him stonily.

"Y'see," explained Fitzgerald again, "Big Jake's slipped up. He hasn't
realized it yet. Its my little secret. A week ago I thought he had me
licked. But somethin' happened, and today I felt like I had to come
around and congratulate you fellas. You got a break! You're gonna have
free board and lodging for years to come! I wanted to be the first to
tell you!"

He beamed at them and went out. Outside, his expression changed. He said
bitterly to the cop at the door: "I bet they beat this rap!"

He went downstairs and out of the hospital. He started around the
building to his car.

His eyelid twitched. It twitched again. It began to quiver and flutter
continuously. Fitzgerald stopped short to rub the offending eye.

There was a crash. A heavy glass water-pitcher hit the cement walk
immediately before him. It broke into a million pieces. He glared up.
The pitcher would have hit him if it hadn't been for a twitching eyelid
that had brought him to a stop. The window of the room he'd just left
was open, but there was no way to prove that a patient had gotten out of
bed to heave the pitcher. And it had broken into too many pieces to
offer fingerprint evidence.

"Hah!" said Fitzgerald morosely. "They're plenty confident!"

He went to Headquarters. There were more memos for his attention.