,
Jack felt as though the full burden of the senseless crime had been
dropped crushingly upon his shoulders.

He drove the big car quietly up the palm-shaded street to where his
mother's wide-porched bungalow sprawled across two lots. He was sober
now, for the tragedy had shocked him into clear thinking. He shivered
when he turned in across the cement walk and slid slowly down the
driveway to the garage. He climbed stiffly out, rolled the big doors
shut, turned on the electric lights and then methodically switched off
the lights of the car. He looked at the clock imbedded in the
instrument board and saw that it lacked twenty minutes of three. It
would soon be daylight. It seemed to him that there was a good deal to
be done before daylight.

Preoccupiedly he took a big handful of waste and began to polish the
hood and fenders of the car. His mother would want to drive, and she
always made a fuss if he left any dust to dim its glossy splendor. He
walked around behind and contemplated the number plate, wondering if
the man who was said to be "hep" would remember that there were three
ciphers together. He might see only two--being in a hurry and excited.
He rubbed the plate thoughtfully, trying to guess just how that
number, 170007, would look to a stranger who was excited by being shot
at.

No use doctoring the number now. If the man had it, he had it--and it
was easy enough to find the car that carried it. Easy enough, too, to
prove who was in the car. Jack had named every one of the fellows who
were to make up the party. He had to, before his mother would let him
take the car. The names were just names to her--since she believed
that they were Christian young men!--but she had insisted upon knowing
who was going, and she would remember them. She had a memory like
glue. She would also give the names to any officer that asked. Jack
knew that well enough. For, besides having a memory that would never
let go, Mrs. Singleton Corey had a conscience that was inexorable
toward the faults of others. She would consider it her duty as a
Christian woman and the president of the Purity League to hand those
six young men over to the law. That she had been deceived as to their
morals would add fire to her fervor.

Whether she would hand Jack over with them was a detail which did not
greatly concern her son. He believed she would do it, if thereby she
might win the plaudits of her world as a mother martyred to her fine
sense of du