He made the remark in a casual manner, but Langhorne was too keen to fall into the trap.
"Really," he said with an air of finality, "I must decline to be interviewed at present. Good-day, gentlemen."
"A slippery customer," was Craig's comment when we reached the street outside the office. "By the way, evidently Mrs. Ogleby is leaving no stone unturned in her effort to locate that Black Book and protect herself."
I said nothing. Langhorne's manner, self-confident to the point of bravado, had baffled me. I began to feel that even if he had lost the detectaphone record, his was the nature to carry out the bluff of still having it, in much the same manner that he would have played the market on a shoestring or made the most of an unfilled four-card flush in a game of poker.
Kennedy was far from being discouraged, however. Indeed, it seemed as if he really enjoyed matching his wit against the subtlety of a man like Langhorne, even more than against one the type of Dorgan and Murtha.
"I want to see Carton and I don't want to carry these bundles all over the city," he remarked, changing the subject for the moment, as he turned into a public pay station. "I'll ring him up and have him meet us at the laboratory, if I can."
A moment later he emerged, excited, perspiring from the closeness of the telephone booth.
"Carton has some news—a letter—that's all he would say," he exclaimed. "He'll meet us at the laboratory."
We hastily resumed our uptown journey.
"What do you think it is?" I asked. "About Betty Blackwell?"