He smiled whimsically, quickly taking me up.
"And if guilty, the worst is yet to come, eh? Well, at any rate, I 'm your prisoner."
"Not necessarily mine," I said.
"By preference. I can't stand for those roughneck cops, and Stodger as a custodian is a joke. I 'd be too strongly tempted to dump him into the first handy snow-drift, and cut loose. I don't suppose you 'll insist on any rot about handcuffs and all that sort of thing?"
Notwithstanding his pretence of humorous indifference, there was a question in his tone, and he peered at me a bit anxiously. I grinned.
"I don't know," I said. "I won't take any chances on being dumped into a snow-drift."
"Rot! You know I could n't if I wanted to."
"Mr. Fluette could have helped you, Maillot."
I looked at him narrowly. He shrugged his shoulders, merely, and produced and lighted a cigarette.
"Let's go," he said, flipping the match away.