“You ask more questions than any feller I ever see, Tom Flannery. Now you jest tell me what any detective would do, on a case like this one is, and tell me what he’d want you to do, an’ then I’ll tell you what I want you to do.”
Tom looked grave, and tried hard to think.
The fact of the matter is that Bob himself hardly knew what step to take next, in order to carry out the plan he had formed. But his reputation was at stake. He thought he must make a good showing before Tom, though the matter of gaining an entrance to Gunwagner’s was far from clear to him. He therefore wanted Tom’s opinion, but it would not do to ask him for it, so he adopted this rather sharp device.
“Blamed if I can tell, Bob, what a detective would do,” replied Tom. “You see I ain’t no natural detective like you. But I should think he’d swoop down on the den and scoop it.”
“And that’s what you think a reg’lar detective would do?”
“Yes. I don’t see nothin’ else for him to do.”
“Well, how would he do it?”
“I ain’t no detective, Bob, so I don’t know.”
“I didn’t s’pose you did know, Tom Flannery, so now I’ll tell you,” said Bob, who had seized upon his companion’s suggestion. “A regular detective, if he was in my place, and had you to help him, would do jest what I’m going to do, and that is to send you into the den first, to see what you can find out.”
“Send me in?” exclaimed Tom, incredulously.