"Good Lord!" he laughed excitedly, almost pushing the big man toward the cab, "I thought you were lost up there."
Saul paused with one foot already on the step. Then turning back, he struck a match for his cigar. The flare revealed Donaldson's eager eyes, his tense mouth. He carelessly snapped the burnt match to the lapel of Donaldson's coat and stooping to pick it off took occasion to whiff the latter's breath.
"The sooner we start—" suggested Donaldson, impatiently.
Saul stepped in, his two hundred pounds making the springs squeak, and sinking into a corner waited to see what he might learn from Donaldson's talk. The suspicion had crossed his mind that possibly the latter had got into some such way himself—it was over a year since he had seen him—and was taking this method to hunt up an all-night opium joint. His experience made him constantly suspicious, but unlike the regular police, a suspicion with him remained a suspicion until proven. It never gained strength merely by being in his thought. At the end of five minutes he had discarded this theory. Stopping the machine, he gave the cabby a real address in the place of the fictitious one he had first given in Donaldson's hearing. The latter's mind, supernormally alert, detected the ruse instantly. He placed a hand upon Saul's knee.
"Beefy, you didn't suspect me, did you?"
"What the devil is the matter with you then?" demanded Saul.
"Nothing. What makes you think there is?"
"The mouth, man, the mouth! You don't get those wrinkles in the corner and a tight chin by being left alone five minutes, if all that is troubling you is a lost friend."
"You 're too confounded suspicious. It's only that I 've so many things to do, Beefy."
"Business picked up?"