Barry gasped, but recovered himself swiftly. "What do you know about my friends?" he demanded.
"Know!" Brennen repeated amusedly. "Say, that's good! Do I look like a boob? You don't suppose for a minute, do you, that I wasn't wise to that little pewee who trailed me down here from Forty-fourth Street? Ha, ha! Why, I wanted him to follow me, and made things so easy that he couldn't fall down. What's more, I turned about and went after him the minute he started back. Followed him to the club, and got after the three of you when you came this way again. I couldn't take any chances, you see, with his nibs due to-night and expecting to see you here."
If Lawrence had never felt chagrin before, he felt it now. The realization that they all simply had been playing into this fellow's hands was maddening, and it was with the utmost difficulty that he refrained from showing his feelings. To gain time, he slipped out of his overcoat, which had been decidedly too warm, and flung it over a chair. Then he turned back to the irritating detective.
"Since you're so clever," he remarked sarcastically, "I suppose you haven't lost sight of the fact that there's a station house within five minutes' walk, and that when I came in here my friend was headed straight in that direction."
Brennen laughed. "Bless you, no!" he exclaimed jovially. "That was one of the first things I took care of, and, short as the distance is, I shouldn't be at all surprised if he got sidetracked, somehow, on the way."
He paused a moment, his keen eyes fixed intently on Barry's face. "I s'pose you've sized me up from the muss I made of things the other night," he went on; "and I can't say I blame you much. That was one of the worst fall-downs I ever had; and the trouble was my hands were tied. Instead of putting the matter up to me and letting me work it my own way, they had to go and plan it all out, and then tell me to do thus and so, as if I was one of these cheap guys with solid-ivory domes. Why, hang it all! I didn't even know what you were then. I took you for some cheap sport who'd got into trouble on the other side and slipped over here to get away from it. If I'd had the least idea what was what, you can bet your last cent you wouldn't have made that get-away as easy as you did."
As he listened to the fellow's incomprehensible words, Lawrence felt as if his brain were whirling round and round. And then, like a flash, his self-control snapped.
"Who the mischief do you take me for?" he burst out frantically. "Tell me that! Tell me his name! Tell me what I'm supposed to have done. Out with it now, unless you're afraid."
An expression of admiration came into Brennen's face. "Clever!" he murmured to himself. "Mighty clever! I never saw anything better done on the stage. What a pity——"
He broke off abruptly as the purring of a motor car became audible in the room, and turned swiftly to his companion.