"Of course that's what I want," Lawrence put in swiftly. "What's more, I demand it. I've done nothing to be ashamed of—nothing I'm afraid of having the whole world know. Just take me before a magistrate, and see how long your flimsy charges, whatever they may be, will hold me."
There was an instant's pause, then the man laughed. "Ha! ha! Sounds good, but you can't fool me that way. I've heard that line of talk before, many a time."
Superficially his tone was confidence itself, but Barry's alert senses caught a faint note of hesitancy in his voice which was at once puzzling and encouraging.
"Very likely," the Harvard chap retorted. "Perhaps you've also observed the consequences of holding up an innocent man at the point of a gun, and carrying him off against his will. I recall one instance where the judge was hard-hearted enough to define it as kidnaping. The perpetrator was sent up for six years, as I remember."
This time the stranger's laugh was decidedly forced.
"You're wasting your breath," he said, with some curtness. "You may be slick enough to put it over that foreign bunch across the pond, but, we ain't so easy over here."
Lawrence started ever so slightly, and drew a quick, noiseless breath. He had not the most remote idea what the man was talking about, but the fact was instantly apparent that it had nothing whatever to do with Tappin and the Beekman Trust Company.
In spite of his bewilderment at this discovery, Barry was decidedly relieved. He was not at all anxious for a revival of the old affair before he had taken the steps he planned in regard to Julian Farr's exposure. He was absolutely innocent, of course, and felt that it would be impossible for them to prove anything against him. Still, the bank people might make things annoying, and perhaps ruin the plans he had made about the cashier.
The car bumped over the Twenty-third Street tracks, and went speeding on down Fifth Avenue. After a time another slight jolt told Lawrence that Fourteenth Street had been reached and put behind, but still the course was held straight southward.
Barry tried to sound his captor a little more, but the latter had grown taciturn, and shut him up without revealing another scrap of information.