"Well, the cop on this beat didn't want to get in wrong with McGann, and Stinger didn't want no trouble with the police neither. So it all ended friendly-like. The cop and Stinger carried your friend out between them, and put him in the old guy's automobile. But say, Stinger cursed the old guy good when he was gone.
"You don't know where they took my friend?" Jack asked.
The man shrugged. "Headed downtown," he said. "That's all I know. But I took good note of the car, if it's any good to you. It was one of these here, now, limousines, like yours yonder, but with a long body like a private ambulance, and painted black. It carried a Connecticut license."
"What number?"
"Ahh! I didn't have no pencil to take it down. I forget."
This was all the information Jack could extract. He handed over the bill, and the man scuttled away. Jack returned to his car, and stood with his foot on the running-board, trying to plan out some reasonable course of action.
"Old man, short and thick-set," he thought, "heavy mustache and a little chin whisker; sounds like our friend who dropped us the note last night. Looks like out of the frying-pan into the fire for Bobo. But why should the Red Gang kidnap him when we've paid up? Maybe my whole theory of the case is wrong."
He could think of nothing better to do than go to Police Headquarters and send out an alarm for a long black limousine with a Connecticut license. This would play havoc with his carefully laid plans. Nevertheless he was about to give the order to his chauffeur, when a boy of the street stopped beside him, and with inimitable grinning impudence said:
"Say, fella, you'll find what you're lookin' for at the Hotel Madagascar."
Jack, greatly startled, caught the boy by the arm. "Here, you, give an account of yourself!" he demanded.