"Haven't you had enough of this drool? What's the man trying to establish anyhow? He talks in one breath about my having changed the outline of my face and the shape of my mouth, and in the next second about recognizing as me a photograph which he admits was taken at least six years ago!
"It's an alibi for himself, an excuse for not being able to prove that I'm the man who pawned the jewelry in Baltimore! It's thinner than air!"
But Greenleaf's defection was now complete.
"Go on," he said to Braceway. The more he thought of the full extent to which the embezzler had gulled him for the past week, the more he raged.
"Not for me! I don't want any more of the drivel!" Bristow objected again, his voice raucous and still directed to Greenleaf. "What's your idea? I admit I'm wanted in New York on a trumped-up charge of embezzlement. This detective, by a stroke of blind luck, ran into that; and, as I say, I admit it.
"You can deal with that as you see fit; that is, if you want to deal with it after what I've done for law and order, and for you, in this murder case.
"But you can't be crazy enough to take any stock in this nonsense about my having been connected with the crime. Exercise your own intelligence! Great God, man! Do you mean to say you're going to let him cram this into you?"
He got himself more in hand.
"Think a minute. You know me well, chief. And you, Mr. Fulton, you're no child to be bamboozled and turned into a laughing stock by a detective who finds himself without a case—a pseudo expert on crime who tries to work the age-old trick of railroading a man guilty of a less offense!"
"This is no place for an argument of the case," Braceway said crisply. "Mr. Abrahamson, tell us what you know about this man."