"It's either you or your ghost, sir," he said, "and if it's your ghost you must have been badly treated in the next world."
A roundsman was entering headquarters at the moment, and gave the quartette a sharp glance.
"Here, Parker," said Steingall, "tell this man my name."
The policeman came up, looked at the detective, and laughed.
"This is Mr. Steingall, chief of the Detective Bureau," he said to the bewildered driver, who resumed charge of the car without further ado, but nevertheless remained uneasy in his mind. And not without cause. He, poor fellow, all unconsciously, was now gathered into the net which had spread its meshes so wide in New York that night. He could not understand why his employer's son should be gallivanting around the city in company with such questionable looking characters, even though one of them might be the famous "man with the microscopic eye," but he was far from realizing that he and his car would help to make history before morning.
In obedience to orders, he ran along Grand Street, and halted the car on the south side of W. H. Seward Park.
"Remain here, if we do not return earlier, till one o'clock," Steingall told him, "and then run slowly along East Broadway to the corner of Montgomery Street. We are going to Morris Siegelman's restaurant, which is a few doors higher up, on the north side. If we stroll past you, pay no heed, but follow at a little distance. Have you got that right?"
"Yes, sir."
Devar was hugely delighted by the man's discomfited tone.
"Cheer up, Arthur," he said. "You'll be tickled to death to-morrow when you read the newspapers, and discover the part you played in a big news item."