“But, heavens and earth, man,” said I, raising my voice a bit from the whisper we had kept in the car, “open and aboveboard, broad daylight like this?”
“Didn’t I explain that she carries yacht papers, and isn’t even suspected by a soul?”
“But you seem to know all about her, and I can’t see——”
“I agree with you heartily, my boy. You certainly can’t.”
What kept my hands off of him, I don’t understand, unless it was the reverence I had come to have at his very name as handled among us cubs. And whatever retort I might have mustered was broken short by his jumping off the car suddenly.
“This way,” said he, leading a brisk pace that kept my shorter legs almost trotting.
After three blocks of silence, which our speed neces[Pg 47]sitated, he whirled sharply upon me. We stood on the sidewalk before police headquarters.
“What kind of a gun do you carry?” he barked out.
“Automatic,” I replied, tapping my chest nearly under my left arm where I favor carrying a firearm.
“Know how to use it?”