“So ’tis,” said Patsy, with dry terseness. “But don’t let that worry you, Magill. Never worry over picking up a twenty case. You’re dead lucky to get it back.”
Patsy now saw plainly enough what had occasioned this sudden aggressiveness. He saw, too, that the moment was fast approaching when subterfuge would be utterly futile, when even his identity might be discovered, and he at once took the only course left open for him—that of prolonging the conversation and staving off any desperate move of these rascals, until his combination telephone-and-telegraph appeal could be answered.
For though the telephone receiver was muffled by its position on the books, Patsy had faintly heard Nick’s repeated hello and recognized his voice, and he felt reasonably sure, from his succeeding silence, that the tapped message had been received and rightly interpreted.
Magill’s face, like that of every man of the gang, had taken on a frown as black as midnight. He shook the bank note in Patsy’s face, retorting fiercely:
“Lucky to get it back, am I? Well, you’ll be mighty lucky to get out of here with your life, if we find that you have tricked us.”
“Oh, I have not tricked you,” Patsy calmly asserted. “You’re getting all haired up over nothing. I’ll explain to your entire satisfaction, Magill, if you give me time.”
It was for time, indeed, that Patsy then was playing.
“Out with it, then,” snarled Gridley, again taking the ribbons. “What do you mean? How came you with this money?”
“Magill gave it to me.”
“But you said you hired the touring car with it.”