“Ten years, sir.”
“I have been told on what job you were sent out this morning, also that you were detained by a policeman who——”
“That’s wrong, sir,” McLauren said quickly. “I may have said a policeman, sir, not thinking, but he was a plain-clothes man who stopped me.”
“One you knew by sight?”
“No, sir. But he showed me his detective badge and——”
“I understand,” Nick interrupted. “Where did he stop you?”
“In Forty-eighth Street, sir, when I was driving through from Second Avenue. He held me up and made me pull off to one side of the street, and then he began to question me, as much as saying that I was a crook he was looking for. I tried to convince him he was wrong, but the infernal bonehead wouldn’t have it, and he threatened to take me down to headquarters, team and all, unless I answered his questions. He hung me up there for near half an hour, sir, until I got hot around my collar and told him he’d better pull a gink who went by just then, instead of me.”
“Some one you knew?” questioned Nick.
“I know him by sight, sir, that’s all.”
“Why didn’t you appeal to him, then, and have him vouch for you?”