“This is a high-handed——” began Duryea; but the detective interrupted him.
“It’ll be higher-handed if you don’t do as I say,” he remarked; and then the big, advance raindrops began to fall, and they ran together beneath the shelter of the summerhouse.
“Now, what the deuce——”
“Drop it, Jimmy. If you don’t, I’ll put the handcuffs on you now, and take you away with me through this storm. You know that I can do it.”
Bare-Faced Jimmy shrugged his shoulders. Then he laughed. He dropped his lithe and graceful length upon one of the rustic settees, thrust his hands deeply into his pockets, and replied:
“Well, speak your piece, Mr. Carter, since you seem bound to do so. I can listen, and the storm prevents my leaving you. Besides, there is no one to hear us.”
“No; there isn’t any one to overhear us. That is why I pulled you into this place.”
“Extremely kind and thoughtful of you, I’m sure; only, you’d have done better if you had not ventured to thrust yourself upon me at all, wouldn’t you? What the blazes is the matter with you, anyway?”
“Drop it, I say, Jimmy.”
“Gladly—if you’ll tell me what it is that you want me to drop,” was the cool reply. He removed his hands from his pockets long enough to abstract a cigarette case from another one, and to light a cigarette. “Have one? No? Too bad. They’re Russian.”