"I mean that I have already offered you my services. All you had to do was to tip me the word."
The man looked at Marsh suspiciously for a moment. "Do you mean that?" he said.
"I see no reason why you should doubt my word."
"All right," returned the man. "Hand over those papers you've got and I'll drop you out at the next street."
"What papers do you mean?" queried Marsh.
"There you go—stalling again. No use; the boss said to bring you up, and I guess he knows best."
"I don't know where you get that idea about any papers," said Marsh. "I can show you quickly enough that the only papers I have on me are of a personal nature and of no use to anyone else."
"Maybe so—maybe so. But after we get you under lock and key, we know damn well where we can find them."
Thus the argument continued at intervals until they were far up into the North Shore suburbs. Darkness had fallen and the interior of the car was absolutely black except when they passed an occasional street light or an automobile. As Marsh had told Morgan, if you can only make them talk long enough, they grow careless. Passing under the last street light, Marsh had observed that the automatic was no longer leveled in his direction.
The car was of the limousine type, with a glass partition shutting off the driver so that unless he happened to look around he would not know what was going on within the car. Marsh figured that now darkness had fallen, the driver's attention would be directed entirely to the road ahead, for street lights along the suburban section of Sheridan Road were few and far between.