"Maybe not. More likely Davis hung up the 'phone."
"But I wasn't through," declared the boy indignantly.
"He'd got all he wanted, I imagine, and had to get to work."
"Perhaps so." Christopher, however, was not satisfied.
Moreover, now that the excitement of the incident was over and he began to look back on what he had done, it seemed madness. What right had he to turn the whole police force of the city of New York loose on a poor old working man, solely because his hands happened to be white! It was audacious. A pretty kind of a fool he'd feel if he had started them off on a false scent! They would not thank him. He had fumbled the affair from the beginning, and doubtless was continuing to fumble it.
All the elation died in his face, and noticing this, McPhearson, who loitered in the meantime at the door of the telephone booth, remarked:
"What's the trouble, son?"
"If I was only sure it was Stuart."
"That's what I was trying to tell you, laddie, when you ran pell-mell in here to call the police. You ought to have made sure before you gave the information."
"But how could I?" retorted Christopher irritably. "I couldn't go up to the man and ask him politely whether he was the burglar who took a diamond ring from my father's shop, could I?"