“Cry, baby, cry!” taunted Brentin. “Serve you thundering well right—”
“Be quiet!” I sternly cried. Brentin scowled at me, while poor Thompson began to search with blinking eyes for his handkerchief.
Then I went on, with real feeling in my voice:
“We are sorry, Mr. Thompson, for the way we have treated you, but you must see there was no other course open to us. We were entirely frank with you, but you were never frank with us. We discovered your identity quite by accident, and took the advantage we thought our due of the discovery.”
“Oh, all right, sir, thank you!”
“At any rate,” struck in the irrepressible Brentin, with a wink at me, “you have the satisfaction of knowing you spoiled a fine piece of work, which will now, I guess, be consummated by other more imperfect hands than ours.”
“What!” said the detective, brightening. “You never even made the attempt?”
“What do you take us for?” cried the ingenious and evasive Brentin. “Make an attempt of that nature, with the sharpest detective in old England on our heels? No, sir!”
Thompson looked pleased, and then, with sly malice, observed:
“But, after all, gentlemen, you might have done it with perfect safety.”