"Just as you say, Wilkinson," returned Leech, feeling all the while that the other was bluffing. "I'll take you down to Murgatroyd's myself," he went on, now bluffing, too. "By George, that's just what I will do! Hereafter it will be said that Wilkinson may have been too smart for Murgatroyd, but that there was one man he couldn't fool; and that was Assistant District Attorney Leech. That ought to get me the chief's job next November. Come on! I've got a taxi-cab—my men will follow in another."
Wilkinson climbed into the cab. At the second corner he called out to the driver: "Turn west!" Leech leaned back smiling at this new turn, and let Wilkinson do his own ordering.
"I want to get out here for a minute, Leech," he said, presently stopping the cab before a white marble building. "Come in with me.... I want to telephone to someone I know."
The two men, each occupied with his own thoughts, stalked up the steps of the Millionaires' Club. At the entrance they were stopped, and Wilkinson was rudely thrust aside. Leech got a cold and distant obeisance from the doorman, who nevertheless politely asked:
"Beg your pardon, sir, did you desire to see any member of the club?"
Wilkinson came forward and roared out:
"Confound you, I'm a member of the club—I'm Peter V. Wilkinson!"
The doorman laughed in his face, and again bowing to Leech, asked if the other was with him.
"Why, Bowles," roared Wilkinson, "I know you like a book. I'm Peter V. Wilkinson, I tell you."
Bowles started at the voice. He recognised it as Wilkinson's, but the man before him bore no resemblance to the Wilkinson that he knew, and he refused to believe him. And in the end, Wilkinson and Leech were forced, to their discomfiture, to retire.