“You can bet your life I do––that is, if the young man I’ve got upstairs is the guy you think he is,” he added, in an afterthought of cautious self-protection. The acid of the hint that Paddington had betrayed him to the police had burned deep, however, as Blaine had anticipated, and he walked blindly into the snare laid for him. “I’ll tell you all about how he come to be here, later, and I’ll fix them that tried to pull the wool over my eyes! Now, for the love of Heaven, Mr. Blaine, tell me what to do with him before the bulls come! Thank God, they can search the rest of the place, and welcome––I’ve got nothin’ here but a half-dozen souses, and two light-weights, training.”
“That’s all right! You’re safe if we can get him away without loss of time. That ambulance you saw don’t belong to the police; it’s mine. I saw them first, 249 away back in the outskirts of the city, and I ordered it to drop behind and take the short cut up through Wheelbarrow Lane. It’s waiting now under the clump of elms by the brook, up the road a little––you know the spot! Bring him down and we’ll take him there in my car. You come too, of course, and Al, and help load him into the ambulance. Then Al can come back, if you don’t want to trust him, and you go on with us, back to the city.”
“Where you goin’ to take him?” asked Mac Alarney, warily. “You can’t hide him from them in town.”
“Who’s talking about hiding him!” Blaine demanded, with contemptuous impatience. “Your brain must be taking a rest cure, Mac! We’ll go straight to Miss Lawton, deliver the goods and get the reward, before they beat us to it! It’ll be easy to explain matters to her; she won’t care much about the story as long as she’s got him again alive, and at that you’ve only got to stick to the truth, and I’m right there to back you up in it. Any fool could realize that you’d have produced him and claimed the reward, if you had known who he actually was. Whoever brought him here gave you the wrong dope and you fell for it, that’s all––For the Lord’s sake, hurry!”
“You’re right, Mr. Blaine. It’s the only thing to do now. I fell for their dope, all right, but they’ll fall harder before I’m through with them! Lend me your two men, here. There’s no use having any of mine except Al get wise. You and the Doctor wait in the car, and we’ll bring him out.”
Henry Blaine motioned to his operatives, with a curt wave of his hand, to follow Mac Alarney, and turning, he went out of the door and down the steps to his car, with the Doctor at his heels.
“You don’t suppose that he saw through your story, do you, Mr. Blaine?” the latter queried in an anxious whisper, as they settled themselves to wait with what patience they could muster. “Could that suggestion of his have been merely a ruse to separate your assistants from you?”
The detective smiled.
“Hardly, Doctor. It’s part of my profession to have made a study of human nature, and Mac Alarney’s type is an open book to me. Added to that, I’ve known the man himself for years, in an offhand way. I’ve got his confidence, and now that he realizes he is in a hole, he’s a child in my hands, even if he thinks for the moment that as a detective I’m about the poorest specimen in captivity. Steady now, here they come!”