His companion, the tall, dark, urbane person Barry had passed in the hall below, plucked Brennen by the arm and whispered a few words in his ear.
"What’s the odds?" the detective returned briskly. "The big fellow’s due any minute, and then it’ll all come out. You see," he went on, turning again to Lawrence, "it looked to us like you’d get wise and might make a sneak any minute. We couldn’t allow that, of course, so we took the only way which was left us, and, by a polite little fiction, induced your wife——"
"That’ll do!" cried Barry, his eyes flashing. "I don’t understand a word you’re saying; but I know this much: if you can’t keep this lady out of the conversation, I’ll take great pleasure in silencing you. She is not my wife, and your behavior in dragging her into this affair has been simply despicable."
The detective shrugged his shoulders incredulously. "Suit yourself," he returned blandly. He hesitated a moment, and then went on, with twinkling eyes: "Hope your friend don’t get tired hunting a cop."
Barry gasped, but recovered himself swiftly. "What do you know about my friends?" he demanded.
"Know!" Brennen repeated amusedly. "Say, that’s good! Do I look like a boob? You don’t suppose for a minute, do you, that I wasn’t wise to that little pewee who trailed me down here from Forty-fourth Street? Ha, ha! Why, I wanted him to follow me, and made things so easy that he couldn’t fall down. What’s more, I turned about and went after him the minute he started back. Followed him to the club, and got after the three of you when you came this way again. I couldn’t take any chances, you see, with his nibs due to-night and expecting to see you here."
If Lawrence had never felt chagrin before, he felt it now. The realization that they all simply had been playing into this fellow’s hands was maddening, and it was with the utmost difficulty that he refrained from showing his feelings. To gain time, he slipped out of his overcoat, which had been decidedly too warm, and flung it over a chair. Then he turned back to the irritating detective.
"Since you’re so clever," he remarked sarcastically, "I suppose you haven’t lost sight of the fact that there’s a station house within five minutes’ walk, and that when I came in here my friend was headed straight in that direction."
