“The more the merrier,” he grinned. “I’ve already made mine.” Nodding at the dressy youth. “Come on upstairs with us.”
The three of us got into the elevator, and Ambrose carried us to the fifth floor. Before pressing the Coplins’ bell, Garren gave me what he had.
“This lad tried to soak a ring in a Third Street shop a little while ago—an emerald and diamond ring that looks like one of the Coplin lot. He’s doing the clam now; he hasn’t said a word—yet. I’m going to show him to these people; then I’m going to take him down to the Hall of Justice and get words out of him—words that fit together in nice sentences and everything!”
The prisoner looked sullenly at the floor and paid no attention to this threat. Garren rang the bell, and the maid Hilda opened the door. Her eyes widened when she saw the dressy boy, but she didn’t say anything as she led us into the sitting-room, where Mrs. Coplin and her daughter were. They looked up at us.
“Hello, Jack!” Phylis greeted the prisoner.
“ ’Lo, Phyl,” he mumbled, not looking at her.
“Among friends, huh? Well, what’s the answer?” Garren demanded of the girl.
She put her chin in the air, and although her face turned red, she looked haughtily at the police detective.
“Would you mind removing your hat?” she asked.
Bill isn’t a bad bimbo, but he hasn’t any meekness. He answered her by tilting his hat over one eye and turning to her mother.
“Ever see this lad before?”