“I like ’em all,” he grumbled. “But what I like most is that I’ve got this baby right—got him trying to pass a hot ring. That suits me fine. You do the guessing. I don’t ask for any more than I’ve got.”
That wasn’t so foolish.
“It doesn’t irritate me any either,” I agreed. “The way it stands the insurance company can welch on the policies; but I’d like to smoke it out a little further, far enough to put away anybody who has been trying to run a hooligan on the North American. We’ll clean up all we can on this kid, stow him in the can, and then see what further damage we can do.”
“All right,” Garren said. “Suppose you get hold of the janitor and that Eveleth woman while I’m showing the boy to old man Coplin, and getting the maid’s opinion.”
I nodded and went out into the corridor, leaving the door unlocked behind me. I took the elevator to the seventh floor, and told Ambrose to get hold of McBirney and send him to the Coplins’ apartment. Then I rang Blanche Eveleth’s bell.
“Can you come downstairs for a minute or two?” I asked her. “We’ve a prize who might be your friend of last night.”
“Will I?” She started toward the stairs with me. “And if he’s the right one, can I pay him back for my battered beauty?”
“You can,” I promised. “Go as far as you like, so you don’t maul him too badly to stand trial.”
I took her into the Coplins’ apartment without ringing the bell, and found everybody in Jacob Coplin’s bedroom. A look at Garren’s glum face told me that neither the old man nor the maid had given him a nod on the prisoner.