Noonan finally got tired of playing with his prisoner, and sent him up⁠—the prison was on the City Hall’s top floor⁠—to be stowed away. I lit another of the chief’s cigars and read the detailed statement he had got from the woman in the hospital. There was nothing in it that I hadn’t learned from Dinah and MacSwain.

The chief wanted me to come out to his house for dinner, but I lied out of it, pretending that my wrist⁠—now in a bandage⁠—was bothering me. It was really little more than a burn.

While we were talking about it, a pair of plainclothes men brought in the red-faced bird who had stopped the slug I had missed Whisper with. It had broken a rib for him, and he had taken a backdoor sneak while the rest of us were busy. Noonan’s men had picked him up in a doctor’s office. The chief failed to get any information out of him, and sent him off to the hospital.

I got up and prepared to leave, saying:

“The Brand girl gave me the tip-off on this. That’s why I asked you to keep her and Rolff out of it.”