“I’m for arresting the garage-keeper, whoever he proves to be,” persisted Dillon, however.

“It won’t do any good,” objected Garrick.

“Don’t you see that it will be better to accept his story, or rather seem to, and then watch him?”

“Watch him?” I asked, eager to propose my own plan of waiting there and seizing each person who presented himself.  “How can you watch one of these fellows?  They are as slippery as eels,—­and as silent as a muffler,” I added, taking good-humouredly the general laugh that greeted my mixed metaphor.

“You’ve suggested the precise idea, Marshall, by your very objection,” broke in Garrick, who up to this time had been silent as to his own plan.

“I’ve a brand-new system of espionage.  Trust it to me, and you can all have your way.”

CHAPTER XII

THE DETECTAPHONE

I found it difficult to share Garrick’s optimism, however.  It seemed to me that again the best laid plans of one that I had come to consider among the cleverest of men had been defeated, and it is not pleasant to be defeated, even temporarily.  But Garrick was certainly not discouraged.

As he had said at the start, it was no ordinary criminal with whom we had to deal.  That was clear.  There had been gunmen and gangmen in New York for years, we knew, but this fellow seemed to be the last word, with his liquid bullets, his anesthetic shells and his stupefying gun.

We had agreed that the garage keeper would, of course, shed little light on the mystery.  He was a crook.  But he would find no difficulty, doubtless, in showing that there was nothing on which to hold him.

Still, Garrick had evidently figured out a way to go ahead while we had all been floundering around, helpless.  His silence had merely masked his consideration of a plan.

“You three stay here,” he ordered.  “If anyone should come in, hold him.  Don’t let anyone get away.  But I don’t think there will be anyone.  I’ll be back within an hour or so.”

It was far past midnight already, as we sat uncomfortably in the reeking atmosphere of the garage.  The hours seemed to drag interminably.  Almost I wished that something would happen to break the monotony and the suspense.  Our lonely vigil went unrewarded, however.  No one came; there was not even a ring at the telephone.

As nearly as I could figure it out, McBirney was the only one who seemed to have gained much so far.  He had looked over the cars most carefully.  There were half a dozen of them, in all.

“I don’t doubt,” he concluded, “that all of them have been stolen.  But there are only two here that I can identify.  They certainly are clever at fixing them up.  Look at all the parts they keep ready for use.  They could build a car, here.”

“Yes,” agreed Dillon, looking at the expensive “junk” that was lying about.  “There is quite enough to warrant closing the place, only I suppose Garrick is right.  That would defeat our own purpose.”