This page has been validated.
IV
THE KIDNAPPERS
I
Barney Cook entered the operatives’ room of the Babbing Bureau twenty minutes late, and one of the detectives, at a typewriter desk, said: “The Chief wants to see you."
His tone was ominous. Barney looked up guiltily at the clock.
He had been given a holiday on the previous day and told to “rest up” after his exploit in the Catskills. He had taken his rest on the streets, and at the moving picture shows. At night he had gone to a vaudeville theater with two of his old gang. It had “leaked” to them that he was a detective—a fact which should have been kept a professional secret.
136
