“Oh, hell!” Corcoran muttered. “This kid business!”
“That’ll do!” Babbing flared out at him. “I ’m in charge of this case.”
They glared at each other, as if they were old enemies, with old jealousies concealed and long injustices unforgiven. Corcoran turned with a shrug and sat down on the bed. Babbing rounded on the boy again.
“Why did you bring this?”
“Well, gee,” Barney defended himself. “As soon as he got the telegram, he beat it to his desk an’ yanked this book out of a drawer, an’ began to hunt the words up in it, an’—”
“Wait a minute. Corcoran get on watch out there. If you hear anything, come back for this boy. Take him in to Cooper and tell him you ’re the house detective—that you caught the boy with this book and he confessed he ’d stolen it from eight-eighteen. Give it back and ask him not to prosecute—because it would hurt the hotel. He won’t anyway. And that ’ll hold him quiet till we can get time
