"Yez'll wait here, too, till I can communicate with headquarters,"
Phelan gave him back, not liking the tone of command.

"Then hurry up, because it won't go well with you if I am detained."

"Now, don't yez threaten me!" exploded Phelan. "I'm doin' me duty by
the book."

"Threaten you! Why, I can show you that you have been helping to rob
my house."

This was a new current of thought--a sudden inspiration--but this peer
of bluffers managed to crowd a volume of accusation in the slow
emphasis with which he said it.

"Your house!" gasped Phelan, rocked clear off the firm base he had
scarcely planted himself on. "What do ye mean--who are yez?"

"Who do you suppose I am? Travers Gladwin, of course."

Even the fear-numbed Helen Burton was startled into animation by this
amazingly nervy declaration and half rose from the chair she had been
guided to and forced into by Gladwin when she seemed on the verge of
swooning at Phelan's refusal to permit her to depart.

Phelan expressed wonder and alarm in every feature and his arms
flopped limply at his side as he muttered:

"Travers Gladwin--youse!"

"Don't listen to him, Phelan," cried Gladwin.

"Shut up!" Phelan turned on him.

"When I came home to-night," the thief pressed his advantage, "this
man was here--robbing my house, dressed in your uniform--yes, and you
yourself were helping him."

"But I didn't know," whined the distressed Phelan, yielding himself
utterly to the toils of the master prevaricator.

"I don't think you did it intentionally--but why did you do it?" the
thief let him down with a little less severity of emphasis.

"He said he wanted to play a joke. He--he----"

"Oh, don't be an idiot, Phelan," interposed Gladwin, putting his foot
in it at the wrong time and receiving as his reward from the policeman
a savage, "Close your face!"

"Oh, playing a joke, was he?" said the thief, smiling. "And did he
offer you money. Now, no evasion--you had better tell me."

"Yes, sir," gulped Phelan, with murder in one eye for the real Gladwin
and craven apology in the other for the impostor.

"And you took it?" sharply.

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, officer! Shame! Shame!" in tones of shocked reproach. "Let me see
what he gave you--come now, it's your only chance."

Phelan hesitated, gulped some more, and at last produced the bill.

The thief took it from his trembling but unresisting hand, unfurled
it, turned it over, held it up close to his eyes and suddenly