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 were in search of something. His kidnapper stood at the hall door, with his hand on the knob, his hat already on his head, eyeing him impatiently. Barney went back to his bedroom.

The crook followed to the bedroom door and beckoned to Barney to come along; and Barney, of course, stopped to ask, on his fingers, “What?” The other shook his head, showed his watch, pointed over his shoulder with his thumb and said, under his voice: “Come on, you damn dummy. I got no time—” He choked down his impatience and tried to smile alluringly. Barney gazed at that smile like a cradled infant who sees teeth for the first time. He was repeating the success of his performance with Corcoran and enjoying an artist’s triumph.

It took nearly five minutes to get him to the street entrance, and there his impatient abductor went ahead, down the steps, to open the door of a ramshackle taxi-cab that was waiting for them, with its motor thumping.