"They won't make a
get-away so long as we have Madame Spencer in our midst. Keep your eye
on the dark-haired loveliness; with her in the landscape the goods are
still here. Now for Carpenter."
"Permit me to suggest a taxi!" Ranleigh observed. "It's just as well
that you shouldn't wander about alone on the well-lighted streets of the
National Capital--"
"You think I might be suspended by the Interstate Commerce Commission,
or enjoined by the Federal Trades Commission, or be violating the
Clayton Anti-Trust Act?"
"You might be any and all of them, God knows--as well as contrary to
some paternal act of a non-thinking, theoretical, and subservient
Congress. However, I'm pinning my faith to you and hoping for the best;
Jimmy-the-Snake is cruising whether and whence and wherefore."
"Also besides and among!" Harleston laughed.
"Seriously, I mean it about The Snake," Ranleigh repeated; "and you'd
better have this with you also," taking a small automatic from a drawer
of his desk and handing it across. "You may have need of it; if you do,
it will be very convenient."
Harleston, descending from the taxi, found Carpenter waiting for him on
the front piazza.
"Your friend Marston is a very pleasant chap," he remarked; "also he has
a most astonishing nerve.
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