The Black Star: A Detective Story
by Johnston McCulley · English · Gutenberg #35833 · 379,190 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Black Star: A Detective Story
Author: Johnston McCulley
Illustrator: E. Franklin Wittmack
Release date: April 12, 2011 [eBook #35833]
Most recently updated: April 13, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35833
Credits: Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACK STAR: A DETECTIVE STORY ***
THE BLACK STAR
[Illustration: A section of the floor had swung downward with a
crash._Frontispiece_]
The Black Star
A Detective Story
BY
JOHNSTON McCULLEY
_Frontispiece by_
EDGAR WITTMACK
CHELSEA HOUSE
79 Seventh Avenue, New York City
1921
Copyright, 1921
By CHELSEA HOUSE
The Black Star
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian.
CONTENTS
- CHAPTER I—AN AIDED ESCAPE
- CHAPTER II—THE BLACK STAR
- CHAPTER III—INTO THE PIT
- CHAPTER IV—ROGUE FOR A DAY
- CHAPTER V—MUGGS ON GUARD
- CHAPTER VI—AN UNPROFITABLE AFTERNOON
- CHAPTER VII—IDENTICAL ORDERS
- CHAPTER VIII—THE POLICE GET A TIP
- CHAPTER IX—“CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST”
- CHAPTER X—CAUGHT IN A NET
- CHAPTER XI—CLOSE QUARTERS
- CHAPTER XII—AT THE CHARITY BALL
- CHAPTER XIII—MUGGS—GREAT LITTLE MAN
- CHAPTER XIV—UNEXPECTED NEWS
- CHAPTER XV—THE CHALLENGE
- CHAPTER XVI—A NOCTURNAL VISIT
- CHAPTER XVII—INTERRUPTED CONVERSATION
- CHAPTER XVIII—MYSTERIES
- CHAPTER XIX—SUSPICION
- CHAPTER XX—THE VOICE ON THE WIRE
- CHAPTER XXI—THE END OF THE WIRE
- CHAPTER XXII—ON THE SCENT
- CHAPTER XXXII.—INTO THE VAULT
- CHAPTER XXIV—HOW IT ENDED
- CHAPTER XXV—SHADOWED BY THREE
- CHAPTER XXVI—A MAN OF MYSTERY
- CHAPTER XXVII—IN BLACK STAR’S HANDS
- CHAPTER XXVIII—THE POLICE LAUNCH
- CHAPTER XXIX—BLACK STAR TAKES A TRICK
- CHAPTER XXX—MUGGS IN ACTION
- CHAPTER XXXI—IN THE BANK
- CHAPTER XXXII—A NARROW ESCAPE
- CHAPTER XXXIII—PUZZLED POLICE
- CHAPTER XXXIV—WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CHIEF
- CHAPTER XXXV—AN UNEXPECTED BLOW
- CHAPTER XXXVI—IN CUSTODY
THE BLACK STAR
CHAPTER I—AN AIDED ESCAPE
Winds whistled up the river, and winds whistled down from the hills,
and they met to swirl and gather fury and rattle the city’s millions
of windowpanes. They carried a mixture of sleet and fine snow, the
first herald of the winter to come. In the business district they
swung signs madly back and forth, and roared around the corners of
high office buildings, and swept madly against struggling trolley
cars. They poured through the man-made cañons; they dashed out the
broad boulevards—and so they came to the attention of Mr. Roger
Verbeck, at about the hour of midnight, as he turned over in his warm
bed and debated whether to rise and lower the window or take a chance
with the rapidly lowering temperature.
“Beastly night!” Verbeck confided to himself, and put his head beneath
the covers.
He slept—and suddenly he awakened. A moment before he had been in the
midst of a pleasant dream; now every sense was alert, and his right
hand, creeping softly under the cover, reached the side of the bed and
grasped an automatic pistol that hung in a rack there.
From the adjoining room—his library—there came no flash of an electric
torch, no footfall, no sound foreign to the apartment, nothing to
indicate the presence of an intruder. Yet Verbeck sensed that an
intruder was there.
He slipped quietly from the bed, shivering a bit because of the cold
wind, put his feet into slippers, and drew on a dressing gown over his
pajamas. Then, his pistol held ready for use in case of emergency, he
started across the bedroom, taking short steps and walking on his
toes.
A reflection entered the room from the arc light on the nearest street
corner. This uncertain light was shut off for an instant, and Verbeck
whirled quickly, silently, to find another man slipping up beside him.
It was Muggs—a little, wiry man of uncertain age, who had been in
Verbeck’s employ for several years, valet at times, comrade in arms at
times, willing adventurer always. Muggs bent forward until his lips
were close to Verbeck’s ear.
“I heard it, too, boss,” he said. “Somebody in the library!”
Verbeck nodded; they crept nearer the door. Inch by inch, Verbeck
pulled aside one of the curtains, until they could peer into the other
room. A gleam from the corner arc light penetrated the library, too.
It revealed the interior of the room in a sort of semi-gloom, causing
elusive shadows that flitted here and there in such fashion that they
scarcely could be distinguished from substance. Also, it revealed an
open window near the fire escape—and it showed the form of a man
standing before Verbeck’s antique desk in a corner.
Muggs bent beneath his master’s arm to see better. He felt Verbeck
grip his shoulder, and looked up to find him indicating the open
window. Like a shadow, Muggs, who also held a weapon in his hand,
slipped through the curtains, crept along the wall, and advanced
toward that window to cut off the intruder’s retreat.
An instant Verbeck waited; then he stepped into the room, found the
electric switch, and snapped on the lights, and leveled his automatic.
The man before the desk whirled with a snarl that showed two rows of
jagged, uneven, yellow teeth. He took in the situation at a glance,
saw Muggs at the window, and Verbeck at the door, and knew he had been
caught in a trap. His eyes narrowed and flashed; he bent forward,
giving the appearance of a rat at bay, and his hand dropped slowly
toward his hip.
“Better not!” There was a certain quality in Verbeck’s voice that told
the burglar the man before him was neither nervous nor afraid, and
would shoot if necessary. The thief’s hands went above his head in
token of surrender, and the belligerent light that had been in his
eyes faded.
“It appears,” said Verbeck, “that we have discovered you in a delicate
position.”
“Aw, don’t try to be clever! I guess you’ve got me, all right!”
“Rather unceremonious, this call,” Verbeck went on. “Why didn’t you
send up your card from the office?”
“Aw——”
“Be seated, please!”
Still holding his hands above his head, the burglar took the chair
Verbeck indicated.
“Now, Muggs——” Verbeck said.
Muggs had been waiting for the word. He sprang away from the window
and took the cords from the portières. Working swiftly, he bound the
burglar’s hands behind his back, then fastened them to the chair. Then
he assumed the rôle of guard, and Verbeck lowered his pistol and
walked toward the desk.
“I fancy you didn’t find much, my man,” he said. “This is a bachelor
apartment, you know, and there is little of value in the library
unless you seek books or pictures.”
“Aw——”
“If you had entered the dressing room now—— But, of course, if you had
done that, Muggs probably would have filled you full of lead first,
and made a complete investigation afterward. It is better for you that
you didn’t enter there. Why you should crawl into a bachelor’s
apartment, when there are so many pretentious residences where silver
and plate are to be found, not to speak of women’s jewels, is more
than I can fathom. You must be an amateur at this sort of thing. Um!
What is this?”
On the desk was a sealed letter addressed to Mr. Roger Verbeck, the
address having been stamped with rubber type. In one corner of the
envelope had been pasted a tiny black star. On the polished surface of
the desk other little black stars had been pasted. There was one also
on a vase. There was another on the glass door of a bookcase.
“The Black Star!” Verbeck exclaimed.
He turned swiftly to scrutinize his prisoner, but there was no
expression on the man’s face to denote that he showed interest, and he
was looking at the floor. Muggs was watching the bound thief closely,
but his dancing eyes and parted lips showed that Verbeck’s words had
interested him deeply.
“So! We are honored by a visit from the Black Star, Muggs!” Verbeck
said. “Think of that! The cleverest crook the town ever had to worry
over—the man who got the famous Smith diamonds and cracked a safe
across the street from police headquarters, who has lifted half the
silver in town and stripped society women of their jewels—and he has
paid us a visit. We must be getting important, Muggs—eh?”
“Yes, sir,” said Muggs.
“Well, well! The man every one is looking for and cannot find, who has
been sending naughty notes to the police, telling them how dull they
are. I understand he even tips off what he intends doing, and then
does it under their very noses. Very clever chap—for a crook! Declares
all the detectives in the world can’t catch him! Um! Suppose we see
what is in this letter.”
He grinned at the prisoner and ripped the envelope open. In it was a
single sheet of paper. The letter, too, was printed, and its uneven
lines showed that it had been stamped one letter at a time. It was
similar in appearance to the letters the newspapers declared the
police had received. Verbeck read it swiftly:
Mr. Roger Verbeck: Last night at a certain reception people were
talking of the Black Star. You made the remark that the Black
Star was not a crook, but a gang—that the police didn’t catch
him because they had so many cases on which to work that they
couldn’t give their undivided attention to any particular one.
You declared that any clever man who applied himself to the task
could capture the Black Star and break up his gang. You boasted
that you could do it yourself, and easily.
To show you how useless it would be for you to pit your brains
and skill against mine, I am putting this letter on your desk
while you sleep in an adjoining room, and am leaving my sign on
some of your belongings. I am even putting a black star in your
bed within a foot of the spot where you rest your head while you
are sleeping. After this exhibition, either admit that the Black
Star is clever, or do as you boasted you could do—catch me.
“Read it, Muggs,” said Verbeck, guarding the prisoner himself as Muggs
obeyed. “What do you think of that, eh? Intended us to wake up and
find these things stuck all over the place! Trying to show us how very
clever he is, this naughty Black Star, and we catch him at it.
There’ll be joy at police headquarters over this. Now you just keep
your eyes on this gentleman, Muggs, while I get into my clothes, and
then we’ll continue the entertainment.”
Verbeck hurried to the dressing room, leaving Muggs on guard, and
dressed as swiftly as possible. He carried a topcoat and cap to a
chair near the door of the bedroom, and then he hurried over to the
bed.
The Black Star had done as he had said. On the head of the bed was one
of the little signs, and whoever had placed it there had put his hand
within six inches of Verbeck’s head. The man in the other room,
Verbeck decided, had done that first, then gone into the library to
finish his work.
Verbeck hurried back and relieved Muggs.
“Go and get into your clothes,” he ordered, “and then hurry back here.
I’ll try to entertain our guest while you are gone.”
He drew up a chair and sat down, facing the prisoner, and less than
six feet away. He was humming a tune, and there was a smile playing
about his lips. Had the prisoner been well acquainted with Roger
Verbeck that smile would have put him on guard.
Verbeck already had formed a plan. He and Muggs understood each other
well, thanks to sundry adventures in which they had participated in
the four corners of the earth, and he knew that Muggs even now was
reading the note he had scrawled hurriedly and left on the dressing
table, and would act accordingly.
“The Black Star—well, well!” he exclaimed, grinning at his prisoner
again. “And so you are the clever crook?”
“I’m not saying anything!”
“You decorated the head of my bed with that thing, I suppose?”
“You can suppose all you like.”
“Thanks! Rather surly, aren’t you?”
“You hand me over to the police, and you’ll get yours!” said the
prisoner.
“Are you, by any chance, trying to frighten me?”
“I’m giving you fair warning. You hand me over and you won’t live long
to gloat about it!”
Roger Verbeck grinned again and resumed his humming. His eyes never
left the prisoner, but he was thinking deeply. In the first place, the
letter from the Black Star bothered him. The remarks that the Black
Star accused him of making he had made. But the puzzling part of it
was that he had made them to half a dozen friends when there was no
stranger near. He had spoken them in a drawing-room in the presence of
Faustina Wendell, his fiancée; Howard Wendell, her brother, and some
others concerning whose integrity there was no question. How, then,
had the Black Star heard of them?
The Black Star had terrorized the city for the past four months.
Whenever a master crime was committed a tiny black star had been found
pasted on something at the scene of operations. The police had been
unable to get a clew. Each crime seemed bolder and more daring than
the one before, and more highly successful. The Black Star sent
taunting letters to the newspapers and police, and the public demanded
his arrest and imprisonment with loud voice.
His crimes, too, showed a deep knowledge of private matters. It
appeared that the Black Star knew the interior arrangements of
residences he robbed. Sometimes he even knew the combinations of
safes—for in two instances a safe had been opened and looted, and then
properly closed again, but with a tiny black star inside it. He was
aware when valuable jewels were taken from safe-deposit boxes to be
worn at some affair; he knew when members of families were out of the
city, or servants absent. He had shown in a thousand ways that he
possessed knowledge of great value to a criminal.
Roger Verbeck’s boast had not been an idle one. He believed sincerely
that no crook could be so clever but what some honest man could match
wits with him and win. He believed, too, that the Black Star did not
work alone, but was the leader of a band. Not for an instant did
Verbeck think the man he had taken prisoner was the notorious Black
Star, but it pleased him to let the prisoner believe he did.
His first impulse had been to call the police and hand the man over.
But he guessed that such a course would not insure the capture of the
master crook, and that the prisoner would refuse to talk, take a
sentence for burglary, and thus allow the Black Star and the others to
go free.
It would be clever, Verbeck decided, to allow this man to escape, to
shadow him, and to learn more. Roger Verbeck had adventured with Muggs
scores of times, and he yearned for an adventure now. Here was his
chance. Besides, the Black Star had issued the challenge.
Muggs returned fully dressed. For an instant the eyes of master and
man met, and there flashed between them an understanding.
“Better look at this chap’s bonds, Muggs,” Verbeck said. “We don’t
want him escaping before the police come.”
Muggs bent behind the prisoner’s chair and fumbled with the cord, and
when he arose his eyes met those of Verbeck again, and Verbeck knew
that Muggs had obeyed orders.
“Now go down and call the house manager,” he directed, “and I’ll
telephone the police.”
Muggs hurried out into the hall. Verbeck left his chair and stepped
back to the door of the bedroom.
“I fancy you’ll be secure for a moment or so,” he told the prisoner.
“You’ll scarcely get away unless you carry that chair with you.”
He backed through the curtains, grasped his topcoat and cap, and
crossed the room on his toes and unlocked the hall door. To cover the
sound of the key turning in the lock, he spoke as if calling a number
on the telephone.
“Hello! Police headquarters?” he asked. “This is Roger Verbeck
speaking. Hurry up here! I’ve just caught the Black Star trying to
loot my rooms. My old address—yes!”
And while he spoke he opened the door, so that his voice would drown
any squeak the hinges might give; and then he slipped into the hall
and hurried to the front stairs. He dashed down the three flights four
steps at a time.
The prisoner had tugged desperately at his bonds and had felt them
give. With sudden hope, he had worked furiously to get free. He was
through the window and descending the fire escape as Verbeck finished
the imaginary telephone message to the police, exulting at what he
fondly thought had been his close escape.
CHAPTER II—THE BLACK STAR
Verbeck found Muggs at the corner of the apartment house, standing in
the shadows and trying to shield himself from the stinging sleet and
biting cold wind.
“He’s just reaching the ground, boss,” Muggs said. “See him?”
“I see him. Be careful now, Muggs; we don’t want to lose him. Thanks
for understanding and loosening his bonds. There he goes!”
The erstwhile prisoner had reached the ground and was darting through
the shadows toward the alley. Down this he ran for half a block, then
crept between two buildings, and so reached the boulevard near a
corner, with Verbeck and Muggs a hundred feet behind him. It was
difficult trailing the man through a storm of sleet and fine snow, but
Verbeck and Muggs had trailed men before, sometimes for amusement, and
at other times through necessity.
The man hesitated at the curb a moment, then struck across the
driveway. Verbeck and Muggs followed. They took opposite sides of the
walk and slipped along over the frozen ground, darting from shadow to
shadow, always watching the elusive shadow ahead. At the street
crossings their quarry walked across boldly, and they could not follow
instantly for fear of being detected, but they always picked up their
man again, once they were across.
Thus they covered a dozen blocks, and it appeared that the midnight
prowler considered himself safe now. He hurried down a cross street,
his head bent forward against the cold wind that swept up the hill.
Block after block Muggs trailed him, while Verbeck shadowed from the
other side of the street, dodging into dark doorways now and then when
he expected his man to look behind.
The quarry stopped at a corner, lighted a cigar, and stood waiting.
Muggs was concealed in a doorway fifty feet behind him; Verbeck was in
another doorway across the street.
An owl car came along, and their quarry boarded it. But Verbeck had
been expecting that, and for some time had been watching a taxicab
standing before a drug store on the corner. As the owl car started up
again, Verbeck dashed across the street, and he had the chauffeur out
of the drug store and into the seat before Muggs reached the spot.
“Follow that owl car,” Verbeck directed. “There’s a man on it that
we’d like to see when he gets off.”
“I’m wise,” the chauffeur cried. “Fly cops, eh? Get in!”
The cab lurched along the slippery street, keeping half a block behind
the owl car. Whenever the car stopped, the cab drew up at the curb,
and Verbeck put out his head to watch. But their quarry remained
aboard.
“If this keeps up we’ll clear out of town,” said Muggs.
“Anxious for action?” Verbeck asked, laughing. “You may get plenty of
it before we are done. Have a bit of patience, Muggs.”
“I’ve got patience, all right, boss—and I’ve got a hunch, too.”
“Let’s have it!” At times Verbeck had a great deal of respect for
Muggs’ hunches.
“I’ve got a hunch we’d have done better if we’d handed that gent over
to the police.”
“I gave you credit for understanding the situation, Muggs.”
“Oh, I understand what you want to do, all right. It’d be great to
clean up this Black Star and his gang single-handed, hog tie ’em all,
then call in the cops and hand ’em over—especially since he sent you
that sassy note—but I’ve got a hunch we’re going up against a stiff
game. This Black Star ain’t no slouch!”
“Afraid?” snarled Verbeck.
That touched Muggs on a tender spot, and Verbeck knew it. Muggs turned
deliberately and faced his employer.
“If that’s the way you’re looking at it, boss,” he said, “trot right
along and I’ll be behind you. Go the limit, and I’m in the first seat
on the right-hand side. But, all the same, I’ve got a hunch.”
The taxicab stopped again. Verbeck put his head from the window and
immediately opened the door. Their quarry had left the owl car and was
starting down the dark cross street.
Giving a bill to the chauffeur and telling him he need not wait,
Verbeck hurried to the corner, with Muggs at his heels. Shadowing here
was difficult work, for there was unimproved property, and some old
estates not well kept up, where sidewalks were bad and the footing
uncertain, and where untrimmed trees and thick underbrush furnished
multitudes of dark spots.
Uphill and downhill, always against the biting cold wind and sleet,
their man led them. Finally he crossed a vacant lot and made directly
for an old house far back from the street in the midst of a grove of
trees that now were swaying and snapping in the storm.
“So that’s where the Black Star lives!” Verbeck said.
He and Muggs had small difficulty following their man now, for there
was a low hedge behind which, by stooping, they could make their way
unseen. Their man reached the side of the house and went along it
until he came to a door. Beside the door there was a box on the
ground. As Verbeck and Muggs watched, the man they had been following
raised the lid of the box and took something out.
“He’s putting on clothes,” Muggs whispered.
His actions could not be observed well, but it did appear that he was
donning an overcoat or a robe of some sort.
“And he’s putting on a mask,” said Muggs. “What’s coming off here?”
“I imagine we are in for an interesting time,” answered Verbeck.
“Watch him now!”
He had stepped up to the door, and they could see him put out his
hand. Through a lull in the storm there came to Verbeck and Muggs the
tinkling of a bell, then a sharp click, and the door flew open and
their quarry disappeared inside, closing the door after him.
Verbeck and Muggs hurried around the end of the hedge and to the
house. A few feet from the door was a window. Verbeck had no more than
glanced at it before Muggs was at work. Verbeck never had inquired too
closely into Muggs’ past, but from what he had seen from time to time,
he had reason to believe that Muggs knew a thing or two about crooks’
methods, and now he had more evidence of it. In an instant almost
Muggs was sliding that window up slowly, inch by inch, making no
noise, and carefully pulling aside the curtains behind it.
Another moment, and Verbeck was standing inside the house, with Muggs
beside him. They heard no voices. Step by step they made their way
across the room to the opposite wall, searching for a door.
Then they saw a streak of light that penetrated from an adjoining
room, where a door sagged in its casement, leaving a crack through
which a man could see. Verbeck knew this house. For several years it
had been deserted, not kept in repair, the grounds not kept up. It
belonged to an estate in litigation, and could not be sold, and the
heirs had refused to build a more substantial residence for the rental
it might bring in. He was surprised to find it inhabited, and he
imagined that the Black Star and his band were making use of it
surreptitiously.
But when he applied his eye to the crack in the door, expecting to see
a room almost barren, filled with dust and cobwebs, two or three
boxes, some burning candles—a typical resort of thugs—he faced a
surprise. He was looking into a room that had been newly decorated and
was furnished lavishly. Expensive rugs were on the floor; pictures
adorned the walls. There was a massive library table in the center of
the room, an armchair beside it, books and papers and magazines on it.
On one wall of the room was a small blackboard, with chalk and an
eraser in a box beneath it. Before this blackboard, standing erect,
was their quarry—dressed in a long black robe that covered every
portion of his body, even his head being enveloped in a hood, and over
his face a black mask.
There was no one else in the room. The man before the blackboard stood
stiffly and silently, like a soldier at attention. Behind the door,
Verbeck and Muggs waited, scarcely daring to breathe.
Then a door on the other side of the lavishly furnished room was
thrown open, and another man came into view. He, too, was dressed in a
long black robe, and had a black mask over his face. But he had a mark
that distinguished him from the other, for on the front of his hood
was a black star, formed of jet, that flashed in the light.
CHAPTER III—INTO THE PIT
Instinct and experience told Verbeck that this sight might prove too
much for Muggs and he gripped the smaller man by the arm to indicate
that he was to maintain quiet. It was well he did so, for subsequent
proceedings were highly unusual and mysterious.
The Black Star nodded to the other man and stepped across the room,
where there was another small blackboard attached to the wall. When he
stood before it he nodded again, and the other picked up the chalk and
started to write, and thus they conversed, each writing on his
blackboard and erasing after the other had read.
“Number Six,” the man wrote.
“Countersign?”
“Florida.”
“Report,” wrote the Black Star.
“Carried out your instructions, but was caught by Verbeck and his
valet. Escaped when they went to call police.”
It seemed that the Black Star grew taller and straighter as he looked
at the other man, and Verbeck and Muggs could see his eyes glittering
through the black mask. They expected him to roar a rebuke, a
denunciation, but he did not. He faced the blackboard again and wrote
rapidly:
“You are a blunderer. We have no use for the man who fails.”
“I did not fail,” the other wrote on the board quickly. “I put a black
star on his bed and scattered others in library. I was putting letter
on desk when they caught me.”
“Did you come straight here?”
“No. I shook them off first. I got away before they raised an uproar.
Came on owl car, got off several blocks back, and cut down the hill.”
The Black Star motioned for him to erase this last, and then walked
slowly to the table. There was a pile of letters on one end of it, and
the Black Star picked up one and read it, shook his head, and put the
letter in the pocket of his robe. He pressed against the end of the
table, and a drawer shot open. Verbeck and Muggs could see that the
drawer was half filled with money and jewels.
The Black Star took out some money and threw it on the table. He
closed the drawer and walked back to his blackboard, and picked up the
chalk to write again:
“You will not be safe here for some time. Verbeck or his man might
recognize you. Take that money and catch the first train for Chicago.
Return and report one month from to-night at midnight.”
The other man read and bowed his head. There was no hesitancy in his
manner; he acted like a man who had received orders that he knew he
had to carry out. He went forward and picked up the money, and, with
it clutched in one hand, he backed to the door and lifted the other
hand in salute to the Black Star. The Black Star nodded, and the other
backed through the door and closed it.
Muggs hurried across the room to the window to watch, while Verbeck
remained gazing through the crack in the door at the Black Star, who
sat down in the armchair and began inspecting the letters on the
table. The minutes passed. Muggs returned and reported that the other
man had put the robe and mask in the box, and had slipped away through
the trees. Still the Black Star sat at the table, and that for which
Verbeck had been waiting did not come to pass—the master criminal did
not remove the mask from his face.
Another adventure appealed to Verbeck now. He decided to face the
Black Star in his den. He confided his intention to Muggs in whispers
and gave his orders, and, disregarding Muggs’ mouthings concerning his
“hunch,” slipped across the room to the window and let himself out.
He found the robe in the box and quickly put it on, then adjusted the
black mask. Beneath the robe, his hand clutched the butt of his
automatic. Searching the edge of the casement, he found a push button
and touched it with his finger. Inside, a bell tinkled.
A few seconds passed, and then there was a sharp click and the door
flew open. Verbeck entered and closed the door after him. Before him
was a long corridor, musty, the air in it rank, dust on walls and
ceiling. It appeared that the entire house had not been renovated,
only the one room.
Verbeck slipped along the corridor to where a streak of light entered
it, indicating a door. Holding the pistol ready beneath his robe, he
opened the door and stepped into the room, and stood beside the
blackboard as the other man had done. The Black Star was not there.
The seconds seemed hours as he waited, trying to keep his eyes away
from the door behind which he knew Muggs was watching him, his ears
strained to catch the first sound of the master criminal’s approach.
Then the other door opened, and the Black Star appeared and walked to
his station on the other side of the room. He nodded his head, and
Verbeck picked up chalk and eraser and turned to the blackboard.
He was playing a dangerous game, and did not know how soon he would be
detected. He felt small fear, for Muggs was waiting to help him, and
he had heard nothing, seen nothing to indicate that the Black Star had
allies in the house.
“Number Four,” Verbeck wrote on the board.
“Countersign?”
“Florida,” wrote Verbeck.
He turned to find the Black Star’s eyes glittering straight into his.
The flaming jet on the hood seemed to be dancing in derision. Verbeck
wondered whether he had made a mistake, and he soon found out, for the
Black Star turned to the blackboard and wrote rapidly:
“Number Four is a woman, and Florida is not her countersign.”
And then he faced Verbeck again.
The crisis had arrived sooner than Verbeck had expected. The Black
Star knew him for an intruder, and knew also that he must have
observed a great deal to be able to don robe and mask and start the
blackboard conversation. The master criminal could be expected to act
with dispatch.
Before the Black Star could make a move Verbeck’s robe parted and his
left hand emerged, holding the pistol ready for instant action. With
his other hand he waved toward the armchair, and then he spoke:
“Sit down! And put your hands flat on the table!”
His eyes still glittering into Verbeck’s, the criminal obeyed.
Standing at the end of the table, Verbeck confronted him, scarcely
knowing what step to take next. The man before him did not speak, but
those glittering eyes—burning, malevolent, ominous—seemed to cry out
with surprise, hatred, and threats.
“So you are the Black Star?” Verbeck said. “Quite a comedy you play
here, eh? Masks hide faces and blackboards take the place of spoken
words. A very clever crook—you. But I said a clever man could find
you, and I say it again. This is the best proof of it, isn’t it? You
challenged me—and I have come. So your man thought he had escaped, did
he? If ever you see him again, tell him that his bonds were left loose
purposely, so that he’d escape and could be shadowed here. Allow me,
sir—Mr. Roger Verbeck, at your service!”
Verbeck raised a hand and tore off his mask, and bowed low in irony,
meanwhile watching his victim, for he did not make the mistake of
underestimating the cleverness of the man before him, and he was alert
for tricks. He saw the Black Star’s hands contract and his arms
stiffen, and imagined the master crook calling down curses on the head
of the man who had led enemies to his stronghold.
Then the Black Star spoke—in a low, penetrating voice, almost a
monotone, obviously disguising his real tones.
“I suppose you think you are very clever?” he said.
“I don’t advertise my cleverness like some persons, and then fail to
live up to my estimation of myself,” Verbeck replied.
“You have done something no outsider has done before—you have seen the
Black Star in his workshop. That is, indeed, a rare privilege. And, of
course, you’ll pay for it in the end.”
“You think so?” Verbeck asked.
“I presume you started out with the intention of handing me over to
your stupid police. The greatest and most difficult thing, you perhaps
thought, would be to locate me. Well, you have located me—and your
task is but begun.”
“Indeed?”
“It takes evidence to convict.”
“Naturally,” said Verbeck. “Suppose I call the police now. How about
the robe and mask you wear, that star, these blackboards, those
printed letters identical with ones that have been received by the
police and the newspapers? Evidence? This room is full of it!”
“But, when you get right down to the point,” said the Black Star,
“you’ll want evidence of theft and burglary, you know.”
“I never heard of a gang yet where some one wouldn’t turn state’s
evidence.”
The Black Star chuckled, and through the slits in his mask his eyes
seemed to be dancing with delight.
“That is just where my cleverness comes in,” he said. “To show you how
little I fear you, Roger Verbeck, I’ll tell you things no man knows
except myself. I can tell you, for instance—and it is the truth—that
the Black Star does have a band working for him, but that not one of
them ever saw his face or heard his voice.”
“Nonsense.”
“Not nonsense, but the truth. So certain am I as to what is going to
happen to you, Roger Verbeck, that I’ll reveal secrets and show you
how useless it would be to fight me, before you—er—cease to trouble me
further. I say no member of my band ever saw my face or heard my
voice, and it is the truth. I say, moreover, that I never saw the face
of one of my band or heard his voice, that I know nothing of their
names or identities, and, whenever a crime is committed, I do not know
which person or group does the work. Can you understand that? Turn
state’s evidence, Mr. Verbeck? Not a man of them knows a thing to
tell, except against himself.”
“Rot!”
“The truth,” said the Black Star. “Attend me closely. I reveal my
methods to you, because you’ll never pass them on. I began my work
years ago. I have a genuine partner, who is not in this city at the
present time. When I decided to invade this town he came here. He
rented this old house and fixed up this one room in it. The
furnishings were carted one at a time, and they were unloaded several
blocks away and fetched here at night. When everything was ready, I
came.
“My gang? This one man who knows me got the gang together. Every one
of them is an expert in his particular time. Each was eager to work
under me, for I am in a position to insure success and big profits. My
organization extends farther than you dream. Each man was fetched here
and taught what to do. Here he comes to get orders and to report.
There is no conversation except on the blackboard; and masks are
always worn.
“At the first, these men drew numbers out of a box, and in addition I
gave each a countersign. I issue orders by number, and they report by
number. If I was on the witness stand at this moment and wanted to
betray my men I couldn’t do it. I could only say that a certain crime
was committed by Number One, for instance—but if all were lined up
before me I couldn’t swear they were members of my band, because I’d
not know. Do you understand that, Mr. Roger Verbeck? Very clever, eh?
We work together, yet were we to pass on the street we’d not dream we
knew one another. Absolute protection—you see? Hand me over to the
police this minute—if you can—and it will avail you nothing. No jury
would convict on the evidence that could be presented. And my
organization, in a hundred different ways, would come to my rescue.”
“I thought none of them knew you,” said Verbeck.
“That is the truth. You do not understand everything yet. I have a
band of men who do the real work. And I have an organization that
collects knowledge I must have. Every man and woman in that
organization has a very good reason for being loyal to me——”
“Women?”
“Yes,” said the Black Star. “Many women! People in every walk of life.
And, naturally, I have arranged it so that I could harm them, but they
never could harm me. I heard of your foolish boast of last night,
didn’t I? How do you suppose I knew that? And I can tell you the
combination of the safe in your dressing room, Mr. Verbeck, if you are
skeptical, and tell you also that there is nothing in it at the
present time that we desire. There is a bundle of stock certificates
and deeds in the upper right-hand pigeonhole, and a score or more old
coins in a drawer at the bottom.”
“How do you know that?” Verbeck demanded.
“I know a multitude of things, Mr. Verbeck. Get this idea in your
head—I do not know the names or faces of my real workers, but I do
know the identities of those who gather my information. I know them,
and could punish them—but they do not know me. Tidy little
arrangement? I fancy you’ll not find a flaw in it.”
“You have deluded yourself into thinking it is perfect,” replied
Verbeck. “Suppose one of your crooks is captured while committing a
crime, and brings the police down on you to save himself?”
“He would not. If he kept his mouth closed, the organization would
save him. If he played traitor, the organization would save me and see
that he got the limit. I could convince you if I wished to talk more,
but I do not; I must protect the organization as it protects me. You
have pitted your cleverness against mine, Mr. Verbeck, and you have
been successful in your first attempt—you have located me. And now
what are you going to do about it?”
“Suppose I hand you over to the police?”
“Even if you could do that—and I am not admitting it—you’d be laughed
at in the end, and I’d probably conclude by suing you for heavy
damages. Believe me when I say everything has been thought of, and for
every attack there is a defense arranged. Also, to hand me over to the
police would be to warn all the others, and you’d have a difficult
time convicting me without their testimony. And there is another
thing——”
The Black Star hesitated.
“Say it!” said Verbeck.
“I have said that my organization is far-reaching. If you meddled in
my affairs, the chickens might come home to roost. You are up against
something regarding the magnitude of which you know very little, Mr.
Verbeck. I have only just begun my organization in this city, but
already it is broad enough to cause you pain and chagrin, did I put it
to work.”
“I suppose,” said Verbeck, “that you imagine you are going to frighten
me by this lot of pointless talk.”
“You may be a very clever man in some things, Mr. Verbeck, but in this
you are no better than a babe. Did I take the fancy to do so, I could
make you one of my organization, too. But you have gone too far for
that—you have discovered too much.”
“You’d make me join your band of crooks!” exclaimed Verbeck, laughing.
“I could force you to be a loyal and obedient member, believe me, if
such was my desire. You do not realize, sir, the strength of the Black
Star and his band. You do not realize how very little you know. You
have heard my voice, that is true, and you have seen my workshop—but
even you, Roger Verbeck, have not seen my face.”
“And what is to prevent me taking a look at it now?”
“This,” said the Black Star. “You are standing at the end of the table
with a pistol in your hand. I am seated, and my hands are on the table
before me, so that you could fill me full of lead before I could get a
weapon from beneath my robe. But the toe of my left shoe, Mr. Verbeck,
is resting on a button in the floor—a button that works a trigger—and
you are standing over a cement-lined pit twelve feet deep. Before you
could shoot, my toe would press the button—so! And down you go, Mr.
Verbeck, through the floor and into the pit, and the trapdoor comes up
again—so!—and you are a prisoner in the darkness—you who tried to
match wits with the Black Star!”
It all had happened in a second of time. A section of the floor had
swung downward with a crash, and Roger Verbeck had been dashed to the
bottom of the pit. The one shot he fired went wild, the bullet burying
itself in the ceiling. The trapdoor closed again—and the Black Star,
standing at the end of the table now, threw back his head and laughed
uproariously.
And the laughter died in his throat as he sank suddenly to the floor!
For Muggs was through the door as Verbeck shot downward, and the butt
of his automatic had crashed against the Black Star’s head just behind
the left ear.
CHAPTER IV—ROGUE FOR A DAY
Muggs was a product of the slums, and had known the inside of a
prison. Five years before, Roger Verbeck had picked him up in Paris,
at a time when Muggs was contemplating throwing himself into the
Seine, for misery and crime and poor living had broken his spirit and
made existence a nightmare. Verbeck had taught him that wits can be
used for honest purposes, had given him a home, and in return Muggs,
in his gratitude, gave Verbeck what services he could. He was of the
type willing to die to save a benefactor pain.
Muggs had not struck the Black Star a light blow, and when the master
crook fell, Muggs knew he would remain unconscious for some time to
come. He was sobbing and calling to Verbeck in a low voice as he put
his foot beneath the table and felt for the button. He could not find
it at first, for in his eagerness he was not methodical. Then he
quieted down, and, getting down on hands and knees, went over the
floor, inch by inch, until he felt a little knob through the rug.
His hand went out; he pressed the knob. At the end of the table
appeared a yawning chasm, as a section of the flooring fell back.
Muggs was at its side in an instant.
“Boss! Boss!” he called.
“I’m all right, Muggs! Not even scratched, and not stunned. Hurry up
and get me out of here. And watch that chap——”
Muggs was on his feet, looking wildly about the room. There was no
ladder, no rope, nothing that could reach to the bottom of that
twelve-foot pit. But there was a couch in the corner, and Muggs tore
off the cover and carried it to the pit’s edge.
“Grab it, while I brace myself, boss,” he directed. “Then climb—I can
hold you.”
And so Verbeck emerged from the pit, bracing his feet against the wall
of it and climbing hand over hand up the couch cover, while Muggs,
above, braced his feet and bent back, gripping the other end of the
cloth. Then the trapdoor was closed again.
“Have you killed him?” Verbeck cried when he saw the form of the Black
Star on the floor.
“I felt like it, but I thought you’d want him again, boss. I just gave
him a smash behind the ear.”
“Um!”
“Don’t you think we’d better call the police now, boss? I got a
hunch——”
“You heard what he said, didn’t you, Muggs? If the police take him in,
the others will discover it, and escape. And he said some other things
that have me guessing. How did he know what I said last night at a
private reception in a private residence, eh? I know none of his
crooks was close enough to overhear me. And how does he know what’s in
my safe? He says he even knows the combination of it, and I don’t
doubt him.”
“Then what are we going to do, boss?”
Verbeck had slipped off his robe, and now handed it, together with the
mask, to Muggs.
“Put these outside in the box, then hurry back,” he directed.
As Muggs rushed away, Verbeck bent forward and took off the Black
Star’s mask. There was revealed the not unhandsome face of a man about
forty-five. Verbeck contemplated this countenance as he started to
remove the Black Star’s robe. It was one he never had seen before.
Despite the Black Star’s words, Verbeck had been half of a mind that
the master crook was some one known to the city in general as a
respectable man, a sort of Jekyll and Hyde.
Muggs returned, and the Black Star was gagged and bound with a curtain
that Muggs tore from one of the doorways and ripped into strips.
“And now——” Verbeck began.
He did not complete the sentence. On the wall above his head a bell
tinkled. Verbeck and Muggs looked at each other, the same idea in the
mind of each.
“Another crook,” Muggs whispered.
“No doubt.”
“What’ll we do?”
Verbeck hesitated a moment. “This is a great chance, Muggs,” he said
finally. “I’ll play the Black Star’s part. I’ll be a crook pro
tempore.”
“What kind of a crook is that?”
“The kind I’m going to be, Muggs. Hurry! Get this chap in the other
room and shut the door—and watch.”
As Muggs obeyed, Verbeck put on the Black Star’s robe and mask. The
little bell jangled again. On the wall below it was a button, and this
button Verbeck pushed. He could hear the click as the door was
unlocked, and he slipped through the door by which the Black Star had
made his entrance, and found himself in another dusty, unfurnished
room.
In a moment he heard some one enter the other door. He waited for a
time, as the Black Star had done, then opened the door and walked
boldly into the room, nodding his head to the other man in robe and
mask and taking his position at the Black Star’s blackboard.
“Number Eight,” the other wrote.
“Countersign?”
“Harvard.”
Verbeck did not know, of course, whether it was the proper
countersign, but he had to take the chance.
“Report,” he wrote.
“Have information you desire.”
The man stepped away from the blackboard, put one hand beneath his
robe, and took out a letter, which he threw on the table. Then he went
back to the blackboard and stood at attention.
Verbeck went to the table and picked up the letter. He ripped it open,
watching the other meanwhile, then lowered his eyes to read. What was
written there was startling and very much to the point:
Mrs. Greistman will wear diamonds and rope of pearls at Charity
Ball. They will be taken from safe-deposit box during the
afternoon. After the ball they will be kept in safe in Greistman
library. Safe is old one. Library is on first floor; one door
opens into hall; three windows, one opening on veranda and
others on side of house and shaded from street lights by vines
and trees. All servants sleep on second floor, in the rear. Mr.
and Mrs. Greistman and daughter sleep on same floor, in front,
latter on left side of hall, parents on right side as you face
rear of house. Daughter subject to insomnia, especially after
brilliant society events, and often takes sleeping draft.
There it was, full information that indicated the Black Star
contemplated getting the Greistman jewels, reported by means of the
organization, no doubt. The note had been written on a typewriter, and
there were no marks on the envelope. Any active crook might have been
able to discover where the members of the Greistman family slept, and
learn where the safe was kept, and how the doors and windows of the
library were located, but only some one in close touch with the family
could know when they anticipated taking the jewels from the
safe-deposit box and where they would be kept the night after the
ball.
Verbeck found himself wondering how this information had been obtained
and whether the man who now stood before him in robe and mask had
obtained it or was merely a messenger to carry it to the Black Star.
He stepped back to the blackboard and picked up the chalk again.
“Where did you get information?” he wrote.
“As you instructed,” came the written answer.
Verbeck could ask no more without betraying himself. He had no idea
regarding the identity of the man before him. It was possible, of
course, for him to call Muggs from the other room and overpower the
crook, but it was doubtful if the man would talk and reveal anything
after he discovered he was not dealing with the Black Star, but with
an outsider. And what Verbeck wanted was accurate knowledge; he would
have to be careful not to arouse the man’s suspicion.
“Good!” he wrote on the blackboard. Then he nodded to the man, as if
in dismissal. But the other did not seem ready to go, and acted as if
there was something wanting.
“Any orders?” he wrote finally.
Verbeck remembered the pile of letters on the end of the table, and
now he went over and inspected them. They were orders for members of
the band, evidently, for on each envelope a number was stamped. He
found the one marked “Eight,” and took out the sheet of paper it
contained. There were the orders the Black Star had prepared for this
man:
At three o’clock in the afternoon there is a committee meeting
of the Browning Club in a parlor of the second floor of the
National Hotel, at which Miss Freda Brakeland will be present.
Manage to be in the lobby of the hotel after the meeting, and
meet Miss Brakeland as if by accident. Talk of the Charity Ball,
and ascertain whether she is to wear the famous Brakeland jewels
at that affair. Report in usual manner here at ten o’clock at
night; and remember that no excuse can be accepted for failure.
Here was another glimpse of the Black Star’s work. Verbeck, after a
moment’s thought, decided to give the man his orders and let him go.
He would continue to play at being the Black Star and discover all he
could of the master crook’s plans. Perhaps he would be able to prevent
the wholesale theft of valuable jewels; for it appeared that the Black
Star intended a series of crimes following the Charity Ball. This man
before him had orders to report the following night, so there was no
object in exciting his suspicions now.
Verbeck would have given a great deal at that moment to have been able
to peer behind the other man’s mask. Who was this man before him who
could be expected to engage Miss Freda Brakeland in conversation
without arousing suspicion? Somebody who belonged in the city, surely,
somebody well known in society, for Freda Brakeland was one of the
most exclusive and unapproachable women of the younger set.
Verbeck was annoyed by the Black Star’s threat that the chickens might
come home to roost. He was astounded at the lines of information
gathered for the benefit of the master crook, and a multitude of
questions rushed to his mind, none of which he could answer. He
decided to refrain from calling in the police at present, at least
until he discovered more.
And now to Verbeck came another plan he decided to use. He placed the
orders on the end of the table and motioned for the other man to pick
them up; then he hurried to his blackboard and wrote supplementary
orders there:
Pass the northwest corner of First Avenue and American Boulevard
at exactly two o’clock in afternoon on your way to the hotel.
Stop on corner, remove hat, and pretend to brush dust from it.
If there is to be any change in your orders, an envelope will be
slipped to you at that time; otherwise, go ahead as you have
been directed.
It seemed to Verbeck that the other man expressed surprise in the way
his shoulders straightened and his head lifted, and for an instant
Verbeck feared he had attempted too much. But the other only nodded
that he understood, then saluted and backed out of the door. Two
minutes later Muggs came in from the other room and reported that the
crook had put robe and mask in the box outside, and had hurried away.
“I’ll get him!” Verbeck said. “He’ll stop on that corner and give the
sign, and then I’ll follow him. I’ll learn who it is that’s helping
the Black Star gather valuable information. We’ve got to stick to the
game now, Muggs, old man!”
“I’d call the police——”
“Not yet! I’m going to play this game myself until it gets too hot for
me. The Black Star challenged me, didn’t he? I’ll have plenty of
evidence before I call in the police.”
“What about the chief crook in the other room? He’s conscious again.”
Verbeck paced the floor for a time, his head bowed, thinking.
“I have it!” he exclaimed at last. “You get out of here, Muggs, and
hurry to the garage and get my car. Stop at the rooms and get that
bunch of keys in the right-hand drawer of my desk——”
“The keys to the old place?”
“Yes. We’ll take the Black Star there, Muggs. Bring the car to the
corner nearest this house, then hurry in and help with him. We’ve got
to have it done before dawn. Hurry! That’s what we’ll do, Muggs! We’ll
take the Black Star to the old house, and there you’ll guard him,
while I play master crook in his mask and robe.”
CHAPTER V—MUGGS ON GUARD
When Muggs had departed Verbeck got up and walked into the other room,
where the Black Star was on the floor in an uncomfortable position.
Muggs had left the window open, and the cold air swept in, bringing
sleet and snow with it. It had been all one with Muggs whether the
Black Star froze to death or not.
Verbeck closed the window. He didn’t want to carry the man into the
furnished room for fear some other member of the gang might come to
make a report, although now it was almost three o’clock in the
morning. So he threw the door open wide and rolled in the couch and
lifted the Black Star upon it, covering him with two heavy portières
that hung before one of the doors. However, there was no expression of
thanks in the Black Star’s countenance.
Verbeck went back into the other room and closed the door behind him.
He took a candle from a shelf in the corner and lighted it, then made
an inspection of the house from bottom to top. No other room was
furnished; there were no arrangements for cooking, no store of food.
The Black Star, then, did not live here, only came here to receive the
members of his gang. That would make it possible for Verbeck to remain
away from the house except at night.
He went back to the furnished room and conducted an investigation
there. First he looked at the orders in the envelopes. Nine was the
highest number there, but Verbeck did not know how many envelopes had
been given out that night before his arrival. And the orders were
astounding.
Only one had to do with gathering information; the others concerned
projected crimes. Some of them Verbeck could not understand, since
they referred to orders given previously. But others indicated not
only crimes, but the manner in which they were to be committed. They
told what to steal and just where to steal it, where there was danger
and where there was none. Verbeck began considering whether he should
give these orders out if any more men called. Taking the place of the
Black Star did not include aiding in crimes, he told himself. He would
issue orders of his own, orders that would keep the members of the
band from their nefarious business, but at the same time would keep
them in touch until he could arrange a wholesale capture.
Verbeck fumbled around the end of the table for several minutes before
he found the spring which released the drawer and caused it to open.
As he and Muggs had seen earlier in the night, there was an abundance
of money in the drawer. There were half a score of diamond rings, too,
a pearl necklace, other gems. There was a box of little rubber type
and an ink pad and a small memoranda book.
Verbeck opened the book. On the last written page of it he found
something that interested him. At the top was a date—that very day—and
below was a list of numbers, with hours set opposite. The book told
when members of the band were expected to report. Verbeck found that
the first was Number Three, due at nine o’clock that night. And from
then until two o’clock the next morning others were due at stated
intervals. The entire band, it was evident, was to appear for orders
within a few hours and comparison of the book with the printed orders
gave Verbeck an inkling of the scheme.
The Black Star had, indeed, planned a staggering blow to the city’s
pride; his band of crooks was to make a specialty of stealing jewels
taken from safe-deposit boxes to be worn at the Charity Ball. For a
few hours these valuable jewels would be protected only by ordinary
safes in residences, and during those few hours the members of the
Black Star’s band would strike.
Verbeck went in to see that the Black Star was as comfortable as he
could be while bound and gagged, and then walked over to the window.
The storm was dying down; the snow and sleet had almost ceased to
fall, but the cold seemed to be increasing.
Returning to the furnished room, he sat down beside the table to wait.
An hour from the time Muggs had departed the bell tinkled. Verbeck
adjusted his mask and touched the button that opened the door. In a
moment Muggs stood beside him.
“Here are the keys, boss,” he said. “I’ve got the car near the mouth
of the alley, and the lights are out. We can take him along the
hedge——”
“Good!” Verbeck interrupted.
They went inside and lifted the Black Star and carried him out.
Verbeck took off mask and robe and put them on the table, and one by
one blew out the candles. Then he closed the door and helped Muggs
carry the Black Star through the musty hall. Another moment, and they
were outside.
It was not particularly a difficult task to carry their man along the
hedge and to the car, and there Verbeck put him in the back and got in
beside him, while Muggs took the wheel. They made their way slowly up
the hill and to a well-paved street, and there Muggs turned on the
lights and the car rushed forward through the night.
The old Verbeck place was one of the city’s landmarks. It was closed
now, and had been closed for the greater part of the past five years.
It had been bequeathed Verbeck, the last of his family, by his father,
and the young man had had no desire to repair it and live in it alone
with a staff of servants. He preferred his apartment, and to live in
it with no servant except Muggs.
But now, betrothed to wed Faustina Wendell, Verbeck was contemplating
tearing down the old house and erecting a mansion in its place for his
bride. The present house occupied the center of the block. It was
surrounded by trees and tangled underbrush. The walks about it were in
poor condition, and nobody ever approached it. It was to this place
that he was taking the Black Star.
It was a long, cold ride. The Black Star groaned and threw his head
from side to side, indicating that he wanted the gag removed, but
Verbeck declined to accommodate him. He was taking no chances with the
Black Star.
The machine lurched and skidded along the streets, dashed along
boulevards, swung around corners. Muggs was putting on all possible
speed, for the dawn was not far away.
The machine was finally brought to a standstill before the double
gates that opened into the driveway of the old Verbeck place. Verbeck
got out and helped Muggs throw open the gates, and they drove in.
There was fuel in the house, and after they had carried the Black Star
in and made him comfortable on a couch Verbeck built a fire in the
large grate in the living room. Then he removed the man’s gag, and all
his bonds except those which held his hands fastened behind his back.
“There, Mr. Black Star!” he said. “It has been an exciting night. You
sent a man to invade my apartment, and in turn I invaded your place of
business—I suppose that is what you’d call it—and made you prisoner,
with the aid of this very good friend of mine. And now you are
here—and I’m quite sure you don’t know just where. And here you’ll
remain for the time being, until I form some plans and put them in
operation. You’ll be kept warm, and you’ll have food. Muggs will guard
you. And you’ll be unable to escape.”
“All very clever,” the Black Star retorted. “But you are playing with
fire, Mr. Verbeck, and are liable to be badly scorched.”
“I’ll run the risk of that.”
“Remember, I told you my organization has a long arm. I’m storing all
this up against you.”
“Very kind of you, I’m sure.” He turned to Muggs. “How do you want to
work this thing?” he asked.
“Just let him fuss around with his hands tied, boss,” Muggs said.
“I’ll get a strap or some rope from the closet and tie ’em properly.
And if he tries any funny tricks I’ll either shoot him or pound him on
the head with the butt of the gun—’tis immaterial. You can leave it to
me, boss.”
And Verbeck knew by the expression of Muggs’ face that he could.
CHAPTER VI—AN UNPROFITABLE AFTERNOON
Verbeck put his car in the garage, returned to his apartment and
slept. He awakened at eleven o’clock, rushed through bath and
breakfast, got the car out again, purchased groceries, and whirled
away toward the old house.
There he found Muggs pacing back and forth, with the pistol in his
hand, reading the Black Star a lecture on the evils of a nefarious
existence. The Black Star looked disgusted.
“If you’re going to keep me prisoner,” he told Verbeck, “I’d be
obliged if you’d give me another jailer.”
“What’s the matter with Muggs?”
“Barring the fact that he is insane, he may be all right. I don’t want
to be talked to death.”
Verbeck gave him a grin for answer and unpacked the groceries. He had
small time to spend here, and, taking Muggs into a corner, he bade him
be sure to guard the prisoner carefully.
“You may not see me again until to-morrow morning, Muggs,” he said.
“I’ll be busy this afternoon, and to-night I’m going to that house
where the Black Star has his headquarters and start some plans going.”
“You’ll be careful, boss?”
“I’ll be careful, Muggs. When it comes time for sleep what are you
going to do here?”
“Stay awake, I guess.”
“There is a vegetable pit in the basement, remember. Get plenty of
blankets from the closet and put them there, and make him climb down
and sleep on them. You can bolt the trapdoor and sleep in peace here
before the fire. Careful, now. I’m off!”
At one o’clock he put the car in the garage again, for he had decided
he’d not use it that afternoon. Precisely at ten minutes of two he was
standing at the corner on which he had directed the crook the night
before to fumble with his hat and await orders.
It happened to be a pet day with shoppers. Traffic officers worked
furiously to keep the crossings free of vehicles; uniformed footmen
opened limousine doors and helped well-dressed women across the walks
and into shops. Conversations seemed limited to dry goods and
bargains.
Verbeck had not remembered how the corner would be thronged when he
gave the Black Star’s man his orders. The corner now was a jam of
human beings. Verbeck crossed the street and stood beside a stone
pillar in front of a show window, from where he could watch easily.
The hour of two arrived, and Verbeck scrutinized every man who passed
the corner. Five minutes passed, and no one had given him the signal.
And then he saw Howard Wendell, the brother of his fiancée, walking
slowly down the street close to the curbing.
Verbeck drew back quickly behind the pillar. If Howard Wendell saw
him, he undoubtedly would stop to talk, and Verbeck did not want to
hold a conversation just then.
Wendell passed without seeing him. He stopped for an instant on the
corner; he removed his hat, and he ran one hand around the brim of it
as if brushing away dust.
Verbeck’s jaw dropped and his eyes bulged with amazement. The next
instant he was chuckling at the coincidence of it. There was no
possibility of Howard Wendell being a member of the Black Star’s band,
of course. The boy accidentally had done what Verbeck had ordered the
crook to do, that was all, and when he came to think of it Verbeck
realized it was a natural thing for any man to do, and wished he had
told the crook to use some other sign.
Howard Wendell walked on up the street, and Verbeck continued his
watch. The minutes slipped by, and no other man gave the sign. A doubt
entered Verbeck’s mind. That boast he had made at the reception—Howard
Wendell had heard that, and the Black Star had known of it soon
afterward. And Howard had given the correct sign.
“Bosh! Can’t be!” Verbeck muttered to himself. “I’m a fool to think it
for a minute. Why on earth would Howard be mixed up with a gang of
crooks? Even if he wanted to be, how could he get into a first-order
gang like that of the Black Star? They’d not have him! I’m crazy to
think of it!”
He looked at his watch; it was a quarter of three. He decided to go to
the hotel where the unknown crook was to hold conversation with Miss
Freda Brakeland. Perhaps he could decide the matter there, learn the
crook’s identity.
The lobby of the hotel was thronged when Verbeck entered. He met men
and women he knew, but managed to keep free from lingering
conversation. He wanted to be at liberty to make a complete
investigation.
Then he met Faustina Wendell face to face.
“Why, Roger!” she gasped. “Fancy meeting you here! I’ve heard you say
you hate hotel lobbies.”
“I came in to take a peek so I’ll hate them more,” Verbeck replied.
“And you?”
“Browning Club meeting, dear.”
“It is over already?”
“A quarter of an hour ago. In fact, we met only to postpone it, for
every one is talking of the Charity Ball to-morrow night.”
“I see,” said Verbeck. He did see—that he had missed his chance to
learn the identity of the crook.
“I came down in the electric,” Faustina continued. “Come along home
with me, if you haven’t an engagement.”
He entered the electric and sat beside her as she piloted the car
through the busy streets. She was giving all her attention to the
driving, and he did not attempt conversation. And now that her face
was in repose, it seemed to Verbeck that there was a peculiar
expression on it, one that he was not used to seeing. He would have
sworn that the girl beside him, who had promised to be his wife, was
anxious, worried—and that was foreign to her nature.
The Wendells had been wealthy once, but were not now. Mr. Wendell had
died two years before, leaving an estate much smaller than was
anticipated. His widow had built a modern apartment house, and from it
derived an income, the Wendells living in one of the apartments on the
first floor. Yet they had enough to maintain their position in
society, and this was an important position, for the Wendells were an
old pioneer family, noted for piety and pride.
“You are looking tired,” Verbeck observed.
“You’re not very complimentary, Roger. Perhaps I am a bit tired,
though.”
“Too much Charity Ball?” he asked.
“I am not worrying much about that. I intend going, of course.”
“I should hope so,” Verbeck said.
“Would it disappoint you very much if I said I’d rather not?”
“Nothing you can do will disappoint me,” he said loyally; “but I
cannot imagine a Charity Ball without you in attendance. Are you
thinking of remaining away?”
She was looking ahead, and Verbeck imagined that her lips quivered for
an instant.
“Is anything the matter?” he asked. “You don’t seem to be yourself
to-day.”
“I—oh, it is nothing, Roger! Perhaps I am a bit nervous. Let us talk
of something else. Here we are at home. You’ll come in, of course?”
He followed her inside, and greeted her mother, who immediately left
them alone.
“Now,” Verbeck said, bending toward her, “tell me what is troubling
you. I can see that there is something.”
“Really it is nothing, Roger. Perhaps I am a bit out of sorts.
And—what I said about the ball—forget that, please.”
“But if you do not wish to go——” he said.
“Can’t we decide it to-morrow afternoon, dear? All right—let us leave
it until then. Perhaps I’ll be feeling better.”
“And there is no trouble—nothing I can do to help?” he persisted.
“Foolish boy! I’m just—just tired.”
“Then I’m going to run right away and let you rest. I ought to be
downtown, anyway. I’ll telephone the garage for my car.”
He went to the telephone and sent in his call, then returned to sit
beside her. She was trying hard to smile and act naturally, but
Verbeck knew something was troubling her. But he imagined it might be
something connected with the family finance, and so did not press her
for an answer.
The car came from the garage, and Verbeck left, and drove through the
streets in a way that defied all traffic ordinances. He had failed to
identify the crook who had received orders to speak with Miss Freda
Brakeland. And something was troubling his fiancée, and Faustina had
refused to confide in him. It had been an unprofitable afternoon.
And there was a busy and dangerous night before him.
CHAPTER VII—IDENTICAL ORDERS
Eight o’clock that night found Roger Verbeck in the Black Star’s
headquarters, the room put in order, and the candles burning. He was
sitting at the end of the long table, in robe and mask, and with the
little rubber stamps he was busy writing out orders. All the orders
were identical; the ones previously written by the Black Star had been
destroyed.
Promptly at nine o’clock the little bell on the wall tinkled, and
Verbeck, shutting the drawer in the table and holding his automatic in
readiness beneath his robe, went to the wall and pressed the button
that opened the door. He hurried from the room, and waited.
Presently he entered again, to find a masked and robed figure standing
before the blackboard. Number and countersign were given, and Verbeck
handed the man his orders and a twenty-dollar bill taken from the
drawer in the table. The man bowed and went out.
Nine-thirty brought another man, and the same ceremony was observed.
Ten o’clock brought the member of the band to whom Verbeck had given
orders the night before. After he had written his number and
countersign, Verbeck whirled to the blackboard.
“Report,” he wrote.
“Browning Club meeting was postponed, and I missed the person you
mentioned,” the other scribbled on the board. “I followed her, and
spoke with her later in a tea room. She will wear her jewels,
including the famous ruby collar.”
Verbeck nodded for the man to erase. Again he found himself wondering
at the identity of this man who could talk so freely to Freda
Brakeland. And now he wrote on the blackboard himself:
“Why did you not carry out orders?”
“Pardon, but I did.”
“You appeared at the corner I mentioned?”
“Yes. Nobody approached me, so I went on as ordered.”
Verbeck wondered whether the man was speaking the truth, whether he
had appeared at the corner, as ordered, and Verbeck had missed him. It
was possible, he knew, because of the throng of shoppers. And, again——
The robe effectually disguised the man before him, but Verbeck
imagined he was taller than Howard Wendell. He told himself again he
was a fool to think that the man before him was his fiancée’s brother.
He had half a notion to order him to remove his mask, but thought
better of it. This man was a crook, could be nothing else. And Verbeck
dared do nothing that would arouse suspicion and endanger the plan he
had formed.
“Very well,” he wrote on the board; then went to the table and tossed
the proper envelope toward the other.
The man picked it up and read the orders. It seemed to Verbeck that he
appeared startled. He went to the blackboard and wrote again:
“Are you sure, sir, that these are my orders?”
“Yes,” Verbeck wrote.
“Must I carry them out?”
“They must be carried out—to the letter,” wrote Verbeck.
The other hesitated a moment, then wrote rapidly on the board:
“You are unfair, but I am unable to help myself.”
And then, as Verbeck started forward, the other saluted and darted out
of the door, to hurry down the dusty hall. Roger returned to the
table. He half wished he had forced the other man to remove his mask.
Ten-thirty o’clock brought a woman. Verbeck knew she was a woman
because he could see her hands, the fingers covered with rings and the
bottom of her skirts showed beneath the robe. Her writing on the
blackboard was unmistakably feminine, too. The Black Star had said
that women belonged to his organization, but Verbeck had not
anticipated meeting one in this house; he had believed they worked on
orders transmitted by others.
“Everything arranged,” the woman wrote on the board. “It will be easy.
I’ll get the necklace about three o’clock in the morning and hide it
where you ordered. It may be found there any time after four o’clock.”
Here Verbeck found himself facing something of which he knew nothing,
some crime already outlined by the Black Star.
“Disregard all previous orders,” he wrote, “for the time being. I have
new orders for you, and you’ll attend to them first. Do you
understand?”
“Yes,” she wrote.
He threw her envelope on the table, and she read the instructions it
contained. She, too, scribbled a protest on the blackboard.
“Isn’t it dangerous?” she wrote.
“Carry out your orders. You do not know all the scheme, remember.”
“I understand. I’ll obey.”
Then she hurried out.
At eleven o’clock the bell tinkled again, and Verbeck admitted another
of the band. This one, too, was a woman. She appeared timid, whereas
the first had given every indication of being used to this sort of
thing. Her hand trembled as she wrote her number on the board. Then
she gave her countersign and waited.
Evidently she was not working on a case, but had reported to get
orders. Verbeck had no orders ready for her, for her number had not
been on the list he had found in the Black Star’s book. Apparently
this was her first visit, or else the Black Star had not contemplated
making use of her at the present time.
He took orders he had printed for one of the others and put them on
the end of the table, motioning for her to pick them up and read. As
she advanced toward the table, Verbeck found that her eyes were upon
him, and she seemed afraid to touch the envelope. She opened it
finally, read quickly, and Verbeck thought she gave a little cry. She
staggered backward, but seemed to regain her composure as he started
forward to aid her, and backed away from him. The sheet of paper
fluttered from her hand to the floor.
Verbeck stooped and picked it up, and handed it to her. She did not
seem to see it—she was looking down at Verbeck’s hand. Like a wild
thing, she whirled around and rushed back to the blackboard and seized
the chalk.
“Where did you get that ring?” she wrote rapidly.
Verbeck answered on his board:
“Why? Do you fancy it?”
“Where did you get it?”
“That is my personal and private business,” he wrote. The ring was a
peculiar signet he had picked up abroad and had worn for years.
The woman dropped the chalk to the floor. She raised one hand as if to
put it to her face; she dropped it again; her eyes burned into
Verbeck’s from behind her mask; then she gave a cry that expressed
pain and despair, and hurried through the door and into the hall.
“Well, what do you think of that?” Verbeck mused. “Was she really
frightened or only playing a part? I wonder if the Black Star has been
treating her badly and has made her afraid of him? She seemed awfully
interested in my ring—because she’d never noticed it on the Black
Star’s hand, I suppose. If she should be suspicious—— But she couldn’t
do anything if she was!”
The members of the band continued to arrive at intervals, but there
were no more women. Verbeck received their numbers and countersigns,
and gave out copies of the orders. At three o’clock in the morning he
decided there were no more to come. Two women and eight men had been
received during the night—ten persons had walked into the trap he had
constructed. Less than twenty-four hours, and the Black Star and his
band would be in the hands of the police. Verbeck felt that he had
planned well.
At half past three o’clock he left the house and walked five blocks to
catch an owl car. Half an hour later he was on the boulevard,
approaching the building in which he had his rooms. As he reached the
steps of the apartment house he happened to turn and glance down the
street. He saw a man dodge behind a lamp-post a short distance away.
Verbeck stepped into the vestibule, waited a moment, then stepped out
again quickly. Again he saw the man dodge behind the post.
Darting down the steps, Verbeck ran toward the man. A shadowy form
rushed across the driveway and lost itself in the shadows of the
underbrush. Verbeck stopped and retraced his steps. He doubted whether
he could catch the man, and he wasn’t inclined to pursue him at that
hour of the morning. Perhaps it was not a man watching him, but a
lurking thief, he thought, and at the same time he felt that he had
been under surveillance.
CHAPTER VIII—THE POLICE GET A TIP
Verbeck arose at noon to face the day that meant the culmination of
his plans. As he bathed and shaved and dressed he kept thinking of the
prowler he had seen a few hours before. Could it be possible, he asked
himself, that some of the Black Star’s band had grown suspicious and
would take an active part against him? Had the Black Star, a prisoner
in the old Verbeck house, sent out some message from his prison
calling for rescue? Verbeck was half afraid he had made some blunder,
had overlooked something that would allow the master criminal to turn
the tables and emerge victor from the duel of wits.
He telephoned the garage for his roadster, and hurried out to the old
Verbeck place, taking with him a lineman from the telephone company’s
office. The lineman connected the telephone, which had been out of
service.
“How is the prisoner?” Verbeck asked Muggs after the lineman had
departed.
“Down in the vegetable pit, thinking of his sins.”
“Fetch him up,” Verbeck directed, and began carrying in the food he
had purchased before running out from town.
It was a surly Black Star who entered the living room, with Muggs at
his heels urging him on. He no longer was handsome because of a two
days’ growth of beard and dark circles under his eyes. He glared at
Muggs malevolently as he crossed the room and sat down stiffly on a
divan.
“How long,” he demanded of Verbeck, “are you going to keep me
prisoner, with a maniac for jailer?”
“Probably until a late hour to-night. But you need not be confined in
the pit again. I’m going to have Muggs keep you in this room, where it
is warm and comfortable. I want to give you a bit of liberty until
to-night.”
“And then?”
“Then I’ll probably hand you over to the police, and you’ll have
mighty small freedom for years to come.”
“Indeed?” the Black Star snarled. “You have arranged everything, have
you? Planned a coup of some sort?”
“Time will tell,” said Verbeck.
“And don’t you ever stop to fear for yourself?”
“I haven’t felt particularly afraid at any time.”
“I have warned you that the arm of my organization——”
“Is a long one—I remember,” said Verbeck. “The arm of the law also is
long, Mr. Black Star, and a clever, honest man can outwit a clever
crook any time, as I said once before. You called it a boast, I
believe.”
“You are not done yet.”
“Certainly not—but I’ll be done within a few hours.”
Verbeck walked to a corner and beckoned Muggs to him.
“I’ll return to-night, some time after nine o’clock,” he said. “I want
you to watch the Black Star well, Muggs. If he escapes now——”
“Why don’t you call in the police, boss?”
“And spoil everything? I’m going through with this now—I’m going to
nab the Black Star and his gang.”
“Then there’s something big coming off, and I’m not to be in on it?”
Muggs demanded.
“Neither am I, Muggs—at the moment it comes off. But we’ll both be in
at the finish—and we’ll be there strong. Just curb your curiosity,
Muggs, until this evening. I’ll explain everything then. Careful, now,
and don’t let the Black Star escape. I fancy you’ve been aggravating
him.”
“Aw, boss——”
“He looks it. Haven’t you?”
“I was just reciting a list of his sins, boss.”
“Well, Muggs, recite less and keep your eyes open more. Watch every
move he makes. Don’t you use that telephone, and don’t let the Black
Star get near it. I had it connected so we can use it to-night. Now
I’m off!”
He got in the roadster and started back downtown. He stopped before a
suburban drug store and went into a telephone booth. He had not wanted
to send this telephone message from his own apartment nor from the old
Verbeck place, for it might be traced.
He called police headquarters, and asked to be connected with the
chief. No, he said, the chief’s secretary wouldn’t do. It was
something about the Black Star.
In a moment he heard the chief’s gruff voice.
“Listen carefully,” Verbeck told him, “for I am not going to repeat
what I say or answer questions. This is very important, and if you
disregard it you’ll be sorry. Have your secretary get on the phone
extension and take down in shorthand what I am going to say.”
There was a short wait while the chief made the necessary
arrangements, then Verbeck heard himself commanded to speak.
“I have run down and caught the Black Star,” he said. “I am holding
him prisoner now. I cannot hand him over to you just yet, for, if I
did, and the least news of it leaked out, you’d never catch one of his
gang, and, without his gang, you never could convict him. Never mind
how I know it—I am not talking nonsense. You’ve got that?”
An excited voice told him that the chief understood.
“Now, listen to this,” Verbeck went on. “I have arranged for all the
Black Star’s band to be at a certain place at the same time, so you
and your men can take them all. Keep quiet, chief, and don’t ask
questions. I want you to send men enough to arrest them—eight men and
two women are in the crowd. They are to be arrested just when and
where I say. If you let as much as one of them escape all my work and
yours probably will have been for nothing. When you get them you’ll
find stolen property on every one. And as soon as I learn you have all
of them under arrest I’ll turn over the Black Star to you, I’ll tell
you where and how he met the members of his gang and gave them orders,
and I’ll let you have the inside workings of one of the smoothest
crooks’ schemes ever devised. But if you make one false move——”
A torrent of words over the wire stopped him for a moment.
“No questions, I said,” he went on. “You have understood so far? Very
well! No, I’ll not tell you who I am or where I am! Very well, if
you’ll not listen! I’ll call you up later, when you’re in a better
mood, and explain where you are to make the catch. Good-by!”
And an irate Roger Verbeck strode from the telephone booth, went out
to the street, and sprang into his car to drive furiously down the
thoroughfare. No excited chief of police could bully him with a lot of
mandatory questions, he told himself. Let them fuss and fume for a
time, then they’d listen when he telephoned.
His actions had the desired effect. At police headquarters there was a
spirited debate for five minutes between the chief and his secretary
as to whether the telephone communication had come from some practical
joker. The secretary was inclined to believe that it had. The chief
insisted that some member of the Black Star’s band had turned against
him and was engineering his downfall.
Verbeck drove on through the streets until he reached the Wendell
apartment house. Faustina was waiting for him, and again Verbeck
noticed that anxiety was stamped on her face, and now he thought there
was a look of fear also.
“Well, here we are,” he said. “And what about the ball?”
“I—I have decided to go,” she said, looking at him peculiarly.
“Brother Howard going, too?”
“Yes—he is going.”
“With any particular young lady?”
“No—alone.”
“Good! Will you be angry, Faustina, if I ask you to go to the ball
with Howard? I cannot explain just now, but—well, I’ll be there late,
in time to have a couple of dances and bring you home. I’m sorry that
I cannot explain exactly—it is something important that will keep me
away until late.”
He looked up, to find her staring at him fixedly.
“Why—what is the matter?” he stammered.
“I—oh, Roger, it is nothing!”
He sat down beside her and started to take her in his arms, but she
drew away from him.
“Why, Faustina——”
“I’m—oh, I’m just a bit nervous, Roger.”
“There seemed to be something troubling you yesterday, and there
certainly is to-day,” he said. “Can’t you confide in me, Faustina? Is
there anything wrong—anything I can do to help?”
“Nothing you can do—to help,” she said.
“Then there is something wrong?”
“Don’t ask me, please, Roger. I’m nervous, worried. Just let me rest
until to-night—I’ll try to be all right then. Certainly I’ll go to the
ball with Howard—and expect you later. And now you’ll go, won’t you,
Roger? I must lie down—and rest.”
The puzzled Verbeck walked slowly to the door, Faustina following him.
He took her in his arms and kissed her. She did not return the caress,
and she seemed on the verge of tears.
“Don’t worry,” he said softly.
“You tell me not to worry.”
“Why, yes. Perhaps whatever is troubling you will cease to trouble.
We’ll talk of it to-night? You’ll let me help you?”
“Yes,” she said, “we’ll talk of it to-night. We must talk of it
to-night.”
Verbeck hurried out, got into the car, and started for the business
district. Faustina’s actions and manner worried him, yet his mind was
busy with the Black Star and his affair. Once the Black Star and his
band of crooks were handed over to the police he’d look into
Faustina’s trouble, he told himself. Perhaps Howard was running about
too much. Perhaps there was financial trouble in the family. Whatever
it was, he’d smooth things out, he promised. He couldn’t have Faustina
worrying.
He drove carefully now through the heavy traffic, and finally stopped
before a hotel. There he entered a public telephone booth, and called
police headquarters again. Once more he got the chief on the wire.
“Will you listen now, and ask no questions?” he demanded. “This is no
hoax, so you’d better act on my tip.”
Then he told the chief where the members of the Black Star’s band
could be captured, and when and how.
CHAPTER IX—“CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST”
That evening there came the heavy winds again. They came as night
descended, to howl about buildings and shriek through the streets,
carrying the merest suggestion of snow. They swayed the arc lights,
rattled signs, and shook skeletons of trees. And then they settled
down to a steady blow from the north, and soft snow began to fall
heavily. And through the steady sheet of snow gleamed thousands upon
thousands of incandescent bulbs at the big hall where the Charity Ball
was to be held.
That hall had been built to hold thousands, and its capacity would be
tested this night. On the dancing floor would be women famous in
society, stately matrons, pretty girls enjoying their first social
season. Gowns to dazzle would be shown by hundreds, and
jewels—precious and famous jewels—would flash reflection from myriads
of electric lights—jewels taken from safe-deposit boxes to be worn at
this affair, and then to be returned to their hiding places.
The galleries would be filled with spectators; a gigantic orchestra
would please musical ears; in the streets outside, hundreds of
limousines would be waiting for the end.
Verbeck was thinking of the scene at the big hall as he drove his
roadster out to the old place again shortly after ten o’clock that
night. He had intended going to the old house earlier, but had been
delayed in carrying out his plans. And now everything was done—there
was nothing more to do except await the appointed hour, call police
headquarters, ascertain that the members of the Black Star’s band were
in jail, and then turn over the Black Star himself. He would have a
good excuse to escape the plaudits of the police and reporters at
headquarters—he would have to hurry to the big hall to dance with his
fiancée and escort her to her home.
The gates were open, and Verbeck sent the car through and along the
driveway, and brought it to a stop where it would be shielded by the
corner of the house from the swirling snow.
When he entered the living room, the Black Star was sitting on the
divan in the corner, and Muggs was pacing back and forth before him,
still preaching on the merits of an honest existence as compared to a
life of thievery.
“Everything is lovely, boss,” he reported to Verbeck. “This gent has
been getting restless, but he hasn’t made a move he shouldn’t. I’ve
been hoping he would—I haven’t taken a pot shot at a man in ages.”
“We’ll have no carnage, Muggs,” said Verbeck, laughing. “We want to
hand him over entire, not in pieces. Give me that pistol, and I’ll
watch the gentleman while you untie his hands and fasten them again in
front instead of behind his back. I’m going to give him a cigar to
smoke; he’ll need it to quiet his nerves.”
Muggs did as he was ordered, and the Black Star accepted the cigar
with good grace and puffed at it with evident enjoyment.
“Do we call the police now, boss?” Muggs asked.
“Not yet, Muggs.”
“You and I have done a lot of things, boss, in all corners of the
world,” he said in a whisper, so the Black Star could not hear. “When
you feel that you can’t hold in any longer, you make me stop being a
valet, and let me be a comrade, and we go out after adventure. It’s
always been all right. But, about this thing—— Boss, I told you I had
a hunch.”
“I’m afraid your hunch isn’t working well this time, Muggs. The thing
has been accomplished. I’m merely waiting here until the police make a
move I requested them to make, and then we’ll surrender the Black
Star. It hasn’t been so very much of an adventure, after all, has it,
old man? There hasn’t been much excitement—not what we call
excitement.”
“I’ll not be satisfied until the police have their hands on him,
boss.”
“Neither shall I. But nothing is going to happen, Muggs, to bother us.
Keep that hunch of yours until another time.”
Muggs resumed his guard of the prisoner, and, though he asked Verbeck
nothing concerning the plans he had made, there was a question in the
expression of his face. Verbeck lighted a cigar for himself, and sat
down not far from the Black Star. He looked at his watch.
“It is half after ten,” he announced. “Mr. Black Star, in exactly an
hour and a half the police will take into custody some of your people;
eight men and two women, to be exact.”
“Indeed?”
“Exactly,” said Verbeck.
“Would you mind telling me how this is to be done? I am somewhat
interested and wholly skeptical.”
“Last night,” said Verbeck, “I assumed your robe and mask, and played
at being the Black Star. I destroyed the orders you had prepared,
countermanded all of which I learned, and issued new orders of my own.
There was no hitch in the arrangement. Not one of them became
suspicious as far as I could see.”
“And the orders?” the Black Star asked, interest showing in his face.
“Were the same in each instance,” said Verbeck. “The orders make it
possible for the police to round up the entire gang at one swoop.
They’ll be kept separate until I turn you over and tell all I know.
With those facts upon which to work the detectives will have no
trouble getting confessions. As for you—Muggs and I can swear to
enough to convict you, especially after the police have searched that
house where you had your headquarters.”
There was a look of apprehension in the Black Star’s face now, but he
did not pretend to Verbeck that he was alarmed.
“May I ask how you expect to catch these persons?” he asked.
“Yes—and I’ll tell you. There was a flaw in your perfect arrangement,
Mr. Black Star. You taught your crooks to work in the dark, and not
ask questions. They have faith in you; and if you ordered one of them
to enter the First National Bank at noon and hold up the first teller
to the right, he’d perhaps do it, believing that his work was only a
part of a big scheme and that he’d escape consequences because of some
plan of yours.”
“True,” said the Black Star. “I have issued orders that seemed
dangerous, but were not so when a man knew all the different angles of
my plan.”
“Exactly. And so, when I gave orders that seemed dangerous, scarcely
an objection was raised. You want to know how they are to be captured,
eh? Here is a copy of the orders I gave each, Mr. Black Star, listen
to it!”
Verbeck pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and read:
“You will dress as well as possible—evening clothes if you
can—and attend the Charity Ball. I give you herewith money for
ticket and other expenses. You will mingle with the crowd on the
dance floor, and, working alone, lift all the jewels you can. Be
careful of discovery, but do not fear the outcome. Between ten
o’clock and midnight will be the best time for you to do your
work.
“Exactly at midnight you will be in the southwest corner of the
lobby, where there is a drinking fountain. Before going there
put a bit of red ribbon on the lapel of your coat. If you see
others wearing this sign, do not speak to them or give them any
attention. Follow these instructions to the letter, and our
great plans will be consummated. It is to be a big clean-up, and
all arrangements have been made.”
Verbeck ceased reading, and looked across at the Black Star.
“You understand?” he asked. “Each one thinks he does not know all the
plan, but will be safe if he carries out his instructions. I gave each
a bill out of the drawer in the table, and I told the women to wear
the red ribbon on their shoulders. A score or more of detectives will
be in the neighborhood. At midnight they will take in custody all who
wear the red ribbon. A quick search will disclose stolen property in
their possession. You see? I don’t know whether I’m guilty of a felony
or not, ordering them to steal like that, but I guess I’ll be
forgiven, since it is in such a good cause.
“So there goes your perfect arrangement, Mr. Black Star. Those crooks
who have been trusting you will be cursing your name before long. And
you’re going to the penitentiary with them. You can’t be crooked and
get away with it always—no matter how clever you are. And all this,
Mr. Black Star, because you overplayed your part by sending a man to
put a letter on my desk. You needn’t sneer—I’m not meaning to praise
myself. There are a thousand men in town who could have overcome you,
given the chance I had.”
“I am not sneering at your egotism,” said the Black Star, apparently
without emotion. “I am sneering at the futility of your plans. I
warned you, Roger Verbeck. I told you that chickens come home to
roost. So you’ll send my men and women to jail, will you? You’ll break
up my organization? You strike me a deathblow like that—and you’ll
strike yourself one at the same time.”
“I’ve heard your pointless talk before,” Verbeck said.
“But this is not pointless talk, Roger Verbeck. It is very much to the
point. I told you that I had an organization that gathered
information, didn’t I? I said it was separate and distinct from the
band that committed the crimes. You have made the grave mistake, I
fear, of mixing the two bands together—and the consequences will not
be to your liking.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes—indeed! How do you suppose I heard of your boast at that
reception a few nights ago? How do you suppose I know so much about
people’s private affairs? I’ll tell you, Roger Verbeck—I know because
men and women of your acquaintance belong to my organization. You
don’t believe that, eh? You will—soon.”
“I scarcely can imagine any of my friends turning crook.”
“Not voluntarily, perhaps. Not because they need money, either—not
always.”
“Explain,” Verbeck said.
“I’ve told you I have a partner who knows me well—he and I work
together. Some of the organization know him, but not one knows me, nor
has seen my face or heard my voice. If you are skeptical, I’ll outline
the plan in a few words. In Chicago, for instance, we caught a certain
youngster of this city when he was in trouble. He was extricated from
his scrape, and the price of it was that he join my organization. We
held something over his head. Deathly afraid, he carried out my
orders; he feared to refuse. Through him we brought into the
organization the girl to whom he was betrothed—threatening to send her
sweetheart to prison unless she joined the band. You see? A sort of
endless-chain affair.”
“I don’t believe it!” Verbeck exclaimed.
“You want proof, eh? In ten minutes, Roger Verbeck, you’ll be giving
me my liberty, and you’ll be moving heaven and earth, with me beside
you, trying to prevent the capture of those people at the Charity
Ball. You know who told me of your boast at that reception? He told me
because he admires your native cleverness—begged me to stop everything
and leave town, for, he said, if you started out to get me you’d do
it.”
“He was a sensible man, and you should have taken his advice,” said
Verbeck.
“I am telling you the truth, Verbeck. The man who told me was Howard
Wendell, the brother of the girl you expect to marry.”
“You lie!” Verbeck cried, springing from his chair. Muggs snarled, and
stepped forward, ready for a fray, but Verbeck motioned him back.
“I do not lie,” said the Black Star. “I told you to beware, that the
chickens might come home to roost. Two months ago Howard Wendell was
in Chicago on some business for his uncle. We knew him—we wanted him.
A man already a member of the organization saw to it that Howard
Wendell went the pace for a few days. He is but a boy, we’ll say—he
was easily led. He woke up one morning to find that he had gambled
away three thousand dollars of his uncle’s money. He was almost insane
because of what he had done. His friend took him to my partner; my
partner gave him the money.”
“But that——”
“Wait! In return he gave my partner a check drawn on a bank in this
city. Of course it was a forged check. Oh, he did not intend it as
deceit! He said the check was worthless. My partner laughed and said
he knew it, but that he would keep it until the boy could pay—if he
never paid, it would be all right. My partner, you see, owned the
gambling house where the money was lost. You begin to understand?”
Verbeck still stood before him, hands clenched.
“But the next day he was informed that the check would be presented,
would be returned, and that he would be arrested for having written
it—unless he did as he was ordered. That is how Howard Wendell became
a member of our organization.”
“You beat!” Verbeck cried.
“Don’t beat me up yet—please,” sneered the Black Star. “If you stop to
do that you’ll suffer considerable anguish later. I am not done—there
are more chickens coming home to roost. What numbers did the men have,
those to whom you gave orders?”
Fearing, Verbeck told him.
“So? Howard Wendell is one of them, Verbeck. He is the one who brought
you the letter that first night concerning the Greistman
jewels—remember? He’ll be one for the police to nab to-night. He must
have been surprised to get orders like that—he understood he was to do
nothing except gather information.”
Verbeck felt that the Black Star was speaking the truth. Howard had
objected to the orders—had said that they were unfair to him, but that
he was unable to help himself. It had been possible for him to tell
the Black Star of Verbeck’s boast. He had given the sign that
afternoon before seeking a talk with Freda Brakeland. And the police
would capture Howard Wendell through Verbeck’s planning, capture him
with stolen jewels in his possession.
“And the women?” the Black Star asked. “Tell me quickly! What numbers
did they have?”
Verbeck told him.
“The first is one of the cleverest in the organization,” said the
master crook. “She is an experienced thief. But the second—small
wonder you did not find her number in the book! She is a new one. That
was her first visit, and I had ordered it some days before. She was
brought into the organization through her love for another, a member
of her family. So she’ll be caught, too, eh? And do you know her
identity, Roger Verbeck? Do you know the woman you are handing over to
the police through meddling with my affairs? I’ll tell you—gladly: She
is Miss Faustina Wendell—your fiancée!”
CHAPTER X—CAUGHT IN A NET
Silence followed the announcement of the Black Star—silence for a
moment, during which Muggs watched his master and waited for the sign
that he was to choke the man on the divan into insensibility for
daring to say such a thing. But the sign was not given.
Suddenly Roger Verbeck felt sick at heart. The Black Star’s tone, his
bearing, the expression in his face told that he spoke the truth. And
Verbeck knew enough to confirm it. Faustina had been acting in a
peculiar manner. And that second woman who had called on him in the
Black Star’s headquarters—how timid she had appeared, how afraid! She
had reeled when she read her orders. She had demanded to know where
Verbeck got the ring he was wearing. And that very afternoon, when he
met her at her home—her words had been mysterious, her actions out of
the ordinary.
“So you see how it is,” the Black Star was saying. “Do you want to
save her, save her brother also? Then release me, and I’ll help—for I
must save those friends of mine. I’m as much in the dark regarding
them as you, for I’ve never seen any of their faces, remember. You
realize what will happen if they are caught, don’t you? There could be
no escape from the penitentiary for any of them. And there are things
to be found in my headquarters—notes in Faustina Wendell’s
handwriting, for instance, notes giving information——”
He stopped at the look that came into Verbeck’s face.
“And you think I’ll let you go now?” Verbeck demanded. “Why, I’ll
fight you more than ever now! You’ve made a cat’s-paw of that boy;
you’ve dragged the sweetest and most innocent girl in the world into
your filthy scheme.”
“The prosecuting attorney won’t consider her innocent when he reads
those notes.”
“You’d have me let you go—then you’d try to drag _me_ into the mess to
save my intended wife! And, through me, others—and so on! It’s fight
you and beat you now, or surrender to you like a coward, and let you
go ahead with your nefarious plans. I’ll take the chance, Mr. Black
Star!”
Verbeck looked at his watch; it was a quarter of eleven. He whirled to
face Muggs.
“Guard this crook!” he cried. “Guard him well. Shoot him if he tries
to escape!”
“What are you going to do, boss?”
“I’m going to play the game out to the end. I’m going to the ball and
save Faustina Wendell and her brother—and I’m going to see that the
police get the others, and then this man here. That’s all I have to
do—get Faustina and Howard away in time. This crook’s clever scheme
has another angle—nobody can swear the Wendells are mixed up in this.
That’s what I have to do—separate the crooks from the innocent
victims. Watch that man!”
Muggs screeched at him. The Black Star tried to tell him something.
But Roger Verbeck had dashed from the house and toward his machine. He
was almost sobbing, and fear gripped at his heart. The chickens had
come home to roost! No wonder Faustina had acted so peculiarly, small
wonder she had shown anxiety! And she was in danger. He had ordered
her to steal—perhaps her love and fear for her brother would lead her
to do so. She might be caught in the act—Faustina Wendell, proud
daughter of one of the pioneer families, caught stealing jewels!
And his ring—she had recognized that! Great Heaven! Did she think he
was the Black Star? Did she imagine he had played on her love to make
her a member of a band of thieves? What might she not suspect, when
she had seen that ring?
She would remember that he had led a sort of wild life in the ends of
the earth, never showing a tendency to settle down until he had fallen
in love with her. She might pile up the little things until she had a
mound of evidence—women do such things. She might doubt his manhood,
really believe he was the master crook, brutal enough to endanger the
girl he professed to love and her brother. Had Howard Wendell noticed
that ring, too? Had Howard been the midnight prowler waiting on the
boulevard to see what time Verbeck reached home?
He was in the car, out of the yard, rushing like the wind down the
street, not caring whether the machine skidded perilously through the
snow. It was almost eleven o’clock; he had ample time, more than an
hour. It would be a simple thing, after all, merely to get Faustina
and Howard to one side and see that neither wore a red ribbon, let the
police capture the others, and then explain.
Then another thought came to him—those notes the Black Star had said
were in the house where he made his headquarters! The captured men
would talk, mention that house, and the police would search. Faustina
might be endangered in that way. He didn’t dare take the chance of
leaving those notes until after he went to the ball. He’d have to
search for them, find, and destroy them.
There was more than an hour—he had ample time. He drove the machine at
a furious pace, disregarding police, who shrieked at him, barely
missing trolley cars, dodging pedestrians at crossings. Out along the
long boulevard it was easier going, for there the wind had swept the
pavement clear of snow, and there was not so much traffic. He left the
paved street and cut down the hill toward the old house where the
Black Star had established his headquarters. He did not have time to
take precautions; he trusted to the good fortune that always had stood
at his side in emergencies. He turned the machine to the curb a block
away from the house, sprang out, and rushed across vacant lots toward
his goal.
Through the dusty hall he rushed, reaching in his coat pocket for
matches. He found a candle in the furnished room and lighted it. Then
breathlessly he began his search.
Nothing was in the drawer at the end of the table except what he had
seen before. There was no furniture in the room in which letters might
be concealed. He inspected the couch, but found nothing. He ripped the
seat and back from the armchair, but his search was not rewarded. In
the kitchen he opened drawers and bins, but found nothing except dust
and cobwebs. He rushed back to the Black Star’s room again.
His foot found the trigger of the trapdoor, and he opened it and crept
to the edge of the pit to hold the candle and peer down. There was
nothing but the smooth cement walls and flooring. He ripped away rugs,
searched the floor, finally stood, panting, beside the table in
despair.
“He lied!” he gasped. “He must have lied—and I have been losing time!”
He looked at his watch again—it was one minute after eleven o’clock.
It would take him only fifteen minutes to reach the big hall where the
Charity Ball was being held if he drove swiftly, and so he had time
for further search, but it seemed of no use.
Staggering against the side of the table, he threw out his hand to
grip the edge—and a drawer shot out!
He forgot the place and danger, and gave a cry of joy. Accident had
accomplished what search had failed to reveal. The drawer was half
filled with papers. He inspected them quickly—yes, there were several
notes in Faustina’s handwriting, and a forged check for three thousand
dollars in the bolder scrawl that belonged to Howard Wendell. The
Black Star evidently had had that check close at hand to show the boy
now and then in case he thought of quitting the organization.
There were other letters, too, the handwriting of which Verbeck seemed
to recognize, but could not quite place—letters written by other
victims of the Black Star, he supposed.
He carried them to the grate, set them afire, fed them to the flames
one at a time. He ran back to the table and pressed the edge of it all
the way around, and found one other drawer. There was nothing in it,
however, and he felt that he had secured and destroyed all the
dangerous papers there. The fire in the grate died down. Verbeck
stirred the ashes to make certain nothing remained that would give a
clew. Then he blew out the candle and started through the dusty hall
to the door.
As he reached it he stopped in alarm. Creeping toward the house from
the hedge were two men. Far to the right were two more. To the left
were two more. He heard a sibilant whisper from near the wall a short
distance away. Light from the nearest street lamp flashed against a
policeman’s shield.
The police were surrounding the house!
CHAPTER XI—CLOSE QUARTERS
Muggs stood in front of the door for a moment after Verbeck had dashed
from the house, then turned to face the Black Star again. Muggs’ lower
jaw was shot out, his eyes were narrowed, and, but for Verbeck’s
orders, he probably would have launched himself at the Black Star and
attempted the old-fashioned retaliation known as “beating up.”
Muggs was small in size, but he had great strength in his arms and
shoulders, and possessed knowledge of a multitude of tricks to aid him
in the art of self-defense or aggression. He worshiped Roger Verbeck.
He was ready at any time to fight for Verbeck, to defend his life and
his happiness. The fact that the Black Star had caused his master
misery was enough to make Muggs want to throttle the man. But Verbeck
had decreed against that.
Muggs wished he was at his master’s side, helping him in the fight. He
imagined Verbeck driving the roadster at top speed through the streets
to the big hall; he fancied him entering upon the brilliant scene
there, as he had intended doing at a later hour, getting Faustina
Wendell and her brother to places of safety, then witnessing the
capture of the Black Star’s band. He anticipated a telephone call from
Verbeck telling of success.
Meanwhile he walked back and forth before his prisoner, the pistol
held in his hand, and raged at the man on the divan.
“A cur like you causing a man like Mr. Verbeck pain!” he exclaimed.
“Killing’s too good for you! I hope you get a life sentence. But he’s
got you, Mr. Black Star! My boss has you! Have your little signs
pasted on his bed and all over his library, will you? Leave sassy
letters for him, eh? I reckon you’re sorry for it now!”
The Black Star still was smoking the cigar Verbeck had given him. He
blinked at Muggs, and puffed at the cigar furiously, then suddenly
bent forward and bowed his head on his hands.
“That’s right!” Muggs went on. “Think of your sins! Do a little
wailing yourself! Cause my boss trouble, will you? You’d better put
your head in your hands and wish you’d played straight! Small good it
will do you to repent now, you scum!”
The Black Star’s head bent lower; he was a picture of misery. Muggs
looked at him with scorn and turned to walk the length of the room. He
stopped his tirade long enough to pick up a sandwich from the table
and begin eating it. He imagined the Black Star about to weep because
disaster had overtaken him—and Muggs always felt disgusted when he saw
a man weep.
But the Black Star was not weeping—he was endeavoring a subterfuge.
When he bowed his head, the burning end of his cigar rested against
the rope that bound his wrists together. Now and then he puffed again,
until the rope was scorched. Strand after strand was burned through as
Muggs talked.
“Getting your dirty hands on your betters and making them join your
gang!” Muggs said, walking back toward him. “You got your hands on one
too many, I guess. And I’ll be a witness at your trial, too! I’ll help
send you over the road——”
He had passed the Black Star and was about to turn. And at that
instant the Black Star sprang. Muggs was taken unawares. A fist dealt
him a blow on the back of the head. As he staggered forward, trying to
turn, the pistol was wrenched from his hand and the butt of it crashed
against his temple. The Black Star struck him even as Muggs had struck
the Black Star in his headquarters room, when Roger Verbeck was shot
into the pit.
“Take that, you whelp!” the Black Star cried. “Try conclusions with
me, will you—you and your precious master? You haven’t whipped me yet!
There’s something in that old house I want—money, and those
letters—money to get me away to Chicago, and the letters to send to
the prosecuting attorney with a sarcastic little note. I’ll fix your
precious master and his girl. And while he’s trying to save her I’ll
be taking a train out of town. As for my crooks—bah! I never saw their
faces—they are no friends of mine. Let ’em go to prison—there are
plenty more crooks to be had!”
He kicked the prostrate Muggs and hurried from the house. He did not
know exactly in what part of the city he found himself, but he made
for a crossing where he had seen a trolley car flash past, where he
could make a start downtown.
And Muggs, groaning in pain, remained on the floor, but he was not
fully unconscious. He had heard every word uttered by the Black
Star—they seemed to ring in his brain. He kept telling himself he
wanted to get up, he wanted to do something—but he could not. He
struggled mentally to rise, and finally his will was communicated to
his muscles. He rolled over, sat up on the floor.
Dizziness overcame him, but he closed his eyes and bit his lower lip
and tried to master it. And in time he did, and staggered to the divan
and fell upon it.
What was it the Black Star had said? That he was going to his
headquarters to get money and letters, that he was going to leave the
members of his band to their fate, and make his escape. He must stop
the Black Star! Verbeck’s plans would be shattered unless he did. And
the Black Star would be a living menace to Verbeck unless he was
stopped, and perhaps would build up another organization in some other
city. Even in this moment of pain Muggs, though claiming no superior
power of reasoning, could not help but think what a fool the Black
Star had been to tell Verbeck his schemes. That was the man’s
weakness—he had to boast. It was boasting that had brought him to the
close attention of Roger Verbeck and caused all the trouble.
“My hunch was right,” Muggs muttered. “I told the boss—that I had a
hunch!”
He sat up again; the dizziness had passed, but his head still pained.
He must act quickly, he kept telling himself over and over. Then the
plan for which he had been groping flashed into his brain.
Muggs sprang to the telephone and called police headquarters. He got
the chief on the wire.
“The Black Star has escaped!” he cried. “You’ll get his gang down at
the dance, but you’ll not get him unless you hurry. He knocked me down
and escaped. I know where you can catch him—if you’re quick!”
Shotted queries and commands came to him from the frenzied chief.
“A house—in the south end of town!” Muggs gasped. “A deserted house—he
has his headquarters there! He’s gone there to get money, then he’ll
get out of town. You can catch him! ... What’s that? Oh, yes—I didn’t
give you the address!”
Muggs swayed from the telephone, but in a moment had gathered his
strength and was talking again. He gave the location of the house, and
the chief said that he understood.
“And I’ll be there—I’ll start right now,” Muggs added. “I’ll be there
to identify him.”
Sudden decision had come to Muggs, and he stumbled away from the
instrument without further words, not even stopping to hang up the
receiver. He hurried across to the door and threw it open and went
out. The stinging cold air refreshed him. He started along the
driveway.
By the time he reached the boulevard, Muggs was himself again, except
that the pain pounded in his head because of the blows the Black Star
had given him. He hurried along the street, half running. On the first
corner he waited for a car.
An automobile came along, bound for town, and Muggs hailed the driver.
He was a private chauffeur going to the big hall to fetch home from
the ball some of the women of the family for which he worked. Muggs
told him it was a matter of life and death, and the chauffeur allowed
him to crawl up beside him and put on speed. Five minutes later, well
down in town, Muggs got off and hailed the first taxicab he saw,
offering double pay if good time was made, and the cab soon was
rushing toward its destination.
The police had acted promptly on Muggs’ information, and as the
taxicab whirled around a corner half a dozen blocks from the goal,
Muggs could hear in the distance the shrieking of a siren on a police
automobile. He urged his chauffeur to greater speed. At a corner he
stopped the cab, paid the driver, and the next moment was running down
the dark side street toward the deserted house.
He slipped along the hedge and crept near the wall, making his way
toward the door. It was closed, and Muggs did not try to open it, but
went on to a window. He raised it as he had that first night when
Verbeck had been with him. Muggs wanted to get inside and catch the
Black Star at work. He wanted just one blow at the Black Star before
the police arrived, for the blow that had been given him, and for the
misery Verbeck had been caused. Then he’d gladly hand the Black Star
over to the authorities.
He slipped through the window. As he did so the police automobile
stopped on the nearest corner, and men piled out of it and ran forward
to surround the house. Muggs gave them one glance, then left the
window and stepped softly across the room. Light was coming through
that crack in the door—the Black Star was there!
Muggs put his eye to the crack. He did not see the Black Star—he saw
Roger Verbeck just blowing out the candle and starting to enter the
dusty hall!
The meaning of the situation flashed over Muggs in an instant. The
Black Star had not arrived yet. Verbeck had come here to get those
letters before going to the big hall. And he—Muggs—had brought the
police! They would capture Roger Verbeck—and there was nothing to
prove that Roger Verbeck was not the Black Star!
CHAPTER XII—AT THE CHARITY BALL
Muggs jerked open the door, rushed through the furnished room, and
entered the hall.
“Boss! Boss!” he hissed.
Verbeck was just recoiling from the outer door. He closed it as
noiselessly as he could and hurried back.
“Boss!”
“That you, Muggs?”
“Yes. That devil worked a trick on me—he got away. He intended to come
here and get money, then hurry out of town. I—I telephoned the police,
boss, to come here, and I came myself to identify him. I didn’t know
that——”
“All right, Muggs. I understand. You did right.”
“But I let him trick me—and the cops are here. If they catch you
they’ll think you’re the Black Star.”
Verbeck realized that even better than Muggs. If the capture was made
at the big hall, and the prisoners questioned—as they would be, and
mercilessly—Faustina Wendell and her brother, under the strain, might
give evidence that would convict him.
“We’ve got to get away, boss!”
She had recognized the ring, Verbeck was thinking. Perhaps it was
Howard Wendell who had watched as he went home that night. Yes—he’d
have to escape.
“Oh, boss! I said I had a hunch!”
“Quick!” Verbeck whispered. “And be quiet! My roadster is at the curb
a block away. We must get out and reach it. How many policemen?”
“A dozen at least, boss—and there may be another auto full of ’em
coming.”
“Hush! Some one is trying that door now. Into the kitchen with you!”
Muggs hurried through the kitchen door. Verbeck pushed him into a
closet and bade him remain there until he returned. Then he went from
the kitchen to the dining room, and there he lifted his pistol and
sent three shots ringing into the ceiling.
Another instant and he was back in the kitchen, in the closet with
Muggs.
“Perhaps they’ll think the Black Star has committed suicide when they
hear those shots and find there isn’t a light,” he whispered. “There
is a window behind you, Muggs. Can you open it quietly and without
attracting attention, while those police are wondering about the
shots?”
Muggs went to work, making no noise. The window was raised a fraction
of an inch at a time. Verbeck turned the key in the closet door, for
things might come to a pass where seconds of delay would mean
everything.
Finally the window was open. Muggs, putting out his head cautiously,
looked around.
“Only one man on this side, boss,” he reported. “The others have gone
around to the door.”
“They’re in the house,” Verbeck replied. “They’re flashing their
torches—I can see them in the hall through the keyhole.”
“This side of the house is dark, boss, shaded by trees. And there is a
drift of snow against it. We might get out without being heard or
seen.”
“Try it!” ordered Verbeck grimly.
Muggs went first, like a shadow, and soon was standing beneath the
window in the deep darkness close to the wall. Verbeck followed,
almost afraid to breathe, expecting every second to hear the challenge
of a policeman and to be taken. But finally he, too, stood in the
shadows against the side of the house.
“One man,” Muggs whispered. “See him? We’ve got to hurry—those cops in
the house will be through searching soon. You wait here, boss.”
Muggs slipped away beneath the trees; Verbeck could scarcely see him.
Nearer and nearer he got to the unsuspecting policeman, who was
watching the group in front of the door. Then Muggs sprang, and the
policeman went down. It had been done without noise, with a single
blow, but not effectually enough to render the officer unconscious for
long.
Verbeck hurried across and joined Muggs; each took a deep breath, and
then, just as the man on the ground raised a cry they darted out into
the open, racing for the hedge.
Behind them was a chorus of cries, a fusillade of shots. They got to
the other side of the hedge and ran wildly for the street. Behind them
came the determined pursuit, a captain shouting orders. As they ran,
Verbeck found himself wondering at the queerness of it—that he and
Muggs had been forced to attack a guardian of the law in the interests
of justice. Verbeck promised himself to make that policeman a handsome
present when things were straightened out.
More shots whistled near them—the police were through the hedge now.
On and on they ran, Verbeck slightly in the lead. They saw a police
auto standing in the street near them, another at the other end of the
block. And Verbeck’s roadster was a block away!
They were in the street now, running at their utmost speed. Behind
them came the pursuing policemen, while others rushed toward the
automobiles, intending to take up the pursuit in that manner if the
quarry got away. Nearer and nearer they came to the roadster. When
they reached it Muggs sprang to the wheel. Verbeck threw himself in
beside Muggs.
“Shoot at ’em a couple of times, boss, and slow ’em up,” Muggs said.
“That’s going too far. Get up on the boulevard!”
The car started. Another fusillade of shots came, none taking effect.
The machine skidded around the corner and dashed at the hill. It
lurched and swayed over the soft, snow-covered ground. Behind came the
two police automobiles, their sirens shrieking.
Muggs reached the boulevard, and opened her up. He had no idea except
to shake off pursuit. Verbeck glanced at his watch as they passed
beneath a light—it was twenty minutes after eleven. Events had been
occurring rapidly in the last half hour. And he was working under a
close time limit, too. He had to escape the pursuit, and he had to
reach the big hall before midnight to save Faustina Wendell and her
brother.
Verbeck looked back continually—they did not seem to be gaining. The
streets flashed by. Muggs narrowly evaded collision a score of times,
for he was taking desperate chances. To escape, and to save Faustina,
and all in forty minutes of time—that was task enough. Added to the
mental strain of this was the fact that the Black Star had escaped,
and that Verbeck’s case would fall down in part because of it. Yet
some of the work would be good, for the band would be broken up
partially, at least, if the officers at the big hall caught the
thieves with stolen goods in their possession.
They did not seem to be able to gain on their pursuers, and the
precious minutes were flying. They took corners at a reckless pace,
zigzagging through the city in a vain attempt to outwit those who
followed. Now and then Verbeck waved his hand to indicate a turn, and
Muggs obeyed.
They skirted the retail district, and got to the wholesale district,
where there was scant traffic at this hour of the night, but always
behind them came the two police automobiles, sirens shrieking,
officers screeching.
“We can’t dodge ’em, boss!” Muggs yelled.
Verbeck looked at his watch again. He had only thirty minutes! But an
automobile going at racing pace can cover a lot of ground in thirty
minutes, even through the streets of a city. On they dashed, twisting
and turning, never gaining, just holding their own.
Down another hill they raced, and now they were near the stockyards.
Here there was no pavement; here the mud and slush and slime splashed
over the machine and around them, and the auto lurched and skidded
dangerously.
“Slow down at the next turn,” Verbeck ordered, “I’ll drop off, and you
keep on. Get away if you can—work back into town and give them the
dodge. I can’t waste another minute—I’ve got to get to the big hall.
And I can’t do it in the machine, for we can’t shake them off.”
“I can take you back nearer the hall, boss.”
“I’d not dare try to drop off there—they might see me. But here, where
it is so dark—— At the next turning, Muggs!”
“Boss——”
“Here we are! Get away if you can, and if you do, come to the hall
later. I’ll be all right!”
They made the turning, and Verbeck dropped off, and then Muggs opened
her up again and dashed on along the muddy street, and behind him
rushed the determined police in their two automobiles. They passed
within forty feet of Roger Verbeck, who was inside a stockade, in
close proximity to a hundred startled Texas steers.
Less than thirty minutes—and he was at the stockyards. There was not a
second to waste. He could not glance at his watch to get the exact
time without striking a match, and he did not dare do that because
some watchman might see and apprehend him. He got out of the cattle
pen and started running along the street in the dark, toward the
nearest car line. Slush and mud splashed over his trousers, and he
realized that he would not be the usual well-groomed Roger Verbeck
society knew when he invaded the big hall.
He boarded a car, drew his overcoat close around him, and crouched in
a corner. It seemed that the car stopped at every street, that it made
wretched time. The blocks never before had seemed so long. Verbeck
looked at his watch again, fearing he would be too late. He felt on
the verge of screeching to the motorman to give the car greater speed.
Finally it was up in town, and Verbeck got off and rushed for the
nearest taxicab stand. In an instant he was inside a machine, and a
chauffeur was taking chances to earn the extra pay promised him if he
reached the hall before midnight.
Verbeck took out a handkerchief and wiped off his pumps, and brushed
mud and slush from the bottoms of his trousers as well as he could. He
smoothed down his hair, and tried to regain his composure so that he
would appear outwardly calm at least. He would have to enter the hall
in a matter-of-fact way. An excited entrance would attract attention.
The cab stopped before one of the entrances of the hall. Verbeck
glanced at his watch again—it was five minutes of twelve. As he sprang
out he tossed the chauffeur a bill. He took a deep breath, threw back
his shoulders, handed his ticket to the man at the door, and stepped
into the lobby with a smile on his face.
Three men were loitering in the southwest corner by the drinking
fountain. Two more were approaching, and a woman was walking toward
the fountain from the opposite direction. All the men wore bits of red
ribbon on their coat lapels—the woman on her right shoulder.
And Verbeck saw something else, too—men who were scattered about in
couples, each couple pretending to carry on an animated conversation,
but watching the corner. They were detectives, several of whom Verbeck
recognized.
He walked past the fountain swiftly and turned the corner. Faustina
Wendell and her brother were approaching him side by side, each
decorated with the red ribbon. In a moment they would be out where the
detectives would see, if they had not been observed already. Verbeck
had removed his hat and coat, and as he turned the corner he tossed
them to a check boy. He almost ran forward to meet Faustina and
Howard. He knew it lacked but a few seconds to midnight.
“Quick!” he whispered as he met them. “Don’t ask questions, but, for
Heaven’s sake, do as I say! Take off that red ribbon—quick! Howard!
Get back on the floor—anywhere to get out of sight. Faustina—come!”
Verbeck himself tore the ribbon from her shoulder as Howard removed
his own. He pushed Howard ahead of him until he was on the dancing
floor. He grasped Faustina about the waist—he waltzed her out into the
crowd!
The hands of the clock pointed to midnight—and from the southwest
corner of the lobby came sounds of a commotion as the detectives,
obeying their orders, closed in on the Black Star’s crooks.
CHAPTER XIII—MUGGS—GREAT LITTLE MAN
Verbeck felt Faustina grow limp in his arms, and he waltzed her to a
position near the wall and the door. Howard stepped over to them.
“You—you——” Faustina was trying to speak.
“Don’t say a word,” Verbeck whispered. “I understand everything. There
is no danger for you. I have destroyed all the notes you wrote and the
check Howard gave.”
“But——”
“Thank Heaven I was in time! I almost failed to save you!”
“To save me——”
“Careful—whisper! Step closer, Howard. I, too, was almost caught in
the Black Star’s trap. I discovered his hiding place and took him
prisoner. I knew his gang would have to be caught if ever he was to be
convicted, and so I tried to play a lone hand against him. Muggs
warned me—he had a hunch, he said. While the Black Star was kept
prisoner I played his part, issued orders, got all of the gang to be
here to-night, then informed the police to take them in.”
“You——” Howard began.
“Careful—act naturally! I gave you and Faustina orders, too, not
knowing. Then the Black Star told me what I had done, tried to get me
to let him go free. And I rushed to that house where he had his
headquarters and destroyed the letters and Howard’s check. Nobody
knows you were involved except the Black Star and myself, and the
Black Star cannot prove anything. And that Chicago partner of his, you
may be sure, will remain away. You’ll never be bothered. I’ve saved
you—but I had a narrow escape.”
“Oh, Roger!” Faustina whispered. “And—almost—I thought that you were
the Black Star. I recognized the ring and your hand—and Howard watched
that night and saw you go home at four o’clock in the mor——”
“I was afraid of that,” Verbeck said.
“I didn’t—really—mistrust you,” she said. “But it—it looked so
peculiar. And so we came here to-night—but we talked it over first,
and decided we’d not steal. I couldn’t do it, dear, and neither could
Howard. And you must not blame Howard too much about that check. He
was young, thoughtless—it has been a great lesson to him. They really
stole the money from him, and he got it back from them. We intended
going to the corner—at midnight—no matter what happened. We expected
the worst—but we couldn’t steal.”
“My girl!” Verbeck breathed.
There was more commotion in the lobby. Some of the dancers were
walking in that direction, and Verbeck led Faustina there, with Howard
on her other side, in a manner as natural as possible.
The Black Star’s men and the woman wore handcuffs. Detectives were
taking jewels from them, gems they had stolen in the last hour or so.
One of the men already was cursing the Black Star aloud, swearing that
the Black Star had betrayed them and declaring he would tell
everything he knew. Verbeck was thankful he had gone to the house and
destroyed the letters.
“There were to be eight men and two women,” he heard a captain say.
“We’re one man and one woman shy.”
“I saw another woman with the red ribbon on,” spoke up one of the
detectives. “Maybe I’d recognize her if I saw her again.”
“We’ll have all the exits guarded, and you can look——”
Verbeck whirled to Faustina.
“We’ve got to get out of this quick!” he said. “That man may have seen
you, may recognize you. If we get out now we are safe, for if he saw
you on the street afterward in different clothes he’d never recognize
you. And nobody would suspect Faustina Wendell. But right now it would
be dangerous for him to see you.”
“What can we do?” Howard asked in sudden alarm.
“Quiet! Act naturally, for Heaven’s sake. Come with me to the door.
You came in the electric?”
“Yes,” Faustina said.
“Get all our things in the check room, Howard—as naturally as
possible, remember—and meet us at the door——”
Already he was leading Faustina toward the nearest entrance. The
captain of detectives was rushing there to go on guard immediately.
Howard came from the check room, and Verbeck put Faustina’s wrap over
her shoulders.
“Wait a minute there!” It was the captain of detectives who called to
them. “I want to see you before you go—— Oh, ’tis you, Mr. Verbeck?
You and your young lady and her brother? Go right along, sir. We’re
trying to catch a crook or two—we want to watch all who leave. Sorry
to have bothered you, sir——”
“That’s all right, captain,” Verbeck said. “I hope you catch your
crooks.” He lifted his hat and led Faustina out into the corridor,
Howard following. They went out into the softly falling snow and the
blur of thousands of electric lights to safety.
They started toward the corner where the electric had been left. But
before they reached it Verbeck halted in surprise, and with an
exclamation of unbelief on his lips. Muggs was running toward him.
“May I speak to you a minute—boss?” he asked.
Wondering, Verbeck excused himself and stepped to one side.
“I’ve got the Black Star in the car across the street, where it’s
dark,” Muggs said. “I gave him a crack on the head and threw him on
the floor of the car and put a robe over him—but he’s liable to come
to any time.”
“How——”
“For the love of Mike, boss, hand the devil over to the police and get
rid of him. I’ve still got that hunch!”
Verbeck hurried back to the others.
“Get in the electric and wait for me at the corner,” he directed.
“I’ll be only a minute or so.”
As they started on, Verbeck followed Muggs across the street. He knew
exactly what he intended doing; there would not be any waste of time.
“We’ll act on that hunch of yours right now, Muggs,” he said. “Drive
to the entrance of the hall.”
In a moment they were there. Verbeck went inside and called the
captain of detectives to him.
“Bring a couple of your men and come out here,” he said. “I’ve got the
Black Star for you. Yes—come along! I’m the man who caught him,
captain, and did the telephoning to the chief.”
The captain and two others followed Verbeck to the curb. The Black
Star was groaning, but not yet conscious.
“Take him away,” Verbeck directed. “I’ve got to escort my fiancée
home, and she’s waiting in a car at the corner. This is Muggs, my man.
He’ll follow out to my fiancée’s home with the car, and I’ll drive
right back in it to headquarters and tell you the story. Watch that
man, captain—he’s a smooth customer. Muggs—you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said Muggs.
He stepped aside with Verbeck as the officers carried the Black Star
around the corner to a patrol wagon—the Black Star was wearing
handcuffs.
“The police followed me back up in town,” Muggs explained. “I couldn’t
get away by running, so I tricked ’em. I went to the union depot—time
for a bunch of trains to be due, you see, and a big crowd there. I got
a lead on ’em and whirled around the corner and stopped my car among a
bunch of others—got out and was standing on the walk looking innocent
and picking my teeth when the cops rushed by. They went on past the
depot—supposed I had gone that way. Easy! Then I started up again to
get back near the hall. Remember that dark space near the middle of
the viaduct, where so many holdups come off? Just as I got there I saw
Mr. Black Star sneaking along with a suit case in one hand. Stopped
the car and smashed him on the head with a wrench before he knew it!
Threw him in the car and covered him up—see? Easy!”
Verbeck’s hand gripped that of Muggs for an instant, and then he
hurried to join Faustina and Howard.
“We’ve got the Black Star, too,” was all he said. “I’ll have to run
back to police headquarters after I go home with you, and tell them
all about it. And I’ll explain the entire thing to both of you
to-morrow morning. I suppose you’ll kiss me now, Faustina, even if
Howard is looking? You wouldn’t, you know, when you suspected me of
being the Black Star.”
Although she was driving the car, Faustina ran the risk of collision
by taking her eyes off the street long enough to do as Verbeck wished.
Then, satisfied, he settled back in the seat beside Howard.
“One thing,” he said, “I shall do. After this I’ll pay more attention
to any hunch Muggs may get. Great little man—Muggs!”
CHAPTER XIV—UNEXPECTED NEWS
It was exactly one o’clock in the morning when Mr. Roger Verbeck
clasped in his arms Miss Faustina Wendell—dainty, sweet, and
twenty-four—and pressed upon her lips an ardent kiss.
“It is time for little girls to be in bed,” he said after the kiss.
“We’ll talk it all over this evening.”
There was another kiss, and then Roger Verbeck followed Howard Wendell
to the outer door, turned up the collar of his ulster, and hurried out
into the blinding snowstorm to where Muggs awaited him.
Muggs sat behind the wheel of Roger Verbeck’s powerful roadster, his
chin down in his coat collar, and allowed the soft snow to pile
against the side of his head, meanwhile listening to the purring of
the engine and living over again the events of the past two days.
Muggs was a modest man, but even in his modesty he was forced to admit
that he had something to do with the fact that the Black Star now was
in the hands of the police.
“Dreaming, eh?” Verbeck demanded, stopping beside the roadster.
“Excuse me, boss. I didn’t think you’d be out so soon.”
“We’ve got to hustle down to police headquarters—remember that, Muggs.
We must tell the chief and his boys what happened. All they know is
that they have made some arrests on our information. Drive slowly.”
Muggs started the roadster and drove on. He stopped the machine in the
blinding snow at a corner and squawked the horn. Reasonably sure at
last that he could cross without maiming half a dozen pedestrians for
life, he sent the roadster down a side street and stopped it before
police headquarters.
“Get out, and come in, Muggs,” Verbeck directed. “You’re in on this. I
hope we can keep away from the newspaper boys, or we’ll both have our
pictures in the papers. Come along.”
They hurried across the walk, threw open the front door of
headquarters, and entered. And just inside the door they stopped,
confronted by a scene that was a commingling of confusion and
hysteria.
Half a dozen detectives were scattered along one wall, looking as if
they wished to be elsewhere. Three or four uniformed officers stood
about nervously. A captain sat behind his desk and chewed savagely at
his mustache. And up and down the center of the big room strode the
chief of police, waving his arms and bellowing accusations and charges
of cowardice and incompetence.
“Babies! Fools!” the chief was shouting. “I’ll have the shields off
every one of you for this! Haven’t the newspapers been laughing at us
enough? You’ll drive me to drink! I’ll hand my resignation to the
mayor in the morning! I’ll—— How d’you do, Mr. Verbeck?”
“How do you do, chief?”
“Here’s the man who did it—Roger Verbeck! Because he got peeved at
this Black Star he turns in and runs him down—what you boobs are
supposed to get paid for doing! He takes chances—he and his chauffeur,
or whatever he calls him—and he gets his man! Keeps the police out of
it, and does it all by himself, just to show you up——”
“Scarcely for that reason, chief,” Roger put in.
“Don’t misunderstand me, Mr. Verbeck—I’m not belittling what you’ve
done. I’m just showing these alleged sleuths that they are wanting in
intelligence. Here’s a plain citizen gets peeved and goes out and
rounds up a big crook—hands him over to you all done up in a bundle
and handcuffed, watches while you throw him in the wagon, and then——”
The chief stopped a moment and gurgled in anger.
“_And then, by Heaven, right at the door of headquarters, you let him
escape!_”
CHAPTER XV—THE CHALLENGE
Silence for a moment, save for Muggs’ single gurgle of disgust, and
then:
“What’s that?” Roger Verbeck demanded, stepping forward and facing the
chief.
“They let him escape, I’m telling you! How, in the name of all that’s
human, they could do it is more than I can guess! Don’t ask me—ask
some of these boobs! For months we’ve been crazy to get this Black
Star—we have him handcuffed and in the wagon—and he escapes! He’s been
gone an hour or more. He’s probably ransacked the mayor’s house and
blown up the vault of the First National Bank in that time, just to
show his anger at being pinched. Ah-h!”
The chief sputtered his wrath again.
“Out!” he cried to his men. “Out—every man of you! Some of you saw
that crook’s face—though I doubt if you can tell me now whether he’s
got one eye or two. Out, and get him! Don’t come back until you do!
Get out of here—and I’ll break the man who dares to report no
progress! Out, fools!”
Glad to escape their superior’s wrath, the detectives scattered, and
the uniformed men ascended the stairs to the room used by the
reserves, there to discuss the latest event in lowered voices, for the
chief’s command did not apply to the “harness bulls.”
The chief beckoned Verbeck and Muggs to follow him into his private
office.
“It’s enough to drive a man insane!” he exploded, reaching for his box
of cigars and passing it around.
“How did it happen?” Verbeck asked.
“Don’t ask me! The wagon stopped before the jail door as usual. We had
the eight crooks and this Black Star. As they started to get out, two
of the crooks bumped my men aside, two more tripped at the end of the
wagon, the female crooks of the gang pretended to faint, and the Black
Star made a dash for the alley. One of the fools took a shot at him
and smashed a fourth-story window across the street. He made a clean
get-away with the bracelets on him! Think of it! Right here at
headquarters! They thought he was knocked out——”
“Probably he was shamming,” Verbeck observed in an emotionless voice.
“You’d think anybody’d watch out for that—but not these fine
detectives of mine! And every newspaper in town knows we had our hands
on the Black Star and let him go. They’ve been pestering the life out
of me, and I tipped off the capture as soon as my men telephoned from
the Charity Ball, where you handed the crook over, thinking the
department would get a little credit. And now they’ll be worse on me
than before. I’ll resign! I’m done! But I’ll break some of ’em
first——”
“Your men are after him, aren’t they?” Verbeck interrupted.
“Yes—they’re after him. They’ve been after him for four months, and a
lot of good it has done. You tell me your story, Verbeck; there are
some things I don’t know.”
Speaking quickly, Verbeck did as he had been requested, telling the
chief of his discovery of the Black Star, and of how he had played
master criminal for a day in an effort to corral the band. He
explained how the Black Star had an organization that gathered
information for him and another that committed the crimes. When he had
finished the chief chewed at his cigar and smote the desk with a palm.
“Great scheme!” he exclaimed. “Got an organization that reaches into
every corner, eh? No wonder we had a time trying to get a line on him!
Oh, he’s a master crook all right! Great Scott! Maybe some of his men
are right here in headquarters!”
“It is possible,” Verbeck said.
“Well, his perfect plans are spoiled now, at any rate. And half a
dozen of my men have seen his face—besides you and this man Muggs of
yours. So I suppose he’ll make a break and get away; he’ll be afraid
to work here any more. We’ll send his eight crooks over the road, but
not the Black Star, eh? That’ll be one nice stain on my department!
But, thank Heaven, his work is done in this town!”
Suddenly the chief sat forward and regarded Verbeck gravely.
“See here!” he exclaimed. “There may be considerable danger for you.
Even if the Black Star beats it, and his plans are smashed and his
organization scattered, some of his friends may take it out on you for
getting hands on him and spoiling their game. You may be a marked man.
Better let me send a couple of good men up to that bachelor apartment
of yours. And you’d better stay, close around home for a few days,
until we know how things are going to be.”
“Pardon me,” said Verbeck, “but from what you have told me to-night I
scarcely think a couple of your men would be of much value. I’d rather
rely on myself and Muggs.”
“Rubbing it in, eh? I don’t blame you! But you can have the men if you
want them.”
“No, thanks, chief. I’ll go along home now and get some sleep. Here’s
hoping you catch your man. He didn’t have much of a start, and he had
handcuffs on his wrists—but he’s a slippery customer. My man can
testify to that. He slipped away from him once, and left a bump on his
head when he did it.”
“Better let me send up those men, Mr. Verbeck, even if they are pretty
much worthless. We don’t want to have you found knifed in bed some
morning.”
“I’m not afraid of any of the gang, chief, and the Black Star can’t
organize again and issue orders until he has a new headquarters. And,
remember, I’ve talked to the Black Star. He isn’t the sort of man who
kills.”
“No?”
“No; he’s the sort that takes a pride in being a master criminal who
uses brains instead of violence in pulling jobs no other man would
approach and in doing them in a neat manner. Did he ever leave a
mussed-up safe behind?”
“He generally unlocks ’em, takes what he wants, puts one of his blamed
black stars in ’em, and locks ’em again—cuss him!”
“There you have his character, chief. Good night!”
Verbeck and Muggs made their exit in dignified and proper manner, and
they did not speak until they were in the roadster and a block from
police headquarters, on their way home. Then Muggs broke the silence
in characteristic fashion.
“Whaddaya know about that!” he exclaimed in great disgust.
“The Black Star is a clever man, Muggs.”
“His pals helped that get-away.”
“Certainly—thinking that, with the Black Star at liberty, the
organization will come to their rescue in some manner.”
“I noticed you swallowed that bunk the chief handed out about this
Black Star making a break for other parts, now that he has been seen
by a few cops.”
“You think I swallowed it, Muggs?”
“I was hopin’ you didn’t.”
“Well, I didn’t, Muggs. I boasted I could capture the Black Star, and
he’s just the sort of man to try to show me I cannot. I wouldn’t be
the least bit surprised if he remained in the city for the purpose of
making a laughingstock of me.”
“That’s the way I’m looking at it, boss.”
“I fancy we’ll hear from him in a few days, Muggs.”
They put the roadster in the garage at the rear of the
bachelor-apartment house, and then ascended to Verbeck’s apartment.
Muggs snapped on the lights in the library, while Verbeck threw off
hat and overcoat and gloves and reached for his favorite pipe. He
glanced at the clock on the desk—it was within a few minutes of four
in the morning.
He gave an exclamation, took a quick step forward, and looked at the
face of the clock again.
On the glass, directly over the figure IX, _had been pasted a tiny
black star_!
“That wasn’t there when I dressed last evening,” Verbeck mused. “So
he’s been here since he escaped the police, eh? That is pretty swift
work!”
Muggs hurried in from the bedroom.
“Boss! Look!” he cried. “This was pinned on your pillow!”
He extended an envelope. A black star was pasted on it. The letter was
addressed to Roger Verbeck.
“Swift work!” Roger exclaimed again.
“Boss, my hunch is workin’ yet! Telephone the chief to send up them
men—let him send twenty of em!”
“One moment, Muggs! Your solicitude for my welfare is overwhelming—but
suppose we read this entertaining epistle before making a move.
Perhaps I’ll want to fight this out alone.”
He ripped the envelope open, took out a sheet of paper, unfolded it,
and read:
Mr. Roger Verbeck: You almost had me, but at the supreme moment
I escaped. You have seen me; so have police officers and eight
of my band who never saw me before. You have discovered some
things concerning me, but what you have found out is as nothing
when compared to what you do not know. This little incident has
served to put an edge on my wit.
You boasted you could catch me—do it! And the next time hang on
to me until I am behind the bars—and even then I’ll triumph. I
laugh at you and your efforts, as I laugh at the police. I am
not going to run away! I’ll even keep you informed of my
movements—and then you cannot get me. And, for the trouble you
and your man have caused me, I am going to get you, Roger
Verbeck, and get you good! I do not contemplate violence on your
person—that would be the resort of an ordinary thug. But I’ll
hurt you, Roger Verbeck, in a thousand ways, break you down,
ruin you, make you a joke, until you’ll curse the day you first
heard of the Black Star. It’s a fight to a finish between us.
Every place you turn you’ll be reminded of me and my purpose.
Sleep well to-night, and in security, for you’ll need the rest.
The moment you awake the fight is on. And I’ll know when you
awake. I’ll know every move you make, and I’ll almost know every
thought in your head—you poor fool!
*****
Roger Verbeck took the most of that epistle as a matter of course, but
his eyes narrowed to two tiny slits when he read that “poor fool,” and
his lips set in a straight line. That “poor fool” stung Roger Verbeck
almost as much as the unpardonable phrase would have stung him.
He handed the Black Star’s letter to the waiting Muggs.
“We’ve fought some pretty good battles, Muggs, but nothing to what
this is going to be,” he said. “On your toes, Muggs! Forget that hunch
of yours! We don’t quit until I stand in court and hear a judge
sentence the Black Star for his crimes, until I watch him pass in
through the doors of a State prison. Think what he’s done, Muggs—of
the decent persons he’s forced into his gang! This is going to be the
hardest fight of our lives.”
“My coat’s off, boss, and my sleeves rolled up!”
“Good! We’ll fight alone, if we can. There is no one we can trust.
Police officers, persons we meet every day, our acquaintances, even
our friends, may be in his organization—and he’ll soon get it working
again. But we can trust each other, Muggs.”
“You said something there, boss! You bet we can!”
CHAPTER XVI—A NOCTURNAL VISIT
Verbeck opened his eyes at eleven o’clock that morning after a
dreamless, refreshing sleep to find Muggs standing at the foot of his
bed, fully dressed, grinning, the morning newspapers in his hands.
“They’ve got it all, boss,” he reported. “That Black Star sent letters
to the papers last night by special messengers, and from a downtown
hotel. Whaddaya think of his nerve? Here it is—story of the whole
thing, givin’ us a lot of credit and makin’ fun of the police for
lettin’ the crook escape. I’ll bet that fat chief has a fit when he
reads this!”
“Probably he read it several hours ago and already has had his fit,”
Verbeck said. “Had breakfast? Yes? You’re the original early bird,
Muggs. Well, I’m famished!”
Verbeck bathed and dressed in record time, and hurried to the café in
the basement, eager to eat and be gone before the regular luncheon
crowd gathered to point him out and make remarks about his pursuit and
capture of the Black Star.
No sooner had he seated himself at his favorite table than the waiter
placed before his eyes an extra edition of one of the evening papers,
damp from the press. Roger spread it open to find his own portrait
gazing at him from the front page, and as he waited for his toast and
eggs and coffee he read.
The Black Star had sent a letter to the evening paper also, but
through the mail, with a special-delivery stamp affixed. Again the
master criminal scoffed at the police, threatened some particularly
daring crimes to demonstrate that he did not fear them, and then paid
his respects to Roger Verbeck. A reproduction of the last paragraph of
the Black Star’s letter was shown in the paper:
To All Whom It May Concern: There is war between myself and
Roger Verbeck, who caused me considerable trouble the last few
days. I hereby warn all persons not to give aid to this enemy of
mine—to refuse him shelter, food, clothing, refuse to hold
conversation with him, or have business dealings with him of any
sort whatsoever. Against those who dare disobey this order I’ll
strike—and strike hard.
*****
Roger smiled as he read that paragraph; he presumed it was one of the
Black Star’s jokes—for he had discovered that the master rogue had a
sense of humor. Certainly it could be nothing else. Roger Verbeck was
the last of one of the city’s old families, a young man respected by
all, with unlimited wealth at his command, possessing a myriad of
acquaintances and legions of friends. This warning of the Black Star
was very liable to fall upon deaf ears.
Still, it was embarrassing, and Roger found himself frowning because
of the unpleasant publicity. That was one way the Black Star could
fight him—by making him ridiculous through the newspapers; for it was
certain that the papers would print any letters the Black Star sent
them. Roger caught a vision of future days of horror, with every one
pointing him out, joking him, making his life miserable. On the
streets, at any of his clubs, wherever he met his friends, his name
would be coupled with that of the Black Star. There would be but one
escape—and that by capturing the master crook, turning the laugh on
him, and so ending the affair.
Having breakfasted, Verbeck had Muggs get out the roadster, and they
drove to police headquarters. The snowstorm was at an end, and the day
was warm for March. But they failed to find the spirit of spring
prevalent when police headquarters was reached.
A sleepy chief paced the floor of his private office, chewing at his
inevitable black cigar. Detectives, plain-clothes men, and uniformed
officers rushed in and out. Telephones rang.
“Don’t ask me,” the chief roared when he saw his visitors. “I’ll tell
you—it’ll take less time. We haven’t got him. We haven’t even
discovered a trace of him. The handcuffs he wore were found in an
alley less than half a dozen blocks away—and that’s all. He’s found
time to send letters to the papers—and to me.”
“He sent one to you?” Roger asked.
“He did. If ever I get my two hands around the throat of that Black
Star I’ll choke the life out of him. I wouldn’t care if he got mad and
sent me cuss words—but he called me a blanked fool!”
“Ah! We are fellow sufferers,” Verbeck said. “That’s what he called
me.”
“You! You’ve heard from him?”
“When I got home this morning his black stars were pasted around my
apartment, and I found a letter pinned to my pillow—or rather Muggs
did. Here it is.”
Verbeck handed it over; the chief read it. Then the head of the city’s
police department sat down before his desk, thought for a moment, and
finally pushed a button. A sergeant entered.
“Send me Detective Riley!” he ordered.
A moment’s waiting, while the chief chewed his cigar and Roger and
Muggs puffed at theirs. Then Riley entered and saluted his chief
respectfully.
Detective Riley was a man of fifty, and he had been in the department
since the age of twenty-one. He knew every inch of the city, and was a
man of nerve and resource. But for his honest and outspoken opinions
of political leaders undoubtedly he would have been high in the
department. As it was, he was satisfied.
“I believe you know Mr. Verbeck, Riley,” the chief said.
“I certainly do, sir,” the detective answered, grinning at Roger. “His
father got me my job on the force, and I taught Roger how to hold a
bat when he played ball on the corner lot near the old Verbeck place.”
“Um! You know this town pretty well, too, and you’re an honest man.
Sit down—and listen. You’re going on the trail of this Black Star,
Riley. And if you’re in at the death when he’s nabbed I’ll see you
made a captain, if I have to go into politics myself and slay half a
dozen ward bosses who don’t like your looks.”
“Some special line of work, sir? I’m already assigned to the case.”
“So is every other man in the department. Yes—this is a special line
of work. You are to glue yourself to Mr. Roger Verbeck and hang on.
Understand?”
“But, chief——” Roger began.
“Just a moment, Mr. Verbeck. I admire your courage and all that, but
we’ve got to do this in proper fashion. You’ve been threatened by this
Black Star. He’s going to take you partly into his confidence so he
can make a fool of you. I want Riley with you for two reasons. The
first is that you are going to have police protection whether you wish
it or not. If Riley is with you and Muggs, one man can be awake and on
the job always, yet all of you get plenty of rest. The second is that
Riley can add his police experience and knowledge of crooks and the
city to your natural courage and cleverness. Understand? If this Black
Star communicates with you or makes a move against you in any way
Riley will be there and on the job to help. You’ll not lose time
sending to headquarters for assistance.”
“I understand, chief.”
“Another thing. Do you feel you can trust Riley?”
“I certainly do,” said Verbeck earnestly.
“Good enough! It isn’t every one we can trust in this game. You take
Riley with you and go after the Black Star, independent of this
department—just as you did before, except that you’ll have a regular
officer along. And we’ll work on our own lines. And between us, we’d
ought to get our hands on him. Riley knows a certain private phone
number he can use in case of emergency, and a call will rush a score
of men to any part of the city. That’s agreeable? Get out, then, and
take Riley with you! I’m going to lie down on the couch and take a
nap.”
Verbeck laughed and led the way from the private office, waiting in
the lobby with Muggs while Riley went to his locker for certain
paraphernalia he always had on his person when engaged on a particular
case.
“I like that guy,” Muggs confided in a whisper.
“The chief?”
“Naw! This Riley. I’m glad he’s goin’ to be along.”
“If I needed a recommendation for Riley—which luckily I do not—that
would be the best I could get,” Roger said, and he meant every word of
it.
“I think the three of us can make the Black Star look like a sucker!”
“You don’t want to underestimate the Black Star, Muggs. Whenever you
feel inclined to do so, remember a certain smash behind the ear he
gave you recently when you thought his hands were tied.”
“He’ll never do it again!” Muggs declared. “If I ever get my lamps on
that man again I’ll forget how to turn my head!”
Riley returned, and the three went out to the roadster.
The greater part of the afternoon was spent in Verbeck’s apartment
discussing plans for the campaign. There was no sense, Riley pointed
out, in running blindly around town trying to find the man they
wanted; for the Black Star, it was to be supposed, was in hiding for
the time being, and without doubt planning a campaign of his own.
Detectives were watching railroad stations, hotels, and lodging
houses, and the deserted residence where the Black Star had had his
headquarters. There was nothing for the three men who sat in Verbeck’s
library to do except wait for the master criminal to make the first
move.
Roger visited Faustina Wendell for an hour that evening, while Muggs
and Riley remained outside in front of the house where she lived with
her mother and brother. Then the three returned to Roger’s apartment
and spent an hour around the pool table.
“A crook works at night if he’s breaking safes and vaults,” Riley
said. “Hence it is proper that we are prepared for night work. I
suggest we never retire until four or five o’clock in the morning and
get up about noon. Then we’ll be ready to jump if anything happens.”
“Get a deck of cards, Muggs,” Verbeck ordered. “What Detective Riley
says goes. By the way, Riley, I’ve ordered the roadster left standing
in front of the building all night, ready for a quick jump.”
“That’s the stuff! I wish this Black Star would hurry up and start
something. I’m anxious to get into action.”
Tired of cards, they played pool again, and then they read, and then
they talked of the Black Star some more, and finally they began
wondering if it wasn’t time to retire.
“Just four o’clock,” Verbeck announced.
And then the telephone rang!
Roger stepped across the room to the desk and picked up the
instrument; Muggs and Riley were on their feet, eager to know what the
message would be, and hoping it was a call to battle.
“Is this Mr. Verbeck’s apartment?” a voice demanded.
“Yes,” Roger answered.
“And who is this speaking?”
“This is Mr. Verbeck.”
“Indeed? I thought perhaps it was that dolt, Detective Riley, from
headquarters. I understand he is a more or less permanent guest of
yours.”
“Who is this?” Roger demanded in turn.
“Pardon me for not telling you before. This is the Black Star.”
“What’s that?” Roger exclaimed.
“I assure you I am the Black Star. This is not one of your friends
playing a joke on you. I just thought I’d call you up and say that the
letter I sent the newspapers was meant. I’ve already made a move
against the manager of the apartment house where you live because he
hasn’t ousted you.”
“Indeed?” Roger asked, beckoning Riley and Muggs toward him.
“You think I am jesting? I never jest about my work, Mr. Verbeck. I
imagine you’ll have to find another home before night. Pardon me if I
ring off now. It is possible you are sending Detective Riley or Muggs
to another telephone to trace this call. And that would be both
unnecessary and embarrassing for me. For I am speaking to you from the
office of your own apartment house. Good-by!”
Roger Verbeck dropped the telephone, spoke a dozen quick words, and
was running out into the hall, closely followed by Riley and Muggs.
Down three flights of stairs, four steps at a time, they rushed, and
into the lobby.
Not a person was in sight.
From outside came the roaring of an automobile engine. They ran to the
door, hurled it open, and hurried out. Tearing down the broad
boulevard was Roger Verbeck’s big roadster, and the man who drove it
turned an instant to wave one hand at them.
“The nerve of——” Muggs began.
Detective Riley emptied his automatic at the vanishing car, and
growled low in his throat because he knew he had missed.
“The night clerk——” Verbeck cried. “Where was the clerk?”
They rushed back into the lobby. They heard doors slamming on the
floors above as tenants, aroused by the turmoil and shooting, started
an investigation. And they heard groans coming from behind the long
desk.
Verbeck vaulted the counter, and cried out in surprise. On the floor,
bound hand and foot, and gagged, was the night clerk of the
bachelor-apartment house.
In the middle of his forehead was pasted a tiny black star!
And pinned to his breast was a card that bore this information:
To the Manager: This is just a hint that Roger Verbeck must go.
If he does not, my next demonstration will be more disastrous.
*****
CHAPTER XVII—INTERRUPTED CONVERSATION
Detective Riley grasped the nearest telephone and sent an alarm to
headquarters. Less than an hour later the report came that Verbeck’s
roadster had been found abandoned on a corner in the heart of the
city, but that no trace of the Black Star had been discovered.
In the meantime the night clerk had told his simple story. A man had
entered and asked whether a Mr. Rodney Stone lived there. The clerk
said no such person was registered. Sure that no other person was in
the office, the visitor pulled an automatic from his pocket and
ordered the clerk to throw up his hands.
The clerk was forced to obey, and believed at the time that he was the
victim of an ordinary holdup man, and rejoiced that all funds, except
a few dollars, were locked in the safe, which he could not open. But
his visitor walked behind the counter and forced the clerk to stretch
out on the floor, threatening death if he made a sound. He bound and
gagged him, pinned the card to his breast, and stamped his brow with a
black star, then walked calmly to the switchboard, looked at the guest
list to find the number of Verbeck’s apartment, called Verbeck, held
his conversation, and hurried out of the front door.
Gentlemen guests of the house in all sorts of night attire heard this
story and looked upon Roger Verbeck with varied emotions. Some envied
him the adventure and publicity, others feared for him, but the great
majority was thinking of that warning and wondering whether they could
find new quarters that day, and Roger Verbeck knew it.
The manager said nothing, for Verbeck had lived there for years and
was excellent pay, but he looked worried.
“I’ll discuss this matter with you later,” Roger said, and he beckoned
Muggs and Riley and led the way back to his apartment.
There they lighted fresh cigars and sat at the long table in the
library, Muggs and Riley silent and waiting for Roger to speak.
“Well, we’ve got to move,” he said after a time. “If we don’t, the
others will, for they’ll be afraid the Black Star will demolish the
place with a bomb. Perhaps it’ll be best, after all.”
“But where?” Riley asked. “He’d bomb another hotel just as quick if
that’s his game.”
“I have a place of my own—the old Verbeck place, Riley. You know it.
Muggs knows it, too, for there we kept the Black Star prisoner for a
day and night before we handed him over to the police.”
“I remember it,” Riley said.
“A big, old house in the middle of a block of ground, surrounded by
trees and tangled underbrush. I intend to have it torn down and a new
residence erected in its place after I’m married. We can go there with
fuel and provisions and make ourselves comfortable. There is a
telephone, so we can keep in touch with headquarters. We’ll be by
ourselves, and so need fear no spies of the Black Star. We can conduct
our campaign from there.”
“Great!” the detective exclaimed.
“No fear of spies, and nobody to bother us. We’ll make it our
headquarters. One of us can be on guard all the time. The Black Star
will have to be very clever to get at us there. And if he does he’ll
be injuring my own property, and he’ll not be hurting some outsider
who has no concern in this affair. Let’s get some sleep, then go ahead
with our preparations.”
It was noon when a much-relieved apartment-house manager saw them
drive away in Verbeck’s recovered roadster, the back of the car heaped
high with provisions. Half an hour later they had reached the old
Verbeck place and unloaded the car; Muggs had built a roaring fire in
the living-room fireplace, and they were making themselves
comfortable.
“This thing of working in the dark gets on my nerves,” Riley admitted.
“I’d rather catch sight of this Black Star committing a crime and have
a chase, a sort of running fight, and either victory or defeat at its
end. But what can we do? Here we must sit, waiting for him to make a
move. How do we know where he’ll strike next? He may rob a bank, rifle
some lady’s jewel case—we can’t tell. We’ve got to wait until he does
something, and then take up the trail. You had a hot trail before,
Roger—one of his men led you to him and you had a chance to get hands
on him.”
“I fancy that, in his egotism, he’ll announce where he’ll strike
next,” Verbeck said. “He’s done it before.”
“If he does it again we’ll get him!” Riley said.
They made a tour of the grounds and looked through the house. There
was little more than dust and cobwebs in the house, and the furniture
was covered, except in the big living room and one bedroom, which they
made habitable. Then they devoured the luncheon Muggs had prepared.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon when there came a knock at the
front door, and when Verbeck opened it he found ten policemen and a
sergeant in plain clothes standing before him.
“What’s this mean?” he demanded.
“Chief’s orders, Mr. Verbeck,” the sergeant replied. “These men are to
surround the block and guard your house.”
“But that is just what we do not want!” Verbeck protested.
“Chief’s orders. Here’s a letter he told me to give you. He got it by
messenger a couple of hours ago.”
He handed Verbeck the letter. It was from the Black Star and addressed
to the chief. It read:
Within four days I will commit my greatest crime since coming to
your fair city.
Within four days I’ll make a huge laughingstock of Roger
Verbeck. His sudden change of residence will not save him from
the punishment I intend administering to him.
Within four days!
*****
Verbeck handed the letter to Riley, and faced the sergeant again.
“No doubt the chief means well, but I don’t need so much police
protection,” he said. “There are three of us here, and all of us will
not sleep at once.”
“My orders, Mr. Verbeck.”
“Telephone the chief,” Riley suggested.
Verbeck hurried to the telephone, and called headquarters and got the
chief.
“I don’t want this squad of men out here, chief,” he said.
“The orders come direct from the mayor, Mr. Verbeck, and he’ll not
countermand them. That threat of the Black Star’s is too strong to be
ignored. I didn’t call you up before I sent the men out because I knew
you’d object. Those men will not bother you. They’ll surround the
block and stay out of your way, and be relieved at stated intervals.
They’ll serve to keep the curious away, and they’ll be there to guard
the house in case you three men rush out on a chase or anything like
that.”
“But——” Verbeck began.
“I insist, Mr. Verbeck. We cannot afford to run chances. If anything
happened to you, and we hadn’t given you protection after receiving
those threats, we’d never hear the last of it. You’re a prominent
young man, remember. Just let the men stay. You haven’t heard
anything, have you?”
“Not a thing,” Verbeck replied, “and we can’t make a move until we
do.”
“We’ve got the greatest dragnet in the history of the department in
operation—watching every exit from the city and searching
everywhere—have corralled half a hundred suspects already. If the
Black Star is in the city we’ll get him. We’re only hoping he’s brazen
enough to tip off where he is or what he intends doing. If he does, he
may find he has gone too far.”
“But really, chief, I’d rather not have the men here.”
A rattling noise came through the telephone, and another voice spoke.
“Get off the line!” the chief roared. “This line’s busy.”
“Pardon me,” said the voice. “I just wanted to tell Mr. Verbeck that
he’d better let the police remain. He’ll need them to guard him.”
“Who the devil are you?” the chief roared.
“I am the Black Star!”
“W-what?”
“Fact, I assure you. You might as well shout from the housetops,
chief. I know everything you do and say. So you’ve got out the
dragnet, eh? Might as well call in your men; it’ll not do any good to
tire them out.”
“How—what——” the chief stammered. He was beginning to realize that the
Black Star actually was on the line and speaking.
“Don’t excite yourself, chief. And you, Mr. Verbeck, if you relish
protection, better let the chief scatter a hundred men around your
place. Even that number wouldn’t save you!”
“How’d you get on this line? Where are you?” the chief shouted into
the instrument, not realizing he was talking foolishly.
“Possibly I’ve tapped the line right in police headquarters
building—who knows?” the Black Star taunted. “And you scarcely can
expect me to tell you where I am. Why not find me? Go right on hoping
I’ll be brazen enough to tip off what I intend doing, chief—it does a
person good to hope.”
“You—you’re a devil!” the chief exploded.
“Thanks for the compliment! Good-by!”
Again the rattling sound, and then they heard the Black Star’s voice
no more.
CHAPTER XVIII—MYSTERIES
Verbeck turned and told Riley and Muggs, as well as the policemen,
what had occurred over the telephone.
“That man ain’t human,” the sergeant offered.
“You bet he is human, and by that token we’ll get him!” Riley
declared. “He thinks he’s playin’ a funny game, and he is, but there’s
an end to every game.”
“He sure is human!” Muggs declared. “’Twas a human fist he smashed me
with in back of the ear once—I know! But we’ll get him!”
“The fact of the matter is,” said Riley, “that we don’t know whether
it was the Black Star talkin’. If he’s got a bunch of helpers, maybe
one of them’s at police headquarters and just naturally tapped the
chief’s private telephone line.”
“It was the Black Star—I know his voice,” Verbeck said. “There is no
doubt about it. He speaks in a peculiar, halting way that I’ll defy
any one to imitate correctly.” He turned to the sergeant. “You may
post your men,” he said. “I presume the chief’s orders must be
obeyed.”
After the sergeant and his men had gone, Verbeck closed the door and
turned to face Muggs and the detective.
“This waiting makes me nervous,” he admitted. “I’d like to be doing
something. But, as you said, Riley, we can do nothing except wait
until the Black Star makes a move, and then attempt to get on his
trail. If ever we do get on his trail——”
“We’ll get him!” Muggs announced.
“So we may as well make ourselves comfortable. You cook a good dinner,
Muggs—we’ve got all sorts of supplies. Riley, take another cigar and
get that sour look off your face. All we can do is wait.”
Muggs departed for the kitchen, and Riley stretched his length on a
divan and blew clouds of smoke toward the ceiling. Verbeck walked to a
window and observed that the police had been scattered around the
block just inside the fence.
In the kitchen pots and pans rattled, and they heard Muggs mumbling to
himself because the fire would not blaze to suit him. Riley, after a
time, arose and paced the floor like a hound that wanted to be on the
scent and had been retained in kennels. Verbeck called up Faustina
Wendell and held a conversation of some ten minutes, during which his
fiancée expressed a thousand fears for his welfare, and Verbeck stated
half a hundred times that she was not to worry. His telephone
conversation at an end, he began pacing the floor also. The monotony
of waiting was tiresome.
“We’ve got to start a checker tournament or something lively like
that,” Riley declared, “or we’ll go insane. Some time during the next
four days, eh? Ain’t that what the Black Star said in his letter? I
wish he’d make it to-night. And I’ll bet that the devil, just to be
ornery, will wait until the last hour of the four days. Where do you
suppose he’ll strike?”
“That’s a hard question to answer,” Verbeck replied. “He’s liable to
do almost anything that means profit. You want to remember that he had
an organization that was collecting information for him, as I
discovered. He knows more than we think. He has combinations of safes,
knows the personal habits of people, knows—oh, everything that a crook
would want to know if he pulled off a job! The information I found
tabulated at his headquarters was all concerning jewels to be worn at
the Charity Ball, but Heaven alone knows, besides himself, what he had
gathered in the way of facts before that.”
“But he said he’d commit the greatest crime since he’d got to town,”
Riley went on. “What could that be? He’s turned some pretty good
tricks, you’ll remember.”
“He might get into the vault of the First National,” Verbeck offered.
“No chance! That’s the finest——”
“Pardon me, Riley. Fine vaults and burglar-proof affairs do not seem
to bother the Black Star. You remember how he robbed the
safety-deposit boxes of the National Trust, don’t you?”
“Well, what would be something big he could do?” the detective asked.
“He goes after money, but jewels are his particular delight, if I have
judged the man correctly,” Verbeck said. “He has some perfect
arrangement for disposing of them at a profit, I suppose. And there
are half a hundred places he could make a rich haul of jewels. He’s
what might be called a jewel fiend, Riley. He—— Ah!”
“What’s the matter?” Riley asked, looking up quickly and stopping his
pacing.
“I have an idea.”
“If it’s anything that will help us catch the Black Star or bring him
out of his hole so we can chase him, for Heaven’s sake let us have
it!” Riley cried.
“It is something that may bring him out of his hole—a trap! Why didn’t
I think of it before? And it can be arranged easily.”
“Let’s have it, then.”
“As you know, I am to be married soon. My gift to my bride will be the
same my father gave my mother—the famous Verbeck diamond necklace.
That necklace is in a certain safe-deposit vault now, and I’ll not
even tell you where it is.”
“But where’s the trap, Roger?”
“A moment, Riley—don’t be so impatient. That necklace is the same as
the day my father clasped it on his bride’s throat. That was a good
many years ago, and fashions in jewel settings change. So naturally,
before I present it to my bride, I’ll have to have the stones reset.”
“Sure.”
“The stones alone are worth a quarter of a million dollars—enough to
tempt any jewel thief, and especially a jewel fiend, since some of the
stones have histories. Now—suppose it gets noised abroad that I am
having the necklace reset for my fiancée. The newspapers, we’ll say,
print the history of the necklace and tell of my intentions. It is
announced that the jewelry firm of So & So is to do the work, and that
the necklace has been taken from the safe deposit and now is in the
vault of that firm.”
“I begin to get you, Roger.”
“I thought you would. If you were the Black Star, and read that in the
papers, what would you do? If you were the Black Star and held enmity
for me, and wanted to turn a big trick to show your contempt for the
police, what would you do?”
“Ha! I’d pinch that necklace, thereby getting a quarter of a million
in stones, and some other truck as well—and at the same time get
square with Mr. Roger Verbeck.”
“Exactly, Riley! Even the Black Star would fall for that trap. If he
could get those stones, he’d not only have a handsome profit, he’d
make a laughingstock of me—what he has sworn to do. See?”
“And you’d be takin’ a mighty big chance to do it.”
“Ah! As it happens, there is a paste duplicate of the necklace. That
will be sent to the firm of So & So—the real firm to be decided
between us later. And there we can fix a trap, have the place watched
night and day, be on the job ourselves. Either the Black Star will not
have the courage to go after it—or he’ll go after it, and we’ll catch
him. And we’ll get him when he has the paste jewels in his hands, and
give him the laugh, along with a term in prison.”
“Great—great!” Riley exclaimed. “But can you do it?”
“I’ll make the arrangements to-morrow. It’ll be like throwing out bait
to catch a big fish.”
“A sucker!” Riley gurgled.
“If he doesn’t make some sort of move to-night we’ll make the
arrangements to-morrow. We’ll bring him out of his hole where we can
get on his trail.”
Mr. Muggs walked slowly into the room from the kitchen, his face
inscrutable.
“Boss, you bought that bread at the delicatessen, didn’t you?” he
asked.
“Yes, Muggs.”
“Just picked a loaf off the counter and had it wrapped up?”
“Why, yes!”
“Didn’t notice anything unusual about it?”
“No. What do you mean, Muggs? Isn’t the bread good?”
“And we got right into the car with it and came here and put it with
the other stuff on the table in the kitchen——”
“Yes—yes! What’s the trouble?”
“Did you notice the top of the loaf carefully when you picked it up?”
“Yes, confound you! What——”
“And the old Dutchman wrapped it up right under your eyes, didn’t he?
And we brought it here, as I said, and I unwrapped it and put it on
the table when I unwrapped the other things. I looked at it when I did
that—I know I looked at the top of it, and there wasn’t anything the
matter with it then—and that was less than two hours ago, wasn’t it?”
“Muggs, if you don’t tell us——” Verbeck began.
“Oh, I’ll tell you, all right, boss. On the top of that loaf now,
right down the middle of the top, is a row of little black stars.”
“What!” Verbeck and Riley cried in a breath.
They rushed into the kitchen. Muggs pointed at the bread dramatically.
As he had said, there was a row of the little black stars down the
middle of the top of the loaf.
“This beats the deuce!” Riley exclaimed. “How did they get there?”
“I’ll swear they were not there when that loaf was wrapped,” Verbeck
said.
“And I’ll swear they wasn’t there when I unwrapped it,” Muggs
declared. “And now they are there! So they must have been put there
while we were talking in the living room!”
“Great Scott!” Riley cried. “Do you mean to say the Black Star or one
of his men has been here and did that?”
“No little bird did it!” Muggs exclaimed.
“Stand back!” Riley said. “Here is where experience takes the lead.
I’ll just look into this.”
He investigated the kitchen first. None of the windows had been
unfastened since they had come to the house, and dust on the sills
showed that nobody had touched them. The back door had not been
unlocked, for there was an abundance of fuel in the kitchen, and Muggs
had not been obliged to go out for water. Riley opened the door,
however, and his eyes met a drift of snow unmarred by footprints.
Nobody had entered there.
There was but one other door, and that opened into a pass pantry,
which, in turn, opened into the dining room. Riley went into the
dining room, which had not been touched, since they had decided to eat
in the living room, and found no traces of an intruder there. Even the
dust on the floor had not been disturbed. There were no traces in the
pass pantry, and it would have been impossible, of course, for any one
to have entered through the living room, since they had been in it
constantly since reaching the house, and would have seen any unwelcome
visitor.
“Humph!” Riley said, and looked at Muggs suspiciously.
“Boss, he thinks I done it!” Muggs exclaimed.
“Nonsense!” Verbeck replied.
“I don’t think you’re a member of the Black Star’s gang, if that’s
what you mean,” Riley stated, “but I do think it wouldn’t be a bit
past you to try out a little joke.”
“I didn’t! Boss, I swear I didn’t!”
“I believe you,” Verbeck said.
“Then it’s mighty puzzlin’,” Riley declared. “Rows of black stars
don’t go stickin’ themselves to bread of their own accord.”
He stepped back and looked at the interior of the kitchen again. No
one had entered or left by the rear door or any of the windows—that
much was certain. No one could have entered from the living room
through the pass pantry. Then——
The table stood beside the range. Over the range was a big hood that
opened into a wide chimney. Riley went forward and peered into the
hood—struck a match and held it beside his head and peered into the
chimney’s wide mouth. There was some dust and soot sprinkled over the
back of the range, but Riley could not tell whether it had been
sprinkled there recently, because the house had been uninhabited for
so long that dust and soot and cobwebs were everywhere.
“Where does that chimney go?” he asked.
“It is one of those old-fashioned, wide chimneys that run straight up
through a house, with stove-hole openings, in every room,” Verbeck
answered.
“We’ll just take a look upstairs. You can remain here, Muggs, and keep
your eyes open.”
Riley led the way up the broad stairs and he had his automatic
clutched in his hand. Dust—everywhere was dust! They searched all the
rooms of the second floor, though long search was not needed, for the
deep dust on the floors showed no trace of footprints.
“Anything above?” Riley asked.
“Garret—two rooms half finished,” Verbeck announced.
“They made their way up the narrow stairs and raised the trapdoor. The
two half-finished rooms were deep with dust also, and cobwebs hung in
clusters before stove holes.
“False alarm, I reckon,” Riley said. “But it beats me. You don’t
suppose Muggs——”
“I do not,” said Verbeck. “I know Muggs well—he’d not try a trick like
that.”
“Humph! Something mighty funny about this! Whoever put those stars on
the bread didn’t enter by kitchen door or window, and didn’t go down
the chimney from one of these upper floors. Those stars must have been
put there by the delicatessen man when you bought the bread. Muggs
just didn’t notice them when he unwrapped the loaf—that’s all. It’s
the only way they could have got there!”
They started back down the narrow stairs. As they reached the second
floor they heard Muggs’ voice, coming to them weakly, as if from a
great distance, and with a note of pain in it.
“Boss! Boss!”
Four steps at a time Verbeck took that last flight, with Riley two
jumps behind him. They rushed through the living room and into the
kitchen. They saw Muggs reeling toward them from the door, staggering
toward the table, trying to hold one hand to his head.
“Muggs! Muggs! What is it?” Verbeck cried, grasping him by the arm.
“You’re hurt, man! Your head’s bloody! You——”
“Look! His forehead!” Riley cried.
On Muggs’ forehead was a tiny black star!
CHAPTER XIX—SUSPICION
Muggs apparently was making an effort to speak, but could not collect
his wits. Blood was flowing from a wound on the back of his head. He
staggered again, and would have fallen had not Verbeck helped him to a
chair. Riley, preferring effective methods to kindness, grasped a pail
of water and dashed the contents of the pail in Muggs’ face.
“What happened?” the detective demanded.
Muggs sputtered and spat, and sat more erect.
“I’m—all right now,” he gasped.
“Tell us!”
“I—I looked around after you went upstairs—then bent over the stove to
arrange the pots. Something smashed me on the head—that’s all I know.
I think somebody grabbed me by the coat collar as I started to fall. I
woke up and found myself on the floor—and tried to call the boss.”
“That’s all?” demanded Riley.
“Y-yes.”
Detective Riley took charge in this emergency without as much as
mentioning the matter to Roger Verbeck. He ran to the rear door and
jerked it open, observed that the snow was still innocent of
footprints, then put a police whistle to his lips and blew a vigorous
blast.
The sergeant came running, one of the men with him.
“Bring your men in closer and watch all sides of the house!” Riley
commanded. “Watch the roof, too, particularly the mouth of the
chimney!”
The sergeant turned away, shouting his orders. Riley slammed the door
shut and whirled toward the stove.
“Into the other room, Roger, and watch the stairs—and have your
automatic ready,” he said. “In the chimney is the only place a man
could be to pull off these stunts, and if he’s in the chimney he’s
going to be smoked out!”
He grasped the paper that had been around the provisions and threw it
into the stove. He opened the drafts, and reached for more paper. The
stove roared—smoke and flame sprang up into the chimney and through
the big hood.
“Watch her, Muggs—more paper when she needs it—and hold your gun
ready, man! You’re all right?” Riley cried.
“I’ll watch ’er!”
Riley sprang into the other room. “Come!” he commanded Verbeck, and
ran up the stairs again. Once more they looked into all the rooms on
the second floor, and knew that nobody had been in any of them. Once
more they ascended to the garret and looked into the two half-finished
rooms there—and found nothing. Not a track was in the deep dust, not a
cobweb had been brushed from a wall.
“What’s that door over there?” Riley asked, pointing across one of the
rooms.
“Small closet—never used except to store toys in when I was a kid,”
Verbeck answered.
“We’ll just—— No use, though! Look at those cobwebs on the doorknob!
Nobody in there! This beats me! Let’s go down again!”
They retreated down the stairs, and went out on the veranda. No one
had come from the house, the sergeant said. Smoke, and even flame, was
pouring from the top of the chimney.
“All right, sergeant—return your men to their posts, but keep a close
watch,” Riley said. “No—there isn’t anything much wrong.”
The sergeant knew there was, but he knew also that Riley did not talk
when he preferred to remain silent. He sent the men back to their
posts, and Riley and Verbeck reēntered the house and closed the door.
In the kitchen Muggs was still putting paper into the stove, and Riley
ordered him to stop.
“If he was in that chimney, he’s a dead man,” the detective said. “And
if he was a dead man, he’d fall and smash that hood to bits. So he
isn’t in the chimney—and wasn’t—and he isn’t upstairs in any room—and
he didn’t enter from outside. We’ve been dreaming.”
“Not much we haven’t!” Muggs exclaimed. “Look at this bump on my
head!”
“Then please explain it!” Riley roared. “Explain those stars on the
bread and the one between your eyes. I suppose this Black Star has
spirits to help him or something like that. Give me an answer!”
“The Black Star,” Verbeck observed, “is a smooth article.”
“He is,” Riley admitted, “when he can smash a man on the head without
coming into the house to do it. Ha! The basement!”
There was a door opening into the basement from the kitchen, and it
was locked. Moreover, an investigation showed that the bolt had not
been shot for some time, for dust and cobwebs were on that bolt and on
the door around it. Nevertheless, Riley opened the door, drew out his
pocket flash lamp, and descended into the basement with Verbeck at his
heels.
The basement was large, but nothing was stored in it now except a
small quantity of fuel. It did not take Riley and Verbeck long to
decide no intruder had been in the basement.
“Looks mighty funny to me!” Riley declared. “If that Muggs man of
yours is playing tricks——”
“Would he smash himself on the head?” Verbeck demanded, something of
anger in his voice.
“Such things have been done before. A little rap would start the
blood, and he might have shammed a great deal of that
staggering-around business. You don’t suppose this Black Star has got
hold of Muggs—corrupted him or got the hooks into him?”
“I do not!” Verbeck replied emphatically. “I’d stake my life on Muggs.
He’s loyal! If the Black Star tried anything like that Muggs would
tell me at once.”
“Then how did it happen? Answer me that! It stands to reason, doesn’t
it, that nobody has been in this house except the three of us?”
“It looks that way, but——”
“Humph! You go right ahead thinking what you like, Roger. As for me,
boy, I’m going to keep one eye on Mr. Muggs.”
“But——”
“Don’t be angry now. It’s my business to be suspicious of people. I
knew you when you were a baby, and I’m right with you in this scrap
with the Black Star. You’ve lived with this Muggs man for some time,
and you think he’s loyal—sure! He’s somewhat of a stranger to me, and
I look at him from the outside, and don’t see him with any rosy waves
of glory around his head. No insult meant, Roger. I’ll just keep an
eye on him, and if he ain’t guilty it won’t hurt him a bit.”
They went back to the kitchen. Muggs, now that the excitement was
over, was going ahead with the preparations of the evening meal. Half
an hour later he had it ready, and the three of them ate it in the
living room, while Muggs groaned now and then and held his hand to the
back of his head often, apparently not noticing that Riley eyed him
constantly.
“If I get my hands on that Black Star I’ll kill him!” Muggs promised.
“That’s the second time he’s smashed me on the head!”
“Maybe the Black Star didn’t do it,” Riley said.
“Either him or one of his crooks!”
“But we couldn’t find a trace——”
“I don’t care,” Muggs interrupted; “if we knew absolutely that there
wasn’t another human bein’ within ten miles—I know a man smashed me on
the back of the head with a blackjack! I’ve had it done often enough
in my life, and I know the feelin’! And as I fell he grabbed me by the
shoulder and slapped that black star on my face! Don’t tell me!”
The meal at an end, they discussed the trap Roger had proposed to set
for the Black Star, perfecting details and deciding just how the
scheme was to be worked. It was planned that Roger should go into the
business district the following morning and arrange matters with a
jewelry firm, communicate to the newspapers the news that he intended
having the famous diamond necklace reset, and arrange with the chief
to have the jewelry establishment crowded with officers day and night.
So Roger retired at eleven that night, leaving Riley and Muggs on
guard. He slept in the bedroom, with his clothes arranged beside the
bed on a chair so that he could don them quickly if an alarm came from
headquarters that the Black Star had committed the great crime he had
promised. He was to arise at five and let Riley and Muggs sleep from
five until ten. Then they would take up the watch again, and Roger
would go into town about his business.
At five o’clock Muggs awoke him, announcing that he had cleaned the
bathroom and arranged the bath.
“Anything happen?” Verbeck asked. “I’ve slept like a dead man.”
“Quiet night, boss. Riley went out at midnight and prowled around the
grounds a while and talked with the cops. Nobody’d been near the
place, he said. I’ll have some coffee ready by the time you’re
dressed, and when you’ve had it Riley can go to bed.”
“And so can you, Muggs.”
“Not for some time, I ain’t. You can bet I ain’t goin’ to let you be
alone in that room with both Riley and me asleep. Look what happened
to me in the kitchen when I was alone!”
“I’ll call in the sergeant in charge of the squad, Muggs.”
“Yes, and maybe he’s one of the Black Star’s men for all you know!”
“Nonsense! Well, I’ll let you stay up until seven—how’s that?”
“That’s a little better, boss.”
Verbeck dressed and had his coffee, and Detective Riley retired to the
bedroom. Muggs curled up on the divan. Verbeck paced the floor for a
time, and then threw open the door and went out on the veranda for a
breath of morning air. The squad of police had been changed, and the
new sergeant in charge hurried toward Verbeck across the lawn.
“I brought you the morning papers, Mr. Verbeck,” he said, “when I came
on duty. Thought perhaps you’d like to have ’em.”
“Thanks, sergeant.”
“Your name certainly is in all of them! Say, is it true what they
say?”
“And what do they say?”
“That you were planning a trap for the Black Star and he knew all
about it?”
“What!” Verbeck cried.
He grasped the papers and opened the first that came to his hand.
Great headlines told of the day’s progress in the Black Star case. The
attack on the hotel clerk was exploited at length, the removal of
Verbeck and Muggs and Riley to the old Verbeck place mentioned. The
paper told how the place was surrounded at all hours by policemen, and
grilled the police department because the dragnet had caught nothing
but small fish.
The eight crooks arrested with the Black Star, and who really aided
his escape, had been bailed out. Bail of five thousand had been fixed
in each case, and two famous criminal lawyers had appeared and put up
forty thousand dollars cash, refusing to say for whom they acted,
merely declaring the crooks were their clients.
“So they’re loose!” Roger thought. “They’ll be at work again—or else
they’ll all jump bail and so keep from betraying the Black Star’s
secrets. I imagine it’d be worth forty thousand to him to have his
plans safeguarded.”
He read on. At two o’clock that morning, just as the paper was going
to press, a messenger boy had appeared with a letter from the Black
Star. The press had been stopped to get in this latest bit of news.
The messenger declared he had been called to a prominent hotel and
handed the letter by a distinguished-looking gentleman whose
description did not tally with that of the Back Star.
That letter read:
Within three days!
Within three days I commit the greatest theft I have perpetrated
since coming to the city!
Within three days I make a huge joke of Roger Verbeck, who dares
match wits with me!
I know all that goes on—I know everything! The police dragnet is
most amusing. They never would dream of looking for me where I
am hiding!
I know, for instance, that yesterday afternoon, and again last
evening, sitting in the living room of his ancestral home, Roger
Verbeck planned with Detective Riley and Muggs, Verbeck’s man of
all work, to set a trap for me. Very clever—had I not learned of
it.
Let Roger Verbeck understand that he may advertise to his
heart’s content that he is having his famous diamond necklace
reset at a prominent jeweler’s—and hope that I’ll take the bait
and try to steal the jewels while a crowd of police are waiting
to make a capture—but his hopes will be in vain. I am planning
something bigger than the theft of the Verbeck necklace. The
shock will come soon——
Within three days!
*****
Verbeck did not go back into the house just then. He thanked the
sergeant for the papers again, and turned toward one end of the
veranda, to stand there and look off down the street, thinking.
It was almost uncanny what this Black Star knew. It was beyond belief
that either the Black Star or one of his confederates had been in the
house and overheard those conversations. Had they not searched the
house from bottom to top the evening before?
How, then, had the knowledge reached the Black Star? Three men knew of
that plan—himself, Riley, and Muggs. Then either Riley or Muggs, on
the face of things, must have conveyed the information to the Black
Star.
“I can’t believe it—I can’t!” Verbeck told himself.
He considered Muggs first. He believed in Muggs’ loyalty, had received
many manifestations of it. Muggs also had entered the first chase of
the Black Star with zeal, had in reality effected the crook’s capture.
Would he turn traitor now?
There was that affair of the evening before, when Muggs had received
the blow on his head. There was the affair of the stars on the bread.
Search had revealed that nobody was in the house. Who had put the
stars on the bread then, and who had struck down Muggs and stamped his
forehead? Had Riley been right? Was Muggs a Black Star man? Had he
stamped that bread himself, given himself a wound, and pretended to be
badly injured for a time just to carry out the orders of the master
criminal?
Then he considered Detective Riley. He would as soon believe Muggs
guilty as Riley. His father had been Riley’s benefactor. Riley had
known him since he was a baby, had taught him how to play baseball,
how to swim. Yet in the last few years he had not seen much of Riley,
and maybe he had been caught in the net of official graft. Maybe he
was no longer honest, save on the surface. Perhaps, angered at last
because he had not received the promotion he deserved, he had turned
crook and was trading on his reputation for honesty.
Muggs had said Riley had gone out and prowled around the house about
midnight. He had a chance, then, to communicate with some agent of the
Black Star. That would give the Black Star just about time to write
the letter to the paper and have it delivered so that it would reach
the newspaper office by two o’clock.
Back and forth, back and forth across the veranda, Roger Verbeck
paced, trying to fight down suspic
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