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.