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.