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!_”