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!