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 suspicions he did not believe worthy of
him. Muggs disloyal? He could not believe it! Riley turned crook? He
could not think it!
Yet there was the morning paper. No one but Riley and Muggs had heard
those plans. They had been discussed at the table in the center of the
living room, with all the doors closed, and they had been discussed in
low tones as the three men bent over the table. Why, it was doubtful
if a man could have overheard, had he even been in an adjoining room
and listening—and Verbeck knew no man had been in an adjoining room.
“I can’t believe it!” he told himself again. “Yet here it is—and must
be believed! I’ll say nothing—I’ll just let them read the papers. And
I’ll watch! If either Riley or Muggs has turned against me, my faith
in human nature is gone! Can’t I have even one honest ally? Must I
fight this master criminal alone?”
Muggs called to him from the doorway, wanting to know whether Verbeck
was not cold without his coat. He looked at Muggs. He saw the seamed
and wrinkled countenance, the eyes that twinkled kindly, the doglike
look of devotion in the face—Muggs, who had fought for him scores of
times, who had been willing in some of their adventures to lay down
his life for the man who had saved him from the Seine. No—Muggs could
not be disloyal!
Detective Riley, then?