at the front entrance. A crowd already had started to gather.
"Tight hole!" one of the fishermen said.
"Not unless you lose your nerve!" the baker answered. "Beginning to get scared?"
"I guess I've got as much nerve as the next man!"
"Then show it!" the baker said. "Make a wrong plan, and all of us will be in trouble. They are sure to come in here in a minute or two."
Verbeck and Muggs had entered the establishment with the chief. The old watchman told his story in a few words. Lights were turned on, and the place searched, and the unconscious men found. Then Verbeck hurried to the diamond room, with the others at his heels.
The door of the vault was open. Empty trays were on the floor; and at the bottom of the vault was a sheet of white paper, upon which had been pasted a row of little black stars.
"Looted!" the chief gasped. "But where can they be?"
"Gone before we got here!" Muggs said.
"The watchman says he heard them just as we came up. There are only two exits to the ground floor—the front door and the rear one—and no windows in the back large enough to permit a man to pass through."
"And the back door is bolted on the inside—I investigated it," Verbeck said.
"Then, where have they gone?" the chief cried. "This thing is getting on my nerves! But we've got the block surrounded, and every man inside the lines will give an account of himself."
The search of the block began, and it was a me-
