CHAPTER II.
THE BLACK STAR
VERBECK found Muggs at the corner of the apartment house, standing in the shadows and trying to shield himself from the stinging sleet and biting cold wind.
“He’s just reaching the ground, boss,” Muggs said. “See him?”
“I see him. Be careful now, Muggs; we don’t want to lose him. Thanks for understanding and loosening his bonds. There he goes!”
The erstwhile prisoner had reached the ground and was darting through the shadows toward the alley. Down this he ran for half a block, then crept between two buildings, and so reached the boulevard near a corner, with Verbeck and Muggs a hundred feet behind him. It was difficult trailing the man through a storm of sleet and fine snow, but Verbeck and Muggs had trailed men before, sometimes for amusement, and at other times through necessity.
The man hesitated at the curb a moment, then struck across the driveway. Verbeck and Muggs followed. They took opposite sides of the walk and slipped along over the frozen ground, darting from shadow to shadow, always watching the elusive shadow ahead. At the street crossings their quarry walked across boldly, and they could not follow instantly for fear of being detected, but they always picked up their man again, once they were across.
Thus they covered a dozen blocks, and it appeared that the midnight prowler considered himself safe now. He hurried down a cross street, his head bent forward against the cold wind that swept up the hill. Block after block Muggs trailed him, while Verbeck shadowed from the other side of the street, dodging into dark doorways now and then when he expected his man to look behind.
The quarry stopped at a corner, lighted a cigar, and stood waiting. Muggs was concealed in a doorway fifty feet behind him; Verbeck was in another doorway across the street.
An owl car came along, and their quarry boarded it. But Verbeck had been expecting that, and for some time had been watching a taxicab standing before a drug store on the corner. As the owl car started up again, Verbeck dashed across the street, and he had the chauffeur out of the drug store and into the seat before Muggs reached the spot.
“Follow that owl car,” Verbeck directed. “There’s a man on it that we’d like to see when he gets off.”
“I’m wise,” the chauffeur cried. “Fly cops, eh? Get in!”
The cab lurched along the slippery street, keeping half a block behind the owl car. Whenever the car stopped, the cab drew up at the curb, and Verbeck put out his head to watch. But their quarry remained aboard.
“If this keeps up we’ll clear out of town,” said Muggs.
“Anxious for action?” Verbeck asked, laughing. “You may get plenty of it before we are done. Have a bit of patience, Muggs.”
“I’ve got patience, all right, boss—and I’ve got a hunch, too.”
“Let’s have it!” At times Verbeck had a great deal of respect for Muggs’ hunches.
“I’ve got a hunch we’d have done better if we’d handed that gent over to the police.”
“I gave you credit for understanding the situation, Muggs.”
“Oh, I understand what you want to do, all right. It’d be great to clean up this Black Star and his gang single-handed, hog tie ’em all, then call in the cops and hand ’em over—especially since he sent you that sassy note—but I’ve got a hunch we’re going up against a stiff game. This Black Star ain’t no slouch!”
“Afraid?” snarled Verbeck.
That touched Muggs on a tender spot, and Verbeck knew it. Muggs turned deliberately and faced his employer.
“If that’s the way you’re looking at it, boss,” he said, “trot right along and I’ll be behind you. Go the limit, and I’m in the first seat on the right-hand side. But, all the same, I’ve got a hunch.”
The taxicab stopped again. Verbeck put his head from the window and immediately opened the door. Their quarry had left the owl car and was starting down the dark cross street.
Giving a bill to the chauffeur and telling him he need not wait, Verbeck hurried to the corner, with Muggs at his heels. Shadowing here was difficult work, for there was unimproved property, and some old estates not well kept up, where sidewalks were bad and the footing uncertain, and where untrimmed trees and thick underbrush furnished multitudes of dark spots.
Uphill and downhill, always against the biting cold wind and sleet, their man led them. Finally he crossed a vacant lot and made directly for an old house far back from the street in the midst of a grove of trees that now were swaying and snapping in the storm.
“So that’s where the Black Star lives!” Verbeck said.
He and Muggs had small difficulty following their man now, for there was a low hedge behind which, by stooping, they could make their way unseen. Their man reached the side of the house and went along it until he came to a door. Beside the door there was a box on the ground. As Verbeck and Muggs watched, the man they had been following raised the lid of the box and took something out.
“He’s putting on clothes,” Muggs whispered.
His actions could not be observed well, but it did appear that he was donning an overcoat or a robe of some sort.
“And he’s putting on a mask,” said Muggs. “What’s coming off here?”
“I imagine we are in for an interesting time,” answered Verbeck. “Watch him now!”
He had stepped up to the door, and they could see him put out his hand. Through a lull in the storm there came to Verbeck and Muggs the tinkling of a bell, then a sharp click, and the door flew open and their quarry disappeared inside, closing the door after him.
Verbeck and Muggs hurried around the end of the hedge and to the house. A few feet from the door was a window. Verbeck had no more than glanced at it before Muggs was at work. Verbeck never had inquired too closely into Muggs’ past, but from what he had seen from time to time, he had reason to believe that Muggs knew a thing or two about crooks’ methods, and now he had more evidence of it. In an instant almost Muggs was sliding that window up slowly, inch by inch, making no noise, and carefully pulling aside the curtains behind it.
Another moment, and Verbeck was standing inside the house, with Muggs beside him. They heard no voices. Step by step they made their way across the room to the opposite wall, searching for a door.
Then they saw a streak of light that penetrated from an adjoining room, where a door sagged in its casement, leaving a crack through which a man could see. Verbeck knew this house. For several years it had been deserted, not kept in repair, the grounds not kept up. It belonged to an estate in litigation, and could not be sold, and the heirs had refused to build a more substantial residence for the rental it might bring in. He was surprised to find it inhabited, and he imagined that the Black Star and his band were making use of it surreptitiously.
But when he applied his eye to the crack in the door, expecting to see a room almost barren, filled with dust and cobwebs, two or three boxes, some burning candles—a typical resort of thugs—he faced a surprise. He was looking into a room that had been newly decorated and was furnished lavishly. Expensive rugs were on the floor; pictures adorned the walls. There was a massive library table in the center of the room, an armchair beside it, books and papers and magazines on it.
On one wall of the room was a small blackboard, with chalk and an eraser in a box beneath it. Before this blackboard, standing erect, was their quarry—dressed in a long black robe that covered every portion of his body, even his head being enveloped in a hood, and over his face a black mask.
There was no one else in the room. The man before the blackboard stood stiffly and silently, like a soldier at attention. Behind the door, Verbeck and Muggs waited, scarcely daring to breathe.
Then a door on the other side of the lavishly furnished room was thrown open, and another man came into view. He, too, was dressed in a long black robe, and had a black mask over his face. But he had a mark that distinguished him from the other, for on the front of his hood was a black star, formed of jet, that flashed in the light.