CHAPTER IV.
ROGUE PRO TEMPORE
MUGGS was a product of the slums, and had known the inside of a prison. Five years before, Roger Verbeck had picked him up in Paris, at a time when Muggs was contemplating throwing himself into the Seine, for misery and crime and poor living had broken his spirit and made existence a nightmare. Verbeck had taught him that wits can be used for honest purposes, had given him a home, and in return Muggs, in his gratitude, gave Verbeck what services he could. He was of the type willing to die to save a benefactor pain.
Muggs had not struck the Black Star a light blow, and when the master crook fell, Muggs knew he would remain unconscious for some time to come. He was sobbing and calling to Verbeck in a low voice as he put his foot beneath the table and felt for the button. He could not find it at first, for in his eagerness he was not methodical. Then he quieted down, and, getting down on hands and knees, went over the floor, inch by inch, until he felt a little knob through the rug.
His hand went out; he pressed the knob. At the end of the table appeared a yawning chasm, as a section of the flooring fell back. Muggs was at its side in an instant.
“Boss! Boss!” he called.
“I’m all right, Muggs! Not even scratched, and not stunned. Hurry up and get me out of here. And watch that chap”
Muggs was on his feet, looking wildly about the room. There was no ladder, no rope, nothing that could reach to the bottom of that twelve-foot pit. But there was a couch in the corner, and Muggs tore off the cover and carried it to the pit’s edge.
“Grab it, while I brace myself, boss,” he directed. “Then climb—I can hold you.”
And so Verbeck emerged from the pit, bracing his feet against the wall of it and climbing hand over hand up the couch cover, while Muggs, above, braced his feet and bent back, gripping the other end of the cloth. Then the trapdoor was closed again.
“Have you killed him?” Verbeck cried when he saw the form of the Black Star on the floor.
“I felt like it, but I thought you’d want him again, boss. I just gave him a smash behind the ear.”
“Um!”
“Don’t you think we’d better call the police now, boss? I got a hunch”
“You heard what he said, didn’t you, Muggs? If the police take him in, the others will discover it, and escape. And he said some other things that have me guessing. How did he know what I said last night at a private reception in a private residence, eh? I know none of his crooks was close enough to overhear me. And how does he know what’s in my safe? He says he even knows the combination of it, and I don’t doubt him.”
“Then what are we going to do, boss?”
Verbeck had slipped off his robe, and now handed it, together with the mask, to Muggs.
“Put these outside in the box, then hurry back,” he directed.
As Muggs rushed away, Verbeck bent forward and took off the Black Star’s mask. There was revealed the not unhandsome face of a man about forty-five. Verbeck contemplated this countenance as he started to remove the Black Star’s robe. It was one he never had seen before. Despite the Black Star’s words, Verbeck had been half of a mind that the master crook was some one known to the city in general as a respectable man, a sort of Jekyll and Hyde.
Muggs returned, and the Black Star was gagged and bound with a curtain that Muggs tore from one of the doorways and ripped into strips.
“And now” Verbeck began.
He did not complete the sentence. On the wall above his head a bell tinkled. Verbeck and Muggs looked at each other, the same idea in the mind of each.
“Another crook,” Muggs whispered.
“No doubt.”
“What’ll we do?”
Verbeck hesitated a moment. “This is a great chance, Muggs,” he said finally. “I’ll play the Black Star’s part. I’ll be a crook pro tempore.”
“What kind of a crook is that?”
“The kind I’m going to be, Muggs. Hurry! Get this chap in the other room and shut the door—and watch.”
As Muggs obeyed, Verbeck put on the Black Star’s robe and mask. The little bell jangled again. On the wall below it was a button, and this button Verbeck pushed. He could hear the click as the door was unlocked, and he slipped through the door by which the Black Star had made his entrance, and found himself in another dusty, unfurnished room.
In a moment he heard some one enter the other door. He waited for a time, as the Black Star had done, then opened the door and walked boldly into the room, nodding his head to the other man in robe and mask and taking his position at the Black Star’s blackboard.
“No. Eight,” the other wrote.
“Countersign?”
“Harvard.”
Verbeck did not know, of course, whether it was the proper countersign, but he had to take the chance.
“Report,” he wrote.
“Have information you desired.”
The man stepped away from the blackboard, put one hand beneath his robe, and took out a letter, which he threw on the table. Then he went back to the blackboard and stood at attention.
Verbeck went to the table and picked up the letter. He ripped it open, watching the other meanwhile, then lowered his eyes to read. What was written there was startling and very much to the point:
Mrs. Greistman will wear diamonds and rope of pearls at Charity Ball. They will be taken from safe-deposit box during the afternoon. After the ball they will be kept in safe in Greistman library. Safe is old one. Library is on first floor; one door opens into hall; three windows, one opening on veranda and others on side of house and shaded from street lights by vines and trees. All servants sleep on second floor, in the rear. Mr. and Mrs. Greistman and daughter sleep on same floor, in front, latter on left side of hall, parents on right side as you face rear of house. Daughter subject to insomnia, especially after brilliant society events, and often takes sleeping draft.
There it was, full information that indicated the Black Star contemplated getting the Greistman jewels, reported by means of the organization, no doubt. The note had been written on a typewriter, and there were no marks on the envelope. Any active crook might have been able to discover where the members of the Greistman family slept, and learn where the safe was kept, and how the doors and windows of the library were located, but only some one in close touch with the family could know when they anticipated taking the jewels from the safe-deposit box and where they would be kept the night after the ball.
Verbeck found himself wondering how this information had been obtained and whether the man who now stood before him in robe and mask had obtained it or was merely a messenger to carry it to the Black Star. He stepped back to the blackboard and picked up the chalk again.
“Where did you get information?” he wrote.
“As you instructed,” came the written answer.
Verbeck could ask no more without betraying himself. He had no idea regarding the identity of the man before him. It was possible, of course, for him to call Muggs from the other room and overpower the crook, but it was doubtful if the man would talk and reveal anything after he discovered he was not dealing with the Black Star, but with an outsider. And what Verbeck wanted was accurate knowledge; he would have to be careful not to arouse the man’s suspicion.
“Good!” he wrote on the blackboard. Then he nodded to the man, as if in dismissal. But the other did not seem ready to go, and acted as if there was something wanting.
“Any orders?” he wrote finally.
Verbeck remembered the pile of letters on the end of the table, and now he went over and inspected them. They were orders for members of the band, evidently, for on each envelope a number was stamped. He found the one marked “Eight,” and took out the sheet of paper it contained. There were the orders the Black Star had prepared for this man:
At three o’clock in the afternoon there is a committee meeting of the Browning Club in a parlor of the second floor of the National Hotel, at which Miss Freda Brakeland will be present. Manage to be in the lobby of the hotel after the meeting, and meet Miss Brakeland as if by accident. Talk of the Charity Ball, and ascertain whether she is to wear the famous Brakeland jewels at that affair. Report in usual manner here at ten o’clock at night; and remember that no excuse can be accepted for failure.
Here was another glimpse of the Black Star’s work. Verbeck, after a moment’s thought, decided to give the man his orders and let him go. He would continue to play at being the Black Star and discover all he could of the master crook’s plans. Perhaps he would be able to prevent the wholesale theft of valuable jewels; for it appeared that the Black Star intended a series of crimes following the Charity Ball. This man before him had orders to report the following night, so there was no object in exciting his suspicions now.
Verbeck would have given a great deal at that moment to have been able to peer behind the other man’s mask. Who was this man before him who could be expected to engage Miss Freda Brakeland in conversation without arousing suspicion? Somebody who belonged in the city, surely, somebody well known in society, for Freda Brakeland was one of the most exclusive and unapproachable women of the younger set.
Verbeck was annoyed by the Black Star’s threat that the chickens might come home to roost. He was astounded at the lines of information gathered for the benefit of the master crook, and a multitude of questions rushed to his mind, none of which he could answer. He decided to refrain from calling in the police at present, at least until he discovered more.
And now to Verbeck came another plan he decided to use. He placed the orders on the end of the table and motioned for the other man to pick them up; then he hurried to his blackboard and wrote supplementary orders there:
Pass the northwest corner of First Avenue and American Boulevard at exactly two o’clock in afternoon on your way to the hotel. Stop on corner, remove hat, and pretend to brush dust from it. If there is to be any change in your orders, an envelope will be slipped to you at that time; otherwise, go ahead as you have been directed.
It seemed to Verbeck that the other man expressed surprise in the way his shoulders straightened and his head lifted, and for an instant Verbeck feared he had attempted too much. But the other only nodded that he understood, then saluted and backed out of the door. Two minutes later Muggs came in from the other room and reported that the crook had put robe and mask in the box outside, and had hurried away.
“I’ll get him!” Verbeck said. “He’ll stop on that corner and give the sign, and then I’ll follow him. I’ll learn who it is that’s helping the Black Star gather valuable information. We’ve got to stick to the game now, Muggs, old man!”
“I’d call the police”
“Not yet! I’m going to play this game myself until it gets too hot for me. The Black Star challenged me, didn’t he? I’ll have plenty of evidence before I call in the police.”
“What about the chief crook in the other room? He’s conscious again.”
Verbeck paced the floor for a time, his head bowed, thinking.
“I have it!” he exclaimed at last. “You get out of here, Muggs, and hurry to the garage and get my car. Stop at the rooms and get that bunch of keys in the right-hand drawer of my desk”
“The keys to the old place?”
“Yes. We’ll take the Black Star there, Muggs. Bring the car to the corner nearest this house, then hurry in and help me with him. We’ve got to have it done before dawn. Hurry! That’s what we’ll do, Muggs! We’ll take the Black Star to the old house, and there you’ll guard him, while I play master crook in his mask and robe.”