CHAPTER VII.
IDENTICAL ORDERS
EIGHT o’clock that night found Roger Verbeck in the Black Star’s headquarters, the room put in order, and the candles burning. He was sitting at the end of the long table, in robe and mask, and with the little rubber stamps he was busy writing out orders. All the orders were identical; the ones previously written by the Black Star had been destroyed.
Promptly at nine o’clock the little bell on the wall tinkled, and Verbeck, shutting the drawer in the table and holding his automatic in readiness beneath his robe, went to the wall and pressed the button that opened the door. He hurried from the room, and waited.
Presently he entered again, to find a masked and robed figure standing before the blackboard. Number and countersign were given, and Verbeck handed the man his orders and a twenty-dollar bill taken from the drawer in the table. The man bowed and went out.
Nine-thirty brought another man, and the same ceremony was observed. Ten o’clock brought the member of the band to whom Verbeck had given orders the night before. After he had written his number and countersign, Verbeck whirled to the blackboard.
“Report,” he wrote.
“Browning Club meeting was postponed, and I missed the person you mentioned,” the other scribbled on the board. “I followed her, and spoke with her later in a tea room. She will wear her jewels, including the famous ruby collar.”
Verbeck nodded for the man to erase. Again he found himself wondering at the identity of this man who could talk so freely to Freda Brakeland. And now he wrote on the blackboard himself:
“Why did you not carry out orders?”
“Pardon, but I did.”
“You appeared at the corner I mentioned?”
“Yes. Nobody approached me, so I went on as ordered.”
Verbeck wondered whether the man was speaking the truth, whether he had appeared at the corner, as ordered, and Verbeck had missed him. It was possible, he knew, because of the throng of shoppers. And, again The robe effectually disguised the man before him, but Verbeck imagined he was taller than Howard Wendell. He told himself again he was a fool to think that the man before him was his fiancée’s brother. He had half a notion to order him to remove his mask, but thought better of it. This man was a crook, could be nothing else. And Verbeck dared do nothing that would arouse suspicion and endanger the plan he had formed.
“Very well,” he wrote on the board; then went to the table and tossed the proper envelope toward the other.
The man picked it up and read the orders. It seemed to Verbeck that he appeared startled. He went to the blackboard and wrote again:
“Are you sure, sir, that these are my orders?”
“Yes,” Verbeck wrote.
“Must I carry them out?”
“They must be carried out—to the letter,” wrote Verbeck.
The other hesitated a moment, then wrote rapidly on the board:
“You are unfair, but I am unable to help myself.”
And then, as Verbeck started forward, the other saluted and darted out of the door, to hurry down the dusty hall. Roger returned to the table. He half wished he had forced the other man to remove his mask.
Ten-thirty o’clock brought a woman. Verbeck knew she was a woman because he could see her hands, the fingers covered with rings and the bottom of her skirts showed beneath the robe. Her writing on the blackboard was unmistakably feminine, too. The Black Star had said that women belonged to his organization, but Verbeck had not anticipated meeting one in this house; he had believed they worked on orders transmitted by others.
“Everything arranged,” the woman wrote on the board. “It will be easy. I’ll get the necklace about three o’clock in the morning and hide it where you ordered. It may be found there any time after four o’clock.”
Here Verbeck found himself facing something of which he knew nothing, some crime already outlined by the Black Star.
“Disregard all previous orders,” he wrote, “for the time being. I have new orders for you, and you’ll attend to them first. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she wrote.
He threw her envelope on the table, and she read the instructions it contained. She, too, scribbled a protest on the blackboard.
“Isn’t it dangerous?” she wrote.
“Carry out your orders. You do not know all the scheme, remember.”
“I understand. I’ll obey.”
Then she hurried out.
At eleven o’clock the bell tinkled again, and Verbeck admitted another of the band. This one, too, was a woman. She appeared timid, whereas the first had given every indication of being used to this sort of thing. Her hand trembled as she wrote her number on the board. Then she gave her countersign and waited.
Evidently she was not working on a case, but had reported to get orders. Verbeck had no orders ready for her, for her number had not been on the list he had found in the Black Star’s book. Apparently this was her first visit, or else the Black Star had not contemplated making use of her at the present time.
He took orders he had printed for one of the others and put them on the end of the table, motioning for her to pick them up and read. As she advanced toward the table, Verbeck found that her eyes were upon him, and she seemed afraid to touch the envelope. She opened it finally, read quickly, and Verbeck thought she gave a little cry. She staggered backward, but seemed to regain her composure as he started forward to aid her, and backed away from him. The sheet of paper fluttered from her hand to the floor.
Verbeck stooped and picked it up, and handed it to her. She did not seem to see it—she was looking down at Verbeck’s hand. Like a wild thing, she whirled around and rushed back to the blackboard and seized the chalk.
“Where did you get that ring?” she wrote rapidly.
Verbeck answered on his board:
“Why? Do you fancy it?”
“Where did you get it?”
“That is my personal and private business,” he wrote. The ring was a peculiar signet he had picked up abroad and had worn for years.
The woman dropped the chalk to the floor. She raised one hand as if to put it to her face; she dropped it again; her eyes burned into Verbeck’s from behind her mask; then she gave a cry that expressed pain and despair, and hurried through the door and into the hall.
“Well, what do you think of that?” Verbeck mused. “Was she really frightened or only playing a part? I wonder if the Black Star has been treating her badly and has made her afraid of him? She seemed awfully interested in my ring—because she’d never noticed it on the Black Star’s hand, I suppose. If she should be suspicious But she couldn’t do anything if she was!”
The members of the band continued to arrive at intervals, but there were no more women. Verbeck received their numbers and countersigns, and gave out copies of the orders. At three o’clock in the morning he decided there were no more to come. Two women and eight men had been received during the night—ten persons had walked into the trap he had constructed. Less than twenty-four hours, and the Black Star and his band would be in the hands of the police. Verbeck felt that he had planned well.
At half past three o’clock he left the house and walked five blocks to catch an owl car. Half an hour later he was on the boulevard, approaching the building in which he had his rooms. As he reached the steps of the apartment house he happened to turn and glance down the street. He saw a man dodge behind a lamp-post a short distance away.
Verbeck stepped into the vestibule, waited a moment, then stepped out again quickly. Again he saw the man dodge behind the post.
Darting down the steps, Verbeck ran toward the man. A shadowy form rushed across the driveway and lost itself in the shadows of the underbrush. Verbeck stopped and retraced his steps. He doubted whether he could catch the man, and he wasn’t inclined to pursue him at that hour of the morning. Perhaps it was not a man watching him, but a lurking thief, he thought, and at the same time he felt that he had been under surveillance.