CHAPTER VIII.
THE POLICE GET A TIP
VERBECK arose at noon to face the day that meant the culmination of his plans. As he bathed and shaved and dressed he kept thinking of the prowler he had seen a few hours before. Could it be possible, he asked himself, that some of the Black Star’s band had grown suspicious and would take an active part against him? Had the Black Star, a prisoner in the old Verbeck house, sent out some message from his prison calling for rescue? Verbeck was half afraid he had made some blunder, had overlooked something that would allow the master criminal to turn the tables and emerge victor from the duel of wits.
He telephoned the garage for his roadster, and hurried out to the old Verbeck place, taking with him a lineman from the telephone company’s office. The lineman connected the telephone, which had been out of service.
“How is the prisoner?” Verbeck asked Muggs after the lineman had departed.
“Down in the vegetable pit, thinking of his sins.”
“Fetch him up,” Verbeck directed, and began carrying in the food he had purchased before running out from town.
It was a surly Black Star who entered the living room, with Muggs at his heels urging him on. He no longer was handsome because of a two days’ growth of beard and dark circles under his eyes. He glared at Muggs malevolently as he crossed the room and sat down stiffly on a divan.
“How long,” he demanded of Verbeck, “are you going to keep me prisoner, with a maniac for jailer?”
“Probably until a late hour to-night. But you need not be confined in the pit again. I’m going to have Muggs keep you in this room, where it is warm and comfortable. I want to give you a bit of liberty until to-night.”
“And then?”
“Then I’ll probably hand you over to the police, and you’ll have mighty small freedom for years to come.”
“Indeed?” the Black Star snarled. “You have arranged everything, have you? Planned a coup of some sort?”
“Time will tell,” said Verbeck.
“And don’t you ever stop to fear for yourself?”
“I haven’t felt particularly afraid at any time.”
“I have warned you that the arm of my organization”
“Is a long one—I remember,” said Verbeck. “The arm of the law also is long, Mr. Black Star, and a clever, honest man can outwit a clever crook any time, as I said once before. You called it a boast, I believe.”
“You are not done yet.”
“Certainly not—but I’ll be done within a few hours.”
Verbeck walked to a corner and beckoned Muggs to him.
“I’ll return to-night, some time after nine o’clock,” he said. “I want you to watch the Black Star well, Muggs. If he escapes now”
“Why don’t you call in the police, boss?”
“And spoil everything? I’m going through with this now—I’m going to nab the Black Star and his gang.”
“Then there’s something big coming off, and I’m not to be in on it?” Muggs demanded.
“Neither am I, Muggs—at the moment it comes off. But we’ll both be in at the finish—and we’ll be there strong. Just curb your curiosity, Muggs, until this evening. I’ll explain everything then. Careful, now, and don’t let the Black Star escape. I fancy you’ve been aggravating him.”
“Aw, boss”
“He looks it. Haven’t you?”
“I was just reciting a list of his sins, boss.”
“Well, Muggs, recite less and keep your eyes open more. Watch every move he makes. Don’t you use that telephone, and don’t let the Black Star get near it. I had it connected so we can use it to-night. Now I’m off!”
He got in the roadster and started back downtown. He stopped before a suburban drug store and went into a telephone booth. He had not wanted to send this telephone message from his own apartment nor from the old Verbeck place, for it might be traced.
He called police headquarters, and asked to be connected with the chief. No, he said, the chief’s secretary wouldn’t do. It was something about the Black Star.
In a moment he heard the chief’s gruff voice.
“Listen carefully,” Verbeck told him, “for I am not going to repeat what I say or answer questions. This is very important, and if you disregard it you’ll be sorry. Have your secretary get on the phone extension and take down in shorthand what I am going to say.”
There was a short wait while the chief made the necessary arrangements, then Verbeck heard himself commanded to speak.
“I have run down and caught the Black Star,” he said. “I am holding him prisoner now. I cannot hand him over to you just yet, for, if I did, and the least news of it leaked out, you’d never catch one of his gang, and, without his gang, you never could convict him. Never mind how I know it—I am not talking nonsense. You’ve got that?”
An excited voice told him that the chief understood.
“Now, listen to this,” Verbeck went on. “I have arranged for all the Black Star’s band to be at a certain place at the same time, so you and your men can take them all. Keep quiet, chief, and don’t ask questions. I want you to send men enough to arrest them—eight men and two women are in the crowd. They are to be arrested just when and where I say. If you let as much as one of them escape, all my work and yours probably will have been for nothing. When you get them, you’ll find stolen property on every one. And as soon as I learn you have all of them under arrest I’ll turn over the Black Star to you, I’ll tell you where and how he met the members of his gang and gave them orders, and I’ll let you have the inside workings of one of the smoothest crooks’ schemes ever devised. But if you make one false move”
A torrent of words over the wire stopped him for a moment.
“No questions, I said,” he went on. “You have understood so far? Very well! No, I’ll not tell you who I am or where I am! Very well, if you’ll not listen! I’ll call you up later, when you’re in a better mood, and explain where you are to make the catch. Good-by!”
And an irate Roger Verbeck strode from the telephone booth, went out to the street, and sprang into his car to drive furiously down the thoroughfare. No excited chief of police could bully him with a lot of mandatory questions, he told himself. Let them fuss and fume for a time, then they’d listen when he telephoned.
His actions had the desired effect. At police headquarters there was a spirited debate for five minutes between the chief and his secretary as to whether the telephone communication had come from some practical joker. The secretary was inclined to believe that it had. The chief insisted that some member of the Black Star’s band had turned against him and was engineering his downfall.
Verbeck drove on through the streets until he reached the Wendell apartment house. Faustina was waiting for him, and again Verbeck noticed that anxiety was stamped on her face, and now he thought there was a look of fear also.
“Well, here we are,” he said. “And what about the ball?”
“I—I have decided to go,” she said, looking at him peculiarly.
“Brother Howard going, too?”
“Yes—he is going.”
“With any particular young lady?”
“No—alone.”
“Good! Will you be angry, Faustina, if I ask you to go to the ball with Howard? I cannot explain just now, but—well, I’ll be there late, in time to have a couple of dances and bring you home. I’m sorry that I cannot explain exactly—it is something important that will keep me away until late.”
He looked up, to find her staring at him fixedly.
“Why—what is the matter?” he stammered.
“I—oh, Roger, it is nothing!”
He sat down beside her and started to take her in his arms, but she drew away from him.
“Why, Faustina”
“I’m—oh, I’m just a bit nervous, Roger.”
“There seemed to be something troubling you yesterday, and there certainly is to-day,” he said. “Can’t you confide in me, Faustina? Is there anything wrong—anything I can do to help?”
“Nothing you can do—to help,” she said.
“Then there is something wrong?”
“Don’t ask me, please, Roger. I’m nervous, worried. Just let me rest until to-night—I’ll try to be all right then. Certainly I’ll go to the ball with Howard—and expect you later. And now you’ll go, won’t you, Roger? I must lie down—and rest.”
The puzzled Verbeck walked slowly to the door, Faustina following him. He took her in his arms and kissed her. She did not return the caress, and she seemed on the verge of tears.
“Don’t worry,” he said softly.
“You tell me not to worry?”
“Why, yes. Perhaps whatever is troubling you will cease to trouble. We’ll talk of it to-night? You’ll let me help you?”
“Yes,” she said, “we’ll talk of it to-night. We must talk of it to-night.”
Verbeck hurried out, got into the car, and started for the business district. Faustina’s actions and manner worried him, yet his mind was busy with the Black Star and his affair. Once the Black Star and his band of crooks were handed over to the police, he’d look into Faustina’s trouble, he told himself. Perhaps Howard was running about too much. Perhaps there was financial trouble in the family. Whatever it was, he’d smooth things out, he promised. He couldn’t have Faustina worrying.
He drove carefully, now, through the heavy traffic, and finally stopped before a hotel. There he entered a public telephone booth, and called police headquarters again. Once more he got the chief on the wire.
“Will you listen now, and ask no questions?” he demanded. “This is no hoax, so you’d better act on my tip.”
Then he told the chief where the members of the Black Star’s band could be captured, and when and how.