Black Star's Campaign/Chapter 20
CHAPTER XX
ON THE TRAIL
HAVING received Muggs' startling telephone message that he was trailing Landers, the master crook's trusted lieutenant, Roger Verbeck left his fiancée, hurried from the apartment house, engaged a taxicab, and had the chauffeur drive him to the New Nortonia Hotel as quickly as possible.
He got out of the cab half a block away from the hotel entrance, and looked around for the roadster and Muggs, but failed to find them. Verbeck's enthusiasm began to die instantly. He had hoped to find Muggs still there, to join him, possibly to follow Landers until he met more of the gang.
For half an hour Verbeck loitered around the corner, and then he decided that Muggs had been forced to go on alone, that Landers had left the hotel and Muggs had been afraid to remain behind, lest he lose his man. So Verbeck went home to await another telephone message, as he had told Muggs he would do.
At the end of an hour, he had received no message. He paced the floor, consumed several cigarettes, and began worrying a bit about it. That Muggs was the sort of man to rush into trouble, Verbeck knew well. Muggs was inclined to fight first and think about things afterward. If Muggs had located Landers, and Landers did not know it, there were several possibilities.
Muggs might have followed the Black Star's lieutenant to the master crook's headquarters, or been decoyed to some other place and made prisoner. It was the silence of Muggs that bothered Roger Verbeck. Surely he could have managed to get to a telephone within an hour, Verbeck thought.
Verbeck waited for another hour, and still had received no message from Muggs. He called a certain number himself, and spoke at length to the man who answered him, and who would relay the message to the chief of police by word of mouth.
"Muggs spotted one of the Black Star's men and started to follow him," Verbeck said. "He hasn't reported to me since. Tell the chief to have all the men on the force look for my roadster, as Muggs was driving it. Muggs may need help. And wherever that roadster is found, some of the Black Star's men may be in the neighborhood. Understand? Possibly Muggs has not had a chance to communicate with me. He may be a prisoner."
Roger Verbeck continued to pace the floor of his living room and wait. Half an hour afterward his telephone bell rang, and he hastened to answer, hoping that the call was from Muggs, and that it would lead to the apprehension of the Black Star or some of his people.
"Mr. Verbeck?" asked a voice.
"Yes."
"Good afternoon. I trust that you are in excellent health. This is the Black Star speaking!"
"Well, what do you want?" Verbeck growled.
"Aren't you rather discourteous this afternoon? I have important news for you, too. Your man, Muggs is making me an extended visit at my headquarters. That is what I wished to let you know. He followed a member of my band, and stumbled upon the place. Some more of my men subdued him. I must keep him here now, of course, but I shall take good care of him, I assure you."
"You'd better!" Verbeck said.
"And your splendid roadster, Mr. Verbeck—Muggs was driving it, as you know. I have had one of my men take it downtown and leave it in front of the public library. You'd better hurry there and get it, or you'll be fined for leaving it standing in the street so long. I couldn't leave it where Muggs deserted it, you know; that might have given a clew to my whereabouts."
Then the Black Star terminated the conversation abruptly, and Roger Verbeck slammed the receiver into its hook. Verbeck had hoped that the discovery of his roadster would put the police and himself on the right trail.
Once more Verbeck called the go-between, and had the chief of police informed of his conversation with the Black Star. Then he called the office of the sheriff.
"That you, Kowen?" he asked. "This is Roger Verbeck. It has been given out, as you know, that I am no longer working with the police, and I am not certain whether the Black Star believes it, or not, though I scarcely think that he does. So I don't want to call on the police for help just now. I wish you'd hurry right up here to my place, Kowen. I've got an important clew. And have one of your men go to the corner by the New Nortonia Hotel and wait there for us, will you? We may need him."
"I'll send a good man there, and I'll be with you in fifteen minutes!" Kowen declared.
The sheriff was as good as his word. A quarter of an hour later he was sitting before the table in Verbeck's living room, puffing at a cigar Verbeck had given him.
"Well, Verbeck, what's the idea?" he wanted to know. "If you've got a clew to that crook's whereabouts, for Heaven's sake let's get busy on it. If we don't land him pretty quick, the dear public will be running us out of town."
"I visited my fiancée this afternoon," Verbeck said, "and left Muggs sitting in the roadster. A few minutes later, the clerk in the apartment house telephoned up to me that Muggs had said to tell me he had seen a man, and would call me later.
"I knew what that meant, of course. We had been watching continually for some of the Black Star's old people. So I waited eagerly for his message, and finally it came. The man he had been trailing was Landers, one of the Black Star's trusted lieutenants. Muggs said he had gone to the New Nortonia Hotel, and was visiting a couple of women named Whaley, who had room 256 there."
"Some clew!" said the sheriff.
"Wait! I told Muggs I'd be right over, but that if Landers left the hotel to follow him and call me at home later. When I got over there, Muggs was gone. I came home, and waited a couple of hours, but got no message from him. Finally the Black Star called me up. He said he had Muggs at his headquarters and would keep him a prisoner for a time. Muggs stumbled into some sort of a trap, it seems. We don't know where the crook's headquarters are, of course. But I'm inclined to investigate room 256, at the New Nortonia Hotel, sheriff. What do you think about it?"
"I should say we will investigate it!" Kowen declared. "If the Black Star's lieutenant visits the people in that room, I want to know who those people are."
"Muggs said they were two sisters named Whaley. That means nothing, of course. They probably belong to the Black Star's gang. They may be important, or they may be merely mediums through whom members of the band receive messages and orders from one another. Now, we want to go about this thing carefully, sheriff. We ought to investigate, but we don't care to have them know of it until we learn all there is to be learned."
"I get the idea," the sheriff agreed. "Let's go!"
"We'll wait until after dark—which will not be more than a couple of hours," Verbeck said. "I'll have some dinner sent up here, and that will help kill the time. I visit that hotel now and then myself—have a bachelor friend who lives there. So the clerk and elevator boy will think nothing of it if we go right up without being announced. You leave the little details for me, Kowen. All I want is your official support—and your good right arm, of course, in case we get into a bit of trouble."
"You can have 'em both!" the sheriff said.
Verbeck ordered the dinner, and the sheriff indulged in a moment of luxury. Never before had he smoked such cigars or eaten such food. Being a young man of fortune was a good thing, Kowen decided. He didn't see why Roger Verbeck should go around trying to round up a master crook when he was so comfortable at home.
Night descended, and they left the apartment and the building by means of a rear stairs. Verbeck explained that it was probable that the Black Star had somebody watching the place.
"We don't want them to think we know anything about that hotel," he said. "We may lose our chance to nab some of them if they get an idea we are on the right trail."
They walked through back streets, keeping in the shadows as much as possible, and finally reached the hostelry. There, of course, they had to enter boldly. Verbeck nodded to the clerk and hurried to the elevator with the sheriff at his heels. They ascended to the fourth floor, where Verbeck's friend, Lawrence, lived.
"We're here on business connected with a gentleman known to fame as the Black Star, Lawrence," Verbeck said, finding his friend in his suite.
"Good Lord! Think I'm a member of his gang?" Lawrence asked.
"Scarcely, or we'd not be taking you into our confidence," Verbeck replied. "Be a good boy, now, and help us, will you?"
"Surely! That big crook nipped my aunt's diamonds the last time he was on a rampage, and she never got them back. Just give me a chance at him. Those stones were to have been mine some day."
"In that case, you probably want revenge," said Verbeck, laughing. "Now, answer a few questions. You've lived here for three or four years and should know something about the place."
"I know all about it," Lawrence said.
"Where is room 256?"
"Ah! I had that room when I first came here, before I could get a suite. It's on the second floor, directly beneath us a couple of stories, with a fire escape running past its principal window."
"Of course there would be a fire escape," said Verbeck. "There are times when fire escapes are handy things. Lawrence, do you know the people who have that room now? I understand a couple of sisters live there—Whaley by name."
"I've seen one of them many times—sour-looking old girl about forty. Freeze you with a glance, and all that sort of thing—one of those women a man always dodges."
"Sure she is about forty?"
"Great Scott, don't I know the sex? Can't I guess a woman's age nine times out of ten? Aren't half the girls in town mad at me now because I always insist on doing it, and telling the truth about my guesses? She's forty, and she's fat—not plump, but fat—and she always looks as if she was ready to bite."
"Well, that description doesn't mean anything in my young life," Verbeck said. "I had hoped for something different. How about the other sister?"
"I've glanced at her a couple of times, but I haven't seen her at all recently. Maybe she's ill."
"What does she look like—that's what I want to know."
"Um!" said Lawrence. "Grace of a gazelle, my boy. Would have made advances, my boy, if the other hadn't frozen me with a glance."
"Hair?"
"Auburn—distinct auburn, the shade I most prefer—and plenty of it. Eyes, a sort of gray—don't know exactly what you'd call 'em. And the girl can wear clothes. There's a subtle perfume about her, my boy"
"And you only glanced at her a couple of times, eh? How old do you say she is?" Verbeck asked.
"Thirty," Lawrence replied. "Five feet six; weighs about a hundred and twenty-five, has magnificent shoulders"
"I knew it!" Verbeck cried.
"Can you place her?" Kowen asked.
"It is only a guess, of course," said Verbeck. "But I think I know who she is. And I'm sure you'd be interested in meeting her, Kowen. You'll take such a fancy to her that you'll probably want to take her to jail and put her into a cage. Kowen, is that man of yours at the corner, do you suppose?"
"If he isn't, he'll be fired pretty quick!"
"Go out and find him, and plant him beneath that fire escape. Tell him to nab anybody, man or woman, who tries to go down it. A person can go down that escape to the parlor on the first floor, you know, step through a window there, and walk out the front door of the hotel. Then you hurry right back here, Kowen."
The sheriff grasped his hat and hurried from the suite. Verbeck lighted a cigarette, looking toward the ceiling and smiled.
"I say, what is this all about?" Lawrence demanded. "Let me in on it, will you? I haven't had a bit of excitement for ages. I'm getting stale, man."
"Callow youths such as yourself should not run into danger," Verbeck explained.
"Confound it, I'm no callow youth. I'm only three years younger than you."
"But I have had experience, Lawrence. Restrain yourself for a few minutes, and you may see some excitement. But don't ask questions at the present time. I hate answering questions. We must wait until the sheriff comes back."