"The sheriff and a deputy trailed me. When I got near the cottage, I began acting in a peculiar manner. I hurried inside, locked the door, and went out through the tunnel and the alley. At the corner, I saw the sheriff and his deputy still looking at the cottage."
"Well, you did your part!" the man said. "Now we'll wait to learn whether the rest of the plan worked out."
They waited for half an hour. Then the telephone rang, and the man answered. When he hung up the receiver and turned away, he was grinning.
"It worked!" he said. "Number Ten has just reported. The sheriff sent for more men, and broke into the house. They found the basement room and read the orders, and they found the tunnel, too. Number Ten reports that the sheriff has gone to police headquarters."
"And that means," said Mamie Blanchard, "that there'll be half a hundred cops around that cottage to-night, and all the rest will be at the National Trust Company."
"Exactly! And while they are at the National Trust, we'll be looting the First National. That fake headquarters did the trick—just as the big boss said it would!"
"What now, Landers?" Miss Blanchard asked.
It was the first time she had spoken his name. Like herself, Landers had been in the Black Star's old organization, and now was one of the master criminal's shrewd lieutenants. He had helped organize the new band, and had engineered the Black Star's rescue.
"I must go and report," he said. "I'll report for
