The Black Star Part 19

"I insist, Mr. Verbeck. We cannot afford to run chances. If anything happened to you, and we hadn't given you protection after receiving those threats, we'd never hear the last of it. You're a prominent young man, remember. Just let the men stay. You haven't heard anything, have you?"

"Not a thing," Verbeck replied, "and we can't make a move until we do."

"We've got the greatest dragnet in the history of the department in operation-watching every exit from the city and searching everywhere-have corralled half a hundred suspects already. If the Black Star is in the city we'll get him. We're only hoping he's brazen enough to tip off where he is or what he intends doing. If he does, he may find he has gone too far."

"But really, chief, I'd rather not have the men here."

A rattling noise came through the telephone, and another voice spoke.

"Get off the line!" the chief roared. "This line's busy."

"Pardon me," said the voice. "I just wanted to tell Mr. Verbeck that he'd better let the police remain. He'll need them to guard him."

"Who the devil are you?" the chief roared.

"I am the Black Star!"

"W-what?"

"Fact, I a.s.sure you. You might as well shout from the housetops, chief. I know everything you do and say. So you've got out the dragnet, eh? Might as well call in your men; it'll not do any good to tire them out."

"How-what--" the chief stammered. He was beginning to realize that the Black Star actually was on the line and speaking.

"Don't excite yourself, chief. And you, Mr. Verbeck, if you relish protection, better let the chief scatter a hundred men around your place. Even that number wouldn't save you!"

"How'd you get on this line? Where are you?" the chief shouted into the instrument, not realizing he was talking foolishly.

"Possibly I've tapped the line right in police headquarters building-who knows?" the Black Star taunted. "And you scarcely can expect me to tell you where I am. Why not find me? Go right on hoping I'll be brazen enough to tip off what I intend doing, chief-it does a person good to hope."

"You-you're a devil!" the chief exploded.

"Thanks for the compliment! Good-by!"

Again the rattling sound, and then they heard the Black Star's voice no more.

CHAPTER XVIII-MYSTERIES

Verbeck turned and told Riley and Muggs, as well as the policemen, what had occurred over the telephone.

"That man ain't human," the sergeant offered.

"You bet he is human, and by that token we'll get him!" Riley declared. "He thinks he's playin' a funny game, and he is, but there's an end to every game."

"He sure is human!" Muggs declared. "'Twas a human fist he smashed me with in back of the ear once-I know! But we'll get him!"

"The fact of the matter is," said Riley, "that we don't know whether it was the Black Star talkin'. If he's got a bunch of helpers, maybe one of them's at police headquarters and just naturally tapped the chief's private telephone line."

"It was the Black Star-I know his voice," Verbeck said. "There is no doubt about it. He speaks in a peculiar, halting way that I'll defy any one to imitate correctly." He turned to the sergeant. "You may post your men," he said. "I presume the chief's orders must be obeyed."

After the sergeant and his men had gone, Verbeck closed the door and turned to face Muggs and the detective.

"This waiting makes me nervous," he admitted. "I'd like to be doing something. But, as you said, Riley, we can do nothing except wait until the Black Star makes a move, and then attempt to get on his trail. If ever we do get on his trail--"

"We'll get him!" Muggs announced.

"So we may as well make ourselves comfortable. You cook a good dinner, Muggs-we've got all sorts of supplies. Riley, take another cigar and get that sour look off your face. All we can do is wait."

Muggs departed for the kitchen, and Riley stretched his length on a divan and blew clouds of smoke toward the ceiling. Verbeck walked to a window and observed that the police had been scattered around the block just inside the fence.

In the kitchen pots and pans rattled, and they heard Muggs mumbling to himself because the fire would not blaze to suit him. Riley, after a time, arose and paced the floor like a hound that wanted to be on the scent and had been retained in kennels. Verbeck called up Faustina Wendell and held a conversation of some ten minutes, during which his fiancee expressed a thousand fears for his welfare, and Verbeck stated half a hundred times that she was not to worry. His telephone conversation at an end, he began pacing the floor also. The monotony of waiting was tiresome.

"We've got to start a checker tournament or something lively like that," Riley declared, "or we'll go insane. Some time during the next four days, eh? Ain't that what the Black Star said in his letter? I wish he'd make it to-night. And I'll bet that the devil, just to be ornery, will wait until the last hour of the four days. Where do you suppose he'll strike?"

"That's a hard question to answer," Verbeck replied. "He's liable to do almost anything that means profit. You want to remember that he had an organization that was collecting information for him, as I discovered. He knows more than we think. He has combinations of safes, knows the personal habits of people, knows-oh, everything that a crook would want to know if he pulled off a job! The information I found tabulated at his headquarters was all concerning jewels to be worn at the Charity Ball, but Heaven alone knows, besides himself, what he had gathered in the way of facts before that."

"But he said he'd commit the greatest crime since he'd got to town,"

Riley went on. "What could that be? He's turned some pretty good tricks, you'll remember."

"He might get into the vault of the First National," Verbeck offered.

"No chance! That's the finest--"

"Pardon me, Riley. Fine vaults and burglar-proof affairs do not seem to bother the Black Star. You remember how he robbed the safety-deposit boxes of the National Trust, don't you?"

"Well, what would be something big he could do?" the detective asked.

"He goes after money, but jewels are his particular delight, if I have judged the man correctly," Verbeck said. "He has some perfect arrangement for disposing of them at a profit, I suppose. And there are half a hundred places he could make a rich haul of jewels. He's what might be called a jewel fiend, Riley. He-- Ah!"

"What's the matter?" Riley asked, looking up quickly and stopping his pacing.

"I have an idea."

"If it's anything that will help us catch the Black Star or bring him out of his hole so we can chase him, for Heaven's sake let us have it!" Riley cried.

"It is something that may bring him out of his hole-a trap! Why didn't I think of it before? And it can be arranged easily."

"Let's have it, then."

"As you know, I am to be married soon. My gift to my bride will be the same my father gave my mother-the famous Verbeck diamond necklace.

That necklace is in a certain safe-deposit vault now, and I'll not even tell you where it is."

"But where's the trap, Roger?"

"A moment, Riley-don't be so impatient. That necklace is the same as the day my father clasped it on his bride's throat. That was a good many years ago, and fas.h.i.+ons in jewel settings change. So naturally, before I present it to my bride, I'll have to have the stones reset."