Black Star's Subterfuge

Front matter

by

John Mack Stone (Johnston McCulley)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER I.

SUDDEN ILLNESS.

SMIRKS, sarcastic grins, ingratiating smiles—these things had Roger Verbeck endured throughout the afternoon, until it seemed to him that his countenance burned continually because of humiliation, until his face had set with sternness, and he greeted friends and mere acquaintances alike with a cold and distant nod.

The Black Star had done this—that master criminal who had held the city at his mercy for six months or more, who committed crimes notable for their originality and daring.

It was five days now since the Black Star's robbery of the diamond vault of Jones & Co., a robbery in which he had made Roger Verbeck, his man Muggs, and Detective Riley objects of ridicule. In those five days the Black Star had made no open move, and the three men who had sworn to capture him waited for the next blow, hoping that, when it fell, they would at least find some minor clew to follow, some half-hidden trail that would lead them to the quarry.

Verbeck had spent the afternoon in the business section, purchasing supplies, for he had decided to live in the old Verbeck house with Muggs and Detective Riley, while his campaign against the Black Star was being waged. Even those who admired him because of his determination to match wits with the master criminal, smiled knowingly when he passed. They had read the Black Star's letters to the newspapers, in which he had told how he had hidden in Verbeck's own house, while the police looked for him throughout the city.

And now, at seven o'clock in the evening, Roger Verbeck sat at a table in a corner of a fashionable restaurant, his back to the room, and tried to enjoy his dinner. Detective Riley had gone to police headquarters for a visit. Muggs was purchasing more supplies, and was to get his own dinner and meet Verbeck with the roadster an hour later.

Enjoyment of the meal seemed an impossibility. Verbeck knew those in the restaurant who recognized him were grinning behind his back. He knew the public was watching the duel between himself and the Black Star, ready to ridicule Verbeck if he lost, and as eager to applaud him if he won and sent the master rogue to prison.

The police worked in vain to corral the master crook and his band. Long ago the public had begun to regard the police department as worthless in this particular affair. Moreover, the feud between Roger Verbeck, the young millionaire, and the Black Star, acknowledged clever criminal, was more spectacular. And so Verbeck found himself in a corner. To save himself from humiliation, he must continue his campaign with the help of only Muggs and Detective Riley until the Black Star passed through prison doors to begin a long sentence.

The smirks and grins that Verbeck had faced this day served only to double his determination to conquer the Black Star. It was a game of wits and strategy, for the Black Star abhorred violence. None knew better than Roger Verbeck that he had been out-generaled in the last affair. But failure had increased his caution and cunning. In their next clash, he felt sure, the Black Star would find that the mettle of his foe was better.

Now Verbeck sipped his demitasse, and in a panel mirror before him observed the approach of the waiter with a finger bowl. He glanced at his watch—within fifteen minutes Muggs would be before the restaurant with the roadster. They would pick up Riley at headquarters and hurry to the old Verbeck house, to begin their vigil. For they slept in the daytime for the greater part, and remained alert at night, ready to answer an alarm if the Black Star committed another crime, eager to get on the scene as soon as possible and try to pick up the trail.

It was known that the Black Star had reorganized his band and established a new headquarters since Roger Verbeck and Muggs had almost destroyed his establishment. And from this new headquarters, Roger Verbeck doubted not, the master crook would conduct a campaign of crime that would terrorize the city. If the new headquarters could be located2

"Pardon me, sir, are you ill?"

Even as the waiter spoke, Verbeck realized that his thoughts were becoming confused, his hands were trembling, and beads of perspiration were standing on his forehead. His stomach revolted. He reached for the glass of water near him, and it was necessary for the waiter to guide it to his lips.

"I guess—I2" he stammered.

"Try to stand, sir. There is a small retiring room directly to your right. If you wish to go there, sir2"

The waiter aided him to stand even as he spoke. He guided Verbeck's faltering steps toward the little retiring room. Half a dozen diners had noted the occurrence. The head waiter hurried across the room.

"Mr. Verbeck had been taken ill suddenly," the waiter said, in a low voice.

Almost instantly the manager was among them.

"Why, it is Mr. Verbeck!" he gasped. "Suddenly ill, you say, George? Get a physician immediately!"

Verbeck was sitting on the divan in the corner of the room, scarcely able to keep from toppling over. He felt himself glowing weaker. His eyes closed, and he was unable to open them again. His head fell back. The manager bent forward and stretched him on the couch.

Two men appeared in the doorway, and the manager and head waiter whirled to face them.

"Pardon me," the first said, "but I noticed what happened, and thought I might be of some service. I am a physician—here is my card."

"Look at this man, then," the manager directed. "He became suddenly ill while eating2"

The professional-looking man already was bending over Roger Verbeck. His companion stood to one side.

"Why, it is Mr. Roger Verbeck!" the physician exclaimed. "I know him well, but did not recognize him in the restaurant—his back was toward us."

"Anything serious?" asked the worried manager.

"He is subject to these attacks—a peculiar stomach trouble," the physician explained. "I have treated him many times. Undoubtedly he ate something a bit too rich. No—it is not serious. But we must get him home. Have one of your men call a taxicab, and let it go into the alley. We can get him through the hallway and kitchen and into the cab. I presume you do not wish to have the other diners disturbed?"

The manager of the restaurant did not—that was what was worrying him. He sent a waiter to call the cab. He watched while the physician mixed a drop of medicine in water and poured the mixture down Verbeck's throat. The manager did not think it peculiar, in that moment of excitement, that the physician carried a vial of medicine in his waistcoat pocket.

"We'll take care of him, sir," the doctor went on. "This is a friend of mine who was dining with me. Do not be alarmed—I assure you, Mr. Verbeck will be himself again within an hour. It really is an advertisement for your place, rather than otherwise—it shows your food is rich."

The physician chuckled and smiled, quite like a professional man taking charge of a situation, and trying to put every one at ease. The manager felt grateful. He walked ahead as the physician and his friend carried Roger Verbeck through the narrow rear hallway and through the kitchen to the back door. He watched as they put him in the cab.

"Drive to Mr. Verbeck's residence as quickly as possible," he heard the physician order the chauffeur. "You know where it is—the old Verbeck mansion? Good!"

Well satisfied, the manager went back to the dining room, glad that it had not been any fault of his food that had made Roger Verbeck ill, glad also that few of the regular diners had noticed the incident.

The cab started through the alley, turned into the first street, and hurried toward a boulevard close by.

"Easy!" the physician said to his companion, chuckling as he looked at the unconscious Verbeck.

The cab sped along the boulevard. The Verbeck mansion was to the north; the taxi dashed south.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.

UNEXPECTED SLEEP.

MUGGS would not have recognized a pterodactyl had he met one face to face in the street. Also, he was woefully deficient in theories regarding the fourth dimension. He had, however, taken a post-graduate course in the University of Hard Knocks, where he had specialized in human nature, and hence he knew many things his better-educated brethren did not.

Muggs knew, for instance, that there are smiles and smiles, that they may be read as easily as print, and that, if read correctly, they tell a man's intentions—or a woman's—as openly as spoken words.

So now, when the stranger smiled at him again, Muggs analyzed the smile quickly and efficiently, and noted the one important thing—that the stranger smiled with his lips, but not with his eyes. The eyes were small and gray, and appeared to glitter venomously. Either the glitter of those eyes or the smile on the lips expressed a falsehood, and Muggs decided it was the smile that lied.

Muggs was aware, also, that the stranger had been regarding him intently for ten minutes at least. He had felt the other's eyes upon him. There had been a time in Muggs' career when he had been sensitive enough to feel immdiately the near presence of a hostile force, an accomplishment that often had saved him from prison. Though now he walked the straight and narrow path as valet, chauffeur, and comrade in arms to Roger Verbeck, he retained a great deal of his old sensitiveness.

Verbeck had told him to eat before rejoining him, and so Muggs had entered this little restaurant on a side street and ordered a modest meal. He had no more than seated himself when he became aware that he was under surveillance.

Being a man of broad experience, and at present engaged with Verbeck and Detective Riley in matching wits with a clever crook and his followers, Muggs used caution. He did not turn his head quickly to ascertain the identity of the person whose eyes he felt. He sipped his coffee and conveyed a generous bite of pie to his mouth, sat back and wiped his lips, and, without seeming to look up, he searched with his eyes a panel mirror directly before him, in which was reflected the interior of the little restaurant.

It was almost the same minute that Roger Verbeck, in the more fashionable restaurant, looked in a mirror and observed the approach of his waiter with the finger bowl.

Muggs spotted his man! He of the glittering eyes sat at a table near the door and pretended to be eating berries and cake. He was regarding the back of Muggs' head intently—and smiling the lying smile.

"There's one hombre I've never seen before, to the best of my knowledge and belief," Muggs told himself, "yet he seems to be mighty interested in me. A man would think he was layin' to hand me a jolt, the way he acts. It's up to me to hand out the jolt first!"

Muggs picked up his check and reached for his hat. As he turned to walk the length of the restaurant, he saw that the other man had risen also, and was hurrying toward the cashier's cage. Realizing that the stranger was eager to get outside, either to accost or trail him, Muggs did some smiling of his own now; and a wise man could have read many things in that smile, the most important being to hurry from the vicinity of Mr. Muggs as speedily as possible.

Muggs paid his check and fumbled over the toothpicks, giving the other man ample time to establish himself outside to his satisfaction. Then he threw back his shoulders, shot out his lower jaw belligerently, and headed for the door.

The stranger with the glittering eyes was standing at the curb, a short distance away, just at the rear of a taxi-cab, and looking up and down the street as if awaiting an automobile. Muggs walked straight toward him.

"Pardon me, but are you an artist?" Muggs demanded, in a peculiar tone.

"I am not. Why do you ask, sir?"

They faced each other squarely. The stranger was well aware now that Muggs knew of the recent espionage, and was about to demand an explanation; and Muggs knew he was aware of it.

"You ain't lookin' for a model of a perfect male human head?" Muggs asked now.

"I am not, sir."

"I thought maybe you was, stranger. The way you bored them eyes of yours into my head back there in the restaurant, I not only suspicioned you was lookin' for a model, but that you'd found your man."

"I—I beg your pardon!" The other simulated astonishment.

"Yeh? Do I infer from that, stranger, that you ain't found your man? If for any particular reason you was lookin' for me, I'm here with my pedigree. My name's Muggs. I've got one peculiarity, and that is, that when I find a stranger regardin' me too close I always want to plant a fist 'tween his eyes. Ain't that funny?"

"Really, I2"

"And just now," Muggs went on, "I'm engaged in a simple endeavor on the side, as my boss would say, that makes me nervous when a man gets pesty around me. I'm that nervous right now I could choke a man!"

"I—er—I fail to see2" the other stammered; and he started to walk slowly along the curb, Muggs following.

"It ain't polite to stare at the back of a man's head and grin sickly like at the same time," Muggs continued. "There wasn't anybody near me in there, and so you was lookin' at me. I want to know why! Now suppose you give me your pedigree, so we'll know just where we stand!"

They were opposite the taxicab now, and the chauffeur sprang from his seat and opened the door as if in anticipation of a fare. It appeared to Muggs that the other man would be only too glad to jump into that taxi and hurry away without explaining; and Muggs did not wish that. While the war against the Black Star and his band was in progress, explanations of any peculiar circumstance were necessary.

So now Muggs stepped before the open door of the cab himself, blocking the way, and faced the man who had smiled.

"I'm waitin' for an answer!" Muggs declared.

The stranger bent forward in the gathering dusk and raised a forefinger, as if to begin a protest of this conduct on Muggs' part. The chauffeur stood with his hand on the door, waiting.

"It seems to me2" the stranger began.

And in that second, Muggs realized that he had walked right into a trap. The chauffeur grasped him by the throat and kicked his feet from beneath him. The stranger he faced lunged forward suddenly and threw Muggs off his balance. Muggs was hurled to the interior of the cab neatly; and only one person on the street had witnessed the occurrence.

Like a flash, Muggs had his feet under him again and was crouched against the seat, ready to spring through the door and throttle the first of his foes he met. It flashed through his mind that he should blame himself much for being caught off guard. And then, before he scarcely realized what was happening, before he could make a move, the man who had watched him in the restaurant had entered the cab and closed the door, and the vehicle was moving away from the curb.

"Easy! Easy, my man!" the stranger warned.

The cab passed beneath the arc light at the corner just then, and Muggs saw steel glitter in the other's hand. It was not the nature of Muggs, however, to allow himself to be captured in this manner without making some effort to disconcert his captors. Moreover, he guessed this man and the chauffeur might belong to the Black Star's band. This might be part of a prearranged plan to injure Roger Verbeck in some way. And all that was necessary to arouse Muggs' ire and fighting blood was to threaten disaster to Verbeck, the man he adored, who had saved him from the waters of the Seine five years before and made him a man.

It took Muggs less than half a second to get his breath and decide that the proper thing to do would be to spring upon the other man and make an effort to overcome him, taking the chance of receiving a bullet in his vitals.

Muggs sprang like a lion, and silently!

In midair he met something new. The other had raised what Muggs had supposed was an automatic pistol fitted with a silencer. Now he pulled the trigger!

No hot lead seared Muggs, no bullet tore its way through his body. But, from the muzzle of the weapon flashed a cloud of pungent vapor, and Muggs, gasping his surprise, drew the vapor deep into his lungs.

The stranger caught Muggs in his arms and lowered him gently to the floor of the taxi. It seemed to Muggs that he realized fully what was going on, but was unable to do anything about it. He noticed the other man take a handkerchief from his pocket and hold it to his nostrils, and above the handkerchief the eyes glittered venomously as before. Muggs saw all this as they passed under another arc light.

And then dreamless sleep descended upon him!

Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.

THE NEW HEADQUARTERS.

MUGGS regained his cunning the instant he regained consciousness. He realized he was stretched on a couch, and that his hands and feet were bound. He made no effort to struggle, and he did not even open his eyes.

For fully a minute he lay motionless, almost without breathing, his ears strained to catch every sound. Once, coming from a distance, he heard the clanging bell of a trolley car. The rattling of vehicles on a busy paved street, the moaning of the wind that had been blowing a gale at the time of his abduction, the low-pitched voices of men in the room, discussing his case—the things he expected to hear—were not discernible.

Still he did not open his eyes, hoping that, if anybody was in the room, they would speak sooner or later and give him some clew to his predicament. He was breathing deeply and regularly now, his brain had cleared, and he knew the effect of the vapor he had inhaled had worn away. And then2

"Why play 'possum, Mr. Muggs? You have been conscious, and your brain has been active, for the better part of five minutes, and I know it!"

The voice was low, deep, striking—the words coming in a peculiar staccato. Muggs remembered that the Black Star possessed a voice like that. He opened his eyes.

"That is better. Why pretend?"

Opening his eyes was all Muggs did, save gasp, for he did not have to move his body to observe the scene. It was spread before him.

He was on a couch in a corner of a large room. The apartment was lavishingly furnished; mahogany table and chairs, tapestries, art rugs were there to delight the eye.

At one end of the table stood a tall figure enveloped in a flowing black robe with a hood that covered the head. The face was hidden by a black mask through which two eyes glittered. On the front of the hood, in flaming jet, was a big star.

"The Black Star!" Muggs gasped, scarcely knowing why he spoke at all, since it seemed so useless.

"You have guessed correctly, Muggs," the Black Star said, chuckling. "Once again you see the Black Star in his headquarters, his workshop. Before, you visited me like a thief in the night, accompanied by Roger Verbeck, the man you style your boss. This time, I have had you brought here."

The Black Star folded his arms and looked at the man on the couch, as if speculating what to do with him. Muggs remained silent, waiting, his brain busy with a thousand thoughts. He knew now that it was a member of the Black Star's band who had watched him in the restaurant, and that the chauffeur had been another. And why had he been abducted and carried to the master criminal's headquarters? Did the Black Star think he could hold Muggs as hostage and force Roger Verbeck to cease his campaign to put the master rogue behind the bars?

"Really, Mr. Muggs, I had hoped for something better from you," the Black Star was saying. "When I gave orders for you to be abducted and carried here I laughed to myself—I believed the men who received those orders would have their hands full. It appears, however, that the task was as easy as picking up a child."

"Yeh?" Muggs snarled.

"I knew, you see, that you would be in the business district to-day, since Roger Verbeck was purchasing supplies—stocking up the old Verbeck house well, to be comfortable with you and Detective Riley while conducting his campaign to capture me2"

"And you can bet he'll gel you yet!" Muggs loyally exclaimed.

"Do you really think so, Muggs? However, I have you now!"

"Well, what's it to be—goin' to shoot me, or what?"

"My dear Muggs! I abhor violence! I am not a thug. Wit, strategy, the game of brains—those are the things! My purpose in bringing you here was not ulterior."

"Talk United States and get it off your chest, quick!" Muggs said.

"Such language! I cannot, for the life of me, understand why a refined gentleman like Roger Verbeck endures your companionship. By having you carried here, I believed I was doing Mr. Verbeck a favor."

"Yeh?"

"He matched his wit against mine, and almost destroyed my organization once. I escaped the silly police, however, and formed my organization anew, also obtained a new headquarters. Has it not been the desire of yourself, Mr. Verbeck and Detective Riley—the trio sworn to capture me—to discover the whereabouts of this new headquarters? Well—here it is, Muggs."

"I can see the headquarters, all right!"

"And please observe the heavy curtain on that side of the room. It covers an open doorway, Muggs. I am going to lift that curtain now and give you a shock. Yes, Muggs, I feel sure it will be quite a shock."

The Black Star walked slowly across the room to the curtain, turned and looked at Muggs again, then swiftly threw the curtain back. With an exclamation, Muggs struggled to get to his feet. In the doorway, sitting bound in a chair, his hands fastened before him—was Roger Verbeck. A handkerchief gagged him.

"You—you got the boss!" Muggs cried. "You2"

"Oh, yes! It proved as easy to capture Roger Verbeck as it did to get you, Muggs, so do not feel too much grieved that you were taken by my men. I merely wanted to make sure of the capture of one of you, to show you the new headquarters, but my men were so successful they caught two of you. Match wits with the Black Star and his band? You poor fools!"

"You—you2" Muggs sputtered in sudden wrath at seeing his beloved master in such an extremity. Rage gathered within him, and he twisted at wrists and ankles in a futile effort to get free. The Black Star stepped forward and pushed against Muggs' breast, and Muggs was toppled over on the couch.

"Take it easy, Muggs," the Black Star advised. "I have no intention of harming Mr. Verbeck, nor yourself. I merely intend keeping both of you here for a short time, letting you witness anything that may transpire, and then you'll be allowed to go. Understand?"

Muggs growled and looked at the floor. Verbeck felt suddenly elated. It would be like the Black Star to take such a chance. He could crow about it afterward—write letters to the papers, and say he had abducted Roger Verbeck and Muggs, and revealed the new headquarters to them, yet could not be located and captured. And it was possible, Verbeck thought, that he might observe or hear something that would give him a clew to the location of the place. He doubted not, that when he and Muggs were sent away again, they would go unconscious, as they had come.

"This headquarters is a great improvement over the old one," the Black Star said. "I really ought to thank you, Mr. Verbeck, for driving me out of the other. Allow me, Mr. Verbeck, to remove the gag."

He went forward and removed it, and unlashed Verbeck from the chair. Then he helped him hop across the room and caused him to sit down beside Muggs.

"That is much better," he said. "I may mention that it will do you no good to shriek or screech or howl for assistance. The place we are in2 Ah!"

A bell had tinkled. Muggs struggled and managed to sit up on the couch beside Verbeck. Both of them remembered about that other headquarters. There bells had tinkled, and members of the Black Star's band of criminals had entered to make reports or receive orders. Gowns and masks—and conversations carried out on blackboards. Yes—there were the blackboards!

"A friend is coming, gentlemen," the Black Star said. "I request that you remain on the couch and keep silent. You cannot tell what may happen if you try to leave the couch."

The Black Star chuckled and disappeared through a small door. Again a bell tinkled. Another door, on the opposite side of the room, opened, and there entered another man clad in black robe and mask, save that no star of jet flamed on the hood of the robe.

He started forward in surprise when he observed Muggs seated upon the couch beside Verbeck, but checked himself and did not speak. Neither did Verbeck speak, for he was busy speculating as to the newcomer's height and weight, watching every movement he made, trying to fasten upon something that would enable him to recognize the man if they met again elsewhere. Muggs, however, refused to remain silent.

"Good evening," he said. "The boss is out just now. Anything I can do for you? Got a few diamonds or anything like that you've pinched to-day?"

The smaller door opened and the Black Star entered the room. He went immediately to one of the little blackboards on the wall, picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote quickly:

"Muggs! Silence, as I instructed, or2

Then he turned and exhibited to Muggs a weapon. Verbeck supposed it to be an ordinary revolver, but Muggs, who had passed through an experience that evening, guessed that it held no bullets, but the pungent vapor that had caused his downfall in the taxicab. Muggs became silent. He did not wish to be put to sleep while Roger Verbeck was there and might soon need help.

The Black Star motioned his man to the second blackboard.

"No. 7," the man wrote.

"Countersign?" the Black Star demanded on his board.

"Georgia."

"Report."

The other turned his back and wrote rapidly and at length. Muggs and Verbeck bent forward on the couch and peered across the room. Was it possible, Verbeck wondered, that the Black Star was going to allow them to read the blackboard conversation, and then let them go back to the Verbeck house with whatever information they had acquired?

The message was done; the man stepped back. Verbeck and Muggs read what he had written as the Black Star read it:

"Our man goes on duty to-night. Burglar alarms have been fixed. At two in the morning, policeman on beat always stops in restaurant for coffee, as was reported before. Should he not, disturbance will be raised at end of block to decoy him away at proper time."

The Black Star motioned for him to erase, then wrote himself:

"What about the gold?"

"Gold received to-day at noon; moved in quickly and secretly. Hundred thousand in usual sacks. Intend keeping it here about week, then shipping it on, part at time."

When Verbeck read that he had difficulty in adhering to his determination to betray no astonishment. Was it possible the master criminal and his band contemplated the theft of a hundred thousand dollars in gold coin? And they were discussing it here before him and Muggs as if they had been discussing the state of the weather!

"Arrangements for moving perfected?" the Black Star wrote now.

"Everything in readiness; cannot fail," the other answered with the chalk. "Two closed autos. Six of us to handle coin. Garbage wagon will block one end of alley; we will guard other end."

Verbeck was getting the details swiftly now, and an exchange of glances with Muggs showed that the latter also was letting every word written on the blackboard beat into his brain, and making a special effort to remember. They were going to move a fortune in gold in two closed autos. One end of the alley would be blocked and the other guarded. Of all the nerve2

"Good!" the Black Star was writing now. "Let it be to-night at the time agreed."

Why, Verbeck even knew the time! Two o'clock in the morning, when the policeman on the beat would either be drinking coffee in a restaurant, else attracted by a fake light!

All Verbeck had to do now, if allowed to go, or if he escaped in time, was to get word to Detective Riley and to police headquarters, have the chief ascertain what bank or trust company had a hundred thousand in gold received that day, place police around the building, frustrate the Black Star's plan, and possibly capture the master crook or some of his band! Moreover, there was a chance2