The Black Star: A Detective Story

Instinct and experience told Verbeck that this sight might prove too much for Muggs and he gripped the smaller man by the arm to indicate that he was to maintain quiet. It was w...

Muggs apparently was making an effort to speak, but could not collect his wits. Blood was flowing from a wound on the back of his head. He staggered again, and would have fallen...

That evening there came the heavy winds again. They came as night descended, to howl about buildings and shriek through the streets, carrying the merest suggestion of snow. They...

Winds whistled up the river, and winds whistled down from the hills, and they met to swirl and gather fury and rattle the city’s millions of windowpanes. They carried a mixture...

The man who peered through the keyhole saw a large room, furnished lavishly. The furniture was massive and antique; the rugs on the floor were valuable; tapestries of rare worth...

Muggs, crouched down behind the wheel, watched the fine rain beat against the wind shield of the roadster, and hoped he would not have to remain in that position of inaction for...

“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.”

At seven o’clock Verbeck ordered Muggs to bed, promising to call him with Riley at ten o’clock. He had kept the morning papers from Muggs, for he had decided to announce the fai...

Muggs was a product of the slums, and had known the inside of a prison. Five years before, Roger Verbeck had picked him up in Paris, at a time when Muggs was contemplating throw...

“Follow the wire!” Riley advised. “That woman is one of the Black Star’s gang that’s turned against him. She’s tipped us off right, and I’ll bet on it! It’s only a few minutes a...

“Yes. That devil worked a trick on me—he got away. He intended to come here and get money, then hurry out of town. I—I telephoned the police, boss, to come here, and I came myse...

As he ceased speaking, the Black Star turned suddenly and gave his prisoner a shot from the vapor gun. His own men evidently had guessed what was coming, for they turned their f...

Verbeck opened his eyes at eleven o’clock that morning after a dreamless, refreshing sleep to find Muggs standing at the foot of his bed, fully dressed, grinning, the morning ne...

“They let him escape, I’m telling you! How, in the name of all that’s human, they could do it is more than I can guess! Don’t ask me—ask some of these boobs! For months we’ve be...

“Put in at the alley between National and Washington Streets,” he ordered. “Out with your lights, and make as little noise as possible. The two taxicabs should be waiting at the...

That was all, and then they started to creep forward, their eyes on the vault, from which not a bit of light came. The Back Star evidently was working in the dark.

Muggs stood in front of the door for a moment after Verbeck had dashed from the house, then turned to face the Black Star again. Muggs’ lower jaw was shot out, his eyes were nar...

When the Black Star had entered the aperture in the lodge hall, and the panel closed behind him, he flashed his electric torch around the interior of a space about five feet lon...

The head of the police department, knowing that a crowd surrounded the block now, and that news had gone abroad that the Black Star and some of his men had been cornered, and th...

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...

The Black Star rode in the first car with his two prisoners and three of his trusted men, and the others followed in the second car as close as safety would permit.

The forces were about even, and these men of the Black Star’s organization whom he had taken into his inner circle, and, in a measure, into his confidence could be expected to p...

When the Black Star opened his eyes he saw a peculiar-looking individual before him, scarcely half a dozen feet away, who held an automatic pistol in his hand in a threatening m...

Detective Riley grasped the nearest telephone and sent an alarm to headquarters. Less than an hour later the report came that Verbeck’s roadster had been found abandoned on a co...

Silence followed the announcement of the Black Star—silence for a moment, during which Muggs watched his master and waited for the sign that he was to choke the man on the divan...

“Careful—whisper! Step closer, Howard. I, too, was almost caught in the Black Star’s trap. I discovered his hiding place and took him prisoner. I knew his gang would have to be...

The erstwhile prisoner had reached the ground and was darting through the shadows toward the alley. Down this he ran for half a block, then crept between two buildings, and so r...

Verbeck put his car in the garage, returned to his apartment and slept. He awakened at eleven o’clock, rushed through bath and breakfast, got the car out again, purchased grocer...

When Muggs had departed Verbeck got up and walked into the other room, where the Black Star was on the floor in an uncomfortable position. Muggs had left the window open, and th...

Eight o’clock that night found Roger Verbeck in the Black Star’s headquarters, the room put in order, and the candles burning. He was sitting at the end of the long table, in ro...

The Black Star took his aëroplane to an altitude of three thousand feet, circled over the city, and finally started down the river. He gave all his attention to the machine, and...

There was a blanket, a store of provisions, a telephone that they knew without examination had been connected with the one in the living room below, and the end of the dictograp...

Down on the bank of the river a speedy launch was concealed under overhanging trees. Two men were waiting in it when the Black Star, his other followers, and the two prisoners a...

Roger Verbeck’s powerful, four-seated roadster, its curtains up against the fine drizzle of rain, and with Muggs at the wheel, drew up when the traffic policeman raised a warnin...

Verbeck and Muggs had taken many wild rides in the big roadster, but nothing that compared to this. On the boulevard, the street cleaners had removed most of the snow, but the s...

It was exactly one o’clock in the morning when Mr. Roger Verbeck clasped in his arms Miss Faustina Wendell—dainty, sweet, and twenty-four—and pressed upon her lips an ardent kiss.

“You think I am jesting? I never jest about my work, Mr. Verbeck. I imagine you’ll have to find another home before night. Pardon me if I ring off now. It is possible you are se...