CHAPTER XXIX—BLACK STAR TAKES A TRICK

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.

Both chauffeurs got all the speed possible out of the machines they drove. The police had been left behind for the time being, but there was danger of them getting to a telephone in some way and sending an alarm to headquarters. If the Black Star’s autos were headed off as they were entering the city, disaster might follow. If they could gain the city’s streets and separate, undoubtedly their chances for getting to the lodge hall unobserved would be excellent.

The Black Star was not worrying about the police. He deemed it a coincidence that the launch had run upon him. He believed the officers had been looking for river thieves, and that they would continue to look for them. He did not think for a moment that the police in the launch were looking for the Black Star and members of his band. How could that be possible? How could the police know that this was the night the Black Star had chosen for a crime and that he would be coming up the river in a launch?

“We’ll be at th’ bridge in a few minutes,” the master criminal’s chauffeur warned.

“The road curves up to the bridge,” the Black Star replied. “I do not think it possible that word could have been sent ahead, but it is well to be prepared. Slow down as you reach the curve and shut off your lights. The car behind will do the same. We’ll stop this side of the curve and investigate.”

On dashed the cars, and presently the Black Star’s chauffeur decreased his speed, forcing the chauffeur behind to do the same. The lights of the two cars went out; they rolled along the road with scarcely any noise, and presently came to a stop.

Here the road ran close to the river, and by getting from the car and walking a hundred feet the master criminal could look down at the bridge. He took one of his men with him and went to make his investigation. He saw at a glance what was happening.

The police, it was evident, had reached a telephone. The bridge at the moment was swinging open. And when it was open it remained so, though there was no boat in sight to make the passage through. And, as the master criminal watched, he saw the police launch darting up the river. Its searchlight flashed upon the bridge, and its siren bellowed. It turned toward the shore and touched. The police sprang out and ran up the bank. The Black Star could see them reach the floor of the bridge and run along it to the tender’s shanty. Then they scattered, hiding among girders and along the bridge approach.

“Um! Very clever!” the Black Star said to his man. “There is only the one road, too. We drive at a furious pace on to the bridge; we see the draw open, and we stop—and the clever police spring out and make us all prisoners. Very clever—except that I anticipated it.”

“Maybe we could turn around and get back to our launch,” his man suggested.

“Fool! In the first place, we’d lose valuable time, and then, when we did come up the river, we’d have to clash with the police boat again. Also, my brainy friend, if our launch is where we left it, you may be sure there is a police guard there waiting for us to return. If you happen to have any brains, try to use them.”

The Black Star’s man gulped and kept silent.

“Go back to the cars and have all the men come here, bringing Muggs and Verbeck,” the master criminal ordered.

The man obeyed; within two minutes all were grouped around the Black Star, and the unconscious prisoners were on the ground at the foot of a tree. The Black Star explained their predicament.

“You chauffeurs, get back in the cars, turn on the lights, and drive on to the bridge,” he instructed. “When the police question you, simply say you have been out to that road house on the river bank earlier this evening—which will be true—and not finding fares there, or prospects of any, are on your way back to the city. Admit you heard firing back on the road, and saw men rushing through the trees. Say you didn’t stop because you were afraid of being held up—there have been several automobile holdups in that vicinity recently. And argue with the police as long as possible, while we do our part.”

The chauffeurs hurried away. They ran some risk, they knew. They might be put under arrest, but they had little fear of that. Both held licenses as public chauffeurs, and they had established the road-house alibi on the master criminal’s orders. And, if held, the Black Star would see that they were bailed out—and then they’d simply jump their bail.

“We’re going through that bridge and to the city, and we’re going in the police launch,” the Black Star told the others. “That’ll be rather rubbing it in, but the police deserve it. I’ll write a letter to the papers afterward, telling just how we did it. There is only one man in the launch. We must seize it and make a quick get-away. Run under the bridge and straight up the river. We’ll desert the police boat a short distance down the stream. I’ve arranged for two taxicabs to be there. I wasn’t exactly sure where it would be best to leave our own launch, and I always prepare for emergencies.”

He led the way through the brush on the bank of the river. They had but a short distance to go, and they were directly opposite the police boat and about a hundred feet from it when they heard the two automobiles run up on the bridge and stop at the command of a policeman.

The Black Star was a wise general; he did not send all his men forward at once. Had he done that, the engineer of the launch would have been suspicious and instantly sounded an alarm. The master criminal selected one man, and had him walk boldly through the brush and down to the launch. In the semidarkness the engineer of the launch would believe him to be one of the plain-clothes men returning with orders.

The Black Star’s man was within a dozen feet of the boat before the engineer was aware of his approach, for he was busy with the searchlight. He turned when he heard the man splashing through the mud at the edge of the river, and before he could ask a question he received a shot from a vapor gun and collapsed in the bottom of the boat, unconscious.

The searchlight had been playing on the bridge approach. The Black Star’s man swerved it aside for a moment, and then back into position, thus notifying his master that his work had been accomplished.

Down through the brush crept the Black Star and his men, carrying their two prisoners. They reached the launch and boarded it, and the master criminal’s engineer hurried to his machinery. The police engineer had been tossed out on the shore.

But the escape was not to be made without trouble. There was a captain in charge of the police squad who thought quickly. When the two empty automobiles reached the bridge, and the questioning of the chauffeurs began, this captain ordered half his men to return to the launch and go back up the river to look for traces of their quarry. They broke through the brush just as the launch’s engineer was put on the shore.

The mere sight of men aboard the launch was enough to tell the police what had occurred. They charged forward, shooting wildly and yelling alarms to their companions up on the bridge. Bullets smashed into the sides of the craft as it backed slowly away from the shore. The engineer was doing his best, but he could not turn and put on speed until safely away from the shallows.

It was a perilous moment for the Black Star and his men. The criminals returned the fire, but made no attempt to hit their targets, for the master crook’s orders always stood against inflicting wounds or causing death, unless it was absolutely necessary. Crouching in the bottom of the launch, they waited for the engineer to back out into the stream. More police were hurrying down from the bridge, and soon would be firing at the launch. And they would be able to keep up their volleys until the launch was some distance away, endangering the Black Star and his men and prisoners every moment of the time.

But the master criminal, it appeared, though he pretended to abhor all violence, was no physical coward. He sprang to his feet, away from the protection of the bulwarks, and jumped forward to the searchlight. While bullets rained around him he reached the light and turned it. It flashed straight into the faces of the foes on the shore, blinding them at that short range, making them easy targets, and rendering them incapable of aiming at the men on the launch.

Some continued firing in the path of light; others sprang for cover in the brush, expecting the men on the boat to fire a volley. The laugh of the Black Star rang out; he continued playing the light on them. The launch was out in the stream now and turning; a moment later the engineer gave her the maximum amount of speed, and she dashed beneath the bridge and toward the city.

“Too bad our prisoners could not have been conscious and enjoyed this little battle,” he told his men. “Really, Muggs and Verbeck are not in the thick of it at all to-night. Generally they cause a part of the trouble, but to-night all our trouble has come from others.”

He chuckled as if well pleased with himself.

“Some joke this—stealing the enemy’s boat,” he observed.