Then he gave a number. Roger Verbeck made a mental note of it. Here might be a clew that would lead to something important.
Verbeck crept close to the door, and listened. Presently Landers spoke again.
"Hello! This is Landers! I'm trapped on the roof of the New Nortonia Hotel with Mamie and her sister. Kowen and his crowd are trying to break the door in now, but I think it'll take them some time, and then I can stand them off for a while. If you don't come for us, we're caught.... Yes, Verbeck and the sheriff. They walked in on us. I got them under control, but some others came. The place is a regular trap.... Thanks! But hurry!"
Verbeck slipped to one side as Landers put the receiver on the hook and hurried out. He followed the Black Star's lieutenant back across the roof, and watched as he met the women.
"He'll come for us!" Verbeck heard Landers say. "It'll take him some time, of course—fifteen minutes at least. We'll have to hold off those men on the other side of the door. If it comes to the worst, some of them will get something more than a dose out of a vapor gun. I don't intend to spend fifteen or twenty years in prison!"
"If we had only gone downstairs——" Mamie Blanchard began.
"If we had, we'd have run into a few deputies. I tell you they planned to trap us! They've shadowed some of us——"
"Then it must have been you!" Mamie Blanchard told him. "I have not been out of the hotel, remember. It's your carelessness that got us into this mess!"
"Well, we won't quarrel about it," Landers said. "You women go to the other side of the roof and wait. I'll stay near the door and handle those men if they manage to break it open."
Landers approached the door, and Verbeck crept after him. The light was so faint that he could see little—just a shadow where the master crook's lieutenant was walking. Verbeck crouched as he advanced, made no noise, and was ready to stop if Landers betrayed any suspicion. But Landers, it appeared, did not expect a foe on the roof, and was intent only upon the door at which the sheriff and Lawrence were pounding.