"Aw!" Muggs exclaimed, in huge disgust.
"You'll get plenty of action, Muggs, before this thing is over, if that is what is bothering you," Verbeck said. "What I am going to do just now calls for one man, and only one."
Verbeck walked down the street, and Muggs hunched down behind the wheel and glared at those who passed.
Verbeck turned the first corner and disappeared, as far as Muggs was concerned. He journeyed another block, turned another corner, and so approached the little cottage that Sheriff Kowen had investigated. He walked past it slowly, and glanced at the building. There was no sign of life about it.
Verbeck went on around the block and turned into the alley. He found the little door in the wall, but there appeared to be no way of opening it from the outside. He hurried on through the alley and made his way to the front again. If this was, in reality, the Black Star's headquarters, Verbeck did not want to spoil things by having some of the band see him loitering in the neighborhood.
He returned to the roadster, told Muggs to drive him home, and grinned at the look of disgust in Muggs' face.
"Ain't I in on this at all, boss?" Muggs wanted to know. "Gee! When we was after that big crook before, you let me know everything. Don't you trust me no more?"
"Certainly I trust you!" Verbeck told him. "You know that I do! But why bother you with minor details? In other words, Muggs, I am not sure of anything yet."
Reaching his rooms, Roger Verbeck spent the remainder of the day reading books, as if the Black Star and his band did not exist and call for thought. He ordered dinner earlier than usual, and then dressed in a plain dark suit, and put on a soft cap.
"Into the roadster again, old boy," he told Muggs. "Drive me to the same corner."