"It worked!" he said. "Number Ten has just reported. The sheriff sent for more men, and broke into the house. They found the basement room and read the orders, and they found the tunnel, too. Number Ten reports that the sheriff has gone to police headquarters."
"And that means," said Mamie Blanchard, "that there'll be half a hundred cops around that cottage to-night, and all the rest will be at the National Trust Company."
"Exactly! And while they are at the National Trust, we'll be looting the First National. That fake headquarters did the trick—just as the big boss said it would!"
"What now, Landers?" Miss Blanchard asked.
It was the first time she had spoken his name. Like herself, Landers had been in the Black Star's old organization, and now was one of the master criminal's shrewd lieutenants. He had helped organize the new band, and had engineered the Black Star's rescue.
"I must go and report," he said. "I'll report for you, too. You'd better stay pretty close to this suite for a few days. They'll be looking for you now, you know."
"I might as well be in jail as be a prisoner here," Mamie Blanchard pouted.
"It's orders!" Landers told her. "You'll be needed again soon, and needed badly."
Landers left the hotel, engaged a taxicab, and drove out along the river road until he came to a resort. He paid the chauffeur there, and walked along the shore, watching the bathers, acting like a prosperous man on a little holiday.
But after a time he left the resort and walked on along the road. He turned into a lane, when he was sure that he was not being observed, and approached a ramshackle farmhouse that was hidden in a grove.