They did not stop, but merely slowed down, and into each machine sprang the men who had been assigned seats there. The automobiles continued through the alley and turned into the next street, where the chauffeurs put on speed.
There were few persons in that particular section of the city at the time, but those who were on the street saw the automobiles filled with robed and masked men. They knew what that meant—that the Black Star's band was working in the vicinity. Their terror kept them dumb until the automobiles had disappeared, and then they gave the alarm. They knew that there was but one thing in that section that would attract the master crook—and that was the vault of the old First National. The alarm went to police headquarters.
A few blocks down the street, the automobiles scattered, and one by one made their way to dark parts of the town, where the men in them took off their robes and masks, and, one by one, left the machines and darted away.
The band was scattered fifteen minutes after the vault had been looted, and one machine, a closed one, was running out along the river road toward the resort. The chauffeur drove in a leisurely manner, and the car attracted no undue attention.
At the end of the lane running to the old farmhouse, where it was pitch dark, the door of the closed car was opened, and a man sprang out. The automobile went on along the river road. The man who had jumped from it carried two canvas bags stuffed with currency. He was Landers, the Black Star's trusted lieutenant.
Landers hurried along the lane, entered the grove about the house, and took a telephone from its hiding place behind a clump of brush. He called the house, and the servant who remained on guard at the headquarters answered.
Landers gave a password, then put the telephone away and sprang to his feet. He came to the wire fence that ran around the house, but he did not touch it. He knew that it was charged with a deadly current. A light flashed in a window, and Landers opened the gate and went on to the house. He disappeared inside. His work for the night was done, except that he had to turn in the swag.
But the Black Star and his band were not done for the night. The men who had left the automobiles and scattered, immediately made their way to the National Trust Company's building, and lost themselves in the throng of people there. They bumped elbows with policemen and deputies and detectives, and grinned when they recognized one another in the crowd.
They were in time to hear the alarm given, and to see policemen spring into automobiles and hurry away. They saw Muggs drive through the crowd, and Roger Verbeck spring into the roadster and start for the First National Bank. Word flashed through the crowd that the master rogue's band was looting the First National, and the crowd melted away like snow beneath a blazing sun, hurrying toward the scene of the robbery.
One by one, and cautiously, the Black Star's men entered the alley behind the National Trust Company's building. Here, too, a basement door was opened for them by a watchman. Once more they put on masks and gowns from a supply that was in readiness, and posted their guards in the building. Once more two selected men hurried into the vault room.