"Yes, sir."
"Didn't leave the museum at all?"
"For a few minutes. There was a shooting scrape at the corner——"
"Did all of you go there? How long were you gone? Speak quickly, man!"
"Weren't gone more than half an hour. But we watched the museum, just the same. It's light——"
"From the corner you couldn't see that little side door!" Verbeck thundered. "Any of the Black Star's men who had hidden in the museum could have rendered these guards and officers unconscious, taken what they wished, and walked right out of that side door with it, while you were over at the corner. That fight was staged for a certain purpose!"
"Oh, you fools!" the chief cried. "The newspapers are right—the police force is a gang of imbeciles! Idiots! You've let him get away with it again!"
The superintendent of the museum had been going through the building with a couple of detectives, and now they heard his cry of surprise and rage from the upper floor.
"What is it? Find something missing?" the chief cried.
"Six famous paintings!" the superintendent shrieked. "Six of them gone! Six priceless masterpieces—cut from their frames—carried away! The protective current—it must have been turned off! Six of the most priceless pictures!"