“I gave you credit for understanding the situation, Muggs.”
“Oh, I understand what you want to do, all right. It’d be great to clean up this Black Star and his gang single-handed, hog tie ’em all, then call in the cops and hand ’em over—especially since he sent you that sassy note—but I’ve got a hunch we’re going up against a stiff game. This Black Star ain’t no slouch!”
“Afraid?” snarled Verbeck.
That touched Muggs on a tender spot, and Verbeck knew it. Muggs turned deliberately and faced his employer.
“If that’s the way you’re looking at it, boss,” he said, “trot right along and I’ll be behind you. Go the limit, and I’m in the first seat on the right-hand side. But, all the same, I’ve got a hunch.”
The taxicab stopped again. Verbeck put his head from the window and immediately opened the door. Their quarry had left the owl car and was starting down the dark cross street.
Giving a bill to the chauffeur and telling him he need not wait, Verbeck hurried to the corner, with Muggs at his heels. Shadowing here was difficult work, for there was unimproved property, and some old estates not well kept up, where sidewalks were bad and the footing uncertain, and where untrimmed trees and thick underbrush furnished multitudes of dark spots.
Uphill and downhill, always against the biting cold wind and sleet, their man led them. Finally he crossed a vacant lot and made directly for an old house far back from the street in the midst of a grove of trees that now were swaying and snapping in the storm.
“So that’s where the Black Star lives!” Verbeck said.
He and Muggs had small difficulty following their man now, for there was a low hedge behind which, by stooping, they could make their way unseen. Their man reached the side of the house and went along it until he came to a door. Beside the door there was a box on the ground. As Verbeck and Muggs watched, the man they had been following raised the lid of the box and took something out.