“You accusin’ me?” Muggs demanded.
“You accused me, didn’t you?”
Verbeck turned away from the window and walked to the table.
“Suppose we cease all accusations,” he said. “I cannot think either of you would do such a thing. Muggs has demonstrated his loyalty to me scores of times. You, Riley, owed your start in life to my father, and have known me since I was a toddling baby. I can’t believe either of you guilty of this. And yet—there are the facts. Only we three knew—and the Black Star knew soon afterward. We’ll just call this another little mystery added to those that have gone before. Eat your rolls and drink your coffee. We’ll not discuss the matter further now.”
Riley and Muggs made pretense of eating as Verbeck walked to the door and went out on the veranda again, but for the most part they glared at each other across the table, each suspicious of the other apparently.
The telephone rang, and Verbeck hurried in from the veranda to answer it. It was the chief speaking.
“Everything all right out there?” he asked. “Good! Say, is that right, what the papers say about you planning that trap about the necklace?”
“Yes,” Verbeck answered.
“But, how the deuce——”
“I don’t know,” Verbeck interrupted. “There evidently was a leak somewhere, yet it seems impossible. It’s just one of those things that cannot be explained.”