“Was that crook on the wire again?” Muggs demanded.
“He certainly was—broke in while I was speaking to the chief. He told me he knew what I had been saying to you here a very few minutes ago, and that I was unjust in my suspicions.”
“If either of us were guilty he might say that just to help us out—to make you think we were all right so we could go on doing his dirty work,” Riley warned.
“But the fact that he knew our conversation of a few minutes ago shows he might have heard us speaking yesterday about the trap. I am quite sure neither of you have had a chance to communicate with him in the past half hour.”
Riley rose ponderously from the table and crashed a fist down on it.
“Then tell me,” he said, “how this crook knows what we say here in this room!”
“I wish I knew!”
“We’ve searched this house from bottom to top, and he isn’t in it. To hear what we said he’d either have to be in the basement under us or in an adjoining room, and then he couldn’t hear half of it. This thing gets my goat!”
“Then here is something that’ll please you, Riley. The Black Star has sent another letter to a paper, so the chief told me, saying he’s going to commit this big crime of his within the next twenty-four hours. I suppose he means during the night some time.”
“Then we’ll get on his trail!” Riley shouted. “We won’t have to work in the dark any more. At least we’ll know where to start. He’s got to come out of hiding to commit a crime, and we can trail him from where he pulls it off!”