“He’s a devil—a devil!” the chief was muttering.
“He’s human—and we’ll get him yet!” Roger Verbeck answered, and the fighting look was in his face when he spoke.
[CHAPTER XXV—SHADOWED BY THREE]
Roger Verbeck’s powerful, four-seated roadster, its curtains up against the fine drizzle of rain, and with Muggs at the wheel, drew up when the traffic policeman raised a warning hand, and waited for the cross-town stream of vehicles and pedestrians to pass.
It was eight o’clock in the evening, and the streets were thronged. Crowds were hurrying toward the theaters; more crowds were making for a big automobile show, and others were hastening toward a large hall, where there was to be a mass meeting, at which infuriated speakers would demand that the police department of the city capture instantly the Black Star, the notorious master criminal, who, with his band of clever crooks, had terrorized the city for half a year.
Verbeck’s car was of foreign make and of peculiar appearance, and it was natural that it should be recognized. Muggs bent over the wheel and gritted his teeth as he heard the expressions passed by pedestrians, and the young man beside him looked straight ahead as if seeing nothing and hearing nothing.
“When you goin’ to get the Black Star?”
“What’s Black Star payin’ you to hold off, Verbeck?”
“That crook’s too much for you, ain’t he?”
“Well, well—so he hasn’t caught you again?”