It seemed that the Black Star grew taller and straighter as he looked at the other man, and Verbeck and Muggs could see his eyes glittering through the black mask. They expected him to roar a rebuke, a denunciation, but he did not. He faced the blackboard again and wrote rapidly:
“You are a blunderer. We have no use for the man who fails.”
“I did not fail,” the other wrote on the board quickly. “I put a black star on his bed and scattered others in library. I was putting letter on desk when they caught me.”
“Did you come straight here?”
“No. I shook them off first. I got away before they raised an uproar. Came on owl car, got off several blocks back, and cut down the hill.”
The Black Star motioned for him to erase this last, and then walked slowly to the table. There was a pile of letters on one end of it, and the Black Star picked up one and read it, shook his head, and put the letter in the pocket of his robe. He pressed against the end of the table, and a drawer shot open. Verbeck and Muggs could see that the drawer was half filled with money and jewels.
The Black Star took out some money and threw it on the table. He closed the drawer and walked back to his blackboard, and picked up the chalk to write again:
“You will not be safe here for some time. Verbeck or his man might recognize you. Take that money and catch the first train for Chicago. Return and report one month from to-night at midnight.”
The other man read and bowed his head. There was no hesitancy in his manner; he acted like a man who had received orders that he knew he had to carry out. He went forward and picked up the money, and, with it clutched in one hand, he backed to the door and lifted the other hand in salute to the Black Star. The Black Star nodded, and the other backed through the door and closed it.
Muggs hurried across the room to the window to watch, while Verbeck remained gazing through the crack in the door at the Black Star, who sat down in the armchair and began inspecting the letters on the table. The minutes passed. Muggs returned and reported that the other man had put the robe and mask in the box, and had slipped away through the trees. Still the Black Star sat at the table, and that for which Verbeck had been waiting did not come to pass—the master criminal did not remove the mask from his face.