“Your solicitude for my welfare overwhelms me. Start on, my man, and I’ll be with you almost instantly.”
The three men started toward the door with the suit cases. The Black Star bent forward to pin the note on the breast of the man before him. And then the chief’s whistle came.
With the crashing in of the front door of the bank, the Black Star was a changed man. He grasped his prisoner by the shoulders, jerked him from the chair, and dragged him across the room to the office door. Through the offices police poured in upon him. His hand dived into his pocket, and came forth, holding a round object about the size of a tennis ball. He hurled it on the floor in front of the advancing foes.
There was a roar as the bomb struck, a hiss as the cloud of vapor spread. The Black Star laughed mockingly, and backed toward the wall, shielding himself behind his helpless prisoner’s body. He touched the wall, and the opening appeared. He went in, still carrying his prisoner, and in the little box he laughed again, aloud, and tugged at the cable.
“Quite a bit of excitement, Mr. Verbeck,” he observed. “But here we are, safe and sound, and with the suit cases filled with loot. Now I wonder what brought those police down upon us. I suppose I’ll have to go through my organization and ask a few questions. And if there is such a thing as a traitor—ha!”
He tugged at the cable again, and the box ascended.
“Listen to the poor fools pounding on the wall!” he exclaimed. “They will have difficulty, I imagine, finding how that opening is caused. You notice, my dear Mr. Verbeck, that when I opened it either above or below, I press the wall with my hand. That is merely a trick, should some one be observing too closely. As I do that, I touch the real spring with the toe of my shoe. Men can press with their hands all day and not find it.”
[CHAPTER XXXIII—PUZZLED POLICE]
As he ceased speaking, the Black Star turned suddenly and gave his prisoner a shot from the vapor gun. His own men evidently had guessed what was coming, for they turned their faces away, and each held a small sponge to his nostrils, for in that close space the vapor seemed twice as heavy.
“Quick, now!” the master criminal instructed his men. “I don’t know how it happens that the police came down on us, but they’re here, and I suppose the block is surrounded. We can’t go up, and we can’t go down—yet. The men upstairs must have been overcome, since the fighting has stopped, and the bank is full of police. So we’ll try the halfway station.”