One of the men held his torch, and the chief read it swiftly:
Dear Chief: Here is Roger Verbeck safe and sound. Since you don’t seem able to make very much war against me, perhaps you’ll revive Verbeck and let him get into the game. I’ve kept him pretty quiet to-night. I’m sending him to you out of the sky, my dear chief, you might say. At least, you don’t know where I am sending him from, and cannot find out. I don’t know how you got on my trail so swiftly to-night, but it didn’t save the bank from losing a vast sum, and didn’t help you much, did it?
*****
“If I ever get my two hands on that man he’ll never live to stand trial!” the chief promised. “Verbeck conscious yet? We’ve got to look into this business. I tell you the Black Star’s somewhere in this building. He’s somewhere in that shaft——”
“But he can’t be,” a lieutenant protested. “There isn’t a place in the shaft where a man could leave the box.”
“Nevertheless——”
“Verbeck’s come to!” one of the men cried.
They knelt beside him, aided him to sit up, tried to get him to talk. They shot questions at him as bullets come from a machine gun, and he waved them away.
“Where did they take you, Verbeck?” the chief demanded.
“I—don’t know. I’ve been unconscious——”