The plane, with its engine roaring, took the air. The Black Star picked up the heavy suit cases and started for the road.
After all, he was thinking, it would be a relief to get away and give up his dangerous occupation for a time. He hated to admit it even to himself, but to-night’s business had shaken him. He had almost felt fear, especially when he had been cornered in the halfway room.
But he had succeeded. He had made a last big haul. He was safe now—there remained only to leave the headquarters, meet the men, and distribute some money, and then quit the city for the West and China and the South Seas. Crime didn’t pay, eh? Well—he had made it pay!
He decided that he’d send a last sarcastic note to the police, the newspapers, and to Roger Verbeck, just as he left. He chuckled again now as he thought of Verbeck. It seemed that he had been unable to get into action to-night. How he would rage when told that the Black Star had escaped again! How funny little Muggs would snort! How the fat chief would fuss and fume! Yes—the Black Star had had his fun as well as his profit!
He reached the gate and passed through it up the drive to the house. Here he set the suit cases down on the porch and unlocked the front door. Then he took the loot inside, struck a match, and applied it to the wick of a lamp. A hasty glance around the room told him that nothing had been disturbed during his absence. For a moment he stood in the center of the room and listened and looked about. Then he put the suit cases on a table.
He threw off hood and mask and overcoat and hat, and opened the suit cases. Before him were the bundles of bank notes, the two bags of gold, the packages of securities—a fortune!
He laughed lightly and went to a cupboard and got out crackers and cheese and a can of fish. He laughed as he ate his simple meal, and promised himself a gorgeous dinner before another twenty-four hours had passed.
Having eaten, he put the remainder of the food away, closed the suit cases again, lifted a trapdoor in the floor beneath a rug, and put the loot in a hidden box there. He stretched his arms and glanced at his watch. It would be daylight within the half hour now, and he needed sleep. He decided that he’d retire and rise in about four hours. Four hours of sleep would refresh him enough, he decided, for the time being. He wanted to smuggle himself and his ill-gotten gains into the city by noon.
Keen eyes watched his every movement through the keyhole in the door that opened into the adjoining, unused room. The mysterious man who had trailed the abductors there early in the evening was still in the house. The hours had seemed doubly long—but he had waited.
He watched the Black Star carefully now. He had made sure that he had returned to the headquarters alone, and now he was awaiting his chance. He knew that the Black Star had a couch in the room on the other side of the headquarters room, and would sleep there if he decided to go to bed.