“Don’t ask me,” the chief roared when he saw his visitors. “I’ll tell you—it’ll take less time. We haven’t got him. We haven’t even discovered a trace of him. The handcuffs he wore were found in an alley less than half a dozen blocks away—and that’s all. He’s found time to send letters to the papers—and to me.”
“He sent one to you?” Roger asked.
“He did. If ever I get my two hands around the throat of that Black Star I’ll choke the life out of him. I wouldn’t care if he got mad and sent me cuss words—but he called me a blanked fool!”
“Ah! We are fellow sufferers,” Verbeck said. “That’s what he called me.”
“You! You’ve heard from him?”
“When I got home this morning his black stars were pasted around my apartment, and I found a letter pinned to my pillow—or rather Muggs did. Here it is.”
Verbeck handed it over; the chief read it. Then the head of the city’s police department sat down before his desk, thought for a moment, and finally pushed a button. A sergeant entered.
“Send me Detective Riley!” he ordered.
A moment’s waiting, while the chief chewed his cigar and Roger and Muggs puffed at theirs. Then Riley entered and saluted his chief respectfully.
Detective Riley was a man of fifty, and he had been in the department since the age of twenty-one. He knew every inch of the city, and was a man of nerve and resource. But for his honest and outspoken opinions of political leaders undoubtedly he would have been high in the department. As it was, he was satisfied.