He nodded. "If my real identity were known, the police could take me on the charge of robbery. But that charge would be a frame, just as this one is. I can never clear myself of the robbery charge. But I can and will clear the Black Hood of the charge of murder. Joe must have got that picture by accident. I was simply bending over that watchman at the Weedham plant gate to see if there was any chance that he was alive and had witnessed the crime. When I saw the knife, I planned to withdraw it from the watchman's throat, to use it as possible evidence.
"You've got to believe me, Barbara. I'm fighting this creature who calls himself the Eye just as you are and just as the police are. You and I have been through a lot of adventures together. Ask yourself if I have ever done a single thing which would indicate that I would stoop to the slaughter of the innocent. Ask yourself that, Barbara."
He took another step toward her. Her violet eyes glistened with tears.
"Joe Strong has tried to poison your mind against me," he said. "I can't blame him for that, since all's fair in love and war. But you've got to believe me, Barbara. You've got to believe me because—because I love you. I've always loved you from the first day I set eyes on you. And—"
The gun spilled from Barbara's limp fingers, and suddenly she was in his arms. He held her fiercely, tenderly for a long moment, kissed her warm lips. And then there were sounds of footsteps in the hall. He heard Jeff Weedham say:
"D-d-did anybody look in the library?"
Black Hood released Barbara, turned, dashed back to the French windows. He looked back before he plunged out into the darkness, and his teeth gleamed in a smile. Barbara was smiling, too—smiling and crying at the same time.
There was a police guard at the gate of the Weedham estate, but then Black Hood had never cared a whole lot about using gates anyway. He raced across the lawn, vaulted over the wall which separated the Weedham property from the place belonging to the green-eyed Vida Gervais next door.
To all appearances, the green-eyed lady was not at home—not unless those catlike eyes of hers were capable of seeing in the dark. Black Hood found his way into the house through a window. Inside, the house was as silent as it was dark.
Eventually, he found his way to Vida Gervais' boudoir and there poked and sniffed among the boxes and jars of cosmetics on her dressing table. A box of face powder attracted his particular attention, and when he looked into the adjoining bathroom he discovered a suitable means of testing the powder to make sure that it was the same which he had scraped from the coat lapel of the dead Jack Carlson. Evidently, the lady was somewhat concerned about her pale complexion, for there was a sun lamp in the bathroom. Beneath its ultra-violet rays Black Hood discovered that the face powder took on a phosphorescent glow, proving that sodium naphthionate had been added to it. He took the powder with him when he left the house a few minutes later dressed in a spare uniform of Vida Gervais' chauffeur.