CHAPTER XXI--THE END OF THE WIRE
"Follow the wire!"
The unknown woman's words seemed to ring in Verbeck's head.
"We must decide instantly," he said. "Shall we follow the wire orremain here and await an alarm?"
"Follow the wire!" Riley advised. "That woman is one of the BlackStar's gang that's turned against him. She's tipped us off right, andI'll bet on it! It's only a few minutes after midnight. It shouldn'ttake us long. Dictograph! Huh! No wonder he knew everything we said.Poor boobs!"
"Do we go alone, or take the police?" Verbeck asked.
"Let's take 'em. It won't hurt, and may do a great deal of good. We'llhave the sergeant leave one man here to take any telephone messagethat comes."
Riley ran to the door and blew his whistle. Verbeck and Muggs alreadywere at work. Before Riley could instruct the sergeant that a man bedetailed to remain at the house while the others followed, Verbeck andMuggs had pulled the heavy table to one side--to find the wire passingthrough a tiny hole in the floor and into the basement.
Verbeck led the way below. The wire was picked up easily, running toan outside wall and through it. On the outside it went up the side ofthe house, beside a water pipe, thence to a tree near by.
"Follow the wire--and be quick about it!" Riley commanded the sergeantand his men. The police knew only that this had something to do withthe pursuit of the Black Star, but the excitement of Verbeck and hiscompanions was infectious, and they went at their work eagerly,sensing that seconds were precious.
Electric torches flashed as they surrounded the tree, and one manprepared to climb.
"There it runs!" Riley shouted. "Flash your lights! See it? To theother tree!"
Thus they crossed the yard to a corner, going from tree to tree,flashing their lamps always on that slim, long-hanging wire.
"Whoever heard of a dictograph wire this long!" Riley exclaimed."Nobody but the Black Star would use it. No telling where it runs--andwe haven't a great deal of time! Send back another man, sergeant, tostand by the house and bring us news if there's a telephone call. Sendone who can drive Verbeck's roadster to us!"
A man was selected and sent, and the tracing of the wire went on. Theycame to the corner, and there the wire sprang from a tree to atelephone pole, and across the street to another pole, then to anunimproved block of land, where it ran from tree to tree as before.
Led by Verbeck and Riley, with Muggs at their heels, the police wadedthrough snowdrifts, crashed through wet underbrush, rending the blacknight with the light of their torches. The wire twisted from tree totree, never more than a few feet above the ground.
"Whoever laid that wire didn't waste any time," Riley said.
They lost it in a clump of brush, but found it again. Every man ofthem was wet to the waist now from breaking through the drifts ofsnow, but their enthusiasm was not dampened.
"We've been half an hour already!" Muggs protested. "How far does thisthing run?"
No one took the trouble to answer him. They had crossed the unimprovedblock at last and reached another street. Once more the wire sprang tothe crosspiece of a telephone pole, and across the street to another.Now it ran along the edge of a private park to a narrow alley, andthere it followed the roof line of sheds.
They began exercising some caution now, for there was no telling wherethe wire would end, or when, and they did not care to stumble on theretreat of the Black Star unprepared for a clash. Muggs, some pacesahead of the others, strained eyes and ears to detect the presence ofa foe. Muggs didn't feel sure they had done right in following thewire, but he realized that the tip from the unknown woman was one thatcould not have been ignored.
At the end of the alley, the wire ran in the direction of a crossstreet. Here it was suspended from the trees again, but higher, andthere was difficulty in following it. It took half an hour to reachthe next corner, and there the wire turned back toward Verbeck'shouse.
"'Tis a quarter after one," Riley said. "There's been no alarm fromheadquarters, or we'd have had the man coming after us in theroadster. But where the deuce does this wire run?"
Down the street a block, around the corner, went the wire, from treeto tree, now high in the air and now looped low. To the alley again,and down it in the black night! Here, their torches flashing, theyfollowed it from shed to shed, and finally came to where it ran downthe side of a garage and so reached the ground. Muggs dug franticallywith his hands until the snow had been thrown to one side. The wireran beneath a board, and half a dozen men scraped snow away until theboard could be raised, Verbeck and Riley working frantically andurging on the others.
The board ended at the edge of an iron manhole, and Riley, with amuttered curse, got up from his knees.
"Into the sewer!" he exclaimed. "Into the sewer! Think o' that!"
"It's a fake--we've been done!" Muggs declared.
"'Tis no fake!" Riley protested. "Here's the wire, and we was told tofollow it, wasn't we? Into the sewer!"
"Off with that cover!" Verbeck shouted, stepping forward and takingcommand. "You've forgotten something, Riley. This is the old sewer,and has been used for two or three years as a conduit for gas pipesand electric wires. There's no sewage in it."
Riley's exclamation of relief showed that he had forgotten. Likemadmen they worked at the covering of the manhole, smashing the icearound it, tearing at it with their hands until they were raw andbleeding. Presently they hurled it to one side.
"In we go!" Verbeck said. "And let's try to make better time!"
"Easy there! We go--but we go prepared!" Riley said. "I'll go first, ifyou don't mind, Roger. Some of the Black Star's gentlemen friendsmight be waiting in this old sewer with implements of destruction togreet us."
He flashed his torch, and lowered himself. A moment later they heardhis call, and one by one they slipped from the alley into the big borein the earth, the last man letting the manhole covering fall intoplace.
Straight ahead they went now, bending low, dodging elbows of big gasmains, on the alert for uninsulated electric wires. The cement wallswere covered with frost, the air was like that of a refrigerator.
They made a turning, and went on, always following the little wirethat had been looped along the joints of the gas main. And always theywere on the alert, flashing their torches ahead, expecting to begreeted any instant by some show of hostility. They knew thereputation of the Black Star--these men. Perhaps, after all, this washis trick. Perhaps they would find themselves prisoners underground,or face some new peril the master criminal had invented for theirdiscomfiture.
Another curve in the big bore, with Riley stopping them and creepingahead to peer around the bend, and be sure no danger waited! They madetheir way along as swiftly as they could now, their teeth chattering,their hands numb with the cold. And now the wire ran to the roofagain, along a smaller gas main, and so to another manhole.
"Out again into the night!" Riley grunted. "What do you know aboutthat? Well--let's get after it!"
They got beneath the manhole covering and fought to get it free. Itwas heartbreaking work, for the covering had a weight of snow aboveit, and ice filled every crevice. But finally they felt it give, andafter a time forced it a short distance to one side, the snow cavingin upon them.
Muggs crawled up and dug at the snow! Inch by inch they forced themanhole covering back, and finally they emerged into the open air andclosed the covering again. They traced the wire to a tree at the endof the alley, and from there to a telephone pole, and across thestreet in the usual manner.
They spoke but seldom now. They were almost exhausted; more than onefeared they had been hoaxed. Again they flashed their torches andfollowed the wire, once more across the corner of an unimproved lot,across another street, and then----
"Wh-what?" Riley cried. "Do you see where we are? Back to Verbeck'splace--that's what! On the other side of the house!"
He would have said more, but Verbeck's grasp on his arm stopped him.Into Verbeck's heart had come a sudden fear, a
nd he didn't see theadvisability of the sergeant and the police squad knowing everything.
"What kind of a stunt is this?" the sergeant growled.
"Never mind!" Riley counseled sternly, aware of what the end might be."We've been following this wire, haven't we? Very well! We had areason for wanting to know where it ran. And that's all."
The sergeant subsided, but he guessed that it was not all.
They were in the yard of the Verbeck place again now, the wire runningfrom tree to tree as before. Finally it sprang to the side of thehouse, and down it to a window in a rear room. There Riley, who wasleading, stopped.
"That's all for the present, sergeant," he said. "Go inside and getwarm--you and the men. If there's been any telephone message, come outand tell us."
The men needed no second invitation to hurry to the fire, and theyfollowed the sergeant rapidly around the corner of the house towardthe veranda, leaving Verbeck and Riley and Muggs alone beneath thewindow.
"Well?" Riley said.
"Follow it!" Verbeck commanded. "It must end somewhere. And we don'tneed the squad with us when we find the end."
"That's the way I looked at it. Great Scott, what a chase! Through thesnow and through the sewer----"
"No message!" the sergeant shouted from the veranda.
Muggs raised the window. They crept over the sill into the dusty room.Again Riley's torch flashed, and they saw the wire running up the sideof the window to the ceiling and through it.
"To the floor above!" Verbeck said.
They ran to the stairs and went up. As they passed the door of theliving room, they saw the policemen standing before the big fireplace,extending their numb hands to the blaze.
They had no difficulty locating the wire on the second floor. It camefrom below, and ran up the side of a window. It followed the border ofthe wall paper, and once more it penetrated a ceiling.
"Into the garret!" Riley said.
They ran up the narrow stairs. Riley and Muggs both held theirautomatics ready now, and Verbeck reached for his. They threw open thedoor opening into one of the half-finished rooms. There was the wire,almost hidden as it ran along the bottom of the window. It followed awide crack in the floor across the room. It disappeared into the wall.
Riley raised a hand for silence, and pointed to the floor.
"We were blind before," he whispered. "See those tracks? Whoever madethem scattered dust behind him. They're almost obliterated--but therethey are! We didn't use our eyes before. And that wire----"
"Must run into the old toy closet," Verbeck interrupted. "But--seehere! The door of the closet is locked on this side, and you can seeit hasn't been opened."
"You're right--it hasn't! But we'll just take a look!"
Verbeck turned the key. Muggs and Riley focused the light of theirtorches on the door, and held their automatics ready. Verbeck sprangaside and hurled the door open.
The interior of the closet was flooded with light. All three gasped asthey looked.
No Black Star menaced them with weapon. No diabolical engine ofdestruction was there.
But there was the end of the wire!