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Rh the roof again. Then the darkness came once more, and they heard nothing more, saw nothing more.

"I'd like to know how he does that!" Kowen said. "Does he hang around in the sky like a star? Well, he didn't rescue anybody, anyway! That's one comfort!"

"He hasn't been more than fifteen minutes getting here," Verbeck said. "But we don't know how he is traveling, and so we can't judge how far away his headquarters might be. That telephone number"

"We can investigate that, at any rate, the first thing in the morning," Kowen said. "I'll get the telephone people busy. Now I'll take these prisoners down to the jail and give each of them a nice little room, American plan."

The prisoners were taken away, the excitement in the hotel died down, Verbeck went to Lawrence's suite to smoke a cigarette and get away from the crowd for a time, and finally started home.

He was worrying about Muggs, for one thing. He was hoping that the valet would find some way in which he could be of service, while he was a prisoner in the Black Star's headquarters. He knew that Muggs could be depended upon to make every effort.

The Black Star's threat—about doing something sensational the following night—also came to his mind. Was the master rogue to win again? Was there no way in which he could be stopped, recaptured, put behind prison bars? Already the city was in the grip of terror. No man could tell where the Black Star would strike next. He might loot another bank, or a jewelry store, or raid the jail