Page:McCulley--Black Star's camapign.djvu/28

28 retired. In the office on the ground floor a sleepy clerk was attempting to keep his eyes open and read a magazine. The night telephone operator had gone to a restaurant a couple of blocks away for a midnight cup of coffee, and the sleepy clerk was watching the switchboard.

There entered a gentleman from the street—a man whose face was muffled in his coat collar. He was well-dressed, very much the gentleman, and the clerk got up and hurried to the desk. Somebody with an important business message for one of the tenants, the clerk supposed.

"Something I can do for you, sir?" the clerk asked.

"Yes—go to sleep!" came the reply.

The visitor drew a vapor gun and discharged it in the clerk's face. The latter gasped, and sank to the floor. The one who had used the gun stepped to the door and gave a signal. Three more men sprang from a closed car standing at the curb, and hurried into the lobby of the house.

"Telephone operator be back in a few minutes," the first man said. "One of you remain here and get him. Answer any calls on the switchboard, so things will look natural."

One remained; the other three ran quickly up the stairs, ignoring the elevator, which was in the basement, with a sleepy operator hoping that nobody would call him.

The three made their way to the floor where Roger Verbeck had his suite. They listened outside Verbeck's door; then one of them inserted a skeleton key, pushed out the key on the inside, turned the lock and opened the door half a dozen inches.