CHAPTER XVII—INTERRUPTED CONVERSATION
Detective Riley grasped the nearest telephone and sent an alarm to headquarters. Less than an hour later the report came that Verbeck’s roadster had been found abandoned on a corner in the heart of the city, but that no trace of the Black Star had been discovered.
In the meantime the night clerk had told his simple story. A man had entered and asked whether a Mr. Rodney Stone lived there. The clerk said no such person was registered. Sure that no other person was in the office, the visitor pulled an automatic from his pocket and ordered the clerk to throw up his hands.
The clerk was forced to obey, and believed at the time that he was the victim of an ordinary holdup man, and rejoiced that all funds, except a few dollars, were locked in the safe, wh
