Black Star's Campaign: A Detective Story

by Johnston McCulley

  CHAPTER XIII

  INSIDE THE MUSEUM

  That afternoon, about the hour of three, an elderly gentleman who lookedlike a person of culture and refinement, entered the Municipal Museum.

  At the information desk, he asked concerning a certain painting, and wasdirected to the second floor. He thanked the woman at the desk andascended the stairs, passing the close scrutiny of the guards and thepolice stationed there. There was nothing to cause suspicion in theappearance of an elderly man who evidently was a lover of art.

  He found the painting for which he had asked, and stood before it forsome time, looking at it, now stepping forward and now retreating, nowand then walking to one side to get a better reflection of light on thecanvas.

  "Marvelous!" he said, in a thin voice, to one of the attendants. "Suchcoloring! And such technic!"

  "Yes, them old boys knew how to sling the paint," the attendant informedhim.

  "Sling the paint? What a quaint idiom!" the elderly gentleman remarkedand the attendant walked on, calling upon the world to witness that thecrop of maniacs was getting larger every year, and that they all visitedthe museum.

  Having inspected that particular picture to his evident satisfaction,the elderly gentleman went through the galleries, viewing other famouspaintings. All the attendants and guides noticed him and put him down asa harmless art lover. There was a benevolent appearance about him; heappeared to be the sort of man who makes donations to museums andhospitals.

  He finally made his way to the statuary hall. Here, at the time, therewas but one guide, and he was handling a group of four tourists. Theelderly gentleman gave them scant attention. He adjusted his spectaclesand began viewing the statue nearest the door, finished with that andwent on to the next, and to the next. The guide and his tourists leftthe hall--and the elderly gentleman was alone there.

  He walked quickly to the other end of the hall, turned and looked backat the door, and made sure that he was not observed by any of theattendants or visitors.

  Above his head there was a small trapdoor that opened into the attic ofthe building. The elderly gentleman betrayed agility remarkable for hisyears.

  He sprang to the nearest window ledge, sprang again and grasped theheavy molding, hung with one hand, and with the other pushed up thetrapdoor. Then he pulled himself up and disappeared--and the door wasput back in place.

  The attic was seldom entered, it appeared. There was nothing at allstored there, and the dust was inches deep everywhere. The elderlygentleman made his way carefully through this dust, obliterating histracks behind him, and reached a corner of the attic, near a window.Here was a dark space in a gable, large enough to accommodate a hidingman. The elderly gentleman sat down there.

  "This will be the death of me!" he growled. "Dust and heat and foul air!I wish the Black Star had picked some one else for this part of thejob!"

  He took out a handkerchief and tucked it around the edge of his collar,then stretched himself between the rafters.

  "Can't smoke--dare not sleep," he grunted. "And it'll be hours before Ican get out of here. This is one sweet game I'm playing! But there'll bea handsome profit in it, all right!"

  The hours passed. In the big museum below visitors came and went,passing beneath the scrutiny of the guards and the police. Five o'clockcame, and the rooms were cleared. Guards searched them well, made surenobody was inside the building except those who had a right to be there.The custodian and his assistants left. The big doors were locked. Nightguards and policemen remained, walking through the rooms. Down in thebasement an engineer threw a big electric switch that sent a powerfulcurrent through the frames that guarded the priceless objects of art.

  Much had been made of that scheme of protection in the newspapers. Whenthat current was turned on, any person touching one of the paintingswould be rendered unconscious immediately. Moreover, an alarm would besounded in the building, another flashed to police headquarters, anotherto the sheriff's office.

  "The Black Star will never tackle this place," said one of the policemento a guard. "He's going after something else. His gang couldn't getnear the building without the men outside spotting them, and we couldput up a scrap and keep them out until help came from headquarters."

  "I think he'll tackle the private collection of some millionaire,"replied the guard. "I don't see how he could hope to get in here and getaway with anything."

  Outside the building, police paced beats beneath bright lights thatilluminated every door and window. Inside, more police and the regularmuseum guards talked and smoked and wished the long night was over.

  Up in the attic, a perspiring elderly gentleman, who was elderly nolonger because he had removed a very clever wig, and perspiration hadruined his make-up, looked at the radium dial of his watch and gruntedthat, at last, the time had come. It was nine o'clock.

  He got up and made his way slowly and carefully across the attic throughthe dust to the trapdoor. He lifted it a fraction of an inch and lookeddown.

  The statuary hall was dark save for a small incandescent light thatglowed in the wall near the door. No guard or policeman was in sight,and the door leading to the corridor was closed.

  The trapdoor was opened wide, and the man dropped to the floor, makingnot the slightest sound as he struck. He had removed his shoes in theattic, and had put on a pair of rubbers. He darted behind a statue, andlistened, and wiped the perspiration from his face.

  Then, running lightly from statue to statue, he made his way toward thecorridor door, watching it continually, ready to dart into hiding if itshould be opened by guard or policeman.

  At the door, he stopped again to listen, and then he turned the knob andopened it cautiously. There was nobody in the corridor as far as hecould see in either direction. The guards and policemen, it was evident,were on the floor below.

  He took one of the Black Star's vapor guns from his pocket and held itready. He slipped into the corridor, darted into a niche in the wall,listened again. He could hear two policemen talking on the floor below.

  A guard entered the corridor and disappeared into one of the rooms. Theman in the niche waited until he came out and started down the hall. Theguard passed within three feet of him. The silent vapor gun wasdischarged, the guard gasped and started to cry out, but unconsciousnessclaimed him.

  The man who had used the vapor gun drew the unconscious guard back intothe niche. He used a hypodermic needle on the guard's arm, drugging himso that he would remain senseless for some time to come.

  "No need to worry about you for a few hours," he growled.

  Still he waited, going to another niche on the other side of the widecorridor. Another guard came from the floor below and started along thehall. He received the same treatment the first guard had received.

  Then the man who held the vapor gun hurried through the corridor andcame to the head of the wide staircase.

  "Ten men inside, and I've taken care of only two of them," he growled."The boss certainly gave me my share of work to do in this littleaffair!"

  He saw two policemen sitting at the bottom of the stairs. He saw a guardin the distance, another just emerging from one of the rooms on thefloor below.

  "Where are George and Fred?" he heard the guard ask.

  "Went to the second floor," one of the policemen replied.

  "Guess I'll go up and help them, and then we won't have to bother aboutthe second floor until early in the morning. Get the card table ready,and we'll have a little game. Nothing to worry about. Looks to me as ifthe Black Star didn't intend to come here. I guess the boys on theoutside would let us know if there was any danger."

  The guard started up the stairs, and the man lurking at the top dartedinto the first niche and crouched there in the semidarkness. The guardpassed, the vapor gun was exploded, and the guard toppled forward as hadthe others, and was drugged as the others had been.

  "Seven more, and the engineer," growled the Black Star's man.

  Once more he went to the head of the stairs. Fo
ur policemen were puttingout a collapsible card table. Two guards were approaching along thecorridor. The seventh member of the protective squad, the Black Star'sman knew, was at the front door, where the officers outside could seehim. He was supposed to show himself there at the end of each hour, tolet them know that everything was all right inside.

  The Black Star's man darted through the corridor and went softly downthe rear stairs. He made his way through the hall toward the front. Heknew where the light switch was located; he had found this out severaldays before, when preparing for this night's events.

  He reached the switch, jerked it down, and plunged the lower floor indarkness. He darted forward as he heard the exclamations of the six menin front. He dropped behind a statue just as one of the policemenflashed his electric torch.

  "Fuse out, I suppose," he heard one of the guards say. "I'll get theengineer--he attends to all that stuff."

  He hurried toward the basement entrance. The man at the front doormerely shouted to know what was the matter, and remained at his post.

  The five others were clustered about the card table. The Black Star'sman crept forward and took a vapor bomb from beneath his coat. This wasthe perilous moment, he knew. This particular bomb was a delicate onethat would make no noise as it exploded. But unless the vapor struckinto the nostrils of the five men, disaster might come. If one of themescaped unconsciousness for a moment, he would be able to give thealarm.

  Another bomb came from beneath the coat. The first one was hurled to themarble floor at the back of the five men. The second followed it.

  Clouds of vapor arose. The Black Star's man held a sponge to hisnostrils, flashed his torch and watched. It had worked--the five menwere staggering--had fallen!

  He had swift work to do now. At any moment the guard might return withthe engineer, or the other guard come from the front door. He kneltbeside the first man, and drove home the point of the needle. He workedin the dark, for it was safer that way. One by one he drugged them, andthen he darted noiselessly toward the door that led to the basement.

  He was just in time--the guard and engineer were coming up.

  "Guess it's a fuse," the guard was saying. "Lights on the upper floorare still burning."

  They stepped into the dark corridor, and the guard called for one of thepolicemen to flash his torch. The Black Star's man stepped up close, andagain the vapor gun was discharged. They staggered and fell.

  The needle was used again, and then he darted toward the entrance. Theguard there had reported to the one outside, and was returning.

  "Hurry up with those lights!" he shouted.

  He gasped; collapsed. The Black Star's man caught him and let him downto the floor. He was holding the sponge to his nostrils again.

  "I'll be going asleep from that vapor myself in a minute, if I'm notcareful," he told himself. "I've hardly any more of the stuff. It's agood thing they're all down and out!"

  He lifted the unconscious guard and carried him to one side, where hecould not be seen from the entrance. Then he ran through the corridorand threw the light switch again, so that those outside would thinkeverything was all right in the interior.

  Then he ran to the basement door, hurried down the steps, went to a bigelectric switch on the wall, and threw that. The deadly protectivecurrent was shut off all over the building.

  Up the stairs he dashed to the second floor. He hurried to a window onone side of the building, took an electric torch from his pocket andflashed it seven times.

  The flashes were observed by a man in a window across the street.