There was a police guard at the gate of the Weedham estate, but then Black Hood had never cared a whole lot about using gates anyway. He raced across the lawn, vaulted over the wall which separated the Weedham property from the place belonging to the green-eyed Vida Gervais next door. To all appearances, the green-eyed lady was not at home--not unless those catlike eyes of hers were capable of seeing in the dark. Black Hood found his way into the house through a window. Inside, the house was as silent as it was dark. Eventually, he found his way to Vida Gervais' boudoir and there poked and sniffed among the boxes and jars of cosmetics on her dressing table. A box of face powder attracted his particular attention, and when he looked into the adjoining bathroom he discovered a suitable means of testing the powder to make sure that it was the same which he had scraped from the coat lapel of the dead Jack Carlson. Evidently, the lady was somewhat concerned about her pale complexion, for there was a sun lamp in the bathroom. Beneath its ultra-violet rays Black Hood discovered that the face powder took on a phosphorescent glow, proving that sodium naphthionate had been added to it. He took the powder with him when he left the house a few minutes later dressed in a spare uniform of Vida Gervais' chauffeur. * * * * * It was an hour later that Black Hood came to an obscure little jewelry shop known simply as "Tauber's." It was here that the Eye's crimesters were supposed to pull their next job, according to the plans which had been set forth at the meeting on the night before. Whether or not Black Hood's unexpected appearance at that meeting had put a crimp in those plans, he did not know. But there was no way of learning except by trial and error. Except for a night light which glinted through the show window, the place was dark. Black Hood reflected that had he any desire to live up to his false reputation as a criminal, he could have done very nicely for himself. It required just twenty minutes of work for him to open the window at the back of the shop--steel grill work, burglar alarm, lock and all. It was rather a tight squeeze for his broad shoulders, getting through the opening, but he managed it. No sooner had his feet hit the floor, however, than he felt the cold, stern prod of the barrel of an automatic. "All right, Mr. Hood, put up your hands!" Black Hood jerked a glance over his right shoulder to behold the unlovely visage of Mr. Ron "The Bugs" Brayton. "Hi there, Bugs," he said lightly, raising his hands to the level of his shoulders. "Fancy meeting you here." Brayton laughed. "If you'da knocked at the front door, we'd have let you in, Mr. Hood. It's pretty early, for a heist, ain't it? But we figured the early bird would get the diamonds. And then you was wised up to this job, wasn't you?"