CHAPTER III

The Master Strikes

Carton, two days later, came into the _Inquirer's_ city-room to find it a babel of excitement. His city-editor hailed him through it.

"Carton! Get to the Vance National Bank double-quick--the Invisible Master's been there--a robbery!"

"A robbery!" Carton exclaimed. "Then he's struck!"

"Get there and get the dope--Collins and Jansen have already started and we're holding the presses for the story--get going!"

As Carton hurried into the street and through the throngs that surge each afternoon in the city's financial section, his excitement was high. From the crowds about him he heard cries and calls, and as he neared the giant building of the Vance National Bank on Broad Street, saw a dense crowd gathered at its doors, held back by a row of policemen. The news was spreading out over the city like flame. The Invisible Master had struck!

For two days the Invisible Master had been almost the single center of New York's interest. The newspapers had made known to all that Dr. Grantham had been struck down and his projector stolen, and that the criminal who had done that had had the audacity to venture back into the very room where he had attacked Grantham, made invisible by the projector, and to leave a mocking note for the scientist in the very presence of the police! And in that note the Invisible Master had promised to make use of his power of invisibility to make himself supreme in the great city!

The police had been nonplussed. They had searched far and wide for Gray, the assistant of Grantham whom all held to be the daring thief of the projector, but they had found no trace of him. But the public was interested only in the Invisible Master, whether he was Gray or another. Was there actually such a man as that walking New York's streets unseen? And if there was would he carry out his threat to make himself ruler of the city by his power?

Those had been questions of supreme interest in those two days. The newspapers carried pages concerning the Invisible Master and what he might do. He could steal, slay and burn with impunity. Nothing was safe from him, no treasure and no life. A thousand absurd methods were suggested for capturing him, but when nothing had been heard of him in the two days, a great part of the city doubted his existence, despite Grantham's warnings. But there seemed few doubters now, Carton grimly told himself, as he fought his way through the crowd to the great bank's doors.

There his badge let him through the circle of sweating policemen who were holding back the excited crowds. He hurried on into the great bank's lobby. Blue-clad figures were stationed everywhere at its doors. The many cages along the marble and brass counters were empty of their occupants now, but in front of one cage was gathered a group of men. There were some of the bank's officials, elderly, anxious-looking men, two or three police officers among whom Carton recognized Sergeant Wade's sleepy-eyed and gum-chewing countenance, and, somewhat to his surprise, Dr. Grantham, whom he was later to learn had been summoned with the police at the robbery's occurrence.

Vanished Money

Carton saw that the center of interest of the group of officials and police and reporters was a young, immaculately-dressed man whose face was flushed and who was ejaculating excitedly.

"It was he, I tell you!" he was exclaiming. "It couldn't have been anyone or anything else but the Invisible Master--the package vanished right before my eyes!"

"Who's the youngster?" Carton asked of one of the reporters beside him.

"Harkness, the teller," said the other. "He's claiming that a package of fifty one-thousand dollar bills vanished in front of his eyes, and it looks as though he's going to have a hard time convincing his bosses," added the other cynically.

Grantham was calming the excited young teller. "Let's just hear all about it," he told him. "We know that the thing's unprecedented, and no one thinks you took the money."

Harkness made an effort to appear calm. "It was just half an hour ago," he said. "I was arranging some entries in my sheets and the package was lying with some others beside me, just inside the grille's opening. It was really in reach from outside, of course, but there was no danger because everyone knows how impossible it is to snatch money in a bank and escape with it. I thought I heard someone step up to my window and looked up, but there was no one there. Then in a minute it happened--the whole front of the grille and counter seemed to vanish for a second and then reappear. But when they reappeared the package of thousand-dollar bills was gone! I could only stare, stupefied, for no one had been at the window, and then suddenly I remembered about the Invisible Master and gave a shout. The guards came running--but there was no one there by then. It was the Invisible Master--and he had gone! And it was he--I tell you it must have been!"

Harkness' calm broke down at the end of his story, but Grantham encouraged him with a few words and then turned to Wade.

"The boy's telling the truth, Wade," he said simply. "It was the Invisible Master--and he's given us the first sample of what his being loose in this city means!"

The officials and reporters were silent, Wade thoughtful. "Would it be possible for him to make the whole front of the counter disappear for an instant like that?" he asked Grantham.

The physicist nodded. "Quite possible. You see, the projector when attached to the body, projects a force for a radius of a few feet around the body and makes all in that radius invisible as well as the person wearing it. Thus when the Invisible Master stepped close up to the window, it and everything in the projector's radius became invisible for a second, and in that second he needed only to grasp the package of bills and then step quickly back and walk out."

"It's a tough problem," Wade admitted. He and Grantham had stepped aside from the group, who were now sharply questioning Harkness, and Carton had followed them.

"But how are you going to deal with it?" Grantham demanded. "For all we know, Wade, the Invisible Master may be even now going through bank after bank. It's not a question of doing anything about this robbery so much as of preventing others."

"Well, I can't see anything to do but to follow our regular methods," Wade said slowly. "We'll send word out to the banks and stores to watch for this method of robbery as well as possible, and we'll put a man to look into Harkness and his story, and broadcast a list of the bills' numbers if we can get them."

When Fear Broods O'er Us

Grantham shook his head impatiently. "Wade, these ordinary police methods of yours are utterly useless in a case like this. It's all right to gather fact after fact and slowly apprehend an ordinary criminal in that way, but this is not a case of catching a criminal so much as a case of war! War between this city and the Invisible Master! And the one hope of catching him lies in making the whole city realize that the Invisible Master is at large in it, and so put them on their guard against every unusual incident that may point his presence."

"It seems to me," Wade said dryly, "that when Carton here and his colleagues get through with this story there's going to be mighty few in the city who don't know that the Invisible Master's at large."

And by that night, indeed, all New York was aware through the screaming newspapers that the Invisible Master had begun his threatened activities. He had, apparently, deliberately chosen for his first exploit one most calculated to win for himself the city's amazed attention, in his astounding robbery of the great bank in the full light of day. The thing was stupefying. It was the one subject of excited discussion in the city that night.

It was the Invisible Master's work, that was certain. But when would he strike again, when would he make another of these astounding coups? Imagination ran riot in the depiction of the things that the Invisible Master might do. People were warned to go always on the assumption that he was near, for caution's sake. Scientists and pseudo-scientists gave forth sensational interviews on how the Invisible Master might be caught.

The newspapers sought above all else for information from Dr. Grantham, the man who had unwittingly loosed the terror upon the city. It was announced late that day that Grantham was foregoing all other activities to devise a plan for curbing or capturing the Invisible Master. Some suggested even that he was making another projector with which one invisible man could hunt the other, forgetful of the fact that Dr. Grantham's first projector had been the work of months, as he admitted.

Carton, sent that night for information from Grantham, had evidence of the importance attached to him in the policemen at the door of the physics building, and knot of reporters lounging outside. They hailed him noisily and called after him when Carton, after sending his name in, was admitted inside.

He found Grantham in his laboratory's ante-room, with Sergeant Wade.

"Carton, I'm glad to see you," the scientist greeted him. "You were here with us last night when the Invisible Master came in and went out, and I'd like to hear what you think of a scheme that I've devised for combatting him."

"You've found a way to capture him?" Carton burst out.

Grantham shook his head. "No, but a way of curbing his activities, I think. Suppose that inside that bank he robbed today there had been a steel barrier, and that entrance to the bank was only through a turnstile like a subway turnstile. Then a guard standing beside it could watch it and if it turned with no one in sight he would know the Invisible Master had entered and could give the alarm. There could be entrance and exit turnstiles like that, and in stores and the like as well as banks. It would stop these snatch-robberies on the part of the Invisible Master, to some extent, at least."

"It sounds feasible," Carton admitted. "But it will slow business--do you think the banks will adopt it?"

"They will," Wade said shortly. "They're scared stiff down in the financial district over this Vance National robbery today, and they'll catch at any straw to keep the Invisible Master away from their vaults."

The Second Blow

"Even this, though," Grantham said broodingly, "won't completely stop the Invisible Master. The best it can do is to curb him for a time until we find some way of--"

He stopped as the phone-bell rang, and when he had answered, turned the receiver over to Wade. Carton saw the detective's sleepy eyes widen a trifle as he listened to the excited voice on the other end, though his jaws moved his gum as imperturbably as ever. When he turned back to the other two they were waiting in breathless silence.

"Headquarters," he said simply. "Less than a half-hour ago the Invisible Master took forty thousand from the pay-office of the Etna Construction Company, up in the Bronx, and shot and killed one of the pay-clerks."

"Good God!" Grantham exclaimed. "And they're sure it was he?"

"No one else," said Wade laconically. "The office is a small wooden building on the construction lot. The two clerks, Taylor and Barsoff, had the money ready to pay out through a window in one side. There were three guards around the building, armed, and one of them saw the door fly suddenly inward and then heard the shot and scream from inside. They rushed to the office but when they got there Barsoff was dead, shot through the heart, and Taylor could only stammer that the door had flown open, the money had suddenly disappeared, and that Barsoff had been shot out of empty air when he had grasped after it. The guards and Taylor searched the lot and called the police instantly but they've found no trace of him."

"Lord!" Carton exclaimed. "The city will go crazy over this--the Invisible Master striking again on the same day!"

"It will go more than crazy," Wade commented grimly. "This is going to make everyone in this town handling money panic-stricken!"

"It is the start of the Invisible Master's rule!" said Grantham solemnly. "From now on no one in New York is safe from him! He is deliberately terrorizing the city, and at the same time enriching himself!"

The door opened and President Ellsworth burst inside, his ordinarily genial face twisted with emotion. "Grantham!" he exclaimed. "Have you heard of this latest outrage of this assistant of yours--this Invisible Master?"

Grantham nodded somberly. "We've just heard."

"But this is horrible!" Ellsworth cried. "To think that Gray, so quiet and sane to all appearances, should become this unseen thief and killer!"

"Why should Gray be so crazy after money, anyway?" Wade asked him. "They tell me he was a scientific rather than business type."

"I think I can understand it," President Ellsworth said. "Gray has long wanted funds for independent research--even he and Grantham here have been terribly hampered in their work by lack of money. He has seen the millions that are spent each year in this city on luxury and pleasure, has reflected how much good might result to the human race were part of it applied to scientific research, and has started out with this weapon of invisibility to get it!"

"You sound almost as though you were in sympathy with him," Wade said.

"My dear sir!" Ellsworth was visibly shocked. "I may believe that a fraction of the city's riches would be better applied in research, but I would never condone the murder of helpless clerks to obtain it."

"I was only joking," Wade apologized. "Grantham and I think we have found a way to curb the Invisible Master's activities, at least."

"Indeed?" asked Ellsworth curiously.

"Yes." And Wade explained the idea of the turnstiles, which the President at once approved.

A City Terrified

"But it seems that will only limit his activities," he said. "Is there no chance of capturing him completely? Are you sure, Grantham, that the projector he stole might not suddenly cease to function and make him visible?"

"No chance of that," said Grantham hopelessly. "The batteries in its case are small but enough to keep it running for weeks, at intervals. And since it's Gray that took it, he'll know how to replace them."

President Ellsworth nodded. "I suppose so. But he'll have to be captured soon or the city will be in panic."

Grantham shook his head. "This second crime is enough to send it into panic, almost, without further aid, Ellsworth. And if the Invisible Master should strike again soon--"

And by morning, Carton saw, Grantham's words were nearly fulfilled already, since it was panic indeed that had almost settled upon the city. The newspapers were in a state approaching frenzy. The Invisible Master had struck again, had followed his daring daylight bank-robbery by another robbery and cold-blooded murder as terrible. He was abroad, he was invisible, and he was a killer!

A thousand alarms of the Invisible Master's presence were pouring into police headquarters from citizens who had heard inexplicable sounds or the like. The police sought to track down some of these, but were near the limit of their efforts. They had broadcast photographs of Gray in case he should assume visibility at times, had endeavored to have a watch kept for the larger bills stolen, but more they could not do.

Through all that morning a chill of terror hung over New York, the pall of the Invisible Master's rule. Many stores and banks did not open on that morning. Others that did had hastily-devised turnstiles and like devices, and armed guards at every door. Crowds in streets and stores were at a minimum. Every hour saw new panics as a cry went up that the Invisible Master was present. All New York, Carton saw, was waiting with nerves on the ragged edge to hear whether the dread unseen figure stalking the city's ways would strike again.

Then just at noon fear-mad voices were shouting and presses were roaring and newsboys were bawling as there came to the city the dread word it awaited--the news of the Invisible Master's third crime.

Even Carton blanched at the horror of that crime, for in it three men had gone to death. The three had been partners in the importing firm of Van Duyck, Jackson, Sunetti and Allen, with offices on lower Broadway. Upon that morning they had met to dissolve the partnership in question, there having been some strong differences between them on business policies. A large amount of cash and negotiable securities had been brought to their office for the purpose. According to Allen, the only one of the four to survive, they had been working out their accounts when in the morning's mail had come a brief letter signed by the Invisible Master.

He had said that the partners were to gather the sum of one hundred thousand dollars in cash and securities, place it in a suitcase, and appoint one of their number to sally forth along Broadway with it at the exact hour of eleven, when he, the Invisible Master, would take possession of it. Unless one went forth with it at that hour, he would enter and their lives would pay the forfeit.

Allen said that when the note was brought in by an excited secretary they had ignored its threat entirely and had gone on with their accounts, thinking the thing the work of joking friends, or a crude attempt to cash in on the dread the Invisible Master had stirred. They had forgotten its menace by the time the hour of eleven came. At that hour Van Duyck and Jackson and Sunetti had been seated on one side of a table with Allen on the other, facing the door. Allen had looked up, and had, he said, seen the door fly suddenly open and then shut without anyone entering that he could see!

The Remembered Threat

In an instant he had remembered the Invisible Master's threat but before he had been able to cry out three shots had crashed out and his three partners had slumped dead with bullets through their skulls from behind. In the next instant another shot had crashed out of empty air and a bullet had buried itself beside Allen in the wall, but as that shot came he had cried out and there had come cries from all in the building who had heard. The door instantly had flown open and shut as the Invisible Master had fled without stopping to grasp at the cash and securities, and those who rushed in had found Allen standing still beside the wall, and unable for minutes to speak. The unheeded threat of the Invisible Master lay crumpled on the table by the dead men.

With that tragedy the chill fear that held New York dissolved into stark terror, and as Carton pushed his way north to find Wade and Grantham there was all about him a wild confusion of panic.

Great crowds were forming and rolling toward the City Hall to be held back by the police and troops drawn up to guard it, where they shouted their wild demand to the city's officials that the Invisible Master be captured or killed or bought off at any price. There were wild rumors of even more terrible crimes the Invisible Master had committed, rumors of men done to death in the seething East Side, rumors of martial law to be declared and troops brought to the city.

Had the great crowds that bellowed their terror but known it, the city's officials were even then face to face with the Invisible Master's purpose. For in an inner room at City Hall, with Grantham and Wade there, and Carton too, they were reading the letter that had come but minutes before to them.

_To the Mayor and Officials of New York:_

_Having shown in these last few days what the rule of the Invisible Master means to your city, I am ready now without fear of disbelief on your part to state the terms on which my reign of terror over this city will end. Those terms are--the immediate payment of five million dollars in assorted denominations. This money, in a steel box of moderate size, is to be placed in the following spot: Two miles north of the village of Pernview, on Long Island, on the west road, is a milestone. In the forest three hundred yards east of this milestone is a large oak. You will place the box on the boulder beneath this tree on tomorrow night, between eleven and twelve o'clock. You are at liberty to attempt to prevent me from getting the box, but it will only result disastrously for yourselves._

_If this is done my activities will cease. If it is not done I will commence an even greater campaign of terror that will make a chaos of New York in hours. No troops or forces are of any use against me. I leave the raising of the money to you, but suggest that the city's business men be called on for it. Either they pay or I will make their city a desert of terror._

_The Invisible Master._