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.