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?"