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.
CHAPTER IV
Blackmail
Carton spoke softly through the darkness to the man beside him as their car stopped. "Is this the place, Wade?"
Wade nodded. "There's the milestone—you're ready, Grantham?"
Grantham nodded. "All ready—Kingston has the box."
As they emerged from the car onto the road that gleamed white in the darkness, Carton glimpsed behind it other cars from which dark shapes of men were emerging, rifles and pistols gleaming in their hands. All had turned off their lights, and the scrubby woods that rose on either side of the road seemed impenetrable walls of blackness.
It had been little more than a day, Carton reflected as he stood in the road with the others, since the Invisible Master's astonishing demand had been received by the New York authorities. There had been no doubt or dispute whatever as to whether that demand should be met. With wild crowds besieging the City Hall, with all New York's customary organized life sinking into chaos beneath the panic-pall of the Invisible Master's presence, there was no other course to follow, and a subscription for raising the money had instantly been started.