"Now what would naturally result when almost all in the city believed that? Would it not result in many people seeing a chance to commit crimes and then blame them on the Invisible Master? You know that there are hundreds of thousands in a city like this who long to commit some crime, theft or murder or the like, but dare not because there would be no chance to shift suspicion on someone else. A man in an apartment with neighbors all around can't shoot his wife and claim someone else came in and did it, for he knows that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it would soon be established that no one had gone in or out of his apartment at that time. But if he could blame it on someone invisible? You see what it means? Grantham had spread, had insisted upon spreading, over all the city the thought that the Invisible Master was at large in it. So at once there would be countless people who would see a chance to commit crimes and blame them on the Invisible Master! The thing was as certain as human nature!
CHAPTER V
From Beginning to End
"The first was young Harkness, the teller at the Vance National. He had been speculating in stocks, had lost thousands of the bank's money, and was desperate, with discovery near. All around him people were talking of the Invisible Master and of what he could do, and Harkness saw in that an idea, grasped at it as at a last straw. He arranged his accounts to show right when it was over, then on that afternoon simply cried out and gave the alarm, stammering that the money had been taken by someone invisible who had snatched it from before him. All believed quite naturally that the Invisible Master had done it! Their thoughts had been full of him for two days, and what else could they, could we, believe?
"Thus the Invisible Master was established still farther as a reality, a criminal who walked unseen. Hardly any in New York doubted his existence after that first amazing robbery, and it was probably that robbery that gave Taylor, the pay-clerk at the Etna Construction Company, his idea for his robbery and murder that night. For it was Taylor who took the money and who killed his fellow-clerk, Barsoff, on that night. He believed like everyone else that the bank-robbery that afternoon had been committed by the Invisible Master, and saw a chance to commit a crime that would inevitably be blamed upon the same unseen criminal.
"He and Barsoff were in the pay-office building, both armed. Taylor had the packages of money ready, and at the moment selected he flung the door open from inside without showing himself to the guards outside. In the next instant he drew his gun and shot Barsoff through the heart, then stuck the gun and money alike into his pockets and was staggering against the wall a moment later when the guards burst in. They never thought of questioning or searching him, so strong was their own belief in the Invisible Master, and that it was he who had rushed unseen into the little office and committed the murder and theft!
"By the next morning all New York was cold with fear of the Invisible Master, and hardly a living soul doubted by then his existence. The evidence was too strong! And seeing this, Allen saw his chance to commit the triple murder of his partners which was the third crime to be laid to the Invisible Master's credit. There had been bad blood between the four partners—they were meeting on that day, you remember, to dissolve their partnership because of their enmity, and Allen had resolved to revenge himself on the other three.
"He wrote a letter purporting to be a threat from the Invisible Master, a demand for a hundred thousand dollars, and mailed it at a time calculated to bring it to their office before noon on the next day. They were settling their accounts, the letter was opened and brought by their excited secretary, and Allen led them in laughing it down. When the hour of eleven came, though, the hour specified in the threat, Allen rose and walked behind his three partners, who were bent over the accounts. Three shots sent quick bullets crashing into their skulls, from behind, and another shot a bullet into the opposite wall. Allen leaped back to that wall, pocketing the gun, and when the others who had heard rushed into the room they found him standing by the bullet-pierced wall, apparently overcome with horror. There was the threatening letter lying on the table, and none doubted for a moment but that the Invisible Master had carried out his threat and had slain three of the partners but had been forced to flee before he could kill the fourth or snatch any of the securities on the table.