"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.