"I have always considered punctuality a virtue when one is invited to partake of gratuitous nourishment."

Withal, his scientific attainments were not only undoubted, but so considerable as to have won for him against many odds the reputation of a great scientist. His specialty, if such it might be called, was scientific diagnosis. The exactness of scientific laws was so admirably duplicated by the exactitudes of his mind that he seemed able, by a bloodless and mechanical sympathy, to penetrate to the most obscure causes of the strangest events. It might be added that practically his only social ties were those with the Warfords, and that the only woman with whom he ever entered into conversation was Helen.

At sight of him Percy Darrow's lounging gait became accentuated to exaggeration.

"Hello, Prof!" he drawled. "On the job, I see. Good morning, Doctor," he greeted Knox. "What do you make of it?"

"I make of it that the Atlas Building will shortly be without tenants," replied the doctor; "me, for one."

Eldridge surveyed Darrow coldly through the glittering toric lenses of his glasses.

"The cause of these extraordinary phenomena is self-evident," he stated.

"You mean their nature, not their cause," replied Darrow. "In nature, they refer back to the interference with etheric and molecular vibrations. That," he added, "is a fact that every boy in the grammar-school physics class has figured out for himself. The cause is a different matter."

"I stand corrected," said Eldridge. "Such lapses in accuracy of statement are not usual with me, but may be considered as concomitant with unusual circumstances."

"Right-o!" agreed Darrow cheerfully. "Well, what about the causes?"

"That I will determine when I am satisfied that all the elements of the problem are in my hands."

"Right-o!" repeated Darrow. "Well, I'll bet you a new hat I'll land the cause before you do. Be a sport!"

"I never indulge in wagers," replied Eldridge.

"Well," said Darrow to Jack and Hallowell, "come on!"

Without waiting to see if he was followed, the young man again plunged into the black and clinging darkness.

"Get hold of my coat," his voice came to the others. "We're going to climb."

Accordingly they climbed, in silence, up many flights of stairs, through the cloying darkness. At last Darrow halted, turned sharp to the left, fumbled for a door, and entered a room.

"Simmons?" he said.

"Here!" came a voice.

"I thought you'd be on the job," said Darrow, with satisfaction. "How's your instrument? Going, eh? We are in the wireless offices," he told the others. "Sit down, if you can find chairs. We'll wait until the sun is shining brightly, love, before we really try to get down to business. In the meantime—"

"In the meantime—" repeated both Jack and Hallowell, in a breath. "Go on, my son," conceded the latter. "I bet we have the same idea."

"Well, I was going to say that I'm not in the grammar-school physics class, and I want to know what you meant by your remark to Eldridge," said Jack.

"That's my trouble," said Hallowell.

"It's simple enough," began Darrow. "We have had, first, a failure of all electricity; second, a failure of all sound; third, a failure of all light. The logical mind would therefore examine these things to see what they have in common. The answer simply jumps at you: Vibration. Electricity and light are vibrations in ether; sound is vibration in air or some solid. Therefore, whatever could absolutely stop vibration would necessarily stop electricity, light and sound."

"But," objected Jack, "if vibration were absolutely stopped, why wouldn't they all three be blotted out at once?"

"Because," explained Darrow, "the vibrations making these three phenomena are different in character. Sound is made by horizontal waves, for example, while electricity and light are made by transverse waves. Furthermore, the waves producing electricity and light differ in length. Now, it is conceivable that a condition which would interfere with horizontal waves would not interfere with transverse waves; or that a condition which would absolutely deaden waves two hundred and seventy ten-millionths of an inch long would have absolutely no effect on those one hundred and fifty-five ten-millionths of an inch long. Am I clear?"

"Sure!" came the voices of his audience.

"That much Eldridge and any other man trained in elementary science already knows. It is no secret."

"It hasn't been published," observed Hallowell grimly.

"Well, go to it! The task of the independent investigator, of which we are some, is now to discover, first, what are those conditions, and, second, what causes them. With the exception of Mr. Hallowell, we all know what this guiding power is."

"Don't get it," growled Simmons.

"Now, look here, Simmons, you are very loyal to McCarthy, for whatever reason, but your loyalty is misplaced. For one thing, your man has disappeared, and will not return. That last message scared him out. For another thing, we're going to need you in our campaign, the worst way."

"I'm from Copenhagen; you got to show me," said Simmons.

Darrow laughed softly.

"We'll show you, all right," said he. He sketched briefly for Hallowell's benefit the reasoning already followed out, and which it is therefore unnecessary to repeat here. "So now," he concluded, "we will consider this hypothesis: that these phenomena are caused by one man in control of a force capable of deadening vibrations in ether and solids within certain definite limits."

"Why do you limit it?" cried Hallowell.

"Because we have had but one manifestation at a time. If this Unknown were out really to frighten—which seems to be his intention—it would be much more effective to visit us with absolute darkness and absolute silence combined. That would be really terrifying. He has not done so. Therefore, I conclude that his power is limited in applicability."

"Isn't that a little doubtful?" spoke up Jack.

"Of course," said Darrow cheerfully. "That's where we're going to win out on this sporting proposition with our dear Brother Eldridge. He won't accept any hypothesis unless it is absolutely copper-riveted. We will."

"I think you underestimate Eldridge," spoke up Hallowell. "He's the only original think-tank in a village of horse troughs."

"I don't underestimate him one bit," countered Darrow; "but we have a head start on him with our reasoning; that's all. He's absolutely sure to come to the conclusions I have just detailed, only he'll get there a little more slowly. That's why I want you in on this thing, Hallowell."

"How's that?"

"We'll publish everything up to date and cut the ground from under him."

"What's your special grouch on Eldridge, anyway?" asked Jack.

"I like to worry him," replied Percy Darrow non-committally.

At this moment the darkness disappeared as though some one had turned a switch. The reporter, the operator and the scientist's young assistant moved involuntarily as though dodging, and blinked. Darrow shaded his eyes with one hand and proceeded as though nothing had happened.

"Here are the exclusive points of your story," he said to Hallowell, handing him a sheaf of yellow wireless forms. "I got them in McCarthy's office. They are messages from the unknown wielder of the mysterious power to his enemy, the political boss. There will be plenty who will conclude these messages to be the result of fanaticism, after the fact; that is to say, they will conclude some wireless amateur has taken advantage of natural phenomena and, by claiming himself the author of them, has attempted to use them against his enemy. Of course, the answer to that is that if the Unknown—let's call him Monsieur X—did not cause these strange things, he at least knew enough about them to predict them accurately."

"You just leave that to me," hummed Hallowell under his breath. The reporter had been glancing over the wireless forms, and his eyes were shining with delight.

"Here is the last one," said Darrow, producing a crumpled yellow paper from his pocket. "I went back after it."

"McCarthy: My patience is at an end. Your last warning will be sent you at nine thirty this morning. If you do not sail on the Celtic at noon I shall strike. You are of a stubborn and a stiff-necked generation, but I am your lord and master, and my wrath shall be visited on you. Begone, or you shall die the death."

"That bluffed him out," said Darrow, "and I don't blame him. Now, Simmons," said he, turning to the operator, who had sat in utter silence, "how about it? Are you with us, or against us?"

"How do you mean?" demanded Simmons.

"This," said Darrow sharply. "The time has passed for concealment. Every message through the ether must now reach the public. We must send messages back. The case is out of private hands; it has become important to the people. Will you agree on your honor faithfully to transmit?" He leaned forward, his indolent frame startlingly tense. "Are you afraid of McCarthy?"

"He's been good to me—it's a family matter," muttered the operator.

"Well—" Darrow arose, crossed to the operator, and whispered to him for a moment. "You see the seriousness—you are an intelligent man."

The operator turned pale.

"I hadn't thought of that," he muttered. "I hadn't thought of that. Of course I'm with you."

"I thought you would be," drawled Percy Darrow slowly. "If you hadn't decided to be, I'd have had another man put in your place. Hadn't thought of that, either, had you?"

"No, sir," replied Simmons.

"Well, I prefer you. It's no job for a quitter, and I believe you'll stick."

"I'll stick," repeated Simmons.

"Well, to work," said Darrow, lighting the cigarette he had been playing with. "Send this out, and see if you can reach Monsieur X.

"'M,'" he dictated slowly. "'Do you get this?' Repeat that until you get a reply."

Without comment the operator turned to his key. The long ripping crashes of the wireless sender followed the movements of his fingers.

"I get his 'I—I,'" he said, after a moment. "It's almighty faint."

"Good!" said Darrow. "Give him this:

"'McCarthy has disappeared. Can no longer reach him with your messages.'"

"He merely answers 'I—I,'" observed the operator.

"By the way," asked Darrow, "what is your shift, anyhow? Weren't you on at night when this thing began?"

"I'm still on at night; but Mr. McCarthy sent me a message, and asked me to stay on all this morning as a personal favor to him."

"I see. Then you're still on at night?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, tell Monsieur X that fact, put yourself at his disposal, and tell him he'd better get all his messages to you rather than to the other operators here."

"All right."

"There's your story," said Darrow to Hallowell; "it's in those messages. The scientific aspect will probably be done by somebody for the evening papers. You better concentrate on Monsieur X's connection with McCarthy."

"Say, my friend," said Hallowell earnestly, "do you think I'm a reporter for the Scientific American or a newspaper?"

All three rose. The operator was busy crashing away at his Leyden jars.

"What next?" asked Jack.

"That depends on two things."

"Whether or not McCarthy takes the Celtic," interposed Hallowell quickly.

"And whether Monsieur X will be satisfied with his mere disappearance, if he does not take the Celtic," supplemented Darrow. "In any case, we've got to find him. He's unbalanced; he possesses an immense and disconcerting and a dangerous power; he is becoming possessed of a manie des grandeurs. You remember the phrasing of his last message? 'I am your lord and master, and my wrath shall be visited on you. Begone!' That is the language of exaltation. Exaltation is not far short of irresponsible raving."

"What possible clue—" began Jack Warford blankly.

"When a man is somewhere out in the ether there is no clue," replied Darrow.

"Then how on earth can you hope to find him?"

"By the exercise of pure reason," said Darrow calmly.



CHAPTER XIII

DARROW'S CHALLENGE

With a final warning to Simmons as to the dissemination of any information without consulting him, Darrow left the room. Hallowell listened to this advice with unmixed satisfaction; the afternoon papers would not be able to get at his source of information. The reporter felt a slight wonder as to how Darrow had managed his ascendency over the operator. An inquiry as to that met with a shake of the head.

"I may have to ask your help in that later," was his only reply.

At the corner, after pushing through a curious crowd, the men separated. Hallowell started for the wharf; Jack Warford for home—at Darrow's request. The scientist returned to his own apartments, where he locked himself in and sat for five hours cross-legged on a divan, staring straight ahead of him, doing nothing. At the end of that time he cautiously stretched his legs, sighed, rose, and looked into the mirror.

"I guess you're hungry," he remarked to the image therein.

It was now near mid-afternoon. Percy Darrow wandered out, ate a leisurely meal at the nearest restaurant, and sauntered up the avenue. He paused at a news stand to buy an afternoon paper, glanced at the head-lines and a portion of the text, and smiled sweetly to himself. Then he betook himself by means of a bus to the Warford residence.

Helen was at home, and in the library. With her was Professor Eldridge. The men greeted each other formally. After a moment of general conversation Darrow produced the newspaper.

"I see you have your theories in print," he drawled. "Very interesting. I didn't know you'd undertaken grammar-school physics instruction."

"I know I'm going to be grateful for any sort of instruction—from anybody," interposed Helen. "I'm all in the dark."

"Like the Atlas Building," Darrow smiled at her. "Well, here's a very good exposition in words of one syllable. I'll leave you the paper. Professor, what have you concluded as to the causes?"

"They are yet to be determined."

"Pardon me," drawled Darrow, "they have been determined—or at least their controlling power."

"In what way, may I ask?" inquired Professor Eldridge formally.

"Very simply. By the exercise of a little reason. I am going to tell you, because I want you to start fairly with me; and because you'll know all about it in the morning, anyway."

"Your idea—the one you told us yesterday—is to be published?" cried Helen, leaning forward with interest.

"The basis of it will be," replied Darrow. "Now"—he turned to Eldridge—"listen carefully; I'm not going to indulge in many explanations. Malachi McCarthy, political boss of this city, has made a personal enemy of a half-crazed or at least unbalanced man, who has in some way gained a limited power over etheric and other vibrations. This power Monsieur X, as I call him—the Unknown—has employed in fantastic manifestations designed solely for the purpose of frightening his enemy into leaving this country."

Eldridge was listening with the keenest attention, his cold gray eyes glittering frostily behind their toric lenses.

"You support your major hypothesis, I suppose?" he demand calmly.

"By wireless messages sent from Monsieur X to McCarthy, in which he predicts or appoints in advance the exact hour at which these manifestations take place."

"In advance, I understand you to say?"

"Precisely."

"The proof is as conclusive for merely prophetic ability as for power over the phenomena."

"In formal logic; not in common sense."

Eldridge reflected a moment further, removing his glasses, with the edge of which he tapped methodically the palm of his left hand. Helen had sunk back into the depths of her armchair, and was watching with immobile countenance but vividly interested eyes the progress of the duel.

"Granting for the moment your major hypothesis," Eldridge stated at last, "I follow your other essential statements. The man is unbalanced because he chooses such a method of accomplishing a simple end."

"Quite so."

"His power is limited because it has been applied to but one manifestation of etheric vibration at a time; and each manifestation has had a defined duration."

Darrow bowed. "You are the only original think-tank," he quoted Hallowell's earlier remark.

"You are most kind to place me in possession of these additional facts," said Eldridge, resuming his glasses, "for naturally my conclusions, based on incomplete premises, could hardly be considered more than tentative. The happy accident of an acquaintance with the existence of these wireless messages and this personal enmity gave you a manifest but artificial advantage in the construction of your hypothesis."

"Did I not see you in the corridor of the Atlas Building the day of the first electrical failure?" asked Darrow.

"Certainly."

"Then you had just as much to go on as I did," drawled Darrow, half closing his eyes. The long dark lashes fell across his cheek, investing him in his most harmless and effeminate look.

"I fail to—"

"Yes, you fail, all right," interrupted Darrow. "You had all the strings in your hands, but you were a mile behind me in the solution of this mystery. I'll tell you why: it was for the same reason that you're going to fail a second time, now that once again I've put all the strings in your hands."

"I must confess I fail to gather your meaning," said Professor Eldridge coldly.

"It was for the same reason that always until his death you were inferior to dear old Doctor Schermerhorn as a scientist. You are an almost perfect thinking machine."

Darrow quite deliberately lighted a cigarette, flipped the match into the grate, and leaned back luxuriously. Professor Eldridge sat bolt upright, waiting. Helen Warford watched them both.

"You have no humanity; you have no imagination," stated Darrow at last. "You follow the dictates of rigid science, and of logic."

"Most certainly," Eldridge agreed to this, as to a compliment.

"It takes you far," continued Darrow, "but not far enough. You observe only facts; I also observe men. You will follow only where your facts lead; I am willing to take a leap in the dark. I'll have all this matter hunted out while you are proving your first steps."

"That, I understand it, is a challenge?" demanded Eldridge, touched in his pride of the scientific diagnostician.

"That," said Percy Darrow blandly, "is a statement of fact."

"We shall see."

"Sure!" agreed Darrow. "Now, the thing to do is to find Monsieur X. I don't know whether your curiously scutellate mind has arrived at the point where it is willing to admit the existence of Monsieur X or not; but it will. The man who finds Monsieur X wins. Now, you know or can read in the morning paper every fact I have. Go to it!"

Eldridge bowed formally.

"There's one other thing," went on Darrow in a more serious tone of voice. "You have, of course, considered the logical result of this power carried to its ultimate possibility."

"Certainly," replied Eldridge coldly. "The question is superfluous."

"It is a conclusion which many scientific minds will come to, but which will escape the general public unless the surmise is published. For the present I suggest that we use our influence to keep it out of the prints."

Eldridge reflected. "You are quite right," said he; and rose to go.

After his departure Helen turned on Darrow.

"You were positively insulting!" she cried, "and in my house! How could you?"

"Helen," said Darrow, facing her squarely, "I maintained rigidly all the outer forms of politeness. That is as far as I will go anywhere with that man. My statement to him is quite just; he has no humanity."

"What do you mean? Why are you so bitter?" asked Helen, a little subdued in her anger by the young man's evident earnestness.

"You never knew Doctor Schermerhorn, did you, Helen?" he asked.

"The funny little old German? Indeed, I did! He was a dear!"

"He was one of the greatest scientists living—and he was a dear! That goes far to explain him—a gentle, wise, child-like, old man— with imagination and a Heaven-seeking soul. He picked me up as a boy, and was a father to me. I was his scientific assistant until he was killed, murdered by the foulest band of pirates. Life passes; and that is long ago."

He fell silent a moment; and the girl looked on this unprecedented betrayal of feeling with eyes at once startled and sympathetic.

"Doctor Schermerhorn," went on Darrow in his usual faintly tired, faintly cynical tone, "worked off and on for five years on a certain purely scientific discovery, the nature of which you would not understand. In conversation he told its essentials to this Eldridge. Doctor Schermerhorn fell sick of a passing illness. When he had recovered, the discovery had been completed and given to the scientific world."

"Oh!" cried Helen. "What a trick!"

"So I think. The discovery was purely theoretic and brought no particular fame or money to Eldridge. It was, as he looked at it, and as the doctor himself looked at it, merely carrying common knowledge to a conclusion. Perhaps it was; but I never forgave Eldridge for depriving the old man of the little satisfaction of the final proof. It is indicative of the whole man. He lacks humanity, and therefore imagination."

"Still, I wish you wouldn't be quite so bitter when I'm around," pleaded Helen, "though I love your feeling for dear old Doctor Schermerhorn."

"I wish you could arrange to get out of town for a little while," urged Darrow. "Isn't there some one you can visit?"

"Do you mean there is danger?"

"There is the potentiality of danger," Darrow amended. "I am almost confident, if pure reason can be relied on, that when the time comes I can avert the danger."

"Almost—" said Helen.

"I may have missed one of the elements of the case—though I do not think so. I can be practically certain when I telephone a man I know—or see the morning papers."

"Telephone now, then. But why 'when the time comes'? Why not now?"

Darrow arose to go to the telephone. He shook his head.

"Let Eldridge do his best. He has always succeeded—triumphantly. Now he will fail, and he will fail in the most spectacular, the most public way possible."

He lifted his eyes, usually so dreamy, so soft brown. Helen was startled at the lambent flash in their depths. He sauntered from the room. After a moment she heard his voice in conversation with the man he had called.

"Hallowell?" he said, "good luck to find you. Did our friend leave on the Celtic? No? Sure he didn't sneak off in disguise? I'll trust you to think of everything. Sure! Meet me at Simmons' wireless in half an hour."

Helen heard the click as he hung up the receiver. A moment later he lounged back into the room.

"All right," he said. "My job's done."

"Done!" echoed Helen in surprise.

"Either I'm right or I'm wrong," said Darrow. "Every element of the game is now certainly before me. If my reasoning is correct I shall receive certain proof of that fact within half an hour. If it is wrong, then I'm away off, and Eldridge's methods will win if any can."

"What is the proof? Aren't you wildly excited? Tell me!" cried Helen.

"The proof is whether or not a certain message has been received over a certain wireless," said Darrow. "I'll know soon enough. But that is not the question; can not you get out of town for a little while?"

Helen surveyed him speculatively.

"If there is no danger, I can see no reason for it," she stated at length, with decision. "If there is danger you should warn a great many others."

"But if that warning might precipitate the danger?"

"Shall I go or stay?" she demanded, ignoring the equivocation.

Darrow considered.

"Stay," he decided at last. "I'll bet more than my life that I'm right," he muttered. "Now," he continued, a trifle more briskly, "be prepared for fireworks. Unless I'm very much mistaken this little old town is going variously and duly to be stood on its head at odd times soon. That's the way I size it up. Don't be frightened; don't get caught unprepared. I think we've had the whole bag of tricks. At almost any moment we're likely to be cut off from all electricity, all sound, or all light—never more than one at a time. I imagine we shall have ample warning, but perhaps not. In any case, don't be frightened. It's harmless in itself. Better stay home nights. You can reassure your friends if you want to; but on no account get my name in this. If I am quoted, it will do incalculable harm."

"Why not tell the public that it is harmless?" demanded Helen. "Think of the anxiety, the accidents, the genuine terror it would save."

Darrow rose slowly to go. He walked quite deliberately over to Helen, and faced her for a moment in silence.

"Helen," he said impressively at last, "I have talked freely with you because I felt I could trust you. Believe me, I know the exigencies of this case better than you do; and you must obey me in what I say. I am speaking very seriously. If you allow your sympathies to act on the very limited knowledge you possess, you will probably bring about incalculable harm. We walk in safety only while we stick to the path. If you try to act in any case on what your judgment or your sympathies may advise, and without consulting me, you may cause the city, the people, and all that you know or care for to be blotted out of existence. Do you understand? Do you believe me?"

"I understand; I believe you," repeated the girl a trifle faintly.

Darrow left without further ceremony. Helen stood where he had left her on the rug, staring after him, a new expression in her eyes. She had known Percy Darrow for many years. Always she had appreciated his intellect, but deprecated what she had considered his indolence, his softness of character, his tendency to let things drift. For the first time she realized that not invariably do manners make the man.



CHAPTER XIV

THE FEAR OF DANGER

Before leaving the house, Darrow summoned Jack Warford.

"Come on, old bulldog," said he. "You're to live with me a while now. The game is closing down."

"Bully," said Jack. "I'll pack a suit case."

"Have it done for you, and sent down to my place. We must hustle for the Atlas Building now."

"What's doing?" asked Jack, as they boarded a surface car.

"Absolutely nothing—for some time perhaps. But we must be ready. And the waiting will be amusing, I promise you that."

When they arrived at the Atlas Building, Darrow was surprised to find Simmons already in charge of the office.

"Thought you were on night duty," said he.

"I am," replied Simmons curtly. "But judging by what you said this morning, I considered I'd better be on the job myself."

"Good boy," approved Darrow. "I see I've made no mistake in you. Just stick it out twelve hours more, and we'll have it settled. Anything more?"

Simmons thrust a message across the table.

Darrow took it quite calmly. At this moment Hallowell entered.

"What time did this come?" asked Darrow, nodding to the reporter.

"At twelve thirty."

Darrow nodded twice with great satisfaction.

Then quite deliberately he unfolded the paper and perused its contents. Without change of expression he handed it to Hallowell. The latter read aloud:

"TO THE PEOPLE: A traitor is among you—one who has betrayed you, one and all, but whom you cherish to your bosoms as a viper. I, who am greater than you all, have laid my commands upon him, and he has seen fit to disobey. He is now in hiding among you. This man must be produced. I would not willingly harass you, but this, my will, must be carried out. If he is not found by six to-morrow a sign will be sent to you that you may believe. I am patient, but I must be obeyed."

"Now, what do you think of that!" cried Hallowell. "He doesn't even mention the name of his friend to the dear people who are to hunt him down! Fine dope!"

Darrow's face expressed a sleepy satisfaction. He stretched his arms and yawned.

"You might supply the deficiency," he suggested. "Well," he remarked to Jack, "that settles it. Everything's running like a catboat in a fair wind. He's in communication with us; he is gaining confidence in his inflated imaginary importance; we are to have a continuance of his peculiar activities; and we can put our hands on him at a moment's notice."

"What!" shouted Hallowell and Jack Warford, leaping to their feet.

"Where is he?" demanded the reporter.

"How do you know?" cried Jack.

Simmons, his head-piece laid aside, looked up at him in silent curiosity.

"It is sufficient for now that I do know," smiled Darrow. "As for how I know, that last wireless proved it to me."

All three men immediately bent over the message for a detailed perusal. After a minute's scrutiny, Hallowell looked up in disappointment.

"Too many for me," he confessed. "What is there in that?"

But Darrow shook his head.

"I play my own game," was all the explanation he would vouchsafe.

"You may as well knock off, old man," he told Simmons. "I don't think there'll be anything more doing to-night; and it doesn't matter if there is. Tell your other man to jot down anything from that sending, if any comes. Now," he turned to Hallowell, "I want to see your managing editor."

The three took the subway to City Hall Square. The managing editor received Darrow with much favor as the vehicle of a big scoop brought in far enough ahead of going to press to permit of ample time for its development.

"Now, Mr. Curtis," said Darrow to this man, "this is going to be an interesting week for you. Here's your last exclusive despatch. From to-morrow morning every paper in town will naturally get every wireless that comes in."

"H'm," observed Curtis, reading the despatch. "What next?"

"He'll fulfil his threat. To-morrow evening at six o'clock he will stop the vibrations either of light, of electricity, or of sound—probably of electricity, as he has appointed the rush hour."

"Most likely," Curtis agreed.

"Warn the people to keep out of the subways, and not to get scared. Take it easy. There's no danger. Explain why in words of one syllable."

"Sure."

"Now, this is what I'm here for. Up to now these manifestations have been harmless in their direct effects. But follow the hypothesis to its logical conclusion. Suppose this man can arrest the vibrations not only of light and sound, but also of the third member of the vibratory trinity. Suppose he should go one step farther; and, even for the barest fraction of time, should be able to stop the vibrations of heat!"

The managing editor half rose. As the idea in its full significance gained hold on their imaginations the three men turned to stare blankly at one another.

"That is annihilation!" Curtis whispered.

"On a wholesale scale," agreed Darrow calmly. "It means the death of every living thing from the smallest insect to the largest animal, from the microbe to the very lichens on the stones of Trinity. I agree with the way you look." He laughed a little. "But the case isn't so bad as it sounds," he went on. "If the crust of the earth were to collapse, that would be annihilation, too. But it isn't likely to happen. There are several things to think of."

"What, for the love of Pete!" gasped Curtis. "Any small efforts at muck-racking this refrigerator trust would be thankfully received."

"In the first place, as you know," explained Darrow," his power seems to be limited in certain directions. He apparently can stop vibrations only of certain defined wave-lengths at one time. It may be that he is unable to stop heat vibrations at all."

"You'll have to do better than that," growled Curtis.

"The rest is faith—on your part," replied Darrow. "For I'll guarantee that even if Monsieur X has this power, I'll stop him before he exercises it."

"Guarantee?" inquired Curtis.

"There's nothing to prevent my moving to California or Mombassa if I thought myself in any danger here," Darrow pointed out. "It would be very easy for me quietly to warn my friends and quietly do the grand sneak."

"True," muttered Curtis, rummaging on his desk for a pipe.

"The danger isn't the point—it's the fear of danger," said Darrow.

Curtis looked up, arresting the operation of crowding the tobacco into the pipe bowl.

"Suppose that throughout the length and breadth of this city the idea should be spread broadcast that at any given moment it might be destroyed. Can you imagine the effect?"

"Immediate exodus," grinned Curtis. "Immediate is a nice dignified word," he added.

"Quite so, and then?"

"Eh?"

"What in blazes would four million city people without homes or occupations do? Where would they go? What would happen?"

"You see what I mean," went on Darrow, after the slight pause necessary to let this sink in. "The fear would bring about a general catastrophe only less serious than the fact itself. It's up to you newspaper men to see that they don't catch this fear. There'll be a hundred letters from foxy boys with just enough logic or imagination to see the possibility of cutting off the furnace; but without imagination enough to get the final effect of telling people about it. Suppress it. Unless I'm mistaken, the affair will be over in a week."

Curtis drummed thoughtfully on his desk.

"It's got to be done, and it will be done," he said at last. "I'll get to every paper in the city to-night—if it costs us our scoop."

"But won't the people who write the letters tell about it, anyway?" asked Jack. "And won't the outside papers have the same stuff?"

"Sure," agreed Curtis promptly, "but what isn't in the city press doesn't get to the mass of the public; that's a cinch. There will be some thousands or even tens of thousands who will leave; there'll be rumors a-plenty; there'll be the damnedest row since the Crusades—but the people will stick. I'm taking your word for the danger."

"Well, I'm the hostage," Darrow reminded him.

"Correct," said Curtis, reaching for the desk telephone.

Hallowell followed the visitors to the narrow hall.

"Now," said Darrow in parting, "remember what I have said. Don't mention my name nor indicate that there is anywhere an idea that the identity or whereabouts of Monsieur X is by anybody suspected."



CHAPTER XV

THE MASTER SPEAKS AGAIN

Having thus detailed rather minutely the situation in which the city and the actors in its drama found themselves, it now becomes necessary to move the action forward to the point where the moneyed interests took a hand in the game.

That was brought about in somewhat more than fifty hours.

In the meantime the facts as to vibrations were published in all the papers; the despatches and the relations between McCarthy and Monsieur X exclusively in the Despatch—to that organ's vast satisfaction and credit; and the possibilities of tragedy in none. This latter fact was greatly to the credit of a maligned class of men. It is common belief that no cause is too sacred or no consequence too grave to give pause to the editorial rapacity for news. The present instance disproved that supposition. No journal, yellow or otherwise, contained a line of suggestion that anything beyond annoyance was to be feared from these queer manifestations.

The consequences on a mixed population like that of New York were very peculiar. The people naturally divided themselves into three classes. In the first were those who had received their warning from logic, friends, or the outside world; and who either promptly left town or, being unable to do so, lived in fear. In the second were all that numerous body who, neurasthenically unbalanced or near the overbalance, shut instinctively the eyes of their reason and glowed with a devastating and fanatical religious zeal. Among these, so exextraordinarily are we constituted, almost immediately grew up various sects, uniting only in the belief that the wrath of God was upon an iniquitous people.

By far the largest class of all, comprising the every-day busy bulk of the people, were those who accepted the thing at its face value, read its own papers, went about its business, and spared time to laugh at the absurdities or growl at the inconveniences of the phenomena. With true American adaptability, it speedily accustomed itself to both the expectation of, and the coping with, unusual conditions. It went forth about its daily affairs; it started for home a little early in order to get there in season; it eschewed subways and theaters; it learned to wait patiently, when one of the three blights struck its world, as a man waits patiently for a shower to pass.

This class, as has been said, was preponderantly in the majority, but its mass was being constantly diminished as a little knowledge of danger seeped into its substance. News of the possible catastrophe passed from mouth to mouth; a world outside, waiting aghast at such fatuity, began to get in its messages. Street corner alarmists talked to such as would listen. Thousands upon thousands left the city. Hundreds of thousands more, tied hard and fast by the strings of necessity, waited in an hourly growing dread.

The "sign" had been sent promptly at six o'clock, as promised. It proved Darrow's prediction by turning out to be a stoppage of the electrical systems. This time it lasted only half an hour-long enough to throw the traffic and transportation into confusion. It was followed at short intervals by demonstrations in light and sound; none was of long duration.

After the first few, their occurrence came freakishly, in flashes, as though the hidden antagonist delighted in confusing his immense audience. The messages he sent over the wireless in the Atlas Building grew more and more threatening and grandiose. They demanded invariably that McCarthy should be sought out and delivered up to a rather vaguely described vengeance; and threatened with dire calamities all the inhabitants of Manhattan if the Unknown's desires were not fulfilled. These threats grew more definite in character as time went on.

The effect of all this in the long run was, of course, confusion and instability. People laughed or cursed; but they also listened and reasoned. Gradually, throughout the city, dread was extending the blackness of its terror. A knowledge that would have caused a tremendous panic if it had been divulged suddenly now gave birth to a deep seated uneasiness.

Where the panic would have torn men up by the roots and flung them in terrorized mobs through the congested ways and out into the inhospitable country, the uneasiness of dread held them cowering at their accustomed tasks. They were afraid; but they had had time to think, and they realized what it would mean to leave their beloved or accustomed or necessary city, as the case might be. And it must be remembered that the definite knowledge of what might be feared was not yet disseminated among them.

But this attitude hurt business, and business struck back. The subways were practically deserted; the theaters empty; the accustomed careless life of the Great White Way thinned; the streams of life slackened. Furthermore, the intelligent criminal immediately discovered that ideal shields were being provided him gratis behind which to conduct his crimes. In the silence a man could blow out the side of a bank building with impunity, provided only he kept out of sight. In the darkness he could pilfer at will, with only the proviso that he forget not his gum shoes. The possibilities of night crime when electricity lacks have already been touched upon.

To meet unusual conditions the people individually and collectively rose to heights of forgotten ingenuity. The physical life of a city is so well established that the average city dweller grows out of the pioneer virtue of adaptability. Now once more these people were forced to meet new and untried conditions, to guard against new dangers, new opposing forces. In an incredibly short space of time they grew out of aimless panic. They learned to sit tight; to guard adequately their lives, their treasure, and even to a certain extent their time against undue loss.

In the meantime the moneyed powers had been prompt to act. They did not intend to stand idly while their pockets were being picked by untoward circumstances; nor did they intend to continue indefinitely the unusual expenditures necessary to guard themselves against even a greater loss. As there seemed to be two men to find, they employed the best of detectives to search for McCarthy; and professor Eldridge, as the greatest living expert, to hunt down the Unknown. Thus unexpectedly Eldridge found himself with definite backing in his strange duel with Darrow.

It is now desirable to place before the reader samples of the messages sent by Monsieur X and received in the wireless office of the Atlas Building, after which we can proceed once more to follow out the sequence of events.

"TO THE PEOPLE: The sign has been sent you. You must now believe. The traitor is among you, and you must hunt him down. This is your sacred duty, for I, your master, have laid it upon you."

That was one of the first. After a round dozen of similar import, there came this:

"TO THE PEOPLE: I, your master, am displeased with you. The visitations of darkness and of silence have been sent, but you have heeded little. I doubt not that ye search, as I have commanded, but you do not realize to the full your sacred obligation. You go about your business and you carry on your affairs. Your business and your affairs are not so important as these, my commands. Beware lest you draw down the wrath of the Lord's Anointed. I am patient with your ignorance; but give heed."

The last at present to which your attention is called came just before the events to be detailed:

"TO THE PEOPLE: Your time is drawing short. You are a stubborn and a stiff-necked generation. My patience is ebbing away. You have been shown the power of my right hand, and you have gone your accustomed ways. You have defied the might of the Right Hand of God. Now I will lay on you my commands.

"You must seek out Apollyon and deliver him even into my hands, and that shortly. I shall be patient yet a little while longer, for I know that you grope in darkness and have not the light that shines upon me. But soon I shall strike."



CHAPTER XVI

THE PROFESSOR'S EXPERIMENT

Throughout all this excitement Percy Darrow did absolutely nothing. He spent all his time, save that required for meals and the shortest necessary sleep, in a round-armed wooden chair in the wireless station of the Atlas Building. Jack Warford sat with him. Darrow rarely opened his mouth for speech, but smoked slowly a few cigarettes, and rolled many more, which he held unlighted in the corner of his mouth until they dropped to pieces. He watched quietly all that went on; glanced through such messages as came in from Monsieur X, read the papers, and dozed. To reporters he was affable enough in his drawling slow fashion, but had nothing to say.

"Eldridge is doing this," he said to them; "I'm only in the position of an interested spectator."

Eldridge had taken hold in a thoroughly competent way. Back of the cold precision of his undoubted scientific attainments lurked, unexpected by most, a strong ambition and a less admirable hankering for the lime-light. His opportunity to gratify all these appetites—science, advancement, and fame—was too good not to cause him the deepest satisfaction.

"I have determined," he told the reporters, "that this particular instrument alone receives the messages from the unknown perpetrator. Our investigations must be initiated, therefore, in this apartment."

"How do you explain it?" asked one of the reporters.

"I can not explain it scientifically," admitted Eldridge, "but I can surmise that the fact either purposely or accidentally has to do either with this instrument's location or with some slight and undetermined peculiarity of its tuning."

"You could easily tell which by moving the instrument to another station where they aren't getting the messages now," suggested Darrow lazily.

"Certainly," snapped Eldridge, "any child could deduce that. But I fail to see the use or necessity for the determination at all unless in a spirit of frivolous play. Our task is not to discover where the messages can be received, but whence they are sent."

He gazed frostily at the man who had interrupted him. Darrow smiled softly back.

"How far will your instrument carry in sending?" Eldridge asked Simmons.

"Its extreme is about two hundred miles."

"Then we can safely assume that a circle drawn with a two-hundred-mile radius would contain this man you call Monsieur X"—the newspapers had adopted Darrow's nickname for the Unknown—"since you have succeeded in communicating with him."

"Marvelous," said Darrow to Jack—but under his breath.

"As the sending of Monsieur X is faint, it follows that he is somewhere near the periphery of this circle, or that he is possessed of a primitive or weak instrument. By the doctrine of probabilities we should be justified in concluding against the latter supposition."

"How's that, Professor?" asked the Morning Register man. "It doesn't get to me."

"He is evidently a man not only of scientific attainments, but of immense scientific possessions—as is evidenced by these phenomenal results he is able to accomplish. But we are not justified in reasoning according to the doctrine of probabilities. Therefore, we shall proceed methodically. I have already made my preparations."

Eldridge looked about him with an air of triumph.

"I am fortunate enough to have, in the present crisis, unlimited financial backing," he said. "Therefore, I am in a position to carry out the most exhaustive of experiments."

He stretched his hand out for a long roll, which he laid flat upon the table, pinning down the corners.

"Here is a map of the Eastern States," said he. "I have drawn a circle on it with a two-hundred-miles radius. At this moment a private instrument with a full crew to string sending and receiving wires is two hundred miles from here on the New York Central Railroad. It has for its transportation a private train, and it will be given a clear right of way." He turned to Simmons. "Have you found yourself able to communicate with this Monsieur X at any time?"

"Communicate!" echoed Simmons. "Why, he's easier to talk to than a girl who wants an ice-cream soda!"

"Then send this: 'Your messages have been communicated to the people. Be patient.'"

Simmons touched the key. The spark leaped crashing.

"What do you get?" asked Eldridge, after a moment.

"Oh, a lot of the same sort of dope," answered Simmons wearily. "Do you want it?"

"No, it is not necessary," replied Eldridge. "But listen for another message from about the same distance when he has finished."

Silence fell on the room. At the end of ten minutes Simmons raised his head.

"I get 'O K Q' over and over," said he. "Want that?"

"That," replied Eldridge with satisfaction, "indicates that my crew on the special train in the Adirondacks two hundred miles away has heard your message to Monsieur X." He glanced at his watch. "Now, if you would be so good as to afford me a moment's assistance," he requested Simmons, "I wish to disconnect from your battery one of your powerful Leyden jars, and to substitute for it one of weaker voltage. I ventured to instruct my delivery man to leave a few in the outer hall."

"That will weaken the sending power of my instrument," objected Simmons.

"Exactly what I wish to do," replied Eldridge.

"He's clever all right," Darrow murmured admiringly to Jack. "See what he's up to?"

"Not yet," muttered Jack.

The substitution completed, Eldridge again glanced at his watch.

"Now," he instructed Simmons, "send the letters 'Q E D,' and continue to do so until you again hear the letters 'O K Q.'"

Simmons set himself to the task. It was a long one. At last he reported his answer.

"He sends 'O K Q ten,'" he said.

Eldridge turned to the reporters.

"That means that the substitution of the smaller Leyden jar for one of the larger reduced the sending power of this instrument just ten miles," said he. "My crew has quite simply moved slowly forward until it caught our sending here."

"Next," he instructed Simmons, "see if you can communicate with Monsieur X."

The operator speedily reported his success at that. Eldridge removed his glasses and polished their lenses.

"Thus, gentlemen," said he, "from our circle of two-hundred-mile radius we have eliminated a strip ten miles wide. Naturally if this weakened sending reaches only one hundred and ninety miles, and our antagonist receives our messages, he must be nearer than one hundred and ninety miles. We will now further reduce the strength of our sending and try again."

The younger men present broke into a shout,

"Good work!" somebody cried. They crowded about, keenly interested in this new method of man-hunting. Only Darrow, tipped back in his chair against the wall, seemed unexcited.

To Jack's whispered question he shook his head.

"It's ingenious," he acknowledged, "but he's on the wrong track." That was as far as he would explain, and soon dropped into a slight doze.

Throughout the greater part of the night the experiment continued. Battery by battery the sending power of the instrument was weakened. Mile by mile the special train drew nearer until, by catching the prearranged signal, it determined just how far the new sending reached. Then Simmons tried Monsieur X. As the latter invariably answered, it was, of course, evident that he remained still in the narrowing zone of communication. It was fascinating work, like the drawing of a huge invisible net.

The reporters on the morning papers mastered only with difficulty their inclination to stay. They had to leave before their papers went to press, but were back again in an hour, unwilling to lose a moment of the game. A tension vibrated the little office. Only Percy Darrow dozed alone in the corner, leaning back in his wooden armchair.

At near four o'clock in the morning Simmons raised his head after a long bout of calling to announce that he could get no reply from Monsieur X.

"He's got tired of your fool messages," remarked the Register man. "And I don't wonder! Guess he's gone to bed."

Eldridge said nothing, but replaced the Leyden jar he had but just removed.

"Try one," said he.

"I get him," reported Simmons, after a moment.

"Send him anything plausible and reassuring," commanded Eldridge hastily. He turned to his small and attentive audience in triumph. "Thus, gentlemen," he announced, "we have proven conclusively that our man is located between forty and fifty miles from New York. If we draw two circles, with this building as center, the circumference of one of which is fifty, the other forty miles away, we define the territory within which the malefactor in question is to be found."

The people in the room crowded close about the table to examine the map upon which Professor Eldridge had drawn the circles.

"There's an awful lot of country—some of it pretty wild," objected the Bulletin man. "It will be a long job to hunt a man down in that territory."

"Even if it were as extensive a task as a hasty review of the facts might indicate," stated Eldridge, "I venture to assert that enough men would be forthcoming to expedite such a search. But modifying circumstances will lighten the task."

"How's that?" asked the Banner man, speaking for the others' evident interest.

"We have no means of surmising the method by which this man succeeds in arresting vibratory motions of certain wave-lengths," said Eldridge didactically, "any more than we are able to define the precise nature of electricity. But, as in the case of electricity, we can observe the action of its phenomena. Two salient features leap out at us: one is that these phenomena are limited in time; the other that they are limited in space. The latter aspect we will examine, if you please, gentlemen.

"The phenomena have been directed with great accuracy (a) at the Atlas Building; (b) at this city and some of its immediate suburbs. The peculiarity of this can not but strike an observant mind. How is this man able, at forty or fifty miles distance, to concentrate his efforts on one comparatively small objective? We can only surmise some system of insulating screens or focal mirrors. I might remark in passing that the existence of this power to direct or focus the more rapid ethereal vibrations would be a discovery of considerable scientific moment. But if this is the method employed, why do we not cut a band of vibratory nullifications, rather than touch upon a focal point?"

"Repeat softly," murmured the irrepressible Register man.

"Why," explained Eldridge patiently, "are not the people and buildings between here and the unknown operator affected? The only hypothesis we are justified in working upon is that the man's apparatus is at a height sufficient to carry over intervening obstacles. This hypothesis is strengthened by the collateral fact that the territory we have just determined as that within which he must be found lies in the highlands of our own and neighboring states. We may, therefore, eliminate the low-lying districts within our radius."

Percy Darrow opened one eye.

"Perhaps he's up in a balloon," he drawled languidly; "better take along an aeroplane."

Eldridge cast on him a look of cold scorn. Darrow closed the eye.



CHAPTER XVII

DRAWING THE NET

The "zone of danger", as the Bulletin named it, was immediately the scene of swarming activities. Besides the expedition immediately despatched by the interests backing the investigation, several enterprising newspapers saw a fine chance for a big scoop, and sent out much-heralded parties of their own. The activities of these were well reported, you may be sure. Public interest was at once focused reassuringly on the chances of finding the annoying malefactor to-day or to-morrow; there no longer existed a doubt that he would be found. The weight of dread was lifted, and in the reaction people made light of the inconveniences and fun of the menacing messages that now came in by the dozen.



It was necessary to take extraordinary precautions against thieves and fire; the people took them. It was needful to slacken business in order that the congestion of the rush hour might not again prove tragic; business was slackened. People were willing to undergo many things, because, after all, they were but temporary. The madman of the Catskills would sooner or later be found; his pernicious activities brought to a conclusion. The country to be searched was tremendous, of course, but the search was thorough.

The public delivered itself joyously to a debauch of rumors and of "extras". The insistent alarms of danger, trickling in slowly from the outside world, dried up in the warmth of optimism. Only the more thoughtful, to a few of whom these warnings came, coupled them with Monsieur X's repeated threats, and walked uncertain and in humility.

Percy Darrow did not interest himself in the search, nor did he desert his post in the wireless office. There he did nothing whatever. Jack Warford stayed with him, but immensely bored, it must be confessed. Once he suggested that if Darrow had nothing for him to do that afternoon, he thought he would like to go out for a little exercise.

Darrow shook his head.

"You may go, if you want to, Jack," said he, "but if you do I'll have to get some one else. This isn't much of a job, but I may need you any moment."

"All right," agreed Jack cheerfully. "Only I wish you'd let a fellow know what to expect."

Darrow shook his head. The two now practically lived in the office. Neither had taken his clothes off for several days. They slept in their chairs or on the lounge. Darrow read the various messages from the Unknown, glanced over the newspapers, and dozed.

Thus there passed two days of the search. On the third day the intermittent phenomena and the messages suddenly ceased. This fact was hailed jubilantly by all the papers as indicating that at last the quarry had become alarmed by the near-coming search. From the contracted district still remaining to be combed over, nobody was permitted to depart; and so closely was the cordon drawn by so large a posse that it was physically impossible for any living being to slip by the line.

Thus even if Monsieur X, convinced that at last his discovery was imminent, should destroy his apparatus or attempt to move it and himself to a place of safety, he would find his escape cut off. Thousands of men were employed, and thousands more drafted in as volunteers to render this outcome assured.

It was an army deployed in an irregular circle and moving inward toward its center. Men of the highest executive ability commanded it, saw to its necessary deliberation, eliminated all possibility of a confusion through which any man could slip. The occasion was serious, and it was taken seriously.

Of the outcome no one in touch with the situation had a moment's doubt. The messages and the phenomena had continued to come from the danger zone. It was of course evident that they could not have been sent from any portion of the zone actually searched and occupied by the searchers. The remaining portion of the zone, from which they were still coming, had been completely surrounded. After that the manifestations had ceased. Therefore, Monsieur X must be within the beleaguered circle. To add to the probabilities, as Eldridge pointed out, the remaining district compassed the highest hills in the zone—a fact on all fours with his hypothesis.

On the appointed morning the army moved toward the center. Men beat the ground carefully, so close to one another that they could touch hands. As they closed in, the ranks became thicker. Animals of many kinds, confused as the ranks closed in on them, tried to break through the cordon and were killed. Captains held order in the front row, that the army might not become a crowd. Birds, alarmed by the shouting, rose and wheeled.

In the city immense crowds watched the bulletins sent momently from the very field itself by private wires strung hastily for the occasion. Enterprising journals had prepared huge rough maps, on which the contracting circle was indicated by red lines, constantly redrawn. It was discovery before a multitude. The imagination of the public, fired by its realization of this fact, stretched itself ahead of the distant beaters, bodying forth what they might find.

As the circle narrowed excitement grew. All business ceased. The streets were crowded; the windows of the buildings looking out on the numerous bulletin-boards were black with heads. Those who could not see demanded eagerly of those who could.

In the Atlas Building the wireless operator hung out of his window. Beside him was Jack Warford.

Darrow declined to join them. "You tell me," said he.

Jack therefore reported back over his shoulder the bulletins as they appeared. The crowds below read them, their faces upturned. One ran:

"Cordon now has surrounded the crest of the Knob. Station of Monsieur X determined among oak-trees. Men halted. Picket company surrounds."

The crowd roared its appreciation and impatience. A long pause followed. Then came the next bulletin:

"Search discovers nothing."

A puzzled angry murmur arose, confused and chopped, like cross currents in a tideway. Finally this was hung out:

"No traces of human occupancy."

A moment's astonished pause ensued. Then, over the vast multitude, its faces upturned in incredulous amazement; over the city lying sparkling in the noonday sun fell the pall of absolute darkness.

In the wireless office of the Atlas Building Percy Darrow laughed.



CHAPTER XVIII

CONFUSION WORSE CONFOUNDED

The absolute failure of Eldridge's hypothesis immediately threw public confidence into a profound reaction. Certainty gave place to complete distrust. Rumor gained ground. The exodus increased. Where formerly only those who could do so without great sacrifice or inconvenience had left town, now people were beginning to cut loose at any cost. Men resigned their positions in order to get their families away; others began to arrange their affairs as best they might, as though for a long vacation. As yet panic had not appeared openly in the light of day, but she lurked in the shadows of men's hearts.

The railroads and steamboats were crowded beyond their capacity. Extra trains followed one another as close together as the block signals would allow them to run. Humanity packed the cars. It was like a continual series of football days. In three of them it was estimated that two hundred thousand people had left Manhattan. It would have been physically impossible for the transportation lines to have carried a thousand more. They had reached their capacity; the spigot was wide open.

Percy Darrow showed Jack the head-lines to this effect.

"Cheerful thought," he suggested. "Suppose the whole four million should want to get out at the same time!"

Eldridge had come back to the wireless office thoroughly bewildered. It is a well-known fact that the exact scientist is the hardest man to fool, but the most fooled if fooled at all. Witness the extent to which noted scientists have been taken in by faking spiritualist mediums. So with Eldridge. His hypothesis had been so carefully worked out that the failure of its logic threw his mind into confusion. Until he could discover the weak link in his chain of reasoning, that confusion must continue.

An hour and a half after the bulletin announcing the failure of the search had been posted, Eldridge rushed into the wireless office. The plague of darkness had lifted after fifteen minutes' duration.

"Call Monsieur X," he gasped to the day operator. In fifteen minutes, by rapid substitutions of batteries to weaken or strengthen the sending current, he had redetermined his previous data. Apparently, without the shadow of a doubt, Monsieur X was within the circle.

"He may be at sea," suggested the operator.

But Eldridge shook his head. The circle of the sea had been well patrolled, and for days.

"Begin over again," drawled Darrow. "I told you that you were on the wrong track."

Eldridge glanced at him.

"I can't say that you've done much!" said he tartly.

"No?" queried Darrow, with one of his slow and exasperating smiles. "Perhaps not. But you'd better get to thinking. You won't be able always to take things easy. You may have to hustle before long."

"There has been, I admit," said Eldridge stiffly, repeating in substance the interview he had already given out, "some flaw in our chain of reasoning. This it will be necessary to review with the object of revision. Every physical manifestation must have some physical and definite cause; and this can be found if time enough is bestowed on it. Often the process of elimination is the only method by which the truth can be determined."

Darrow chuckled.

"Look out the process of elimination doesn't overtake you," he remarked.

Eldridge detailed the same reasoning, at greater length, to the men who had employed him. These were very impatient. Business was being not merely impeded, but destroyed. Their customers had no time for them; their employees were in many cases leaving their jobs. They called in all the help they could to assist Eldridge's speculations, but in the end they had to fall back on the scientist as the best on the market. The case was not left in his hands alone, however. After a meeting they offered a reward to any one discovering and putting to an end the disconcerting phenomena.

"Here's where we make money, Jack, big money," observed Darrow when he read this offer. "It'll be bigger before we get through. You and I can have the little expedition to Volcano Island."

"Nothing suits me better," said Jack. "Are you sure we'll get it?"

"Sure," said Darrow.

Monsieur X had of course honored the waiting world with a message. It followed the fifteen minutes of darkness:

"TO THE PEOPLE: I have been patient and have stayed my hand in order that you may learn the vanity of your endeavor. Who are ye that ye shall strive to take me? Vanity and foolishness is your portion. Now ye know my power and ye will listen unto my words as to the words of the Master. Ye must hunt down this man McCarthy and deliver him over unto me. If every one of you gives himself to the task, lo! it is quickly done. Bestir yourselves against the wrath to come!"

These events occupied the three days of the ordered exodus. The time was further filled with rumor that ever grew more dire. Gradually business was suspended entirely. Those who could not or would not go away stood about talking matters over, and, as is always the case, matters did not improve in the telling. The only activity in the city was that bent on seeking out the abiding-place of Monsieur X.

Eldridge had now come to the conclusion that he had perhaps been mistaken in confining his efforts to so small an area. In fact, further experiments rendered hazy the arbitrary outlines formerly determined for the zone of danger. At times Monsieur X answered well within the forty-five-mile mark; at times somewhat beyond the end of the fifty-mile radius. Eldridge immediately undertook a series of more delicate experiments by means of indicators especially designed by him for the occasion. Once more the little wireless office became the focus of repertorial attention.

"Our major premises we find still to be correct," announced Eldridge in the coldly didactic manner characteristic of the man. "This unknown operator is at a distance; and probably at a height. One indication we did not take sufficiently into consideration—the fact that this instrument alone is capable of communication with the instrument of this individual."

Percy Darrow for the first time began to show signs of attention. He dropped the legs of his chair to the floor and leaned forward.

"That would indicate, gentlemen, that the instrument whose location we are desirous of determining is of a peculiar nature. What that nature is we have no means of determining accurately; but in conjunction with the fact that our previous experiments failed to locate Monsieur X, we may adopt the hypothesis that the wireless apparatus of that individual is not so delicately responsive as the average. In other words, the zone within which he may be found is in fact wider than we had supposed."

Darrow leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. Eldridge continued, explaining the means he had taken to determine more accurately the exact location of Monsieur X.



CHAPTER XIX

PERCY KEEPS VIGIL

The morning of the third day after the failure of the search, and of the sixth since McCarthy's disappearance, had arrived. During that time Percy Darrow, apparently insensible to fatigue, had maintained an almost sleepless vigil. His meals Jack Warford brought in to him; he dozed in his chair or on the couch. Never did he appear to do anything.

The very persistent quietude of the man ended by making its impression. To all questions, however, Darrow returned but the one reply, delivered always in a voice full of raillery:

"I couldn't bear to miss a single step of Eldridge's masterly work."

About half past nine of the morning in question, through the door to the wireless office, always half opened, somebody looked hesitatingly into the room. Instantly Darrow and Jack were on their feet and in the hallway.

"Helen!" cried Jack.

"What is it? Anything happened?" demanded Darrow.

She surveyed them both amusedly.

"You certainly look like a frowzy tramp, Jack," she told her brother judiciously, "and you need sleep," she informed Darrow.

The young scientist bowed ironically, his long lashes drooping over his eyes in his accustomed lazy fashion as he realized that the occasion was not urgent. Helen turned directly to him.

"When are you going to stop this?" she demanded.

Darrow raised his eyebrows.

"You needn't look at me like that. You said you could lay your hands on Monsieur X at any moment; why don't you do it?"

"Eldridge is too amusing."

"Too amusing!" echoed the girl. "All you think of is yourself."

"Is it?" drawled Darrow.

"Have you been out in the city? Have you seen the people? Have you seen men out of work? Families leaving their homes? Panic spreading slowly but surely over a whole city?"

"Those pleasures have been denied me," said Darrow blandly.

The girl looked at him with bright angry eyes. Her cheeks were glowing, and her whole figure expressed a tense vibrant life in singular contrast to the apparent indolence of the men at whom she was talking.

"You are insufferable!" She fairly stamped her foot in vexation. "You are an egoist! You would play with the welfare of four million people to gratify your little personal desire for getting even!"

"Steady, sis!" warned Jack.

Darrow had straightened, and his indolent manner had fallen from him.

"I have said I would permit no harm to come to these people, and I mean it," said he.

"No harm!" cried Helen. "What do you call this—"

Darrow turned to the window looking out over the city.

"This!" he said. "Why, this isn't harm! There isn't a man out there who is not better off for what has happened to him. He has lost a little time, a little money, a little sleep, and he has been given a new point of view, a new manhood. As a city dweller he was becoming a mollusk, a creature that could not exist without its shell. The city transported him, warmed him, fed him, amused him, protected him. He had nothing to do with it in any way; he didn't even know how it was done. Deprived of his push-buttons, he was as helpless as a baby. Beyond the little stunt he did in his office or his store, and beyond the ability to cross a crowded street, he was no good. He not only didn't know how to do things, but he was rapidly losing, through disuse, the power to learn how to do things. The modern city dweller, bred, born, brought up on this island, is about as helpless and useless a man, considered as a four-square, self-reliant individual, as you can find on the broad expanse of the globe. I've got no use for a man who can't take care of himself, who's got to have somebody else to do it for him, whenever something to which he hasn't been accustomed rises up in front of him!"

His eye was fixed somberly on the city stretching away into the haze of the autumn day.

"You blame me for letting this thing run!" he went on. "Of course it tickles me to death to see Eldridge flounder; but that isn't all. This is the best thing that could happen to them out there! I'm just patriotic enough to wish them more of it. It's good medicine! At last every man jack of them is up against something he's got to decide for himself. The police are useless; the fire department is useless; the railroads and street-cars are crippled. If a man is going to take care of his life and property, he must do it himself. He's buying back his self-reliance. Self-reliance is a valuable property. He ought to pay something for it. Generally he has to pay war or insurrection or bloody riot. In the present instance he's getting off cheap."

He turned back from the open window. His eye traveled beyond Helen's trim figure down the empty hall. "Wait right here, Jack," he shot over his shoulder, and rushed along the hall and down the stairway before either the young man or his sister could recover from their astonishment.



CHAPTER XX

THE PLAGUE OF COLD

Without pause, and three steps at a time, Darrow ran down three flights of stairs. Then, recovering from his initial excitement somewhat, he caught the elevator and shot to the street. There he walked rapidly to the subway, which he took as far as City Hall Square. On emerging from the subway station he started across for the Despatch office as fast as he could walk. By the entrance to the City Hall, however, he came to an abrupt halt. From the open doorway rushed his friend, Officer Burns, of the City Hall Station. The policeman's face was chalky white; his eyes were staring, his cap was over one side, he staggered uncertainly. As he caught sight of Darrow he stumbled to the young man and clung to his neck, muttering incoherently. People passing in and out looked at him curiously and smiled.

"My God!" gasped Burns, his eyes roving. "I says to him, 'Mike, I don't wonder you've got cold feet.' And there he was, and the mayor—Heaven save—and his secretary! My God!"

Darrow shook his shoulder.

"Here," he said decisively, "what are you talking about? Get yourself together! Remember you're an officer; don't lose your nerve this way!"

At the touch to his pride Burns did pull himself together somewhat, but went on under evident strong excitement.

"I went in just now to the mayor's office a minute," said he, "and saw my friend Mike Mallory, the doorkeeper, settin' in his chair, as usual. It was cold-like, and I went up to him and says, 'Mike, no wonder you get cold feet down here,' just by way of a joke; and when he didn't answer, I went up to him, and he was dead, there in his chair!"

"Well, you've seen dead men before. There's no occasion to lose your nerve, even if you did know him," said Darrow.

The brutality of the speech had its intended effect. Burns straightened.

"That's all very well," said he more collectively. "But the man was froze!"

"Frozen!" muttered Darrow, and whistled.

"Yes, and what's more, his little dog, setting by the chair, was froze, too; so when I stepped back sudden and hit against him, he tumbled over bang, like a cast-iron dog! That got my goat! I ran!"

"Come with me," ordered Darrow decisively.

They entered the building and ran up the single flight of stairs to the second-story room which the mayor of that term had fitted up as a sort of private office of his own. A sharp chill hung in the hallways; this increased as they neared the executive's office. Outside the door sat the doorkeeper in his armchair. Beside him was a dog, in the attitude of an animal seated on its haunches, but lying on its side, one fore leg sticking straight out. Darrow touched the man and stooped over to peer in his face. The attitude was most lifelike; the color was good. A deadly chill ran from Darrow's finger tips up his arm.

He pushed open the door cautiously and looked in.

"All right, Burns," said he. "The atmosphere has become gaseous again. We can go in." With which strange remark he entered the room, followed closely, but uncertainly by the officer.

The private office possessed the atmosphere of a cold-storage vault. Four men occupied it. At the desk was seated the mayor, leaning forward in an attitude of attention, his triple chin on one clenched fist, his heavy face scowling in concentration. Opposite him lounged two men, one leaning against the table, the other against the wall. One had his hand raised in argument, and his mouth open. The other was watching, an expression of alertness on his sharp countenance. At a typewriter lolled the clerk, his hand fumbling among some papers.

The group was exceedingly lifelike, more so, Darrow thought, than any wax figures the Eden Musee had ever placed for the mystification of its country visitors. Indeed, the only indication that the men had not merely suspended action on the entrance of the visitors was a fine white rime frost that sparkled across the burly countenance of the mayor. Darrow remembered that, summer and winter, that dignitary had always perspired!

Burns stood by the door, rooted to the spot, his jaw dropped, his eye staring. Darrow quite calmly walked to the desk. He picked up the inkstand and gazed curiously at its solidified contents, touched the nearest man, gazed curiously at the papers on the desk, and addressed Burns.

"These seem to be frozen, too," he remarked almost sleepily, "and about time, too. This is a sweet gang to be getting together on this sort of a job!"

Quite calmly he gathered the papers on the desk and stuffed them into his pocket. He picked up the desk telephone, giving a number. "Ouch, this receiver's cold," he remarked to Burns. "Hello, Despatch. Is Hallowell in the office? Just in? Send him over right quick, keen jump, City Hall, mayor's second-story office. No, right now. Tell him it's Darrow."

He hung up the receiver.

"Curious phenomenon," he remarked to Burns, who still stood rooted to the spot. "You see, their bodies were naturally almost in equilibrium, and, as they were frozen immediately, that equilibrium was maintained. And the color. I suppose the blood was congealed in the smaller veins, and did not, as in more gradual freezing, recede to the larger blood-vessels. I'm getting frost bitten myself in here. Let's get outside."

But Officer Burns heard none of this. As Darrow moved toward the door he crossed himself and bolted. Darrow heard his heels clattering on the cement of the corridors. He smiled.

"And now the deluge!" he remarked.

The crowds, terrified, inquisitive, sceptical, and speculative, gathered. Officials swept them out and took possession. Hallowell and Darrow conferred earnestly together.

"He has the power to stop heat vibrations, you see," Darrow said. "That makes him really dangerous. His activities here are in line with his other warnings; but he is not ready to go to extremes yet. The city is yet safe."

"Why?" asked Hallowell.

"I know it. But he has the power. If he gets dangerous we must stop him."

"You are sure you can do it?"

"Sure."

"Then, for God's sake, do it! Don't you realize what will happen when news of this gets out, and people understand what it means? Don't you feel your guilt at those men's deaths?" He struck his hand in the direction of the City Hall.

"The people will buy a lot of experience, at cost of a little fright and annoyance," replied Percy Darrow carelessly. "It'll do them good. When it's over, they'll come back again and be good. As for that bunch in there—when you look over those papers I think you'll be inclined to agree with what the religious fanatics will say—that it was a visitation of God."

"But the old, the sick—there'll be deaths among them—the responsibility is something fearful—"

"Never knew a battle fought yet without some loss," observed Darrow.

Hallowell was staring at him.

"I don't understand you," said the reporter. "You have no heart. You are as bad as this Monsieur X, and between you you hold a city in your power—one way or the other!"

"Well, I rather like being a little god," remarked Darrow.

Hallowell started once more to plead, but Darrow cut him short.

"You are thinking of the present," he said. "I am thinking of the future. It's a good thing for people to find out that there's something bigger than they are, or than anything they can make. That fact is the basis of the idea of a God. These are getting to be a godless people." He turned on Hallowell, his sleepy eyes lighting up. "I should be very sorry if I had not intellect enough and imagination enough to see what this may mean to my fellow people; and I should despise myself if I should let an unrestrained compassion lose to four million people the rare opportunity vouchsafed them."

He spoke very solemnly. Hallowell looked at him puzzled.

"Besides," said Darrow whimsically, "I like to devil Eldridge."

He dove into the subway. Hallowell gazed after him.

"There goes either a great man or a crazy fool," he remarked to an English sparrow. He turned over rapidly the papers Darrow had found on the mayor's desk, and smiled grimly. "Of all the barefaced, bald-headed steals!" he said.

Darrow soon mounted once more the elevator of the Atlas Building. He found Jack and Helen still waiting. Before entering the wireless office Darrow cast a scrutinizing glance along the empty hall.

"It's all right," he said. "I'm surer than ever. Everything fits exactly. Now, Helen," he said, "I want you to go home, and I want you to stay there. No matter what happens, do not move from the house. This town is going to have the biggest scare thrown into it that any town ever had since Sodom and Gomorrah got their little jolt. In the language of the Western prophet, 'Hell will soon be popping.' Let her pop. Sit tight; tell your friends to sit tight. If necessary, tell them Monsieur X is captured, and all his works. Tell them I said so."

His air of languid indifference had fallen from him. His eye was bright, and he spoke with authority and vigor.

"You take her home, Jack," he commanded, "and return here at once. Don't forget that nice new-blued pop-gun of yours; we're coming to the time when we may need it."

Jack rose instantly to his mood.

"Correct, General!" he saluted. "Where'd you collect the plunder?" he asked, pointing to a square black bag of some size that Darrow had brought back with him.

"That," said Darrow, "is the first fruit of my larcenous tendencies. I stole that from the mayor's office in the City Hall."

"What is it?"

"That," said Darrow, "I do not know."

He deposited the bag carefully by his chair, and turned, smiling, to Helen.

"Good-by," said he. "Sleep tight."

They went out. Darrow seated himself in his chair, drew his hat over his eyes, and fell into a doze. In the meantime, outside, all through the city, hell was getting ready to pop.



CHAPTER XXI

IN THE FACE OF ETERNITY

Hell popped just as soon as the newspapers could get out their extras. Monsieur X had at last struck, and both interest and belief urged the managing editors at last to give publicity to all the theories, the facts, and the latest message from the fanatic Unknown.

The latter came about three o'clock:

"TO THE PEOPLE: You have defied me, and you have doubted my power. There is no good in you. I, who would have saved you, now must bring about your death as a stubborn and a stiff-necked generation. In humanity is no more good, and of this world I desire nothing more. Prepare within the next three hours to appear before a mightier throne than mine."

Percy Darrow, reading this, said to Jack Warford, "It is time to act," and, accompanied by the younger man, quietly left the room.

The reader of imagination—and no other will read this tale—must figure to himself the island of Manhattan during the next two hours. The entire population, nearly, tried to leave it at once. When only the suburban dwellers, urged simply by the desire for a hot dinner, attempt to return home between five and six, the ways are congested enough. Now, stricken with the fear of death, the human cattle fought frantically to reach the inadequate exits of the great theater of tragedy.

There was fighting in the streets, and panic, and stark rumor, of course; and there was heroism, and coolness, and the taking of thought. To the little group of men in the top floor of the Atlas Building the roar of riot came up like the thunder of the orchestra before the rise of the curtain. Most of the people in the streets fled from a danger they did not understand. This little group in the wireless office realized clearly what still and frozen dissolution the rising of the curtain would disclose. They were not many; and they did not know what they were to do, if anything; but they had not run away.

Eldridge was there, looking somewhat flustered for the first time in his life, and four of the large committee that had employed him. Simmons sat calmly at his post, and of all the reporters Hallowell alone had stood by. He had faith in Darrow, and he knew that in the Despatch office a little handful of men stood in the shadow of death on the off chance of the biggest scoop since Noah's flood.

The four solid citizens looked at one another. The oldest turned to Eldridge.

"Then your opinion is that the city is doomed?"

"I can offer no other solution, sir," said the scientist. "It is at last evident that this man's power over ethereal vibrations extends to those forming heat-rays. If this is so, it follows that he can cut off all life by stopping all heat. If his threat is carried out, we can but look forward to a repetition on a large scale of the City Hall affair."

The aged financier now spoke to Simmons.

"And the last report from the searchers?" he asked formally.

"The search is being pushed, sir," replied the operator, "by twenty thousand men. There remain some fifty miles of country to go over, Mr. Lyons."

Lyons turned his shaggy head toward a younger, slim, keen-eyed man of fifty.

"And the city will, in your judgment, Mr. Perkins, take how long to empty?"

"Days—in the present confusion," said Perkins shortly. "We can move only a limited percentage. Thank God, most of our men are standing by. I think all our rolling stock is moving."

Lyons nodded twice.

"And you?" he asked the third of the party, a stout young man of thirty-eight or so.

"How many stations are on the job, Simmons?" asked this man.

"All but two, sir," replied the operator. "D and P don't answer. I guess they beat it."

"How do they report the bulletin men?"

"On the job," replied the wireless man.

The stout young man turned to Lyons.

"Well, sir," said he, "I don't know whether we or the hand of death will be called on to quiet them"—he paused for an instant with uplifted hand; the roar and crash and wail of the city-wide riot surged into the gap of his silence—"but if it is we," he went on, "our little arrangements are made. My men know what to do, and my men are on the job," he concluded proudly.

Lyons nodded again.

"We have all done our best," said he. "Now, gentlemen, I do not see how we can possibly accomplish anything more by remaining here. My automobile is in concealment in the old stable in the rear of 127. My yacht is standing off the Battery awaiting signal to come in. We have," he glanced at his watch, "over an hour before the threatened catastrophe."

He looked up expectantly. The men all glanced uneasily at one another, except Simmons, who stared at his batteries stolidly.

"Come, gentlemen," urged Lyons, after a moment. "There is really not much time to lose, for you know the yacht must steam beyond the danger zone."

"Beat it," spoke up Simmons, at last. "There ain't any good of you here. If anything comes in, I can handle it. It's just a case of send out orders to your bulletin men."

"I think I'd better stay," observed Paige, the stout young man, with an air of apology. "I know I'm not much use; but I've placed men, and they'll stick; and if this freeze-out proposition goes through—why, they're in it, and—"

"That's how I feel," broke in Perkins. "But you have done your full duty, Mr. Lyons, and you have no reason to stay. Let me get your car around to you—"

"Oh, I'm going to stay," said Lyons. "If you gentlemen feel it your duty, how much more is it mine! Professor Eldridge"—he bowed to the scientist—"you have done your best, which is more than any other mortal man could have done, I am sure; and you, sir—" he said to Hallowell.

Eldridge and Hallowell shook their heads.

"I have failed," said Eldridge.

"I am a reporter," said Hallowell.

"We are in the hands of God," announced Lyons with great solemnity, and folded his hands over his white waistcoat.

At that moment the door slowly swung open and Percy Darrow entered. He was smoking a cigarette, his hands were thrust deep in his trousers pockets; he was hatless, and his usually smooth hair was rumpled. A tiny wound showed just above the middle of his forehead, from which a thin stream of blood had run down to his eyebrows. He surveyed the room with a humorous twinkle shining behind his long lashes.

"Well, well, well, well!" he remarked in a cheerful tone of voice. "This is a nice, jolly, Quaker meeting! Why don't you get out and make a noise and celebrate, like your friends outside?"

"Thought you'd ducked," remarked Hallowell. The others said nothing, but looked a grave disapproval.

Darrow laughed.

"No, I had to come back to see how Eldridge is getting on." He cast a glance at the scientist. "How goes it, old socks?" he inquired.

The man's manner, the tone of his voice, seemed as much out of place in this atmosphere of solemnity as a penny whistle in a death chamber. Darrow refused to notice the general attitude of disapproval, but planted himself in front of Eldridge.

"All in?" he challenged. "Or do you still cherish any delusions that you will get your man inside of"—he looked at his watch—"eleven minutes?"

A visible stir ran through the room at these words. "Eleven minutes!" murmured Lyons, and held his watch to his ear. "It has stopped," he said aloud. "It seems, gentlemen, that the only possible hope for us lies in the doubt as to whether or not this Unknown will carry out this threat."

"He's a first-rate hand to carry out threats," observed Darrow.

"We have done our best," said Lyons calmly. "Let us compose ourselves to meet everything—or nothing—as the fates may have decided."

"That's all right," agreed Darrow, with unabated cheerfulness. "But Eldridge and I had a little agreement, or bet. He bragged he'd get this Monsieur X before I did. I'd like to know how he feels about his end of it. Give it up?"

Eldridge looked at him rebukingly.

"I have failed," he acknowledged formally, "from lack of time to carry out my investigation."

"From lack of brains," said Darrow brutally, "as I believe you once said in private conversation about my old master, Doctor Schermerhorn. Those things are remembered. I am delighted to hand this back to you." He eyed Eldridge, the brilliant smile still curving his lips.

"Enough of this!" cried Lyons with authority. "This is unseemly in the face of eternity."

Darrow looked again at his watch.

"We have still six minutes, sir; and this is an affair of long standing, and on which I feel deeply. The score is settled," he said with entire respect. "I am now at your command. I had intended," he went on in a frivolous tone again, "to kick to you on my gas bill. It is too large. You, as responsible head, know it is. But somehow, you know, the presence here of you gentlemen has disarmed me. You don't need to be here; you all have the facilities to get away. Here you are! I guess you can charge a dollar and a quarter for gas if you want to." He looked from one to the other, while he carefully wiped back the blood that was flowing from the little wound in his forehead. "Eldridge acknowledges he has failed," he repeated.

"I fail to see how you have improved upon that failure," snapped Eldridge, stung.

"No?" queried Darrow. "I call Hallowell to witness that the game has been fair. We had an even start; the data have been open to both." He raised his voice a little. "Jack!" he called.

Immediately through the open door from the hall outside came Jack Warford, leading by the arm a strange and nondescript figure. It was that of a small, bent, old-looking man, dressed in a faded suit of brown. His hair was thin, and long, and white; his face sharp and lean. His gaze was fixed straight before him, so that every one in the room at the same instant caught the glare of his eyes.

They were fixed, those eyes, like an owl's; or, better, a wildcat's, as though they never winked. From the pupils, which were very small, the little light-colored lines radiated across very large blue irises. There was something baleful and compelling in their glare, so that even Hallowell, cool customer as he was, forgot immediately all about the man's littleness and shabbiness and bent figure, and was conscious only of the cruel, clever, watchful, unrelenting, hostile spirit. As Jack dragged him forward, the others could see that one foot shambled along the floor.

"Gentlemen," observed Darrow in his most casual tones, "let me present Monsieur X!"

Every one exclaimed at once. Above the hubbub came Lyons' voice, clear and commanding.

"The proof!" he thundered. "This is too serious a matter for buffoonery. The proof!"

Percy Darrow raised his hand. Through the roar of the maddened city the bell of the Metropolitan tower was beginning its chimes. By the third stroke the uproar had died almost away. The people were standing still, awaiting what might come.

The sweet-toned chimes ceased. There succeeded the pause. Then the great bell began to boom.

One—two—three—four—five—six came its spaced and measured strokes. The last reverberations sank away. Nothing happened. Percy Darrow let his hand fall.

"The proof," he repeated, "is that you are still here."

From the night outside rose a wild shriek of rejoicing, stupendous, overwhelming, passionate. Paige sprang across the room. "Release!" he shouted fairly in Simmons' ear. The spark crashed. And at a dozen places simultaneously bulletins flashed; at a dozen other points placarded balloons arose, on which the search-lights played; so that the people, hesitating in their flight in thankfulness over finding themselves still alive, raised their eyes and read:

Monsieur X is captured. You are safe.

At that a tumult arose, a tumult of rejoicing.

Darrow had sauntered to the window, and was looking out. From the great height of the Atlas Building he could see abroad over much of the city. Here and there, like glowing planets, hung the balloons.

"Clever idea," he observed. "I'm glad you thought of it."

Hallowell was on his feet, his eyes shining.

"I've got the only paper on the job!" he fairly shouted. "Darrow, as you love me, give me the story. Where was he? Where did you get him?"

Darrow turned from the window, and sardonically surveyed Eldridge.

"He was in the office next door," said he, after a moment.



CHAPTER XXII

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

When, three hours previous, Darrow had arisen with the remark before chronicled, Jack Warford had followed him in the expectation of a long expedition. To the young man's surprise it lasted just to the hall. There Darrow stopped before the blank door of an apparently unused office. Into the lock of this he cautiously fitted a key, manipulated it for a moment, and turned to Jack with an air of satisfaction.

"You have your gun with you?" he asked.

Jack patted his outside pocket.

"Very well, now listen here: I am going to leave the key in the lock. If you hear me whistle sharply, get in as quickly as you know how, and get to shooting. Shoot to kill. If it happens to be dark and you can not make us out, shoot both. Take no chances. On your quickness and your accuracy may depend the lives of the whole city. Do you understand?"

"I understand," said Jack steadily. "Are you sure you can make yourself heard above all this row?"

Darrow nodded, and slipped inside the door.

He found the office chamber unlighted save by the subdued illumination that came in around the drawn shades of the window. Against the dimness he could just make out the gleaming of batteries in rows. An ordinary deal table supported a wireless sender. A figure stood before the darkened window, the figure of a little, old, bent man facing as though looking out. Through the closed casement the roar of the panic-stricken city sounded like a flood. The old man was in the attitude of one looking out intently. Once he raised both arms, the fists clenched, high above his head.

Darrow stole forward as quietly as he could. When he was about half-way across the room the old man turned and saw him. For the briefest instant he stared at the intruder; then, with remarkable agility, cast himself toward the table on which stood the wireless sender. Darrow, too, sprang forward. They met across the table. Darrow clutched the old man's wrists.