The Murderer Invisible

by Philip Wylie

“Very well. You have my instructions.”

  “But—Mr. Williams—when are we to see you?”

  “Soon. I’m pretty much of a recluse, you know.”

  “We like to deal with our customers personally—and this wheat action of yours has made you a big account. So of course——”

  “Quite understandable, Mr. Wesson. Perhaps if I mentioned that during the war my face was seared with liquid fire——”

  The other man whistled. “Ah! Sorry. Terribly sorry. You should have mentioned it sooner.”

  “By the way—you’ll not deposit that money, I presume?”

  “Hadn’t expected to. Our safe is good. And we won’t use it as cash, of course.”

  “Fine. Good-bye.”

  “Good-bye, sir.”

  Wesson called his partner with considerable excitement and explained why they had never seen their enigmatic client, Mr. Williams.

  “He was burned by liquid fire during the war and his face is a mess. Told me so to-day. Poor devil! But that fire didn’t hurt his brain any. The Street is sure going to sit up and take notice of that baby!”

  The newspapers gave to the ten days that followed immediately the sobriquet of the “Crime Siege.” Two men in the police department committed suicide. There were three murders and no less than fifty major robberies. Most of them were executed in broad daylight and under circumstances which made their enactment seem wholly impossible.

  Gradually the public was brought to the unwonted realization that these diabolical deeds were for the purpose of a constructive terrorism.

  The first day was Sunday. Paul Peale Painter, the renowned Fundamentalist minister whose savage attacks on the Wets, Science, Eugenics, and every progressive manifestation of modern life had actually rallied to his cause thousands upon thousands of fanatical religious bigots, toppled from his pulpit almost into the laps of his horrified congregation with the fourth knife between his shoulder-blades. Carpenter’s powerful will had rapidly overcome his momentary finickiness about death.

  The head of the greatest banking house in America stepped from his limousine in the afternoon for a short walk in Central Park. He was accompanied by his private detective. At four o’clock his body was found in the bushes at the side of the reservoir and the detective turned up in Bellevue that night—his mind gone, his lips gibbering.

  Almost hourly the streets were made noisy by the hawking of extras.

  When the places of business opened on Monday morning it was with the absence of fully one third of the important executives who managed them. Certain of them had left hastily to study conditions in Europe. Others were beginning their summer vacation. Still others had been taken suddenly ill.

  The city rooms of the newspapers were riotous. The police headquarters lacked the dramatic element present elsewhere but its chief exponents were so alarmed, so fidgety from hours of ceaseless expectation which was invariably awarded with newer and more grotesque material, that they were barely able to keep a semblance of routine in their departments.

  At ten o’clock a Fifth Avenue jeweler sent word that his collection of medieval jewelry had been gutted. At noon the Metropolitan Museum telephoned frantically to the police to report various losses. At three thirty the Exchecquer Trust announced that their vaults had been rifled.

  By Monday night the first violent wave of indignation at the police had lessened somewhat. The Commissioner had been advised by his more intelligent Mayor to make no secret of these devastating occurrences and the reporters, armed with all available data, stopped making claims of gross inefficiency and suave camouflage.

  The Tuesday morning Globe published a lucid and sane editorial which, however, had the effect of adding greatly to popular terror. It read in part, “The peculiar circumstances under which the recent appalling murders and robberies have been committed indicate not only that they are the work of one man, but that the man who has executed them is that long-heralded and little-anticipated individual the master mind, the scientific criminal … (he) has used no clearly understood technique … (he) leaves fingerprints everywhere which we may be sure are not his own … (he) has unquestionably perfected some such apparatus as the radio-controlled weapon.”

  The tabloids, quick to seize upon this terrifying notion, belabored their readers with such captions as “Death from the Skies”—“The Invulnerable Arm”—“The Unseen Assassin.”

  On Tuesday Carpenter turned his attention to arson. All day the canyon thoroughfares of Manhattan re-echoed with the scream of fire sirens. Clusters of apparatus and crowds of people gathered thick at various spots where fires of unknown origin and formidable ferocity had suddenly burst forth. The docks were swept with flame and every fire-boat in the harbor was a continuous fountain. A section of Queens was wiped out after a series of gasoline explosions. By nightfall the city was covered with a thin haze of smoke and from the summit of the Chrysler Building no less than forty-two centers of incendiarism could be observed.

  Again, on Wednesday, the Globe editorial: “A second possibility may be that these manifestations are the work of Communists. The Globe wishes to assert here that this is no charge, and is not offered as is the usual custom in times such as these—the blaming of Red Russia for every unfortunate civil circumstance. The Globe can but notice that the attacks of the criminal or criminals now at work are directed against capital and, in a lesser way, against religious bigotry, to which the death of Paul Peale Painter is a signal testament.”

  On Wednesday there was an explosion in Wall Street comparable to that of the previous decade. A second explosion took place, oddly enough, in the Hall of Fame and reduced it to a shambles. Three blasts following rapidly paralyzed a large portion of the subway. This, however, was not comparable to the occurrence of the next day.

  Many engineers and numerous thoughtful laymen had in times past, pointed out the vulnerability of New York’s public utilities. So highly organized had these services become that Manhattan acted in the manner of a machine any part of which was dependent upon the proper functioning of the rest. Underneath its stone floor was a maze of pipes and machinery which supplied it with light, power, heat, gas, water, and which drained away its sewage.

  At dawn on Thursday morning tremendous subterranean explosions shook the skyscrapers. Up town in New York a titanic geyzer of water shot into the air, flooding a large section of the district and simultaneously cutting off the down town water supply. The tube to New Jersey was burst by a second blast. Down town Manhattan’s electric lights went out with the third. All motors ceased to whine, ventilators stopped, thousands of percolators and toasters cooled rapidly and trolleys stalled in the streets.

  A ferry boat blew up in the Hudson River. The publication of a newspaper was halted by a thundering concussion in its press room which destroyed its magnificent press entirely and took the lives of twenty-two men. The city was put under martial law.

  At that juncture one charge was discovered underneath Times Square. It was found to be a new explosive of tremendous power. The discovery was made by a track walker who investigated the contents of an ordinary street trash can which seemed singularly out of place in the subway. Chemists analyzed the explosive, put it among the toluol derivatives, and at once all trash cans were collected and inspected.

  The fact which Carpenter had so clearly illustrated in his pilfering of the Manhattan National Bank operated still to his advantage. Every mind was keyed and every eye alert to the perception of a human agent. People continued to ignore inanimate objects. A trash can, a waste basket, a wheel barrow filled with earth at the edge of an excavation—all these were normal items in the vast metropolitan confusion of things, so long as no person was near them. No one expected things to move by themselves. When an object recently observed was found to be gone or seen to be in another place it was in such circumstances that its transference seemed natural and was credited to another person. Moreover, being unrestricted as to his own movements, it was easy for him to select those times to ad
vance his explosives in which his cargoes were unobserved. He did much of his hauling at night and left the detonation to daylight.

  It was as if an empty house rearranged itself. No one, on returning to it, would suspect that chairs and tables had moved themselves. It was as if things themselves had conspired to unite and wreck the city.

  By Friday business was at a standstill. A second minister, preaching to a handful of people and blaming the current situation upon the Devil, dropped from his pulpit on Sunday. Many of the churches closed. All public buildings were closed. Soldiers filled the streets. A town beleaguered could take no further precautions than did New York. The stock market had closed on Thursday after rumors that some individual had made a gigantic killing on the strength of the slump in prices. The sixth knife killed the police Commissioner who was alone in a house surrounded by a cordon of police and soldiers.

  On Monday morning a man knocked at the door of Professor Quail’s house near the Gracie Mansion. He was old, stooped and bearded. When the door opened he entered and wearily discarded his disguise. It was Baxter—his face covered with unshaven stubble, his eyes red-rimmed and sleepless. He said nothing to Amy and went slowly up stairs. Daryl leaped to her feet when he came in.

  “Anything?”

  Baxter shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing. Yesterday I went back to Sinkak in the hope that I might pick up some clue. The house was destroyed thoroughly. The chemicals that burned after the blast had turned everything black. The people would hardly talk about their ghost. Seems that the Paterson papers got hold of the story—or some garbled form of it—and ragged them to death.”

  Amy brought some coffee which Baxter drank greedily. Daryl stood beside him and stroked his hair.

  He went on. “Day before I was in the power chamber below Grand Central after it went up. Carpenter must have invented the stuff he is using, because the survivors swear that nothing went in or out of the place—although a thing might have made it. Perhaps some of the powder is invisible.

  “Day before that I had a little meeting of a few friends of mine and tried to get across my point. There was one police officer—a friend of a friend—and an army man. They thought that what I told them might be true—but they strongly advised against spreading the idea. No telling what sort of panic it might start. And they swore to keep it a secret among themselves.” Baxter sighed. “Guess they were right. They wanted to know, even if my yarn was true, what I, they, we, or anybody could do about it—and I confess that left me in the lurch.

  “I saw some of the fires—” the door opened and Quail came in. He smiled and sat down without speaking. “Just telling Daryl what I’ve been doing and what I have failed to do. Saw some of the fires and was near two or three of the explosions. No one knows what is going to happen next. People walk down Broadway in daylight on their toes, skittish as thoroughbreds—no telling when the pavement will hurl them into eternity.

  “I’ve tried to guess how far he is carrying this thing.” He turned to Quail. “They found one can of powder—I suppose you read that—and the knives, of course. The policeman to whom I talked brought along a replica of the fingerprints. I don’t know anything about that science—but the hand was Carpenter’s—all right.” He glanced at Daryl. “Remember the big knuckles and the long fingers?” Then to Quail. “I was saying that he must have managed to make that dynamite of his invisible—because it gets in everywhere without being seen.

  “One trouble is that every one is looking for somebody. Another is that they can’t ever hope to see anything. That leaves four senses for Carpenter’s apprehension—touch, hearing, taste, smell. The latter two are no good. You can’t grope through thousands of square miles for one human figure that could elude you for hours in a small apartment. And you can’t hear him as long as there is any sort of sound nearby. I never realized what a beehive of noise a city is—until I tried to listen for Carpenter. It was silly.

  “And that’s just a beginning. Carpenter hasn’t spread any disease cultures that I know of. I’ve run up to the Medical Center a dozen times and they’re on the look-out. By the way—is the telephone working?”

  Quail shook his head. “Not on this side of town.”

  “Oh—well—what does it matter? There’s no one I could call who would do anything but tell me that his cousin was burned or drowned or blown to pieces last night. Have you seen the figures? Up in the thousands now.

  “They’re making an effort down town to keep tabs on everybody in the city. Isn’t that ridiculous? Every one following every one else. God knows how many people they’ve arrested. Might as well arrest stones and trees.

  Baxter slumped in his chair. “I’m tired.”

  Quail nodded to Daryl. Together they helped him to the couch in the study. Once or twice he half-opened his eyes and muttered but finally he settled into a deep sleep.

  On Tuesday morning the Globe carried in a large box on the front page the following notice above which was the pertinent headline, “Hoax?”:

  NOTICE TO THE WORLD

  “The past ten days of terror and disaster have been a testimonial sample of the power of One who has come to rule the world.

  “All this cataclysm, death and destruction has been the handiwork of that One.

  “I am not God—but a man. I am nevertheless omnipotent and omniscient. It is my firm and unshakable intent to set up among mankind an autocracy which shall seek for its culmination the creation of a world state conducted on the principles of biological efficiency.

  “This policy of terrorism is regrettable at the moment because of the discomfort which it automatically involves. A greater discomfort is yet to come—the forcible emancipation of man from his stupidity, his treachery, his inferiority, his religious follies, his emotional excesses, his tribal systems, his politics.

  “I shall give to the United States of America one week for consideration. The United States must determine whether or not its government will be put into my hands. If that government agrees so to do, I make the following promises: bloodshed and terrorism will be at an end; the reforms which will inevitably follow will be civil and social; the monetary system will remain but capitalism will be abolished in its accepted sense; the collaboration of scientists and engineers will be invited to aid the work ahead; and its magnificent objective will be to leap in one generation the evolutionary processes of hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.

  “If the people of the United States do not agree to place themselves in my hands, the current warfare which I am conducting and against which there can be no resistance will be multiplied tenfold. As an indication of my authenticity, I will destroy the Capitol at Washington simultaneously with the delivery of this message.”

  The City Editor to whom this unique communication was instantly referred read it through with amazed indignation. He immediately wrote a headline above it, however, and sent it to the presses. The earliest editions began to pour forth when, from cumulative agitation, the editor determined to call Washington—a feat very difficult in view of the havoc which had been wrought in the telephone system.

  It was an hour before he was given a connection and he learned at once that the Capitol had been hurled into the air at midnight precisely. It was greatly to his discredit that he had acted so slowly. The time of arrival of the communication could not be set definitely, but it was certain that the writer of it had known when the Capitol would be razed and hence had a direct connection with the menace at large.

  The first edition of the Globe was arrested, however, and its front page devoted entirely to this gigantic threat and to the seal of action with which it had been signed.

  Hitherto the country had regarded the plight of New York as a unique and unprecedented misfortune produced by a crime wave for which the average mind had been prepared by the recent ulcerous situation in Chicago. To New York they took the same attitude Manhattan had once maintained toward its sister city in Illinois. Cartoonists in St. Louis, San Francisco, Seattle, Houston made joki
ng illustrations of the New York citizen taking his family to a picnic in an armored car. Editorial writers spoke of New York in a hundred cities as the playground of the anarchist, the amusement park of the incendiary and the Valhalla of the assassin.

  This contumely was prompted and inflamed by the jealousy with which many western cities regard New York. The more widespread and grotesque Manhattan’s peril and suffering became the more loudly those cities lifted their voices in unanimous ridicule. Cleveland organized a mock relief expedition which fared forth in suits of stage armor and marched as far as the first roadhouse outside the city limits. Denver’s chamber of commerce sent to the Mayor of New York a brace of pearl-handled pistols.

  As the days passed, however, this attitude changed to one of tremendous irritation and finally to fury. New York had grown so large it had fallen of its own weight. New York was no longer capable of managing itself. New York was falling like Rome. When the death tolls reached the thousands, even in the presence of troops, alarm and sympathy were forthcoming in equal proportions.

  Then, suddenly, the Capitol at Washington was shattered by one gargantuan explosion and the people of the United States were brought abruptly to face the fact of a national peril. Later in the morning of that dreadful day the announcement which had been mailed to the Globe was spread to all parts of the civilized world.

  Again the attitude shifted and varied. New York was blamed for breeding the most terrible criminal of all time. Advice poured in to every seat of government. No man who could read was without a theory or a panacea. There was no thought of submission. The idea that a country such as the United States could be terrorized and finally subjugated by a single individual was inconceivable.

  At Washington the cabinet met and announced that five million dollars would be paid for the apprehension of the man or men who were behind this awful attack on the government. The standing Army was organized. The Secret Service Department was trebled overnight. Uniforms and bayonets appeared throughout the nation.