, but in order to avoid any
chance of betrayal he never saw his subordinates personally. Not only
were they entirely ignorant of his identity, but all possible means of
their tracing him had been foreseen and guarded against. He called them
on the telephone, but they never called him. The only possible way in
which any of his subordinates could get in touch with him was by means
of the wonderful wireless telephone already referred to, developed by a
drug-crazed genius who had died shortly after it was perfected. It was a
tiny instrument, no larger than a watch, but of practically unlimited
range. The controlling central station of the few instruments in
existence, from which any instrument could be cut out, changed in tune,
or totally destroyed at will, was in Perkins' office safe. A man
intrusted with an unusually important job would receive from an unknown
source an instrument, with directions sufficient for its use. As soon as
the job was done he would find, upon again attempting to use the
telephone, that its interior was so hopelessly wrecked that not even the
most skilled artisan could reproduce what it had once been.

* * * * *

At four o'clock Brookings was ushered into the private office of the
master criminal, who was plainly ill at ease.

"I've got to report another failure, Mr. Brookings. It's nobody's fault,
just one of those things that couldn't be helped. I handled this myself.
Our man left the door unlocked and kept the others busy in another room.
I had just started to work when Crane's Japanese servant, who was
supposed to be asleep, appeared upon the scene. If I hadn't known
something about jiu-jutsu myself, he'd have broken my neck. As it was, I
barely got away, with the Jap and all three guards close behind me...."

"I'm not interested in excuses," broke in the magnate, angrily. "We'll
have to turn it over to DuQuesne after all unless you get something
done, and get it done quick. Can't you get to that Jap some way?"

"Certainly I can. I never yet saw the man who couldn't be reached, one
way or another. I've had 'Silk' Humphreys, the best fixer in the
business, working on him all day, and he'll be neutral before night. If
the long green won't quiet him--and I never saw a Jap refuse it yet--a
lead pipe will. Silk hasn't reported yet, but I expect to hear from him
any minute now, through our man out there."

As he spoke, the almost inaudible buzzer in his pocket gav