h his face a little paler
than usual.

And a little later the words changed in his brain to: "I _know_ that's
it. A fiend's genius.... This is the most dangerous thing Doctor Satan
has yet mastered!"

He was talking on the phone to the jeweler to whom Weems' watch had been
sent.

"What did you do to that watch?" the jeweler was saying irritably.

"Why?" parried Keane.

"There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it. And yet it simply
won't go. And I can't make it go."

"There's nothing wrong with it at all?"

"As far as I can find out--no."

* * * * *

Keane hung up. He had been studying for the dozenth time the demand note
Doctor Satan had written the officials:

"Gentlemen of the Blue Bay Development: This is to request that
you pay me the sum of one million, eight hundred and two
thousand, five hundred and forty dollars and forty-eight cents
at a time and place to be specified later. As a sample of what
will happen if you disregard this note, I shall strike at one
of your guests, Mathew Weems, within a few minutes after you
read this. I guarantee that disaster and horror shall be the
chief, though uninvited, guests at your opening unless you
comply with my request. Mathew Weems shall be only the first if
you do not signify by one a. m. whether or not you will meet my
demand. DOCTOR SATAN."

Keane gave the note back to Blue Bay's police chief, who fumbled
uncertainly with it for a moment and then stuck it in his pocket.
Normally a competent man, he was completely out of his depth here.

One man with a heart that seemed to have been exploded internally; ten
people who were dead, yet lived, and who stood or sat like frozen
statues....

He looked pleadingly at Ascott Keane, whom he had never heard of but who
wore authority and competence like a mantle. But Keane said nothing to
him.

"An odd extortion amount," he said to Gest. "One million, eight hundred
and two thousand, five hundred and forty dollars and forty-eight cents!
Why not an even figure?"

He was talking more to himself than to the president of Blue Bay. But
Gest answered readily.

"That happens to be the precise sum of the cash reserve of Blue Bay
Development."

Keane glanced at him sharply. "Is your financial statement made public?"

Gest shook his head. "It's strictly confidential. Only the bank, and
ourselves, know that cash reserve figure. I c