alnuts. All four men, who among them knocked the
bottom out of Wall Street, and wiped away the Hervey fortune, slipped
out in the excitement inspired by their rapid buying and selling, and
seemed to vanish into thin air."

Bentley didn't know much about the stock market, but it seemed to him
that Barter had managed a theft of mighty proportions. With a power of
attorney, which he had wrung from Hervey after his capture, he had
managed to possess himself of Hervey's shares. In themselves they were
worth millions. Even at a fraction of their price Barter would realize
heavily on them. Selling quickly he would force the price far down.
Then his puppets--and Bentley had no doubt that Stanley, Morton and
Cleve were his puppets--bought all other shares offered by panicky
investors in Hervey Incorporated at a tiny fraction of their value.
Far less, naturally, than Barter had made by selling his loot.

The purchased shares Barter could hold for an increase. Hervey
Incorporated was good and its price would go up again, and Barter
would sell and gain millions.

- - -

That is how Bentley saw it, and his lips drew into a firmer,
straighter line as, half an hour later, he explained it all to Ellen.

"It's desperate, dear," he whispered in her ear. "Manhattan's
financial structure has been shaken to its foundations. But that isn't
all by any means. Barter has performed his horrible operation on two
of New York's most brilliant men. It was a Barter gesture to send
'Harold Hervey' to capture Balisle, and the horror of it staggered
me."

"Lee," said Ellen, "understand this: that if I have no word from you
within seventy-two, no, forty-eight hours after you get started on
this scheme you have in mind, I'm going to get through to Barter
somehow. If I put an ad in the paper and tell him where I'm to be
found he'll surely make another attempt to take me in. If he's
captured you, or uncovered the trap you're laying, then I'll at least
be with you. If he kills you he kills me. If we can't live together we
can die together."

Bentley kissed her fervently, trying not to think what it would mean
to him now if she were in the hands of Caleb Barter. Secretly he
intended having Tyler keep her so closely guarded that she couldn't
possibly do anything as foolish as she had suggested.

The late evening papers carried another manifesto of the Mind Master
to the effect that the remaining eighteen men named on the original
list w