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Midnight Passenger

<h2 id="id01676" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XIII.</h2> <h5 id="id01677">ON THE YACHT "RAMBLER."</h5> Four days after cobbler Mulholland had sold out his little outfit to a stranger, James Lennon, whose dingy scrawl, "Shoes Fixed While You Wait," now stared Mrs. Rachel Meyer in the face, there was a circle of three earnest conspirators plotting in the interests of justice in the library of Counsellor Stillwell. The great house was silent on the golden afternoon, of the famille Stillwell were busied in their varied occupations. The old lawyer in his William Street legal cave, the ladies driving or chasing the bubble pleasure. Around the library table were gathered a trinity of souls all eager to avenge the unrequited death of Randall Clayton. The tired-out executors were now on their way to Detroit, sharing with the puzzled journals and the baffled police the hope that "something would finally turn up in the Clayton mystery." Down in the Western Trading Company's office, the urbane Robert Wade, now shining out again in full plumage, explained to the occasional disgruntled stockholder that the Fidelity Company had paid in their fifty thousand dollars; that many of the largest cheques had been stopped, and that the Worthington Estate had nobly offered to recoup the company for the final deficiency from the extra fall dividend on their own stock, which was to gladden all hearts. "Poor Hugh Worthington!" sighed Wade. "If he had only lived to see his cherished plan for freight control in operation. Our stock has risen fifty-five points on the new deal. Mr. Ferris? Ah! His retirement was solely due to ill-health. He has resumed his private consulting practice. But, Clayton! there was an irreparable loss! Poor boy! Some momentary imprudence must have exposed him. Thugs! Thugs! Here in New York, in broad day light! It is monstrous!" And so the ruffled financial waters closed smoothly over the forgotten grave of the murdered cashier. It was dimly supposed that the "sleuth hounds" of the law were still peering about with their fabled "argus eyes." But the two men gazing upon Alice Worthington's serene and steadfast face on this August afternoon wondered at the fervor of her high-souled thirst for vengeance. The broad, Greek forehead, the clearly-shining blue eyes, the firm, resolute lips, her voice throbbing with earnestness, all spoke of a Venus armed with Minerva's panoply. William Atwater's dark, impassioned face was lit with a fiery enthusiasm, as he said, "Miss Alice, we have met here to open the first of the seven seals. "Witherspoon and I have recognized that you have not unfolded to Stillwell, or even the executors, all the last, sacred wishes of your father. We feel that you have knowledge, suspicions, and inferences, all your own. Now, to us, the last, the nearest friends of Clayton, your carte blanche to follow this up means everything. But we must have your directing mind with us; we need absolute secrecy, the use of money, and your aid. We do not ask you to tell us all, now. We only do ask that you will, at the right time, aid us with everything you can impart. We will give you the most important disclosures. I will give you my whole time. "And if you sustain Witherspoon here, I will hound down the murderer, and, perhaps, fix a further responsibility on the only man to whose interest it was to blot out Randall Clayton's blameless life." There was a joint exclamation as the three gazed inquiringly at each other. "Arthur Ferris!" "Yes," solemnly said the dark-eyed doctor. "He was luring Clayton to his grave! He may have tried other plans, and, perhaps foiled by Clayton's suspicions or by mere accident, have used the real murderer here as his tool." Alice Worthington's golden hair gleamed out, as her head fell upon her hands. Her face was ashen-pale, as she faltered out, "Have you found any papers?" The girl bride's heart beat wildly. There was the imperilled honor of her father, guilty in intent in her mind now, as she whispered, "Is any one implicated?" "Listen!" said the young physician, rising and pacing the room. "We have a trap set for a humble tool of the real murderer, whom we believe to be hiding in Europe. We must act somewhat outside of the law. Witherspoon must go to the Secretary of State at Washington and get an alias extradition, so that we can later hold the real criminal. We must use force, fear, even innocent fraud. We need your money aid, your authority, and your secrecy." Miss Worthington's face lit up grandly. "There's my hand," firmly said Alice Worthington, springing up. "I have made arrangements with the executors for money. Spare nothing! Let us all act together. You shall be my brothers if you bring the cruel wretch to bay!" The young doctor bent over the girl's trembling hand and kissed it in reverence. Turning to Witherspoon, he simply said, "Call in McNerney." A flickering rosy red dyed the young heiress' cheeks as she gazed upon Atwater's nervous, elegant figure pacing to and fro in the dusky library. "Miss Alice," said the physician, "When I dismiss Witherspoon and the officer, it will be only to send them to take two persons into custody. From them we shall be able to find our secrets which will lead us to the murderer. "And to-morrow I will come alone, here, and tell you that Randall Clayton feared treachery; that he made a will, and left his little savings to one whom you will respect and honor. "Of all this, not a single word, even to Witherspoon, until the two suspected ones are secretly arrested. Not a human being must know of the arrest, as we will use either one of the arrested to guide me to the hiding place of the murderer. "I hope by to-morrow night that you will know all but the fact of the chief criminal's arrest! To effect his arrest, I myself must risk life and even my reputation. Witherspoon and I have toiled in secret since the disappearance of Clayton. "With you, we will win; without you, the murderer may escape. One hint of danger, and he would take flight and be lost in Europe's uncounted millions, perhaps in Asia." Alice Worthington's beaming eyes told of her new pledge of secrecy, as she stood, a beautiful Peri, finger on lip, while Witherspoon brought the stalwart McNerney into the library. The young officer, in plain, dark clothes, with severely shaven lip, was the ideal of a resolute young Irish priest, saving his Roman collar. But his steady eye kindled as Witherspoon tersely recounted to the astonished heiress the discovery of the pocketbook, the picture label, the secret visits to the deserted mansion, No. 192 Layte Street, and the results of all his private researches. The policeman sprang to his feet as the lawyer logically recounted his casual visits to the Newport Art Gallery, on finding a similar Danube picture in the window. "In my opinion," sharply concluded Jack, "this Adolph Lilienthal knows something. His glib lie that there was no duplicate of the artist proof in America fell flat when I reminded him that I had recently seen one in New York. After looking over his memorandums, he admitted that he had sold one to Mr. Randall Clayton some weeks before his unfortunate death. "Now," the lawyer cried, with positive deduction, "that picture had been addressed to Fräulein Irma Gluyas, No. 192 Layte Street, Brooklyn. I have the very label. Her name was found pencilled on the card in poor Randall's pocketbook. Who can find the missing thread to follow on this darkened path?" "I can," stoutly said McNerney. "Somebody who was anxious to get Clayton out of the way used some pretty face as a lure! She was thrown across his path, God knows how! The vilest crimes here are concocted often in gilded luxury. He was undoubtedly killed in Brooklyn. This woman helped to get him there! Two people must be let alone, absolutely undisturbed. One is Lilienthal, and the other, Ferris! And you must all use a thousand precautions when we act. I'll have half the truth by to-morrow night. My chum, Jim Condon, is hammering shoes as cobbler James Lennon opposite the room where one of the suspects lives. And if Lilienthal or Ferris should miss either of the parties who will be arrested, they may warn the real criminal." The plainly-spoken words carried conviction to each listener. The three friends were breathlessly hanging on the officer's frank words as he now described the departure of the fated Clayton from the street corner in the carriage with a woman, and decoyed there by the boy. "Why did you hide all this?" was Alice Worthington's astounded query. "Because the time was not ripe; because it meant the escape of the real criminal; and because I want the honor of the arrests, and the double reward. It means a life of ease and promotion, as well as the glory of bringing the brute who killed Clayton to bay! Now, Jim Condon is on watch. The woman is packing to slip away to Europe; she must meet the boy again! I will shadow him; Condon will watch the woman. Within three days they will meet, probably to-night, as the German steamers sail in two days. We will soon have them both! "I've arranged for their safe handling." "And what do you propose to do?" anxiously cried the heiress. "Why," simply said McNerney, "the doctor and I will take the woman, go over to Europe, and catch 'Mr. August Meyer,' who forgot that the name of the sender of a valuable package is put on the envelope by the German government. That has betrayed him." "And Mr. Witherspoon?" the excited woman said. "Stays here and secretly holds the boy hidden, even against the law, until we have the other. Then we can trap Ferris or Lilienthal, or both." "Is this plan your joint work?" asked Alice. The three men bowed. "And it's the only one, Miss," stoutly said the policeman. "One word dropped to any one, and we lose the game forever! I go out of my duty. I risk my place! But I've got three-months' leave of absence. Condon has two." "I will guarantee your future," said the heiress to McNerney. "Go ahead, and God speed you. These gentlemen will furnish all the money you need." "Then it's a go!" bluntly answered the officer. "I feel it in my bones we'll get them to-night." After a whispered colloquy with the two friends, McNerney offered his hand to the agitated woman. "I'll risk my life for you, Miss," he said. "There's a desperate man behind this deed. And it was no ordinary woman who drew him into danger. Don't blame poor Clayton. He may have met her as a mere fashion-plat on the Avenue. Who knows?" An hour after the officer had departed, Alice Worthington saw the two friends disappear, walking away unconcernedly, arm in arm. She turned away from the drawing-room window, in a stormy burst of sorrow. "My father!" she gasped. And then, seeking the refuge of her own room, she hid her tell-tale face. "Even if it leads up to the guilty past, I can defend his memory. He was guiltless of this crime; and Randall Clayton's name shall be cleared of all stain!" Over her virgin heart came the memory of the cold bargain which had linked her name to the crafty Ferris. "Never, never, so help me, God! shall he lay his hand again in mine!" For the first time in her life she felt the delicious power of wealth. Only the silver-haired Lemuel Boardman knew of the armed neutrality now secretly arranged, which was to buy a legal separation after six months from her nominal husband in that obscure Western State. "Thank God!" she cried. "The sale of his honor, his manhood, for one hundred thousand dollars will seal his lips. He will keep his bargain; but, if he should be found guilty?" All that night the heiress tossed upon uneasy pillows, waiting for the tidings which might in time parade her name as the innocent wife of a desperate felon. The motley crowd pouring along the Bowery at ten o'clock swept past the Cooper Union on either side in search of the garish delights of the oblong oasis of pleasure. Down Fourth Avenue from the Square, down along Third Avenue, they swarmed. Eager, hard-faced men; painted, hopeless-eyed women, the vacuous visitor from "Wayback," drunken soldiers, stray sailors, lost marines, all were kaleidoscopically mingled. The strident voices of street peddlers mingled with the hoarse seductions of pullers-in. Hebraic venders beamed alluringly from their open doors, gin palaces, shooting galleries, mock auctions, second-hand stores and brilliantly-lit "dives" awaited the unwary. "Coffee parlors," museums, cheap theaters, and music halls, as well as the "side rooms," were thronged with those pitiless-eyed Devil's children, the women of the night side of New York! Roar of elevated train, clang of street cars, hurrying dash of the ambulance, wild onward career of the fire engine, punctuated this human maelstrom sweeping toward its duplex outlets of the morgue or Sing Sing's gloomy prison cells. No one noted Witherspoon and Doctor Atwater seated in two different carriages drawn up under the shades of lonely buildings on the side street near the Dry Dock Bank. The window-curtains were down in each of these waiting vehicles, and the drivers nodded upon their boxes. In all the guilty bosoms on the bedlam-like street no hearts beat as wildly as those in the breasts of McNerney and Condon. "It's the one chance of our lives, Jim," said McNerney, as he crouched in a dark doorway before posting his comrade. Both were now in uniform, ready for a dash, and McNerney's upper lip wore a movable prototype of his cherished mustache. "The boy comes down Fourteenth Street always and by Fourth Avenue," whispered Dennis. "You watch the corner from this side. I'll nab the woman from the other. Remember, not till they have met and finished their talk. Then you can take the boy along with Atwater. I'll rush the woman away with Mr. Witherspoon." It was twenty minutes past ten when McNerney saw the dark-clad form of Leah Einstein swiftly gliding along in the shade from Third Avenue. Onward she sped, never turning her veiled face to the right or left, until she slackened her pace under the gloomy cornices of the Dry Dock Bank. The policeman sprang into a dark hallway as she passed, holding his breath lest the shy bird should take alarm. In a few moments Emil Einstein sauntered across the Bowery and circling around the deserted bank corner, then settled down into a slow, searching pace, threading the lonely south side of the darkened cross street. From his hidden post, McNerney could see the woman clinging to the boy's arm and pleading, while she murmured her prayers in a low tone. "Not yet, not yet," mused McNerney. "He must get her whole message. She must have time to get his last report." At last, as the tiger springs upon its prey, McNerney leaped out of his hiding place, for the sobbing woman had turned alone toward the East River. With a frightened half scream, the timorous woman staggered back speechless as the uniform of the tall officer flashed before her eyes. In a moment she was in the carriage, and both her wrists grasped by Witherspoon's sinewy hands. But, before the carriage started, McNerney, tearing away the rear curtain, saw Policeman Condon hustling the struggling Emil into the other carriage. When it rapidly dashed away, McNerney grimly said, "All right! Go ahead!" The officer's quick ear caught the woman's despairing murmur, "Emil! My boy, my poor son! They will kill him!" "Not if you are sensible, Mrs. Leah Einstein," growled the policeman. "But your boy's life depends now only on you." "Where are you taking me to?" pleaded the woman, her storm of tears choking her voice. "That you will soon find out," menacingly said McNerney. "Where you ought to have been long ago!" In the long ride across the great city, McNerney grew complacent over his bold stroke in borrowing an unused store-room from the armorer of the Twenty-ninth Regiment. It was after eleven o'clock when the three entered the gloomy basement under the granite buttresses of the armory. In the lonely arched room only a table and a few chairs relieved the prison-like emptiness. A man with papers spread out before him scarcely raised his head as the three entered. While McNerney drew the terrified woman into a corner, Witherspoon anxiously paced the floor. Fifteen minutes after their arrival, a messenger lad dashed into the room with a telegram. "All right, now, McNerney!" said the lawyer, as he read the dispatch telling him: "Party on board the 'Rambler.' Set sail at once. Will telegraph from Tompkinsville." And then, with a smile of triumph, Dennis McNerney locked the door. He placed the half-fainting woman in a chair before the notary and began his inquisition. The look of utter despair in Leah Einstein's face softened under the velvety, wooing voice of the man who had boldly abducted her. In the whispered conference in the corner, he had skilfully played upon that inexhaustible mother's love which is the one undiminished treasure of a worn-out world. The poor wretch at bay little dreamed that cobbler Mulholland was standing before her, and her tortured heart had forgotten all the dangers of the cablegram and the tell-tale registered letter. "If you answer all my questions," kindly said McNerney, "and make a clean breast of it, you may save your boy. Do you want to do that young man's life? He stands next to the electric chair now, for the murder of Mr. Randall Clayton!" The heart-stricken mother was on her knees in a moment. "Kill me! Do anything you wish. But spare him! He is innocent! He knows nothing!" "Let us see what you know, then!" grimly answered McNerney. "The notary will swear you, and, if you tell us the whole truth, we will help your boy. If you lie to us, God will punish you both, and we will show no mercy." Witherspoon opened his eyes in wonder as McNerney rapidly drew out the whole story of Clayton's departure from the corner of University Place in the carriage. "You were the woman in the carriage on the day that Clayton left! I SAW YOU MYSELF!" thundered McNerney. "Your own boy brought Clayton the message. Now, where did you take him?" Witherspoon held his breath as Leah Einstein, between her sobs, told of the fatal visit to No. 192 Layte Street. It was half an hour when the sobbing woman had finished her recital. "By the God of Jacob! I never saw him after he went into the back room. Fritz was with him there, Fritz alone!" The three men were as unmoved as sphinxes while McNerney led her along. "I only thought Fritz wanted him to meet the pretty woman, the one they called Irma, and then, while he was there, take his things from him. He had only a leather valise; no diamonds. I saw no money, and I was with the sick woman. Mr. Clayton loved her, and used to come and see her." "Where does this Fritz live?" sternly said the policeman. "Everybody knows Fritz Braun, the druggist of Magdal's Pharmacy. Ask Mr. Lilienthal of the Newport Art Gallery. He is his friend." With assumed indifference, McNerney mixed a glass of brandy and water for the woman, and walked the floor in deep thought. "Where is he now?" at last asked McNerney. "This Fritz Braun!" There was a silence while the quick-witted Jewess caught at the protection of the far-off hiding place of her quandam lover. "He went away; I do not know where; and took the woman with him, this Hungarian woman, this Irma Gluyas! Lilienthal knows; you can make him tell." "Look here!" sharply cried the officer, in a sudden rage. "You are lying to me! Your rooms are being searched even now! Your boy has been taken away, and he will go straight to the electric chair. He gave that poor man over into your hands. You took him to the murderer's den! BOTH OF YOU WILL DIE! You were yourself getting ready to run away to Europe! Your baggage is all packed! We will force the truth out of your boy; you shall never see him. You can't help him lie now! I was the cobbler opposite your door, and I've watched you for a month!" For five minutes the men labored to restore the stricken woman, whose tortured nerves gave way. "I shall now search you," roughly said McNerney, "but I'll have a police matron here to do it. I want that letter and telegram from August Meyer! I want the money—the stolen money—he sent you. I'll give you just five minutes to tell me the whole truth. It's life and death for you now. They are busy searching your rooms." With a cry of entreaty, Leah Einstein tore open her dress. She threw a packet on the table. "It's all there, all there," she wailed. "And I will tell you all. I will take you to him. You shall catch him. But spare my boy!" And, moaning and pleading, she now told the whole truth. It was long after midnight when the woman scrawled her name in Polish-Hebrew script under the record of Fritz Braun's crime. McNerney grasped Witherspoon's arm and led him away. "Do you see the light now?" he cried, in triumph. "The boy and woman were used by this damned fiend, Braun. You can see that she was Braun's slave in the old days. The other woman is innocent of the murder, and was only a handsome stool-pigeon! But, behind Braun, there may lurk Lilienthal and Ferris! Braun was to get the plunder for putting Clayton out of the way. Don't you see that Clayton stood between Ferris and the millionaire's only daughter!" "What are we to do?" gasped Witherspoon. "You are to take the morning train and get the alias extradition papers from the Secretary of State. Make it a strict confidence. I will take this woman, the papers, and Doctor Atwater, and we will grab 'Mr. August Meyer' at Schebitz. "Jim Condon will hold the boy on the doctor's yacht, and you will take your notary and get the boy's full confession. Let him know that he alone can save his mother's life. The moment I have nabbed this Fritz Braun I'll cable; but I want to recover the money and get the whole reward. You must get me five thousand dollars from Miss Worthington, and the letter of credit for five thousand more. I'll take an iron-handed woman along, a nurse, and police matron." "What shall I do with Miss Worthington?" demanded Witherspoon. "Nothing, as yet," said McNerney, with a significant smile. "Let the doctor handle her confidence! I'll get all this woman's belongings and put the matron in charge of her. The woman can work skilfully on her fears. "To-morrow I'll take a peep at No. 192 Layte Street, then go down to Tompkinsville with the notary. We will put Emil Einstein 'through the thirty-third degree,' and in three days Atwater, the two women and I will be off for Breslau. Leave me a free hand, and I'll get your murderer and the money. But remember, one single imprudence loses both man and money; you, your vengeance; me, my reward. And I depend on this windfall to marry!" "So do I, Dennis," sadly smiled Witherspoon. "Go in; I'll do your bidding. Count on the extradition papers and the money." In ten minutes the armorer's room was dark. "Not a bad evening's work," said the notary, as he pocketed a hundred-dollar bill, "and another one of those 'exquisitely executed engravings' for to-morrow!" Long before Alice Worthington had lifted her stately head from her pillow the next morning, the astonished Dennis McNerney was rubbing his eyes before the location of the Valkyrie Saloon. He had stolen over to Brooklyn with the "early birds." The streets were as yet unpeopled when he drew the drowsy officer on the beat into the side room of the saloon where once Mr. August Meyer presided in the evening. The two uniformed giants smacked their lips over the morning Manhattan cocktail. "Now, that's what I call a cocktail," said Officer Hogan, as he ordered up (on a complimentary basis) the Havanas. "This saloon used to be a German sort of headquarters. But the new fellows are our own people, the right sort. They knew it's an Irish neighborhood. So they pulled down the sign 'Valkyrie,' and put up 'The Shamrock,' drove out their Dutch kellners and put in good Irish barkeepers." "What's become of August Meyer, who used to have an interest here?" carelessly said McNerney, affecting a familiarity with old history. "Meyer ran a hidden dead-fall and gambling house next door, at No. 192 Layte Street," said Hogan, biting off his cigar. "That was before I came on the beat. He got to plunging on the races, betting against his own games, and the poker crowd here cleaned him up at last. So there's the Hibernia Social Club, the Democratic Ward Committee, and a lot of roomers in there. It's a new deal now, all around. "The whole house has been ripped up and there's a China wash-house in the basement of that old mansion." "Meyer?" interrogated McNerney, as he ordered the second round. "Cleared out for Europe, so they say," carelessly said Hogan. "I saw him driving in a carriage a few days before he sold out, with a staving looking woman. He may have married a good thing, and skipped the town. He was a shifty sort of a devil; but he ran a square gambling den. And he had loads of money till he went crazy over cards." It was afternoon when Miss Worthington was pondering over Witherspoon's telegram from Philadelphia, that Officer McNerney was swiftly rowed out to the yacht "Rambler," lying on the oily summer waters of the lower bay. Beside him, the notary calmly awaited the materialization of the second hundred-dollar bill. But, busied as all her secret agents were, none of the men now chasing down the fugitive murderer were as anxious at heart as Miss Alice Worthington. It was easy to arrange for the money Witherspoon had telegraphed for; she knew the secret object of his visit to Washington, but only that certain parties had been taken into custody, and that there was light ahead. "My father!" she cried, as she fell on her knees and prayed that the mantle of shame should not fall upon his yet raw grave. It was half an hour after Doctor Atwater and McNerney began to question Emil Einstein that the young scapegoat at last dropped his policy of lying braggadocio. Confined in the cabin of the stout schooner yacht of a hundred tons, he had craftily fenced himself in with a network of lies during the night, in preparation for the ordeal which he well knew was at hand. His coarse, defiant nature rebelled when Policeman McNerney confronted him, and he felt secure in recalling the narrow limitations of the policeman's possible knowledge of the past. But at last the lad yielded under the hammering of the enraged officer. "I'll give you just five minutes to consider if you wish to sacrifice your mother's life, you young dog," McNerney exclaimed. "We have her confession in full, and as you decoyed this murdered man into her clutches, you are only saving yourself by a full unbosoming." "And if I don't talk?" growled Emil, beginning to sicken over the gloomy future. "You will be sailed around on this yacht till you weaken, till we've caught the head devil, and then it only depends on him as to whether you go to the 'chair' with him or not!" It was a frightful alternative. With a sudden revulsion, the startled young rascal exclaimed: "I'll give you the whole business, as far as I know; and if you'll save my mother, I'll turn State's evidence. I know nothing about the murder! I only know now that Fritz Braun wanted to get poor Mr. Clayton into some out-of-the-way place to get the money away from him. I only thought that he wanted to bleed him, using that pretty woman, s'help me, God! I did." "We will judge of your story when we hear it," grimly answered McNerney. But it was Doctor Atwater's measured courtesy which disarmed this vulgar youth's pregnant fears. "We can show your mother and yourself to have been used as innocent tools, if you give up the whole truth. But, remember, a little smart lying will surely cost you your life." Atwater and McNerney listened, in astonishment, as Emil Einstein unveiled the double life of his former patron. The inner workings of Magdal's Pharmacy, the dual trades on different banks of the East River, the duplex Braun and Meyer, and the whole scenario of the Cafe Bavaria and the Newport Art Gallery—all these were faithfully pictured. With moistened eyes, Atwater listened to the story of Randall Clayton's chivalric faith in the beautiful waif whom a romantic Fortune seemed to have thrown in his pathway, a creature of light and love. When the long recital was done, both the inquisitors felt that Einstein spoke the truth, as he wildly declared that he only thought Braun was throwing a pretty woman in Clayton's way to get a secret hold upon him. "I never dreamed of the company's robbing, nor of killing poor Mr. Clayton. I got not one dollar out of it. I never had Braun's confidence, and he followed me up, and used me, and threw me away like an old rug. And Ben Timmins knows nothing. He's only a poor drudge in Braun's Sixth Avenue opium-joint and whisky-store." "But Lilienthal, he knows a lot! Catch him if you can! But he's an oily devil. He threw this woman against poor Mr. Clayton." It was only when the boy was thoroughly subdued that Atwater quietly asked, "And Ferris? What had he to do with it?" "Nothing," stubbornly cried the boy. "Only so far as this: he wanted to sneak in and get old Worthington's daughter, and all the money. That's square! He hated Clayton. He used to write lying letters to the old chief about him. He sent private reports on his life to Mr. Worthington. I used to watch him. I often got a peep at his papers, and he bribed me to pipe off poor Clayton. But you can hang me if Ferris knew Fritz Braun. You see," coolly said the crafty boy, "Ferris wanted the girl, the money, and the old man's favor. Braun only wanted the company's money, and used the Hungarian lady to draw Clayton on. I fancy, from all I could see, that Mr. Clayton really loved that lady; and Braun could only use her to fool him over there; then he took the chances to kill him to get the money. No! Ferris is only a snake in the grass, a coward, and a cur! He fastened on Clayton as a friend, and got in between him and Mr. Worthington; but, he never saw Fritz Braun!" The boy's tone was convincing. "Then you let Braun know how easily he could steal a fortune by getting hold of Clayton on his way to the bank!" roughly accused McNerney. "Not me; never, on your life," defiantly answered Emil. "It may have been Lilienthal, for Mr. Wade was often in that 'back room' of his. Old Wade is a 'dead easy game,' soft on the ladies, and Lilienthal may have pumped him and so put the job up with Braun." The recital of Lilienthal and Braun's illicit trading made Dennis McNerney's eyes gleam. When the three men left the yacht at sunset, the policeman called Einstein into a corner. "See here," he said. "I've got your mother locked up in my charge. She is a decentish sort of woman, in her way, and she loves you, you young brute. See if you can remember anything more in your yacht cruise of a month. "Officer Condon will treat you well. You may clear your mother and yourself; you may get Timmins' evidence for us to break up this smuggling gang. There'll be a big reward there! I will see that you don't suffer. Give the whole business up to Officer Condon. When it is safe, you'll be taken ashore." Emil Einstein, watching the boat going ashore, felt a choking throb in his throat. "That fellow McNerney's a smart devil," he said. "He is on the right trail, and there'll be a fight for life when he rounds up Fritz. He is going after his blood. And Fritz will never be taken alive!" The stars were peacefully shining down on New York City, three days later, when Miss Alice Worthington bade adieu to Doctor Atwater. The mystery of Randall Clayton's murder had passed into a worn-out sensation, and new crimes, new names, new faces, filled the flaring journals. The firm hand of Witherspoon was at the helm of the Trading Company, and even Adolph Lilienthal had forgotten his fears. The Clayton affair had been all threshed out! It had been tacitly arranged between the friends that Witherspoon should watch over Miss Worthington's peace of mind, while Atwater went upon the quest led by the resolute McNerney. Far away under the shadows of the Katzen Gebirge, on this summer evening, Mr. August Meyer, dogging Irma Gluyas' every footstep, secretly exulted. "Leah is now on her way to meet me! And then all the old scores will be soon settled!" The Hungarian witch, patient in captivity, breathlessly waited for Randall Clayton's coming, still deceived by the false telegram. But, as Alice Worthington whispered her last secret instructions to Atwater, sailing on the morrow, her heart was light, for she knew her father, though stained with greed, had been guiltless of Clayton's blood. "I will give anything on earth to the man who clears Randall Clayton's memory," said the heiress. "Don't promise too much, Miss Alice," cried Atwater, as he kissed her hand. "I will do my duty!" As the carriage drove away, she watched him from the window. Their eyes met, and she turned away, with sudden blushes. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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