And so, the legacy of a crime came as a crushing burden to the girl wife whose clear eyes had looked into her father's darkened soul. The papers and telegrams which the lonely heiress was forced to examine told her clearly how Randall Clayton's pathway had been beset with snares.
She shuddered as she read the telegrams which proved a catastrophe which she could not avert. "And Arthur Ferris—my husband in name—knew all! This is his work!"
She roused herself to action and gave over the dead clay to kindly hands when, at midnight on the day of her father's death, she had received all the dispatches which told her of Randall Clayton's evasion. Kneeling by her father's body she vowed herself a priestess of Justice. "They may have killed him. I may be too late; but I will deal with my despoiled brother's memory as my only heritage. For he was innocent, and has been robbed of birthright, good name, and perhaps life itself."
For a week after the receipt of the ominous telegram from Pasco, Arthur Ferris sat, a gloomy tyrant, in the offices of the Western Trading Company. There were dark circles around the young lawyer's eyes, and his restless mind gnawed upon itself in an intolerable agony.
Left alone by Senator Dunham's departure, the open aversion of the company's officials had astounded him.
Even Robert Wade, so cringing before the death of Worthington, had received his reinstatement in a sullen silence. "Do I understand that you wish me to be responsible for the daily conduct of the company's affairs?" gravely said Wade. "Then you must restore all the officials or I will not act! Every one knows, sir, that your power of attorney from the late Mr. Worthington became valueless at his death."
Ferris, with fear and trembling, awaited the extraordinary meeting of the Board of Directors called to meet the exigencies of the demise of Worthington and the great robbery. With a heavy heart he resigned the following up of the missing Randall Clayton to the company's advisory attorneys.
Day by day he had breathlessly watched every telegram brought in, every delivery of the mails. Neither letter nor dispatch from the girl wife broke into the gloom of these days.
He dared not disobey her positive injunctions. He feared to leave New York City and go to Detroit to meet her, and only the meager results of private telegraphic inquiry, as well as the chattering journals, told him of the arrival of Miss Alice Worthington, now the greatest heiress of the Lake States, in her palatial Detroit home.
Senator Dunham's easy-going counsels had been of no comfort. To the millionaire politician, the natural ascendancy of Ferris over the girl's future and fortune seemed "to close the incident."
Secure in his "block of stock," he returned to the delights of Newport, where the Senatorial toga was duly flourished in the gayest circles.
But, a crafty scoundrel, warned by his own uneasy conscience, ArthurFerris took alarm at the "Social items" of the Detroit Free Press.
When he learned that Miss Worthington intended to visit New York City, accompanied by Messrs. Boardman and Warner, the executors of her father's estate, on matters connected with the probate of the will, he realized that he was in imminent danger.
He used every means of rapid information, and only gleaned the meager news that the public funeral of the dead Croesus would be deferred for a month until the "various civic bodies" could "take appropriate action."
The Detroit papers were filled with the reverberated reports of Randall Clayton's mysterious crime, "by which astounding peculation, the millionaire's estate would possibly shrink several hundred thousand dollars." And yet—no trace of the fugitive!
Ferris already scented his deadly foe in Mr. John Witherspoon, who daily visited the offices of the Trading Company, passing him with a mere formal bow, when engaged upon the books and papers.
It was with a thrill of new alarm that Ferris learned from the company's advisory attorneys that Mr. Witherspoon had been commissioned by the executors of the estate "to make a thorough investigation into the alleged defalcation of the still missing Clayton."
Ferris was baffled when he sought to spy upon Witherspoon's movements. It was easy to find out that the Detroit lawyer had left the Hoffman House, but "with no address."
And he vainly sought counsel of Senator Dunham when he was informed by the company's lawyers that Mr. Witherspoon declined to transact any business with him save in writing, and through the company's officials.
"Go out and bring your wife to terms, you young fool," roughly said the angered statesman. "You've no rights, now, save through her."
To the consternation of the secret bridegroom, the Detroit papers announced that "nothing whatever would be as yet announced as to the disposition of the late Mr. Worthington's vast estate," until the return of the executors from New York City.
With all his nerves temporarily shattered, Arthur Ferris saw all his cardboard fortifications suddenly strewn around him by adverse gales. His barren title of vice-president of the company now availed him nothing. The president, manager, and directors all practically shunned him, waiting for the word as to who would manage the controlling interest of the dead Croesus.
There was a formal evening meeting of all concerned when the detective captain finally reported that the whole department were unable to find a clue of Randall Clayton's whereabouts. Arthur Ferris gazed askance at Mr. John Witherspoon's strong face when the company's leading New York lawyer took up the word, as the French neatly put it. "Gentlemen," said he, "we may as well adjourn this meeting. We have been in secret session here, till it now nears midnight. We are all groping in the dark. Here is a remarkable phase of a great crime. Even the 'argus-eyed press' has no theory to offer."
There was a frightened hush when Counsellor Stillwell solemnly said: "Are we sure that we are on the right road? It appears that we have lost all roads. Groping! Only feeling our way in the dark! Police and journals powerless, our rewards unanswered! It remains for us to drop the matter of theft, and—look for a murderer.
"I now move that we double the reward and seek for the murderer or murderers of Randall Clayton! Remember, not a bill or cheque, not an object, the bank book, nothing has been found to indicate either theft or flight.
"I always had implicit confidence in Clayton's honor; he was trusted by our heaviest stockholder, named by him, backed by him; and Mr. Worthington, even at his lamented death, proposed making him general manager in the West. There's not a shadow on the name of the missing man."
While the audience eyed each other, the three police officials present cried in accord: "Good; double the reward. NOW YOU'RE ON THE RIGHT TRACK."
"I second the motion," quietly said the pale-faced Witherspoon. "I do also," slowly said Ferris, "and I offer the amendment that this action takes effect when Mr. Worthington's executors arrive and authorize this important step."
In sheer impotency to quarrel, the puzzled meeting adjourned, andArthur Ferris, now conspicuously alone, was left to chatter withPoliceman Dennis McNerney on the lonely street corner below.
"Well!" said Ferris impatiently, as a fifty-dollar bill changed hands. "All I can tell you," whispered the policeman, "is that Lawyer Witherspoon is at the Buckingham. He received no visitors but his friend, a young doctor.
"Physician's name, William Atwater, M.D. Mail and telegrams he gets at down-town office, your company's lawyers. And he spends all his time running around at nights with Atwater or locked up with old Stillwell in his den down town.
"It's a poor harvest, Dennis," gruffly said Ferris.
"That's all there's in it," stolidly said the man. "Shall I keep up the watch?"
"Yes, as usual," sadly replied Ferris, as he sped up Broadway to the Fifth Avenue. The policeman snorted his contempt, when Ferris had turned the corner.
"A beggarly fifty! By God! I'll hold the boy down. Somewhere in that funny little joint of a drug-store the secret lies. In a couple of weeks I can begin work on Timmins; but the office boy, Einstein, waited personally on Clayton! When his fear wears off, I'll trap him. He is spending money too freely. Where does that come from?"
As McNerney wandered on, he was as ignorant of Einstein's continued milking of Ferris' purse, as Ferris was of Jack Witherspoon's treasured clues and as all the knowing ones were of Arthur Ferris' crafty course in robbing Randall Clayton's desk of the tell-tale dispatches.
Einstein's greedy fingers were now always in Ferris' purse, for well the Jewish boy knew that Ferris feared to disclose the theft of the private papers. And so he filled the schemer's ears with unmeaning babble about Randall Clayton's night life in New York.
"In the dark! In the dark!" muttered Ferris, as he threw himself down on his bed. "Did Clayton ever start for Bay Ridge? Did he hide the money and flee to Europe? Did he go West to meet Worthington?"
A wild idea came to him that the bank employees might have stolen the money, lured Clayton into some Bowery or Fourth Avenue dive, some room on Eighth Street, and then stolen the tell-tale bank-book. "What would not any man do for a quarter of a million?" groaned Ferris in despair.
And all these long days, while the New York community was daily forgetting the flight of Clayton, the theft, and the dead millionaire to whom all the worshippers of the Golden Calf had bowed, the "Mesopotamia" was slowly nearing Stettin, now breasting the North Sea surges.
Irma Gluyas, awakened from her narcotic stupor, felt in her wild, wayward heart that Mr. August Meyer had lied to her.
But there was an apparent peace on the liner. The passionate-hearted singer amused the captain and half deceived her watchful tyrant.
But, deep in her heart, she had evolved a plan. Once safely inStettin, she would telegraph to Clayton.
True, she had no money; but her fingers were covered with flashing rings. Partner of some of Fritz Braun's smuggling secrets, she was free of all crime, but the desire to innocently lure Clayton away while the Cattle Trust's safes could be robbed in the holidays.
Step by step her old-time paramour had lured her on to betray Randall Clayton, and yet, at the last, the good angel struggled with the spirit of evil in that stormy heart. There was a smiling calm on Fritz Braun's face which did not deceive her. She knew that the great game had been pulled off. But how—with what golden harvest—she knew not.
And yet she marked Braun's trembling hands, the lines graven on his face, his deep potations, his fierce fever to reach the land. And so, deep in her heart, she swore, "If he has harmed him, it is his life or mine!"
Gazing out on the leaden surges of the ocean, she could see the face of her manly lover, the one man who had believed in her underlying womanhood. There was no stain on the red roses worn on her breast for him; only truth in her gleaming Magyar eyes. "He loved me, for what he saw in me—the innocent woman that I once was." And bitter tears mingled with the salt brine flashing by—the tears of a repentent magdalen.
Fritz Braun never knew that the woman who submitted to his caresses was a spirit of wrath. Fool in his own conceit, he was yet watchful. If she makes a single false move at Stettin, she seals her own fate, he darkly pledged his familiar demon. And so, stealthily eying each other, the fugitive and his fascinating dupe neared the sandy dunes of the German Baltic land.
And yet God's wrath followed them. There was the throb of guilt in both their bosoms, resting in one the betrayal of a soul, on the other the crushing weight of innocent blood crying for vengeance.
And still, as yet, they slept in peace, for the dark waters of the East River had not given up that ghastly mute witness whirling and diving in the black under eddies around the rock-hewn pyramids of the Brooklyn Bridge.
A thousand pairs of eager eyes now watched the money exchanges of America and Europe for any paltry bit of the plunder stored away in Fritz Braun's black valise. But the vengeance of God slept only while the sinners fled away from the place of the betrayal of a noble heart.
Vice-President Arthur Ferris of the Western Trading Company found in the proud and formal reserve of the reinstated officials an armor proof against all his legal acumen.
Some subtle spirit of unexpressed defiance seemed to have banded them all against him. He felt that the stately oak which had sheltered him was now fallen indeed. It was in an agony of spirit that he awaited the appearance of his unacknowledged wife.
The "private agency" which he had secretly employed brought a new discovery to his heart, when, ten days after Hugh Worthington's death, Ferris was awakened before his breakfast by a sudden report. The spy handed, in silence, to the astounded man a sealed envelope, which was the tidings of an impending Waterloo.
"Miss Worthington arrived night before last, with Boardman and Warner. They came on in a special car via the Pennsylvania road. She is at A. C. Stillwell's town house on Central Park West. The lawyers are both at the University Club. She has not left the house, and there have been many business-looking callers at the Stillwell house. Boardman or Warner is there on duty all the while, in alternation. Watch them."
Shame, rage, and fear struggled for the mastery on Ferris' pale cheeks as he dismissed the paid spy. "Tell your chief I'll call in and give him my final directions to-day," he curtly said.
In two hours Arthur Ferris had made the formal toilet for a professional duel of wits. He was the first caller when the silver-haired counselor had dispatched his morning mail.
Mr. Stillwell's frosty blue eyes gleamed with an Arctic light as Arthur Ferris opened his masked batteries. In all that long ride down Broadway, Ferris had arranged the "subject matter" evidently to his own satisfaction. But he floundered under the mute inquiry of those frosty eyes, and the floundering finally ceased.
"Do I understand that you ask or demand an interview with Miss Worthington?" icily said the old lawyer. "If you will put your wishes in writing, I will convey them to her. That is all I can say. I admit that she is my guest, and I also desire to say that she shuns all intrusion."
"Messrs. Boardman and Warner,"—began Ferris. "With them I have nothing to do," coldly replied Stillwell. "You will hear of them and from them in due time."
With trembling fingers, Arthur Ferris wrote a few lines, sealed them, and handed them to the lawyer, whose formal bow froze the words trembling upon his lips.
Two long days of mental agony passed before Ferris, seated at his desk in the Trading Company's executive offices, received a formal letter from the men whom now he most feared on earth. "Not much to speculate on here," growled Ferris, as he pondered over the curt permission.
"Our client, Miss Alice Worthington, will receive you, on business, at No. 248 Central Park West, at 2 P.M. to-day. "BOARDMAN AND WARNER, "Executors, Hugh Worthington Estate."
The signature seemed to be a fluttering banner of hostile hosts.
And yet, summoning all his trained calm, Arthur Ferris, with unmoved gravity, bowed as he was ushered into the drawing-room of the great New York pleader. He knew the flag of no surrender was flying. He saluted, in silence, the two gentlemen who advanced to meet him.
And then an angry flush stole over his pale face. It was not the chilly greeting of the massive Lemuel Boardman, not the sharp, attentive nod of Mr. Ezra Warner, which sent the blood leaping to his heart; it was the slight inclination of the head of Mr. John Witherspoon, his secret antagonist. For he scented danger when the young Detroit lawyer appeared here in the stronghold of his rebellious wife in name.
"Miss Worthington will join us in a few moments," said Mr. Boardman.
There was the rustling of heavy, trailing robes, and Arthur Ferris scarcely dared raise his eyes as the figure of his girl bride darkened the door.
And he knew his fate at the first glance! He knew that he had lost her forever, the bride of a crime.
There was a majesty in that slight figure, clad in its sombre mourning drapery, which awed him. There was a set, marble pallor upon the beautiful face, and Arthur Ferris could not see the sapphire blue eyes veiled with their fringing lashes. He had started forward, had stretched out appealing hands, and murmured "Alice," but the youthful heiress merely glided past him in a stern silence. He could see her now, her face buried in her thin, white hands, the coronal of golden hair gleaming out over the black gown.
There was the faint sound of a sob as Ferris turned angrily to the senior, while Warner bent pityingly over the young girl.
"I demand a private interview with Miss Worthington," the husband quickly said, as he indicated the unwelcome presence of Witherspoon.
"We are here, Mr. Ferris," said Boardman, in a steady voice, "to allow you to communicate, properly, with Miss Worthington. As her legal representatives and the executors of her father's estate, we are requested to remain by her. You may proceed."
"I insist that Mr. Witherspoon shall, at once, retire. He is an interloper here," hotly replied Ferris.
"So much so," icily answered Boardman, "that he has been selected by us as the general managing director of the Western Trading Company to succeed the late Mr. Hugh Worthington."
The clock, ticking on noisily, seemed to sound the knell of Ferris' last hopes. But his affections were now only a mirage of the past. "That gives him no power over me here," stubbornly said the defeated husband.
"True; but THIS does," quietly said Boardman, handing him a paper.
With a sickening feeling at heart, Ferris read a formal appointment, signed by Miss Worthington, and countersigned by Boardman and Warner, appointing John Witherspoon as resident attorney, in law and fact, for Miss Alice Worthington.
"If that is not satisfactory, sir," gravely concluded the lawyer, "we have named Mr. Witherspoon as special New York counsel for the executors, and he will hold the proxy to cast the vote of the estate in the ensuing special election. I suggest that you now proceed with the matters in hand."
"One word!" cried Ferris, leaping to his wife's side, and seizing her wrists. "Do you confirm this outrage?"
"I do," suddenly cried the weeping girl, springing up and facing him with a defiant brow.
"What have you done with my brother? Where is the man whom you falsely accused of leading a vile life? You poisoned my father's mind against Randall. He has been led away and killed among you."
"Before God, I know nothing of his fate!" stammered Arthur Ferris, in despair.
"Then prove your innocence!" cried Alice Worthington, her lovely face lit with the anger of an avenging angel. "There is a gulf between us which will never be crossed, so help me, God!"
The girl fell back, weeping, in the arms of Warner, while Boardman sternly seized the trembling Ferris. "Another such outbreak and you can say adieu forever to the woman whose life you have wrecked," whispered Boardman. "Now, sir," he continued, raising his voice, "proceed! For, after to-day all your communications will be in writing, and only through us!"
"I demand your authority for all these high-handed actions," snarled the deposed autocrat of the Trading Company. His heart hardened as he reflected that, after all, he was the legal marital master of the slim girl there, hidden in her shrouding black robes.
"Nothing easier," calmly answered Boardman. "Here is a certified copy of the will of Hugh Worthington, which leaves his entire estate, real and personal, to his only child.
"As Miss Worthington has passed the age of eighteen, she needs no guardian of the person.
"We have obtained a special sanction of the Michigan courts for the appointment of Mr. Witherspoon to represent the estate here. I will leave you this copy, and Mr. Witherspoon will now deliver to you our written order to cease all functions in connection with the Trading Company except in so far as you represent your own stock.
"And, as you were not a qualified stockholder (a bona fide one) at the last election manipulated by you, your office as vice-president will be vacated at this special meeting."
Arthur Ferris' eyes flashed fire as Witherspoon, without a word, handed him the second document.
He essayed vainly to speak, but his parched tongue was powerless, his lips were fever-glued. Finally, the man who now feared a further stroke of malevolent fortune, said, in a low voice, "I desire a few words in private with Miss Worthington."
To the astonishment of the three men, Alice Worthington arose and glided into the rear drawing-room, where Ferris sprang to her side.
In low whispers he essayed to recall his lost bride to her perfunctory duties of wife. The men in the great front hall gazed at Fashion's throng sweeping by on the avenue as Ferris led his last trumps and endeavored to develop the hidden enemy's line of reserve.
His last hope failed when his legal wife quietly whispered, "Our union was brought about by treachery, duress, and fraud. Do you wish to proclaim your own share publicly? I know all now. I have all my father's dispatches, his cipher book, his telegrams from you, and the last, from Randall Clayton."
"You are my wife," fiercely whispered Ferris.
"In name only," defiantly replied Alice Worthington. "You will learn my father's last wishes later, and to your sorrow. You lied when you said that Clayton led a vile life. You poisoned my father's mind. Thank God! I am my own mistress now.
"I have friends who will protect me and punish you. I dare you ever to claim me as your wife. Beyond that mere civil ceremony, the sale of a soul for Senator Dunham's influence, you have never laid your hand in mine."
"You cannot frighten me, Madame," bitterly retorted Ferris. "I hold your father's good name in my power."
"Stop!" coldly rejoined the angered woman. "I have the whole history of the past. My father repaired the wrong done with his own hand, before his death.
"You betrayed Clayton, as your life comrade; you stole upon me, a lonely child, with your wily flatteries. I believed you to be true, and Clayton false. You murdered his good name, you estranged him from us. You have branded his memory as a fugitive thief! And you have failed, with your police, detectives, and lawyers, to find a clue! One word of charity from you and the dead man's memory would have been cleared of the stain of theft.
"And, the prison door yawns for you! You opened Clayton's desk, stole his telegraph-book and papers, and have secreted them."
"It is false," snarled Ferris. "Too late," cried Alice Worthington. "We have the office boy's evidence who saw you rifle his desk. Touch that boy if you dare! He is under our protection! We obtained copies from the Western Union of all the last telegrams sent and received by my poor brother."
"He plotted this robbery months ago, and sent all those as a mere decoy," faltered Ferris. "I was merely holding them back to assist the police." Alice Worthington's lip curled in scorn.
"Why did you not search the roads to Cheyenne? Why did you not send detectives over to Bay Ridge? Why did you not reveal your secret find to the chief of police?"
Suddenly Ferris saw the jaws of the trap closing upon him.
"He has been murdered!" sobbed Alice. "The money may have been hidden, the bank-book destroyed."
"By some of the bank's people," hesitatingly said Ferris.
"You alone knew all of these details! You came here and secreted yourself at the time of the election," sternly answered the avenging Little Sister. "You did not even sleep once in the rooms which you professed to share with him!"
"I acted under your father's orders," boldly rejoined Ferris.
"He is dead; it is useless to say that! No one will believe you.And you are lying to me now. You know and I know that RandallClayton was no thief. I know, in my heart, and all men now believe,that he was murdered."
Ferris' teeth chattered as he faced the accusing woman. "I am innocent of all this," he faltered.
"Then, find his murderers!" solemnly said the rebellious wife. "You know the crime of the past which leaves its dread legacy of shame now crushing you. If you can aid the police, do it! You may communicate with our company's lawyers here.
"But if you interfere at the office, if you dare to approach me, you will be apprehended under warrants for robbing the private records of the man who was decoyed to his death among you. One word against my father's memory, one single hint of our marriage, and the jail doors will close on you."
"And, the future?" whispered Ferris. "Our lives are bound together."
"The law in one year will give me a separation for desertion," said Alice. "The divorce will be quietly obtained in the West; if you resist, you know the penalty! There is a gulf between us for Time and Eternity.
"My father's murdered confidence, your Judas plots to gain a motherless girl's hand, your wrecking Clayton's life! You can purchase your safety in but one way: by obedience."
The astounded husband raised his hand as she glided by him. He followed her dumbly into the front drawing-room, where the three lawyers waited for the end of the colloquy.
"It is understood, gentlemen," said Alice Worthington, "that Mr. Ferris has intruded upon me for the last time. I leave it to you to demand and enforce the absolute protection of my privacy. Nothing can induce me to consent to another interview, or to answer any further communications."
There reigned a dismal silence in the room as Alice Worthington glided out into the great hall. Standing on the lowest stair, she turned, a desolate and pathetic figure, with the golden hair rippling over the marble brows.
She steadied herself with one arm, and a slight cry of affright trembled upon her parted lips as Ferris sprang forward, crying "For God's sake, hear me! Just one word!"
But Boardman's heavy, restraining hand grasped the deserted husband's arm. "Mr. Ferris," he gravely said. "Our future course will be dictated by your behavior. You must only communicate with the Trading Company's lawyers on these affairs. As to the Worthington Estate, there is our representative, Mr. Witherspoon. And, in the interests of justice, bestir yourself now to find Randall Clayton's murderer.
"The chief of police has his eyes specially upon you, and so, I give you a fair warning."
Ferris, with flashing eyes, essayed to speak, but Boardman significantly ushered him to the door. "It is peace or war, as you will have it! We three men have all the secrets of the past. If you attempt, in the slightest degree, to annoy our principal, we will strike, and without mercy."
As the defeated husband drove home along the leafy borders of the beautiful Central Park—the one lovely oasis in New York's scattered maze of brick and iron monstrosity—he saw his life lying sere and yellow around him, his bare uplands scorched before their time.
"Ruin, ruin," he murmured, and a craven fear now possessed him—a fear born of his ignorance of the awful remorse of the dying hours of the Croesus, the moneyed giant cut off in the midst of all his schemes!
"How much do they know?" he murmured.
Rage filled his stormy heart; he would have struck back as madly as the blind rattlesnake but for the craven fears which now assailed him.
"I must await my time for revenge," he muttered. "One touch of publicity in this, and Senator Dunham would chase me out of America. He must, at the last, protect me, if only to save himself."
Stunned by the sudden onslaught of the girl whom he had supposed to be but a pliant, hoodwinked child, Ferris sat long pondering gloomily in his rooms at the Fifth Avenue, his head buried in his hands.
The weary hours passed in alternations of rage and despair. Haggard-eyed Ferris sprang to the door in the early evening gloom, as a sharp knock roused him. When Policeman Dennis McNerney entered, he gazed wonderingly at the young lawyer.
"What's come over you?" demanded the officer. "You have heard the news? I did not dare to go up to the office, and so I waited till you had finished your dinner."
Ferris wearily gazed at his visitor. "What do you mean? I'm sick. I'm going away for a change, and I've turned the whole thief-catching business over to Stillwell, the company's lawyer."
The policeman stepped back and softly locked the door.
"See here, Mr. Ferris," he soberly said. "You should not leave till the whole thing's cleared up. If you don't want me to follow up your private inquiry, just say so." He handed to the astonished man an evening paper. There, marked with a great scrawl, was a brief item.
"Was That of a Young Man of Evidently Good Station—No Clue as to the Deceased's Identity—Another Mysterious Crime."
"A body was found this morning in the East River off the foot of Baltic Street, Brooklyn. It was that of a young man about twenty-eight years of age. The deceased was about five feet eleven inches in height, of light complexion and brown hair. It was entirely naked and considerably bruised by the contact of the wharves and passing vessels. There was no mark found upon the body, which is that of a man of apparent refinement and one unused to labor. It was found floating by an Italian boatman and taken to the morgue. It had been in the water about three weeks."
"Well!" demanded Ferris, his hand trembling, as he handed back the paper. "I have been on the lookout for your missing cashier," quietly answered McNerney, with a searching glance at the agitated man.
"I have watched the morgue and all the police reports. When I heard of this, I captured that Jew office boy, ran him over to the morgue in a coupe, and he and I instantly recognized poor Mr. Clayton. God rest his soul, all that's left of him!"
Ferris dropped into a chair, shivering violently. "It will be featured in all the morning papers," coolly continued McNerney. "There's your problem solved. The poor fellow was decoyed in some black-hearted, cowardly manner and done up for the stuff. It was no common gang who fixed him for fair," gloomily concluded the dissatisfied officer. "There were no marks of violence upon the body."
Ferris staggered to the sideboard and took a draught of brandy. "I wash my hands of the whole thing," he huskily said. "If you wish to follow it up, go and see Stillwell."
"That's all you have to say?" cried the now suspicious policeman."I'm sick of the whole job, and shall leave town," sullenly answeredFerris, as he opened the door and said, "Call our affair off! I'lltelegraph to Stillwell, and he can handle the company's interests."
Dennis McNerney watched Ferris disappear in the swarm of Broadway's evening loungers, and then directed his steps to Magdal's Pharmacy. "I'll take that boy under my wing; and the published reward must be mine. This cold-hearted brute may have had a hand in it. I'll watch him night and day, and let the boy get over all his fears. Inside of a month I'll find that woman, the hack-driver, and perhaps this lame duck caught in the meshes. I'll lay low for a week, but that boy and that woman shall tell their story to me alone, and it's worth a fortune. I fancy I see daylight. It's a case of soft and easy. Once the boy would be frightened, I would lose this blind trail forever!"
Arthur Ferris was secluded from all callers in his rooms at theFifth Avenue Hotel until late on the morning when a million peopleread the "featured" details of the mysterious murder of RandallClayton.
Exhausted by the mental struggle with his now defiant wife, he yet retained enough of his cunning to heed Policeman McNerney's roughly-given advice.
Ferris' rooms were littered with the score of newspapers over which he had been busied since daybreak, and his breakfast stood still untasted at his side. He wavered between his desire for self-protection and his fear of the hard-featured Stillwell.
In his own heart Ferris cared not a whit whether Clayton had been waylaid by accidental thugs, betrayed at the bank, duped by some insidious woman, or slain by an inner conspiracy of the employees.
"The money is gone, the cheques will probably be replaced," he grumbled. "Damn the company's interests! I am glad of their loss. The Worthington Estate will probably make it good.
"But I must go over and show up. I cannot afford to be suspected here. God knows what game is on, with Stillwell now as chief of scouts!"
He had decided to make a brief visit at the office, and to then visit Stillwell, and resign his vice-presidency, on the ground of ill-health. "I'll lay off then, watch the game, keep silence, and frighten them."
The long, weary hours of the night had brought him one consolation. As he reached for his hat and gloves, he laughed bitterly. "She may pay a round price to be rid of me, and then I'll keep all her secrets as well as mine! A kind of armed neutrality!"
At the door, he was confronted by the grave-faced captain of detectives. "You are wanted, Mr. Ferris, at once, at the company's office," sharply said the official, with a comprehensive glance at the room.
"Stillwell is there, and we wish to take your statement. We propose to avenge poor Clayton's murder. You were probably the last person who had a confidential interview with him."
"I know it," frankly answered Ferris, "and was on my way over when you knocked." The two men soon joined a silent circle of the higher officials of the company, gathered about Counsellor Stillwell, in Manager Wade's office. Ferris felt the freezing taciturnity of the detective on the short walk, and even more the greeting of the gloomy circle.
Bowing to Stillwell, the defeated schemer said, "Before we begin,I wish a word with you in private."
"There is to be no privacy here, sir," coldly replied the lawyer, "save the actions of the police. We are all equally interested in discovering poor Clayton's murderer.
"As you branded him as a thief, you can, at least, let us all hear your whole statement now. We have stenographers, a notary, and you can send for a lawyer if you wish counsel."
"I'll not delay you a single moment," resentfully said Ferris, springing to a writing table. He handed a few lines to the astonished attorney, and said, in a ringing voice, "Read that aloud! Let the secretary give me a written acknowledgment. Then, swear me, and I will make a voluntary statement."
There was a general murmur of surprise as Stillwell read the unconditional resignation of Arthur Ferris as vice-president, director, and special counsel of the Western Trading Company.
In the awkward pause which followed, Ferris remarked boldly: "I intended to ask for an indefinite leave on account of breaking health. I shall now remain here, as an ordinary witness, subject to your orders, and with no other interest than to clear up the mystery."
In half an hour Ferris had closed his artful disclosures. "Any matters occurring between the late Mr. Worthington and myself are confidential as between lawyer and client."
In the circle, Messrs. Boardman and Warner watched with ferret eyes every movement of the man who only gazed into the faces of enemies.
"That is all, for the present," significantly said Stillwell, when the chief of police, the head detective, and himself had hurled the last questions at Ferris.
"I will then retire," defiantly remarked Ferris. "With this statement to all men, I shall now be mute to all questioners save the proper authorities. I have turned twenty reporters away this morning without a word, and the police authorities can reach me at my hotel, until they have closed their labors. Then my connection with this company and its affairs terminates forever."
He gazed fiercely at the impassive face of John Witherspoon, and rising, with a bow of general adieu, stalked into the hall.
But he turned as Boardman, Warner, and Witherspoon, following, drew him into the room where Clayton had fought out his life struggles.
"You may now deliver us the papers taken from this desk, and so, escape a prosecution," firmly remarked Boardman. Ferris sat down at the table and wrote a few lines. Handing the paper to the senior executor, he said, with a cutting sneer:
"There is my bill for one hundred thousand dollars for legal services in the last five years for Hugh Worthington. Upon its approval and payment, I will deliver over all the papers of our long intimacy, and sign clean receipts.
"I will then stipulate not to approach Miss Worthington in any manner. Here are all the valueless papers you demand. Will you give me a receipt for them?"
"You took them surreptitiously! You can well afford to trust our honor," snappishly said Warner. "Very good," added Boardman. "You will hear from us, as to your claim, in due time."
When Arthur Ferris' footfall died out upon the stair, Boardman drily remarked, as he pocketed the bill, "The price of a scoundrel's silence! Well, we will see! But the fellow really knows nothing of the murder! Let us go to work, gentlemen."
When they returned to the conference room, below them, on the street, the deposed favorite of fortune was chatting with a new officer on the beat.
"McNerney? Oh, yes," grinned the strange policeman. "He has taken two-months' leave and goes over to see his ould mother, in Oireland. His home address, sure, I don't know. Mayhap the sergeant can tell ye."
While the bluecoat sauntered away, Ferris mentally recorded another mistake. "I should have thrown the hat-box after the hat," he murmured. "A few hundred dollars would have been well spent. And yet he is probably in their ring now. His 'leave of absence' indicates a very sudden return of affection for the 'ould mother.'"
Ferris now decided upon a policy of open frankness and calm indifference. "There is no one I could have made use of, but that Jew office boy," he mused, as he sauntered up Broadway, "and they have bought him out, over my head. I will let my little bill for "legal services" ripen. I can afford to let my 'legal field' lie fallow for the summer."
And yet he cursed the memory of the innocent victim of the mysterious murder. "But for her sentimental hubbub, I could have easily managed Alice. This fellow's strange death gives him the halo of martyrdom. He is out of my reach now. The old man must have feared the 'Iron Gate' of Death! And, after all, his plans to 'efface' Clayton were only inchoate. I cannot terrify them with any hearsay projects. I must get what I can, cling to Dunham, and keep silence.
"The marriage! That means just the one hundred thousand dollars!I will save it and my good name by submitting in silence."
He signalled a passing carriage and ordered the man to drive him far "up the road," out of range of the shrill-voiced newsboys, hawking their "extras," with "Full accounts of the great murder mystery."
For a brief day the name of Randall Clayton was on every one's lips. There were hundreds clustered around the morgue, where already the mute witness who had drifted back under the arch of the Brooklyn Bridge lay in the gloomy state of death. The hasty verdict of "death from murder committed by parties unknown," was all the record of the darkly-veiled happening.
It was a blind trail, after all, which had ended this open and honorable career in the sight of all men. The electric lights were throwing fitful gleams upon the black waters whirling past the Brooklyn Bridge, when the executors, with Witherspoon, gathered around Miss Alice Worthington in the drawing-room of the Stillwell residence.
There was also the tired counsellor, who had also vainly probed the officials of the company, the employees of the Astor Place Bank, and every reachable occupant of the huge business building.
Poor old Somers, for the hundredth time, had rehearsed his story, and yet it all ended in a blind trail.
While they talked of the dead, in hushed voices, Policeman Dennis McNerney was chatting with Emil Einstein over the counter of the Magdal Pharmacy. The keen-eyed policeman noted the efflorescent jewelry, and the resplendent garb of the too-prosperous-looking lad.
Notwithstanding the Jewish boy's sudden prosperity, there were deeply-marked dark circles about his eyes. The Bowery's delights were telling upon the frightened lad, who had sealed his glib tongue now behind lying lips. Flattered by the "cop's" familiar manner, Emil greedily swallowed the ground bait artfully scattered by the cool Irish-American.
He reeled off the story which he had told to the inquisitors of parting in the office with Clayton after Somers had given over the deposits. Before the two separated, Einstein had forgotten his Hebrew timidity.
"Let me know if you pick up any items," said McNerney, giving the lad a ten-dollar bill, with a secret sorrow at throwing good money away. "My chum, Jim Condon, and I hope to help get this reward into our Precinct Squad. Come down to-morrow night to the station, and I'll introduce you. He'll look out for you, and he can write me and keep on the trail. I take the next Cunard steamer for Queenstown."
Mr. Ben Timmins, as host, drew McNerney into the little back room, and the three smacked their lips over the "medicinal brandy," which had been Fritz Braun's pride.
"Where's the boss?" casually demanded the officer. "He went over to Germany a couple of months ago," volubly explained Timmins. "I'm cock o' the walk for a few months now. Drop in and see me, on the d. q."
Two hours later, from a dark angle opposite, Officer McNerney saw Emil Einstein, with swinging steps, cigar in mouth, speed along eastwardly.
In plain clothes, his brow covered with a soft hat, the athletic policeman dashed along, keeping his prey in view. The lightning change of uniform gave him a clear protection, and in the thirty minutes of his necessary absence, the mustache which was McNerney's pride had disappeared.
"Either he goes to his girl, or else to meet the woman of the carriage," mused the man, who had sworn to reach a portion of the now heavily increased award. "Once I locate his 'stamping ground,' I am on the road to success."
It was twenty minutes before the excited McNerney saw Einstein slacken his determined pace down the Bowery. McNerney's heart beat, in wild hopes, as the lad, with furtive glances around, began to linger around the corner of the Dry Dock Bank.
"Is it the ten dollars burning in his pocket?" murmured the excited man. "Some cheap woman foolery?"
His practiced eye soon told him of the lad's determined purpose. For, in all the hovering movements, the office boy never left one or the other front of the bank building.
And none of the loungers, no street waif, no bedaubed siren lingered in colloquy there in the shadows of the respected fiduciary institution. "It's a poor fishing ground for the fancy," growled McNerney, as he suddenly darted forward in pursuit.
A woman, whose gliding walk and shapely voluptuousness of body indicated the Polish Jewess, paused, and bending her head, without a word of salutation, listened to the eager lad. The hands of the two met, in the darkness, and then Einstein sped back into the glaring Bowery, while the dark-robed woman pursued her way toward the East River.
"No bad walker," was McNerney's forced conclusion, as he gathered himself. The unknown had swept around the corner from the south and turned eastwardly to meet the waiting lad, with the sure gait of one who knew she was waited for.
On, onward, with undulating lissom swing, the veiled woman sped, McNerney judiciously regulating his gait. And all her settled purpose was evident in the measured flight, the head never once turned in curious gaze, and the singularity of her march.
At last, halting before a respectable-looking tenement-house on First Avenue, the woman turned into the open hallway and paused at the door of the lefthand apartment.
In an instant there was a flash of light within, and then the dimly outlined shadows of a woman moving from behind the linen curtains.
"Fairly run to earth! It's a good night's work!" laughed McNerney. "Things are going my way at last!" He hastened off and, jumping on the nearest car, sought his own home by a round-about way. "Now, Dennis, my boy," he said, as he stuffed his pipe. "One bit of hurry, and ye are ruined! I have two birds to watch. And I know her perch, their meetingplace, and the boy's own den!" He now saw airy castles of Spain gaily rising in the smoke wreaths around him.
"To-morrow," he said, "I will prospect, and I think I'll borrowMrs. Haggerty's boy, Dan, to hunt for a tailor in that building.He is sharp and he can knock at the door by mistake, so I'll gether general description.
"If the janitor is a fair man to jolly, Dan must then find out his pet saloon, and I'll make a new friend on the East Side.
"But I must disappear, after I have met this boy Einstein at the station. I'll have to slip on a false mustache for ten minutes. Jim Condon can bring him out to me in the dark. He can tell him I don't care to run up against the sergeant."
On Central Park West there was a circle of astonished listeners, when Doctor William Atwater had closed the conference by reporting his inability to trace a single enemy of the murdered man. Counsellor Stillwell, in a grave reverie, listened and abandoned all present hope of any clue to the cowardly murder.
"All seems darkness around us, now," he sighed. "The journals, the police, the detectives, and our own private searches have failed to locate any suspicion, however fleeting.
"It only remains for us, while awaiting some unravelling of the mystery, to unite in the fitting burial of the unfortunate gentleman, when the Coroner has finished his dreary labors. He had not a single enemy in the world! It was the fatal trust of the vast money handling which caused his murder. And only after long plotting and careful daily watch was he foully done to death."
Alice Worthington's clear voice startled each listener as she said, "There is but one faint clue clinging to the past. A transaction which might have drawn upon him the vengeance of some one. I have kept this secret until all else failed.
"Before my father's death, even in those last hours of lingering agony, he signed a deed as trustee for Everett Clayton, which transfers to Randall Clayton one-half of the Detroit Depot lands, or one-half of its purchase price. This money, nearly a million dollars, goes now into the estate of the dead man!"
"My God!" whispered Witherspoon, as Doctor Atwater grasped both his hands. "If any one had an interest in concealing that vast property, we must look for them, for the plot which led to Clayton's murder. My poor father pledged me to secrecy until I had delivered the deed and the legal acknowledgment of his property interest to Clayton. It was for this that my father wished to meet Randall at Cheyenne—to tell him of the fortune which had come to him!"
The girl's sobbing voice touched every heart as she faltered, "Judge Downs, at Pasco, drew all the papers and acknowledgments, and, after my father's death, he explained all the details to me. But father," she cried, with a gust of stormy tears, "told me himself of the discovery of the value of this property, and that he had feared to arouse poor Randall's hopes until the Railway Company had purchased the land."
Her voice died away; its accent of truth had brought the astounded lawyers to their feet; but in a corner Doctor Atwater whispered to Jack Witherspoon, who was shaking as a leaf in a storm.
"Silence, my friend," he murmured. "This makes you a millionaire. Say nothing to-night. Confide only in Alice. You and I must tell her, alone, and later, of Clayton's will. If Ferris knew of this, he is the murderer."
The grave voice of Boardman alone broke the silence. "This is matter of the gravest moment, and only to be discussed in the future, my dear child," he said. "Gentlemen, we will suspend all our labors until we have had ample time for reflection. We may find the murderer hiding under the shadow of this useless fortune. For I believe poor Clayton left no heir. Even gold can be useless at the last."
Witherspoon's temples were throbbing as Doctor Atwater hurried him away to his home. "There is a mystery of mysteries, my boy," sadly said Atwater, "in the strange turn of Fortune's wheel which throws the millions into Francine Delacroix's pretty white hands.
"Rouse yourself! We must think, act, and avenge our friend! It looks as if the finger of fate plaits the noose for Ferris' neck. For he did know all; he hated and betrayed Clayton, and, I believe that he killed him."
"Yes; or had him killed, to clear the way to Alice Worthington's side," exclaimed Witherspoon. "I see it all, now! Old Hugh intended to marry this noble girl to our dead friend!"
But Jack Witherspoon only bowed his head and burst into bitter tears. "Too late; too late!" he sobbed. The golden fortune seemed stained with his dead friend's blood.
When the morning brought once more the refluent crowds to the streets of New York, a thousand financial agencies over the world were now eagerly watching for some trace of the fortune stolen from the murdered cashier.
Police and detectives, the officers of justice in far cities and foreign lands, were eagerly striving to gain the additional reward of twenty-five thousand dollars offered by the Fidelity Company, at Alice Worthington's order, for the detection of the secret murderers.
But to Witherspoon and Atwater the night had been one long vigil of earnest conference.
Wearied out at last, Atwater decided the future policy of the two friends. "Let Stillwell have his head, Jack," gravely advised the doctor. "Keep your secret as yet. You know how that noble girl has guarded her dying father's confidence. To save you, let me tell her all, but only after the whole circle has failed to find the murderers. I will not mention your name. But I will tell her that poor Clayton left a will. I wish to see this million secured to you.
"Then, when she promises to keep my secret, I will tell her of the tell-tale Brooklyn address, and you and I can join her in hunting down the gang who lured Clayton to his ruin. She is the one arbiter of the situation; you and I must aid her. We will know all the developments of the police inquest. In this way, Ferris will not be alarmed. We may trace it home to him."
"You are right," assented Witherspoon, "and I will watch Ferris through the office boy, Einstein, and there's a fine fellow, a policeman, McNerney, down there. I've promised him a private reward for any clue, and he told me he would lay off and go on a still hunt.
"He knows how to communicate always with me," concluded Witherspoon, "and I will bring him into our circle, if you can gain Alice Worthington's confidence."
The great metropolis had almost forgotten Randall Clayton's mysterious taking off, when, a week later, there was a sad gathering in Woodlawn Cemetery, where Doctor Atwater supported on his arm the black-robed figure of the great heiress, when the red earth rattled down upon the murdered man's coffin.
There was a scanty two-score of mourners around the open grave; but Atwater felt the nervous thrill of the girl's arm as she turned away. "Justice to his memory, reparation for the past," murmured Alice Worthington. "I leave the punishment of his betrayers to the vengeance of the God above, the One who knows all."
It was with a thrill of coming triumph that Atwater listened to the heiress when she drew him aside, in the great Stillwell drawing-rooms, on their return.
"You were Randall's one true friend here," the noble girl cried. "These great lawyers are bound up in the affairs of millions. My friends, the executors, have given up all present hope; they must return to Detroit; even Mr. Stillwell and the police authorities are in despair.
"Mr. Witherspoon will be tied to the routine of the great business; but you can aid me. Give me all your time, work with your friend, for I will follow up this mystery until my foster-brother's name is cleared of stain, and justice is done. Let us be a trinity of faithful friends."
And thus it came to pass that Mr. Arthur Ferris lingered, shunned by all his old associates, and busied about his private affairs.
Wandering about New York, he never knew of the ceaseless watch upon him, his restless heart awaiting some new blow of the hostile influence whose veiled stroke had ruined his brilliant prospects in life! To his astonishment, he learned from Senator Dunham that the entire secret programme of the company's vast interests had been successfully carried out.
He veiled his defeat, in very shame, from the prosperous statesman, and, a new disgrace, he now carried the brand of cowardice upon him, for Witherspoon passed him daily with a contemptuous scorn.
And still, he dared not abandon his uneasy flitting about the neighborhood of the company's office. His haggard face was now known, even to Mr. Adolph Lilienthal.
The startled proprietor of the Newport Art Gallery had sealed up all his vague suspicions in his guilty breast. He never dared to confide even in Robert Wade, sneaking in furtively to the "private view" gallery.
On one or two occasions, the anxious Ferris had buttonholed the reinstated Wade, when the careful manager visited the "Art Gallery."
"Do they know anything?" muttered the frightened scoundrel. He dared not even breathe Fritz Braun's name. After nights of weary cogitation, Lilienthal had buried Irma Gluyas' baleful memory forever.
"She cleared out a month before this strange murder," he was forced to admit, "and Fritz Braun was off for Europe before this deed. No; the poor fellow was either dogged from the office, or else trapped on his way to the bank."
Lilienthal saw his own profitable schemes all endangered. "If I owned up to a single scrap of information, if I were hauled into any court proceedings, my secret patrons would take French leave forever!"
And so, the prudent wretch merely adhered to his plain story that he had sold the late Mr. Clayton an artist proof of the famous Danube view. But, looking upon the unclaimed duplicate now in his window, Lilienthal softly chuckled and rubbed his hands. "I am a good two hundred and fifty ahead on that lucky picture." For he could not find Miss Irma Gluyas to deliver to her the property which was her own property.
Far away, by the shores of the yeasty Baltic, when Hugh Worthington rendered up his repentant soul, two guilty ones stealthily regarded each other's faces in the little hotel in Lastadie, where "Mr. August Meyer" had taken refuge.
The huge "Mesopotamia" lay icily at her docks, and the graceful woman had vanished from the cabins where her would-be betrayer had watched her every movement. Fritz Braun's active mind had sounded every danger now encircling his future pathway.
There was a circle of fire around him, though, as he kept hidden in the little suburban hotel, where his smuggling confederates had found him a safe refuge as their chief. The grinning head steward had helped him smuggle his unsuspected booty on shore, and, while Fritz Braun gazed moodily out of the windows of the old hostelry, he planned his future hiding.
Neither the dangerous dupe at his side nor his hoodwinked associates of the International Smuggling Association knew of the vast fortune which Braun had artfully hidden upon his arrival.
Well he knew that his life would pay the penalty in a moment if the blood-stained treasure were suspected to be in his hands.
And so, with careful craft, he labored to throw off all his dangerous associates and quietly disappear to a retreat, already decided upon, in the sleepy environs of Breslau.
"First, to watch my lady!" he decided, for he was not deceived by Irma Gluyas' apparent quiet. His first care had been to obtain the New York journals' regularly arriving. "If there is any hubbub over there, I will be on guard, before they can reach me," he mused, as he glowered over his wine at the woman who now panted for liberty.
Two weeks after his arrival passed with no detection of the murder.
"Safe, safe!" he laughed. "The trunk is now buried a hundred feet deep in the ooze of the East River."
And he smiled in triumph at the precaution which had led to Leah Einstein's hegira to her respectable First Avenue tenement, under the decent alias of Mrs. Rachel Meyer.
He brooded, day by day, over the skill with which he had arranged for cablegrams to a safe address. The innocent cipher arranged for would warn him of all possible happenings.
And yet, at ease in his trust in the dumb fidelity of the distant woman still his slave, he waited hungrily for the Magyar beauty to trap herself. He was a man of infinite patience. Indulging every seeming whim of his companion, he had never lost her from his sight a moment since their arrival.
It was on the fourth day after their refuge in Stettin, when FritzBraun stole out of his rooms at a secret signal from Lena, the"stube-madchen," whose frank face had won upon the secretly imprisonedIrma.
"She gave me one of her diamond rings to pawn. I was to post this letter and to send this telegraph dispatch to America," whispered the girl. Fritz Braun smiled as he received the proofs of the Hungarian's treachery.
And then, Lena sang over her drudgery for the next week, for the grateful Braun had filled her hand with gold.
There was a strange gleam of contentment in Irma Gluyas' eyes when she followed Fritz Braun, two weeks later, into the train for Breslau. Her secret master had redoubled every tender care, and there was a brooding peace between them.
But there were gloomy projects in his busy brain as Braun watched the Baltic sand dunes fade away behind him. "She is deceived by my manufactured telegram from Clayton. She will wait for his coming."
He laughed over the cunning which had bade her write or cable no more. And, with a wildly loving heart now panting in her reassured bosom, Irma Gluyas fell into a belief in Braun's story of their flight from the revenue officials. "Thank Heaven, he is safe! He loves me beyond all," mused the dreaming woman.
"He will get the letter left for him with the faithful girl, and follow me on. Once that I am out of this man's clutches, Braun will never dare to follow or claim me. For, he fears the Vienna police as much as I."
Brave in her love, happy in her lover's safety, Irma Gluyas only lived to meet once more the man who had awakened her nobler nature. To be his slave, to drift down the years with him, was all she asked; only to see his face again! She was held in Love's bondage now!
And, wrapped in her dreams of the future, she forgot the man at her side, who now compassed her death. "I must make my treasure safe first," he craftily planned, "and then lose this hawk-eyed devil. But only when my future is secure beyond all reach!"
With all his bridges burned behind him, Fritz Braun easily threaded the network of railways of the Eastern German frontier.
For years he had studied over the hiding place upon the triangular frontier of Poland, Germany, and Austria; and now, he only longed for a freedom from Irma Gluyas' haunting eyes.
"Leah can join me later; but even she must not know of this fool's fate!"
Safe in his own conceit, Fritz Braun drew happy breaths of relief when he was safely hidden in the little village of Schebitz, under the frowning crags of the Silesian Katzen Gebirge.
"Here we can rest in safety till the storm blows over," he said, as Irma Gluyas followed him into the arched entrance of an old half-forgotten manor house. "You shall have your books and music; we can take a run whenever we like, and you shall have nothing to fear, for my American friends will take care of me."
And then began the double duel of wits, in which, all innocent of suspicion of danger, the woman whose soul was struggling toward the light again, hid the darling secret of her heart—the coming of the man who was to free her from the tyranny of her past sins! "His love will find me out, even here," she murmured, as she listened to the wild breezes sweeping down from the pine-clad mountains. "And I shall live once more—a bond slave no longer!"
It was two weeks after their arrival when Braun felt safe to leave his dangerous charge with the peasant spies whom he had gathered as servants.
His money was safe, hidden in the old manor house; and he felt the skies were clear when he entered the money-changers at Breslau, where he cautiously sold some of his smaller bills.
On the table in the bank lay a copy of the New York Herald. His stern face paled as he gazed upon the flaring head-lines. But the audacious criminal's hand never trembled as he read the four columns which blazoned the discovery of Clayton's body.
Fast as the devil drives he hastened back to his secret lair. One friendly thrill warmed his agitated heart as he read Leah Einstein's simple cipher words, in the cable which warned him of a new danger.
"I must soon be about my business," he gloomily decided. "This Hungarian witch has some jewels left. It's only a few hours by rail to the Russian frontier. She might, with her winning appearance, easily find her way over the frontier of Poland. If she learned of the discovery of Clayton's body, she might, in her love craze, denounce me, even here. That would mean death for me; at the worst only a short detention for her."
The fear of the old Vienna crimes now hardened the heart of the man who was once the prosperous Hugo Landor. "SHE MUST DIE!" he cried as he sentenced her remorselessly. "But how? There must be no bungling!"
His whole nature was thrilling with the alarm of Leah Einstein's warning. "She may have to clear out," mused the self-tortured criminal. "Her only safe refuge is with me, and I could count on her to help me clear away this wild-hearted Magyar devil."
Fear now kept him from any further unnecessary visit to Breslau. He pondered a whole day, and then sent an unsigned cablegram, addressed to the woman he had rebaptized as Rachel Meyer.
It was the simple phrase, "Schebitz-Breslau."
"Leah will know that I am here, and in any storm can join me." With a sudden access of generosity, he sent the faithful ally of his darkest day a secretly-purchased draft for two thousand marks.
And then the murderer forgot his danger, ignorant of one lonely pursuer who followed up the blind trail of the murderer, now watching Leah Einstein night and day.
It was twenty days later when the poor cobbler Mulholland, whistling softly, went out and closed the door of his little shop opposite Mrs. Rachel Meyer's modest apartment. The frightened woman had only left her rooms at night after the publication of the finding of Randall Clayton's body.
A horrible, haunting fear now possessed her. She knew the horror of the deed. Stronger than the terror which bade her avoid the light of day was the yearning to assure herself of the unruly boy's safety. "If he is caught, God of Jacob!" she murmured, "I will end my days in prison."
Even the hammering of the strange Irish cobbler in the noisy hallway relieved her. She had never looked into that open door but a pair of gleaming eyes had followed her every movement from under the disguised policeman's bushy false beard.
"I think that I have the key of the mystery now," gleefully soliloquized McNerney. "I am tired of playing cobbler Mulholland."
In fact, he needed time for rest and study.
A five-dollar bill had procured him the privilege of copying the cablegram, when a telegraph boy had stumbled in, two weeks before, to find Rachel Meyer.
The words "Schebitz-Breslau" had given him no clue; but on this auspicious day the postman had begged him to aid him in finding the proper party to receive a valuable registered letter.
The officer's quick eye caught the German stamp, "Value 2000 marks," and the words, "Absender, August Meyer." "This is the fellow at last," muttered McNerney. "The man, August Meyer, who sends this poor devil of a woman two thousand marks. She is preparing to skip out. Now, for Mr. Lawyer Witherspoon!"
"The next time that this woman meets the boy, he must be arrested on one corner by Jim Condon. I will seize upon her! Keeping them separate and quiet, I may get the story. But I dare not tell the chief, or I would lose the reward. Witherspoon must trust to me. I must get that man over there."