It was long after eight bells the next morning when Irma Gluyas slowly opened her eyes and wonderingly gazed at her tyrant master watching her with steadfast eyes. Neither spoke until the pale-faced woman realized the onward motion of the sturdy old liner, and her deep-set eyes had wandered over the nautical surroundings. Then she buried her face in her hands and a flood of stormy sorrow shook her frame.
The acute-minded Fritz Braun knew that he had her at his mercy, for the regulated doses of the narcotic had brought about a profound reaction. Helplessness, coma, stupor, hallucination, dejection; she had passed through every phase.
Turning her wan face toward him at last, the singer, in a hollow voice, curtly said, "Explain all this!" There was a glance in her recklessly brave eyes which made the soi disant August Meyer relapse into a whining tenderness. "The high hand won't do here," he quickly resolved.
"You have been ill, my poor comrade," he tenderly said. "It's all right now. That thunder-storm drove you frantic; you had a heart seizure, and I had all I could do to get you away from New York in secret." The woman eyed him doubtfully. "Whither are we going?" she resolutely asked. "To any safe retreat in north eastern Europe you choose," coaxingly replied Braun.
"Why?" demanded Irma, raising herself on one arm and pointing an accusing finger. "If you have broken your oath, God forgive you! It's your life or mine, then!"
"She does love him," was Braun's inward comment. "Stop your high dramatic play-acting," soberly said Braun, holding a glass of Tokayer to her lips. "Lilienthal was pounced down upon for smuggling phenacetine. My own drug-store was searched. Thank God! none was found there. He gave bail, the honest fellow managed to telegraph me the agreed-on tip. I was watching over you in Brooklyn.
"I bundled you in a carriage, as you were so ill, caught a tug, ran around to Hoboken, reached this ship just as it sailed! He knows not who betrayed him, but the staunch old boy got five thousand dollars to me, and the 'brotherhood' over here will take care of me.
"I will lie by in hiding for a season, and I can send the usual goods in by Norwegian tramp steamers. I have a square friend on board here, the head steward, one of the Baltic smuggling gang's best men. So, my dear girl, look your prettiest when we land in Stettin."
It was only by a grand effort of will that he faced her coldly searching gaze. "And Clayton; what was your hidden purpose with him, you devil?" she boldly said, but half convinced by his smooth story. "I may as well let the cat out of the bag," laughed Braun, taking a deep draught of the golden wine.
"I wanted to lure him over to Brooklyn and let him fool his time away with you from Saturday to Tuesday morning. I intended you to lead him a will-o'-the-wisp dance out on Long Island. For Lilienthal and I had learned from the office boy that a quarter of a million would be locked up in the Trading Company's vaults, only guarded by the janitor and the special policeman. The janitor was with us, that devil of a boy got us the combination, bit by bit; but you went out of your head after the storm, and Lilienthal was half betrayed by a drunken underling in our smuggling company. I had to clear out. I could not leave you to starve. It's the fifth of July, and we sailed the third. I lost the chance of my life!"
"You swear this is true!" murmured Irma. Braun bowed his head. "I will only believe it," she said, "when I have a letter from Clayton. I love him. I would die for him. God help him; he would marry me!" She was astounded when Braun said, kindly, "All in due time. You shall have your letter through Emil. The boy is one of our gang!"
While the "Mesopotamia" skimmed along over the crisp, curling seas upon this sunlit Tuesday morning, she bore onward a man whose breast was now filled with a vague unrest. The robust passenger known as "Mr. August Meyer" was unusually jovial at breakfast, when he informed the bluff Captain that Mrs. Meyer was rapidly recovering and would soon be able "to grace the deck," in the language of the society journals.
The absconding murderer was delighted that Irma and himself were the only first-class passengers, although accommodations for fifty had been retained in making a "freighter" of the one-time "record liner."
Leaving Irma, at her wish, to dream of a future meeting with Clayton,Fritz Braun was left free to retire to his own capacious cabin.
"Take the whole twenty staterooms," cried the jolly old skipper, highly propitiated with Braun's wine-opening and the druggist's superb cigars. And this Tuesday afternoon Braun proposed to devote to a careful examination of his rich plunder.
As yet he had not verified the whole stolen treasure. When all his own luggage was arranged in his own double room, he carefully threw overboard all of the murdered cashier's private articles. The hat and shoes, which he had feared to burn, were cast into the foaming wake of the vessel, and even the veriest trifle of the contents of the deceived lover's pockets.
Braun, greedy at heart, shut his eyes as he tossed the watch-chain and locket overboard, and even the scarf-pin, links and studs of the victim. It was an hour after he had locked himself in when he threw over the last shred of paper and the emptied pocketbook and purse.
Braun smiled grimly as he carefully transferred to his wallet the double-month's pay which had been handed to the cashier by accountant Somers when he hastened away on his furlough.
"Nearly seven hundred dollars," laughed Braun. "My dead friend pays my way over." There was, moreover, a few dollars in change in the purse, which was tossed away to follow the other tell-tale objects, after Braun had extracted Somers' test slip of the deposits. It brought a frenzy of joy to the murderer's heart to read the lines, "Currency, $150,000; cheques, $98,975."
He smiled grimly. "The last thing which could betray me is overboard. I'm safe now! No fool to be caught, even by a tell-tale ring!" He had hurled poor Clayton's college pin and seal ring far out into the sapphire blue, and then resolutely screwed up the porthole.
"Now to see if my cashier's tag lies!"
Braun stopped, with his hand on the straps of his valise, a glooming foreboding seized him. "I must watch this devilish woman! She was far too placid. She has not swallowed all my story. If she should try to cable, or to communicate." He paused, and the cold sweat gathered upon his brow. "I'll closely watch her. I'll rush her through Stettin. I'll hide her in some little hole on the Polish frontier. If she tries to follow up her mad love for this fellow, I'll finish her."
Already he looked forward with longing to the time when he could safely call Leah Einstein to his side. "She will be true as a dog to me, poor wretch! And I must get Irma out of the way. Perhaps in some Polish marsh; they would not find her bones. There's the wolves, too.
"But, my lady, you are only sleeping with one eye shut. Your first false movement means"—He gloomily ceased, and then feasted his eyes on the green bundles in the common-looking valise. "I am a prince for life," he murmured, "if I can realize on these cheques." He opened a bundle; they were all flat endorsements.
"About half of these are good anywhere," he mused. "Our gang can handle them; and for the others, we may get a reward to return them later," he grimly smiled.
But as he busied himself, the inscrutable face of Irma Gluyas returned to madden him.
"She does suspect!" he growled. "She only plays policy because she is in my power. Never mind, my lady; you are knitting up your own shroud."
Seven hundred and fifty miles away, the streets of New York City were filled with the refluent crowd of holiday absentees. The great Babel had again taken up its round of toil and pleasure, its burden of care and crime, its chase for the bubble "reputation," its hunting away of the urban wolf from the door.
In inverse order of importance, the shutters had come down, the toiler had been out, dinner-pail in hand, for hours, when Milady yawned over her morning coffee and the magnates of finance appeared in their triumphal procession down Broadway to Wall Street.
There was a careworn look on Arthur Ferris' brow as he sprang out of a coupe at Randall Clayton's deserted apartments at nine-thirty. He had sullenly enjoyed Mr. Robert Wade's Fourth of July cheer, his mind haunted with Randall Clayton's strange breach of social faith. In vain he reassured himself. "He could not know where to reach me with a 'phone or a wire," and his agitation increased when the house janitor gravely said, "Mr. Clayton has not been here since Saturday morning, sir. It's very strange. He took no travel bag with him. I just took a peep at the room. The bed's not been slept in, and here's a lot of mail. He's most regular.
"May be sick somewhere, sir. He looked very strange when he went out Saturday. He'd been up in the night. I heard him moving around very late."
"Let no one open the room till I return," sharply ordered Ferris, and he then started his coupe off on the run for the Western Trading Company's office. Bidding the man wait below, Arthur Ferris took the elevator and, darting along the hall, smartly rapped at Randall Clayton's door. It was locked, but the agile Einstein was at once at his beck and call. "Mr. Clayton's not down yet. I fear he's ill, sir," respectfully said the lad. "Here's all his office mail in the ante-room."
Arthur Ferris sharply ordered the lad to watch over the closed rooms. "Let no one open those rooms," he said. "You'll find me in Mr. Wade's private office. Let me know the very instant Mr. Clayton arrives."
Ferris at once rang on Mr. Robert Wade's private telephone, and was relieved when he learned that the manager had just left his Fifth Avenue home for the office. There was a crowd of the senior employees waiting around the door to congratulate the new vice-president, when old Edward Somers tottered in, his face ashen with fright. Ferris dropped the telephone ear-cup and sprang forward.
"Speak! What's gone wrong?" he cried. He feared to learn that within that locked office the moody Clayton lay cold in death—a suicide.
But the old accountant only raised his head and babbled, "There's something gone wrong with Mr. Clayton. The bank has just sent me a messenger."
"Our Saturday deposit never reached the bank! He's in there now.Oh! My God!"
Rapidly turning on the District call for the police, Ferris darted into Secretary Edson's room.
"Wallace," he cried, "take two of your best men; get pistols. Shut the offices! Let no one leave! There's been a gigantic robbery here; perhaps a murder!"
Wallace Edson sprang up, brave and resolute, as Ferris dashed back to the broken old man.
"How much?" he sharply demanded. "Nearly a quarter of a million!" the old accountant faltered.
"Where's the bank-book?" cried Ferris, his presence of mind returning.
"Clayton has it," the bookkeeper sadly said.
Opening a door, Arthur Ferris called in the treasurer. Frank Bell, jolly and debonnair, had just returned from "no end of a good time."
"Look out for Somers, here," he ordered. "There's been a great disaster. Let no one speak to him." And then the young vice-president went out to meet the arriving police.
Mr. Robert Wade, slowly pacing along Fourteenth Street, had stopped to whisper a few words in Lilienthal's attentive ear. There was a delectable "private view" which was arranged for two o'clock on this happy afternoon.
As the smug "dealer" bowed, his mind reverted to Mr. Wade's handsome employee, Randall Clayton, and then the picture episode, and the entrancing Magyar witch.
"I wonder, now," mused Lilienthal, "if young Clayton stole that pretty devil away from Fritz Braun! Braun was really crazy over her, it seems, and he, the black-hearted wretch, has gone over to Europe to hunt for her. The pretty minx may be in hiding somewhere up on the West Side, with Clayton. And yet I never saw or heard of them together again. It may be he only wanted the picture, not the woman!"
Mr. Lilienthal's laughter at his own joke was cut short by the racing past of four policemen and two detectives. He was still standing gaping in wonder when Robert Wade forced his way into his own office and found all in an uproar.
Only Arthur Ferris was cool and collected, as he stationed the police and called two stenographers into the room where old Somers and Emil Einstein awaited the opening of an inquisition.
"There's been a robbery of a quarter of a million of our company's funds, Wade," sharply cried Ferris. "We want to find out where Clayton is. Take hold now and get these men's statements. I'll bring in the bank messenger, and then try and hold Hugh Worthington on the telegraph. The Chief should be even now nearing Cheyenne."
Ferris grasped Einstein's arm and drew him out of the room, as Wade pompously began his Jupiter-like procedure. "I'll send for the detective captain, and the Fidelity Company's people," said Ferris; but he dragged Einstein into a vacant room. "You can open his office, you young devil?" he whispered.
"Yes; side door key," said Einstein, conscious now of a protecting friend.
"Get me in there, quick!" said Ferris, his eyes aflame. In a few moments they stood in the vacant room. Ferris pointed to the desk.
"Remember what you told me!" he sternly murmured. And as the lad drew out his stolen key, Ferris watched the roll-top desk slide open. He grasped the bundle of telegrams and lone papers on the pad, and motioned for the trembling boy to lock it.
Then, darting back into the ante-room, he dashed off two telegrams, the first addressed to his secret partner at Cheyenne, and the other to his wife in fact, but not name, "Miss Alice Worthington, Palace Hotel, Tacoma."
"Not a word of this to any one; I'll pay you," said Ferris, as he stuffed the papers in his pocket and rang for a telegraph boy. "Come in, now, and tell your story—all but this!"
Holding the shivering lad while he sent a brace of messengers for the detective chief and the Fidelity Company's expert, Arthur Ferris muttered, "Is it murder or a daring robbery? Is it flight? Has he discovered his rights and robbed Peter to pay Paul? Old Hugh must come, and until then, silence!"
When the noonday sun burned down upon Manhattan Island, a thousand offices had received the message:
"Look out for Randall Clayton, absconding cashier of the Western Trading Company. Age 28, height 5 feet 11 inches; gray eyes, brown hair, well built, weight about 170; speaks French and some German; born Detroit; slight Western accent. Missing since Saturday noon, July 2, with $150,000 currency and $100,000 endorsed cheques. Watch all trains and steamers. Photographs by mail to-morrow. Presumably alive; no woman in the case."
And in the spacious rooms of the Western Trading Company the usual business was now moving on, while a detective sat on guard in Clayton's office, and another in his deserted rooms, where the Danube picture smiled down upon the callous stranger, who murmured, "The old story, 'Cards, women, the Tenderloin, Wall Street, and fast life!' Another man gone to hell with his eyes open."
But in the mob of reporters now filling the affable treasurer's room there was the ball of angry contention tossed vigorously too and fro.
Reporter Snooks of the Earth coldly bluffed Sears of the Ledger with a bet, "Two to one on his skipping out; even money on a murder; even money on a bunco."
And so "lightly they spoke" of the man who had yielded up his unstained honor in a mad chivalry for the sake of a woman whose love had innocently led him to a horrible taking off!
Within the manager's room, the preliminary inquisition was rapidly moving on. Arthur Ferris, with burning eyes gazing intently as each word fell from the lips of the frightened witnesses.
It was while this drama was being played that the "Fuerst Bismarck" swept grandly up the North River, and the returning lawyer tourist, Jack Witherspoon, hastened up town, eager to meet his client.
"I will prospect a little," mused the cautious Witherspoon, as he registered at the Hoffman House. "Somebody may know me; and no human being must see Clayton and I together in New York! One chance spy and Hugh Worthington would be on his defense, and I would then lose my place in a jiffy and all power to make him disgorge."
He was pondering over the best way to reach Clayton, and had just decided to wait after dark at the rooms for his old class-mate, when he remembered the annual election.
"By Jove!" mused Witherspoon, now burning to with Francine Delacroix's dowry from the enemy.
"Ferris will surely be nosing around here. I must not show myself at Clayton's rooms. There are two ways: one to call him by telephone, and the other is to telegraph to the Detroit Club and have the Secretary then telegraph to Clayton to call at once at Room 586, Hoffman, on 'Alpha Delta Phi' business. They might have a clerk on at the telephone over at the office, and if I was asked who wants Mr. Clayton, I might be trapped."
He suddenly remembered his last agreement with his prospective client, that if anything unforeseen occurred, Clayton would write or telegraph to his comrade at the Detroit Club, and so, Witherspoon added a few words of direction to the secretary, to his request that Clayton be bidden to an "Alpha Delta Phi" secret reunion at Room 586, Hoffman.
Witherspoon had already purchased a week's file of the New York journals in order to follow up the financial columns, and was moving toward the elevator from the telegraph stand, when a boy thrust an extra into his hand.
"Heavy Robbery by Absconding Cashier! Randall Clayton Lets the Western Trading Company in for a Quarter of a Million. Another Case of a Double Life!"
With a supreme effort the Detroit lawyer mastered himself and sought the seclusion of his room. In ten minutes he had recovered his legal acumen. The two columns of the extra gave a list of the new officers of the company, and the statement that Mr. Hugh Worthington was at Tacoma with his invalid daughter, was supplemented by the statement that Arthur Ferris of Heath & Ferris, 105 Broad Street (the recently elected vice-president), was in charge of the whole situation.
When Jack Witherspoon had cooled his heated brows, he swore a deep and mighty oath of vengeance. "I don't believe a word of this whole rot," he stoutly said to himself. "Either Clayton has been frightened off, and is waiting for me near Detroit, or they have trapped him in some way. Something has brought things to a crisis. And yet, I must handle Mr. Arthur Ferris with velvet gloves!"
He reflected now upon the imprudence of his registration at the Hoffman. The railroad attorneyship had brought him in close contact with Ferris. "I must go around there and show up at once! They would surely see my arrival in the papers!"
He had just finished his professional toilet when a telegram was brought to his door. He tore it open with a wild anxiety.
"No news of friend here. Have sent dispatch as agreed. There is sealed box of valuables here for you, deposited a month ago by your friend; sent by special express commission. Telegraph your directions."
He sought the telegraph office and wired orders to have the deposit instantly expressed to him, at Adams & Co.'s general office. "Take receipt in my name for twenty-five thousand dollars' value," was his last prudent order.
And then, jumping into a coupé, he departed for the Western Trading Company's office. "They will have the telegram," thought Witherspoon. "Thank God! Ferris is a Columbia College man, and no member of our 'frat.' I can tell him that some of our New York chapter proposed to celebrate my return, unknown to me. There's Doctor Billy Atwater. I must look him up to-night. I can leave him here on guard while I go and face Hugh Worthington. Either Hugh or Ferris has put up this job!"
Suddenly an awful thought came to him.
"My God! Have they made away with him?"
He saw his course plainly now. The untiring pursuit of the wolf, the silence of the crouching panther!
"Never!" he proudly declared in his heart. "Randall Clayton a thief! Never! I will be the second shadow of Mr. Arthur Ferris. If any one has the key of this mystery, he has. Clayton never went away willingly. It would be his ruin for life to let his name be blackened. And, the money! Who has it?"
The prominence of Mr. John Witherspoon as the Detroit counsel of the Trading Company's great syndicate carrying agents insured his instant admission to the general manager's room. There was a sober gathering of a dozen magnates, and Arthur Ferris sprang up, somewhat disconcerted, when he saw Witherspoon's anxious face.
The young vice-president left the detective captain, Manager Wade, the haggard old Somers, and two great lawyers, and drew Witherspoon away into Randall Clayton's deserted rooms.
"Where did you drop from?" curtly demanded Ferris. "I've been some months in Europe," simply said Witherspoon, now wearing the oily mask of his profession. "I arrived on the 'Fuerst Bismarck' to-day, and was going to take to-night's train West. But some fellows of my college 'frat' had fixed up a 'surprise banquet' for me at the Hoffman.
"So, after all they had to tell me to hold me over, I was just opening my accumulated mail, when by accident I picked up an extra. I thought poor Clayton was away on a summer vacation."
"He's away on a devilish long one!" snarled Ferris. "Took French leave with a quarter of a million. Who, in God's name, would have taken him for a thief!" The mournful ring of Ferris' voice almost deceived his secret adversary; but Ferris was, in secret, pondering over the Detroit dispatch to the absent Clayton, which he had opened and secreted.
"This man knows nothing," decided the wary Ferris, for Witherspoon's face was frankness itself.
Jack looked around at two men vigorously working away at a huge safe standing in the corner. "They're now opening Clayton's safe," bitterly said Ferris. "Of course, there will be nothing found there. No! It's either a case of secret gambling, mad Wall Street plunging, or a crazy woman intrigue."
"What do the detectives say?" soberly queried the Detroit lawyer. "Case of sharp thief, got three days' start of us by clearing out Saturday at eleven. I've suspended that old fool, Somers, for trusting such a deposit to one man alone! It's a crushing disgrace to the New York management. I shall sweep it all away as soon as I can get Hugh's orders. I'll take charge myself, now!
"I suppose you go on to Detroit at once. We are readjusting our whole freight schedules!"
"Yes," gravely said Witherspoon, "unless I can help you here. I'll telegraph my people at once. Will you telegraph Hugh and see if he might need me here? I suppose he will come on at once."
"I can hardly say," replied Ferris, caught off his guard. "He was to have met Clayton to-day, in Cheyenne!"
In an instant Ferris regretted the lapse, and hastily added, "Of course, you might wait a couple of days. Worthington can give you his ideas, and then you can save time in closing the railroad deal. Old Hugh has a clear majority of our stock now."
Though Witherspoon had instantly grasped the significance of Ferris' dropped hint, he stilled his beating heart. "What have you done with Clayton's rooms?" he quietly said. "You had an apartment with him. You should search it."
Ferris started. "By Jove! Yes! I forgot all about that. I've two men watching them now."
After a short pause, Witherspoon said calmly, "There may be some sudden sickness, some accident in the country, some mysterious happening. His rooms should be carefully examined."
"You are right," answered Ferris, "and I have my duplicate keys. Let us drive up there, you and I; we will take a look and then seal them up till the detectives examine them. We are getting at facts here; we are awaiting now to hear from Hugh. As you knew Clayton at college, I'd like to have you represent the fair thing at the searching of the rooms, particularly as I lived with him. But he has not been there since Saturday morning, and the money is gone. That tells the whole story. It's impossible to keep it quiet now, and I wash my hands of the whole thing. It occurred three days before I took charge."
The two young men silently made their way to the street. As they seated themselves in the first carriage they saw idle, Witherspoon calmly remarked, "If I know Worthington's mind, he will make very radical changes here now. Do you suspect any collusion?"
Ferris shook his head. "Poor old Somers has Clayton's tag receipts for the currency and cheques as usual. I'm sorry for the old man. We'll retire him, at any rate, pension or no pension. It was Wade's silly system, to trace all our money down with two sets of custodians, and then send it to bank by ONE man!"
"You don't think Clayton can have been made away with? Followed by those who have accidentally dropped on his secrets, or some one informed by some member of your office staff?"
"No; that's all far-fetched and speculative," gruffly said Ferris."But the whole damned lot, from old Wade down, are under secretespionage now. I ordered that on at once. Besides, the FidelityCompany have their own people at work."
"Ah! There was a bond?" questioned Witherspoon. "Fifty thousand, only," growled Ferris, "and they probably will only pay a half. They'll make us prove our loss in open court, and you know we don't care to haul out our books. But the recovery goes really to old Hugh; he paid all the dues on Clayton's bond."
They halted in a watchful silence at the fashionable apartment-house, and Ferris, calling the janitor as a witness, using his own keys, opened the vacant rooms. At the door he paused to give a few sharp directions to the watchers, and so Jack Witherspoon stepped into the room first. By a mere accident he felt a small object under his foot, and then quickly secured it in his hand, having carelessly dropped his hat. He felt a little card-case in the hand which remained thrust idly in his pocket.
Together the two young men searched every corner of the double apartment. The careful housewife's summer shroudings of Ferris' rooms were still undisturbed.
As for Clayton's apartment, it was left in the careless disorder of a young man about town. "I will touch nothing," said Ferris, awed into a dismal silence. Jack Witherspoon keenly followed Ferris' every movement. There was nothing to indicate any idea of departure.
Even Clayton's trunk-keys were in the scattered packages in the ante-rooms. The closets, dressers, and wardrobes showed no gap, as the young men explored.
"That's the only new thing I see—that picture," casually said Ferris, pointing to the Danube view. "I never saw that before, and he was not much of an art collector."
A sharp knock on the door drew Ferris to the door, where an office clerk awaited him with a telegram. Witherspoon still stood eying the picture, when Ferris said, "Look out for things here. I've got to answer a telegram. Hugh is not at Cheyenne. I must call him at Tacoma. Alice can forward the dispatch."
Left alone in the room, Jack Witherspoon redoubled his energies, knowing that he might never see the interior again. Ferris' remark about the picture had strangely attracted his attention. "That means something," mused the excited Jack. His hand was on a closet door, and by a strange impulse he opened it quickly. A picture-case of heavy pasteboard stood there, upright in a corner, and a half-detached label caught his eye. The Detroit lawyer tore it off and hastily secreted it. He was seated at a table in the room when Ferris reentered.
"Now," said he, bolting the doors between the two apartments, "I wish to have you see these rooms sealed up! I must get back to the office. You would do me a great favor if you would be here and represent me as well as Clayton's interests when the detectives search to-morrow. For nothing more can be done till I hook on to Worthington, or the police may have a report from the outside.
"Twenty tramp steamers and fifty sea-going boats have left since Saturday noon. I am afraid Clayton has shown us a clean pair of heels. What do you think?"
But Jack Witherspoon only clutched the objects in his pocket, andslowly shook his head. "I think nothing! It is a sad business, andI will help you all I can! I will wait here until you hear fromHugh, at any rate. You can drop me at the Hoffman."
At the hotel Ferris said, on parting, "Come over at ten o'clock to-morrow. I'll give you a stenographer and one of our assistant cashiers. Then you can verify the whole contents of Clayton's rooms with the detectives. The lawyers and head police will look through his safe and office papers under my eye."
At the parting, Ferris, worn out by the day's excitements, murmured, as if seeking a confirmation of his theory, "Clayton has been acting very strangely of late. Old Hugh wanted me to give him a talking to!"
"There'll be a reward offered, of course," said Jack, anxious to lead Ferris out.
"Certainly," was the rejoinder. "I think fifteen thousand for him, and ten more for the money or cheques. But all depends on Hugh!"
"I'll meet you at ten," gravely answered the stranger lawyer. "This will break up our dinner, I am sick at heart."
Once in his room, Witherspoon drew out the two articles which he had concealed. The first was a little red morocco card-case, evidently dropped as the supposed fugitive had left his room! Jack's fingers trembled as he drew out the few visiting cards. With a wildly beating heart he examined them.
He sprang excitedly to his feet as he read the faintly pencilled lines traced on the back of one, "Irma Gluyas, No. 192 Layte Street, Brooklyn."
It was the work of an instant only to glance at the label torn from the picture-case. The printed words, "Newport Art Gallery," were visible above the words, "Fräulein Irma Gluyas, 192 Layte Street, Brooklyn," and the adjuration, "Handle with care," completed the marks upon the tell-tale paper.
The anxious lawyer saw the magnificent castle in the air which he had builded crumbled at his feet. "This is for me alone," he swore in his heart, and it was only after an hour's cogitation that he resolved upon his course. "I must hunt up Doctor Atwater; but, first, wait for the wishes of Worthington. The package from Detroit may tell me something. And I must examine that picture and see that no tell-tale inscription is on the back. Here is the key of the mystery."
Seated alone, with his nerves strained to the utmost, a sudden inspiration came to the loyal friend of the missing man. "I am too late. They have killed him!"
He cursed the evil hour when he left for Europe without placing Randall Clayton in a place of safety. "I should have taken him with me, or else gone West with him and braved old Hugh. Yes; they have lured him away! Killed him, and hidden this money. It will all come out of the stockholders. It goes back into old Hugh's own pocket. He has made his title safe!
"In some way poor Clayton has babbled, and they have swept him from the face of the earth. But for some fatal imprudence, he would have come into his stolen fortune. And, after my settlement, Hugh Worthington would have feared to attack Clayton."
In half an hour Mr. John Witherspoon was on his way to Brooklyn. He had already deposited the two precious articles in the massive safes of the Hoffman, and he began his weary quest with a glance at the "Newport Art Gallery," whose Fourteenth Street address was printed upon the label.
"This remains for a future examination," was Jack's rapid conclusion. "The picture was procured here within three months, and the shop looks like a permanent one." A glance at a Directory, in a drug-store, proved that the Emporium had been there for a year, certainly.
It was four o'clock when the lawyer resolutely rang, the bell at No. 192 Layte Street. He had consumed an hour in scanning the quiet exterior of the stately old mansion. The ignoble use of the parlor frontage as a modiste's shop, attracted him as he vainly waited for a reply to his repeated ringing.
All that he could gain from a pert shop-girl was the news that the house was shut up, and that no one lived there.
The judicious use of a two-dollar bill brought as a harvest the news that it had been used as a private club for men and that it had been recently closed. "Ask in the saloon—the "Valkyrie"—next door. They are the landlords," said the girl as she returned to her ribbons. The acute lawyer, whose years of active practice had opened his eyes to many of the mysteries of the inside life of New York, Detroit and Chicago, was not deceived by the decorous white enamel shutters.
"I have done enough for one day," he mused. "I have kept my temper, and Ferris suspects nothing. Poor Clayton never betrayed me; he only betrayed himself. And he has been trapped; BUT BY WHOM? God alone knows!"
Once safely back in the Hoffman, Jack Witherspoon leisurely dined. His self-commune had taught him the need of a perfect control of every faculty. "I will not linger here to embarrass Ferris; but the Newport Art Gallery, the mysterious woman of 192 Layte Street, and the picture's secret history shall be my property alone. I will not betray myself. Arthur Ferris may, perhaps, unbosom himself!"
As the lonely night hours advanced, Witherspoon sat in his room, vainly striving to reconcile the dozen theories of the flaring editions of the evening papers. There was not a single suggestion of foul play; not a word to point the direction of the supposed fugitive's evasion; not a clue from the baffled police.
It was the old story of a double life, the wreckage of a promising career. "Just a plain, ordinary thief was Mr. Randall Clayton," said one acute observer; "his case is only extraordinary from the amount taken. And it seems that he robbed for the lucre itself, as the most careful inquiry divulges no stain upon his private life. Another case of the 'model young man' gone wrong."
Witherspoon had thrown the journals into his trunk as a precaution, and was smothering his disgust at their heartlessness, when Arthur Ferris, white-faced, dashed into his room.
"What has happened? Have you found his body?" cried the Detroit man, springing up. "I may have to leave you here to represent me privately," gasped Ferris, as with a shaking hand he extended a telegram. "Read that!" Witherspoon gasped, in a sudden dismay, as he read the crushing news. The dispatch was simply signed "Alice," and the young men were speechless as Witherspoon falteringly read the words:
"Ellensburg, Washington, July 5, 1897. Father lying dying at Pasco.Railroad accident. Join me there. I arrive six o'clock morning."
"I have ordered all the Tacoma dispatches repeated to her," mutteredFerris.
"He did not get this news about Clayton." Ferris' eyes were averted.In his craven heart there was but one burning question, "My God!Did he remake his will after our marriage? I may be left a pauperon Alice's bounty."
And Ferris, with a mighty effort, controlled his knowledge of the secret wedding. "This is horrible!" he cried, as he sank into a chair.
And while they were mute, a ghastly, gleaming corpse was whirled hither and thither, under the blackened waters rushing inward from the sea, under the arch of Brooklyn Bridge, a mute witness of the curse of Cain, waiting God's awful mandate for the sea to give up its dead.
Randall Clayton's name was being bandied scornfully by thousands of sneering lips as Arthur Ferris evaded his New York friends in the crowded lobby of the Hoffman. The crafty lawyer bridegroom was happy at Witherspoon's promise to remain and aid him.
The secret antagonists had, however, lied to each other with all possible show of candor. Ferris returned rapidly to Robert Wade's private office, having engaged a temporary resting place at the Fifth Avenue. "Let no cards be sent to my room—from the press or any other people. You can easily understand why!" he ordered.
The suave head clerk convoluted in sympathy with the financial disaster, now the theme of the wildest gossip. But his heart was as cold as the gleam of his gigantic diamond stud (real), as he smoothly greeted the next customer. What is human suffering or disgrace in a New York crowd?
Ferris calmly refreshed himself at the Fifth Avenue's historic bar, and then, hastening away to the Trading Company's office, sharply dismissed the timorous Wade. That fat functionary was visibly rattled when Ferris sent him home for the night. "I shall personally direct all important matters now. You may as well notify Bell and Edson that (for your own sake) I allow you and Somers, as well as them, to remain on duty. But you four men can consider yourselves practically suspended until Hugh Worthington arrives. You officials can sign no single paper, from now on, without my counter endorsement. There's my warrant for this action. I shall have this letter spread on your confidential letter-book, so consider me as the real manager until I put you on duty again."
Robert Wade turned ashen pale as he read Hugh Worthington's carte blanche powers given under his own hand to the new vice-president.
"As I hold this, his power of attorney, and all his proxies, Ipresume that you recognize my authority," coldly remarked Ferris."I will take charge of all here. I will be either here or at ParlorC, Fifth Avenue."
"When do you expect Worthington?" stammered the deposed manager."I don't know," sharply said Ferris.
"For God's sake, consider my family, my business future, my reputation," cried Wade, with tears in his eyes.
"Pooh!" angrily rejoined Ferris. "Make that by-play on old Hugh.It's all lost on me!"
And, as the door closed, he sharply locked it, and, after examining the rooms to prevent any Peeping Tom observing his actions, Ferris sat down to study Clayton's telegraph book, and the messages which he had rifled from the dead man's desk.
"I am safe so far," muttered Ferris. "No one knows of my big secret deal. But from this fellow's dispatch to Hugh, he certainly intended to go out and see Edson at Bay Ridge. Now, did he start in good faith? I must set some good outside detectives at work on that.
"Then this dispatch to Alice, I wonder if she had still left a sneaking fondness for him! Who can read a woman's heart? It's like judging the depth of water by its smoothness: all mere conjecture. Half the women are liars, and the other half hide more than half the truth under their silken breastplates. They fight with double-edged lies as their keenest weapons.
"Unless Clayton was a very deep rascal, he certainly intended to go on West. Where the devil is he? Kidnapped, and held till the swag is safe? Dead? No!"
A guilty spasm of conscience suggested that the missing cashier might have secreted the funds and fled, to make private terms later from his hiding place, with the wary Hugh.
"He knew nothing, he suspected nothing of the Detroit land deal," finally decided Ferris. "It's just a case of plain, ordinary thief!"
The ambitious scoundrel had decided to conceal the finding of Clayton's dispatches and carbon-book from all the local officials of the company.
"Now to the practical," he muttered, as he spread out his girl wife's fateful telegram.
"She will have surely received the Tacoma dispatches to the old man before I can reach her now. The Associated Press, to-morrow, will have a full account of the accident. His condition will be telegraphed all over the country. But I'll instantly send a carte blanche order to the Western Union man at Pasco for hourly reports."
The Gazetteer had furnished him the meager information that Pasco was a little railroad junction town in Franklin County, Washington, on the Columbia River. "The old man must have been delayed on his way to meet Clayton."
"Now, for Alice!" The schemer's brow was damp with a cold moisture as he muttered: "Old Hugh hated even to hear of Death. He tabooed the subject like a Chinese mandarin.
"His will! Did he think to change that document after the formal marriage? I have not yet delivered Senator Durham! Hugh may have left this girl the whole property! Fool! That I did not take that matter up! Who ever thinks of Death, the grim shadow, stealing along at our side? I must kill off her lingering regard for 'Brother Randall Clayton!' Shall I start?"
After half an hour's cogitation, Ferris had made up his plan of operations. "I must let him drop! I cannot reach him. I will then act on a certainty. She will report to me. I will clear all up here and start West to-morrow night. But I will await her report and a second order to join her. I must let her know why I linger."
There were a dozen attendants waiting outside, for the accountants, detectives and police were to be busied, coming and going, all the night. Ferris had already called Einstein, waiting now on his own special orders, when he changed his mind. "I'll trust no one now."
He decided to go to the telegraph office himself. He suddenly remembered the influence of the robbery and Worthington's untimely death upon the value of the Western Trading Company's stock.
"Damn it!" he growled. "I may be left a millionaire or a pauper!I don't know which; and I have no ready money."
But the presence of Senator Durham at Newport gave him a gleam of light in these dark skies. "I'll telegraph to Durham (in cipher) to sell a big block of this stock short at the opening of the Board. Hugh's death will carry it down twenty or thirty dollars a share, and then it will be back to the normal in a week."
Suddenly he remembered the waiting Einstein. "Tell me," hoarsely whispered Ferris as he dragged the lad back into the private office, "What do you think of all this? You knew Mr. Clayton's ways!"
"What's my opinion worth?" bluntly said the watchful Emil. "This!" said Ferris, handing him a roll of bills. "Then," fearfully whispered the artful boy, "it ain't no case of skippin' out. I believe some of the fools in the office got a braggin' over their lunches about our heavy bank business, and some smart gang has 'done up' Mr. Clayton. I don't think he's alive. He wasn't the man to 'give up' easy. He was 'dead square.' There wasn't no woman in the case. I could tell stories of some of the other gentlemen. No! Clayton's been hit good an' hard!"
The boy trembled as he spoke. Ferris laughed contemptuously. "Here, in New York!"
The stubborn boy answered: "Look a-here! I'm only a poor working boy! There's twenty squares within a half mile where a man's life isn't safe if he flashes a ten-dollar bill. Clayton was followed, and done up for fair. An' the gang an' the swag are hundreds of miles away! That's how!"
"But where would they hide him?" answered Ferris, shivering at the boy's matter-of-fact coldness.
"RIVER!" emphatically said Emil. "Five to six hundred floaters picked up every year. Nobody knows; nobody cares!
"Now," sagely concluded Emil, "if Clayton could have been led off, then it's dead easy; but he started straight for the bank, and never got there. The gang may have piped him off for months, and they worked on him, right here in the heart of town."
"Keep your mouth shut. Post me, on the quiet," said Ferris, as he remembered his telegrams. When Emil Einstein was left alone, he calmly counted his bills.
"Pretty good throw-off," he murmured. "I must lie low, for the mother's sake. And—give her a wide berth. It's getting pretty warm. This fellow's a chump; but the detectives, there's another breed of rats!" The boy shivered as he thought of the gleaming handcuffs.
Arthur Ferris had now recovered from the first shock of the tidings from the West enough to look ahead for the piloting of his own interests. He smiled grimly. "Business before pleasure!" as he sent off at the Twenty-third Street general office the tidings which enabled Senator Durham to turn a cool hundred thousand. "He'll be down here to-morrow to watch over his stocks! I must wait and see him before I go West. Besides, I must see Witherspoon and give him his cue. He knows nothing! He searched the Detroit title and never even made a kick. His firm passed on the whole matter. I need him to carry out my future plans."
It seemed to Ferris that his long dispatch to "Miss Alice Worthington" betrayed too much connubial tenderness. He recast it, and, after stating that he would leave for Pasco within twenty-four hours, added:
"Open and read all dispatches sent on to your father from Tacoma. The company's affairs are paralyzed here. I am in sole control. Randall Clayton has absconded with a quarter of a million. Missing since Saturday. Police at work. Telegraph your hotel address. I will report by wire to-morrow several times. Will be guided by your telegrams. Am acting under your father's letter of instructions. Secure all his private papers in case of grave results of injury."
All the weary night Arthur Ferris tossed uneasily upon his bed, tormented with returning fears as to Hugh Worthington's testamentary dispositions. "Those old miser hunks are crafty! The girl will be wax in my hands if I am left to control the money. If she has the purse-strings I may find her ugly in harness. She has the old man's blood in her, and blood will tell."
He had not dared to reveal the secret marriage in the decorous language of his carefully worded dispatch. But one comfort was left him. "I have the whip hand of them all," he murmured. "I am in charge, and no one can displace me. Jack Witherspoon knows nothing, and I can easily placate him by making him one of the estate's lawyers." The golden crown of the millionaire seemed to have descended upon his brows at last.
Yet, while he slept, the enemy was awake and sowed tares! At the Hoffman House Doctor Atwater and Witherspoon sat in conference long after the midnight chimes had sounded. When the young men separated, Atwater heartily grasped his friend's hand. "Poor Randall," he sighed. "Fool, perhaps, even as you or I; but thief and defaulter, no; never. There is some sad solution to this mystery. You must wait till Worthington arrives, and be the champion of our missing friend. I only fear later a discovery of his murder, and, if so, thank God! it will be a cypress wreath; not the stain of dishonor, or the brand of the felon. I am yours, to the last."
As Witherspoon said "Good night" to the little picture of Francine Delacroix, which was his household goddess, he swore an oath of fidelity. "It may leave me poor, separate us for years; but Clayton, dead or alive, shall be found. The Detroit package may unravel a part of this mystery."
It was high noon the next day when Arthur Ferris had completed his arrangements for the hasty trip West. Jack Witherspoon sat in Ferris' private office, stunned with the news of Hugh Worthington's death at Pasco.
For the operator there had loyally sent on to Ferris the first news of the millionaire's demise in laconic words, "Died at ten o'clock, fully conscious. Daughter with him since four A.M. Full Associated Press reports later."
The morning journals only contained a rumor that "Mr. HughWorthington's private car was attached to the telescoped train."
"This leaves me in charge of all until Hugh's will is opened," evasively said Ferris. "But it is my duty to go out there. You must remain here, as my representative, until I return. I will telegraph your firm at Detroit that I need you here. They can charge a company fee. Your own honorarium will be paid 'out of the estate.' Now join me here at four. I'll have your orders ready. And you can go to the station with me. I'll wire you, twice a day, and you can report to me, on the train."
"Any clue?" sadly demanded Witherspoon. "Oh! Clayton has got clean away with his swag," said Ferris. "I've published fifteen thousand dollars' reward for him, and ten more for the cheques or any considerable part of the stolen money."
They parted in silence, and Ferris never saw the glare in Jack Witherspoon's eyes. "If he proves innocent, my poor friend, I'll make Ferris, on his knees, eat those cruel words!"
But when he left his new client, so strangely brought into his half confidence, the Detroit lawyer hastened to Adams' Express office.
For two hours he sat alone in a private room and studied over the contents of the mute message of the dead.
There were things in the package which astounded him; there were written words which melted him to tears. The little hoard of twenty-eight thousand dollars in certified cheques was there, with an order for Randall Clayton's active stocks. A duly executed will, in favor of my school-fellow and friend, Jack Witherspoon, lawyer, of Detroit, was accompanied with a letter which gave the history of the abortive attempt to decoy him to Cheyenne.
The last manly lines brought tears to Jack Witherspoon's eyes. "As they cannot lure me to Cheyenne, they may strike at me, even here, and so, before your return. I've left you the little I have. Should aught befall me, you are my sole heir, and the old matter would go to you. Punish Hugh, follow up and defeat Ferris, and win my birthright for Francine Delacroix. Make her your happy wife. We made a mistake, Jack. We should have gone West together at once, and faced old Hugh."
The young lawyer's eyes were filled with tears as he read the rest of Clayton's statement, evidently prepared to offset any attempt on his life.
But he was ready to battle within the enemy's lines, with a calm and unmoved face, when he met Arthur Ferris at four o'clock.
Witherspoon scarcely recognized the man whom he instinctively felt to be Randall Clayton's murderer. There were great furrows in Ferris' pale cheeks as he handed him a telegram. "I believe that the whole world is going mad," desperately said the baffled Ferris. "Just read those lines from a now helpless and orphaned girl."
The men who were to fight out a battle to the death eyed each other in silence. Witherspoon scarcely could credit his eyes, as he read again and again the few words of the imperative message.
"My father died this morning. Do not join me. Send no telegrams or letters. I am coming, at once, to New York. Remain in charge until I come with my lawyers from Detroit. I will have my father's will and all his papers. I act under his last wishes. Find Randall Clayton, dead or alive.
"Now, tell me, Witherspoon, is not that girl mad?" hoarsely criedFerris. "I suppose that all the railroad people and our ranch menhave gathered around her, and she has dozens of volunteer advisers.By God! I'll straighten her out when I meet her."
The young Detroit lawyer met Ferris' agonized glances squarely, and his voice rang as coldly as the clang of steel when he quietly said, handing back the papers: "I must tell you, Mr. Ferris," he answered, with decision, "that I release you from any obligation to me for my services so far. I shall decline to express any personal or professional opinion in this matter until I get further orders." Ferris sprang back like a tiger cat at bay.
"Orders! Orders from whom?" he almost yelled.
"From my seniors at Detroit," quietly answered Jack, "or from Miss Alice Worthington. I am surprised at the tone in which you refer to her! What are your claims upon her?
"Of course, as a brother professional, you know that your power of attorney from poor old Hugh ended with his appallingly sudden death. That demise also vacates the letter of instructions given to you."
"But I am the vice-president of the company," growled Ferris, scenting a possible enemy in the imperturbable young advocate. "True, but you are not a judge on the bench. You have suspended all the officers here, usurped their powers, and taken great responsibilities. Do you control a majority of the stock of the Western Trading Company?" Ferris winced.
"Of course, you know I don't; but the Worthington estate does!"
"What power have you to represent that estate?" pursued the unpityingWitherspoon.
"It looks as if Miss Worthington would act herself, and, also, have other advisers. I now, as a friend to all parties, warn you that you will be held responsible for all your acts here. You must not ask me for any further advice."
"I suppose you will volunteer your legal acumen to the young heiress, now!" sneered Ferris. He regretted his brutal outbreak, for John Witherspoon rose with calmness.
"I own five hundred shares of the stock myself, earned as a fee, from the late Mr. Worthington.
"I shall claim my right to have access to the company's public offices, and to watch your strange floundering around here. We will drop our social and personal intercourse right here—forever. Your last remark is so vile that it is beneath contempt."
Witherspoon was at the door when Ferris laid his pleading hands upon his arm.
The Detroit man shook them off. "I warn you, Mr. Ferris," he said, "that a very reputable minority of the community, if not a majority, will believe that Randall Clayton was waylaid and murdered. Now, until you can show him up as a thief, I recommend you to use charity and forbearance. It is my belief that there has been some damnable foul play here."
The dejected Ferris sat for an hour with his head buried in his hands, before he dared to answer his girl wife's imperative telegram. "I must wait here like a tongue-tied dog," he growled.
"Has the will made her a sole legatee? If so, I must work on her feelings. I was a fool to quarrel with this fellow. He was another of the school-time playmates!"
When Ferris sneaked out to send a submissive dispatch to his wife, he was tormented by the stern words of the young orphan's telegram. "I act under his last wishes. Find Randall Clayton, dead or alive."
"There is trouble ahead," mused Ferris, "and I have made enemies of all the officials here. But Alice is mine. I hold her in the hollow of my hand. My wife! That she cannot gainsay."
When he had sent off his message he felt strangely cheered by the reflection that Worthington probably left ten to fifteen millions behind him.
"There's enough for all," he cheerily reflected. "I'll let her play 'Miss Millions' a bit, but when the probate proceedings come up, she'll find a husband is a hard thing to deal with."
He was wandering back to the office, determined to remove at once all of his private data and personal effects to the Fifth Avenue, when he stumbled over the policeman on the beat.
Sturdy Dennis McNerney flourished his club in a passing salute."Bad business, sir, this of Mr. Clayton," said the stalwartIrish-American. "Is it true there's twenty-five thousand rewardout?"
With a sudden inspiration Arthur Ferris paused. "Mac," said he, "I am deeply interested here. I'll give you personally five thousand dollars more for the first clue; mind you, no publicity."
The policeman's eyes sparkled. "Word of honor?" he said. "Yes! I'll write it in your presence, seal it, and give it to you—this promise, if the clue leads to Clayton, dead or alive."
The two men walked along in the streaming crowd. Ferris felt instinctively that the officer was holding something back.
"What do the reporters say?" hesitating remarked Ferris. "All in the dark—a pack of fools—unless it's a crime that gives itself away to any one. They know nothing, and the force has not picked up a pointer. Strange, strange, that the job was so neatly done!"
"What do you mean?" quickly queried Ferris.
"Oh! Any gonoph can see that the man was murdered for the stuff!" resolutely said McNerney. "He was no fellow to clear out! His life was clean as a whistle! I know all about him!"
"How can you prove that?" hotly said the excited lawyer. "Because all the men on the force, from here to his rooms, and around town, knew him for a clean, civil, honest, steady fellow—one in ten thousand. Thief, he? Never!" said McNerney. "Not on your life!"
Ferris stopped. "I will be at the Fifth Avenue, night and day," said the vice-president, "either there or at our office. You can come to my rooms at your will. I'll leave word for your admittance. You'll have your money in ten minutes if you turn up any sign of him."
As the men separated McNerney strolled down to the corner where he had seen Clayton and Leah Einstein enter the carriage. "Here the poor fellow began his ride to death," mused Dennis. "I must have that reward—all of it—and this fellow's five thousand. Had he a hand in it? I'll spot him from to-night.
"But the Jew boy has the key of the secret! Of course, he's crafty and cowardly. In a month he will throw off his fear. When I catch him with that woman I've got the right scent of the whole thing. Then, I'll hunt up the hack-driver. The boy is the key. And if the force finds out nothing in two weeks the game is mine! If the boy is arrested, I'll get in with the woman and carriage clue. I can wait!"
While Jack Witherspoon and Doctor Atwater conferred at the Hoffman, there was a private meeting at Robert Wade's mansion, which brought together all the suspended officials.
Robert Wade, with indignation against Ferris' brutal treatment,announced the policy of a united resistance, a joint appeal toHugh Worthington, and the demand of an Investigation Committee ofDirectors. "We will wait for Mr. Worthington's vindication," saidWade, in an unanswerable tone.
"Then you will wait until eternity," sadly said Walter Edson."Here is the ten o'clock edition of the Evening Telegram. Mr. HughWorthington, the well-known capitalist, died at Pasco, Washington,this morning, from injuries received in a railroad accident."
When the hubbub had subsided, the voice of Wade was heard. "Gentlemen, we must act in a passive defence until the Worthington Estate sends in a man to control the situation. I shall move that three of us retain lawyers to defend us all and advise us as to our joint course, for I apprehend Mr. Arthur Ferris will be a King Shark if he rules over us."
While the endangered officials burned the midnight oil, the hollow-eyed Arthur Ferris was hidden at the Waldorf-Astoria with that sage statesman Senator Dunham. It was long after midnight when Dunham dismissed his nephew. He had half pooh-poohed away the fears of the young schemer.
"Of course, the girl is rattled. You see, no one but you and I know of the marriage. It gives you an iron hold upon her. She will undoubtedly be advised to let our Western friends escort Mr. Worthington's body on to Detroit. There, of course, she will be met by the family lawyers.
"After the necessary preliminaries there, one of them will escort her on here—and—I will be within reach. She evidently wishes to have the affair of the marriage made public, some time later. If you made Worthington do the right thing about the will, and all that, you will come out all right.
"But do not cross her wishes. You cannot spring this marriage on the public without endangering all our interests. My lawyers here will look out for the big deal. You can bring the estate's lawyer to me, and, when you have reduced your wife to a passive mood, we three can clue up all the private affairs. I will be near you. I think you are borrowing trouble. As for young Witherspoon, let him be a little huffy. I can soon whip in those railroad chiefs of his. Have little to do with him, but be civil—that's all.
"Don't antagonize him. He might prove an ugly customer."
While the tide of intrigue ebbed and flowed around the great company's headquarters, far away beyond the Rockies, on past the dreary plains and the uplifted minarets of the Columbia, seated by the coffin of her dead father, Alice Ferris gazed down in silence upon the face of the stern old man.
Among the silent watchers, gazing in the fair face of the orphaned girl, there was no one who knew her other than as Alice Worthington.
The calm majesty of Death had swept away from the dead capitalist's face all the anxious look of money cares. The pale lips were silent now, behind his broad brow the busy brain was settled forever.
To the frontier clergyman, to the company's Western superintendent, to the few care-worn women who had offered their services, the strong face and tearless eyes of the beautiful mourner were a mystery of mysteries.
The morrow was to bear Alice Ferris away to her home by the lakes, and some subtle influence seemed to have transformed the golden-haired girl into a stern, stately Niobe.
All the journals from Cheyenne to the Pacific were now teeming with fulsome praise of the man whose firm hand had guided so many enterprises past all the financial shoals and quicksands of our sweeping tide of speculation.
The whole of America now knew how the deceased millionaire had left Tacoma in the ruddy glow of health, his luxurious car attached to the eastward train.
There had been but a hurried parting between Hugh Worthington and his idolized daughter. Alice well knew the light of Victory shining out upon the old man's rugged face, as he received the brief telegrams of Ferris from Philadelphia informing him of the sweeping triumph in the election which had thrown the final destines of the Western Trading Company unreservedly into his hands.
There was a cloud, however, chilling the hearts of father and daughter, when Hugh briefly announced that he was going on to Cheyenne to meet Randall Clayton. "You will forgive him; you will bring him on to us; he will remain here when my real church wedding and all our reunion of friends introduces me as a bride. For I am only pledged by the law now."
Then the old man's face hardened. "I have to use diplomacy with him," he briefly answered. "He has stubbornly refused to obey my orders. He might ruin my newly modelled company as an open enemy. And I have invited him West only to save trouble between Arthur and him. You know what a future you will have as the wife of Senator Dunham's only nephew. I have tried to gain wealth for you. Arthur Ferris may Himself reach the Senate. I had to choose for you. I chose well. Randall might have been the son of my old age, but"—
Then Alice Ferris, with flashing eyes, faced her father. The virginal heart of the girl was roused with a nameless terror. "And so you have made me Arthur Ferris' wife to chain the Senator to you for life! You told me that Randall Clayton led a vile life. Who told you?"
The Little Sister's heart was aflame. All her soul went out in a flood of faith in the absent man's honor. "You have been at my side, near me, father. Some one has worked upon you. I will make Arthur tell me all."
It was only after a positive refusal to take Alice on to Cheyenne that the old capitalist left the lonely heiress sobbing in a wild grief.
And but twenty-four hours later the open switch left unguarded by a drunken laborer had sent a thundering special crashing into Hugh Worthington's special car.
Strangers had tenderly lifted his bruised and bleeding body; but no one but the mourning girl had heard the awful confession of those early morning hours at Pasco.
Alice Worthington shuddered as the dying man gasped out his fateful words, driven on by a self-torment which was a living hell. The millionaire faltered out the shameful discovery of Randall Clayton's vast birthright.
"I was forced to take advantage of Everett Clayton in the panic days when we separated. It was his ruin or mine. It was only after I had nurtured and educated Randall that I found the forgotten land had leaped into a priceless estate. The railway changes made it a princely fortune.
"I was tempted! I feared to disclose my plans of handling Dunham.I was forced to buy Dunham's influence with speculating for him. Itwas only another form of bribery. And so, to seal Dunham's faith,I married you to Arthur Ferris!"
The girl bride's, eyes settled into a stony stare as the wretched man grasped her hands. "It is too late now. The company has been my dream, the crown of my life. But you can make restitution. You are now nineteen. I have left all to you, in my will. Boardman and Warner are the executors. They are honest. There is young Witherspoon, too, their junior; he is Clayton's friend. You can tell him that you have discovered this property interest for Clayton.
"Spare my name. Spare yourself the public shame. You can make restitution. Tell Arthur Ferris all. He has my confidence. He knew the whole intrigue. And make him give Clayton his half of the proceeds of the land sale. You will have all my millions! Your husband is powerless to interfere. I intended to leave him a handsome sum. But you can take Randall Clayton's deed to the railroad land and give him one-half of what they pay me. Ferris has carried the whole matter through. He knows."
When the dying man recovered from the weakness of his effort at disclosure, he lay whispering, "Nemesis! Nemesis! I am punished!"
And Alice Worthington, at her dying father's side, felt herself now chained to the galley, a slave of millions. She had become twenty years older in half an hour. In low tones she asked questions to which the repentant man replied only by a feeble motion of assent.
When the noonday sun stood high over Pasco, the whole shameful story had been revealed to the orphan. The great sighing of the mountain pines seemed to blazen the secret of a great man's cowardly crime.
And yet Hugh Worthington died with his hand feebly clasping his motherless child's, a smile upon his lips, for she had promised never to betray the blackened past.
"Give him back his own," muttered old Hugh, whose lips had feebly owned that he had allowed Randall Clayton's good name to be vilely accused. "Give him his own!" imploringly faltered the dying Croesus.