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The Midnight Passenger

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But friendly devils aided him with adroit whispers. His brow was
unruffled as he bade his carousing chum, the steward, adieu at
midnight. The good ship dashed merrily on breasting the Atlantic
waves.

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!"






CHAPTER IX.

THE LIGHTNING STROKE OF FATE.





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!"

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