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The Midnight Passenger

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"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 secret
espionage now. I ordered that on at once. Besides, the Fidelity
Company 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, and
slowly shook his head. "I think nothing! It is a sad business, and
I will help you all I can! I will wait here until you hear from
Hugh, 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," muttered
Ferris.

"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 pauper
on 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.






CHAPTER X.

A CRUEL LEGACY.





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, I
presume that you recognize my authority," coldly remarked Ferris.
"I will take charge of all here. I will be either here or at Parlor
C, 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. Hugh
Worthington'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."

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