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The Midnight Passenger

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For five minutes the men labored to restore the stricken woman,
whose tortured nerves gave way. "I shall now search you," roughly
said McNerney, "but I'll have a police matron here to do it. I want
that letter and telegram from August Meyer! I want the money--the
stolen money--he sent you. I'll give you just five minutes to tell
me the whole truth. It's life and death for you now. They are busy
searching your rooms."

With a cry of entreaty, Leah Einstein tore open her dress. She threw
a packet on the table. "It's all there, all there," she wailed.
"And I will tell you all. I will take you to him. You shall catch
him. But spare my boy!" And, moaning and pleading, she now told
the whole truth.

It was long after midnight when the woman scrawled her name in
Polish-Hebrew script under the record of Fritz Braun's crime.

McNerney grasped Witherspoon's arm and led him away. "Do you see
the light now?" he cried, in triumph. "The boy and woman were
used by this damned fiend, Braun. You can see that she was Braun's
slave in the old days. The other woman is innocent of the murder,
and was only a handsome stool-pigeon! But, behind Braun, there
may lurk Lilienthal and Ferris! Braun was to get the plunder for
putting Clayton out of the way. Don't you see that Clayton stood
between Ferris and the millionaire's only daughter!"

"What are we to do?" gasped Witherspoon.

"You are to take the morning train and get the alias extradition
papers from the Secretary of State. Make it a strict confidence. I
will take this woman, the papers, and Doctor Atwater, and we will
grab 'Mr. August Meyer' at Schebitz.

"Jim Condon will hold the boy on the doctor's yacht, and you will
take your notary and get the boy's full confession. Let him know
that he alone can save his mother's life. The moment I have nabbed
this Fritz Braun I'll cable; but I want to recover the money and
get the whole reward. You must get me five thousand dollars from
Miss Worthington, and the letter of credit for five thousand more.
I'll take an iron-handed woman along, a nurse, and police matron."

"What shall I do with Miss Worthington?" demanded Witherspoon.

"Nothing, as yet," said McNerney, with a significant smile. "Let the
doctor handle her confidence! I'll get all this woman's belongings
and put the matron in charge of her. The woman can work skilfully
on her fears.

"To-morrow I'll take a peep at No. 192 Layte Street, then go down
to Tompkinsville with the notary. We will put Emil Einstein 'through
the thirty-third degree,' and in three days Atwater, the two women
and I will be off for Breslau. Leave me a free hand, and I'll get
your murderer and the money. But remember, one single imprudence
loses both man and money; you, your vengeance; me, my reward. And
I depend on this windfall to marry!"

"So do I, Dennis," sadly smiled Witherspoon. "Go in; I'll do your
bidding. Count on the extradition papers and the money."

In ten minutes the armorer's room was dark. "Not a bad evening's
work," said the notary, as he pocketed a hundred-dollar bill,
"and another one of those 'exquisitely executed engravings' for
to-morrow!"

Long before Alice Worthington had lifted her stately head from her
pillow the next morning, the astonished Dennis McNerney was rubbing
his eyes before the location of the Valkyrie Saloon. He had stolen
over to Brooklyn with the "early birds."

The streets were as yet unpeopled when he drew the drowsy officer
on the beat into the side room of the saloon where once Mr. August
Meyer presided in the evening.

The two uniformed giants smacked their lips over the morning
Manhattan cocktail.

"Now, that's what I call a cocktail," said Officer Hogan, as he
ordered up (on a complimentary basis) the Havanas. "This saloon
used to be a German sort of headquarters. But the new fellows are
our own people, the right sort. They knew it's an Irish neighborhood.
So they pulled down the sign 'Valkyrie,' and put up 'The Shamrock,'
drove out their Dutch kellners and put in good Irish barkeepers."

"What's become of August Meyer, who used to have an interest here?"
carelessly said McNerney, affecting a familiarity with old history.

"Meyer ran a hidden dead-fall and gambling house next door, at No.
192 Layte Street," said Hogan, biting off his cigar. "That was
before I came on the beat. He got to plunging on the races, betting
against his own games, and the poker crowd here cleaned him up at
last. So there's the Hibernia Social Club, the Democratic Ward
Committee, and a lot of roomers in there. It's a new deal now,
all around.

"The whole house has been ripped up and there's a China wash-house
in the basement of that old mansion."

"Meyer?" interrogated McNerney, as he ordered the second round.

"Cleared out for Europe, so they say," carelessly said Hogan. "I
saw him driving in a carriage a few days before he sold out, with
a staving looking woman. He may have married a good thing, and
skipped the town. He was a shifty sort of a devil; but he ran a
square gambling den. And he had loads of money till he went crazy
over cards."

It was afternoon when Miss Worthington was pondering over Witherspoon's
telegram from Philadelphia, that Officer McNerney was swiftly rowed
out to the yacht "Rambler," lying on the oily summer waters of the
lower bay. Beside him, the notary calmly awaited the materialization
of the second hundred-dollar bill.

But, busied as all her secret agents were, none of the men now
chasing down the fugitive murderer were as anxious at heart as Miss
Alice Worthington.

It was easy to arrange for the money Witherspoon had telegraphed
for; she knew the secret object of his visit to Washington, but
only that certain parties had been taken into custody, and that
there was light ahead.

"My father!" she cried, as she fell on her knees and prayed that
the mantle of shame should not fall upon his yet raw grave.

It was half an hour after Doctor Atwater and McNerney began to
question Emil Einstein that the young scapegoat at last dropped
his policy of lying braggadocio.

Confined in the cabin of the stout schooner yacht of a hundred tons,
he had craftily fenced himself in with a network of lies during
the night, in preparation for the ordeal which he well knew was at
hand.

His coarse, defiant nature rebelled when Policeman McNerney confronted
him, and he felt secure in recalling the narrow limitations of
the policeman's possible knowledge of the past.

But at last the lad yielded under the hammering of the enraged
officer. "I'll give you just five minutes to consider if you wish
to sacrifice your mother's life, you young dog," McNerney exclaimed.
"We have her confession in full, and as you decoyed this murdered
man into her clutches, you are only saving yourself by a full
unbosoming."

"And if I don't talk?" growled Emil, beginning to sicken over the
gloomy future.

"You will be sailed around on this yacht till you weaken, till
we've caught the head devil, and then it only depends on him as to
whether you go to the 'chair' with him or not!" It was a frightful
alternative.

With a sudden revulsion, the startled young rascal exclaimed: "I'll
give you the whole business, as far as I know; and if you'll save
my mother, I'll turn State's evidence. I know nothing about the
murder! I only know now that Fritz Braun wanted to get poor Mr.
Clayton into some out-of-the-way place to get the money away from
him. I only thought that he wanted to bleed him, using that pretty
woman, s'help me, God! I did."

"We will judge of your story when we hear it," grimly answered
McNerney.

But it was Doctor Atwater's measured courtesy which disarmed this
vulgar youth's pregnant fears.

"We can show your mother and yourself to have been used as innocent
tools, if you give up the whole truth. But, remember, a little
smart lying will surely cost you your life."

Atwater and McNerney listened, in astonishment, as Emil Einstein
unveiled the double life of his former patron. The inner workings
of Magdal's Pharmacy, the dual trades on different banks of the East
River, the duplex Braun and Meyer, and the whole scenario of the
Cafe Bavaria and the Newport Art Gallery--all these were faithfully
pictured.

With moistened eyes, Atwater listened to the story of Randall
Clayton's chivalric faith in the beautiful waif whom a romantic
Fortune seemed to have thrown in his pathway, a creature of light
and love.

When the long recital was done, both the inquisitors felt that
Einstein spoke the truth, as he wildly declared that he only thought
Braun was throwing a pretty woman in Clayton's way to get a secret
hold upon him.

"I never dreamed of the company's robbing, nor of killing poor
Mr. Clayton. I got not one dollar out of it. I never had Braun's
confidence, and he followed me up, and used me, and threw me away
like an old rug. And Ben Timmins knows nothing. He's only a poor
drudge in Braun's Sixth Avenue opium-joint and whisky-store."

"But Lilienthal, he knows a lot! Catch him if you can! But he's an
oily devil. He threw this woman against poor Mr. Clayton."

It was only when the boy was thoroughly subdued that Atwater quietly
asked, "And Ferris? What had he to do with it?"

"Nothing," stubbornly cried the boy. "Only so far as this: he wanted
to sneak in and get old Worthington's daughter, and all the money.
That's square! He hated Clayton. He used to write lying letters
to the old chief about him. He sent private reports on his life
to Mr. Worthington. I used to watch him. I often got a peep at his
papers, and he bribed me to pipe off poor Clayton. But you can hang
me if Ferris knew Fritz Braun. You see," coolly said the crafty
boy, "Ferris wanted the girl, the money, and the old man's favor.
Braun only wanted the company's money, and used the Hungarian lady
to draw Clayton on. I fancy, from all I could see, that Mr. Clayton
really loved that lady; and Braun could only use her to fool him
over there; then he took the chances to kill him to get the money.
No! Ferris is only a snake in the grass, a coward, and a cur! He
fastened on Clayton as a friend, and got in between him and Mr.
Worthington; but, he never saw Fritz Braun!"

The boy's tone was convincing. "Then you let Braun know how easily
he could steal a fortune by getting hold of Clayton on his way to
the bank!" roughly accused McNerney.

"Not me; never, on your life," defiantly answered Emil. "It may
have been Lilienthal, for Mr. Wade was often in that 'back room'
of his. Old Wade is a 'dead easy game,' soft on the ladies, and
Lilienthal may have pumped him and so put the job up with Braun."

The recital of Lilienthal and Braun's illicit trading made Dennis
McNerney's eyes gleam.

When the three men left the yacht at sunset, the policeman called
Einstein into a corner. "See here," he said. "I've got your mother
locked up in my charge. She is a decentish sort of woman, in her
way, and she loves you, you young brute. See if you can remember
anything more in your yacht cruise of a month.

"Officer Condon will treat you well. You may clear your mother and
yourself; you may get Timmins' evidence for us to break up this
smuggling gang. There'll be a big reward there! I will see that you
don't suffer. Give the whole business up to Officer Condon. When
it is safe, you'll be taken ashore."

Emil Einstein, watching the boat going ashore, felt a choking throb
in his throat. "That fellow McNerney's a smart devil," he said.
"He is on the right trail, and there'll be a fight for life when
he rounds up Fritz. He is going after his blood. And Fritz will
never be taken alive!"

The stars were peacefully shining down on New York City, three days
later, when Miss Alice Worthington bade adieu to Doctor Atwater.
The mystery of Randall Clayton's murder had passed into a worn-out
sensation, and new crimes, new names, new faces, filled the flaring
journals. The firm hand of Witherspoon was at the helm of the
Trading Company, and even Adolph Lilienthal had forgotten his fears.

The Clayton affair had been all threshed out! It had been tacitly
arranged between the friends that Witherspoon should watch over
Miss Worthington's peace of mind, while Atwater went upon the quest
led by the resolute McNerney.

Far away under the shadows of the Katzen Gebirge, on this summer
evening, Mr. August Meyer, dogging Irma Gluyas' every footstep,
secretly exulted. "Leah is now on her way to meet me! And then all
the old scores will be soon settled!"

The Hungarian witch, patient in captivity, breathlessly waited
for Randall Clayton's coming, still deceived by the false telegram.

But, as Alice Worthington whispered her last secret instructions to
Atwater, sailing on the morrow, her heart was light, for she knew
her father, though stained with greed, had been guiltless of Clayton's
blood. "I will give anything on earth to the man who clears Randall
Clayton's memory," said the heiress. "Don't promise too much, Miss
Alice," cried Atwater, as he kissed her hand. "I will do my duty!"

As the carriage drove away, she watched him from the window. Their
eyes met, and she turned away, with sudden blushes.






CHAPTER XIV.

IRMA GLUYAS.





It was four days after the sailing of the secret mission of
justice when Witherspoon said adieu to Miss Alice Worthington at
the Forty-second Street station. With a wise forethought, the young
lawyer had succeeded in his innocent ruse to distract attention.

Mr. Lemuel Boardman not only called the young heiress back to
Detroit, for the probate of her father's will, but sent on his wife
as a courteous convoy to make sure of the girl wife's acquiescence.

It was none too soon. For a haggard anxiety now drew lines upon the
heiress' fair brow. News from the pursuers could only be expected
in a fortnight, and Witherspoon feared the strain of a momentous
secret upon the young beauty's nerves. Her soul longed for Randall
Clayton's complete vindication. "One hint, and Ferris would take
flight," mused Jack. "And if there were accomplices, they are surely
watching her every movement."

And yet it was an ordeal, this parting. For the hundredth time,
Witherspoon promised to come by the first train to Detroit with the
tidings of the secret quest, and a score of times he was forced
to deny Alice Worthington's tearful pleading. "Let me know to
whom I can make restitution," she cried. "This will--who has it?
The beneficiary may sorely need poor Randall's strangely withheld
fortune!"

"Only when justice is done will that claimant appear," firmly
answered Witherspoon. "You trust me now with the handling of your
fortune! Trust me yet a little longer with that secret. I will
telegraph you of the success or failure of our expedition.

"And then all will be made plain to you when Atwater returns. There
must be no failure of justice. We will repay the villains to the
uttermost farthing."

And, in his turn, Witherspoon was sorely baffled, for the sudden
appointment of Mr. Arthur Ferris of New York as Consul of the United
States at Amoy, China, had been duly gazetted. Only to Stillwell did
the eager Witherspoon confide his fears that one of the unpunished
criminals was escaping in honorable guise.

"You are in error, my boy," confidently answered the legal Solon.
"We have had Ferris shadowed on behalf of the executors ever since
the death of Hugh Worthington. The fact is," he said, lowering his
voice confidentially, "Senator Dunham is at the helm in this thing.
You well know that old Hugh and the Senator were closely allied.
Now, Hugh blindly trusted Ferris, as the statesman's nephew, and,
in fact, Ferris is, to a certain extent, a very dangerous customer
for all of us. He had papers and secrets which might ruin his uncle,
and a discovery of the hidden relations with Hugh would gravely
affect our company's commanding position. Old Boardman has had a
week of private conference with Senator Dunham.

"Boardman knew every secret of poor old Hugh's heart. Dunham and
Boardman have gone over all the documents and matters surrendered
by Ferris, and the Senator vouches for Ferris' future silence.

"He has himself set off a hundred thousand dollars of our stock,
in Ferris' name (in escrow) as a guarantee of the young man's
silence. This is a present to Ferris, who let Dunham have the first
privately telegraphed news of Hugh's death.

"Why, sir. Dunham turned the market for a half million on that! It
appears the daughter telegraphed the first news of the accident to
Ferris, at the old man's dying request. And Ferris cunningly held
it back, so that the Associated Press did not get it for a day.
Then came the panicky drop in our stock. Dunham sold huge blocks
short and filled later at the lowest notch, forty points below!"

"I thought," slowly remarked Witherspoon, "that Ferris would perhaps
try to blackmail the estate!"

"So he did," drily answered Stillwell. "He gets one hundred thousand
dollars in clear settlement of all his claims for legal services
for the past five years, as rendered to the Worthington Estate."

"Oh! I see," bitterly remarked Witherspoon. "Each side puts up a
hundred thousand dollars as the price of his silence!"

"And," curtly said Stillwell, "we now hold Dunham responsible that
Ferris does not return to America for four years. By that time
Dunham's senatorial term will be out. He will retire from politics,
and so, his record and our interests are secure! I always feared
that Ferris would turn up darkly in this sad murder business,"
gloomily added the old lawyer. "But the whole secret inquest so far
proves to me the correctness of Boardman and Warner's judgment.
Ferris feared Clayton's natural influence over the old man, and
his own final game was the daughter's hand, and then the control
of the old man's fortune. He spied on Clayton, lied about him, and
at last brought about the estrangement of the old man and his only
loyal servant in the whole circle.

"Poor Clayton! After his death he fell into a useless fortune!
Miss Worthington has already made arrangements for a magnificent
monument to him in the family plot at Detroit, and Randall Clayton
will be there beside his stern old master. But for Ferris' wiles
Clayton would surely have married that noble girl, and been alive
to-day, a happy man, in Detroit.

"Ferris played a bold game and lost at last. It was the sale of
the Senator's influence for the hand of the heiress. And she now
hates him with an undying bitterness. But you can drop Ferris out
as a suspected murderer. No; Clayton was evidently killed for the
vast funds he carried. And we see, too late, that no less than
three men should ever be trusted to make regular trips with such
great amounts of money. But it's the old story of life. We are all
wise, a day after the fair!"

Ten days after the stout "Rambler" shook out her snowy sails and
flitted away to Bermuda, there was nothing left to ruffle the still
waters of oblivion which had closed over Randall Clayton. Only upon
the face of Robert Wade, Esq., lingered now an anxious expression
of vague unrest.

For the Newport Art Gallery knew the oily beauty of Mr. Adolph
Lilienthal no longer. There was a new face behind the proprietor's
desk, and the "private view" gallery was permanently closed.

The furtive visitors came trooping in and went disconsolately away,
for the private hall entrance was sternly shut and the electric
bell removed. Night after night police, customs, and post-office
officials sat in secret conference over the mysterious threads of
the Baltic smuggling conspiracy now being gathered up while Mr.
Adolph Lilienthal languished in a private cell in Ludlow Street
jail.

He divided his ignorance of what he was "in for" with the frightened
"Ben Timmins," who was safely locked up in a lower tier of the same
human safe deposit bureau, charged with "complicity in smuggling."

The affairs of Magdal's Pharmacy were being conducted by a new
clerk, nominated by the police, all unknown to the Tenderloin
habitues, and a service-paid detective occupied the private office
where the secret connection between Lilienthal and the absent Mr.
Fritz Braun was being daily traced out.

The summer flowers were nodding over poor Randall Clayton's lonely
grave, in the lonely cemetery of Woodlawn, on the September day when
a queerly-assorted party of tourists descended from the train in
the little Silesian village of Schebitz. Doctor William Atwater
was tenderly cautious of the comfort of a veiled invalid woman,
at whose side a sturdy nurse aided the watchful medical attendant.
And none of the gaping yokels of the town obtained even a glimpse
of the sick woman's pale face, as she was conducted to the covered
carriage in waiting for the train.

With some show of state, a resplendent courier and a hard-featured
military-looking stranger drove in advance of the carriage, half
hidden in a hooded country droschky. The slanting summer showers
glittered in the half-veiled sunbeams as the party hastily drove
away toward the summer resort, two leagues away, where jaded
fashionables rejoiced in the healing waters of the Louisen Quelle.

But no one of the gaping throng following the "fremden" guessed at
the errand of this motley throng. In silence the cortege proceeded
until a little by-lane covered with overhanging branches was reached,
leading down into a dell where a natural vista showed an old gray
mansion upon a rocky knoll.

An untrimmed forest around still gave its shelter to bird and hare,
starting out from their coverts as the carriages rolled over the
grass-grown, deserted road. "It is a 'Bleak House,'" murmured
Atwater, gazing out of his carriage at the dreary crags of the
Katzen Gebirge towering up, overhanging the neglected demesne. The
young doctor leaned over and then whispered a few words in the
ear of the apparently invalid woman, who was now trembling like a
leaf.

"Remember, Leah," he sternly said, "your boy's life hangs on your
faith now." Atwater moved a heavy pistol holster around under his
loose top-coat, as the droschky in front of them halted. He sprang
lightly out and walked to where the two other men were busied in
an earnest colloquy.

McNerney, pistol in hand, was gloomily gazing at the turrets of
the gray house. "He may escape us," fiercely said the man who had
traveled from New York, eager to clasp the cold steel on "Mr. August
Meyer's" blood-stained hands.

"Not so," calmly answered the disguised Breslau police sergeant, a
sturdy war veteran. "I have hunted here all over the Adler's Horst.
I know every crag and open spot. My soldiers are now hidden in a
circle all around the old house. The moment that our carriage drives
out into the open, they will close in and arrest every living soul.
Do you see that little white flag flying on a pole on that pile of
rocks? That is my signal that all is ready. Come on, now. We may
not be in at the death."

Atwater had marvelled at the rapid work of the officials in their
three-hours' stay at Breslau, and now he admired the skirmishing
tactics of the veteran as the three men dodged from side to side
while the empty carriage slowly drove down into the open.

The German sergeant threw up his hand and darted forward on the
run as lithe forms in rifle green were seen quickly swarming out
of the woods encircling the old mansion. There was no sign of life
in the low, irregular hunting-lodge, save a pillar of smoke lazily
ascending from the offices in rear.

McNerney was racing along at the German officer's side, his pistol
drawn, and Atwater hardly turned his head as a squad of soldiers
darted out of the encircling thickets.

"He is in there!" shouted a corporal to the Breslau policeman, now
eager to make the capture and share McNerney's promised reward.

The screams of the frightened servants could be heard as the
assailants neared the house. Was it fancy, or did McNerney see a
grim, human face glaring out of the window of a round tower at the
angle of the facade?

"Here; this way!" cried McNerney, as he stumbled into a little
garden where trellised grapevines in olden days made a shaded walk
for the Lady of Adler's Horst.

The group of men stopped aghast as a woman dashed wildly out of
a door opening into a long conservatory. Her voice rang out in a
last, appealing cry for help. She was sorely pressed!

Not three paces behind her trailing white robes, his face convulsed
with passion, Fritz Braun leaped along, in a murderous rage, like
a tiger in pursuit. In his right hand gleamed a flashing knife, and
as the frantic woman tripped and fell, the brute's arm was raised.

But, throwing himself back into the "gallery position," McNerney
tossed his revolver at the point blank. The heavy crack of the
pistol was followed by a yell of rage as the American sprang forward,
planting his foot firmly on Fritz Braun's chest.

Atwater had kicked the knife a score of yards away, when Sergeant
Breyman thrust his burly form in front of the fallen woman.

But, McNerney was sternly covering the fallen form of Braun with
his cocked pistol. "Move, you dog, and I'll blow your brains out!"
he shouted. "Here, Atwater, get the handcuffs out of my left coat
pocket and clap them on this wretch!" There were a half-dozen men
now holding down the defiant murderer, whose right arm lay limply
at his side.

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